Brazil's central bank indicated on Thursday it is unlikely to cut interest rates any time soon and instead is focused on curbing resistant high inflation even as the economy flirts with recession. In the minutes of its last policy meeting, the bank stressed that interest rates at current levels should help ease inflation in coming years.
The trial against Venezuelan hard-line opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, who is accused of inciting violence at anti-government protests has began in Caracas. Lopez could face up to 13 years in jail if convicted.
Argentine debt holdout investor Mark Brodsky, chairman of Aurelius Capital Management, said his group will not ask US Judge Thomas Griesa to suspend his payment order, after a story in Argentina's La Nacion newspaper on Thursday suggested that Paul Singer’s NML Capital Ltd could ask Griesa to reinstate the stay of injunction as requested by Argentina.
In a defiant speech President Cristina Fernández reiterated on Wednesday that Argentina will not fall into default and warned that they will have to invent a new word to explain how a country has paid its debt and someone blocked it.
Chinese President Xi Jinping ended on Wednesday an eight-day trip through Latin America with a visit to eastern Cuba, where both the island's independence struggle against Spain and Fidel Castro's revolution began.
Peru's President Ollanta Humala has named his sixth prime minister in three years in a surprise cabinet reshuffle that elevated two core members of his ruling party after an embarrassing political scandal.
The World Bank's vice president for Latin America and the Caribbean, Jorge Familiar, on Wednesday highlighted Peru's economic growth over the past 10 years. Peru's average economic growth over the period has registered 6. 5% annually, allowing many Peruvians to escape poverty, said Familiar.
The consortium made up of Spanish energy company Enagas and Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht signed a contract on Wednesday with Peru's Energy and Mines Ministry for the construction and operation of a natural gas pipeline that will run from the Camisea gas fields to the Pacific port of Ilo.
A 1951 Cadillac limousine owned by former Argentine president Juan Domingo Peron will be auctioned at Silverstone Auctions in England. The car, which was part of a Peron-Eva exhibition at the Eva Peron Museum in Buenos Aires, is privately owned, and was handed over to the auction house. The Cadillac has an estimated value of between 200,000 and 260,000 pounds.
Three cars were burned early Wednesday in Santiago's San Miguel district, where those responsible for the vandalism left pamphlets alluding to the cases of anarchists who have been arrested in Chile and abroad, police said.