Pamela Cruz. Peninsula 360 Press [P360P].
In historic session, Argentina legalizes abortion
With 38 votes in favor, 29 against and one abstention, Argentina's Senate took a historic step and approved a law to legalize abortion last Wednesday, after decades of struggle by women's movements seeking to guarantee this right in the country.
The law establishes that women and other persons with gender identities who have the capacity to gestate have the right to access voluntary termination of pregnancy up to the 14th week of the gestational process. After that time, abortion is only legal in cases of rape or risk to the pregnant woman.
President Alberto Fernandez said on Twitter that "safe, legal and free abortion is the law. That's what I committed myself to, that it would be on election day. Today we are a better society that extends rights to women and guarantees public health.
Thus, Argentina joins a list that includes nations and other regions of Latin America such as Uruguay, Cuba, Mexico City, the state of Oaxaca -also in Mexico-, the Antilles and French Guiana, where abortion is not criminalized.
Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica and Mexico initiate vaccination against COVID-19
Countries such as Argentina, Mexico, Chile and Costa Rica began their massive COVID-19 vaccination programs during the week, in a process that is expected to require the entire following year, and even extend into early 2020.
Mexico received a first batch of 3,000 vaccines last Thursday, out of a total of 34 million, while Chile received its first 10,000 doses of 10 million, and Costa Rica almost 10,000 units, all from Pfizer-BioNTech. Argentina received 300,000 doses of the Sputnik V vaccine.
Cuba closes doors to U.S. and Mexican travelers for COVID-19
The Cuban government announced new measures to address the COVID-19 pandemic, including limiting entry to travelers from the United States, Mexico, Panama, the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas and Haiti, beginning January 1, 2021.
This measure was taken after the island recorded a peak in the past few days, whose source of infection was mainly abroad, and despite the fact that the number of infections is relatively low, with just over 11,000 cases among the more than 11.2 million inhabitants.
Ecuador starts electoral process
Ecuador officially begins its electoral process on December 31st, with a historic record of 16 candidates seeking to succeed current President Lenin Moreno in the general elections to be held on February 7th, 2021.
In an environment hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) estimates that the region's economies will shrink by an average of 7.7 percent by 2020 - the largest in 120 years - which will undoubtedly set the course for elections in Latin America, where Peru and Chile will also elect a president in 2021.
Mexico is the third most visited place in the world
Mexico was ranked as the third most visited country in the world and the fourteenth in terms of foreign exchange earnings from tourism, according to preliminary data from the World Tourism Barometer of the Tourism Organization -WTO-, for December 2020.
The above, due to the falls that all countries in the world have presented as a result of the global crisis that has caused the COVID-19 pandemic, to which many countries had to close their borders -except Mexico-, hitting that sector.
