Climate debt swaps? (Sept. 10, 2021)

Latin America and Caribbean nations have contributed relatively little to climate change, and face disproportionate costs, reasons for which many regional leaders argued for financing and debt swaps in order to carry out environmental policies, this week at an Argentina-hosted climate conference. (El País, see last Friday's briefs.)

 Argentine President Alberto Fernández called for countries indebted to international lending organizations, like the IMF, to be permitted to reduce their payments in exchange for meeting concrete climate goals: "climate action debt swaps." He also emphasized the concept of "environmental debtors and creditors," the latter category encompassing less developed nations who have contributed less to global warming, and argues that some of their debt should be reduced in exchange for actions to limit climate change. (Associated Press)

Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley criticized wealthy nations' failure to live up to their climate commitments, and called for debt restructuring or cancellation to give fiscal space for climate adaptation for small island developing states. She also called for the adoption of a multidimensional vulnerability index so that middle income countries can access concessional finance.

UN Secretary General António Guterres commended the leadership of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on climate action. He also pledged “the full support of the United Nations system to address the triple threat of COVID-19, climate change and debt.” (UN News)

More Climate

• A focus on Western industrial livestock practices -- with negative climate impact -- must not obscure the vital role played by small-scale livestock farming in the developing world, write Emma Naluyima Mugerwa and Lora Iannotti in the Guardian: "In the developing world most people are not factory farming and livestock is essential to preventing poverty and malnutrition"

News Briefs

Migration

• The U.S. Department of Homeland Security extended Temporary Protected Status benefits for at least 400,000 immigrants from six countries, including Haiti, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua. The extension means that the TPS beneficiaries can continue to legally live and work in the United States and, for now, avoid being placed in deportation proceedings, reports the Miami Herald.

Haiti

• Haiti's government published a draft new constitution this week, and Prime Minister Ariel Henry touted the reform as a jumping off point for resolving the country's acute political crisis. The new constitution was a pet project of President Jovenel Moïse, who was killed in July, but a popular referendum on the issue was considered illegitimate by the political opposition and government critics. (AFP)
  
  
• Louise Comfort, an expert in decision making after disasters at the University of Pittsburgh, uses the term “cascading crises” to describe the situation in Haiti. “Each time there’s a disaster it weakens some other part of the system.” (The Conversation Weekly)  
  

El Salvador

• El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele's latest move against the country's judiciary -- a reform forcing a third of the country's judges to retire -- follows the playbook for the steady accretion of dictatorial power, but it may also be designed, in part, to address a problem presented by the El Mozote massacre trial, writes Peter Canby in the New Yorker. "By asking questions about the past, (Judge Jorge) Guzmán has been shedding an uncomfortable light on El Salvador’s current dysfunctional government. By ordering the retirement of all judges over sixty, Bukele may be trying to shut the proceedings down." (See Sept. 2's briefs.)
  
  
• Salvadoran police detained former justice and public security minister Mauricio Ramírez Landaverde yesterday. He is accused of alleged corruption in relation to the country's penal system, along with eight other officials who worked in the ministry. (El Diario de Hoy, Associated Press)
  
  
• El Salvador's authoritarian slide is nothing new in Central America, but Bukele's sky high popularity among a population sick of gang violence and corruption, makes the case particularly worrisome, according to the Economist.
  
  
• "The United States appears to be hamstrung in how it deals with the president of a country of just 6.5 million people," reports the Economist in a separate piece on El Salvador.

Central America

• The central banks of Honduras and Guatemala are eying digital currencies, following El Salvador's adoption of bitcoin as legal currency, reports Reuters. (See Tuesday's post.)
  

Brazil

• Pfizer has been accused of holding Brazil “to ransom” over demands to shield itself from possible vaccine side-effect lawsuits in its contract to supply the country with 100 million Covid jabs, reports the Guardian. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism reported in February that Pfizer had demanded Brazil and Argentina put up sovereign assets as collateral to guarantee indemnity, as well as create a guarantee fund with money deposited in a foreign bank account. (See Feb. 23's briefs.) 
  
  
• Most analysts believe this week marks a stalemate in Brazil's political crisis. (See yesterday's post.) But with 13 months until the October 2022 presidential election, it seems unlikely either Bolsonaro or the Supreme Court will fully back down from their battle lines, according to the Wilson Center's Weekly Asado. For both sides, the fight is existencial: the court must maintain institutional credibility and Bolsonaro is in a fight to avoid jail.
  
  
• "Most institutions in Brazil remain fairly robust. It is highly unlikely that Mr Bolsonaro could co-opt them. But if he loses in 2022, he has already laid the groundwork for questioning the results—potentially with angry mobs," reports the Economist. The protests this week show that his supporters are organised, willing to take to the streets and cavalier about the rules of democracy. (See Wednesday's post.) 
  
  
• Brazilian business leaders published an open letter urging independence and harmony among executive, legislative and judiciary powers, after clashes between the executive and judicial dominated the week, reports Reuters. (See yesterday's post.)
  

Venezuela

• Across Venezuela smaller, localized gangs are increasing their power in rural areas or on the outskirts of cities, where security forces are not so prevalent, reports InSight Crime.
  

Regional Relations

• Police in Madrid arrested Gen. Hugo Carvajal, a former Venezuelan spymaster wanted on U.S. narcoterrorism charges, capturing him in a hideout apartment nearly two years after he defied a Spanish extradition order and disappeared, reports the Associated Press.
  
  
• Representatives of Venezuela's government and opposition reached partial agreements in Mexico City negotiations this week, the accords cover the country's approach to the coronavirus pandemic and support for Venezuela's claim to Guyana's Essequibo region. (El País, AFP, see Tuesday's briefs.) 
  
  
• Guyana officials and opposition politicians objected strenuously. That agreement is an overt threat to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Guyana,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation said in a statement. “Guyana cannot be used as an altar of sacrifice for settlement of Venezuela’s internal political differences." (CMC, Kaieteur News)
  
  
• Taiwan accused China of seeking to use the Honduran election to “create controversy” and undermine Taiwan’s long-standing ties with the country, reports Reuters. 
  
  
• The United States and Mexico restarted high-level economic talks yesterday, after a four-year pause, reports the Associated Press.

Chile

• Chile's constitutional rewrite process is ultimately a chance to turn the final page on the country's Pinochet-dictatorship era, according to the Latin America Brief: "The broad public debate surrounding Chile’s constitutional rewrite stands as an example for other countries grappling with the far-reaching legacies of national trauma."

Argentina

• Argentines vote in primary elections on Sunday that serve as a litmus test for the November legislative midterms. The vote is marked by political apathy, concerns about the economy and the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic, reports Reuters.
  

Mexico

• Major Mexican cartels are having to adjust their business model to U.S. states' weed legalization, which has made marijuana unprofitable. Instead they have monopolized other commercial activities like alcohol sales and logging, while also extorting the region’s local farmworkers to keep profits alive, reports InSight Crime.

Caribbean

• The Bahamas, Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands are among the 17 low-tax districts scrutinized in a new report from the EU Tax Observatory, which found that Europe’s top banks are siphoning an extra €20 billion a year by shifting profits to "tax havens." That accounts for 14% of their total profits, the analysis found. (CNBC, Politico, Nassau Guardian, see yesterday's Just Caribbean Updates for more.)
  

Regional

• Latin America might be able to teach the U.S. about where a legally and humanely reasonable approach to abortion lies, argues Tim Padgett at WLRN.
  
  
• Latin American governments need to address a brewing jobs crisis for young workers that further risks the region’s fragile stability, according to the International Labor Organization. (Bloomberg)
  
  
• Latin America's mothers are lagging behind in the pandemic of economic recovery, returning to the labor force more slowly than men. Experts say the trend could set back female labor force participation for a decade across the region, reports Reuters. (See Sept. 2's briefs.)
  

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

Latin America Daily Briefing

Brazil's political crisis in stalemate (Sept. 9, 2021)

For several analysts, the massive Brazilian rallies in support of President Jair Bolsonaro this week demonstrate a dangerous stalemate in the country's political crisis: the president is politically unpopular and unlikely to win an election, but he is also politically protected from impeachment. (See yesterday's post.) Bolsonaro's ongoing attacks against the country's democratic institutions, from the voting system to the Supreme Court have troubled observers who say he could seek to stay in power in the event of an electoral loss. (Vox, Guardian)

"Whatever his motivations, Bolsonaro’s decision to embrace an all-or-nothing strategy shows there is no easy way out of what looks like the most severe constitutional crisis in decades," writes Oliver Stuenkel in Americas Quarterly.

"The question now is less one of whether Bolsonaro will further ramp up tensions, but of how he will do so," writes Matthew Taylor at the Aula Blog.

Bolsonaro focused his ire on the Brazilian Supreme Court in his speeches at the rallies on Tuesday, particularly Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who has led investigations against Bolsonaro allies, some of whom have been detained. “Any decision from Mr. Alexandre de Moraes, this president will no longer comply with. The patience of our people has run out,” Bolsonaro said. “For us, he no longer exists.” 

Later in the day he said “I want to tell those who want to make me unelectable in Brazil: Only God removes me from there … There are three options for me: be jailed, killed or victorious. I’m letting the scoundrels know: I’ll never be imprisoned!”

Brazilian Supreme Court Chief Justice Luiz Fux said Bolsonaro’s speeches this week encouraging people to disregard court decisions were an attack on democracy and a crime for Congress to deal with, reports Reuters. 

Increasingly Bolsonaro has targeted the Supreme Court discursively, a trend that has resonated among his supporters. A qualitative poll among Bolsonaristas at Tuesday's rallies in São Paulo found that the majority consider the country's Supreme Court to be their main enemy, rather than the political opposition. (Globo)

Protesting truckers have blocked highways in more than half of Brazil's states, a move that could potentially cause food and fuel shortages. They initially came out in support of Tuesday's rallies, but have refused to stand down,raising concern that Bolsonaro may have lost control of his supporters after firing them up with incendiary rhetoric, reports the Associated Press.

The trucker protest is in part an answer to Bolsonaro's discourse against the Supreme Court and the country's electronic voting system, reports Reuters, which puts the president in a delicate situation as he tries to defuse the protests without delegitimizing supporters.

More Brazil

• Bolsonaro temporarily banned social media companies from moderating content this week -- a move that limits their ability to remove his claims that the only way he’ll lose next year’s elections is if the vote is rigged. (See yesterday's briefs.) It is one of the most significant steps by a democratically elected leader to control what can be said on the internet, according to the New York Times.
  
  
• Lost in all of Brazil's scandals and controversies? The Latin America Risk Report has a cheat sheet that covers everything from rachadinha to CPI.

News Briefs

El Salvador

• El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has put the country on the brink of an authoritarian abyss, warns Human Rights Watch's José Miguel Vivanco in a New York Times Español essay. Maneuvers carried out by Bukele against the country's judicial power (see Monday's post) resemble those implemented in Venezuela and Nicaragua in recent years, part of a trend of governments that achieve power democratically but then undermine the country's institutions, he writes. 

• "El Salvador isn't a democracy anymore," Santiago Cantón, former executive secretary of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, told El Faro. Cantón, who is now director of the Rule of Law program at The Inter-American Dialogue, compares Bukele’s methods with Peru’s Alberto Fujimori and Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez. The international community must be strict with El Salvador and Nicaragua, he says, or risk a crisis of democracy that could affect the entire continent.
  
  
• El Salvador's official digital wallet, the Chivo, belongs to a private company financed with public funds, reports El Faro. (See Tuesday's post on El Salvador's cryptocurrency experiment)

Nicaragua

• Nicaraguan prosecutors ordered the arrest of Sergio Ramírez, an award-winning novelist who used to be an aide to President Daniel Ortega. Ramírez is the latest victim of a broad crackdown on Ortega critics ahead of November's presidential election. (AFP)
  

Regional Relations

• Honduras' November presidential election presents a diplomatic difficulty for the U.S. Biden administration, which must choose between protecting U.S. business interests and condemning the corruption, drug trafficking, and violence that increase migration, argues John Perry in Nacla.

Haiti

• Haiti's recent earthquake has created a whole new generation of orphans, who are vulnerable to street gangs and sexual violence. Complicating the response for vulnerable children is the damage sustained by so many of the region’s schools, reports the Guardian.

Bolivia

• Former Bolivian police chief Rodolfo Montero was arrested for the crimes of genocide, homicide, and serious injuries in relation to the 2019 Senkata massacre. (Telesur)
  

Mexico

• The Mexican Supreme Court decision decriminalizing abortion this week is is likely to bring about a change in legal culture and fewer criminal investigationsm say activists and lawyers. (Guardian, see yesterday's post.)

Cuba

• Cuban authorities will reopen the country’s borders starting in mid-November, saying that the country will have vaccinated 90 percent of its population by the beginning of the high season for tourism, reports the Miami Herald.
  
  
• Cuba has begun to inoculate children as young as two years old for Covid-19, using the country's nationally developed vaccines in a bid to get kids back in classrooms, reports CNN.
  

Colombia

• Colombia's Cordoba region is largely under the de facto rule of the Gulf Clan (AGC), which has dominated the area's illicit economies in the wake of the FARC peace accord, writes International Crisis Group's Elizabeth Dickinson in a Twitter thread. "Everything appears quiet in Sur de Cordoba because one bloc has essentially “won” lucrative territorial control."

• Efforts to open up Colombia’s economy have caused displacement, poverty and violence for Afro-Colombian communities, reports Al Jazeera in a piece that focuses on Buenaventura.
  

Ecuador

• Ecuador has reached a new staff-level agreement with the IMF that could result in $1.5 billion in new disbursements this year following promises by President Guillermo Lasso's government to cut spending, reports Reuters.
  

Television

• Telenovelas are a unique Latinamerican product that has retained high popularity despite its negative reputation, writes Alberto Barrera Tyszka in New York Times Español.

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

Latin America Daily Briefing

Bolsonaro steps up attacks on Supreme Court (Sept. 8, 2021)

Hundreds of thousands of supporters of Brazil's far-right President Jair Bolsonaro demonstrated yesterday in Brasilia and around the country, many calling for a military takeover and other extremist views. The show of force contrasts with polls showing Bolsonaro's decreasing popularity, and fanned concerns that he will seek to stay in power undemocratically. (See Monday's post.)

Though there were fears of violent clashes yesterday, Brazil's Independence Day, there were no significant reports of violence. At least three times — once soon after Bolsonaro’s second speech of the day — groups of demonstrators in Brasilia tried to get past police barriers, but officers repelled them with pepper spray. (Guardian, Associated Press)

Bolsonaro used the occasion to again step up attacks on the country's Supreme Court, which has become the main counterpoint to his attacks on the country's democratic institutions. He accused  Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes for making what he characterized as political arrests and declared he will no longer abide by rulings from de Moraes.

“I want to tell those who want to make me unelectable in Brazil: Only God removes me from there," he told supports in S. Paulo.

Bolsonaro succeeded in a show of force that rallied supporters, but possibly at the cost of alienating political support, according to El País, which said more lawmakers have started considering the possibility of impeachment. 

Nonetheless, "the final result looked like a stalemate — an outcome that significantly raises tensions in Brazil’s long-running political crisis, but gives neither side a definitive advantage," argues Oliver Stuenkel in Americas Quarterly. 

Bolsonaro “crossed the Rubicon” yesterday, "he escalated the crisis. You can’t have a president who says, 'I won’t accept rule of law,’ or says, ‘I will only accept the laws I like.’ That’s not a democracy," Thomas Traumann, a political analyst, told the Associated Press.

Brazil’s Supreme Court said Chief Justice Luiz Fux planned to address Bolsonaro’s comments at the beginning of today's session.

More analysis at: Primeiro Café podcast.

More Brazil

• Jason Miller, a former aide to Donald Trump, said he was briefly detained and questioned by Brazilian authorities, yesterday.  According to Brazilian media, officials intercepted Miller by order of Supreme Federal Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes and questioned him for allegedly participating in “anti-democratic acts” while in the country. (Washington Post, Daily Beast)

• Bolsonaro signed a decree earlier this week aimed at restricting the social media companies's moderation powers, specifically to remove accounts and content. He said the new legislation would help protect freedom of speech, reports the BBC.
  

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Mexican court decriminalizes abortion

Mexico's Supreme Court decriminalized abortion yesterday, in a landmark ruling that struck down a Coahuila state law that imposed up to three years of prison for women who underwent illegal abortions or those who aided them. The ruling, which determined that criminalization of abortion unconstitutional, is binding on other states. Under Mexican law, a supreme court ruling supported by at least eight justices supersedes state laws. Yesterday's ruling was unanimously supported by 10 justices. (Animal Político)

The decision does not automatically make abortion legal across Mexico, experts said, but it does set a binding precedent for judges across the country, reports the New York Times. Abortion is legal in four of Mexico’s 32 federal entities — Oaxaca, Veracruz, Hidalgo and Mexico City.

“Today is a watershed in the history of the rights of women and pregnant people, above all the most vulnerable,” Chief Justice Arturo Zaldívar said. "The unjust criminalization of women ends with one stroke. Never again a woman in prison for exercising her rights."

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador did not immediately comment yesterday. He has had a conflictive relationship with women's rights activists since taking office.

The decision reflects the growing power of Mexico's feminist movement, and will impact the womens rights agenda in Latin America, reports the Washington Post. Victories in one country often catalyze activist efforts in others, as occurred with Argentina's abortion legalization campaign, which succeeded in December of last year. In Mexico, as in the rest of the region, activists have linked demands for abortion legalization with protests against gender-based violence.

“Mexico’s decision represents a turning point that Latin America and the Caribbean are making in recognizing women’s rights to abortion as a matter of fundamental rights and reproductive rights,” said Brazilian women's rights activist Debora Diniz who presented an abortion case that Brazil's Supreme Court is set to rule on soon. (Wall Street Journal)

More Mexico

•  A 7.1 magnitude earthquake hit the Mexican resort town of Acapulco last night, but no significant damage was reported in the Guerrero state epicenter, or in neighboring states. At least one person was killed. Authorities reported electrical and phone outages in various localities. (Animal Político, New York Times, New York Times)
  
  
• Torrential rains flooded a hospital in the Mexican town of Tula yesterday, killing 17 patients, several because electric failure knocked out oxygen administration machinery. (Animal Político, Associated Press)

News Briefs

El Salvador

• El Salvador is now a national cryptocurrency experiment, after bitcoin became legal tender yesterday. (See yesterday's post.) But most Salvadorans say they want nothing to do with it, reports the Washington Post. Widespread opposition to the bitcoin move -- up to 65 percent according to one poll -- means the gamble could take a toll on President Nayib Bukele's popularity, reports El Faro English.
  
  
• Protesters led the largest demonstrations since Bukele took office yesterday, reports El Faro English. Around 1,000 demonstrators traveled to the Legislative Assembly to demand the revocation of the Bitcoin Law, as well as last week’s purge of one-third of El Salvador’s judges and the Supreme Court’s decision to allow Bukele to run for reelection despite constitutional prohibitions. (See yesterday's post.) Among the crowd were judges, including some removed from office last week, former guerrilla combatants, opposition parties, and civic organizations.

Chile

• Chilean Constitutional Convention delegate Rodrigo Rojas Vade's confession that he does not, in fact, have leukemia could be a major blow for the "Lista del Pueblo," a coalition of independent delegates who loosely represent the demands of social protests that started in 2019. (See yesterday's briefs.) Rojas gained prominence as an example of the country's unfair health care system, and made extensive references to the costs of his cancer treatment. However, while he has promised to resign as a constitutional delegate, it is not clear that he can legally do so, notes the Guardian.

Colombia

• Chile's Constitutional Court is evaluating a guardianship request presented by 90 Raizal families from the Caribbean island of Providencia, who seek the protection of their rights after the impact they suffered from Hurricane Iota in November 2020. (El Tiempo)

Regional Relations

• "For much of Latin America, growing ties with China have been propelled above all else by trade and broader economic considerations — not geopolitics," write Felipe Larraín and Pepe Zhang in Americas Quarterly. "Nonetheless, Latin America is not free from the indirect impact of U.S.-China trade tensions. The region has been affected unevenly by them and, on balance, does not benefit from these trade tensions."

Uruguay

• Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle Pou announced yesterday that the country is advancing in a bilateral trade agreement with China, despite potential issues with the Mercosur trade bloc, reports Infobae. The deal is expected by the end of the year, said government officials.

Regional

• Vice has an issue dedicated to dismantling "hate discourse" in the region, with a compendium of articles that include "A for authoritarianism," "G for gender" and "H for homicide."

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

Latin America Daily Briefing

El Salvador launches Bitcoin experiment (Sept 7, 2021)

El Salvador became the first country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender today -- a move that has rallied the international cryptocurrency community, and raised hackles among experts in El Salvador and in the traditional financial sector. Its adoption will be closely monitored by crypto advocates, global financial institutions and governments around the world, notes the Wall Street Journal. (See also El Diario de Hoy and New York Times.)

El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele announced the move in June, which was then approved at lightning speed by the National Assembly. (See June 10's post.) Bukele has touted the adoption as an opportunity to bring more Salvadorans into the formal economy, and to make it cheaper and faster to receive remittances from abroad. Skeptics are concerned the measure could add volatility to El Salvador's fragile economy, and could be abused by criminal organizations laundering illicit funds. Economists say the government has neither the policy tools nor the financial firepower to contain a speculative attack, and the move could jeopardize El Salvador's tax revenues and foreign currency reserves.

The government will spend more than $225 million to kick off the country's Bitcoin conversion, including a $30 credit in bitcoin to those who take up Chivo, slang for “cool,” a government-run e-wallet. El Salvador's government announced 200 bitcoin purchase last night, which brings the government’s total holdings to at least 400, the equivalent of roughly $20.5 million in crypto based on this morning’s price. (Gizmodo)

The new law stipulates that all businesses must accept Bitcoin as payment. The government will also create a trust with $150 million dollars in public funds to facilitate dollar conversions, among other things. But it's not clear how many Salvadorans, only a third of whom use the internet, will actually adopt the new currency.

For observers concerned about Bukele's authoritarian slide, the move is just one more in a series of actions that consolidate presidential power, reports the Los Angeles Times. In recent days, Bukele-appointed Supreme Court justices cleared the way for him to seek reelection in 2024 (see yesterday's post), despite a constitutional ban on consecutive presidential terms, and lawmakers passed a law to remove one-third of the nation’s judges and prosecutors (see last Thursday's briefs). “The regime has very powerful control,” Noah Bullock, executive director of Cristosal, told the New York Times. “He is everything.”

Meanwhile, his supporters in the Assembly passed a law to remove one-third of the nation’s judges and prosecutors — an apparent response to Bukele’s public calls for a “purge” of the judicial branch.

Indeed, while the big story internationally is cryptocurrency, nationally the issue is erosion of democracy, notes James Bosworth at Latin America Risk Report. Though the experiment may bring about long-term benefits for El Salvador, in the short-term "worst case outcome, a corruption or human rights scandal undermines the whole project."

Bukele remains wildly popular, though less so than earlier in his mandate: 76.4 percent according to a new Institute for Public Opinion at the University of Central America poll. (El Salvador Perspectives)

More El Salvador

• El Faro reports on the team of Venezuelan political operators who are key players in the deployment of El Salvador's bitcoin project.

News Briefs

Brazil

• Pre-dawn skirmishes have erupted between police and supporters of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, as rightwing activists tried to force their way towards congress ahead of massive marches today, reports the Guardian. (See yesterday's post.)

Amazon

• The Amazon Basin is being ravaged at an accelerating rate by organized criminal groups and "legal" enterprises alike, as deforestation soars and biodiversity suffers. InSight Crime and Igarapé Institute have published the first chapters of an investigation into environmental crime in the Amazon.
  
  
• The first instalment looks at Colombia's Amazon, where the prevalence of environmental crime – and its relevance as a source of income to some of the most powerful criminal groups in the country – is apparent. (InSight Crime)

Venezuela

• Venezuela's government and opposition found common ground on two fronts, including the country's pandemic response, in a tentative step towards ending a long-standing political crisis. The signing of two "partial agreements" came after representatives of President Nicolas Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaido held four days of talks in Mexico City mediated by Norway, reports AFP.
  

Honduras

• Honduras Libre opposition party, led by ousted former president Manuel Zelaya, said that if it wins November's presidential election it will seek to "readjust" the country's debt and establish diplomatic relations with China. (Reuters)
  

Chile

• A Chilean Constitutional Convention delegate, and leader of the Chilean protests last year, confessed to falsely claiming he had cancer, a scandal that will likely impact the "Lista del Pueblo," reports the BBC.

Mexico

• The Spanish ultra-right Vox party registered its name and brand in Mexico, a move that will permit it to carry out a number of operations in the country, reports El País.
  
  
• Mexico is emerging as a world leader in political gender parity, an example of the power of gender quotas, reports the Washington Post.
  
  
• Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum will remove a statue of Christopher Colombus, and will replace it with a likeness of an Indigenous Olmec woman, reports the BBC.

Ecuador

• Ecuador aims to cut its fiscal deficit in half to around $2.4 billion in 2022 through austerity measures such as layoffs of state workers, President Guillermo Lasso announced yesterday. (Reuters) 
  

Music

• Nicaraguan musician Brandon Valdivia said the title of his new “Máscaras” album describes the masks used in political marches and Indigenous ceremonies, but also his own compositional practice. At times, the project makes direct references to revolutions in Nicaragua, according to the New York Times.

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Latin America Daily Briefing

El Salvador's Supreme Court permits Bukele reelection

El Salvador's top court ruled that presidents can serve two consecutive terms, on Friday. The constitutional chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice ordered the Supreme Electoral Tribunal to enable a president who had not been in office "in the immediately preceding period to participate in the electoral contest for a second occasion."

The decision contradicts previous court interpretations of El Salvador's constitution, which was understood to require a two-term waiting period between one presidential mandate and a second one. The justices who participated in the decision were appointed by El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele earlier this year. They determined that all Bukele must do in order to seek reelection in 2024 is to resign from his post five months before the vote, and said the constitutional text responds to antiquated needs from previous decades.

Opposition politicians protested the move, and experts said it was unconstitutional. The chargé d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in San Salvador, Jean Manes, said at a news conference that the U.S. government condemns the decision, and criticized what she said was a government strategy to undermine judicial independence. She compared Bukele to the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez, who used his popularity with voters to mask a systematic dismantling of democratic checks and balances.

Last week Bukele loyalists in the National Assembly passed a reform that forces judges and prosecutors to retire once they turn 60 or after completing 30 years of service, affecting one-third of all judges and dozens of prosecutors. (See last Thursday's briefs.)

(El Faro, Associated Press, Reuters, Los Angeles Times)

More El Salvador

• A Chinese company project to purchase an island off El Salvador's coast, which U.S. officials said was the object of a successful Chinese effort to bribe El Salvadoran politicians, is moving forward, reports NBC News. The project has some U.S. officials concerned that the planned construction of a deep-water port would give China a significant economic and strategic foothold in what has traditionally been the U.S. sphere of influence.

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Bolsonaro marches tomorrow

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has called for supporters to demonstrate tomorrow, on Brazil's Independence Day. Bolsonaristas will be out in full force, a move aimed at bolstering the president's dropping popularity ratings ahead of next year's presidential election. But the predicted massive rallies in Brasilia and Sao Paulo have also fanned fears that Brazil's democracy is under threat. There is increasing concern that Bolsonaro supporters -- many members of state military police forces, others armed civilians -- could clash with opponents. Others fear that the marches could emulate the January Capital riot in the U.S. More than 5,000 police officers will reportedly be deployed to protect Congress. And some are concerned that Bolsonaro might even be plotting a self-coup, by which the democratically elected president tries to seize dictatorial powers. (Guardian)

An open letter from an influential international group of former presidents, prime ministers and leading public figures on the left claims the rallies represent a danger to democracy and amount to an insurrection modelled on Donald Trump supporters’ attack on the US Capitol on 6 January, reports the Guardian.

Bolsonaro's anti-democratic discourse is of concern to opponents in Brazil.  Supreme Court Justice Ricardo Lewandowski recently wrote a newspaper article pointing out that any action against the constitutional order by armed groups, civilian or military, constitutes a crime, reports Bloomberg.

Last week, the chief justice of Brazil’s supreme court, Luiz Fux, said people should be aware of the “judicial consequences of their acts”, whatever their political leanings. “Freedom of expression does not entail violence and threats,” Fux warned.

"Whether Bolsonaro and his supporters will manage to topple Brazilian democracy and keep him in power remains to be seen, but September 7 is already shaping up to be a bold step in that direction," according to The Intercept.

More Brazil

• Brian Winter delves into the complexities of the U.S. Biden administration's diplomatic relations with Bolsonaro -- a balance between distance from the controversial president and keeping Brazil aligned against China. "While the Biden administration has so far refrained from directly criticizing Bolsonaro’s behavior, there may come a point where the parallels with the January 6 uprising in Washington become too obvious for US officials to stay silent," he writes in Piauí.
  
  
• Ahead of next year's presidential elections, Brazilian economy minister Paulo Guedes is running out of time for his proposed slew of reforms, reports the Economist.
  
  
• Brazil’s health regulator suspended the use of just over 12.1 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine manufactured by China’s Sinovac after learning that vials containing the shots were filled at an unauthorized production base, reports the Washington Post.
  

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Giammattei accused of accepting bribe

Guatemalan prosecutors are investigating allegations that Russian businessmen paid a bribe to President Alejandro Giammattei to obtain a dock in one of the country’s main ports. The inquiry arose out of information publicized in media reports, said a spokesman for the attorney general’s office.

Guatemala’s top anti-corruption prosecutor had begun to look into allegations by a witness who said he had personally delivered a rolled-up carpet filled with packages of cash to the president’s home. But just weeks after their inquiry began, the prosecutor, Juan Francisco Sandoval, was abruptly dismissed by the attorney general and fled to the United States with the evidence he had compiled, reports the New York Times. (See June 26's post.)

According to Sandoval, four Russian businessmen with mining interests in Guatemala sent the bribe in April, seeking space to establish a dock in the Caribbean port of Santo Tomas de Castilla. The Guatemala-based mining company linked to the men denied that any bribe had been paid. (Reuters)

On Friday the attorney general's office also confirmed an arrest warrant for Sandoval, who Attorney General Consuelo Porras said was under investigation for allegedly leaking confidential information, among other allegations. Upon leaving Guatemala in July, Sandoval accused Porras “leading a strategy to criminalize and persecute all the people who have contributed for years to strengthening justice and combating corruption and impunity,” and of meddling in the port bribery probe. (Associated Press)

"The arrest warrant against Sandoval is yet another sign that forces within Guatemala’s judiciary are doubling down on efforts to shut down anyone tackling high-level graft," reports InSight Crime.

News Briefs

Nicaragua

• Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega's thorough crackdown on opponents since May has detained 7 presidential candidates and dozens of political activists and civil society leaders, leaving the president "running on a ballot devoid of any credible challenger and turning Nicaragua into a police state," reports the New York Times. "The crackdown, which has extended to critics from any social realm, has spared no political dissidents, no matter their personal circumstances or historical ties to Mr. Ortega."
  
  
• Political detainees in Nicaragua are mistreated, reports Confidencial: they are in isolation cells, with insufficient food and access to outdoors, sleep with lights on, and are subjected to intense interrogation.

Covid-19

• Covid-19 infection rates have dropped dramatically in South America -- experts are not certain what is behind the decrease, though some say it is partially because of the speed of vaccinations (despite initial delays), reports the New York Times.

Argentina

• The Paraná is South America's second largest river. A heavily reduced water flow this year has left communities scrambling for freshwater, and upended delicate ecosystems in the vast area that straddles Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, reports the New York Times. Experts say deforestation in the Amazon, along with rain patterns altered by a warming planet, are helping fuel the drought.
  
  
• Successive political scandals in Argentina have spurred political apathy among voters, in addition to delegitimizing establishment politicians, argues Hugo Alconada Mon in New York Times Español.

Migration

• A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision reviving a controversial Trump administration policy that forces asylum seekers to await resolution of their cases in Mexico was quietly welcomed by some Biden administration officials overwhelmed by a surge in migrants arriving at the country's southern border, reports the New York Times. (See Aug. 25's post.)
  
  
• Colombian President Iván Duque's move to welcome as many as 4,000 Afghan refugees -- a temporary stay fully paid for by the United States -- is less as an act of solidarity than a bid to improve his image with the United States, reports the Washington Post.

Venezuela

• Venezuela's informal dollarization has boosted access to goods in the country's wrecked economy, and brought a fragile stability, writes Virginia López Glass in New York Times Español.

Futbol

• A World Cup qualification game between Brazil and Argentina was stopped by Brazilian health authorities yesterday a few minutes into play, in the midst of a dispute over coronavirus quarantine regulations. (New York Times, Washington Post)

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

Latin America Daily Briefing

Mexico violently blocks migrant march (Sept. 3, 2021)

Mexico's National Guard violently dispersed the third, and last, of a series of migrant caravans that marched towards Mexico City to protest the country's slow asylum system. Several people were wounded and an indeterminate number were detained in what turned into a manhunt through fields and buildings. (El País, Animal Político, Al Jazeera, El País, see last Friday's post)

Hundreds of migrants and asylum seekers from Central America and the Caribbean departed from Tapachula on Saturday, hoping to obtain expedited asylum proceedings. Under Mexican law, migrants must remain in the state where they sought asylum until their cases are resolved, a process that can take months or years.

Human rights organizations, and the U.N., condemned images of of abuse, including security agents kicking a Haitian migrant. "These painful images confirm the Mexican government’s turn into full-on immigration deterrence at the behest of the U.S. government," writes León Krauze in a Washington Post opinion piece. "Mexico’s National Guard seems intent on blocking asylum seekers from leaving Mexico’s poor south, even if it threatens the stability of the region or, worse, might produce a xenophobic and racist eruption."

Mexico is increasingly under migration pressure on both sides of the country, as thousands of migrants continue to cross its southern border, while the United States sends thousands more back from the north, notes the Associated Press. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he will send a letter to his U.S. counterpart, Joe Biden, to press for policies that attend to the root causes of "forced migration."

Central America and Mexico are facing “unprecedented pressure” as the number of people seeking international protection rises and access to asylum and territory is being limited through troubling new border restrictions, the UN Refugee Agency said yesterday. 

News Briefs

More Migration

• A U.S. federal judge ruled that the government's practice of denying migrants a chance to apply for asylum on the Mexican border until space opens up to process claims is unconstitutional, reports the Associated Press. (See Aug. 25's post, on a Supreme Court decision reinstating the Migrant Protection Protocols.)
  

Mexico

• Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has drastically revamped the country's welfare system by increasing spending and targeting more recipients. But development experts say the new programs overlook some of the country’s neediest families, reports the Wall Street Journal.

• Mexico’s poverty rate has also increased during his presidency to 43.9% last year, but cash stipends to poor families have helped AMLO maintain his popularity, reports the Washington Post.

• InSight Crime sat down with Robert J. Bunker and John P. Sullivan, founders of Small Wars Journal-El Centro to discuss how Mexico's criminal groups have adopted an increasingly militarized approach to their tactics, weaponry and training.

Regional

• Remittances to Latin American and Caribbean countries declined less than originally predicted during the Covid-19 pandemic because many migrants are in essential jobs and industries benefiting from U.S. income-protection measures, writes Gabriel Cabañas at the AULA blog.
  

Argentina

• Argentina is hosting a virtual regional climate summit next week, an unlikely move that many chalk up to U.S. climate diplomacy. "For Argentina, speaking up on climate carries the potential not only to build ties with the United States but also to deepen regional relationships and seek investment for green initiatives," writes Catherine Osborn in the Latin America Brief. Activists say the Argentine government's climate discourse hasn't had significant policy effects yet, and hope to leverage the summit and upcoming midterm elections into opportunities for more concrete action.

Nicaragua

• After months of isolation, Nicaragua's government permitted at least 20 political prisoners to receive a visit from relatives. (Confidencial)
  

Chile

• Chile's Constitutional Convention is hashing out bylaws to govern over the drafting of a new constitution, but there has been conflict in how to get there -- La Bot Constituyente delves into the particulars. The issue of citizen participation, which could include plebiscites on certain constitutional articles, will be determined by the full assembly. (See Chile 2021 update from Monday.)

Covid-19

• The Mu Covid-19 variant, first identified in Colombia, has the potential to evade immunity provided by vaccines and antibodies, according to the World Health Organization. (New York Times)

Cuba

• Cuba has deployed Chinese-made Covid-19 vaccines, in addition to the nationally developed jabs. While the Miami Herald reported the move could respond to inefficacy in Cuba-developed vaccines, Reuters reports that it is likely related to limited supplies of Cuban vaccines. Cuban officials have said that national production of vaccines has been made more difficult by U.S. sanctions. (See Wednesday's briefs.)

• "The Abdala vaccine received emergency use authorization from the Cuban regulatory authority on July 9. Abdala achieved 92 percent efficacy in Phase III clinical trials, while the Soberana vaccine achieved 91 percent and is also close to receiving emergency-use authorisation," writes BioCubaFarma officials in Al Jazeera. "At the current rate, the entire population could be vaccinated by October or November. Difficulties in the rollout, including imports of vital vaccine ingredients, are due primarily to the financial squeeze of US sanctions."
  

Brazil

•  Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro signed off on a law allowing for vaccine and medication patents to be broken in a public emergency, such as the Covid-19 pandemic, reports Reuters.
  
  

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

Latin America Daily Briefing

Bukele's judicial reform (Sept. 2, 2021)

News Briefs

El Salvador

• Judicial reform passed by El Salvador's National Assembly at lightning speed this week will force judges and prosecutors to retire once they turn 60 or after completing 30 years of service, affecting one-third of all judges and dozens of prosecutors, reports El Faro. (See yesterday's briefs.) The Supreme Court will now hold the power to name the new magistrates, a move which legal observers have called unconstitutional. The reforms also create an arbitrary process for reassigning judges, which judicial watch dogs fear will be used to silence judges at odds with the Bukele administration. 

• "These laws seem designed to ensure government control over a large number of lower-level judges and prosecutors," said Human Rights Watch Americas director José Miguel Vivanco.

• A group of young Salvadorans protested against the country's adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender and denounced political persecution against people critical of the government of President Nayib Bukele, reports EFE. (See yesterday's briefs.)

• This year's "Miss El Salvador" wants to use her beauty pageant platform to raise awareness about gender violence and has called for a law that permits abortions. (El Faro)

Venezuela

• Venezuelan negotiators for the Maduro government and the opposition will start meetings tomorrow, aimed at reaching an agreement to end the country's protracted political stalemate. Two recent key developments -- the freeing of opposition leader Freddy Guevara and the announced participation of the opposition in regional elections -- are cited as unofficial victories of the new talks, reports Reuters. (See yesterday's post.)

• President Nicolás Maduro's main goal for talks is to obtain relief from international sanctions that are crippling the country's economy. "Few ordinary Venezuelans expect the Mexico talks to achieve much. But the participants seem strangely confident that change is possible," according to the Economist.

• A Reuters article documents how armed Colombian groups are taking advantage of Venezuela's crisis and transforming border communities. "Rebels who once hid from Colombia's military in Venezuela's jungles have moved into population centers, ruling alongside Maduro's government in some places, supplanting it in others," reports Sarah Kinosian.

• China’s top oil producer is laying the groundwork to revive output in Venezuela as President Nicolas Maduro finalizes legislation to attract more international investment, reports Bloomberg.
  

Brazil

• Brazil's Supreme Court is hearing arguments this week in a landmark case on whether to recognize Indigenous rights to ancestral lands that were not occupied in 1988, when the country’s current constitution was ratified. Indigenous groups have carried out the largest-ever native protests ahead of the decision, and say limiting their claims to ancestral lands ignores the historic genocidal oppression against Indigenous communities that drove them off their territories. (Reuters, The Intercept)
  

Colombia

• Colombian protesters face violent government persecution, and need international support -- NACLA.

Migration

• Lack of educational opportunities in rural Guatemala forces children in local communities to choose between fieldwork or migration to the United States, reports El Faro. For others, even school availability doesn't deter migration, because education doesn't lead to future employment.

• El Santuario Frontera is "a bold new experiment in social housing," a live-work collective for homeless refugees in Mexico's Cañón de Alacrán just west of Tijuana, reports the New York Times.
  

Regional

• World Health Organization officials called on countries with a surplus of Covid-19 vaccines to speed up donations of doses to Latin American and Caribbean. (New York Times)

• Rising inflation, particularly food prices, in Latin America (see Tuesday's briefs)  "creates the potential for unexpected events to occur in places like Venezuela and Nicaragua," according to the Latin America Risk Report. " Electoral cheating is harder and requires greater repression when an angry population is hungry."

Haiti

• The investigation into Haitian President Jovenel Moïse's July assassination foundering, and Haiti's other crises threaten to drown out demands for justice in the case, reports the Associated Press.

• Haiti's devastating August earthquake will make the country's recession, already one of the world’s longest, much deeper, reports Bloomberg. 
  

Uruguay

• The BRICS New Development Bank admitted the United Arab Emirates, Uruguay and Bangladesh as members in its first expansion push. (Reuters)
  

Argentina

• The pandemic disproportionately affected female employment in Argentina (mirroring international trends) and recovery has been slower for women, according to a new report by Argentina's Ministry of Economy. The report points to care infrastructure as a key investment for a more equal economic recovery -- both in order to address female unemployment and the care economy crisis that has become more acute due to the pandemic. (Página 12)

• La Nación chronicles how a prolonged drought -- part of the same one affecting Brazil -- has dried out Argentina's Paraná wetlands.

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

Latin America Daily Briefing