Brazil

• Tuesday, August 28th 2012 - 03:52 UTC

  Brazil’s defence industry booming and promoting projects with neighbours

  

  Brazil's defence industry is booming, fuelled by government incentives to modernize the country's armed forces and develop a robust, export-oriented military industrial complex. With the world's sixth largest economy, Brazil was ranked as the eighth largest arms exporter in the 1980s but currently languishes in 30th place, according to industry experts

• Friday, August 24th 2012 - 05:10 UTC

  Brazilian former Senator agrees to reimburse 234 million dollars of looted money

  

  One of two senators in Brazil who were stripped of their positions for corruption will reimburse 234 million dollars in public funds he embezzled in the late 1990s, authorities said Thursday.

• Thursday, August 23rd 2012 - 01:12 UTC

  Merkel, Hillary and Rousseff the three most powerful women, says Forbes

  

  Forbes magazine ranked German Chancellor Angela Merkel the most powerful woman in the world for the second year in a row in the annual list dominated by politicians, businesswomen and media figures. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton placed second, followed by Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, making the top three spots unchanged from last year.

• Wednesday, August 22nd 2012 - 05:20 UTC

  Brazil despite its economic success remains one of the inequality champions

  

  Brazil might be the leading economy in Latin America and has had a significant performance in reducing poverty in recent years, but it still remains among the countries with he highest inequality in the region together with Guatemala, Honduras and Colombia, points out the UN-Habitar report.

• Tuesday, August 21st 2012 - 22:01 UTC

  Brazil with the lowest performance in the first half of 2012 among BRIC countries

  

  Russian GDP growth in percentage terms surpassed Brazil in the first half of the year and even if the market still prefers Brazil’s diverse economy over Russia, the South American country is now dead last in terms of economic growth in the big four emerging markets, BRIC.

• Tuesday, August 21st 2012 - 18:43 UTC

  Paraguay Electoral Tribunal officially announces April 2013 general election

  

  Paraguay officially announced holding elections on April 2013, when a new president and congress will be voted. The three branches of government attended the launching of the announcement that took place at the Superior Electoral Justice Tribunal on Tuesday, one day ahead of the OAS Permanent Council debate on “the Paraguayan situation”.

• Tuesday, August 21st 2012 - 05:21 UTC

  Ecuador ready for dialogue with UK, but with eyes on Friday’s OAS meeting

  

  The Ecuadorean government reiterated on Monday that dialogue with UK on the Julian Assange case will continue once London officially “withdraws” the original message with threats. Quito also is hopeful that the coming OAS extraordinary meeting will ratify full support for Ecuador as has happened with other regional organizations.

• Tuesday, August 21st 2012 - 04:27 UTC

  Brazil’s federal staff several months strike extends to the highways police

  

  The Brazilian highways patrol police in several states joined the national strike of federal workers that are protesting for higher salaries and better working conditions. The strike of the National Federation of Highway Police (Fenapre) was decided unanimously over the weekend effective Monday.

• Tuesday, August 21st 2012 - 02:56 UTC

  Argentina hosted 5.7m tourists in 2011; iconic names play a significant role

  

  Argentina has become the most visited country in South America with arrivals in 2011 reaching almost six million tourists, said Leonardo Boto head of the country’s National Tourism Promotion Institute, Improtur.

• Tuesday, August 21st 2012 - 01:57 UTC

  Re-re-election of Cristina Fernandez fully integrated to the political agenda of Argentina

  

  Several groups allied to Argentine president Cristina Fernandez are actively promoting a constitutional review that would allow re-election for a third consecutive four year mandate. The last Argentine constitutional review was in 1994 when the four-year mandate was introduced with the possibility of an only immediate re-election, thus modifying the six year mandate but with no re-election.