Latin America

• Tuesday, October 13th 2015 - 07:13 UTC

  Pacific Alliance members outstand in Latin American performance, says IMF

  

  Brazil is still by far the largest economy in Latin America despite its recession and the impact of the devaluation of the Real, according to the latest report from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which said Venezuela dropped to the position of the region’s seventh-largest economy with a GDP that’s now half the size of Colombia’s.

• Monday, October 12th 2015 - 06:22 UTC

  Scioli leads presidential race in Argentina but still a puff short to avoid runoff

  

  Argentine ruling party's candidate Daniel Scioli maintains a commanding lead in the presidential race but still lacks enough voter support to win outright in the first round, an opinion poll by the Poliarquia consultancy showed on Sunday.

• Monday, October 12th 2015 - 06:19 UTC

  “Under no condition, I might resign” says Brazil's Lower House speaker

  

  The speaker of Brazil's lower house of Congress ruled out resigning in response to pressure from colleagues over allegations that he took bribes and stashed the money in Swiss bank accounts.

• Monday, October 12th 2015 - 06:16 UTC

  Petrobras corruption scandal could reach US$ 5.3bn: “we've only seen the tip of the iceberg”

  

  Damage from the gargantuan corruption scandal centered on Brazilian state oil company Petrobras could amount to as much as 20 billion Reais ($5.3 billion), a lead prosecutor revealed last week.

• Monday, October 12th 2015 - 06:14 UTC

  Levy confident congress will finally approve austerity measures to help Brazil's economy

  

  The president Dilma Rousseff administration is geared to “preparing the country to deal with a new international reality”, Brazilian Finance Minister Joaquim Levy told Reuters in an interview on Saturday.

• Saturday, October 10th 2015 - 07:11 UTC

  Opposition will push for impeachment proceedings against Rousseff next week

  

  Brazil opposition lawmakers will push for impeachment proceedings to begin next week against embattled President Dilma Rousseff, local media reported Friday. It comes after the country’s top audit court, the TCU, ruled that the government’s 2014 accounts had been manipulated in the run-up to last year’s presidential elections to give a better impression of the economy and sustain spending on social programs.

• Saturday, October 10th 2015 - 06:27 UTC

  Global Unions call on IMF and World Bank should take recession threats seriously

  

  Given the Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank taking place in Lima, Peru, the International Trade Union Conference, ITUC, and its Global Unions partners call on the international financial institutions to adopt policies that counter the global economic slowdown.

• Saturday, October 10th 2015 - 06:11 UTC

  The Pope’s Subversive Message

  

  The following piece by Arthur C. Brooks (*) was published in The New York Times opinion page. It is a strong view on Francis's visit significance for US Catholicism.

• Friday, October 9th 2015 - 07:05 UTC

  Guyana looks forward to Canadian support in territorial claims with Venezuela

  

  The government of Guyana will be looking forward to Canada’s support against the territorial claims by Venezuela even as it seeks to strengthen its ties and bilateral agreements with the state, through new Canadian High Commissioner to Guyana, Pierre Giroux.

• Thursday, October 8th 2015 - 10:21 UTC

  With Brazil contracting 3%, Latin America's economy will shrink 0.3%, says IMF report

  

  The International Monetary Fund said today that it now expects Latin America's economy to shrink 0.3% this year instead of growing 0.5%, largely due to a steep recession in Brazil and slumping commodity prices. It would be the first recession for the Latin American and Caribbean region since 2009.