(Even more here)

April 14, 2017

Brazil

• Brian Winter, “3 Winners and Losers From Brazil’s Latest Corruption Revelations” (Americas Quarterly, April 14, 2017).

Brazil has been waiting for Lula’s supposedly imminent imprisonment for more than a year now, to no avail. It seems increasingly possible that The Bearded One will at least make the runoff in 2018

• Paul Kiernan, Luciana Magalhaes, “Brazilian President Michel Temer Allegedly Linked to $40 Million Bribe” (The Wall Street Journal, April 14, 2017).

The statement, made in plea-bargain testimony released late Wednesday, is the most direct allegation linking Mr. Temer to a wide-ranging corruption scandal

Colombia

• John Otis, “In Colombia, Residents Push Back Against Gold Mining Plans” (All Things Considered, National Public Radio, April 14, 2017).

More mining conflicts are on the horizon. In the wake of the Cajamarca vote, several other Colombian towns plan to hold plebiscites on mining

Haiti

• Edith Lederer, “U.n. Unanimously Votes for Peacekeepers to Leave Haiti” (Associated Press, Time, April 14, 2017).

It creates a follow-on peacekeeping mission for an initial period of six months comprising 1,275 police who will continue training the national police force

Mexico

• David Agren, “Mexico’s Former Governors Are Being Busted for Bad Behavior. So Some Are Choosing to Hide.” (The Washington Post, April 14, 2017).

Critics blame the phenomenon of governors going rogue as an unexpected byproduct of Mexico’s democratic opening

• Ricardo Ravelo, “El Cartel del Pri” (SinEmbargo (Mexico), April 14, 2017).

Aunque la mayoría de los políticos en México siempre han tenido algún vínculo mafioso, lo cierto es que la nueva generación de priistas y no priistas ha resultado ser todo un cártel

• “Editorial: Jeff Sessions, Unleashed at the Border” (The New York Times, April 14, 2017).

Now he controls the machinery of federal law enforcement, and his gonzo-apocalypto vision of immigration suddenly has force and weight behind it

• Paul Bedard, “Tank, Sub Maker Tapped to Guard Us-Mexico Border” (The Washington Examiner, April 14, 2017).

General Dynamics has been approved to pepper the border with its 80-foot-high sensor and video system that directs the Border Patrol to illegal traffic detections

• Nigel Duara, “Mexican Authorities Arrest Suspect in Killing of a U.S. Border Patrol Agent” (The Los Angeles Times, April 14, 2017).

He had been named in an extradition order issued in December 2011, more than a year after the death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry

• Betsy Woodruff, “Fear of Trump Makes Migrants Disappear From Mexican Border” (The Daily Beast, April 14, 2017).

April, with its mild weather, should be the busiest time of year for migrants. The place is all but dead. Gilda and Paco have never seen anything like it

El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico

• Nick Schifrin, “On the Road in Mexico, Central American Migrants Face an Uncertain Future” (Newshour, PBS, April 14, 2017).

While more and more migrants are choosing to stay in Mexico, others still hope to make it to the United States. Special correspondent Nick Schifrin reports on the difficult and sometimes dangerous conditions

Venezuela

• Hannah Dreier, “5 Dead in Venezuela Protests as Movement Gains Steam” (Associated Press **, April 14, 2017).

More protests are planned for the coming days, leading up to an April 19 demonstration the opposition is billing as the mother of all marches

• Victor Drax, “The Tear Gas and the Glory” (Caracas Chronicles, April 14, 2017).

If you block your street, Diosdado will laugh as he stirs his scotch with his pinky. But if you march right to where he is, you challenge the infrastructure of power

• Coddy Weddle, Jim Wyss, “Anti-Government Protesters in Venezuela Keep Marching — Even During Holy Week” (The Miami Herald, April 14, 2017).

The opposition is more unified, their demands are more specific and they seem to have broad-based support