LATIN AMERICA

BRAZIL LOOKS TO DIGITAL CURRENCY TO BROADEN FINANCIAL INCLUSION

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Photo Credit: Adriano Machado/Reuters

When Isabela Duque, a receptionist in the Brazilian city of Santos, decided to use all her savings to buy her first car, the process was fraught with suspicion. The seller asked for the full amount to be deposited in his bank account before transferring the car to her name, and Duque obliged. They went separately to the notary office to process the paperwork while Duque worried about the possibility the man would vanish with the car as well as her money.

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FORMER PERUVIAN PRESIDENT IS FREED FROM PRISON ON HUMANITARIAN GROUNDS

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Photo Credit: Martin Mejia

Peru’s former President Alberto Fujimori was released from prison Wednesday on humanitarian grounds, despite a request from a regional human rights court to delay his release.

Fujimori, 85, was serving a 25-year sentence in connection with the slayings of 25 Peruvians by death squads in the 1990s. Peru’s constitutional court ordered his immediate release on Tuesday, but the Inter-American Court of Human Rights asked for a delay to study the ruling.

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PERU'S CONSTITUTIONAL COURT ORDERS RELEASE OF EX-PRESIDENT ALBERTO FUJIMORI

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Photo Credit: AP

A court ruling seen by AFP ordered the "immediate" release under supervision of Fujimori, who was president from 1990 to 2000. He has been jailed since 2009 over massacres committed by army death squads in 1991 and 1992 in which 25 people were killed in supposed anti-terrorist operations.

In February, Fujimori was admitted to hospital suffering from an irregular heartbeat.

Tuesday's ruling reinstated a pardon granted to the ex-president for humanitarian reasons -- which was revoked by the Supreme Court in 2019.

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LULA FACES NUMEROUS CHALLENGES AS BRAZIL ASSUMES G20 PRESIDENCY

Photo Credit: Adriano Machado / Reuters

As Brazil takes over the G20 presidency on December 1 from India, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will be challenged to fulfil his promise of holding up the interests of the global south amid two ongoing wars and a slowing global economy.

Lula also takes over at a time of bitter internal divisions within the group, the legacy of outgoing president Narendra Modi, whose team, eager to force a joint declaration, ran roughshod over diplomatic niceties in closed-door meetings.

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