The importance of forging closer strategic ties between China and Latin America was underlined by Alicia Barcena, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), in her speech to the China-Community of Latin American and Caribbean two-day ministerial forum that took place in Beijing.
Colombia's first Antarctica expedition is expected to call in Punta Arenas on Wednesday before crossing to the peninsula to begin a three-month scientific hydrographic and climate research with twenty researchers on board committed to ten projects.
Cuba has freed some of 53 people the United States regards as political prisoners as agreed under last month's US-Cuban rapprochement and Washington wants to see the rest released soon, the US State Department said on Tuesday.
Latin America and the Caribbean's economic growth might recover modestly to 2.2% in 2015, up from 1.3% in 2014, its lowest rate since last decade's global financial crisis. Despite the slowdown, the region has managed to maintain its gains against poverty, said Inter-American Development Bank President Luis Alberto Moreno.
The mysterious collapse of the ancient Mayan civilization has been attributed to a variety of factors, most notably overhunting, deforestation, and a catastrophic peasant uprising. However the theory of prolonged extreme drought has been gaining ground among the scientific community in recent years regarding the Mayan demise.
Uruguayan president Jose Mujica defended Brazil's leadership in helping Latin America carve a place and advance in the world context, but at the same time underlined that even when Brazil seems large to its neighbors, together with the rest of the countries, the region is still small in global terms.
The Panama Canal Board of Directors this week formally approved the development and construction of a transshipment port in Panama’s Corozal region. Upon completion, the port will have the capacity to handle more than five million TEUs within a 120-hectare area at the Canal’s entrance to the Pacific. The project is now awaiting the final step for approval from Panama’s National Assembly.
By Robert F Kennedy Jr. (*) - In early December, President Barack Obama announced the restoration of diplomatic relations with Cuba after more than five decades of a misguided policy which my uncle, John F. Kennedy, and my father, Robert F. Kennedy, had been responsible for enforcing after the U.S. embargo against the country was first implemented in October 1960 by the Eisenhower administration.
The U.N. General Assembly approved this week the financing of a plan to develop a new legal framework to restructure national debts, a move aimed at avoiding the kind of speculative action that led Argentina to a second default.
Uruguay's president Jose Mujica and elected president Tabare Vazquez will attend the inauguration, on January first, of Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff second consecutive mandate in Brasilia. The two leaders received an official invitation from the Rousseff administration according to Uruguay's official media.