Colombian Senate Passes Labor Reform
June 18, 2025
Colombia’s Senate approved a labor reform that includes measures to enshrine an eight-hour daytime work day, increase weekend and holiday pay and require social security payments from delivery app drivers. Several of the measures respond to President Gustavo Petro’s legislative agenda — though Congress initially rejected his labor reform bill.
Petro had sought to put labor reform directly to voters in a referendum, though his executive decree to call a consultation has been challenged in court. The Senate decision could make the issue moot.
Petro said on social media that he will continue to push for the referendum until legislators from both chambers have voted on a final bill. The Senate and House of Representatives must now reconcile the differences in the bills each chamber drafted and then agree on a final version of the bill.
Currently, 56% of Colombian workers labor with no contracts, in what is known as the informal economy. Economists expect the reforms to push more people into informality, while supporters of the bill argue they are just pushing for the restoration of rights workers had in the early 1990s, before Colombia began to make labor laws more flexible.
(Reuters, Associated Press, La Silla Vacía)
Parallel Intelligence case in Brazil
Carlos Bolsonaro, son of Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro, and allies have been formally accused by Brazilian federal police after a probe into the alleged surveillance of authorities by the country’s spy agency (ABIN) during Bolsonaro’s mandate. (Globo)
The parallel structure in ABIN set up under the Bolsonaro government monitored at least three Supreme Court justices and a former Lower House speaker, according to Supreme Court documents.
Local media and a police source said earlier that the former president had also been formally accused in the case. Later, however, local media said he had not been accused. A second police source said he has not been formally accused because he is already a defendant for the same crime - being part of a criminal organization - in a separate case about an attempted coup, reports Reuters.
El Salvador
Bukele’s escalating crackdown on critics has accelerated an exodus of civil society: In recent weeks, dozens of academics, lawyers, researchers, human rights defenders and journalists have fled the country, reports the Washington Post.
Nayib Bukele’s presidency in El Salvador has been defined by his successful crackdown against MS-13. But ProPublica found that senior officials in Bukele’s government repeatedly impeded the work of a U.S. task force as it pursued evidence of that the president cut a secret deal with MS-13 in the early years of his mandate.
The Committee to Protect Journalists joined 16 other international organizations in a joint statement warning about the swift deterioration in press freedom in El Salvador, after at least 40 journalists have had to leave the country due to a sustained pattern of harassment, intimidation, and arbitrary restrictions on their work.
Regional Relations
The Bahamas government said it will cancel contracts with Cuban doctors — and contract directly with the professionals who are interested — after discussions with the U.S. government. The Bahamas faces a shortage of local healthcare professionals, reports Reuters.
Cuba defended its medical missions, and said the U.S. Trump administration seeks to discredit the decades-old program and putting pressure on other countries and financial institutions to break their ties with Cuba. More than 22,000 doctors are now working in more than 50 countries, providing much needed medical care, according to the government. (Associated Press)
The U.S. State Department revoked the travel visas of former Panamanian President Martin Torrijos and a former Panamanian presidential candidate, a move the politicians said was direct retaliation for speaking out against recent deals their country made with the Trump administration, including one allowing increased presence of U.S. troops in Panama. (New York Times)
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said she had a "very good" phone call with her U.S. counterpart Donald Trump, after their in-person meeting on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Canada was cancelled because Trump left early. (Reuters)
Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado called on Washington to take further action against Venezuelan leader President Nicolas Maduro, including enforcing sanctions and fighting criminal networks she says are connected to the government. (Reuters)
Haiti
Haitians were supposed to be voting this year — but an ongoing security crisis makes it unlikely that a new government will be chosen on time for the February, 2026 swearing in. Now, a year after the nine-member Presidential Transitional Council was created to shepherd the country out of a deep political crisis, one member is sounding the alarm over what he describes as the panel’s dysfunction, reports the Miami Herald.
“The fate of Haiti’s Presidential Transitional Council is a matter of ongoing debate both inside the country and outside. Many in the international community believe the council’s time is running out and acknowledge the transition’s failure in carrying out its fundamental missions: restoring security and welcoming the Kenya-led Multinational Security Support mission; staging a referendum on a new or revised Constitution; and holding elections to put a legitimate government in office by Feb. 7. 2026,” according to the Miami Herald.
Four years after Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated, not one suspect imprisoned in Haiti has faced trial after being charged in the killing, reports the Associated Press.
Deportations
Days after Trump administration officials denied plans to transfer undocumented migrants to the U.S. naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, before deporting them, a U.S. military plane flew 20 Haitians from the military installation to Port-au-Prince, reports the Miami Herald.
Argentina
An Argentine federal court granted former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s request to serve a six-year prison sentence for corruption at her home in Buenos Aires, reports the Associated Press.
The decision mooted supporter mobilization to accompany Kirchner as she surrendered to authorities, but the Peronist opposition to President Javier Milei’s government is instead demonstrating in Plaza de Mayo. (Infobae)
Kirchner’s lawyers said they are preparing to file legal presentations in international courts — Inter-American Commission for Human Rights (IACHR), as well as the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague and the United Nations’ Human Rights Committee — and will demand that her six-year prison sentence and lifelong ban to run for public office be annulled. (Buenos Aires Herald)
Milei’s advances against inflation are notable, but there are still no signs that purchasing power is recovering — indeed, it is eroding and household disposable income is falling — which could weaken the government’s inflation strategy as an electoral tool, reports the Buenos Aires Times.
The Associated Press reports on how Milei’s austerity “chainsaw” program has slashed Argentina’s health care budget by 48% in real terms — leaving patients reeling from the sudden loss of public healthcare, particularly HIV and oncological medications, and hospital funding cuts.
Milei has authorized civilians to purchase semi-automatic and assault-style weapons via decree, reversing a decades-long restriction in place since 1995 — Buenos Aires Times.