Haiti's crisis deepens (Feb. 9, 2021)

 Haiti's constitutional crisis deepened yesterday, as opposition parties declared Supreme Court Judge Joseph Mécène Jean-Louis as interim president. The move came just a day after President Jovenel Moïse said he foiled a coup plot and detained 23 people, including another Supreme Court judge, Yvcikel Dabresil. (See yesterday's post.)

Neither side agrees when Moïse's legal term in office ends -- critics say it ended on Sunday, while Moïse maintains his mandate lasts another year. The dispute has added to a long-term political crisis. Moïse dissolved parliament in January 2020 and has been ruling by decree ever since. Critics accuse Moïse of amassing more power in recent months, reports the Associated Press. There has been periodic social unrest against the government, particularly in relation to corruption. And this year there is increasing anger about a spate of kidnappings and gang violence that human rights groups link to the government. 

Haiti’s executive branch, consisting of the president, prime minister and ministers, published a decree announcing three Supreme Court judges who were approached by the opposition to replace Moïse as president are to be retired. Haiti’s military on Monday said it was concerned about political events but appeared to back Moïse, reports Reuters.

The current crisis is an early foreign policy test for U.S. President Joe Biden, reports the Washington Post. The State Department under Biden, the United Nations and the Organization of American States have backed Moïse’s view of his departure date. But a group of U.S. lawmakers, meanwhile, has joined the opposition in demanding Moïse step down.

Jean-Louis said he had been picked by the opposition to be interim president in a short video released early Monday morning. He has not been recognized by Moïse or the international community, however.

Opposition leader Andre Michel told CNN that Jean-Louis was picked "after a broad consultation between the plural opposition and the militant civil society." He said a transitional government would be responsible for forming a sovereign national conference with the participation of civilians and for investigating numerous massacres that have taken place in Haiti.

News Briefs

Migration

• Colombian President Iván Duque announced yesterday that Venezuelan migrants who fled an economic collapse at home, an estimated 1.7 million in Colombia, can legally stay in the country for 10 years if they register with the authorities. The decision was hailed by the head of the U.N. Refugee Agency, Filippo Grandi, as “historic” and “the most important humanitarian gesture” in the region in decades. (New York Times)

• U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) deported at least 72 people to Haiti yesterday. The group included a two-month-old baby and 21 other children, in an apparent flagrant breach of the U.S. Biden administration’s orders only to remove suspected terrorists and potentially dangerous convicted felons, reports the Guardian. 

• Ice is facing a rising chorus of denunciation as a “rogue agency” for its apparent refusal to abide by the new guidelines laid down by Biden and his homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, reports the Guardian. (See yesterday's briefs.)

• Biden is ending the so-called “safe third country” agreements signed by his predecessor that allowed the U.S. to send some asylum-seekers to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. The agreement with Guatemala was implemented, while those with Honduras and El Salvador weren't. Their cancellation is an important step in Biden’s effort to undo much of the Trump administration’s immigration policy, reports the Wall Street Journal. (Also see Reuters.)

• Not a single one of the 945 asylum-seekers deported to Guatemala under the agreement with the U.S. received formal refuge there, according to a recent Senate Foreign Relations Committee report. (Washington Post)

Ecuador

• Ecuador's electoral council will take a few days to determine the second-place winner of Sunday's presidential elections, who will face off against first-place candidate Andrés Arauz in an April 11 runoff vote. (El Comercio)

El Salvador

• The U.S. Biden administration turned down a meeting request with El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, who was on an unannounced trip to Washington last week. Bukele's trip came after a senior White House official warned in an interview with El Faro that the Biden administration expected to have “differences” with him, reports the Associated Press. In rejecting Bukele’s request, the Biden officials wanted to ensure Bukele didn’t try to tout any meeting as a show of support before legislative elections later this month where he’s seeking to expand his power base, according to AP sources.

• Washington lobbyist Robert Stryk continued working for El Salvador’s government even after Bukele claimed he had annulled a $450,000 contract, reports the Associated Press.

• A year after Bukele led a brief military takeover of El Salvador's National Assembly building, Revista Factum and El Diario de Hoy take a deep look at the episode in a miniseries.

• Expectations were low for an international anti-corruption commission created by Bukele in 2019. But the International Commission against Corruption and Impunity in El Salvador (CICIES), with its strong team of national and international judges, investigators and auditors, has shown it has teeth, write Noah Bullock and Charles Call in Americas Quarterly. A coalition of civil society organizations presented a bill that would give CICIES greater autonomy and expanded capacity. "El Salvador now stands at a crossroads. If the proposed legislation is not passed and the Commission’s dependence on the executive is not resolved, it may well become a politicized tool for undermining the rule of law."

Venezuela

• U.S. sanctions have likely contributed to Venezuela's economic deterioration and have caused obstacles for humanitarian workers, according to an assessment by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, requested by Democratic lawmakers. But the report did not quantify a figure and noted that there were plenty of other factors behind Venezuela's economic collapse, including mismanagement by the government. (AFP)

• "The Maduro government is consolidating its control over Venezuelan society. This does not sound like a promising context for negotiation, and indeed face-to-face negotiations between the opposition and the regime seem unlikely," WOLA Senior Fellow David Smilde told the Latin America Advisor. "However, there is an opportunity for the United States to engage the Maduro government directly and negotiate sanctions for democratic openings."

Honduras

• U.S. prosecutors are investigating Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, according to a new court filing. Federal prosecutors accused Hernández, who has been president since 2014, of using Honduran law enforcement and military officials to protect drug traffickers as part of a plan “to use drug trafficking to help assert power and control in Honduras,” reports Reuters.

Brazil

• Ten Yanomami children died from Covid-19 in January, fueling fears over the disproportionate impact the coronavirus is having on vulnerable indigenous communities in the Brazilian Amazon, reports the Guardian.

• Brazil is preparing a fresh round of emergency cash transfers to millions of poor and vulnerable people, President Jair Bolsonaro said yesterday. (Reuters)

• OECD’s environmental policy committee canceled a planned discussion this week about upgrading Brazil’s status in the group, after committee members received a letter from Human Rights Watch with questions about Bolsonaro’s environmental policies, according to Folha de S. Paulo.

• Rather than help eradicate corruption, Brazil's famed "Operation Car Wash" contributed to the country's current chaos, argues Gaspard Estrada in a New York Times Español op-ed. (The investigative unit was formally disbanded last week, see last Thursday's briefs.)

• Three trans officials in São Paulo have recently been targeted with violent threats, indicating a dangerous backlash in response to elections last year in Brazil, in which 48 LGBT+ city councillors were elected. Specifically, 25 trans politicians were elected, an increase of 212 per cent compared to the previous local elections in 2016, reports Pink News.

• An association of private clinics is angling to close a deal to bring 5 million shots for private sale in Brazil, sparking backlash from some public health experts and igniting debate on social media, editorial pages and talk shows, reports the Associated Press.
  

Bolivia

• A fierce second wave of the coronavirus has overwhelmed Bolivian funeral homes and cemeteries, reports Reuters.
  

Regional

• The pandemic created greater food insecurity. Now an increase in global food prices adds to the pressures Latin American government's face, according to the Latin America Risk Report.

• Access to fresh water has become a regular flashpoint throughout Latin America, particularly in its largest cities, and threatens to trigger tensions and even war. Sixteen of the region’s 20 largest cities are experiencing water-related “stress,” and three of its largest – Sao Paulo, Lima, and Mexico City – are in danger of running out of water completely in the near future, writes Robert Albro at the AULA blog.

• The pandemic has raised the stakes of the U.S. and China's geopolitical battle for influence in Latin America, reports Time Magazine.

• Guyana abruptly terminated an agreement with Taiwan to open an office in the South American country, hours after China urged Georgetown to “correct their mistake," reports Reuters.

• The International Monetary Fund risks having to renegotiate its second multi-billion dollar loan in Latin America in as many years following Ecuador’s presidential election -- both the front-runner candidates criticized the tax increases and spending cuts required as part of a $6.5 billion loan signed with the lender last year. (Bloomberg)

• IMF officials said Argentina’s goal to reach an agreement with the International Monetary Fund on a new program by May 2021 is ambitious, reports Bloomberg. Argentina is negotiating a new program with the IMF to push out payments on $45 billion the country owes the institution from a previous deal.

• Latin America's economic recovery will remain uneven and at risk unless governments take control of the pandemic and COVID-19 cases decrease, warned the IMF yesterday. (Al Jazeera)

• The Biden administration is closely following developments in Brazil with regard to human rights and the environment, but aims to keep strengthening U.S. economic ties and trade with the South American country, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said yesterday. (Reuters)
  

Bottoms up

• If you're thinking about a Brazilian Butt Lift, please keep in mind that it's the world's most dangerous cosmetic surgery -- Guardian Long Read.

Did I miss something, get something wrong, or do you have a different take? Let me know ... Latin America Daily Briefing

Haitian police detain alleged coup plotters, Supreme Court judge (Feb. 8, 2021)

 Haitian police arrested 23 people in what President Jovenel Moïse called a foiled coup attempt. Moïse accused the group, which includes a Supreme Court judge and an inspector general with the police, of trying to kill him and overthrow his government. Moïse spoke at Haiti’s airport in Port-au-Prince, flanked by the country’s prime minister and the police chief, broadcast on Facebook live, yesterday.

The alleged coup comes during what opponents and human rights leaders have described as a crackdown against detractors of the president, notes the Miami Herald.

Anti-government demonstrators in Port-Au-Prince clashed with police yesterday, who responded with tear gas. (Reuters) There was gunfire in areas near the national palace Sunday morning, reports Voice of America. Yesterday was slated to be a turning point in Haiti's protracted political crisis. The opposition claims Moïse's legal mandate as president ended yesterday, four years after his predecessor's term ended, while Moïse maintains his term ends in a year, four years after he effectively took office. (See last Wednesday's post.) 

Leading opposition figures had announced a plan, last week, to replace Moïse with a transitional government headed by a sitting Supreme Court judge. 

The alleged coup plotters were arrested during a four-hour police operation at a house in Port-au-Prince, Haitian officials said. Several of those accused were taken while still wearing their pajamas, reports the Miami Herald.

Prime Minister Joseph Joute said yesterday that police made 23 arrests and seized U.S. and Haitian currency, weapons and ammunition. “These people had contacted national palace security officials, high-ranking officers of the national palace whose mission was to arrest the president ... and also to facilitate the installation of a new president,” Jouthe said, speaking alongside the minister of justice and the chief of police. He said they also found a speech that Supreme Court Judge Yvcikel Dabresil had allegedly prepared if he were to become provisional president. Dabresil is one of three judges that the opposition favors as a potential transitional president. (Associated Press)

The State Department and U.S. Embassy in Haiti did not comment on Sunday’s events, but on Friday the U.S. Biden administration expressed support for Moise’s position that his term would end February 7, 2022, while urging him to respect the rule of law, refrain from issuing more decrees and organize elections as soon as possible. A group of U.S. lawmakers, including Sen. Patrick Leahy, the Senate’s president pro tempore, disagrees and and has asked the Biden administration to back a transition government in Haiti.

Pierre Esperance, executive director of the National Human Rights Defense Network, said the State Department’s statement had emboldened Moïse.

André Michel, one of Haiti's top opposition leaders, said Dabrézil's arrest was illegal and called for civil disobedience.

Moïse has led by presidential decree for the past year, after suspending two-thirds of the Senate, the entire lower Chamber of Deputies and every mayor throughout the country. Haiti now has only 11 elected officials in office to represent its 11 million people.

Many fear the current increase in political tensions will only worsen the country's existing paralysis and poor governance, reports the New York Times. Haiti is “on the verge of explosion,” a collection of the country’s Episcopal bishops said in a statement late last month. A spate of kidnappings for ransom and gang violence has contributed to growing unrest. 

Last month the U.N. Human Rights Office referenced kidnappings and gang attacks in parallel to rising political tensions over when elections should be held, and voiced concern that "that persistent insecurity, poverty and structural inequalities in Haiti coupled with increasing political tensions may lead to a pattern of public discontent followed by violent police repression and other human rights violations."

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Ecuador presidential election goes to second round

Economist Andrés Arauz took the lead in Ecuador's presidential election yesterday, with 32 percent of the votes, according to the electoral council's rapid count. Runner-up candidates Yaku Pérez (19.8 percent) and Guillermo Lasso (19.6 percent) were virtually tied, and it's not clear which will face off against Arauz in April's runoff election. (El Comercio)

Environmental activist Pérez is a surprising challenger in Ecuador's election -- if elected he would be the country's first indigenous president. (See Friday's post.) Pérez positioned himself as a leftist alternative to Arauz, a protege of former president Rafael Correa. Experts were divided over how a second round between Arauz and Pérez could play out, reports the Associated Press.

The election demonstrated the country's deep political polarization, reports the New York Times.

News Briefs

Chile

• Chilean police fatally shot a popular street juggler in the southern city of Panguipulli. Angry protesters set public buildings on fire -- the municipal government building, the post office, the civil registry, a local court and a water management company, among others, burned to the ground. The Friday shooting took place after the juggler, identified as Francisco Martínez, did not comply with a police officer’s request to provide identification as he performed at a busy intersection, reports the New York Times. Local authorities blamed police for the killing, and subsequent protest destruction. Confrontations between protesters and the police were later reported in Santiago. (El País)

Nicaragua

• Prominent Nicaraguan civil society organizations -- including Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation and PEN-Nicaragua -- shut down in response to government requirements that they register as "foreign agents." The law, passed in October creates onerous registration requirements for organizations receiving any foreign funding, and grants President Daniel Ortega's government more power to monitor recipients. Other groups, like the Comisión Permanente de Derechos Humanos (CPDH), sought to register, but denounced that they were presented with new requirements each time they presented themselves, making completion by Friday's deadline impossible. (Associated Press, El País, Associated Press)

• Nicaragua will hold presidential elections in November, but the situation is difficult for opposition parties that seek to challenge Ortega's grip on power. A brutal crackdown on protesters that started in 2018 left over 300 people dead, 2,000 injured, and hundreds detained. Since then, Congress has passed several laws, including the "Foreign Agents" one, that seriously restrict rights to freedom of expression and association in the country and could undermine free and fair elections in 2021, Human Rights Watch denounced in December.

• Managua Archdiocese Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes warned that Nicaragua's crisis will worsen if the elections are not held in fair conditions. (EFE)

• Polls give Ortega about 25 percent support, and the opposition is fractured and suffers from low name recognition. (Confidencial and Confidencial)

Migration

• Central American families and children have been crossing into the U.S. from Mexico in numbers that point to a building crisis, reports the Washington Post. The development is a challenge for the U.S. Biden administration's more-welcoming message to immigrants.

• The U.S. suspended deportation flights to Haiti, the latest sign the new Biden administration is attempting to assert control over the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, reports the Guardian. The reported halt to Haitian flights came after a night of frantic calls from community activists and congressional staffers to the office of the newly confirmed secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas.

• Biden issued an executive order halting all deportations for 100 days as one of his first acts in office. But, less than a week later, a federal judge barred the U.S. government from enforcing the president’s moratorium for two weeks, and the rapid pace of removals had continued, reports the Miami Herald.
  
  
• At least 11 babies were sent to Mexico with their mothers just days after being born in the U.S. under a U.S. Trump administration policy of immediate expulsion for migrants entering without authorization. Advocates suspect the actual number of such cases since last March could be higher, reports the Guardian.

Brazil

• Brazil's 10 biggest favelas are launching a bank that will off micro-loans to small business owners struggling to survive the pandemic and debit cards to slum-dwellers excluded from the traditional banking system, reports AFP. The bank will have initial assets of $335,000, funded by anonymous investors. One-third of its funds will be slated for social programs.

Mexico

• Mexican authorities have arrested former Puebla state governor Mario Marín on charges that he ordered the illegal arrest and torture of Lydia Cacho, a prominent reporter who investigated Marín's protection of a paedophile ring. (Guardian)

• The Mexican government's crashing vaccine sign-up website has only added to a sense that its pandemic management is awry, as Covid-19 deaths remain high and supplies scarce. Mexico was the first country in Latin America to receive Covid-19 vaccines and started vaccinating health workers on Dec. 22, but at the current pace, it would take decade to vaccinate the country, reports the Guardian.

Argentina

• Argentina's Formosa province has the country's lowest Covid-19 death rate, but critics are increasingly questioning the local government's compulsory quarantine methods. Human rights campaigners describe an abusive panorama of overcrowding, arbitrary arrests, unsanitary conditions and heavy police control of those under quarantine, reports the Guardian.

Regional Relations

• Climate change issues offer opportunities for collaboration between the new U.S. administration and Argentina on a range of environmental initiatives, from renewable energy production to forest conservation and marine protection -- Wilson Center Weekly Asado.

Cacerolazos

• Protest cacerolazos date back to at least the 19th century, when French women banged pots and pans outside their Paris homes to protest economic conditions and food shortages. (Washington Post)
  

Did I miss something, get something wrong, or do you have a different take? Let me know ...Latin America Daily Briefing

Ecuador to vote on Sunday (Feb. 5, 2021)

 Ecuadoreans head to the polls Sunday -- just over 13 million eligible voters will have a record 16 presidential candidates to pick from. Polls put lefist Andrés Arauz and business-friendly Guillermo Lasso at the head of the pack, in an ideologically polarized battle to head the country. Both leading candidates are making increasingly grand promises to woo an electorate battered by high unemployment and growing poverty, reports the Financial Times. The new president will have to manage a country afflicted by economic malaise and the coronavirus pandemic. (Associated Press)

The third-placed candidate is environmental leader Yaku Pérez, who, if elected, would be the country’s first indigenous president. He could become the kingmaker in a runoff vote. The election is unlikely to be decided outright, a second-round will be held in April if neither candidate passes the 50 percent mark or 40 percent with a 10 point advantage.

Arauz, 35, is a protege of former president Rafael Correa, who was kept off the ballot due to a corruption conviction, reports AFP. Arauz has promised a socialist approach, and pledged to disburse $1,000 to a million families during his first month in office. He is opposed to austerity measures such as an end to fuel subsidies, which triggered massive social unrest in 2019.

Lasso, a third-time candidate, will likely stick to the austerity policies adopted by current President Lenin Moreno, in exchange for International Monetary Fund loans.

Pérez’s rise is surprising in a country where less than 10 percent of the population identifies as indigenous, and indigenous candidates have not traditionally had success in national elections, wrote Brendan O'Boyle in an Americas Quarterly profile earlier this week. Experts credit a broad political agenda that appeals to leftist voters who don’t want to see Correa make a comeback through Arauz.

More Ecuador

• On Sunday residents of Cuenca, Ecuador's third-largest city, will also vote whether to ban major mining projects within municipal limits. While there are no big mines operating in the area yet, the referendum threatens to derail more than 40 concessions seeking to tap gold, silver and copper reserves, reports Bloomberg.

News Briefs

Venezuela

• The U.S. Biden administration reaffirmed U.S. recognition of opposition leader Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s legitimate president and ruled out negotiations anytime soon with President Nicolás Maduro, branding him a "dictator" and calling for free and fair elections. (Reuters)

• A new approach is needed, argues Francisco Toro in the Washington Post. Pursuit of redemocratization of Venezuela must be tempered with an appreciation that it likely cannot occur in the medium term. "For the next two years, the objective should be not to change the regime but to induce it to change its behavior."

• This week Chile and the Dominican Republic joined the European Union's International Contact Group, which reiterated "that the only way out of the crisis is to resume political negotiations promptly and to urgently establish an inclusive Venezuelan-led dialogue and transition process leading to credible, inclusive and transparent elections in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution and the laws of Venezuela."

El Salvador

• The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights ordered precautionary measures for 34 members of independent newspaper El Faro, after finding evidence that staff rights are at risk and the situation is grave. The resolution obligates El Salvador's government to investigate threats, harassment and other actions that put reporting at risk.

• Former FMLN councillor José Berrios was murdered in Tierra Blanca this week. Though authorities say the homicide was not politically motivated, the news adds to commotion following a shooting after an FMLN rally last weekend and ahead of elections later this month. (El Diario de Hoy)

• The shooting, in which two FMLN supporters were killed, has escalated the political crisis in El Salvador, reports El Faro, with President Nayib Bukele accusing the Attorney General's office of covering up evidence and turning the investigation of the crime, perpetrated by Ministry of Health bodyguards, into a weapon against his government. Yesterday, the National Civil Police (PNC) published a Twitter thread claiming that the Attorney General’s office sought to lie to the public and hide evidence. In response to these developments, Attorney General Raúl Melara announced his intention to submit a formal request for the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation to intervene in reviewing the evidence collected in the investigation.

• In the case of Sunday’s shooting, by openly disputing the attorney general’s assessments, the PNC may have overstepped its legal purview in an effort to sway public opinion in favor of the president’s interpretation of events, notes El Faro. The PNC even placed a paid advertisement, potentially with public funds, promoting the president’s interpretation on social media.

• Tensions are high ahead of Feb. 28 elections, in which voters will select lawmakers and mayors. Bukele and his Nuevas Ideas party hope to obtain a supermajority in the Legislative Assembly and thereby consolidate power in two branches of government, reports El Faro.

• The Constitutional Chamber of El Salvador's Supreme Judicial Court blocked one of Bukele's Nuevas Ideas party candidates, who has been accused of harassing a politician from an opposition party. Vice World News reports on Bukele's controversial Twitter responses to the ruling, which included a profile picture of Sacha Baron Cohen's character from the film "The Dictator," and a photograph of masked soldiers holding large weapons.

• But the ruling could have a boomerang effect in the medium term, argues Tim Muth at El Salvador Perspectives: "the practice of disqualifying anyone for whom criminal charges are pending but there has not been a conviction can quickly become a tool for an unscrupulous prosecutor against political opponents. When the prosecutor is an ally of the president, the ability to prosecute rivals is a favorite tool of tyrants."

• Check out “Unforgivable”, a new short documentary by Marlén Viñayo, portrays the extraordinary, taboo romance between two former gang members incarcerated in a prison where Evangelical inmates shun them for being gay. (El Faro, the Economist)
  

Migration

• The root causes of Central American migration, that the new U.S. Biden administration hopes to target, have only worsened in recent years, "thanks largely to nefarious nonstate actors and corrupt and exclusionary states," writes Charles Call at the Brookings Institution Blog.

Nicaragua

• Nicaragua's ongoing political crisis requires a multilateral approach -- the U.S. and like-minded stakeholders should leverage President Daniel Ortega’s governance and economic fragility to push for a long-term resolution to the current political crisis, argues a Heritage Foundation report.

Mexico

• Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s approach to the virus has put Mexicans in danger, writes Human Rights Watch's José Miguel Vivanco in Univisión.
  

Colombia

• This week's Americas Quarterly podcast features John Otis discussing ongoing violence in Colombian rural communities – and how the pandemic has emboldened organized crime.
  

Brazil

• Brazilian mining giant Vale signed an agreement to pay $7 billion in compensation to the state of Minas Gerais, two years after the collapse of one of its dams killed 270 people, also causing vast environmental damage -- Wall Street Journal.
  

Covid-19

• Brazil's Bolsonaro administration ignored repeated sales offers from a state health institute working with Chinese pharmaceutical for millions of doses of coronavirus vaccines last year, according to an investigation by Piauí.

• South America accounts for roughly 15 percent of the world's reported Covid-19 cases, but less than 3 percent of the global vaccine doses administered so far, according to data collected by Oxford University. Vaccine diplomacy, led by China and Russia, will play a key role for countries in the region. The CoronaVac, made by Chinese company Sinovac, is already part of large-scale distribution in Brazil. Russia's Sputnik V vaccines has been embraced by several countries including Argentina and Bolivia. But broadly, regional delivery of vaccines is messy and unequal with no coordinated approach, reports CNN. (See yesterday's briefs.)

• Peruvian President Fernando Sagasti said his administration had locked in a deal with Pfizer to purchase 20 million doses of its coronavirus vaccine. (Reuters)

• The Mexican government announced this week that more than three million doses of Covid-19 vaccine from Russia and the World Health Organization’s COVAX platform will arrive in February to speed up the country’s immunization program. (EFE)

• Desperation mounted in Mexico yesterday as the country runs out of coronavirus vaccines, a government registration website crashed for a third straight day and restaurant workers protested virus restrictions they say are driving them into poverty -- Associated Press.

• Chile started a mass inoculation campaign Wednesday, after receiving a shipment of nearly 4 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Chinese biopharmaceutical company Sinovac Biotech. (EFE)

• Bolivia's lower chamber of Congress passed a health emergency bill that reinforces the Government's authority to regulate the prices of medicines and services in private health centers to curb speculation. (Telesur)

Regional

• The pandemic has exposed long-standing fragilities in Latin America -- "The region’s health-care and social-protection schemes are fragmented and unequal. Its economies have stagnated for the past six years, largely because of low productivity. Political systems are discredited. Citizens are angry. People sense that Latin American democracies cannot carry on like this. The question is how much and how quickly can they change," according to The Economist.

• Ecuador's election kicks off a busy electoral year in the region, notes the Economist separately. Chile, Haiti, Honduras, Peru and Nicaragua are due to hold national elections . Chile will elect a constitutional assembly. Argentina, El Salvador and Mexico will hold legislative and regional votes.

• Brazilian journalist Cristina Tardáguila wants to build a global army of fact-checkers for Latin America and the Caribbean. (Knight Center LatAm Journalism Review)
  

Did I miss something, get something wrong, or do you have a different take? Let me know ... Latin America Daily Briefing

Mexican police arrested for migrant massacre (Feb. 4, 2021)

Mexican authorities arrested a dozen Tamaulipas state police officers in relation to the massacre of 19 people, including several Central American migrants. Mexico's interior minister said the incident was part of a larger pattern of migrant abuse at the hands of government agents. (New York Times)

The victims were killed Jan. 22 in Camargo, close to the Texas border. The bodies were found in a pickup truck, so badly burned that they could not be identified. Thirteen of the victims appear to be Guatemalans who were on their way to the U.S. The 12 officers have been detained on homicide charges. It remains unclear why the police would kill the migrants, or if the Guatemalans were mistakenly targeted.

The massacre underscores not only the risks that migrants confront to enter the United States, but the destabilizing role that Mexico’s security forces sometimes play along the border, according to the Washington Post. The episode will once again face profound questions about the security forces’ role in violence and human rights abuses -- but also regarding U.S. pressure on Mexico to use its military and police to deter migration.

"Such killings form part of a larger picture of daily assaults on migrants in Mexico, enabled by a continuing climate of impunity for these crimes," said WOLA in a statement last week.

News Briefs

Migration

• Mexico's government has stopped taking back Central American families “expelled” at the U.S. border under a Trump-era emergency health order related to the coronavirus. The shift, which has not been publicly disclosed, has prompted U.S. Customs and Border Protection to release more parents and children into the U.S. interior, reports the Washington Post. “Mexico is only accepting single adults now, not families or children,” said one U.S. official.

• Hundreds of U.S.-bound migrants are stranded on a beach as the border between Colombia and Panama remains closed, reports Vice. Some estimates say there are 1,200 migrants, waiting to cross the Darien Gap. Most are Haitian citizens and others come from Cuba, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Congo, Guinea, Somalia, and Yemen.

El Salvador

• El Faro reconstructs what is known so far of the shooting attack that killed two FMLN party sympathizers last weekend, an episode of violence that has shaken the country ahead of elections to be held later this month. It is not clear how one of the attackers was wounded, but the attorney general's office ordered the release of FMLN activists who were part of the attacked group, having found no evidence they were responsible. The attackers were employees of the Ministry of Health and investigators found traces of heroin in the car used in the attack. (See Monday's post.)

Haiti

• Haiti's government has unveiled multiple proposed changes to overhaul the country’s Constitution. Public meetings are scheduled to be held across Haiti for the next three weeks, ahead of the April 25 constitutional referendum, which would be the first one held in more than 30 years, reports the Associated Press. (See yesterday's post.) 
  

Colombia

• Colombia will boost military operations against the criminal groups responsible for assassinating human rights activists, announced President Iván Duque yesterday. The government will also end more judges to remote areas where social leaders have been major targets of violence in recent years, reports Reuters. Local organization of civil society Indepaz reported 310 such killings for 2020.

Brazil

• Brazil's prominent anti-corruption "Car Wash" investigative unit was formally disbanded yesterday. It is the end of a landmark task force that was initially praised for targeting corruption at Brazil's highest political levels, but later came under fire for allegations of bias, reports the Associated Press.

• The new heads of Brazil’s lower house and senate pledged to work on key economic reforms and additional Covid-19 assistance, reports Bloomberg.
  

Regional Relations

• Alejandro Mayorkas was sworn in yesterday as U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, the first Latino and the first immigrant to hold the position. (New York Times)

• U.S. President Joe Biden’s cabinet, if confirmed as is, would have four Latinos to head the departments of Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Education, and the Small Business Administration. AS/COA dives into some key nominations as they pertain to the region.

Nicaragua

• Two major November hurricanes slammed into the same part of Nicaraguan coast, laying waste to the Miskito village of Haulover. Faced with a future of intensifying storms, the residents must now consider whether to abandon their way of life by the ocean and move inland -- New York Times Video.
  

Caribbean

• A new collection of essays edited by Global Americans seeks to "identify the causes of corruption in the Caribbean, while determining how it influences the region’s socioeconomic environment and pointing to what is needed to foster better governance going forward." The chapters look specifically at Suriname, Haiti, the Caribbean, and comparative perspectives.

Guatemala

• The best protected parts of the Reserva de la Biósfera Maya are those that are given in concession to community organizations, that extract forest products and carry out ecotourism activities, in exchange for preserving those tracts. The Carmelita cooperative is a pioneer in the model, the group sustainably extracts wood used for Gibson guitars, and serves as a deterrent to illegal loggers seeking to exploit the area, reports Plaza Pública.

Ecuador

• Ecuador’s sovereign bonds are being pummeled by fears that next Sunday’s election outcome could derail ties with the International Monetary Fund and trigger another debt crisis, reports Reuters.

Regional

• Latin America has long been the most unequal region in the world -- and the Covid-19 vaccine panorama fits the pattern. Many of Latin America's middle-income countries are in limbo: neither rich enough to negotiate favorably with pharmaceutical companies, nor poor enough to receive Covax donations. Russia and China will fill the void in many cases, and "syringe diplomacy" could shape a new political order in the region, argues Agus Morales in New York Times Español.

• A study of students who form part of the Young Lives project led by the University of Oxford, that includes people in Peru, paints a devastating picture of the economic and social impact of Covid-19 on young lives. Their experiences raise fears that lockdowns and restrictions not only threaten to halt progress made over the past two generations, but could also reverse life chances and entrench inequalities for many young people, hitting those living in poor communities hardest, reports the Guardian.

Did I miss something, get something wrong, or do you have a different take? Let me know ...  Latin America Daily Briefing

Haiti's political legitimacy crisis (Feb. 3, 2021)

Haiti's protracted political crisis is likely to deepen this weekend. Government opponents say Feb. 7 is the last day of President Jovenel Moïse's term, while Moïse maintains that his mandate ends in February 2022.

The crisis comes amid rising unrest over an alarming rise in kidnappings and gang violence. This week unions staged a two day strike that shut down schools, businesses and markets. Protesters have filled the streets demanding Moïse's departure and an end to gang violence, reports the Miami Herald.

The disagreement over when Moïse's term stems over when it effectively began. The opposition argues the term started when that of former President Michel Martelly expired in February 2016, while Moïse said it started when he was sworn in, a year later due to a chaotic electoral process. The Federation of Bars of Haiti is backing up the opposition’s claim, noting in a recent six-page declaration that the president himself utilized the same narrow interpretation of the constitution in dismissing two thirds of the Senate last year. (Miami Herald)

Opposition party leaders plan to name a new head of state on Sunday, and agreed to create a commission tasked with choosing a president to lead the transitional government from members of Haiti's Supreme Court. Under their plan, The prime minister would be chosen among the opposition politicians, and the heads of government ministries would be selected by the new government. (Voice of America)

Moïse, who has been governing by decree for a year, said he will hand power over to the winner of a presidential election scheduled for September. Speaking on Monday, Moïse urged Haitians to support his constitutional reform proposal, which will be voted on in an April referendum. The proposed constitutional changes are expected to be made public this week, reports the Associated Press.

Internationally, several U.S. lawmakers expressed the need for a transition in Haiti in a joint statement issued in December 2020.

News Briefs

Migration

• Trinidad and Tobago's treatment of Venezuelan migrants and refugees and its deportations of Venezuelans, including children and asylum seekers, are not only egregious rights violations but also a sad reminder of its unswerving allegiance to the Nicolás Maduro government, argue Human Rights Watch's Tamara Taraciuk Broner and Martina Rapido Ragozzino in Americas Quarterly.

• U.S. President Joe Biden signed three executive orders yesterday, aimed at reviewing and, eventually, undoing the Trump immigration legacy. Biden is balancing campaign promises to roll back deportations and asylum limitations imposed by his predecessor, with concern about opening migration floodgates, reports the New York Times. 

• Two of yesterday's orders included a review of the previous administration's immigration policies that limited asylum, stopped funding to foreign countries, made it more difficult to get green cards or be naturalized, and slowed down legal immigration into the United States. The third establishes a task force to identify families separated at the border. (See yesterday's post.) Biden called the separation of migrant families instigated by the previous administration a “moral and national shame," reports the Washington Post.

• The U.S. Senate confirmed Alejandro N. Mayorkas as secretary of homeland security, making him the first Latino and the first immigrant to hold that job. He will be tasked with implementing the Biden administration's promise to roll back Trump's immigration policies, and will head the new task force to identify families separated at the border. (New York Times)

Mexico

• The Mexican police participated in a massacre that left 19 people dead last month, according to a Tamaulipas state prosecutor. At least 13 victims who appear to be Guatemalan migrants on their way to the United States. The massacre in Camargo underscores not only the risks that migrants must now endure to enter the United States, but the de-stabilizing role that Mexico’s security forces sometimes plays along the border, according to the Washington Post.

• Mexico is in the throes of two separate, lethal crises: violence and the coronavirus. Sky-high mortality rates provoked by both of them merit changes in the government approach to health and security, argues Jorge Ramos in the New York Times Español.

Regional Relations

• Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has set the stage for confrontation with the Biden administration on multiple fronts -- in contrast to his accommodating stance towards Trump. "For AMLO, Biden is a useful enemy and another distracting element from the pandemic's social and economic devastation," argues Denise Dresser in the Post Opinión.

• U.S. President Joe Biden should use existing sanctions against Venezuela's Maduro government and the Trump-era transition framework as the basis for a more powerful, nuanced system of carrots and sticks, argues Christopher Sabatini in World Politics Review. He argues the U.S. should, in conjunction with international allies, look for ways to grant specific, temporary exemptions to U.S. sanctions on Venezuela in response to specific goal posts, and develop a timeline to bring the Maduro regime back to the negotiating table.

• President Joe Biden intends to nominate Brian A. Nichols as his top envoy for Latin America. Nichols, currently the U.S. ambassador in Zimbabwe, would be the first Black assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs in decades, reports the Associated Press.
  
  
• "China’s engagement with Latin America presents multiple strategic perils, wrapped in values the United States and its partners hold dear," warns Evan Ellis in National Defense Magazine.

• As the region battles a second wave of the virus that is clouding its recovery prospects for 2021, Mauricio Claver-Carone, the Inter-American Development Bank’s new president, discusses the strategy for addressing these historic challenges with Wilson Center experts.
  

El Salvador

• The shooting that killed two people leaving a political rally in El Salvador last weekend remains murky. But President Nayib Bukele's failure to condemn the attack threatens to tarnish his reputation ahead of legislative and municipal elections on Feb. 28, reports El Faro. (See Monday's post.)

Colombia

• Many former FARC fighters in Colombia are still waiting for the dividends of a peace accord signed in 2016. Many have been victims of deadly attacks -- 254 ex-Farc members have been murdered across the country since the agreement -- and demobilized fighters say the Colombian government hasn't done enough to keep them safe. (Guardian)

Peru

• Peru will hold presidential elections in April. The country is in the midst of a second-wave of Covid-19 infections, and most major cities are under lockdown. Candidates and experts have discussed moving campaigns online. Such a move would benefit establishment politicians with greater name recognition, and would effectively shut out a large chunk of Peruvian society from the campaign, writes Gabriela Wiener in a New York Times Español op-ed.

Cuba

• A month into Cuba's economic reform, the innovations have largely caused more social pain than anything else. And they come as Cuba faces the economic pain of harsh U.S. financial restrictions enacted by Trump and the mounting pressure of Covid-19, writes Abraham Jiménez Enoa in the Post Opinión.

Ecuador

• Note: Yesterday I incorrectly stated that former Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa is running for vice president in Sunday's elections. He had intended to second presidential candidate Andrés Arauz, but was blocked when a court upheld a prior conviction on corruption charges. (Americas Quarterly)
  

Did I miss something, get something wrong, or do you have a different take? Let me know ... Latin America Daily Briefing

Biden to order review immigration policies (Feb. 2, 2021)

 U.S. President Joe Biden will sign three executive orders today aimed at unravelling his predecessors immigration policy legacy. But the new administration is advancing cautiously, and officials are wary of a new migration wave building up from Central America, reports the Washington Post. It’s the second batch of executive actions on immigration that the president will have issued since taking office, notes Vox.

The administration will announce plans to identify and reunite hundreds of families who were separated at the U.S.-Mexico border by the previous Trump administration and remain apart years later. Biden will create a new homeland security task force to reunite families through an executive order, reports the Washington Post. Officials said Alejandro N. Mayorkas, Mr. Biden’s nominee to be the homeland security secretary, would lead the task force.

Between July 2017 and June 2018, the Trump administration separated at least 5,500 children from their parents along the border in an attempt to deter migration. Biden officials said they could not name how many children had to be reunified because the policy was implemented without a method for tracking the separated families. The American Civil Liberties Union says that at least 1,000 of those families are likely to remain separated — parents scattered mostly across Central America and children living with relatives in the United States. 

However, the other orders mandate the review, rather than outright reversal of the Trump administration’s tangle of deterrent policies along the Mexico border and the barriers it created in the legal immigration system. (Guardian, Los Angeles Times)

Officials seek to introduce more human policies, and are trying to figure out how to dismantle the Migrant Protection Protocols, also known as the “Remain in Mexico” program, that sent more than 60,000 asylum seekers to wait outside U.S. territory while their claims are processed in immigration courts. But today's orders will not immediately change circumstances for asylum seekers currently waiting in Mexico, many in squalid camps -- a fact that is likely to disappoint migrant advocates who hoped for quick action, notes the New York Times. Human Rights First has recorded at least 1,134 public reports of murder, torture, rape and kidnapping against asylum seekers returned to Mexico under MPP. Thousands have given up.

Advocates are still waiting for policies which address immigration detention, reports the Guardian.

Last week, a Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas temporarily blocked Biden’s announced 100-day moratorium on most deportations, another sign that the new president’s immigration policies will face conservative challenges in court as well as in Congress, reports the  Los Angeles Times. The Biden administration has deported hundreds of immigrants in its early days despite his campaign pledge to stop removing most people in the U.S. illegally at the beginning of his term, reports the Associated Press. In recent days, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has deported immigrants to at least three countries: 15 people to Jamaica on Thursday and 269 people to Guatemala and Honduras on Friday. More deportation flights were scheduled for yesterday.

News Briefs

Cuba

• A group of young Cuban artists who gathered to protest outside of the Ministry of Culture last week said they were pushed away violently by a crowd led by the minister himself. The artists are members of the 27N Movement, a loose network stemming from a protest last November demanding freedom of expression and the release of artists and activists of the San Isidro Movement who had been detained, reports the Miami Herald. Last Wednesday members of the group gathered to request the release of artist Tania Burguera, poet Katherine Bisquet and independent journalist Camila Acosta, who had been detained.
  

Ecuador

• Environmentalist Yaku Pérez has become the dark horse candidate in Ecuador's presidential race. If elected in Ecuador’s presidential election on February 7, the leftist lawyer would be the country’s first indigenous president. Pérez, who has made ancestral themes and language central to his campaign, is polling among the top three contenders in a crowded field of candidates. Pérez told Americas Quarterly that he represents a leftist alternative to former president Rafael Correa, who is running for vice president. 
  

El Salvador

• The Organization of American States has called for urgent action, after two people were killed at a campaign rally in San Salvador just weeks ahead of elections in El Salvador. Salvadoran attorney general, Raul Melara, held an emergency meeting with political party representatives yesterday. "This is serious, the electoral campaign must not turn into a bloodbath," he tweeted ahead of the session. (Deutsche Welle, see yesterday's post)

• It’s not clear yet why the violence occurred this weekend at the FMLN rally. But there is potential for further electoral violence in the weeks ahead if reported negotiations between the Bukele administration and El Salvador's powerful street gangs are true, according to James Bosworth at the Latin America Risk Report. (See yesterday's post.)
  

Regional

• InSight Crime published the 2020 Homicide Roundup, with country-by-country murder rates and the factors influencing them. "It’s too early to tell with any degree of certainty how exactly the pandemic may have impacted levels of violence, but there were notable developments, including significant reductions in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Venezuela, historically some of the most homicidal nations in Latin America and the Caribbean."
  

Venezuela

• WOLA examines the former U.S. Trump administration's use of individual sanctions on Venezuelan elites. In 2017 and 2018, as Venezuela’s political crisis reached a turning point, marked by a rise in protests and opposition mobilization, sanctions against individuals were often closely coordinated with European and Latin American countries. In the latter years of the Trump administration, however, the U.S. notably shifted away from such coordination. (Venezuelan Politics and Human Rights)

Brazil

• Brazil’s Congress chose lawmakers endorsed by President Jair Bolsonaro as speakers of its two chambers, yesterday. Bolsonaro's support for the winning lawmakers underscores his embrace of a fragmented bloc of lawmakers known more for their horse-trading prowess than ideological commitments, called the "Centrão," or "Big Center," reports Reuters.

• Brazil risks becoming a breeding ground for more potentially dangerous coronavirus mutations, say infectious disease specialists. (Wall Street Journal)

Argentina

• Argentina hopes to reach a deal with the IMF by May to repay $44 billion in debt. Economy Minister Martín Guzmán said he will reduce spending, but that the plan falls short of the draconian austerity measures the IMF imposed with other governments. (Wall Street Journal)
  

Puerto Rico

• The U.S. Biden administration approved releasing $1.3 billion in funding for Puerto Rico as part of a Hurricane Maria disaster relief package, reports the Miami Herald.
  

Whales

• The blue whale is under threat from boat collisions as one of its main feeding grounds in Chilean Patagonia is overrun with boats, reports the Guardian.
  

Nicaragua

• Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega has joined the space race, at least verbally, with the creation of the "National Secretariat for Outer Space, the Moon and other Celestial Bodies" -- El País.

Did I miss something, get something wrong, or do you have a different take? Let me know ... Latin America Daily Briefing

Two people killed after El Salvador political rally (Feb. 1, 2021)

 Two people were killed and three were gravely wounded in a shooting attack against a group of FMLN party sympathizers in El Salvador, yesterday. Gunmen attacked the group who had left a rally for San Salvador mayoral candidate Rogelio Canales, ahead of local and legislative elections to be held Feb. 28. It is one of the worst political attacks in the country in decades, reports AFP.

President Nayib Bukele immediately accused the FMLN party of politicizing the attack, and insinuated the party might have organized a self-attack in hopes of electoral payoff. His reaction stunned opposition leaders, who accused the president of fomenting a climate of intolerance, hatred and political fanaticism, reports El Faro.

"Despite the gravity of the president's reaction, it was not surprising," according to an El Faro editorial. "It is the continuation of the rhetoric this president chose starting with his swearing in: one of insults, of disqualifications, of lies, of attacks against his political adversaries."

Bukele has been publicly denigrating the 1992 Peace Accords, which ended the country's bloody civil war, since December. (See last Wednesday's briefs, and Óscar Martínez's recent New York Times Español op-ed. 

"One of the major achievements of those accords had been the virtual elimination of political violence in El Salvador for the past two decades," notes Tim Muth at El Salvador Perspectives. "El Salvador now faces peril that the abusive attack language used by the president and his allies on social media may be inciting a kind of violence many prayed would not be seen again."

Three people were detained in relation to the attack, last night. Two are police agents assigned to protect El Salvador's health minister, and the third is a private security officer who also carried out tasks in the health ministry, reports El Faro.

More El Salvador

• Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has temporarily suspended its operations in El Salvador after one of its teams came under attack from an armed gang, reports Reuters.

News Briefs

Regional Relations

• El Faro reports that the new U.S. Biden administration has broken a tacit agreement that governed relations between the preceding Trump administration and Central American governments: silence regarding corruption and power abuses in exchange for collaboration with the White House's brutal anti-immigration policies. Juan González, Senior Director for the Western Hemisphere at the National Security Council, told El Faro that fighting corruption will be a major focus for the new administration towards Central America.

• Easier said than done, warns Charles T. Call at the Brookings Institute blog: "The Biden administration has emphasized the rule of law and corruption, but it will need to use serious carrots and sticks and prioritize these efforts over others if the $4 billion package from the U.S. is to have a significant effect on average people. Poor governance is what underlies violence, impunity, insecurity, and lack of economic investment. And all the region’s governments either abet or embody corruption."

• U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to approach Latin America with expertise, having led the former Obama administration's work in the region as vice president. But things have changed—some dramatically—since Biden left the White House in January of 2017, warns Dinorah Azpuru at Global Americans. The Trump years eroded the region's trust in the U.S. government, while trust in the Chinese government has increased, according to the AmericasBarometer Survey.

• Biden revoked a rule banning U.S. aid to groups that offer abortions or abortion counseling, even if those services are not financed by U.S. tax dollars. Known as the Global Gag Rule, the ban is reinstated by Republican presidents and revoked by Democratic ones, though former President Donald Trump greatly expanded the rule's scope, effectively denying aid to groups that provided a range of other health services, including H.I.V. medicine and tuberculosis treatment, reports the New York Times.

• A group of former U.S. climate leaders is pushing the new Biden administration to take substantive action to help Amazon rainforest conservation. The heart of the proposal involves making the avoidance of deforestation central to trade agreements and closing loopholes in laws meant to deter forest crimes abroad. They also called on Biden to call a White House summit to press corporate leaders to help finance at least one billion tons of greenhouse gas reductions in the Amazon by 2025. And to expand “debt-for-nature” swaps and to negotiate such agreements with governments in the Amazon region, reports the New York Times.

Migration

• Two and a half years after the U.S. ordered an end to family separations, immigration attorneys and advocates are growing increasingly concerned about re-separations, reports the Washington Post. The policy of taking children from their parents at the border provoked global outrage, but far less attention has been paid to those families — or their legal cases — afterward.

• Last week a group of U.S. Senators introduced a bill to designate Venezuela for Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which would grant temporary legal status to Venezuelans fleeing a devastating political and humanitarian crisis in their home country. This Senate legislation is the third of its kind; after the House of Representatives passed a similar TPS bill in July 2019 with a bipartisan majority, the Senate version of the bill was repeatedly blocked in 2019 and 2020, explains WOLA, which supports the effort along with other prominent human rights organizations.

• Many countries around the world have excluded refugees from their coronavirus vaccination plans, potentially undermining their own struggles to contain Covid-19. In December, Colombia said it would not provide vaccines to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants and refugees when its rollout began, reports the Washington Post.

Venezuela

• Newly filed lobbying records show Venezuela’s Maduro government previously hired a longtime Democratic Party donor for $6 million at the same time it was lobbying to discourage the U.S. from imposing sanctions on the oil-rich nation, reports the Associated Press.

Mexico

• Covid-19 treatment has come at a by brutal economic price for many Mexican families, who have been left in debt or bankrupt by the exorbitant cost of medical care for patients with the virus, reports the Guardian.

• Mexican opposition parties have survived in the age of López Obrador, but seem to have renounced fighting for votes through proposals and innovation, argues Viri Rios in the New York Times Español.

Brazil

• Brazilian rapper MC Fioti has become an unexpected vaccine champion with a viral hit celebrating Covid inoculation and boasting a music video shot at one of Brazil’s top biomedical research centers, reports the Guardian.

Literary Corner

• Leonardo Padura on Cuba's U.S. dependence and belonging. (Infobae)

Futbol

• The Copa Libertadores final Saturday, won by Palmeiras in Rio de Janeiro's Maracanã stadium, showcased the sport's "new normal", according to the New York Times' Rory Smith. "Over the last 10 months, it has become clear that — no matter the risk or the restrictions — if soccer is played, for the moments that mean the most, then fans will feel an urge to be together."

Did I miss something, get something wrong, or do you have a different take? Let me know ... 

Latin America Daily Briefing