标签： South America

For millions of Argentines living with disabilities, decades-old specialized therapy and support programs have long been more than just social services—they have been lifelines, opening doors to independence, connection, and personal growth that many could not access anywhere else. For 34-year-old Analía Celis, who lives with cerebral palsy and an intellectual disability, these programs transformed daily life: sports therapy softened the rigid muscle tension that limited her movement, baking gave her a tangible sense of self-reliance she had never known, and painting alongside peers allowed her to build connections when speech was a struggle. Today, that lifeline is being pulled away, a casualty of President Javier Milei’s sweeping austerity agenda that has gutted core funding for disability services across the country.

Since taking office in late 2023, Milei, whose libertarian, small-government platform has positioned him as a leading figure in the global conservative backlash against liberal institutional norms, has frozen all federal payments to nonprofits and organizations that deliver therapeutic, educational, and social support to people with disabilities. Argentina is home to an estimated 5 million people living with disabilities, and advocates and family members warn that the funding freeze has rapidly dismantled a social safety net once considered robust by Latin American regional standards, stripping vulnerable people of the structured, personalized care they rely on.

The financial strain has pushed many service providers to the edge of collapse. Martín Lucero, legal representative for Andar, a Buenos Aires-area nonprofit that operates a day support center for people with disabilities in Moreno, says his organization has been forced to sell off vehicles just to cover basic utility costs. Two months ago, Andar cut its free customized shuttle service that brought Celis and dozens of other participants to the center each day, leaving them stranded without access to programming. “The only solution can’t be cutting off a person from a space they need for their development,” Lucero said. “This is a political choice.”

The nation’s disability support system has long operated on revenue generated by billing state-run insurance programs for services. For years, irregular government payments and reimbursement rates that failed to keep up with Argentina’s sky-high inflation left nonprofit providers with mounting debts. But six months ago, the flow of government funds stopped entirely, turning financial strain into a full-blown crisis. To cut costs, providers have slashed staff sizes, delayed employee salaries, reduced meal portions for program participants, and cut operating hours. While there is no official count of shuttered centers, disability rights groups estimate that up to 50 facilities have closed this year alone, many in remote rural provinces.

At Andar, which serves 150 participants on its sprawling, park-like campus that includes a soccer field, community vegetable garden, and professional commercial kitchen where participants earn a small monthly wage through a catering service, roughly 30% of enrollees can no longer travel to the center. Therapists warn that without consistent, structured programming, people with disabilities can experience rapid regression in skills and quality of life. For Celis, that regression has already been devastating. Her 74-year-old mother, Clementina Tabares, now has to provide round-the-clock care for her daughter, forcing her to skip her own critical medical appointments. “She wakes up three or four times every night screaming that she wants to go to the farm,” Tabares said, describing how Celis now spends all day in bed, the window covered with a blanket to block sunlight, with rock music blaring to calm her frequent agitation. “She’s shutting herself away. That scares me.”

For 28-year-old Roman Pontecorvo, an Andar participant who found a love for acting through the center’s programs, the potential closure of Andar would leave him with nothing. “I want to tell the president to look at us, to really see us, to come here and meet us,” Pontecorvo said. “If Andar closes, many of us will be left with nothing. It will be total chaos.”

Disability rights advocates have pushed for a straightforward solution to the crisis: enacting a disability emergency law passed by Congress last year that would boost benefits that have lost 30% of their value to inflation and guarantee stable funding for service providers through 2026. But Milei has blocked the law from taking effect, arguing that its 0.35% of GDP fiscal cost would undermine his administration’s landmark achievement of a national budget surplus, Argentina’s first after decades of persistent deficits. Milei vetoed the bill last year, saying “using noble causes, they pass laws that drive the nation into bankruptcy,” but Congress overrode his veto. The dispute is now tied up in court, where the government is appealing a May 18 federal court ruling that ordered the administration to unfreeze payments within 72 hours to comply with the existing law. The judge’s ruling noted that “the interruption of treatment generates setbacks in development” for people with disabilities.

Milei has instead introduced a sweeping new bill that would formally dismantle the existing system of federal funding for therapeutic centers, shifting responsibility to private insurance companies and provincial governments to negotiate payment rates with providers. The legislation would also impose strict new eligibility restrictions, ending federal subsidies for all disabled people except those living below the poverty line with “complete” and “permanent” disabilities. The bill has faced intense backlash from rights groups and is still awaiting debate in Congress.

The Milei administration has framed its cuts to disability programs as part of a broader effort to root out fraud and waste in federal bureaucracy, echoing the anti-spending rhetoric of ideological allies like the former Trump administration in the United States. Months ago, Argentine officials amplified claims of widespread fraud, even highlighting a bizarre case where a dog’s X-ray was allegedly submitted to falsely secure disability benefits, echoing a similar false claim by billionaire Elon Musk that millions of dead Americans were receiving U.S. Social Security checks. But authorities have never presented evidence of systemic, widespread abuse, and the scale of existing fraud remains unconfirmed.

Instead, the scandal that has emerged from the disability agency centers on high-level corruption accusations tied to Milei’s own inner circle. Leaked recordings from last year captured Diego Spagnuolo, the former director of Argentina’s national disability agency Andis, alleging that Karina Milei, the president’s sister and closest senior adviser, accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies seeking federal public contracts. Milei has denied any wrongdoing on his sister’s behalf. As auditing of the agency ramped up, the administration shut down Andis entirely, laying off hundreds of workers and folding disability programs into the Ministry of Health.

While even critics of the old system acknowledge that greater transparency and anti-fraud reform are needed, they argue that the Milei administration’s goal is not to improve the system but to eliminate it entirely. Last year, the Civic Association for Equality and Justice successfully sued the government after Andis suspended 140,000 disability benefit checks over unproven fraud suspicions. Celeste Fernandez, the group’s co-director, noted that most of the suspended beneficiaries only missed required in-person assessments because the nearest assessment office was hundreds of miles from their homes, and many could not travel or understand the complicated summons. “Dismantling institutions without building alternatives leaves people abandoned,” Fernandez said. “The government is not carrying out a serious reform. It is simply emptying the system.”

As Colombian voters prepare to head to the polls on May 29 for a high-stakes presidential election, the entire political project of outgoing President Gustavo Petro hangs in the balance. Widely framed as a national referendum on Petro’s four years of progressive reform and unconventional peace efforts, the vote will shape the country’s social, economic and security trajectory for the coming term. If no candidate secures an absolute majority of votes, a runoff between the top two contenders will be held on June 21.

Petro, a 66-year-old former member of the 1970s and 1980s M-19 guerrilla movement that fought for systemic social justice, leaves office after a term defined by polarizing policy shifts. Domestically, he pushed through sweeping social and economic overhauls — including a major rewrite of Colombia’s labor laws — while pursuing controversial peace negotiations with the small rebel and criminal groups that remain active in the country’s rural regions. On the global stage, Petro broke with decades of conventional Colombian foreign policy, openly challenging U.S. approaches to drug prohibition and border management while maintaining limited targeted cooperation with Washington on these issues. As he put it ahead of the vote, the election will answer a core question: “the people will decide if the revolution is defeated or if it moves forward.”

Barred from seeking reelection by Colombia’s constitutional term limits, Petro’s left-wing Historical Pact coalition has tapped three-term senator Iván Cepeda as its standard-bearer. The 63-year-old candidate built his political career advocating for victims of state-sponsored violence during Colombia’s decades-long internal conflict, and has pledged to double down on Petro’s signature reforms. If elected, Cepeda says he will expand on the outgoing administration’s policies, which included a 23% jump in the national minimum wage this year alone and higher tax burdens on wealthy individuals and large corporations. He also plans to continue peace talks with remaining armed groups, and boost rural development through subsidized lending for small-scale farmers via a state-owned bank.

Cepeda’s most divisive campaign promise centers on potential constitutional change: he has committed to seeking a broad national consensus for reform, but has also threatened to convene a constituent assembly to rewrite Colombia’s constitution if agreement cannot be reached. Critics warn this move would erode the independence of Congress and the judiciary, posing a fundamental threat to the country’s democratic institutions.

Three candidates have emerged as clear frontrunners from a field of 14 total contenders, turning the race into a tight three-way contest. Cepeda’s leading rivals are Paloma Valencia, a 48-year-old senator from the Democratic Center party founded by influential former President Álvaro Uribe, and independent candidate Abelardo “The Tiger” de la Espriella, a 47-year-old outspoken lawyer who campaigns as a political outsider unaligned with any major traditional party.

Valencia’s campaign enjoys the backing of most of Colombia’s establishment political parties, as well as economic experts who warn that growing public debt under Petro has put the country’s fiscal stability at risk. She and de la Espriella both reject constitutional rewrite outright, have pledged to immediately suspend the current peace talks with armed groups and adopt a far more militarized approach to countering insurgent and criminal activity, and promise to roll back tax increases on businesses while reopening the oil and gas sectors that the Petro administration restricted.

De la Espriella, who has built his legal career representing high-profile clients ranging from business owners accused of money laundering to an acid attack survivor whose case led to stricter penalties for gender-based violence, has gone even further in his conservative proposals: he plans to cut overall state spending by as much as 40% over a four-year term and eliminate multiple federal agencies, including the Petro-created Ministry of Equality, which was established to address ethnic discrimination and advance economic inclusion for marginalized groups.

With more than 41.2 million registered voters — 1.2 million of whom reside outside of Colombia — this will be the third-largest presidential election in Latin America, trailing only Brazil and Mexico in size. More than half of Colombian voters abroad are based in three countries: the United States, Spain and Venezuela. Unlike some neighboring nations, voting is not mandatory in Colombia; in the 2022 presidential election, 21.3 million voters participated in the first round, with turnout rising to 22.6 million for the runoff, and 59% of registered overseas voters cast ballots in that cycle.

The election comes as Colombia grapples with a security and humanitarian crisis that has grown increasingly acute in recent years. A landmark 2016 peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) led to the demobilization of more than 13,000 fighters, ending one of the longest internal conflicts in Latin American history. However, multiple smaller criminal and insurgent groups refused to join the agreement, and several former FARC commanders returned to armed activity after a few years of demobilization. These groups have since fought for control of the resource-rich rural territories previously held by FARC, fueling widespread instability.

The Petro administration has pursued a negotiated approach to these groups, declaring multiple ceasefires to encourage armed factions to join peace talks. But critics argue that armed groups have exploited the ceasefires to regroup, rearm, and consolidate control over local communities, where they extort local businesses and profit from illegal economic activity including the cocaine trade. Data from the International Committee of the Red Cross confirms the crisis has reached its worst point in a decade: the number of people displaced by conflict in Colombia doubled in 2025 to 225,000, while explosive device incidents including landmines and drone attacks killed or injured 965 people last year, a 33% increase from 2024.

SAO PAULO — A major shift in labor policy is moving forward in Brazil, where the country’s lower chamber of Congress has greenlit a constitutional amendment that would establish a standard 40-hour, five-day workweek, aligning the nation with a growing trend of workweek reduction sweeping across Latin America.

The initiative, which holds broad public support ahead of Brazil’s October presidential election, was championed by sitting President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has repeatedly pushed the proposal as a key win for working-class Brazilians. While the regional push for shorter working hours has earned widespread praise from labor rights advocates, it has faced sharp pushback from business groups across the continent, and Brazil’s debate has been no exception.

Currently, Brazilian workers log a 44-hour weekly schedule: five full eight-hour days plus a four-hour shift on a sixth working day. If the amendment is finalized, it will phase out the six-day workweek while guaranteeing no pay cuts for at least 37 million employed people, capping weekly working time at 40 hours. The reform also enshrines the right to two consecutive 24-hour rest periods each week, with a preference for the Saturday-Sunday weekend that is standard in much of the world.

During floor debate ahead of the vote, government whip in the lower house Paulo Pimenta framed the reform as a long-overdue step toward justice for low-wage workers. “People who have this workweek from Monday to Saturday are the ones that have to work the hardest and are paid the least,” Pimenta told fellow lawmakers. “We need to be brave and do justice.”

While many opposition lawmakers ultimately backed the amendment after months of constituent pressure, some critics remained vocal in their opposition. Lawmaker Kim Kataguiri argued that the rushed timeline ahead of an election puts both small businesses and workers at risk. “I don’t care this is an election year. I think we need to be responsible. This will be a problem for many companies,” Kataguiri said. “We are doing this in a rush and workers should know they might end up worse than they are now if business leaders stop hiring.”

To address business concerns, negotiators included a 14-month adaptation window for companies to adjust their operations to the new schedule — a compromise that fell far short of the 10-year phase-in period many business leaders and conservative lawmakers had demanded. Leo Prates, the lower house lawmaker who drafted the amendment, pushed back against claims of irresponsibility, noting the reform was crafted to balance the needs of workers, families and employers. “This was built with a lot of responsibility, thinking about workers and families in Brazil,” Prates said. “We need to accomplish this for the Brazilian people.”

Wednesday’s late-night vote advances the amendment to Brazil’s Senate, where no vote date has been scheduled. Upper chamber lawmakers could introduce modifications to the text before a final version is sent to Lula for approval to formalize the constitutional change.

Flávio Bolsonaro, Lula’s main opponent in the upcoming presidential race and a sitting senator, has put forward a competing vision for Brazilian labor policy: he proposes replacing the fixed weekly system with a more flexible hourly pay model, a plan that has so far only garnered support from a subset of business leaders.

Brazil’s push for a shorter workweek comes as labor policy shifts diverge across Latin America. In February, Mexican lawmakers approved a proposal from President Claudia Sheinbaum to cut the country’s existing 48-hour workweek, with a gradual phase-in that will bring the nation to a 40-hour standard by 2030. In 2023, Chile passed its own “40-Hour Law,” which implemented a 40-hour workweek for all workers covered by the country’s labor code starting last year, with no corresponding reduction in pay.

Argentina stands as a notable outlier to this regional trend. Under libertarian President Javier Milei, the country is moving to expand working hours, with a labor overhaul passed earlier this year that extends the maximum daily work limit from eight to 12 hours and eliminates mandatory overtime pay. Argentine labor unions have condemned the package, arguing it prioritizes corporate interests over the rights of working people.

AP journalists Megan Janetsky, Isabel DeBre and Nayara Batschke contributed reporting from Mexico City, Buenos Aires, and Santiago, Chile.

After four consecutive weeks of mass anti-government demonstrations that have left seven people dead and hundreds detained across Bolivia, President Rodrigo Paz has issued a stark warning that the Andean nation is now on the brink of systemic collapse. What began as a targeted protest against a single policy proposal has ballooned into a nationwide movement, with union organizers and indigenous communities at its forefront, establishing widespread roadblocks that have choked supply chains, created crippling shortages of essential goods, and brought large swathes of the country’s daily activity to a standstill.

Protesters have coalesced around a set of core demands: the restoration of cut fuel subsidies, a full reversal of the administration’s austerity policies, and the immediate resignation of President Paz, a US-backed center-right leader who took office just six months ago amid a severe pre-existing economic crisis. In a defiant response, Paz has stated that any group seeking to destabilize the country will face both his administration and the full weight of Bolivia’s constitutional framework.

The unrest traces its origins back to late April, when Paz first proposed a new land reform bill that sparked immediate pushback from small-scale farmers across the country. Many smallholders feared the legislation would remove protections for small plots and clear the way for large agribusiness landowners to acquire their properties en masse. While the Paz administration emphasized that any future land transfers would be strictly voluntary, leading small-farmer advocacy groups rejected this reassurance and moved to block the country’s key highways, kicking off the wave of protests. Though Paz ultimately withdrew the controversial land reform proposal to de-escalate tensions, the concession only opened the door for broader participation, with other discontented sectors of Bolivian society joining the movement to air long-simmering grievances against the administration.

A second major flashpoint came from the government’s decision to eliminate decades-old national fuel subsidies amid ongoing inflation and supply shortfalls. The policy change immediately pushed up energy prices and overall living costs, enraging broad segments of the public and amplifying calls for change. Protesters’ roadblocks have in turn worsened fuel shortages across the country, creating a self-reinforcing cycle of scarcity and anger that has proven difficult to break.

Paz has repeatedly extended invitations for dialogue with opposition groups, framing national stability and order as Bolivia’s most urgent priorities, but has refused to rule out the use of what he terms “constitutional instruments” to clear the blockades and restore control. Just this week, Bolivia’s Congress approved legislation expanding the president’s authority to declare a national state of emergency and deploy military forces to reassert government control. Supporters of the bill argue that violent extremist groups cannot be allowed to override the mandate of a democratically elected government, while opponents warn the move will only deepen social divisions and push tensions into open conflict.

Prior to the congressional vote, Paz had already attempted a series of conciliatory measures to quell the unrest, including a full cabinet reshuffle, voluntary salary cuts for himself and all senior ministers, and the announcement of a new negotiation council to engage with marginalized community groups. To date, none of these overtures have succeeded in defusing the widespread public anger directed at his administration. Economists estimate the ongoing protests and roadblocks are costing the Bolivian economy more than $50 million in losses every single day, adding even more pressure to a country already grappling with deep economic instability.

In a development that highlights the Trump administration’s shifting diplomatic approach toward oil-rich Venezuela, multiple current and former U.S. law enforcement officials have confirmed that the White House has quietly ordered federal prosecutors based in Miami to halt active criminal investigations into Venezuelan acting President Delcy Rodríguez, a figure who has been on the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s watchlist for nearly a decade. This decision marks the most recent step in a rapid thaw of relations between Washington and Caracas following the ouster of former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.

It remains uncertain whether prosecutors had gathered enough evidence to implicate Rodríguez in any criminal activity, or whether law enforcement teams were on the verge of issuing a formal indictment against her. A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice claimed in an emailed statement that “there was never an investigation into her to shut down.” However, DEA records obtained earlier this year by The Associated Press confirm that Rodríguez has repeatedly appeared on federal law enforcement’s radar since at least 2018. Unlike a number of other high-ranking Venezuelan government officials, she has never been formally criminally charged in U.S. courts to date.

Multiple officials familiar with the internal directive said the order to suspend investigations into Rodríguez was intentionally crafted to avoid disrupting the administration’s broader efforts to stabilize Venezuela in the wake of Maduro’s capture. It is still unclear whether the White House, which directed all inquiries about the decision to the Department of Justice, directly intervened to order the probes paused. “Everybody has been told to stand down,” one unnamed former senior law enforcement official told the AP. All sources who shared details of the internal deliberations spoke on condition of anonymity, as they were not cleared to publicly discuss confidential law enforcement and policy matters. Requests for comment from Rodríguez, her U.S. legal representative, and Venezuela’s Communications Ministry went unanswered.

By removing the lingering threat of a potential indictment, even on a temporary basis, the U.S. has significantly reduced diplomatic and legal pressure on Rodríguez as the Trump administration works with the acting president to rebuild stability in Venezuela and open the country’s energy sector to American investment. Shortly after U.S. military forces transported Maduro and his wife to New York to face federal narcotics charges — both have pleaded not guilty — former President Donald Trump publicly praised Rodríguez as a “terrific person.”

In recent months, the U.S. has lifted all sweeping sanctions that were imposed on Rodríguez during Trump’s first term, formally recognized her as Venezuela’s legitimate head of state, and cleared the way for her administration to re-establish working relationships with Western financial institutions. This shift has also cleared a path for U.S. energy firms to pursue access to Venezuela’s proven petroleum reserves, the largest on the planet. As bilateral ties deepen, some foreign policy analysts have pointed to the U.S.’s Venezuela strategy — which combines oil blockades, criminal indictments of incumbent leaders, and implicit military threats to force internal regime change — as a potential blueprint for pressure campaigns against other long-standing U.S. adversaries, including Iran and Cuba.

During Trump’s first term, Rodríguez and her brother Jorge Rodríguez, who currently leads Venezuela’s National Assembly, were sanctioned for their role in what the U.S. described as undermining Venezuelan democracy and entrenching Maduro’s authoritarian government. Despite that history, Trump publicly praised Rodríguez’s leadership in a social media post from early March, writing: “The Oil is beginning to flow, and the professionalism and dedication between both Countries is a very nice thing to see!” In recent weeks, Rodríguez has welcomed multiple high-profile delegations of American energy executives to Caracas, including groups led by U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum.

Notably missing from the growing diplomatic goodwill between the two governments is any public commitment from Rodríguez to hold long-promised democratic elections. Last month, Rodríguez exceeded a 90-day temporary mandate to hold office that was set by Venezuela’s high court after Maduro’s ouster. When a visiting U.S. journalist asked her earlier this month for a specific timeline to schedule elections, she replied only: “Some time.”

Top Democratic lawmakers have openly criticized the administration’s softening approach to Rodríguez. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has demanded the administration publicly explain its favorable treatment of Rodríguez, calling her a “central figure in Nicolás Maduro’s repressive regime.” Shaheen, joined by Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, sent a formal letter last week to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, noting that “Sanctions have been lifted on Ms. Rodríguez without any indication that she has taken concrete and meaningful actions to restore democratic order.”

Rick de la Torre, former CIA chief of station in Caracas and current CEO of the geopolitical advisory firm Tower Strategy, said the decision to shield Rodríguez from prosecution aligns cleanly with the Trump administration’s core foreign policy priorities in Venezuela. “She’s a lifelong Marxist and was a senior leader of one of the world’s most corrupt regimes but the U.S. is providing her with breathing space and carrots to lay the foundation for democracy and U.S. investment,” de la Torre explained. He added, “There’s a shelf life to her utility, however. At some point she will face justice.”

As the AP previously reported, the DEA has built a detailed intelligence file on Rodríguez stretching back to at least 2018, with allegations against her ranging from large-scale drug trafficking to illegal gold smuggling. According to DEA records, a confidential informant told agency investigators in early 2021 that Rodríguez used hotels on the Caribbean Venezuelan resort of Isla Margarita as a front to launder proceeds from illegal activity. Her name has been connected to roughly a dozen separate DEA investigations spread across field offices from Paraguay, Ecuador, Phoenix and New York, with several of those probes still active earlier this year. Records also link Rodríguez to Alex Saab, a Colombian-Venezuelan businessman alleged to be Maduro’s chief bag man, who was first arrested by U.S. authorities in 2020 on money laundering charges. Just this month, Rodríguez ordered Saab deported as part of a broader purge of insider business figures accused of enriching themselves through corrupt deals with the former Maduro regime.

It remains unclear which specific active investigations in Miami included Rodríguez’s name, though two former officials confirmed she has also been discussed in meetings among investigators in Tampa, who were tasked last year by former Attorney General Pam Bondi with probing financial corruption linked to Venezuela. At the time the investigations began, Rodríguez was serving as Maduro’s vice president. Under long-standing Department of Justice policy, the attorney general must personally approve any criminal charges against a sitting foreign head of state, who generally enjoy broad immunity from prosecution under both international law and U.S. domestic law.

The pause in investigations into Rodríguez is not an isolated case: the Trump administration has also hit the brakes on ongoing federal probes into another high-profile Latin American leftist leader, Colombian President Gustavo Petro. The DEA had previously designated Petro a “priority target” over alleged ties to drug trafficking organizations, with federal prosecutors conducting a months-long investigation into the claims. The New York Times reported in March that U.S. officials have privately assured the Colombian government that Petro will not face criminal charges in connection with the probe.

Duncan Levin, a former federal prosecutor who previously served in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, said that ordering law enforcement to stand down from a legitimate investigation for political or diplomatic reasons would be “deeply troubling.” “The White House cannot use criminal enforcement as a diplomatic light switch,” Levin told the AP. “DOJ decisions are supposed to be based on law, evidence, policy and public safety — not on whether a foreign official is useful to the administration at a given moment.”

This report was contributed to by Durkin Richer from Washington, Mustian from New York, and Regina Garcia Cano from Mexico City, as part of an ongoing investigation tied to the FRONTLINE documentary *Crisis in Venezuela*, which premiered on PBS on February 10, 2026.