Friday News Highlights

01/22/10
Latin America and the Caribbean

BOLIVIA / ARGENTINA

  • Leaders from all over Latin America traveled to La Paz today for the inauguration of Bolivian President Evo Morales to his second term. Argentina's President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, however, was not able to travel to Bolivia due to domestic troubles, including worsening relations with Vice President Julio César Cleto Cobos. Last week, President Fernández said Vice President Cobos "wants to become President before 2011" and is part of a "conspiracy" to overthrow the government.
  • CHILE
  • Chile held its second round presidential elections over the weekend. Conservative businessman Sebastian Piñera of the center-right party Coalition for Change beat Eduardo Frei with 51.6% of the vote. Piñera's win led to many stories about the implications of the return of the right in Chile and the end of the 20-year rule of the Concertación party.
  • President-Elect Piñera promised that his government will "collaborate" with judicial investigations of past human rights abuses, and said he will seek to do away with the Pinochet-era provision that gives the armed forces 10 percent of the state copper company’s revenues.
  • COLOMBIA
  • Only four months remain until Colombia is scheduled to hold presidential elections, though it is still unclear whether President Álvaro Uribe will run for a third straight term. On the Center for International Policy's "Plan Colombia and Beyond" blog, Adam Isacson explains the tight timetable for the reelection referendum that would determine whether Uribe can run in May's election.
  • Colombia's Army found a cache of brand-new weapons in southeastern Córdoba department, which it believes to be part of an arms-for-cocaine barter arrangement between the FARC and "new" paramilitary groups in the region.
  • HAITI
  • Attempts to rescue Haitians stuck under the debris left behind by last week's earthquake continued throughout the week, while humanitarian relief organizations worked hard to deliver as much food, water and medical supplies to those in need. News stories centered around the difficulties experienced by these agencies in distributing the aid. With the opening of three additional air strips in Haiti and the Dominican Republic this week, aid is being delivered at a much faster pace and attention is turning to the long process of recovery and reconstruction.
  • The large U.S. military presence in Haiti (with 13,000 troops currently in Haiti and roughly 7,000 additional troops arriving over the weekend) has led to fears of a U.S. military occupation of Haiti by Presidents MEXICO
    • Another prison uprising in the northern Mexican state of Durango left at least 23 inmates dead. These uprisings have been exacerbate by overcrowded prisons combined with the "incendiary mix" of rival gang and drug cartel members.

      Mexican prisons have grown more crowded and dangerous as the government carries out a war against cartels, with more than 67,000 drug arrests in three years. The increased incarcerations have often created an incendiary mix by jamming members of rival gangs inside the same walls.

    • UNASUR
    • According to Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, who is also the president of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent him a letter in which she thanked him for UNASUR's invitation to begin a dialogue with the United States about security and defense and expressed "interest to begin working with this organization." President Correa said that the subject of U.S. military bases "obviously" should be on the agenda.
    • VENEZUELA
    • The Venezuelan government began expropriating Exito stores "after President Hugo Chávez said the French-Colombian owned retailer broke the law by raising prices." Reuters published a list of "Venezuela's state takeovers under Chávez."
    • ENTIRE REGION
    • Human Rights Watch released its World Report 2010, which "summarizes human rights conditions in more than 90 countries and territories worldwide."