Issue Apr 03-09 2024: In the evening of April 5, 2024, the Ecuadorian Policía Nacional stormed the Mexican Embassy in Quito and arrested former Ecuadorian Vice President Jorge Glas. Fleeing detention on corruption charges that many outside observers interpret as political persecution, Glas had been granted asylum in the embassy. Ecuador’s action outraged the international

Mar 27-Apr 02 2024: In late March 2024, President Dina Boluarte of Peru struggled once again to survive in office after being caught up in a controversy dubbed “Rolexgate” by the media. An investigation began after reporters noticed Boluarte’s Rolexes. The 61-year-old Boluarte was a lawyer and a middle-income civil servant before she was sworn

Issue Mar 20-26 2024: In mid-March 2024, hundreds of Cubans took to the streets to protest blackouts and shortages. The demonstrations took place in Santiago, the country’s second city, as well as other towns, at the end of a weekend with power outages that lasted more than 12 hours. The government pushed back, blaming “enemies

Issue Mar 13-19 2024: After banning the wildly popular opposition presidential candidate María Corina Machado, the Maduro Regime in Venezuela went after top members of her political team. The move was widely criticized around the region and around the world. Yet, in a surprise move, Machado and her political alliance, the Plataforma Unitaria Democrática (PUD),

Issue Mar 06-12 2024: On March 6, 2024, protesters demanding justice for the 43 “normalistas” from La Escuela Normal Rural Raúl Isidro Burgos in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, who disappeared in 2014, forced open one of the access doors to the Mexican presidential palace while President Andrés Manuel López Obrador held his daily press conference. The next

Issue Feb 28-Mar 05 2024: On March 1, 2024, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) held its eighth presidential summit in the Caribbean archipelago of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. The event was marked by the high-profile participation of some, but not all, left-wing leaders and the complete absence of right-leaning ones.

Issue Feb 21-27 2024: On February 25, 2024, former President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil held a rally in São Paulo at which he defended himself against accusations of plotting a coup. He gathered around 200,000 supporters from all over Brazil and called on his political allies to vote through an “amnesty” for him and others.

Issue Feb 14-20 2024: Despite recent agreements with the United States and many of its neighbors in the region to move toward free and fair elections, in February 2024, the Maduro regime in Venezuela carried out a wave of repression and arrests. The Venezuelan government’s efforts to suppress dissent and political challenges in the runup

Argentine President Javier Milei’s La Libertad Avanza party (LLA) experienced a painful smackdown in Congress with the collapse of its ambitious “Omnibus Law.” As it faced certain turbulence and casualties in item-by-item voting, LLA congressional leader Óscar Zago sent it back for further negotiation in the various committees of the Cámara de Diputados, resetting the

Issue Jan 31-Feb 06 2024: On February 4, 2024, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele went on social media and declared himself reelected “with more than 85% of the votes” even before the official election results were released. Bukele, at 42 years of age, was the first head of state to run for re-election since the