South America

BRASILIA, Dec 27 (NNN-PRENSA LATINA) — President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva called for tranquility and peace in Brazil, regarding the commotion caused by the arrest of a supporter of President Jair Bolsonaro accused of terrorism.    

“That is our commitment: to make the country smile again, to have peace of mind again,” says the founder of the Workers’ Party in a video shared and amplified by various platforms.

LIMA, Dec 27 (NNN-MERCOPRESS) — Six Peruvian generals have been arrested for their alleged involvement in a corruption ring involving former President Pedro Castillo Terrones, the country’s Attorney General’s Office announced Monday.

 The military officers are believed to have paid bribes in exchange for their promotion with Castillo’s knowledge and authorization.

After 26 raids carried out in different cities of the country, authorities are still looking for other high-ranking former or present police officers.

BRASILIA, Dec 22 (NNN-MERCOPRESS) — Brazil could become the world’s largest cotton exporter in 2023, because of an increase in the planted area helping it to surpass the United States, which could reduce sowing by 30% to make way for competing crops such as corn, soy, and wheat.

Brazilian cotton producers see the sector ready to move forward with next year’s crop, despite higher costs, in order to protect progress in Asian markets, particularly China.

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Peru’s Congress tentatively endorsed a plan on Tuesday to hold early elections in an attempt to defuse a national political crisis marked by deadly unrest after lawmakers ousted President Pedro Castillo.

The proposal, approved by 91 of the legislature’s 130 members, would push up to April 2024 elections for president and congress originally scheduled for 2026. The plan — which seeks to add one article to Peru’s constitution — must be ratified by another two-thirds majority in the next annual legislative session for it to be adopted.

BRASILIA, Dec. 19 (Xinhua) -- The Brazilian financial market cut its inflation forecast for 2022 from 5.79 percent to 5.76 percent and raised it for next year from 5.08 percent to 5.17 percent, the Central Bank of Brazil said Monday.

The country's official inflation target is set at 3.5 percent this year and 3.25 percent next year, with a margin of tolerance of 1.5 percentage points in both cases.

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Peru’s Congress is set Tuesday to consider holding early elections, beset by protesters who have blocked highways and clashed with security forces amid deadly nationwide unrest ever since the lawmakers ousted President Pedro Castillo.

It’s the second time in days that the lawmakers — easily the most reviled of a widely discredited political elite — are taking up the proposal to push forward to next year the elections for president and Congress originally planned for 2026.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Thousands of fans lined up in the middle of the night to try to get a glimpse of the Argentina soccer team that won one of the greatest World Cup finals of all time ahead what is scheduled to be a day of celebrations in Buenos Aires.

Members of the team, led by captain Lionel Messi, were all smiles as they descended from the plane in Ezeiza, right outside Argentina’s capital, shortly before 3 a.m. Tuesday onto a red carpet that had been rolled out for the squad.

LIMA, Dec 18 (Reuters) - Leopoldo Huamani, 60, a farmer from Chalhuanca in southern Peru, traveled for three days to reach the capital Lima and march in support of ousted and jailed leader Pedro Castillo, whose fall has sparked deadly protests around the country.

Huamani is one of Peru's "forgotten" people, marginalized, rural groups Castillo tried to represent - often falling short - whose anger has been fired up by his arrest, threatening to derail a fragile new government and a reviled Congress.

CARACAS, Dec 17 (NNN-PRENSA LATINA) — A new group of 259 people returned to Venezuela from Peru as part of the Return to the Homeland Plan, the People’s Foreign Affairs Ministry reported.    

The deputy minister for Latin America and the Caribbean, Rander Peña, welcomed the Venezuelans who arrived at the international airport of Maiquetía, La Guaira state, on behalf of President Nicolas Maduro and Foreign Minister Carlos Faria.

The group is composed of 67 children, 21 teenagers, 78 young people, 69 adults, and 11 senior citizens, according to the source.

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Peru’s caretaker president, Dina Boluarte, chastised lawmakers for not endorsing widespread calls for early elections as a way out of a deepening political crisis triggered when the ousted Pedro Castillo tried to shut down Congress.

In an early Saturday press conference, a defiant Boluarte pushed back against calls from some demonstrators that she resign, arguing that such a move wouldn’t resolve the urgent problems facing Peru’s countryside, such as the worst drought in a half-century, and only plunge the country deeper into chaos.