Man jumps to his death in Mexico City after a row at home

A 42-year-old man reportedly threw himself from the fifth floor of a residential building after a row with his spouse on 19 December, in the Obrera district of Mexico City. The man's stepson told police his stepfather jumped through the window shortly after an altercation with his mother, La Jornada reported.

Bogotá mayor's popularity slumps over "crime and transportation"

A poll from early December showed widespread dissatisfaction with the Bogotá mayor, Carlos Fernando Galán Pachón, in large part due to an increasing sense of insecurity. Galán had an approval rating of 26% as of 5 December, with 62% of Bogotá residents feeling unsafe, which was unprecedented since 2008 according to the poll Bogotá como vamos.  People were also dissatisfied with the Transmilenio bus network, a pioneering system that was nevertheless congested and providing fertile ground for petty crimes like theft and harassment, the public broadcaster reported. A particular source of concern was an apparent increase in brazen street violence, with the city counting 242 deadly brawls this year between 1 January and 30 September, RTVC reported on 18 November.

Colombian president attends coca substitution event, deplores violence

Colombia's President Gustavo Petro Urrego declared on 19 December that 26,000 hectares (260 square kilometres) were "already" in a substitution process to replace coca plants with ordinary crops. Thousands of families had registered with the government's plans to peacefully mobilize communities to replace coca, used in drug production, with honest farming, the public broadcaster RTVC reported him as saying in the district of Roberto Payán. The Trump administration has accused Petro's government of doing little to curb if not conniving with, large-scale drug trafficking toward the United States. Petro said every time a peasant replaced a coca plant with a crop or a tree was a "historic moment" but that substitution must be done alongside local communities, "not against them." He also deplored a recent spike in deadly guerrilla violence. Members of the National Liberation Army (ELN) killed seven soldiers and injured dozens in a surprise attack on a base in Aguachica in northern Colombia on 18 December. On 17 December, other guerrillas termed FARC dissidents subjected the southwestern town of Buenos Aires to shelling for seven hours before being repelled. Petro said the army would immediately buy anti-drone systems as guerrillas were now using drones.

Christmas brings more trash to Mexico City...

The mayoress of Mexico City urged Christmas shoppers to ease up on gift wrapping and curb a seasonal rise of up to 25% in the 8,500 tons of trash the city produces daily. Kickstarting a sustainable Christmas campaign, authorities were setting up over 50 modules in shopping centres around the Mexican capital to provide shoppers with recycled paper to wrap gifts, La Jornada reported on 18 Decembre. "The aim is to be together and have fun, not produce more trash," Clara Brugada said, speaking inside the Reforma 222 shopping and residential complex. The city's chief environmental officer, Julia Álvarez Icasa, said Christmas was an "environmental challenge" for a city with over nine million residents but also an opportunity to offer people "responsible alternatives." Brugada recalled the city's plans to enforce trash separation at home in 2026. 

Woman in Quito evades death after hitmen see her face

A woman appeared to avert assassination in northern Quito on 16 December after a quick check of her face by a suspected gun for hire led to.. no action. Camera footage of the brief incident showed a man getting off a motorcycle as the woman left her home near the Parque Inglés, initially blocking her path, then signalling at someone before riding away. The incident was hailed online as ranging from lucky to miraculous. Police said they were investigating.

Bogotá producing record amounts of trash

The Colombian capital may come to generate well over two million tons of solid trash in 2025, which authorities said was a record. The city was now producing over 6,300 tons of trash every day, exceeding the more than 6,100 tons a day produced in 2024 and around 6,000 tons daily for 2023, El Espectador reported on 14 December, citing the firm running the city's main dump. The city had already generated over 1.92 million tons of trash this year and was expected to beat the 2024 figure of over 2.2 million tons. The figures showed an urgent need for trash management and especially separation, according to the manager of the Doña Juana landfill, Andrea Pérez Cadavid. Observers warned the capital, with a population over over 8.4 million, could face a trash crisis after 11 February 2026, as trash disposal firms' existing contracts end and a "competitive" phase begins in which concessinoary firms could select service sectors and opt for more lucrative parts of the city.

Trump administration to blockade Venezuelan oil

U.S. President Donald J. Trump ordered a "total blockade" of Venezuelan oil exports using "sanctioned oil tankers" on 16 December, further tightening the screws on the already sanctioned regime of the socialist President Nicolás Maduro. Trump accused "the illegitimate Maduro regime" of stealing "oil, land and other assets" belonging to the United States to finance a range of criminal activities, and declared the regime "a foreign terrorist organization." The United States had in recent months undertaken selective strikes on boats identified as drug-trafficking vessels, but the latest decision, which Venezuela denounced as a "grotesque threat," was being seen as intended to topple Maduro. Practically no Western state recognized his controversial reelection in 2024, and the European Union recently prolonged its own sanctions on the regime over its rights violations and suspected hijacking of the 2024 presidential elections.

Chile votes in "arch-conservative" as next president

The conservative José Antonio Kast Rist was elected on 14 December as Chile's next president, winning 58% of votes cast that day against 42% cast for his rival, the "communist moderate" Jeannette Jara. Some media and observers abroad were describing Kast as a right-wing extremist or "arch-conservative," highlighting his putative admiration for the country's military regime of the 1970s. Conservatives and liberals however cheered the result as another sign of the region ditching socialism. Colombia's socialist president, Gustavo Petro, warned, writing on X (Twitter), that "fascism is advancing. I shall never shake the hand of a Nazi or son of a Nazi," prompting a protest note from Chile's outgoing government. Kast, a practising Catholic, is of German ancestry, and vowed after his election to govern for all Chileans. His first trip abroad as president-elect was to Argentina, where he was "effusively" received by his right-wing peer President Javier Milei. "What a triumph... it was glorious," Milei said as he embraced Kast in his office. Kast is to formally take power on 11 March, 2026. 

Bolivia restores ties with Israel, last president held over monies

Bolivia's new centre-right government restored formal diplomatic ties with Israel on 9 December after a two-year break under the country's last, leftist government. In late October 2023, with the socialist Luis Arce as president, Bolivia became one of the first Latin American states to sever ties with Israel in protest at its punitive actions in Gaza, before joining a multilateral lawsuit against Israel in 2024, the Agence France-Presse reported. The renewal of ties was signed in Washington D.C. at a meeting between Bolivia's foreign minister and the Israeli ambassador to the United States. Separately, the former president Arce was detained on 10 December for questioning in relation with the suspected embezzlement of public funds during his presidency or previously, when he was finance minister. Arce has in the past denied involvement in any acts of corruption and exercised his right to be silent, though he remained in police custody after his interrogation, the website Infobae reported.

Bad Bunny concerts to "shower cash" on Mexico City

Mexico City's Trade Chamber said that eight concerts by the Puerto Rican singer Bad Bunny would generate over U.S. $170 million's worth of tourist business for Mexico City over December. The concerts, scheduled for between 10 and 21 December, were largely sold out beforehand and expected to bring in more than half a million fans into the Mexican capital, fueling consumption across the hospitality sector. Hotels near the concert venue, the GNP Seguros stadium, were expected to be filled at a 80-90% rate, Spain's El País reported. One of the tourists was Bad Bunny himself, spotted attending a Mexican "free wrestling" match on 9 December. 

Mexico to ban 'vaping'

Mexico's parliament approved in principle on 9 December a reform of the country's General Health Law to ban "the production, distribution and sale" of all forms of vaping and electronic smoking devices. The reform contemplates fines of up to 226,000 pesos (over U.S. $10,000) or jail terms of between one and eight years for infractors, Spain's El País newspaper reported. The administration of President Gloria Sheinbaum is already enforcing strict anti-smoking laws but critics in parliament protested that the new law would unfairly criminalize users who are often youngsters. In response, the head of parliament's health committee, from the governing MORENA party, vowed that new norms would be tweaked to ensure ordinary vapers would not face punitive measures. The legislation, he said, was to protect youth from a harmful practice that had been insidiously promoted as harmless. A member of the opposition Citizen's Movement party, Irais Reyes, said this was "the most prohibitionist, authoritarian and absurd reform this country has seen in decades. In which world is vaping more dangerous than hitting, humiliating and carrying firearms?"

Trump pardons jailed former Honduran leader

U.S. President Donald J. Trump issued a "full and complete pardon" on 1 December for the jailed former Honduran president, Juan Orlando Hernández, who was serving time in the United States following a drug trafficking conviction. Hernández, a "tough on crime" conservative who was president from 2014 to 2022, was extradited that year by the Democratic Biden administration and convicted in 2024 of conniving in large-scale drug trafficking toward the United States. Trump wrote online on 28 November that he had been treated "very harshly and unfairly." Observers including media outlets and some U.S. lawmakers immediately derided the pardon as contradicting Trump's current war on drugs and specifically, pressures being exerted on Venezuela's socialist president, Nicolás Maduro, precisely for aiding drug trafficking into the United States. Colombia's President Gustavo Petro wrote on X (Twitter) that it was "demoralizing" to all those risking their lives to fight trafficking to see a "drug trafficker pardoned." Another critic was the Liberal Party presidential candidate in Honduras, Salvador Nasralla, who was awaiting a recount of votes cast in the general election of 30 November. He said Hernández could expect to be tried in Honduras should he return. Hernández and his wife thanked Trump for the pardon but were not planning an immediate return home due to security concerns, according to the Agence France-Presse.

Mexico City wants to "curb HIV" by 2030

Mexico City's mayoress said on 1 December that the city was stepping up its fight against AIDS, especially through prevention, by opening the city's largest clinic yet to treat sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Clara Brugada Molina was speaking on World Aids Day. She said a third branch of the Clinica especializada Condesa would be "completed" through "this year and the next" in the Gustavo A. Madero sector of the city, Once Noticias reported. The city would also open a permanent quick testing facility in the Glorieta de Insurgentes, one of the Mexican capital's busy intersections, and keep urging people to get tested for the HIV virus. The city government says more than 17,500 people had received the PrEP treatment in 2025 "to help significantly reduce HIV infection," and this was becoming more prevalent. Around 360,000 people are thought be HIV-positive across Mexico, with 21% of those in the capital and 30% of all the infected not knowing their HIV status, Once Noticias stated.  

Official says crime "clearly falling" in Mexico City

Mexico City's top police official has said violent crimes had dropped 10%, and the most violent crimes 12%, "this year in comparison with the last one" and that "in general terms," violence had fallen "significantly" in Mexico's capital since 2019. Pablo Vásquez Camacho, the city's Civil Security secretary, told Heraldo Radio on 30 October that "high impact" crimes like murder or kidnapping had "fallen by around 60%" since 2019. This, he said, was thanks to better policing but also the implementation of social and economic programs in deprived parts of the city, El Heraldo de México reported. He repeated his statements that day attending a debate on crime in the city's legislative assembly. He spoke of measures taken under the mayoress Clara Brugada Molina to improve police equipment, pay and work conditions in a systematic bid to stamp out abuse and boost professionalization. Police, he said, had arrested more than 6,700 suspects for high-impact crimes with a 21% increase in prosecutions, and key arrests had allowed the dismantling of "30 criminal cells" over an unspecified period, the website Infobae reported.

Destruction of the Amazon rainforest "relentless"

The Amazon rainforest was losing an area the size of six soccer pitches every minute, according to estimates by the World Wildlife Fund and the MapBiomas mapping project, mainly due to illegal felling and mining, and farming. Environmentalists believe the rainforest, spread across several countries, lost 88 million hectares (or 880,000 square kilometers) between 1985 and 2023, with consequences for the climate and especially rainfall far beyond the region, the website Infobae reported on 29 October. The destructive rate, it stated, citing data from the Global Forest Watch, had made Latin America the global leader in rainforest destruction.

Mexico's tobacco taxes fuel black market in cigarettes

A fifth of all cigarettes smoked in Mexico was "illegal or semi-legal," likely as a result of increasing taxes and curbs on smoking, media reported on 28 October, citing research by the Colegio de México, a public university. Its ongoing study on the causes of social misconduct found that the proportion of black-market cigarettes rose from eight per cent in 2017 to 20% in 2023, the national paper La Jornada reported. The study's coordinator, Manuel Pérez, linked this to rising taxes on smoking, naming 2011 as a turning point when the state hiked them 30%. On 28 October, Mexico's Senate approved another round of taxes on cigarettes, soft drinks and 'violent videogames,' with amendments to the IEPS or Law for a Special Tax on Production and Services. Beside taxes, in January 2023, Mexico banned smoking and vaping in all public spaces including parks and beaches as well as relevant advertising.  The BBC described this then as one of the strictest regimes anywhere governing smoking, effectively confining it to homes, even if enforcement might prove problematic. It could, it observed, prompt police harassment or acts of petty corruption.

Cancún in Mexico vows to curb plastics, garbage

Cancún, the popular beach destination on Mexico's Caribbean coast, would become the country's first resort to join the UN's Global Tourism Plastics Initiative, meant to cut back on trash. The district and its hotels generate around 1,500 tons of solid trash daily, according to mayoress Ana Paty Peralta. She told the local press on 23 October that the city would join the UN program through its Destino cero residuos Cancún initiative, which she termed a new vision of tourism for the Quintana Roo state that includes Cancún. This would begin with local hotels considering actions to reduce use of silly items like plastic cutlery or straws, and include, over a three-year period, recycling and communal initiatives like cleaning up the beach or regional cave pools (cenotes). Crucially, this was a joint effort between local government and hotels, but also visitors, the head of a regional hotels' association (AHCPMIM), Rodrigo de la Peña Segura, said in turn. He added, 15 local firms were already implementing the sector's Menos plástico guidelines to reduce "plastic trash by 44%, equivalent to 100 tons every year."

Bolivia elects a "moderate" president

The self-styled centrist Rodrigo Paz Pereira, a senator and former mayor of Tarija in southern Bolivia, won the country's second round of presidential elections on 19 October and will be sworn in on 8 November, thus ending two decades of socialist rule. The outgoing president, Luis Arce, was one of several regional leaders to congratulate him without delay. In the first round of voting in August, Paz's Christian Democratic party garnered 49 of the lower legislature's 130 seats and 13 of the Senate's 36 seats, which would give him a measure of legislative clout. Paz declared on 23 October that a renewal of ties with the United States after a 17-year break would help tackle the country's economic problems, and observers were expecting Bolivia to move away from its allies of recent years - namely Russia, China, Islamic Iran and socialist Venezuela. He clarified a day before that the rulers of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela would not be invited to his swearing-in, as they were "not democratic." Bolivia, he stressed, is a "democratic country. While there are diplomatic relations, to be respected (due to) previous conditions, our condition for relations is based on democracy." The BBC summarized in a report on 20 October the president-elect's reform and liberalization plans.

Medellín wants to turn city dump into "showcase" recycling site

The Medellín municipality is to turn the La Pradera trash dump, some 50 kilometers outside the city, into a "technologial and environmental park" set to recycle "about 40%" of the department of Antioquia's solid refuse into products including fuel and compost. The project was to become a model of recycling and reuse for both Colombia and the continent, the city's mayor, Federico Gutiérrez Zuluaga, was quoted as saying on 18 September. He said this recycling project should prolong the site's useful life, allow it to receive 3,500 tons or 80% of the department's entire trash every day, but also establish a new model of disposing of refuse. The timespan for the project was not yet clear though the mayor suggested the site might be producing biogas for some 200,000 homes in the department by around 2027. The city government has in recent months sought to teach residents to separate household trash, by means including door-to-door visits and recitals to accompany garbage collection.

Mexico bans range of pesticides, and more in 2026

The government of Mexico announced a ban in early September of 35 pesticide compounds being used in farming, calling this a 'historic' second step from the last such ban in 1991, which affected 21 pesticides. President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo told the press on 3 September that many of the pesticides, like DDT, had long been banned elsewhere but were still being used in Mexico. The ban was on the "use, production, sale and importation" of 35 compounds, which the country's Agriculture and Rural Development minister, Julio Berdegué Sacristán said in turn had been tagged as harmful in several international texts (Basel, Stokholm, Rotterdam conventions, etc..). Sheinbaum said the government would publish two more blacklists in 2026 and 2027. The chemicals banned included Aldicarb, used in citrus and sugar cultivations, and Carbuforan, used for cotton, coffee and avocado, Spain's El País reported.