LatinNews Daily - 01 September 2021

On 31 August Venezuela’s main opposition parties announced that they will not boycott the regional and municipal elections on 21 November.... Read More

* Colombia’s national statistics department (Dane) has released employment figures showing that the unemployment rate stood at 14.3% in July, representing approximately 3.5m people.... Read More

On 31 August, it was reported that a Brazilian court in Rio de Janeiro state authorised investigators to be given access to the banking and fiscal records of Carlos Bolsonaro, a Rio city councillor and one of President Jair Bolsonaro’s sons, as part of a corruption probe.... Read More

* Brazil’s national statistics institute (Ibge) has released the latest figures for unemployment, which show that the unemployment rate fell to 14.1% in the second quarter of the year, down from a record 14.7% in Q1.... Read More

On 31 August civil society groups in El Salvador such as Cristosal and Fundación de Estudios para la Aplicación del Derecho (Fespad) warned that recently approved legislative reforms to the judiciary and attorney general’s office (FGR) were unconstitutional and dealt a blow to judicial independence.... Read More

* El Salvador’s 84-member unicameral legislature has approved a new law which creates a trust fund for the cryptocurrency bitcoin, following legislation passed in June making it legal tender alongside the US dollar, the country’s official currency, as of 7 September.... Read More

On 31 August three United Nations (UN) agencies, the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and International Organisation for Migration (OIM), issued a joint appeal to the Mexican authorities to protect the human rights of migrants.... Read More

* Mexico’s central bank (Banxico) has revised up its GDP growth forecast for 2021 to 6.2% in its latest quarterly financial report (for April-June 2021), up from 6% in its previous quarterly report.... Read More

On 31 August, Argentina’s foreign minister Felipe Solá criticised the right-of-centre Propuesta Republicana (PRO) party, a member of the main opposition coalition Juntos por el Cambio (JxC), for adopting a position supposedly going against Argentine interests in the country’s recent spat with Chile over maritime boundaries.... Read More

* Chile’s central bank (BCCh) has increased the benchmark interest rate by 75 basis points to 1.5%, a decision taken unanimously by those present at the bank’s August monetary policy meeting (RPM).... Read More