Brazil's state oil giant Petrobras remains Latin America's top company in revenues, but has lost its position as the profit leader after posting record losses last year due to a growing corruption scandal and administrative inefficiencies, according to a new ranking of the region's 500 largest companies from digital publication Latinvex.
The Inter American Development Bank, IDB, has organized a seminar to discuss industrial policies in Latin America and the Caribbean in a post Washington-Consensus framework. Anemic economic growth in the region is in need of policy shot in the arm.
Remittances to Latin America and the Caribbean set a new record high in 2014 with 65bn dollars basically supported by the recovery of the economy and labor market in the United States, according to the latest release from the Inter American Development Bank.
Bolivia is closer to becoming a full member of Mercosur following on Argentina's ratification of the Adhesion Protocol.
Former United States President Jimmy Carter ended an election-monitoring trip to Guyana early and flew home on Sunday after falling ill, the Carter Center, his nonprofit organization, said in a statement. The Carter Center provided only sketchy information on Sunday about the condition of the 90-year-old former president.
Guyana voted Monday in early elections pitting embattled President Donald Ramotar against an upstart opposition alliance seeking to unite voters across racial lines with its calls to end corruption.
French President Francois Hollande has urged an end to the US trade embargo of Cuba and envisioned a larger French role in Cuba's engagement with the West during the first visit by a French head of state to Cuba. Havana is in foreign policy talks with both the European Union and the United States amid intense world interest in Cuba following detente with Washington in December.
Cuban President Raul Castro has praised Pope Francis for brokering the restoration of relations between Cuba and the US, announced in December. At the end of a Sunday audience at the Vatican, Castro said he had thanked the Pope for his contribution for the historic rapprochement.
Chilean President Michelle Bachelet plans to announce a reshuffling of her Cabinet this Monday in a bid to restore her public image, which has been badly tarnished by corruption scandals, including one involving her son.
Venezuela will hold parliamentary elections in the last quarter of this year and the exact date will be announced soon, the head of the National Electoral Council (CNE) said on Sunday. The elected lawmakers will be inaugurated for five years on 2016.