Weekly Report - 27 February 2025 (WR-25-08)

The ironclad support of Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro for his ally Armando Benedetti, who was appointed as interior minister on 25 February, continues to be the subject of intense speculation.... Read More

The US State Department designated the Tren de Aragua (TdA), a criminal gang that originated in Venezuela, as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO) on 20 February.... Read More

Following much speculation, Bolivia’s former president Evo Morales (2006-2019) has confirmed his departure from the ruling left-wing Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) – the party that he led from 1997 until last year, when he was pushed aside amid a power struggle with President Luis Arce.... Read More

Ecuador suffered its most violent January on record last month, with 781 homicides, representing a startling 56% increase on January 2024 and far above the previous record, set in January 2023, of 534 homicides.... Read More

Peru’s President Dina Boluarte was summoned by the attorney general, Delia Espinoza, this week to give evidence in an investigation into serious food poisoning suffered by children enrolled in the Qali Warma food programme.... Read More

Argentina’s President Javier Milei has upended his country’s foreign policy in a gesture of obeisance to US President Donald Trump.... Read More

Paraguay’s defence minister, Óscar González, announced this week that the spokesperson for the joint police and army task force Fuerza de Tarea Conjunta (FTC), Lieutenant Colonel Luis Apesteguía, had been dismissed from his post and reassigned pending an internal investigation within the armed forces into his involvement in a corruption network which appears to have penetrated most state institutions.... Read More

Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has reacted swiftly to his precipitous fall in the polls in the last two months by dismissing his health minister, Nísia Trindade, who had held the post since he took office in January 2023, in the first change in what is likely to be a wider cabinet reshuffle.... Read More

A mass power outage affected 14 out of Chile’s 16 regions on 25 February, leaving some 8m homes without electricity and wreaking havoc on transport services, the mining sector, hospitals, and other important infrastructure.... Read More

Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada García, the imprisoned co-founder of Mexico’s Cártel de Sinaloa, has once again issued a letter from his jail cell in the US that has sparked controversy in Mexico.... Read More

Mexico’s national electoral institute (INE) has begun the process of printing over 600m ballot papers for unprecedented judicial elections on 1 June.... Read More

Mexico’s lower chamber of congress chamber voted overwhelmingly on 25 February, with cross-party support, in favour of a constitutional reform to prohibit the planting of genetically modified (GM) maize in Mexico.... Read More

The newly appointed US defence secretary, Peter Hegseth, visited his country’s naval base at Guantánamo Bay in eastern Cuba on 15 February.... Read More

Haiti’s armed gangs launched a new offensive on 25 February, targeting the Delmas 30 neighbourhood in the capital, Port Au Prince.... Read More

A United Nations (UN) report released on 26 February criticises Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo, who serves as co-president, for having “transformed the country into an authoritarian state where no independent institutions remain”.... Read More

“It is pure unhappiness.... Read More