Latin America

• Thursday, February 28th 2013 - 18:44 UTC

  Major coup and power consolidation for Mexico’s new administration

  

  The head of Mexico's teachers' union and one of the country's most powerful women has been charged with embezzling up to 200 million dollars to fund a lavish lifestyle of shopping sprees and plastic surgery, officials said. The action is seen as a major coup for the three-month old administration of Enrique President Peña Nieto.

• Thursday, February 28th 2013 - 06:13 UTC

  Argentina urges ‘workable’ solution from US appeals court to dispute with holdout bondholders

  

  Argentina's defence urged a US appeals court on Wednesday to come up with a “workable” solution to its long-running fight with so-called holdout bondholders, and assured the country will not pay an amount exceeding the one set in the debt-swaps.

• Thursday, February 28th 2013 - 06:07 UTC

  President Rousseff pledges to cut “Brazil cost” and keeping inflation in check

  

  President Dilma Rousseff said on Wednesday that Brazil must cut its high business costs to become more competitive and vowed to keep inflation in check. The leader anticipated that 2013 will be a year of major infrastructure investments in roads, railways, ports and airports to try to stop bottlenecks from holding the economy back.

• Thursday, February 28th 2013 - 06:04 UTC

  Ninety consecutive months of two-digit inflation in Argentina

  

  Two-digit inflation in Argentina has reached 90 consecutive months, according to economist Carlos Melconian who added that since 2001 the prices’ increase in the country has averaged 500%.

• Wednesday, February 27th 2013 - 06:50 UTC

  Brazil expects inflation to drop in second half of 2013 on a bumper crop of grains

  

  Brazil’s inflation will slow in the second half of the year as the country produces a bumper crop of grains and the Real doesn’t weaken as it did last year, central bank President Alexandre Tombini said.

• Wednesday, February 27th 2013 - 05:18 UTC

  OAS assembly in Guatemala will discuss “alternative strategies for combating drugs”

  

  In an advance of the coming 43rd OAS General Assembly to be held in Antigua, Guatemala next June the country’s Foreign Affairs minister Luis Fernando Carrera Castro presented before the OAS Permanent Council an issue that is gaining support in the continent, “Alternative Strategies for Combating Drugs”.

• Wednesday, February 27th 2013 - 01:14 UTC

  Italy fears knock world stock markets; US recovers on Bernanke’ defence of stimuli

  

  World stock markets and southern European government bonds sank on Tuesday on fears that political stalemate in Italy would leave its economic reforms in tatters and reignite the Euro zone's broader debt crisis.

• Tuesday, February 26th 2013 - 10:46 UTC

  Brazil: current account deficit outpacing FDI expected to continue for two months

  

  Brazil’s current account deficit surged to a record high in January, outpacing foreign direct investment for the third straight month because of the widening trade gap according to central bank data.

• Tuesday, February 26th 2013 - 10:13 UTC

  Ecuador/Chevron dispute enters a new chapter: Correa calls for Latam support

  

  President Rafael Correa said he expects the regional groupings Alba and Unasur to meet urgently and address the “legal aberration” committed by a UN trade law arbitrage tribunal against Ecuador in a case involving US multinational Chevron and decades of environmental damages.

• Tuesday, February 26th 2013 - 09:27 UTC

  Tolerance of bribery and violation of the law in the Americas

  

  Where disregarding the law is normal rather than an aberration, citizens are more likely to see paying a bribe as in their best interest and where obeying the law is the norm and disobeying it constitutes deviant behaviour, citizens are more likely to reject bribery, is one of the foundations for understanding the phenomenon, according to the Americas Barometer Insights in one of its latest papers titled, “tolerance of bribery and violation of the law”.