Hunger and climate change in LAC
Jan. 29, 2025
Nearly 50 percent of Haiti’s population doesn’t have enough to eat, 5.8 million people, according to the most recent report from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. In terms of percentage population, Haiti is followed by Bolivia (23%), Honduras (20.4%) and Nicaragua (19.6%). About five million Venezuelans are going hungry in the country, 17.6% of the population. (Miami Herald)
Extreme weather events impacted 74% of the countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, according to the UN, with half of the countries analyzed considered likely to face increased malnourishment as a result. (Reuters)
Venezuela
Venezuela said it will hold regional and parliamentary elections in April — analysts say the move is calculated to grant Nicolás Maduro a measure of legitimacy. The case poses a challenge for opposition unity, political leader María Corina Machado called for a boycott, reports Bloomberg.
Venezuela’s Maduro government “distributed weapons to state workers and militias, potentially aiming to expand the country’s civilian army while exposing his waning influence over the colectivos, once the primary political-military force supporting his government,” reports InSight Crime.
Regional Relations and Migration
The U.S. focus on reducing migration from Venezuela would be better served by ousting Nicolás Maduro than cutting a deportation deal with him, argues opposition leader Edmundo González Urrutia in the Washington Post. Instead, he and his team have urged U.S. officials to send Venezuelan deportees to a third country.
The U.S. Trump administration has revoked an extension of deportation protections that former president Joe Biden had granted to more than 600,000 Venezuelans already in the United States, reports the New York Times.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio's trip to Central America, including Panama, is partially about countering China, a State Department spokesperson told Fox. (Reuters)
A CELAC meeting convened to discuss new U.S. deportation policies has been cancelled — torpedoed by Argentina, El Salvador, Ecuador, Costa Rica and Panama, reports La Política Online. (See yesterday’s post.)
Colombian authorities pushed back against U.S. President Donald Trump’s characterization of deportees to its country as “illegal criminals.” On Monday, Mr. Trump said of two planeloads of deportees that “every one of them is either a murderer, a drug lord, a kingpin of some kind, a head of the mob, or a gang member.” (New York Times)
But none of the more than 200 deportees received Tuesday had criminal records, according to Colombian officials, who said there were two pregnant women and more than 20 children. “They are not criminals,” Luis Gilberto Murillo, Colombia’s foreign minister, said in a video statement posted on X. “Being a migrant is not a crime.” (Washington Post)
The Brazilian government said it will create a reception center for deported migrants from the United States following controversy over conditions on a recent deportation flight, reports the Associated Press. (See yesterday’s post.)
Ecuador
Polls in Ecuador show President Daniel Noboa winning reelection on Feb. 9 by a significant margin and potentially with a large enough lead to win in the first round depending on how undecided voters and blank/null ballots break on election day, according to the Latin America Risk Report.
Noboa’s short tenure (he won unprecedented snap elections in 2023) means he can leverage anti-establishment sentiment against his main opponent, Luis González, the candidate for the party of former president Rafael Correa, but a security crisis and institutional disarray have “created a volatile environment ripe for surprises,” argues Sebastián Hurtado in Americas Quarterly.
“The Ecuadorian coastal province El Oro has emerged as a new hotspot for violence, as splintering criminal groups compete for control of the region’s lucrative criminal economies,” reports InSight Crime.
Argentina
Argentina’s government has promised to eliminate femicide from the country’s penal code, reports the Guardian.
Chile
Chile’s Senate passed a long-sought reform to raise pensions for current and future retirees, yesterday, following days of arduous talks in the Senate’s finance and labor committees, reports Bloomberg. The lower house will take up debate on the proposal today.
Chilean Indigenous activists link the disappearance of Mapuche elder and land defender Julia Chuñil to the state’s militarization of the region and its deep ties to rapacious forestry companies, reports Nacla.
Mexico
A legislative proposal in Mexico backed by the government would allow for public-private electricity generation projects, but only when the state holds a stake of at least 54%, reports Reuters.
Brazil
A citizenship scheme offered by Benin to descendants of enslaved persons taken from the continent has sparked huge interest in Brazil, reports the Guardian.
More Regional
A new UN Convention against Cybercrime is particularly relevant for countries in the Global South, since it presents unprecedented access to a network of international cooperation to combat cybercrime and a framework to update and create relevant laws, an area where the Latin America in general lags behind, argue Ander Laresgoiti and Sergio E. Delgado in Foreign Affairs Latinoamérica.