Bolivia this weekend is hosting a summit of the South American Community of Nations (CSN), with President Evo Morales trying hard to present himself as a regional leader amid political trouble and a mass hunger strike at home.
The European Union praised the World Bank decision to extend a 170 million US dollars loan for the completion of the Botnia-Orion pulp mill in Fray Bentos, Uruguay, and which has become the core of a dispute with neighboring Argentina.
World Trade Organization chief Pascal Lamy said in Paris that a global trade deal was possible in 2007 but it would need bigger efforts from the world's main players.
As long as the Doha Round is pending, significant advances in negotiations with Mercosur for a free trade agreement will not be forthcoming anticipated on Friday the European Union External Trade Commissioner, Peter Mandelson.
Argentina's Defense Minister Nilda Garré symbolically gave departure orders for the Navy's icebreaker Almirante Irizar which next week sails south to begin the 2006/07 summer Antarctic season.
Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez arrived Thursday in Buenos Aires for talks with his counterpart Nestor Kirchner and is scheduled to hold a two hours meeting in Montevideo on Friday with President Tabare Vazquez before leaving for Bolivia.
Argentina's Consumer Price Index increased 0.7% in November totaling 8.7% so far this year according to the latest release from the Statistics and Census Office in Buenos Aires.
The richest 2% of adults in the world own more than half of all household wealth, according to a new study by a United Nations research institute. The report, from the World Institute of Development Economics Research at the UN University, says that the poorer half of the world's population own barely 1% of global wealth.
China's growth next year is forecasted to exceed 10% and consumer prices should be in the range of 1.5% according to the latest estimates from the People's Bank of China, reports the Chinese agency Xinhua.
Rioters set cars alight, looted and blocked streets in Paraguay's capital on Tuesday as anger flared over a court verdict relating to a fire in a supermarket that killed 400 people in 2004.