Latin America

• Monday, February 17th 2014 - 09:54 UTC

  Mercosur condemns violence in Venezuela and calls for dialogue

  

  Mercosur country members, in an official release rejected all acts of violence and condemned the destabilization attempts against the government of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro.

• Monday, February 17th 2014 - 09:42 UTC

  Uruguay and Venezuela will further increase energy related cooperation

  

  Uruguay will renew the contract for the purchase of Venezuela oil and accept the stake increase of that country in a local bio-fuels corporation during the scheduled visit of President Nicolas Maduro to Montevideo next month; it was announced by the Uruguayan Foreign affairs ministry.

• Monday, February 17th 2014 - 09:35 UTC

  Maduro blames Washington and expels three US consular officials

  

  Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro said Sunday he was expelling three U.S. consular officials, accusing them of conspiring with the opposition forces to foment unrest as violent protests ran into a fifth straight night. The expulsions come after two weeks of sporadic protests against across the country.

• Monday, February 17th 2014 - 09:21 UTC

  Hague underlines close links with Colombia; meets President Santos Monday

  

  UK Foreign Secretary William Hague was received on Sunday in Cartagena by Colombian Foreign minister María Angeles Holguín and on Monday is scheduled to meet with Juan Manuel Santos at the Palacio Nariño, seat of the Executive in Bogotá. Mr. Hague on Monday evening will be flying to Brazil.

• Monday, February 17th 2014 - 09:09 UTC

  Uruguay's budget surplus reached 2.3% of GDP in 2013

  

  Despite a decade of sustained growth Uruguay's fiscal deficit reached 2.3% of GDP last year, which is an improvement over 2012, when it reached 2.8%, but above the government's target of 2.1%. In money terms this means the budget red was equivalent to 1.154bn dollars, including 350 million dollar losses from government owned companies.

• Monday, February 17th 2014 - 07:49 UTC

  Argentina/Brazil diplomatic incident almost triggers another Mercosur stall

  

  In what was described as a “shameful incident”, Brazil had to retract from statements made by one of its diplomats, a condition demanded by Argentina to continue negotiations for a Mercosur common tariffs reduction proposal which was taking place in Caracas. The incident occurred last week but only came to light over the weekend.

• Saturday, February 15th 2014 - 10:24 UTC

  Brazil, the most dangerous country for Latam journalists, according to RSF

  

  More than 20 years after the fall of the dictatorships and civil wars that dominated Latin America, the region continues to be marked by a strong retaliation against the press, according to Reporters Without Borders, RSF, most recent annual index on the state of press freedom, which was published on Feb. 12.

• Saturday, February 15th 2014 - 07:58 UTC

  Thousands of landless peasants clash with police in Brasilia

  

  Brazilian police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at about 16,000 landless farmers marching for land reform in clashes that left 42 people hurt. The march on Brasilia on Wednesday was the latest in a series of protests rocking the nation, raising security concerns just four months before Brazil hosts football's World Cup.

• Saturday, February 15th 2014 - 06:08 UTC

  Chilean president-elect Bachelet blasts Venezuelan repression and Maduro

  

  Following the bloody events of last Wednesday, while countries such as Argentina, Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua expressed their full support for the Venezuelan government of President Nicolas Maduro, others were more cautious such as Washington and the Europe Union calling for restraint and dialogue, but Chilean president-elect Michelle Bachelet openly twitted her rejection to repression, to President Maduro and called for a plebiscite.

• Saturday, February 15th 2014 - 05:57 UTC

  Venezuela blocks twitter images, allegedly to avoid of pictures police and goons shooting students

  

  Twitter said on Friday that Venezuela had blocked images on its service following an anti-government protest that turned bloody, and it offered a workaround for users who want to get tweets via text message on their cell-phones.