Economy

• Thursday, July 28th 2011 - 11:21 UTC

  Santander Latam’s profits insufficient to compensate EU poor performance

  

  Spain's Banco Santander CEO Alfredo Saenz announced Wednesday its second-quarter net profit fell 38% as growth in Latin America was offset by weaker results in crisis-hit Europe and a one-time charge in Britain

• Thursday, July 28th 2011 - 06:27 UTC

  China, Japan, UK, oil countries and Brazil, top holders of US Treasury bonds

  

  While US politicians remain divided on how to raise the government's ability to borrow, with a key deadline less than a week away, how is the current 14.29 trillion dollars in federal debt split, according to stats from the Treasury Department?

• Thursday, July 28th 2011 - 06:22 UTC

  The US government debt ceiling: what did Eisenhower do back in 1953?

  

  Should the US follow the example of President Dwight Eisenhower back in 1953, asks Alex J Pollok, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and Anne Canfield president of Canfield & Associates, Washington, D.C. in an article published in The American Journal of the AEI.

• Thursday, July 28th 2011 - 06:19 UTC

  Lower House to vote on (doomed) Republican proposal to raise US debt ceiling

  

  US House of Representatives speaker John Boehner is urging Republicans to back his plan to cut the US budget and raise the debt limit. Boehner's appeal to conservative House Republicans came despite a White House veto threat and rejection from Democratic leaders in the Senate.

• Wednesday, July 27th 2011 - 19:28 UTC

  Brazil intervenes the derivatives markets in a bid to weaken the Real

  

  Brazil imposed on Wednesday a tax on bets against the US dollar and warned it may boost intervention in the nation’s derivatives market in a bid to weaken a currency that reached a 12-year high this week. The Real declined by the most in almost three months at times loosing up to 2% to the US dollar.

• Wednesday, July 27th 2011 - 04:49 UTC

  Brazil’s development bank lends 30bn dollars at subsidized rate in five months

  

  Lending by Brazil’s BNDES (National economic and social development bank) totalled 43.5 billion Real (29bn dollars approx) in the first five months of the year, representing a contraction of 6% compared to the same period in 2010, according to a bank’ release.

• Wednesday, July 27th 2011 - 04:07 UTC

  Lamy calls on WTO members for “an adult conversation” fearing failure of trade talks

  

  The head of the World Trade Organization Pascal Lamy warned Tuesday its 153 members of the consequences on failing to agree a watered-down global trade deal by December and called for “an adult conversation” over what to do next.

• Wednesday, July 27th 2011 - 03:48 UTC

  Argentine farmers furious with government’s wheat export policy

  

  Argentina liberated 450.000 tons of wheat for export, a decision which is believed to be closely linked to Sunday’s election in the farming province of Santa Fe where the government of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner suffered a major defeat.

• Tuesday, July 26th 2011 - 20:58 UTC

  Brazilians with a strong currency travelling overseas as never before

  

  With the currency ever so strong against the US dollar Brazilians are travelling overseas and spending as never before, according to the latest figures from the Central Bank.

• Tuesday, July 26th 2011 - 08:25 UTC

  S&P upgrades Uruguay’s rating to BB+, just one notch below investment grade

  

  The credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s upgraded on Monday Uruguay’s rating by one notch to BB-plus, only one notch below investment grade, praising years of “prudent and consistent” economic policies in the country.