Economy

• Saturday, April 14th 2012 - 22:34 UTC

  Chavez cancels summit’s plan and flies to Cuba on a 90 day leave for treatment

  

  Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez will not attend this weekend's hemispheric summit in Colombia and will instead fly straight to Cuba to continue radiation treatment for cancer, his foreign minister said on Saturday.

• Saturday, April 14th 2012 - 22:26 UTC

  “Revolutionary Junta” to consolidate “Chavism”, forecasts US expert in Latam affairs

  

  Venezuelan military alarmed by the fast physical deterioration of President Hugo Chavez have worked out an emergency plan to be implemented, including the suspension of basic constitutional rights, at the slightest sign of political agitations, said the former US ambassador before the OAS, Roger Noriega.

• Saturday, April 14th 2012 - 06:48 UTC

  YPF dispute: Argentina runs the risk of becoming an ‘international pariah” warns Spain

  

  Spanish officials warned Argentina on Friday that the country risks becoming “an international pariah” if it follows through on its threats to take control of Spanish-owned energy company Repsol's majority stake in its YPF unit.

• Saturday, April 14th 2012 - 06:32 UTC

  “Argentina: shame on you”; Editorial from Canada’s Globe and Mail

  

  Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has said it is “absurd” for the British government, which has enjoyed sovereignty over the Falkland Islands for 180 years, to maintain its claim from an ocean away “when these Islands are part of our maritime platform.” Applying the logic of Ms. Kirchner, Canada should be stoking international tensions in an effort to annex Saint-Pierre and Miquelon. And perhaps Greenland.

• Saturday, April 14th 2012 - 06:21 UTC

  Falklands veteran Royal Marine and yomper, feels Falklands are well defended

  

  Retired Royal Marine Brigadier Ian Gardiner, who commanded a Marine company in the 1982 Falklands war, thinks a new Argentine attack on the Islands is unlikely.

• Saturday, April 14th 2012 - 06:17 UTC

  Ocampo drops out from World Bank bid; gives full support to Nigerian candidate

  

  Former Colombian finance minister Jose Antonio Ocampo ended his bid to become World Bank president on Friday, leaving two candidates in an unprecedented challenge to US control of the global development institution.

• Friday, April 13th 2012 - 03:03 UTC

  Cristina Fernandez and Obama will hold bilateral meeting in Colombia

  

  Argentine president Cristina Fernandez leaves on Friday for Colombia to attend the two-day sixth Summit of the Americas where she is scheduled to hold a meeting with President Barack Obama on request from the White House, according to the Executive press office in Buenos Aires.

• Friday, April 13th 2012 - 02:24 UTC

  Argentina’s March inflation according to private estimates, 2.3%

  

  Argentine opposition lawmakers presented on Thursday March’s inflation index based in the analysis of nine private agencies, which showed a 2.3% increase over the previous month.

• Friday, April 13th 2012 - 01:14 UTC

  FAO Food price index remained virtually unchanged in March

  

  The FAO Food Price Index (FFPI) averaged 216 points in March 2012, virtually unchanged from 215 points in February. Among the various commodity groups, only oils prices showed strength, compensating for falling dairy quotations, while the indices of cereals, sugar and meat prices were largely unchanged from February’s level

• Thursday, April 12th 2012 - 17:48 UTC

  World trade growth will slow for second year in 2012, anticipates WTO

  

  World trade growth will slow for a second year to 3.7% in 2012 but “severe” downside risks could drive it further below the 20-year average of 5.4%, the World Trade Organization forecast on Thursday.