Hello followers of the Latin American Report. First, thank you again for all the support you regularly provide to my work on the Hive blockchain. I always try to produce something worthwhile that contributes to understanding the vicissitudes and potentialities of Latin America, with emphasis on the first dimension. The economic results I have obtained have proven to be critical to solving my family's daily problems and provide me with a long-distance shot to change our economic dynamics forever. I wish you all a happy and prosperous 2025, especially in good health. Now, click play in the first Latam report from this year.
Puerto Rico
The Puerto Rican nation crossed into 2025 with hundreds of thousands of citizens in darkness, following a massive nationwide outage that disconnected 90% of the customers of Luma Energy, the embattled private company in charge of managing the nation's power system. Puerto Rico has been suffering for years from a rash of nuisance outages due to the decrepit state of its electrical infrastructure and the poor response to that condition. The problem accelerated after the deadly passage of Hurricane Maria in 2017. With this dynamic, we see the federal abandonment of this free-associated territory, which sometimes remains an annoying burden for the United States. “It had to be December 31!”, exclaimed a resident of the capital, San Juan, who also acknowledged that ”[there is] no happiness, none.” “We are demanding answers and solutions, both from LUMA and Genera, who have to expedite the restarting of the generating units outside the area of the failure and keep the people duly informed about the measures they are taking to restore service throughout the island,” the governor wrote via X. “We can't keep relying on an energy system that fails our people,” the governor-elect—who will officially take office tomorrow Thursday—also said in X. About 54% of customers had service restored by late Tuesday afternoon, but some swaths of the country may still be off by Thursday. “This is how you spend a farewell to the year in Puerto Rico, without power—normal,” said the influential urban artist known as Bad Bunny. Home power generators are part of the Puerto Rican landscape, while FEMA-facilitated land-based generators are critical to sustaining the grid.
SourceEcuador
Finally, the worst predictions were confirmed in Ecuador, where the four bodies found in a town in Guayas were identified as belonging to the children and teenagers who went out to play soccer and never returned home. “The results of the forensic genetic expertise confirm that the 4 bodies found in #Taura correspond to the 3 teenagers and a child who disappeared after a military operation, last December 8” in the port of Guayaquil, said the Prosecutor's Office. Thus, under preventive detention are the 16 members of a military patrol that apprehended them, allegedly because they were committing a robbery. On their way to their base of operations, the military claims that they released the minors—between 11 and 15 years of age—, but there was a breach of protocol. In general, the Army's narrative has been erratic in addressing this case of alleged forced disappearance. Will justice be served in this case?
SourceAnd this is all for our report today. I have referenced the sources dynamically in the text, and remember you can learn how and where to follow the LATAM trail news by reading my work here. Have a nice day.
