Rio's samba parade, the highlight of the pre-Lenten carnival, is a hard-fought competition among the city's 14 top samba groups, which present 80-minute parades featuring thousands of costumed dancers, drummers and singers. The parades can cost some $2 million each.
Standard Wool Chile S.A. from Punta Arenas which a year ago was razed to the ground by fire has begun to rebuild the plant and expects to be in full production by next October.
Argentina announced this week a second case of foot and mouth disease following the confirmation of the disease in a stray cow found in a neighboring paddock to the farm where an outbreak was first reported three weeks ago in the northeastern province of Corrientes.
Chilean president Ricardo Lagos confirmed Thursday that the government owned petroleum company ENAP, had discovered natural in Magallanes Region, more precisely in the Mercedes Lake, Tierra del Fuego.
Chile's future president Michele Bachelet will be visiting Uruguay next March 24 following an official invitation from the government of Socialist Tabaré Vazquez, confirmed diplomatic sources in Montevideo.
Environmentalist group Greenpeace blocked Thursday a cargo vessel that was leaving the Chilean port of Talcahuano for Uruguay loaded with equipment for one of the controversial pulp mills to be built in the shore of a shared Argentine-Uruguayan river.
The months' long dispute between Argentina and Uruguay over the construction of two pulp mills on the Uruguayan side of a river shared with Argentina has exposed the increasing disappointment of Mercosur junior partners with the overall functioning of the block dominated by Brazil and Argentina.
European Central Bank decided Thursday to increase the key interest rates by 25 basis points to 2.5% reflecting the risks to price stability which have been identified.
Brazil government debt prices eased slightly yesterday after a rating agency upgraded Brazil's credit but left its outlook stable, knocking investors' expectations of further upgrades in the near future.
Unemployment in Argentina fell to 10.1 percent in the fourth quarter of last year from 11.1 in the third quarter.