The deep controversy over free trade and how to promote job creation was evident late Thursday with the arrival of US President George Bush to Mar del Plata, Argentina for the IV Americas Summit scheduled to begin Friday: the final declaration draft remained almost finished with two or three paragraphs still open.
Brazil confirmed the existence of ten new outbreaks of foot and mouth disease, FAM, but concentrated in a county of the state of Matto Grosso do Sul where the epidemic started in early October.
Unemployment in Chile dropped to 8,5% during the July-September quarter from 9,7% in the same period a year ago, according to the latest release from the Statistics Institute.
Pranab Mukherjee became the first Indian Minister of Defence to visit Antarctica where he was taken by Chilean hosts last weekend.
Chile's Health minister Pedro García called on the population to abstain from consuming uncooked sea food because of the possible resurgence of the para-hemolytic vibrion which last year intoxicated 10,000 people.
Chilean legislators have called upon the government to declare the coast in the northern city of Antofagasta a catastrophe area following the oil spill by a Hong Kong-flagged cargo ship which ran aground last Monday and apparently seems out of control.
Illegal fishing fleets are plundering the seas and endangering depleted fish stocks by taking advantage of international rules by which they can adopt flags of convenience from other countries to provide a cover for their activities.
Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez forecasted that the coming Americas Summit in Mar del Plata, Argentina will definitively bury the United States sponsored Free Trade of the Americas Association, FTAA.
President George W. Bush described United States relations with Latin America as good and said his administration's polity is to be good neighbours and good friends with the region stressing upon the shared values of democracy.
OAS Secretary-General Jose Miguel Insulza said in an interview published Wednesday that he believed it would be hard to make progress on the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) at the Summit of the Americas, which will be held later this week in Mar del Plata, Argentina.