About 70,000 people, or 20% of the population, have fled Christchurch, New Zealand's second-largest city, since last week's devastating earthquake, Mayor Bob Parker said Friday.
Argentina's construction activity grew at a slower pace in January, with many builders away on summer vacation, according to the national statistics agency, Indec.
Global construction will outpace GDP growth over the next 10 years, with China and India accounting for 38% of the 4.8 trillion US dollars increase in output by 2020, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) said this week.
Brazil's civil aviation authority passed on Thursday the planned combination between Brazilian airline TAM and Chilean rival LAN with no restrictions, giving a boost to their project to create Latin America's largest airline and the third largest in the world.
Chilean President Sebastián Piñera arrived in Italy this week for a three-day visit to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and the Vatican. It comes at a difficult time for Berlusconi, who is in the middle of a scandal and allegations of tax fraud and consorting with under-age prostitutes.
The Brazilian government is considering additional foreign exchange measures to contain the rapid appreciation of the Real, a source inside the Finance Ministry told the Sao Paulo Estado news agency Friday.
Retail prices in Brazil, as measured by the benchmark IPCA index, rose 0.8% in February, down from 0.83% January, the national statistics agency said in a report distributed in Rio de Janeiro Friday.
Nobel Prize winner in Literature Mario Vargas Llosa said that countries across Latin America will eventually suffer the same type of organized crime-related mayhem currently battering Mexico unless a decision is made to legalize drugs.
US Department of Agriculture attaches in Buenos Aires have warned against upbeat forecasts for Argentina's soybean harvest, saying many farms missed out on crop-reviving rainfall.
Argentina's automotive industry made fewer cars in February than it did the previous month but output was up from the same month a year ago.