Nicaragua's socialist regime announced on 10 January that it would release "dozens of persons" held in the country's prisons, as a conciliatory gesture and to mark the 19th anniversary of the presidency of Daniel Ortega. This seemed to include "more than 20" of some 60 or more jailed opponents," Spain's ABC and EFE reported, citing Nicaraguan exiles.The U.S. State Department's Bureau of Western Hemispheric Affairs observed online that Ortega's ongoing presidential term, which began in 2007 and was now autocratic, should have ended some years back. The move was attributed to pressures by the Trump administration and echoed similar moves made by Venezuela's socialist authorities. The Venezuelan regime separately freed around 24 detainees on 12 January, in addition to the 17 it released earlier, also under U.S. pressure, according to the local rights group Foro Penal. The interior ministry claimed in contrast that it had freed over 100 prisoners in recent days, and 187 in December, CNN reported.
Monday, 12 January 2026
Honduran president orders a recount of all presidential votes
Xiomara Castro, the socialist president of Honduras set to leave office on 27 January, ordered a recount on 9 January of "every single vote" cast in the presidential elections of 30 November, insisting yet again that the results were not right, Spain's EFE news agency reported. The poll gave the conservative candidate a slight majority, confirmed by the country's electoral body, though the Liberal rival and Castro's administration rejected the final count, suspecting it might have been tweaked to satisfy the Trump administration. By loudly backing the conservative winner, Castro insisted, the United States had meddled in the elections, Mexico's La Jornada reported on 11 January. The recount was approved by parliament on 10 January at a session that excluded more than 70 opposition legislators, though doubts remained on whether or not the army would allow it, EFE reported.
Destruction of the Amazon slowed, somewhat, under Lula da Silva
Satellite pictures showed an 8.7% reduction in Amazonian deforestation in Brazil in 2025 compared to 2024, with a total of just over 3,800 square kilometres cut down or burned that year, Brazil's INPE or National Institute of Space Research revealed in January. There was a similar, nine per cent year-on-year drop in the destruction rate of the Cerrado, a grasslands region listed as a unique ecosystem, Mexico's La Jornada reported on 9 January, citing INPE. This was the first time deforestation dropped simultaneously in both environmental zones even if the area destroyed "remained twice the size of Sao Paulo," the paper observed. It attributed the decline clearly to policies of the administration led by the socialist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, as rainforest destruction peaked at over 10,000 square kilometres in 2022, the last year of the presidency of the rightist Jair Bolsonaro. The Brazilian state most successful in this regard in 2025 was Pará in northern Brazil, which cut deforestation by 36%. The government wants to end Amazonian deforestation entirely by 2030.