Oil prices of near 100 dollars per barrel caused alarm in consuming countries in 2007 and analysts forecast another tense crude market this year with triple-figure records a real prospect.
A volcano in southern Chile erupted on Tuesday, spewing lava and ash, and forcing the evacuation of about 150 people, officials said.
For years, the joke in this country was that Brazil's economy was the economy of the future. The morose punchline, of course, was that the future never arrives. But finally, it seems, the future is now.
Crude oil rose to $100 a barrel for the first time in New York as record global fuel consumption threatens to outpace production.
Kidnappers in the north Somali region of Puntland have freed two aid workers from the Spanish branch of Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).