Failed States, Ghost Economies & the Resilience Hustle, El Cafecito del 3/07
When development stalls and governance falters, hustle becomes survival — Latin America, sin filtro.
Welcome to El Cafecito, your weekly brew of Latin America, served strong and sin filtro.
This week, we open with a burning image from Port-au-Prince: a car torched, a neighbourhood in flight — Haiti’s descent into collapse mirrored in headlines across the hemisphere (see our 📍country round-up section). From record-low human development to gang bunkers and narco-subs, the region is under pressure like never before.
The new UNDP report warns that Latin America has hit a 35-year low in human development. But beneath the grim stats lies something deeper: a fight for resilience. We cover the comeback playbook, the global cocaine boom (with Colombia at its heart), Mercosur’s geopolitical flex, and Trump’s border budget.
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👌 Let’s dive in.
🌎 Latin America Human Development Hits 35-Year Low—Cue the Resilience Playbook
The new UNDP Regional Human Development Report 2025, titled “Under Pressure: Recalibrating the Future of Development in Latin America and the Caribbean,” rings alarm bells across the region:
Human Development Index growth has slowed dramatically. After averaging 0.7% per year between 1990–2015, it fell to 0.3% in the five years before the pandemic, and only 0.2% since—a 35-year low
The pandemic dip was historic. For the first time ever, the region recorded an outright decline in HDI, and recovery has been weak
A third of people in the region are in a “vulnerability grey zone”, just above the poverty line but with little resilience to shocks
Uncertainty has doubled since 1990, and is now 50% above the global average—risks are intensifying across health, climate, and economic realms.
This isn't just bad news—it’s a wake-up call. UNDP issues a clear demand: resilience must be woven into everything, from social protection and digital infrastructure to education, climate adaptation, and AI governance.
Absent that, every crisis threatens to reverse decades of progress. But with smart planning, the report argues, resilience could be the region's strongest comeback story.
💊 Colombia Is the Epicentre of the Global Cocaine Boom — Again
The 2025 World Drug Report has landed — and it's a wake-up call. Cocaine is no longer a boutique drug for wealthy elites or a problem confined to Colombia’s jungles. It’s now a global, decentralised, industrialised commodity, fuelling violence, corruption, and addiction across four continents. And Colombia, once again, sits at the heart of the supply chain.
67% of global coca cultivation now takes place in Colombia, concentrated in 253,000 hectares — a record high. The country also saw the fastest growth in production globally, with a 50% increase in cocaine output in 2023, far outpacing the 34% global rise.
But here’s what’s new:
Trafficking routes are diversifying. Traditional paths through Central America and the Caribbean remain active, but European, African, and even Asian routes are expanding — especially via maritime corridors.
Production is more fragmented and mobile. Small labs are proliferating, making it harder to target production centres through aerial eradication or interdiction.
Purity is rising, even as prices remain steady or drop, making the drug more addictive — and more profitable.
Consumer markets are shifting. Cocaine use is increasing in Africa, Southeast Asia, and even small-town Europe. France is a prime example, with rural areas seeing a rise in gang-linked violence tied to narco distribution.
The report suggests that enforcement is lagging far behind innovation, as cartels experiment with logistics, finance, and synthetic blends — all while expanding into legal economies through front businesses and crypto laundering.
So while Colombia continues to bear the brunt of production, the problem is no longer regional. It’s global, networked, and digitally enabled — and neither war-on-drugs nor peace talks are adapting fast enough.
Even France’s sleepy small towns are now grappling with drug-fuelled violence, as cocaine markets decentralise and cartels expand into new frontiers. From the Andes to the Atlantic, cocaine has never moved faster — or in more directions.
🌎 Geopolitics & Power Plays: Trade Deals, China’s Ports, and the Corruption Trap
Mercosur just pulled off a quiet geopolitical flex. While Trump lobs tariffs and Washington blusters about hemispheric loyalty, Latin America’s biggest trading bloc sealed a free trade deal with four European nations from the EFTA bloc (Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein). It’s Mercosur’s first major trade breakthrough in years — and a signal that the region isn’t waiting around for Washington.
The deal, finalised during a summit in Asunción, includes cooperation on investments, services, sustainability, and digital trade, and comes after years of stalemate over Mercosur-EU negotiations. As El País notes, it’s also symbolic: Latin America is seeking commercial “counterweights” as global trade fractures under U.S.-China rivalry.
👉 Mercosur seals deal with EFTA nations amid Trump’s trade war – El País
👉 Deal includes sustainability and investment clauses – El Tiempo
But trade isn’t the only game in town
New analysis from CSIS reveals how China is expanding its port presence across Latin America, quietly building the infrastructure for global dominance through economic soft power. From Brazil to Peru, Beijing’s long-term bet on port control is reshaping hemispheric logistics.
Meanwhile, the region’s political mood continues to shift right — not just in elections, but in narratives. In a sharp analysis for Americas Quarterly, Michael Reid charts how populist strongmen are outlasting centrist reformers, especially where violence and economic malaise undermine liberal governance. Right-wing parties may not be beloved — but they’re winning.
But fighting corruption doesn’t always win hearts. A brilliant piece in Latinoamérica21 unpacks the “unpopularity paradox” — where leaders who actually combat corruption often face political backlash, while those who cover it up get away with it. Transparency, it seems, doesn’t always translate to approval.
And what about regional unity? A second Latinoamérica21 article argues that Colombia has a window to lead Latin American integration, but internal instability and diplomatic inconsistencies are undercutting its potential.
Lastly, a quiet bombshell reported by NBC News: research published in the medical journal The Lancet shows that cuts to U.S. foreign aid — particularly via USAID — may have contributed to 14 million deaths globally over five years. The implications for Latin America’s health systems, which rely heavily on international support, are massive.
🌱 Development & Environment: Pride, Infrastructure and the Climate Toll
🏳️🌈 Pride in Colour—and Conflict
Latin America exploded in rainbow this past Pride Month. Buenos Aires hosted spectacular multicoloured parades, celebrating progress while pushing for more rights across the region.
Argentina: exuberant street celebrations reflected both joy and unaddressed issues.
👉 Pride parades light up Latin America – El País ArgentinaYet alongside the celebration lurks deep pain. LGBTI rights activists report an alarming rise in violent backlash and legal setbacks.
👉 Violence shadows LGBTQ+ progress – EFEColombia recorded 175 murders of LGBTQ+ individuals in 2024, the highest among ten surveyed Hispanic countries—highlighting that parade floats can’t outrun bullets.
👉 Colombia’s LGBTQ+ murder rate highest in region – El País Colombia
🏗️ Infrastructure, Integration & Inclusive Investment
The Elcano Institute explores what a unified EU–Latin America economic bloc might look like—from trade harmony to digital alignment.
👉 Blueprint for an EU‑LatAm economic area – Real Instituto ElcanoBehind the scenes, Latin America and the Caribbean are courting Middle Eastern investment, forging new alliances to fund health, climate, and development initiatives.
👉 LatAm partners with Arab bloc on investment – El País América FuturaIn Mexico City’s periphery, large-scale projects are launching—new hospitals, schools, transport, housing and water services—aimed at lifting mega-urban poverty out of misery.
👉 Mexico targets urban poverty with mega‑projects – El País MéxicoEarlier this week, Trump signalled a “digital door” for Latin America’s tech sector, echoing Mexico’s ambitions to become a digital hub.
👉 Trump clears path for digital economy in Latin America – El País US
🌡️ Climate Crossing the Tipping Point
The Amazon is closer to collapse than we thought. A Guardian interactive, featuring Brazilian scientist Carlos Nobre, highlights evaporation feedback loops and warns that irreversible forest collapse could be much nearer.
👉 Is the Amazon nearing its tipping point? – The GuardianBrazil’s own Amazon fires are surging again—drier conditions, hotter temperatures, and lagging government response are fuelling new blazes.
👉 Amazon fires erupt amid climate crisis – EFEIn Colombia, debate grows louder: “If we don’t invest together, there’s no future to finance.” Environmental and infrastructure resilience now go hand in hand.
👉 Invest or collapse: Colombia’s climate warning – El País ColombiaA new El País guidebook urges a “Latin American compass for development in crisis,” merging social, economic and climate imperatives.
👉 A compass for crisis-era development – El País América FuturaAnd as climate shocks threaten small island states, Venezuela and Haiti are named as the hardest hit in the region—extremely vulnerable and resource-poor.
👉 Venezuela & Haiti among region’s most climate-vulnerable – El País América Futura
✈️ Migration, Repression & Strongman Solidarity
Cross-border repression is no longer a dystopian warning — it's unfolding now.
In Costa Rica, Nicaraguan exiles are being harassed, surveilled, and even detained, as Daniel Ortega’s regime allegedly extends its grip beyond Nicaragua’s borders. A New York Times investigation reveals that the Ortega government has infiltrated migrant communities in San José, with Costa Rican complicity raising serious alarms. For a country long hailed as a human rights haven, it’s a troubling turn.
💵 Trump’s New Budget: A Massive Bet on ICE
Under the new “One Big Beautiful Bill,” ICE is getting a US$45 billion boost—a sixfold increase in funding. More agents, more detention beds, more deportations: it’s a full-throttle investment in punitive border control. The bill also includes a 5% remittance tax on money sent to Guatemala, El Salvador, Haiti, and the Philippines, plus sweeping cuts to social safety nets—Medicaid, clean energy, food assistance—while expanding military and border spending.
It’s not just a budget: it’s a blueprint for Trump’s hard-line immigration vision, all underpinned by ordinary Americans paying the price.
The result? Mass ICE raids and terrified communities. AP reports that immigration sweeps across Los Angeles and Texas have led to family separations and detentions with minimal oversight. Rights groups say raids are being conducted at schools, workplaces, and even churches — part of a broader shift toward enforcement-first policy.
And Mexico is feeling the blowback — in its wallet. In May, remittances to Mexico dropped by 4.6%, their sharpest decline in four years. The dip coincides with Trump’s threats to tax cross-border money transfers, which many Mexican households rely on to survive. With migration criminalised and remittances politicised, Mexico’s economic safety valve is now under pressure.
🧨 Organised Crime: Bunkers, Submarines, and the Golden Underworld
🇪🇨 In Ecuador, the Fito saga keeps getting darker — and deeper.
New video footage reveals that alias Fito, Ecuador’s recently recaptured narco boss, had built a full-blown underground bunker beneath his hideout. With tunnels, escape routes, and armed protection, it wasn’t just a hideout — it was a narco panic room. His arrest may not have ended his story — only its latest chapter.
🇨🇴 And under the Pacific, narco subs are getting smarter.
Colombia’s navy just intercepted a remotely piloted narco-submarine, equipped with tech designed to avoid radar detection. These “ghost boats” are now ferrying tons of cocaine along hard-to-track maritime routes — part of a broader trend of innovation in transnational trafficking.
🇲🇽 In Mexico, the battle over fuel theft is raging again.
El País reports that huachicoleo — the illegal siphoning of fuel from pipelines — is back with a vengeance, draining Pemex and spreading violence across key regions. Despite AMLO’s promises and militarisation, it’s now one of Mexico’s largest criminal economies — second only to drugs.
But the most glittering crime story? Gold.
As prices soar, illegal gold mining has become Latin America’s new cocaine — fuelling deforestation, mafia consolidation, and international smuggling rings. A compelling Economist feature exposes how “dirty gold” is now one of the region’s most lucrative underworld trades, often involving the same cartels that once trafficked drugs.
🇺🇸 US Declares All-Out Offensive on Fentanyl Cartels —freezing bank accounts and vetoing visas not only for kingpins but also for their families, associates, and financiers. Activated via the new FEND Off Fentanyl authorities, the Treasury’s FinCEN and State Department are targeting anyone in even peripheral contact with cartel networks—sending a clear message across borders: no immunity, no exceptions.
🎭 Culture & Identity: Postcards, Pop Icons, and Colonial Ghosts
🇨🇴 Cartagena Rewrites the Postcard
Long known for its postcard-perfect walls and tourist gloss, Cartagena is reclaiming its soul. A National Geographic feature dives into the city’s transformation beyond colonial facades and cruise-ship clichés. From Afro-Colombian chefs reshaping local cuisine to street art collectives rewriting public memory, Cartagena’s real revolution is cultural — and it’s bold, loud, and defiantly local.
🇫🇷 Forgotten Colonies, Remembered
A sharp piece in
uncovers the overlooked histories of France’s remaining colonies in the Americas — from Guadeloupe to French Guiana. While the Caribbean proudly celebrates its independence heroes, these “départements” remain stuck in a limbo between autonomy and dependency. It's a haunting reminder that colonial legacies aren’t relics—they’re still policy.🇨🇷 Costa Rica’s Sustainable Cool
Forbes reports that Costa Rica is quietly reinventing sustainable tourism — not just through jungle lodges and carbon offsets, but by embedding eco-ethics into community-led experiences. Now, younger travellers are flocking to Central America not just for nature, but for climate-conscious exploration that walks the talk.
🎤 Karol G and the Bilingual Dream
Colombian superstar Karol G sang in English on Jimmy Fallon this week — sparking a media frenzy and a bigger question: what’s next for Latin music in the U.S.? With Bad Bunny headlining Coachella, Peso Pluma climbing charts, and now Karol G flipping codes on late-night TV, Latin music’s takeover isn’t coming — it’s here. The only debate is whether U.S. audiences are ready to dance without translation.
This concludes our round up the week’s stories shaping the hemisphere. Now onto our 📍Country Round up.
📍Country Round up
🇦🇷 Argentina: Prison Politics, Police Reform, and Dollar Drain
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s legal saga keeps rippling outward. A Latinoamérica21 analysis explores the political fallout of her prison sentence, with Peronism now split between martyrdom and reinvention. Meanwhile, El País paints a grittier picture — Cristina is effectively “imprisoned” in her own upscale Buenos Aires neighbourhood, where narcos and sex work now coexist with French architecture and faded grandeur. It’s symbolic of a country in limbo — torn between privilege, decay, and political theatre.
👉 The political reverberations of Cristina’s conviction – Latinoamérica21
👉 Constitución, Cristina’s cage: drugs, decay and privilege – El País
Security is shifting too. A new police reform in Buenos Aires Province has sparked concern from experts at InSight Crime. Critics warn that dismantling central intelligence units without viable local replacements could leave serious intelligence gaps — especially in a country where organised crime is becoming more agile and global.
And then there’s the tourism paradox: between January and May, 4.3 million more people left Argentina than entered. It’s not just a vacation story — it’s about capital flight, middle-class anxiety, and the dollarisation of leisure. Tourism outflows have become an economic pressure valve, and one more symptom of a population trying to escape stagnation, if only for a long weekend.
Bolivia 🇧🇴
🔕 No stories this week
🇧🇷 Brazil: Political Drift, Economic Pressure, and a Land Worth Fighting For
Brazil’s economy is stubbornly resilient — but under serious strain. While GDP is growing and inflation remains relatively tame, an Americas Quarterly analysis shows deep divergence beneath the surface: agribusiness is booming, but industry is lagging, and public investments in infrastructure and education remain tepid. It’s a balancing act on a fraying tightrope.
That hasn’t helped Lula’s standing. A sharp Economist cover story suggests that Lula’s third act is running out of steam. Abroad, his geopolitical charisma is fading; at home, voters are growing weary of a leader who seems more focused on the global stage than in lowering their grocery bill.
Meanwhile, the climate frontier is heating up — and not just literally. In the Amazon, Indigenous communities are fighting deforestation with maps: a new wave of “counter-cartographies” that document ancestral lands, resource extraction, and illegal encroachment. It’s data as resistance.
But the minerals beneath the soil are calling. A powerful investigation by The Guardian exposes the quiet expansion of transition mining, with rare earth metals, asbestos, and other controversial extractives now being pursued in sensitive areas. Brazil is caught between its green ambitions and its resource hunger.
And what of industry? China’s BYD has just opened a massive electric vehicle factory in Bahia — a big win for Lula’s re-industrialisation dream. But Folha de São Paulo reports that, for now, “only the air in the tires is Brazilian.” It’s more branding than manufacturing — and raises hard questions about the future of national production in the global EV boom.
🇨🇱 Chile: A New Left Rises, Crime Soars, and the Past Resurfaces
The Chilean left is in transition — and the presidential race is now front and centre. Jeannette Jara, a Communist Party figure and former labour minister, has surged to prominence as the presidential candidate of the left. Her platform? Ambitious social reforms, stronger labour protections, and tax hikes on the wealthy. Critics cry “radical,” but supporters see a serious contender with street credibility and cabinet chops.
But Jara isn’t the only woman on the rise. Carolina Tohá, a seasoned political scientist and former interior minister, is angling to be the heir to Chile’s “democratic socialism.” She represents a more centrist, technocratic brand of progressivism — one that seeks continuity with the post-Pinochet transition rather than a clean ideological break.
But voters are also concerned about crime — which cost Chile US$8 billion in 2024, according to a new report. That’s nearly 3% of GDP. Rising insecurity is reshaping public opinion — and could become the real kingmaker issue.
Meanwhile, Congress just passed a law to streamline deportations of undocumented migrants — part of a broader tightening of migration policy that mirrors regional trends.
And in a poignant postscript to Chile’s past, The Guardian revisits the mysterious case of Michael Woodward, a British priest and leftist activist tortured and killed during Pinochet’s dictatorship. His remains may finally be found — offering a small sliver of justice, five decades late.
🇨🇴 Colombia: Conspiracies, Cartels, and the Fight for Peace
This week, Colombia is reading like a political thriller — complete with leaked audios, U.S. conspiracies, and whispered coups.
Former foreign minister Álvaro Leyva is at the heart of a storm after secret recordings revealed discussions with Trump allies and U.S. conservatives about ousting President Gustavo Petro. The tapes, now under investigation by Colombia’s Fiscalía, suggest an alarming effort to delegitimise the government — and they’ve unified Colombia’s usually fractured political class in rare defence of democratic order.
But the scandal isn’t just about Leyva. President Petro himself is under pressure — facing accusations of opacity, erratic diplomacy, and alleged ties to Ecuadorian narco boss “Fito” (which both Petro and the Cancillería have denied). His recent secretive visit to Manta, Ecuador, just before Fito’s capture, raised eyebrows and speculation.
Meanwhile, Petro’s “Total Peace” policy is hanging in the balance. Bogotá has just suspended the extradition of a senior ELN leader to the U.S. — a bold move aimed at preserving fragile negotiation progress. The UN has called for balance: eradication of coca crops alone isn’t working, and substitution alone isn’t enough.
But on the ground, violence continues. A mass grave containing the bodies of eight religious leaders was found in Guaviare — another chilling reminder that Colombia’s armed conflict is far from over.
Elsewhere, magic mushrooms are going mainstream. A growing market for psilocybin-laced chocolates is taking off in Colombia, sparking debate over whether the country could become a pioneer in psychedelic therapeutics — or just facing a new frontier in its war on drugs.
And in the background, Petro’s approval slides, as The Economist describes a desperate president caught between reformist ambition and collapsing trust.
🇨🇷 Costa Rica: DEA Arrest, Drug Spillover, and a Nation on Edge
Costa Rica’s squeaky-clean image took a major hit with the arrest of former security minister Gustavo Mata, who is wanted by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) on charges of collaborating with drug traffickers and obstructing justice. Mata, who led the ministry from 2015 to 2018, was once seen as a bulwark against organised crime — now, he's at the centre of a growing scandal that’s shaking the country’s political core.
But this isn’t just a one-off case. A New York Times investigation from late 2024 warned that Costa Rica is becoming a key corridor for drug trafficking, as Colombian and Mexican cartels increasingly use its ports and highways to move cocaine northward. Violence has followed: homicides are up, narco-hits are no longer rare, and local institutions are feeling the strain.
As the country faces legal backlash over U.S. deportations, institutional confidence is being tested on multiple fronts. The myth of Central America’s stable, neutral haven? Cracking.
🇨🇺 Cuba: Blackouts, Beijing, and Biden’s (Re)turn to Trumpism
Cuba is baking in the dark. Nearly 45% of the island is experiencing blackouts of up to 20 hours a day, just as summer temperatures soar. Power cuts, a crumbling grid, and fuel shortages are pushing frustration to boiling point — with growing protests in Santiago and Holguín as locals chant, “We want electricity!”
Meanwhile, China is quietly edging out Russia as Cuba’s main external backer. Reuters reports that Beijing is now the top investor in Cuba’s energy, infrastructure, and surveillance tech — filling gaps left by Moscow’s declining influence and Washington’s unrelenting hostility.
Speaking of hostility, Trump has tightened the screws again. A new executive memo revives and expands financial restrictions targeting the Cuban government and military-aligned enterprises. The move sends a clear message to the diaspora base in Florida — and puts any hope of U.S.-Cuba thaw firmly back in the freezer.
On the ground, despair is deepening. BBC Mundo reports from Havana on families skipping meals, school closures due to power outages, and a population wondering if life can get any harder. The mood? "Fatigue with no end in sight."
Ecuador 🇪🇨
Fito’s back behind bars — but Ecuador is far from safe. Adolfo “Fito” Macías, the notorious boss of Los Choneros, was recaptured last week in a coastal hideout after six months on the run. His arrest, hailed as a win for President Daniel Noboa, comes with a twist: it was reportedly a loose-lipped comment by Fito’s daughter that tipped off authorities.
But the security crisis is far from over. Colombian criminal groups — including FARC dissidents — are increasingly embedded in Ecuador's underworld, fuelling the country’s record-breaking homicide rate. As El Tiempo notes, the regionalisation of organised crime has made even major arrests feel like drops in a bloody bucket.
While Ecuador reels from gang violence and prison chaos, its political establishment is also under fire. This week, former Vice President Jorge Glas was handed a third prison sentence — 13 years for embezzling funds meant for post-earthquake reconstruction in Manabí after the deadly 2016 quake. A judge found Glas and a fellow official guilty of steering public money into useless, non-priority projects — with a $225 million hole left in the public purse.
Glas, already behind bars for previous corruption convictions, was at the centre of the dramatic 2024 diplomatic standoff with Mexico after Ecuadorian police stormed the Mexican embassy to arrest him — an unprecedented violation of diplomatic protocol that shocked the region.
At the geopolitical level, Noboa is walking a tightrope between Washington and Beijing. A new analysis in Americas Quarterly details Ecuador’s efforts to deepen trade with China while courting U.S. security cooperation — a balancing act that could define the country’s economic future.
🇸🇻 El Salvador: Peace Through Power — or a Pact With the Devil?
Nayib Bukele’s iron-fisted war on gangs has delivered sky-high approval ratings and record-low homicide rates — but at what cost? New cracks are appearing in the official narrative of zero tolerance.
A New York Times investigation revealed that some of the MS‑13 leaders being deported to El Salvador under Trump-era policies were central figures in a secret pact between the Bukele administration and the gang. Prosecutors in the U.S. allege that Bukele's government cut a deal with MS‑13 to reduce killings in exchange for leniency and electoral support — a deal now unraveling with evidence of blocked extraditions, backroom meetings, and strategic betrayals. Trump’s crackdown, it seems, wasn’t just about dismantling gangs — it may have helped preserve them.
Meanwhile, a separate NYT report details widespread abuses inside Bukele’s mega-prison system, with testimonies from former police officers describing torture, arbitrary arrests, and a culture of fear. Human Rights Watch adds weight to the accusations, highlighting mass detentions and erosion of due process under the state of emergency.
El Salvador’s cops are talking — and it’s not good. A blistering new report by Human Rights Watch features active police officers blowing the whistle on Bukele’s mass arrests. The pressure to meet quotas is so intense, they say, that locking up the innocent is just part of the job. Torture, false arrests, and political spectacle? All in a day’s work under El Salvador’s “state of exception.”
🇬🇹 Guatemala: Maya Resistance and the Long Shadow of Extractivism
Guatemala’s struggles with foreign plunder and internal repression are nothing new — but a compelling review in NACLA revisits these cycles through the lens of Maya resistance and environmental justice. Centred on the book The Fourth Invasion by Benjamin Waddell, the piece traces how colonial logics of dispossession are alive and well in modern extractivist practices, from mining to monoculture.
At the heart of it all? The fight by Maya communities to reclaim territory, rewrite history, and resist a system that treats Indigenous land as expendable and its people as invisible.
It’s a vital read — and a reminder that the battle over land in Guatemala isn’t just economic or political. It’s historical, cultural, and deeply personal.
🇭🇹 Haiti: A Capital in Collapse, A Nation on the Brink
If Haiti once teetered on the edge of state failure, it has now stepped into the abyss. UN officials warn that gangs now control 90% of Port-au-Prince, effectively replacing the state in most of the capital. As gang warfare escalates, drone attacks, kidnappings, and extortion have become daily reality for residents already enduring shortages of food, fuel, and medicine.
A new AP report paints a sobering picture of UN frustrations and regional inaction as Kenya’s planned peacekeeping deployment remains stalled, leaving Haitians to face the collapse alone.
Meanwhile, a searing Human Rights Watch brief lays bare the cost of inaction: mass displacement, sexual violence, collapsed governance, and a humanitarian crisis with no clear end in sight.
The question isn’t if Haiti has become a failed state — it’s what, if anything, the world plans to do about it.
Honduras 🇭🇳
🔕 No stories this round
🇲🇽 Mexico: Narco-Banking, Mass Killings, and the Battle for the State
🏦 Narco Banking: Uncle Sam Cracks Down
The U.S. Treasury has sanctioned three Mexican banks — CIBanco, Banco Azteca, and Inbursa — for laundering cartel cash. The banks allegedly helped move dirty money for groups like the Sinaloa Cartel through shell companies and weak oversight. The message? The vaults are just as dirty as the streets.
💀 Bloodletting in Sinaloa: Horror Without End
Culiacán just relived a narco nightmare: 16 corpses in a truck, four decapitated victims on a bridge, and 381 charred remains in an illegal crematorium in Ciudad Juárez.
🛰️ Outgunned and Outwitted
The Sinaloa Cartel hacked an FBI phone to track and murder informants. Mexico’s cartels aren’t just armed — they’re tech-savvy and steps ahead.
🔍 Torture, Impunity, and the Failing State
Mexico now ranks among the worst offenders for systematic torture — and impunity is the norm.
🏛️ The Battle for the State
While violence dominates headlines, civil resistance endures. Initiatives like Camena and Casa Centroamérica are preserving collective memory and supporting exiles.
And in Mexico City, a building dubbed “where it’s never night” glows with illegal ads — a literal beacon of how impunity works in business, too.
🇳🇮 Nicaragua’s Long Arm Reaches into Costa Rica
Nicaragua’s authoritarian sprawl is making itself felt far beyond its borders — and Costa Rica is increasingly in its sights. A chilling New York Times investigation reveals how the Ortega regime is using diplomatic posts, spies, and surveillance networks to monitor — and potentially target — dissidents living in exile across the border.
Costa Rica, long a haven for Nicaraguan exiles, is now grappling with allegations of infiltration and state-sponsored intimidation. Human rights groups warn that Ortega’s strategy mirrors Cold War-era tactics, where embassies doubled as outposts of repression.
The message from Managua is clear: exile offers no escape. And for Costa Rica — a regional beacon of democracy — this creeping shadow is a diplomatic and political minefield.
Panama 🇵🇦
🔕 No stories this week
🇵🇾 Paraguay: The Populist Mayor with Presidential Dreams
Miguel Prieto, the brash and social media–savvy mayor of Ciudad del Este, is eyeing Paraguay’s top job. Known for viral videos, populist outbursts, and anticorruption theatrics (think: bodycams and live-streamed inspections), Prieto has become a local sensation. Now, he's betting that his TikTok-fuelled fame can take him all the way to the presidency.
But while Prieto rails against elites and claims to fight corruption, critics argue his style is heavy on performance, light on substance. Is he Paraguay’s answer to Bukele — or just another online populist with a good ring light?
🇵🇪 Peru: Dismemberment and Disbelief
In a horrifying story that has shocked the region, Peruvian authorities discovered the dismembered remains of Venezuelan TikToker China Baby inside a water treatment plant near Lima. The social media personality, whose real name was not disclosed, had gone missing days earlier. Her brutal death has sparked an outcry across Latin America, reigniting conversations about femicide, migrant vulnerability, and the terrifying risks faced by women in the public eye.
The case remains under investigation, but its impact is already being felt far beyond Peru’s borders — a grim reminder of how online fame offers no protection against offline violence.
🇺🇾 Uruguay: Exporting Democracy, Campaigning with Mate
As elections approach, Uruguay’s presidential hopeful Yamandú Orsi is on a European charm offensive — not just to woo the diaspora, but to sell the "Uruguayan model" of democratic coexistence. In meetings from Madrid to Milan, Orsi has cast Uruguay as a rare beacon of stability, civility, and institutional strength in a region often rocked by polarisation.
Back home, the campaign is heating up, with Orsi representing the Broad Front’s hopes of a return to power. His platform? Progressive but pragmatic, rooted in consensus-building and social investment — with a side of yerba mate diplomacy.
Meanwhile, the country’s conservative forces are mobilising too, sensing that this could be the Broad Front’s toughest battle yet. But for now, Orsi is betting that Uruguay’s best export isn’t beef or software — it’s democracy with a human face.
👉 Yamandú Orsi promotes Uruguay’s democratic model in Europe – El País
👉 Orsi kicks off campaign with European tour and diaspora outreach – BBC Brasil
🇻🇪 Venezuela: Prison Revolts and Paper Partnerships
It’s been a dizzying week in Venezuela — even by Caracas standards.
First, chaos erupted in La Planta, one of the country’s most notorious prisons, where inmates launched a violent rebellion that left at least nine dead and dozens injured. The mutiny was swiftly crushed, but it highlighted once again the razor-thin line between state control and complete institutional breakdown. As prison authorities scramble to reassert order, human rights groups are sounding the alarm on overcrowding, corruption, and systemic abuse.
Meanwhile, Nicolás Maduro jetted off to Beijing for a tightly choreographed love-in with Xi Jinping — complete with a stack of new “productive cooperation” agreements. The catch? No loans, no disbursements, no cash. Just diplomatic stagecraft dressed as strategic partnership. Venezuela may be getting handshakes, but not handouts.
And finally, BBC Mundo deep dive into the country’s crumbling energy infrastructure paints a bleak picture: blackouts persist, oil revenues are stagnant, and dollarisation has lost its sheen. For a country still spinning from collapse, even the mirages are starting to fade.
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That’s it for this week’s whirlwind tour of the hemisphere — a region battered but never broken.
From prison riots in Venezuela to gender violence in Colombia and ecological tipping points in the Amazon, Latin America is contending with overlapping emergencies — and yet, stories of resistance, reinvention, and cultural power continue to shine through.
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