Standard & Poor's decision to demote Brazil's debt to junk status on Sept. 9 hit the country's political class right where it should have -- square in the gut.
"The signs of fraud are blatantly obvious," said conservative candidate Manuel Baldizón, who four days after the vote is still locked in a neck-and-neck race for runner-up with former First Lady Sandra Torres of the social democratic party. Electoral tribunal chief Julio Solorzano dismissed the allegation.
Barely a news cycle passes in the region without some cabal of political chiefs and cronies getting caught with their hands in the public till. A recent report by Global Financial Integrity pegged Latin America for nearly a fifth of the yearly global outflows of illicit funds, worth 3.3 percent of regional GDP, from 2003 to 2012.
Despite the government prosecutor's vow to appeal this week's innocent verdict for Ann Patton, criminal lawyers doubt she will face another trial in the 2010 shooting death of her husband John Felix Bender.
GUATEMALA CITY – A Guatemalan court indicted former President Otto Pérez Molina on corruption charges Tuesday, days after he resigned over a customs fraud scandal that has stoked outrage in the Central American country. Judge Miguel Ángel Gálvez granted prosecutors' request to try Pérez Molina on charges of customs fraud, racketeering and bribery. He then ordered the former president held in preventive prison pending an investigation, calling the retired general a "flight risk."
"Mexico needs to resolve the case as soon as possible, not only to solve this crime, but also to prove to the world that there is a light at the end of the tunnel of impunity in Mexico," El Universal newspaper said in an editorial.
GUATEMALA CITY – A comedian whose shtick was playing a simpleton cowboy who almost becomes president emerged Monday as the man to beat in Guatemala's presidential race amid disgust over a corruption scandal that felled the outgoing incumbent.
Comedian-turned-politician Jimmy Morales, 46, currently is in the lead to become Guatemala's next president by a wide margin. But in a surprise for many, former First Lady Sandra Torres – who for much of the campaign polled in a distant third place – was neck-and-neck with Líder party candidate Manuel Baldizón for a second-place spot in an Oct. 25 runoff election.
MEXICO CITY – Independent foreign investigators refuted Sunday the Mexican government's conclusion that 43 students abducted last year were incinerated in a landfill, tearing apart the official probe into a case that caused international outrage
Four French tourists were robbed and sexually assaulted by armed men wearing masks north of Santa Teresa last week when they stopped at a river to see if it was safe to drive across, police and area residents said.
