The former president of Brazil from 2019 to 2023, Jair Messias Bolsonaro, is expected to stand trial before the Brazilian Supreme Court following a unanimous ruling of the justices. Bolsonaro, along with several other accused associates, is connected to the actions that led to the damaging January 8th attacks in 2023, following the 2022 Brazilian elections.
Read MoreEcuador, which is sandwiched between the two top cocaine producers in the world, Colombia and Peru, has seen illicit economies and drug related violence grow since 2018, with homicide rates spiking in 2021. By 2023, Ecuador recorded the highest homicide rates in the Western Hemisphere at about 45 homicides per every 100,000 citizens. In January 2024, the state television network TC Television was assaulted by 13 armed men belonging to the Los Tiguerones drug gang, reports Ecuadorian news outlet Primicias.
Read MoreFires raging in Brazil in 2024 destroyed an area larger than that of Italy, with more than 44 million acres burned, according to the Rainforest Foundation. Brazil had a season of wildfires that will go down as one of the worst ever recorded, with a jarring 62,000 individual fires.
Read MoreThe governments of Argentina and Colombia have found themselves working to restore a friendly relationship in the wake of a dispute that started in late March of this year. According to a March 31 joint statement from both countries, “The respective governments have taken concrete steps to overcome any differences and strengthen this relationship.”
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On September 2, the presidents of both Colombia and Venezuela announced that the closure of their countries’ borders for cargo traffic will end on September 26, and flights between their capitals will also resume, reports the Associated Press. On August 29, the presidents of Colombia and Venezuela officially re-established diplomatic ties, three years after ties had been severed.
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Throughout the twenty-first century, there has been a rapid increase in Central American emigration, especially from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, known together as the “Northern Triangle.” The Migration Policy Institute found that in 2019, out of all the Central American immigrants in the United States, 37.3 percent (1,412,000 people) were from El Salvador, 29.4 percent (1,111,000 people) were from Guatemala, and 19.7 percent (746,000 people) were from Honduras.
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On April 22, an Ecuadorian high court requested the extradition of former leftist President Rafael Correa from his current residence in Belgium. Correa, who has lived in Belgium since the end of his presidency in 2017, was sentenced in absentia to eight years in prison for the alleged acceptance of bribes to finance his political endeavors between 2012 and 2016 in exchange for state contracts worth around $7 million.
Read MoreOn March 15, Guatemala’s Congress reversed the decision to pass the controversial “Protection of Life and Family” law (Law 5272), which aimed to strengthen penalties for abortion, prohibit same-sex marriage, and ban discussions of sexual diversity in schools, according to The Washington Post. The decision to indefinitely table the bill came just a week after it first passed with an overwhelming majority of 101-8, with 51 legislators absent.
Read MoreA Honduran judge authorized the extradition of ex-president Juan Orlando Hernandez, a month after police arrested him at his house per the request of the United States government, reports The Washington Post. The Associated Press notes that allegations against Hernandez were revealed in the trials of both Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernandez, a former Honduran congressman, and the president’s brother, and Geovanny Fuentes Ramirez. Hernandez will face charges of manufacturing, trafficking, and distribution of drugs and firearms in southern New York.
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Brazil has suffered from numerous devasting mudslides and flash flooding this month, as the death toll rises to 217. Climate experts and meteorologists believe that the source of this influx of flash flooding and landslides has to do with the rapid urbanization in the Rio De Janeiro state, especially areas like the city of Petrópolis, where summer rains are not usually severe, as Al Jazeera reports.
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