America Latina

On April 28, at the Alpha Summit, Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina made a statement rarely heard from a regulator: Russia is facing a labor shortage unprecedented in the country’s modern history. “We have never had a situation like this,” she said, adding that the labor market is now driving the Central Bank’s key decisions on interest rates and monetary policy. For a regulator typically known for measured statements, this was an unmistakable alarm signal.

Numbers That Speak for Themselves

Mexico is the worst country in Latin America for impunity, according to a study by the Universidad de las Américas Puebla (University of the Americas in Puebla, or UDLAP).

 Mexico topped the Global Impunity Index for Latin America and was the fourth worst country among the 69 that were analyzed worldwide.

 The index measures systems of security, justice and the protection of human rights and structural capacity to come up with its numbers.

 Mexico placed fourth behind first-place Philippines, India and Cameroon.

Teenage drug use has doubled in Mexico in five years, but among teenage girls it has soared 205%.

 The number of youths aged 12 to 17 that have used illegal drugs increased from just under 3% in 2011 to just over 6% last year.

 Marijuana is Mexico’s most popular drug, while heroin use is described as minimal despite the fact that Mexico is Latin America’s biggest producer and the world’s third biggest, meaning authorities need to keep the drug in check, said Manuel Mondragón y Kalb, head of the National Commission Against Addictions (Conadic).

The Secretary of State, John Kerry, said the United States remain open to address their differences with Venezuela in an attempt to find common areas.

During his participation in the Washington Conference of the Council of the Americas, organized by the Council of the Americas and the State Department, Kerry said, that his work as head of the US State Department is to promote a more productive relationship between the two countries.

In Latin America there are some 420 aircrafts manufactured in Russia which include a hundred helicopters Mi-8/17, 18 fighters Su-25, 31 MiG-29 and 70 MiG-21. On Wednesday Rostec the Russian state company said it is considering creating a center for aircraft maintenance and Russian helicopters in Latin America. “Rostec” has revealed that the first center for component repairs and parts replacement, as a pilot project will be created in Peru.

The China Development Bank (CDB), one of the two banks of Chinese development, and Brazil's Petrobras today announced an agreement to open a credit line of 3,5 billion dollars for the oil company.

In a brief statement, without specifying the details of the agreement, Petrobras reported that "the parties confirmed the intention to develop a new partnership in the future."

Some six million Bolivians attended the polls today to elect nine governors and 339 mayors, among other regional authorities on a day which saw a high turnout and only minor incidents.

Reports from the Bolivian Information Agency (ABI), which quoted the government, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) and international observer missions, detailed the course of the elections.

Also during the elections 4500 regional authorities have been nominated.

The Peruvian government seeks to protect Mashco-piro an Amazonian tribe which has been living in isolation for years and recently began to leave its territory, probably driven by mining and illegal logging.

It is an ethnic group of hunters and gatherers who speak an unknown language. Consisting of about 800 members, for years the tribe has lived on a reservation of Madre de Dios (on the border with Brazil), the region with the largest illegal gold production in the country, but now it is moving.

On September 11, 2013, hundreds of thousands of Chileans solemnly marked the 40th anniversary of their nation’s 9/11 terrorist event. It was on that date in 1973 that the Chilean military, armed with a generous supply of funds and weapons from the United States, and assisted by the CIA and other operatives, overthrew the democratically-elected government of the moderate socialist Salvador Allende.

- Alexander Vladimirovich, our journal is devoted to the issue of cooperation between Saint-Petersburg and Latin American countries. What can be the basis for such active development of our relations, to your mind?