Latin America

• Tuesday, April 12th 2011 - 23:17 UTC

  Decline of bee population becomes a threat for Chile’s fruit industry

  

  The Chilean fruit industry is being threatened by the rapid decline of the country’s bee population, a product by the country’s ongoing drought.
  Water shortages across central Chile are withering the flower buds, depriving bees of their sustenance, the nectar.

• Tuesday, April 12th 2011 - 21:18 UTC

  Inflation contagion in Latin America with the exception of Mexico, says IMF

  

  Inflation risks are building in all Latin American countries except Mexico, where price gains are low and economic expansion should outpace Brazil this year, according to the the International Monetary Fund World Economic Outlook.

• Tuesday, April 12th 2011 - 16:26 UTC

  Chile winery expands in Argentina to double production in five years

  

  The Chilean wine company Viña Montes plans to invest 20 million US dollars in vineyards on the other side of the Andes in neighbouring Argentina, where it expects to double production over the next five years.

• Tuesday, April 12th 2011 - 15:58 UTC

  Humala and Keiko will have to convince the 45% middle of the road vote

  

  With 90% of Sunday’s presidential election ballots counted Peru is headed for a runoff between nationalist Ollanta Humala and former lawmaker Keiko Fujimori, a choice many voters in the country’s surging middle and upper classes might have trouble swallowing.

• Tuesday, April 12th 2011 - 04:25 UTC

  Humala’s run off with Keiko Fujimori; Peruvian economy faces overheating

  

  Peru’s presidential election on Sunday will have a second round of voting between Ollanta Humala and Keiko Fujimori on 5th June, according to the latest official percentages which indicate the nationalist former Army officer has 31.75% of the vote and the daughter of former president Alberto Fujimori, 23.29%, quite distanced from Pedro Pablo Kuczynski’s (PPK) 18.8%.

• Monday, April 11th 2011 - 20:52 UTC

  January’s gas rates conflict in Punta Arenas takes its toll: governor resigns

  

  Governor Liliana Kusanovic, from the extreme south Chilean Magallanes region has resigned alleging the need to care for family affairs and denying any link with January’s gas prices strike which paralyzed the region for a week. Ms Kusanovic’s resignation, which belongs to the ruling coalition, was accepted and made public Monday.

• Monday, April 11th 2011 - 20:34 UTC

  Crime and violence cost Central American countries 8% of GDP, says World Bank

  

  Growing crime and violence in Central America not only have an immediate human and social toll but they also pose a tremendous threat to development potential in the region since it is estimated that these sources of instability cost 8% of GDP, once health, institutional, private security, and material expenses are accounted for.

• Monday, April 11th 2011 - 20:04 UTC

  U2 current worldwide tour nets 558m; beats Rolling Stones record

  

  U2's current worldwide 360° tour has become the highest grossing in history, beating the record previously set by The Rolling Stones between the years 2005-2007, reported Live Nation Entertainment.

• Monday, April 11th 2011 - 06:29 UTC

  South America military expenditure up 2010, but insignificant in global terms

  

  The region with the largest increase in military expenditure in 2010 was South America, with a 5.8% increase in real terms, reaching a total of 63.3 billion US dollars according to the latest report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI.

• Monday, April 11th 2011 - 06:17 UTC

  With Colombia support Venezuela gets temporary extension of Andean membership

  

  Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez agreed over the weekend to temporarily extend the bilateral trade pact within the framework of the Andean Community, or CAN, despite Venezuela’s pending withdrawal from that regional organization on April 21.