Argentina
Argentine president-elect Javier Milei plans to call an extraordinary session of Congress immediately after he takes office on Dec. 10, and said he will send a large package of reforms to stabilize Argentina’s economy. (Bloomberg)
Milei has promised to shake-up the country’s foreign policy, but could find himself tempered by the need for political alliances and economic reality, writes James Bosworth in World Politics Review.
Already Milei has backtracked on harsh rhetoric against Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva — his foreign ministry pick, Diana Mondino, delivered a missive to Brazilian foreign minister Mauro Viera, inviting the Brazilian leader to Milei’s Dec. 10 inauguration. (Reuters, AFP)
Milei travelled to the U.S. yesterday, where he will meet with officials from the U.S. Treasury, the White House and the International Monetary Fund in Washington. He will also visit the grave of a Hassidic Jewish leader Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, where he will “thank Hashem for the position He has put [Milei] in,” according to his team. (Buenos Aires Herald)
Colombia
Colombian President Gustavo Petro is seeking political unity as a response to crushing gridlock, reports El País. Las week week, he met with former right-wing president Álvaro Uribe and a group of business leaders: “the first sign that we’re entering the era of Petro 3.0, a leader who, once again, is open to generating a new political consensus.”
Regional Relations
Canada is looking to restore ties with Venezuela’s Maduro government, reports Bloomberg.
China upgraded diplomatic ties with Uruguay last week as President Xi Jinping met his counterpart Luis Lacalle Pou in Beijing. Montevideo's desire to negotiate a commercial deal with China independently from the Mercosur has sparked conflict within the South America trade bloc in the past, reports AFP.
Brazil
The Washington Post chronicles the search for accountability after a Taylor Swift concert attendee died at a Rio de Janeiro show held in the midst of a record-breaking heat wave.
Rio de Janeiro officials inaugurated the renovated Cais de Valongo, a UNESCO World Heritage Site at the wharf where a million enslaved Africans disembarked in Brazil, report El País.
Mexico
Mountains of trash in Acapulco following the devastation of Hurricane Otis are a health hazard — many experts believe “the uncollected garbage is linked to stomach infections, diarrhea and skin rashes and other ailments that people have complained about since the storm,” report the New York Times.
Silvia Arce and Alberto Sánchez, two of three journalists recently kidnapped in southern Mexico were freed unharmed on Saturday, according to Artículo 19. (Reuters)
U.S. President Joe Biden welcomed the arrest in Mexico of Néstor Isidro Pérez Salas, known as “El Nini”, allegedly the notorious head of security – and assassination – for the Chapitos wing of the Sinaloa cartel, reports the Guardian.
The detention may have been highly personal for the Mexican army, reports the Associated Press: Salas had ordered a 2019 attack on an unguarded apartment complex where soldiers’ families lived, according to the Mexican defense secretary.
Regional
Latin America is the fastest-growing producer of oil palm — at huge environmental cost. Illegal oil palm crops are also used by drug traffickers in Honduras and Latin America, supporting laundering and transportation, reports the Guardian.
Migration
A growing number of Chinese migrants are arriving on the U.S. southern border — most follow a path through the region starting with Ecuador, and trekking through the Darien Gap with smugglers, reports the New York Times.
Immigrant advocates say three encampments on the U.S. side of the border in California constitute open-air detention centers, reports the Guardian.
Critter Corner
Mexican ecologists relaunched a fundraising campaign to bolster conservation efforts for axolotls, a native, endangered fish-like type of salamander, reports the Associated Press.