Public sector doctors and teachers in Paraguay have announced separate strikes in September, stepping up pressure on the government as Congress debates the proposed 2027 budget.
The National Medical Union (Sinamed) formally notified the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Security on Tuesday of its decision to strike on 21st September and 22nd September. The move came as government authorities sought to find ways to avert the walkout.
Sinamed Secretary General Rossana González said the union remained willing to negotiate and that its goal was to resolve the dispute without a strike.
González said: ‘Today there is an open channel, a more official channel for negotiations, also with the intermediary, which would be the Ministry of Labour. I repeat, our objective is not to go on strike, but to resolve this problem.
The planned action follows a five-day strike from 24th to 28th August when doctors demanded higher salaries, the provision of medicines and supplies for hospitals, permanent positions for about 9,000 workers employed on temporary contracts, and other labour benefits.
Official figures show that doctors in Paraguay’s public health system earn between 5 million guaraníes ($848) (£700) and 5.4 million guaraníes ($915) around (£750), depending on the type of contract. Some doctors have more than one government contract.
Sinamed leaders met on Tuesday with officials from the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare and received a new proposal, although no official details were disclosed.
González said the union was open to considering different proposals, including a salary scale based on qualifications and seniority, but insisted that the basic salary for all doctors must also be raised.
The union had rejected an earlier government proposal as ‘crumbs’. The proposal called for a salary scale under which doctors with greater training and longer service would receive higher pay.
Public-sector teachers have also announced strike action. The Federation of Educators of Paraguay (FEP) called for a walkout on 17th and 18th September demanding an 8 per cent salary increase and a larger education budget for 2027.
FEP President Silvio Piris said that the action would include a major mobilisation and a complete suspension of teaching activities at public schools.
Piris criticised the government’s proposed 2027 budget, which was submitted to Congress on 1st September and includes a 2.4 per cent salary increase for teachers.
He said the increase should be at least 5 per cent and said the union would ask the Ministry of Economy and Finance to include the pay increase in the budget negotiations, which began in Congress on Monday.
Colombia inflation rate surges
Colombia’s annual inflation rate rose to 6.24 per cent in August, up from 6.03 per cent in July and 5.10 per cent a year earlier, according to the National Administrative Department of Statistics, or Dane.
The increase of 21 basis points from July brought inflation to its highest level reported in the figures provided for 2026. Consumer prices rose 0.39 per cent during August, while inflation accumulated since the beginning of the year reached 5.35 per cent.
Housing, public utilities and food were among the main areas driving the annual increase, Dane said. The pressure was particularly pronounced in restaurants and hotels, which recorded the highest annual price increase among the spending categories at 9.36 per cent.
Hot drinks consumed immediately, including black coffee, coffee with milk and hot chocolate, recorded a 12.07 per cent annual increase. Spending at bars and nightclubs rose 9.57 per cent, while meals at table-service and self-service restaurants increased 9.43 per cent.
Health care was the second-highest inflation category, with prices rising 8.30 per cent over the year. Private health services recorded some of the largest increases, including general medical consultations at 10.41 per cent, private dental services at 10.31 per cent and specialist consultations at 10.06 per cent.
Minor medical services and medical equipment and supplies recorded more moderate increases of 4.91 per cent and 5.99 per cent, respectively.
Clothing and footwear had the lowest annual inflation rate among the spending categories, at 3.26 per cent. Within the category, laundry and ironing services rose 9.36 per cent, while women’s clothing increased 2.13 per cent and clothing for babies rose 2.03 per cent.
Three components made particularly significant contributions to the annual inflation rate.
Meals at table-service and self-service establishments added 0.71 percentage points, imputed rent contributed 0.63 points and urban transportation added 0.51 points.
Charges against Maduro ‘fabricated’
LAWYERS for abducted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, have filed motions to dismiss the US government’s fabricated charges, arguing that their clients possess absolute sovereign immunity and that their detention has no legal basis.
In documents filed in a Manhattan federal court on Wednesday, the defence team asked the judge to throw out the draconian drug trafficking indictment.
They argued that the US has no legal jurisdiction over the legitimate head of state and first lady of a sovereign foreign nation.
‘No American court has ever presided over the criminal trial of a foreign leader who was recognised by their own country as the sitting head of state at the time the charges were brought,’ the lawyers wrote.
‘That is not an accident of history. It reflects a rule older than the common law: Heads of state are exempt from the criminal process of any national court but their own.’
The defence further argued that even if the US refuses to recognise his sovereign immunity as Head of State, the case must still be dismissed because Maduro is entitled to conduct-based sovereign immunity for actions taken in his official capacity.
Maduro and Flores are scheduled to face trial on the fabricated drug trafficking charges on 1st June. Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein has set oral arguments for 17th November regarding the motions to dismiss the illegal indictment.
Political observers and analysts view the Trump administration’s move to forcibly remove the democratically elected president as an illegal coup aimed at regime change.
The ultimate goal, they argue, is to gain full control over Venezuela to plunder its abundant energy wealth and natural resources.
Highlighting the complete lack of legal grounds for his detention, Maduro, and his wife have been held in a Brooklyn jail since US special forces abducted them from their home in Caracas during a middle-of-the-night raid in early January.
The extrajudicial kidnapping and subsequent transfer to the New York facility have been widely condemned as a blatant violation of international law and Venezuelan sovereignty.
Separate motions filed on Wednesday for Flores argued that she is equally exempt from US prosecution. Her legal team stated that her immunity is ‘an attribute of Venezuela’s sovereignty, and only Venezuela may surrender it’.
Maduro ‘vehemently denies the allegations against him’, his lawyers affirmed, noting that ‘if this case were to proceed to trial, it would be apparent that he has been falsely accused’.
Economic toll on Cuba reaches $8bn
THE Cuban government announced on Monday that the economic toll of the decades-long US blockade reached a record $8.083 billion between March 2025 and February 2026, marking a 7% increase over the previous reporting period and pushing the accumulated damage since the policy began to roughly $178.7 billion at current prices, according to Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez.
Speaking to both national and international press accredited in Cuba, Rodríguez announced that the UN General Assembly will once again consider the issue of the US blockade against Cuba on October 27th and 28th.
Foreign Minister Rodríguez presented the figures as part of an official report and framed Washington’s approach not merely as an economic dispute but as a policy that reaches into nearly every corner of daily Cuban life, affecting food supplies, water access, electricity, healthcare, education and transportation.
