Paraguay's president-elect Fernando Lugo whose historic election ended six decades of one-party rule in the country named a former leftist militant to head his Cabinet when he takes office on August 15.
The Argentine farmers' conflict has the River Plate packed with grain bulk carriers waiting to load in Buenos Aires and Rosario (up the river Parana). An estimated 90 vessels are queuing with the tail reaching the access to the port of Montevideo, in neighboring Uruguay.
Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez named on Sunday Ali Rodriguez, a trusted ally who has also served as head of state oil company PDVSA, as Minister of Finance. Rodriguez is currently ambassador in Cuba and was once secretary general of OPED and has also held the post of Foreign Affairs minister.
Saudi Arabia plans to increase its oil production by 200.000 barrels a day next month, the kingdom's oil minister told U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon on Sunday, according to Ban's spokesman. By July Saudi Arabia's output should be almost 10 million bpd.
The US dollar is expected to open with a strong push in the Chilean money market on Monday having closed on Friday above the benchmark of 500 Chilean pesos, the highest so far this year.
Argentina will hand Paraguay and Bolivia the Limits Act which contains the final territorial and fluvial borders which emerged from the Chaco War, fought 73 years ago between the two landlocked and poorest countries of the continent.
European Union foreign affairs ministers are gathering in Luxembourg for talks on how to respond to the Irish rejection of the Lisbon reform treaty. Voters in the Irish Republic, the only state to hold a referendum on Lisbon, rejected the treaty by 53.4% to 46.6% last Thursday.
The bear market in Chinese stocks deepened on Friday as the main index tumbled 3% to a new 15-month closing low, 13.89% down over the week, the biggest weekly drop since 1996.
Argentina's food and fuel shortages worsened on Friday as groups of truckers continue to block highways in spite of the government announcement that the stoppage was over following talks with one of several protesting groups.
IN and around the Falklands for the last few weeks has been tourism consultant, Kevin Millington, of Acorn Tourism, who have been engaged by the Falkland Islands Tourist Board to measure the economic impact of what has been described as our fastest growing industry.