Security & Strategic Review - June 2024

José Raúl Mulino, who served as Panama’s interior and security minister under right-wing former president Ricardo Martinelli (Cambio Democrático, CD, 2009-2014), won the 5 May presidential elections for Martinelli’s new outfit Realizando Metas (RM).... Read More

Whilst Colombia is not the only country in the region to have severed ties with Israel in protest at the war in Gaza, it is uniquely exposed to the fallout of such a diplomatic rupture.... Read More

The unprecedented security crackdown that has dominated President Daniel Noboa’s first six months in office will now be concentrated on a handful of Ecuador’s provinces, Noboa announced on 22 May.... Read More

Already facing multiple corruption allegations, Peru’s President Dina Boluarte drew further scrutiny on 9 May when she ordered the removal of police support for the special anti-corruption task force (Eficcop) in the attorney general’s office.... Read More

Since late April, heavy storms and severe floods have hit the southernmost state of Brazil, Rio Grande do Sul.... Read More

Chile celebrated the Día del Carabinero on 27 April, marking the 97th anniversary of the formation of the Carabineros militarised police force.... Read More

An alleged hate crime in Buenos Aires on 6 May, when an attacker killed three lesbian women and seriously injured another, drew widespread condemnation in Argentina and from international human rights groups.... Read More

On 17 May Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador met with his Guatemalan counterpart Bernardo Arévalo in Tapachula, a city in Mexico’s southern state of Chiapas close to the Guatemalan border.... Read More

The murder of three foreign tourists on a surfing and camping trip in Mexico’s state of Baja California grabbed headlines around the world at the beginning of May.... Read More

Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has maintained close relations with Cuba throughout his presidency.... Read More

In late April Guatemala’s new President Bernardo Arévalo marked the first 100 days of his mandate.... Read More

In late April a high-level Nicaraguan delegation led by presidential adviser Laureano Ortega, the son of President Daniel Ortega and First Lady and Vice President Rosario Murillo, paid a visit to Russia where it met with officials including Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to discuss issues primarily related to security.... Read More

On 22 May, the representative in Haiti of the United Nations (UN) Children’s Fund (Unicef), Bruno Maes, warned that Haiti’s health system was “on the verge of collapse”.... Read More

Given that a general election must be held in Jamaica by September 2025, only a little over a year from now, it is perhaps not surprising that constitutional reform has become a contentious political issue.... Read More