An Indigenous boy receives a dose of the Qdenga dengue tetravalent vaccine at the Parque das Tribos Family Health Unit in Manaus, Brazil, on Feb. 22.Michael Dantas/AFP via Getty Images
Vaccine breakthrough. Brazil’s Butantan health research institute submitted the world’s first one-dose dengue vaccine to regulators for approval this week. The vaccine was developed through a yearslong partnership with the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Butantan hailed it as a breakthrough in a year when warm temperatures have caused dengue cases and deaths to spike in the Americas.
Brazil currently uses a two-dose dengue vaccine made by Japanese firm Qdenga in its public health system, but the country was able to procure only enough jabs this year for around 3 million people to be completely vaccinated in a country of more than 200 million.
If Butantan’s shot is approved, it could produce 100 million doses within three years, the institute said.
Colombia-RSF links. Retired Colombian soldiers were hired by Emirati recruiters to participate in Sudan’s civil war alongside the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, La Silla Vacía reported—sometimes being misled about where they would be working.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro publicly condemned the involvement of Colombians in the conflict, though the shadowy forces that recruit Colombian fighters are largely out of his reach.
Colombia has a large pool of soldiers who were trained for the country’s war on drugs. They have been recruited to work abroad before: A former Colombian colonel was convicted for the 2021 killing of Haiti’s president, and in 2015, Colombian fighters were identified in the war in Yemen—thanks to the Emirati military.
Which of the following is not a Venezuelan slang term?
Pana
Vaina
Chimbo
Balada
That’s São Paulo slang for “nightclub.”
Argentine President Javier Milei laughs during a Mercosur Summit in Montevideo, Uruguay, on Dec. 6.
Argentine President Javier Milei laughs during a Mercosur Summit in Montevideo, Uruguay, on Dec. 6.Eitan Abramovich/AFP via Getty Images
When comparing neighbors Argentina and Brazil these days, good economic news typically comes from the latter. Brazil’s economy is on track to grow by 3 percent this year, according to the IMF—one of the highest rates in Latin America, and higher than that of the United States.
Libertarian Argentine President Javier Milei’s shock policies since taking office last December, meanwhile, threw the country into a recession—and the poverty rate shot up to more than 50 percent.
But this week, the countries’ economic fortunes seem to have reversed. Argentine government data released Monday showed that the country had exited its recession in the third quarter, growing by 3.9 percent since the previous quarter. Milei celebrated the news as a sign that his economic reforms were working; he had promised pain before gain.
Milei’s next big test will be whether Argentina can make upcoming debt payments in 2025, including to the IMF. Milei, who plans to attend Trump’s inauguration, hopes that positive relations with the U.S. president-elect could help Argentina’s dealings with the IMF; Washington is the IMF’s largest shareholder.
Brazil, meanwhile, experienced an accelerated drop in the value of its currency, the real, this week. Despite the Brazilian economy’s overall growth, a string of comments from government officials in the last few weeks suggested the country may stray from its targets to keep the deficit under control.
On Sunday, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva scoffed at those concerns; by Wednesday, the real was trading at an all-time low of around 6.3 against the dollar.
Emerging market currencies have weakened against the dollar since Trump was elected, promising aggressive trade wars. But the real has performed even worse than other currencies. Top Brazilian officials have pledged that passing long-debated spending cuts would stabilize markets and raced to approve them before the holiday legislative recess begins today.
Source link : http://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=67668a694b9746daaed80d67cd100e49&url=https%3A%2F%2Fforeignpolicy.com%2F2024%2F12%2F20%2Fvenezuela-us-trump-maduro-grenell-special-mission-envoy-maximum-pressure%2F&c=507686469190245290&mkt=en-us
Author :
Publish date : 2024-12-20 00:01:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
