Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez seems to be fully active recovering the initiative impetus of his pre-chemotherapy treatment. On Monday he was on national television in a meeting with a business delegation from Byelorussia. Last Saturday he was seen giving away home appliances and in the evening chairing a cabinet meeting.
A Chilean plan for modernizing and upgrading its defense forces is under way with one of the first major contracts going to BAE Systems for the supply and refurbishment of 12 U.S.-made M109A5 howitzers. The 15.8 million dollars contract has been implemented for the Chilean Government through a US foreign military sales contract.
Chile's LAN Airlines and Brazilian carrier TAM have appealed to Chile's top court some of the conditions imposed on their planned merger as the companies push ahead to create one of the world's biggest airlines.
Latin America has experienced significant advances in the reduction of poverty but has barely improved the deep social inequalities that limit its development according to Heraldo Muñoz, head of the regional UN Program for Development.
Aerolíneas Argentinas is estimated to have lost in the last twelve months 486 million dollars which puts her among the air carriers with greatest losses in the world. Only Air India, also government managed, but with 30.000 staff (three times her Argentine counterpart) dilapidated 1.2 billion dollars and Kuwait Airways, 564 million dollars
Half a million sheep have already died in Argentine Patagonia as a result of the eruption of the Chilean volcano Puyehe, which has covered most fields in the province of Chubut with a film made of a mix of mineral ash.
One morning October last year two agents from the Venezuelan presidency cabinet left on a special mission from the Miraflores Palace (seat of the Executive). They headed a few blocks away to the Central Bank to pick up five million dollars cash, expenses-money for the coming international tour of President Chavez to Moscow, Kiev, Teheran, Damascus and Tripoli.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff plans to meet the president of soccer's world governing body on Monday to resolve a legal dispute over the 2014 World Cup, the Estado de S. Paulo newspaper reported.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas is scheduled to visit Colombia, a country which holds a non permanent seat at the UN Security Council and could cast a decisive vote for the recognition of a State of Palestine.
The Chilean government proposed a 5% increase in public spending and a 7.2% gain in education outlays next year as it tries to end four months of protests that have seen a quarter of a million students miss classes and weekly battles with the police.