(Even more here)

December 19, 2017

Argentina

• Daniel Pardo, “Cacerolas, Paro Nacional y Protestas: La Violenta Jornada en Argentina por la Reforma a las Pensiones Impulsada por Mauricio Macri y Aprobada en el Congreso” (BBC (UK), December 19, 2017).

Hacia la mitad de la tarde, los enfrentamientos entre fuerzas de seguridad y manifestantes despejaron la protesta y convirtieron la Plaza del Congreso en un campo de batalla

Brazil

• Nicholas Zimmerman, “How Brazil Went From Neoliberal Success Story to Political Chaos in 10 Years” (New York, December 19, 2017).

Imagine if a single corruption investigation and its offshoots netted Donald Trump, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George H.W. Bush and you begin to get the picture

Chile

• Daniel Politi, Ernesto Londono, Pascale Bonnefoy, “Chile’s Election Consolidates Latin America’s Rightward Shift” (The New York Times, December 19, 2017).

“Chile is saved!” Mr. Piñera supporters chanted on the streets of Santiago, the capital, on Sunday night, where one man savored the moment by holding up a bust of the dictator Augusto Pinochet

Colombia

• Parker Asmann, “Colombia Sends Mixed Messages on 2018 Coca Eradication Goal” (InsightCrime, December 19, 2017).

Colombian military sources told InSight Crime that the forced eradication figures from this year may have been inflated to make the efforts seem more successful than they actually were

• “Procuraduria Pidio Investigar al Ministro de Defensa” (El Tiempo (Colombia), December 19, 2017).

Además de la petición del Ministerio Público, organizaciones sociales que se reunieron ayer en el Ministerio del Interior también pidieron a los entes de control solicitar a Villegas que presente las pruebas

El Salvador

• “El Salvador’s Politics of Perpetual Violence” (International Crisis Group, December 19, 2017).

The deadlock between a tarnished set of security policies and a gang phenomenon that thrives on the ostracism and contempt of mainstream Salvadoran society can only now be resolved by recasting the way the country treats its security dilemmas

Honduras

• Silvio Carrillo, “America’s Blind Eye to Honduras’s Tyrant” (The New York Times, December 19, 2017).

The story here isn’t the machinations President Hernández and his henchmen have used in this election. It’s the acceptance of those machinations by the State Department and the American Embassy

• Mitchell A. Seligson, Orlando J. Perez, “Hondurans Are in the Streets Because They Don’t Believe Their Election Results” (The Washington Post, December 19, 2017).

Orlando J. Pérez and Mitchell A. Seligson

• Jonathan Blitzer, “In Honduras, Calls Rise for New Presidential Elections” (The New Yorker, December 19, 2017).

Washington is caught in a characteristic tangle

• Ana Quintana, “The U.S. Must Resolve Honduras’s Political Crisis and Support Overdue Electoral Reform” (The Heritage Foundation, December 19, 2017).

The U.S. and OAS must quickly come together and act as the arbiters for this political standoff. There are few options that will be palatable to both sides, the most likely of which will be either a full recount or even a reelection

Mexico

• Viridiana Rios, “Are Mexicans Imagining Their Corruption Problem?” (Americas Quarterly, December 19, 2017).

On Dec. 14 the Chamber of Deputies voted to make it illegal for citizens to publish corruption accusations online if the allegations could damage the target’s credibility – even if those allegations turn out to be true

• Paulina Villegas, “Mexican Women Brutalized by Police Hope Day of Reckoning Is Near” (The New York Times, December 19, 2017).

A decade-long struggle by 11 women who were sexually attacked and tortured by officers in San Salvador Atenco has cast a shadow over Mexico’s president

• Marina Franco, “Mexico Es el Segundo Pais Mas Mortifero del Mundo para Ejercer Periodismo” (The New York Times, December 19, 2017).

Treinta y nueve periodistas fueron víctimas de homicidio, este año en todo el mundo, por hacer su labor, según un informe de Reporteros Sin Fronteras; casi un tercio de ellos –once reporteros– fueron asesinados en México

• Lev Garcia Flores, “Mexican Journalist Shot Dead at Primary School Holiday Party” (Associated Press **, December 19, 2017).

Perez, 34, covered crime for a number of local outlets, had founded the online news site La Voz del Sur and also worked for the local government in some capacity