Latin America

• Sunday, February 8th 2009 - 20:00 UTC

  Venezuela appeals to reserves to sustain public spending

  

  Venezuela will spend 1.65 billion US dollars from its National Development Fund in the first quarter to sustain public spending after a drop in international crude prices and the global slowdown have affected the country, said President Hugo Chavez.

• Sunday, February 8th 2009 - 01:59 UTC

  Bolivia's Morales: New constitution takes effect

  

  Evo Morales, Bolivia's president, has enacted a new constitution which hands greater powers to the country's indigenous majority and allows him to seek a second five-year term.

• Friday, February 6th 2009 - 20:00 UTC

  Colombia's FARC releases last civilian hostage

  

  Colombia's Revolutionary Armed Forces, FARC, released Thursday the last civilian among a group of 22 so-called political captives held by the rebels. Two Red Cross helicopters were involved in the release of the former lawmaker Sigifredo Lopez, 45, held captive by the drug-funded group for almost seven years.

• Friday, February 6th 2009 - 20:00 UTC

  FARC committed war crimes and act on paranoiac cowardice

  

  The last civilian hostage to be released by the Colombian rebel group FARC revealed that eleven of his kidnapped peers were killed shot in the back, by the guerrillas in an act of what he described as “paranoiac cowardice”.

• Friday, February 6th 2009 - 20:00 UTC

  Chile's growth slows significantly in last 2008 quarter

  

  Chile's economy grew 0.5% in December, the worst performance for that month in a decade, according to the latest figures released on Thursday by the country's Central Bank.

• Friday, February 6th 2009 - 20:00 UTC

  Lowest January inflation in Chile since 1943: minus 0.8%

  Consumer inflation in Chile during January dropped 0.8%, the lowest since the same month in 1943, accumulating 6.3% in the last twelve months, according to the latest report from the country's Statistics Institute, INE.

• Friday, February 6th 2009 - 20:00 UTC

  Repsol in significant oil discovery in Gulf of Mexico

  

  Repsol has made a significant new oil find in the deepwater area of the Gulf of Mexico, in US waters. The discovery was made in the Buckskin well in Keathley Canyon, 300 kilometres offshore Houston.

• Thursday, February 5th 2009 - 20:00 UTC

  Mexico floods market with dollars to stop run on the Peso

  

  Mexico's central bank and finance ministry confirmed that the bank had intervened on Wednesday to prop up the ailing peso currency by selling dollars directly to market players.

• Thursday, February 5th 2009 - 20:00 UTC

  Fossil remains of snake “as long as a bus” in Colombia

  

  The discovery of fossilised remains belonging to the world's largest snake has been reported in Nature journal. Titanoboa was 13 meters long - about the length of a bus - and lived in the rainforest of north-east Colombia 58-60 million years ago.

• Thursday, February 5th 2009 - 20:00 UTC

  UN office proposes “South-South” trade to cope with crisis

  

  Trade, investment and other cooperation between developing countries – so called ”South-South exchange – could soften the blow of the economic crisis on vulnerable economies, the head of the United Nations agency that promotes commerce to fight poverty said on Wednesday.