On June 16, the Trump administration announced that it would be throwing its own hat into the ring for the presidency of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the largest and most important development institution in the hemisphere. There is an unspoken rule that the presidency should go to a Latin
On July 13th, Suriname elected opposition leader Chan Santokhi as their new president in an uncontested election, ending the decades-long struggle under Dési Bouterse. Former President Bouterse had previously been in power almost as long as Suriname has been an independent country, beginning his political career while the Dutch still
On June 23, Colombian Attorney General Francisco Barbosa announced charges against seven soldiers for the gang rape of a 13-year-old indigenous girl. According to Lejandrina Pastor, an advisor to the Organización Nacional Indígena de Colombia (ONIC), the girl is a member of the Emberá people, an indigenous group highlighted by
On June 1, Uruguayan police arrested three individuals for the murder of three marines near the Fortaleza del Cerro, a military detachment in the capital of Montevideo. The main suspect, according to Subrayado, is 26-year-old Christopher Zubia, a Colombian national and former infantryman in the Uruguayan navy. According to Infobae,
On May 16th, interim governor of Puerto Rico, Wanda Vázquez, announced that her government would hold a non-binding referendum in November to decide whether the territory should become the 51st state in the United States. Should it be carried out – and there is serious doubt as to whether it can
According to the New York Times, Nicaragua – famous in recent months for its extremely lax coronavirus response – is now conducting “express burials” and rushed overnight funerals despite the fact that it alleges the lowest death toll in Central America. Pharmacies have allegedly already run out of medicines and
On 16 May, Mexican journalist Jorge Miguel Armenta Ávalos was shot dead outside of a restaurant in Cajeme, a town in the northern state of Sonora. Killed alongside him, according to Excélsior, were two police bodyguards appointed in response to frequent threats. Martín Mendoza, a crime reporter at El Tiempo
On May 6, medical personnel in the department of La Paz delivered the body of suspected gang member Luis Iván Mejía Bonilla to his family after he had allegedly died due to complications of COVID-19. Though the body came with strict instructions not to open the coffin, according to El
On May 4th, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro announced that his government had stopped an attempted amphibious invasion near the capital of Caracas. In total, with several dead, 13 of the conspirators were captured by Venezuelan security forces, two of which have been identified as U.S. citizens, Airan Berry and Luke
After three weeks away from the public eye, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has resurfaced. According to state media, he was spotted attending a celebration at a factory in the city of Sunchon on Friday. Before this, he had last been seen publicly on April 11, fuelling further rumours when
Since the beginning of major quarantine efforts in March, violent crime rates have largely decreased in some of the most tumultuous parts of El Salvador, Colombia, and Mexico, as well as many other countries in the Western Hemisphere. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele closed the country in mid-March and issued a
In a press conference on April 1, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte warned the public to comply with quarantine measures or face death at the hands of the police. In his official statement, he put his order simply in English: “Shoot them dead.” The televised address came as a response to
