Latin America

• Monday, May 24th 2010 - 03:33 UTC

  Morales tells Spanish companies their investments in Bolivia are protected

  

  Investments by Spanish firms are protected in new Bolivian regulations, but companies involved in plots against the government will not be forgiven, said President Evo Morales on Sunday during a fence-mending speech.

• Monday, May 24th 2010 - 03:23 UTC

  Cuban Catholic Church mediation helping with liberation of political prisoners

  

  Cuban dissident Guillermo Fariñas said on Sunday that the Catholic Church notified him that Raul Castro’s regime on Monday will begin taking “preliminary steps” regarding ill political prisoners and that a meeting is scheduled for this week “to speak about releases”.

• Monday, May 24th 2010 - 03:09 UTC

  Colombian presidential candidates neck-to-neck ahead of May 30 election

  

  Colombia’s former Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos and Green Party candidate Antanas Mockus appear to be neck and neck for the May 30 presidential vote, and Mockus would have an edge in a June run-off.

• Saturday, May 22nd 2010 - 00:41 UTC

  Malaysia 59th country to sign free trade agreement with Chile

  

  This week Malaysia became the 59th country to sign a free trade agreement with Chile. It is the first free trade agreement (FTA) for President Sebastian Piñera's government and it is Malaysia’s first FTA with a Latin American nation.

• Saturday, May 22nd 2010 - 00:10 UTC

  Chile’s drops in world competitiveness ranking but still top of Latam

  

  Chile fell from number 25 to number 28 on the World Competitiveness Yearbook that includes 58 countries. This is Chile’s worst position since 2000, when it ranked number 30. The highest position it has had is 18, in 2005.

• Saturday, May 22nd 2010 - 00:07 UTC

  Magallanes tourism operators want regional official representative removed

  

  Tourism operators from the extreme south of Chile in Punta Arenas are demanding that the regional representative of the national Tourism Office, Senatur, Christian Miranda resign and be immediately replaced.

• Friday, May 21st 2010 - 02:48 UTC

  Peru en route to become the world’s fifth gold producer

  

  Peru’s Ministry of Energy and Mines (MEM) said this week that the country would rank among the world’s top 5 gold producers before 2015 thanks to the production potential and increased investment in the sector.

• Friday, May 21st 2010 - 02:15 UTC

  South American bumper soy beans crop to push prices down

  

  The specialized publication Oil World raised its forecast for the world 2009/2010 soy beans crop in 47.6 million tons compared to the previous season, totalling 258.9 million tons. The upward estimate is boosted by the South American crop which will be 37 million tons larger than the 134 million tons of the 2008/09 harvest.

• Friday, May 21st 2010 - 01:36 UTC

  Turkish Prime Minister to visit Brazil, Argentina and Chile

  

  Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan from G-20 member Turkey will pay formal visits to Brazil, Argentina and Chile at the end of May. Turkey and Brazil have increasing closer links and earlier this week brokered a deal with Iran regarding Teheran’s controversial nuclear fuel production capacity.

• Thursday, May 20th 2010 - 18:34 UTC

  Argentina revives long time border dispute with Chile in Patagonian ice fields

  

  Old wounds were reopened between Chile and Argentina this week: a long-time border dispute in the nations’ southern Patagonia regions.