The commitment to end illiteracy in the next five years and the overwhelming approval of a democratic clause in support of institutional democracy was the outstanding consensus of the Ibero-American leaders’ summit held in Mar del Plata hosted by President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.
Brazilian president Lula da Silva praised the late Argentine president Nestor Kirchner saying he was the leader who helped Argentines recover their self-esteem and marked a historic change in relations between Brazil and Argentina.
The recent Exponaval 2010 and Transport 2010 exhibit held in the Chilean port of Valparaíso was described as a complete success by the organizers of the event that convened over 150 exhibitors, 34 foreign navies’ delegations and totalling business deals “above 600 million US dollars”.
The nomination of a secretary general for Unasur, Union of South American Nations, could be delayed until mid December since discussions on the sidelines of the XXth Ibero-American summit in Mar del Plata, Argentina, are currently stalled and time is running short, according to political analysts.
Brazil’s Lula da Silva and US Barack Obama are the Western hemisphere leaders best evaluated and most respected, according to a paper based on a public opinion poll and which was released Friday by the NGO Latinobarometro.
The Latin American oil and gas explorer and producer GeoPark which has been successfully drilling for oil and gas in the extreme south of Chile has made a private placement of 133 million US dollars to invest in expanding activities.
Several top Mexican officials admitted the government was in danger of losing control of parts of the country to powerful drug cartels, according to U.S. State Department documents made public by WikiLeaks.
Cuba began this week a public debate over landmark plans to lift the island's struggling economy and “preserve the revolution’s victories” by liberalizing some private enterprise, admitting small farmers private property, streamlining the vast state bureaucracy by leaving redundant a half-million workers.
IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn ruled out any possibility of an impending double-dip recession even as he warned against downward risks posing the countries while they were recuperating, albeit languidly.
Spanish bank BBVA Studies Group increased its 2010 growth forecast for Latinamerica to 5.8% (from 5.2%) mainly because of the strong showing of domestic economies boosted by stimuli packages. The report also praised the performance of all four Mercosur full members (Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay) with their economies expanding over 7.5%.