Stories for March 1st 2007

Thursday, March 1st 2007 - 21:00 UTC
Brazil grows 2.9%; reserves reach record 100 billion

Brazil's economy expanded 2.9% last year compared to 2.35% in 2005 according to the latest official release on Wednesday. In the fourth quarter GDP increased 1.1% over the third quarter and 3.8% over the same period in 2005, reported the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics.
Thursday, March 1st 2007 - 21:00 UTC
South Africa looking into windfall tax for mining industry

Mining companies may be required to pay a windfall tax in South Africa if the recommendations of finance minister Trevor Manuel's task team are implemented, South African daily Business Day reported this week.
Thursday, March 1st 2007 - 21:00 UTC
Brazilian press unconvinced about Lula-Vazquez summit

The promises and expectations of improved relations between Uruguay and Brazil and for Mercosur following the presidential summit in Colonia, Uruguay, don't seem to have convinced the Brazilian press.
Thursday, March 1st 2007 - 21:00 UTC
Dengue fever forces Paraguay to declare “national emergency”

Faced with 100.000 cases of dengue infection which have also caused several deaths Paraguayan Congress declared this week a 60 days “national emergency” and voted funds to combat the Aedes agypty mosquito which transmits the disease.
Thursday, March 1st 2007 - 21:00 UTC
Shanghai and Wall Street rebound, but volatility looms

Chinese stock markets rebounded Wednesday following their deepest fall in a decade but most markets in Asia and Europe kept sliding for a consecutive second day amid fears of a slowing of China and the United States economies.
Thursday, March 1st 2007 - 21:00 UTC
Falklands population, bigger, older & more cosmopolitan

As Bob Dylan once sang, “The times they are a changing” and so, it seems is the typical Falkland Islander.
Thursday, March 1st 2007 - 21:00 UTC
Bush's visit: Brazil proclaims itself South America's speaker

Brazil would like to see the current relation with United States become something positive for South America and expects that Washington's renewed interest in the hemisphere is based on cooperation and not in the old “intervention” style, said Friday Brazilian Foreign Affairs minister Celso Amorim.
Thursday, March 1st 2007 - 21:00 UTC
Chilean scientists to record blue whales “conversations”

Marine Biologists from Chile's Blue Whale Center (CBA) have embarked on a new project to record the noises made by endangered blue whales off the coast of southern Chile. They hope to use their recordings to identify individual whales and learn more about how whales communicate with each other.
Thursday, March 1st 2007 - 21:00 UTC
UN calls on new generation to take better care of planet earth

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called Friday on the world's younger generation to take better care of Planet Earth in the face of global warming than his own.
Thursday, March 1st 2007 - 21:00 UTC
Lula/Vazquez agenda was previously checked by Argentina

The Brazilian initiatives proposed by President Lula da Silva during his Monday summit in Uruguay with his counterpart Tabare Vazquez were previously considered with Argentina, according to reports in the Buenos Aires press.