The plan to lend money to Spain to heal some of its banks may not work because the government and the country's lenders will in effect be propping each other up, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said.
China, the world's second-biggest oil user, will reduce gasoline and diesel prices by the most since 2008 after global crude costs slumped. State-controlled retail gasoline prices will fall by 530 Yuan (83 dollars) a metric ton and diesel will be cut by 510 Yuan, the National Development and Reform Commission, NDRC, the nation's top economic planner, said on its website last week.
The image of Argentine president Cristina Fernandez and the approval of her government have fallen significantly in June compared to last October when she was re-elected for a second four year mandate.
The future of the Euro may be determined in the coming weeks, as Greek voters decide whether to honour the country’s international bailout and create a first test for Spain’s newly built 100 billion-Euro banking firewall.
For the third night in ten days angry Argentines took to the streets of Buenos Aires and other major cities banging pots and pans to protest corruption, rampant crime and insecurity, inflation and the dollar clamp in the midst of an economy that is showing clear signals of exhaustion and growing questions on the current course of affairs.
Spain is expected to ask the Euro zone for help with recapitalising its banks this weekend, sources in Brussels and Berlin said on Friday, becoming the fourth country to seek assistance since Europe's debt crisis began.
Industrial activity in Argentina dropped 3% in April compared to the same month a year ago, with the first four months closing with 1.1% growth, although with a declining tendency according to the latest data from the Argentine Industrial Union, UIA.
Chile's consumer price index remained unchanged in May, the government statistics agency INE said on Friday, slowing its pace from April as lower food and transport prices offset higher electricity costs. Prices rose 0.1% in April, the INE said last month.
United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said global food prices dropped sharply in May due to generally favourable supplies, growing global economic uncertainties and a strengthening of the US dollar.
Argentina is rapidly becoming an expensive country for tourists and evidence of this is the declining number of tourists arriving in the country in the first months of the year while the number of Argentine travelling overseas is soaring, according to Mario Lielman, chair of the Buenos Aires Tourism and Travel Agencies Association.