
Chilean authorities anticipate that for the season 2012/13, Punta Arenas will be in favourable conditions to compete with neighbouring Ushuaia in Argentina. This follows on Chilean initiatives to cut operation costs for cruise vessels dramatically and the lifting of the ban on floating casinos.

With just over a month for the presidential elections April 10, former Peruvian president Alejandro Toledo continues to lead comfortably vote intention according to the latest public opinion polls. Lawmaker Keiko Fujimori and former Lima mayor Luis Castañeda are runner ups but ten points below.

Peru and the European Union will be signing the final documents for a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) in mid March, said Peruvian Trade and Tourism Minister Eduardo Ferreyros in Lima.

By Nicolás Eyzaguirre (*) Building on recent successes, Latin America now has a chance to raise its profile in the global marketplace. “There is nothing so joyous as a Mexican fiesta, but there is also nothing so sorrowful,” wrote Nobel-Prize-winning poet Octavio Paz, in The Labyrinth of Solitude. “Our fiestas are explosions. Life and death, joy and sorrow, music and mere noise are united.

The cost of producing energy keeps going up in Chile, as the drought in the north drags on and the international price of petroleum increases.

Punta Arenas in the extreme south of Chile is experiencing a significant drop in the number of cruise visitors this season according to the Austral Port Authority, EPA.

Brazil's civil aviation authority passed on Thursday the planned combination between Brazilian airline TAM and Chilean rival LAN with no restrictions, giving a boost to their project to create Latin America's largest airline and the third largest in the world.

Chilean President Sebastián Piñera arrived in Italy this week for a three-day visit to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and the Vatican. It comes at a difficult time for Berlusconi, who is in the middle of a scandal and allegations of tax fraud and consorting with under-age prostitutes.

Nobel Prize winner in Literature Mario Vargas Llosa said that countries across Latin America will eventually suffer the same type of organized crime-related mayhem currently battering Mexico unless a decision is made to legalize drugs.

Russian military sales have become so frequent in recent years that they no longer make for major headlines. However, as Washington policymakers continue to voice concern about Iran’s growing influence in Latin America, some alarmists argue that Russia’s eagerness to supply the region with weapons is likely to trigger a “soft arms race” and present itself as a threat to the United State’s historic hegemony in the Western Hemisphere.