The US National Security Agency’s cyber spying on foreign heads of state from Angela Merkel to Dilma Rousseff is poised to produce its first high-profile corporate casualty: Google Inc.’s operations in Brazil.
Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff will inaugurate on Tuesday in Paraguay next to his peer Horacio Cartes a high voltage transmission line from the world's largest operational hydroelectric dam Itaipú to metropolitan Asuncion, capital of the landlocked country and which was financed with Mercosur funds.
Brazil’s state-controlled oil producer Petrobras said third-quarter profit slid 40%, missing analysts’ estimates, on higher fuel imports and refining losses. Net income dropped to 3.39 billion Reais (1.55bn dollars) from 5.66 billion Reais a year earlier, the company said on Friday in a regulatory statement.
Former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's political movement chose economist Oscar Ivan Zuluaga on Saturday as its candidate for presidential elections in May, a vote which represents Uribe's tough stance against leftist guerrillas.
Argentine President Cristina Fernandez's governing bloc held onto control of Congress in Sunday's mid-term elections, but the results also confirmed the emergence of a new group of powerful leaders who with different messages (and non-messages) anticipated on that same night that their target it the presidential chair in 2015.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff responded to the International Monetary Fund concern over the country's fiscal situation, saying Brazil was fulfilling its responsibilities. IMF claimed that Brazil's competitiveness had eroded in recent months and downgraded the country's growth forecast from 4.25% to 3.5%.
Chilean former president and opposition coalition New Majority candidate Michelle Bachelet presented her government's program which is based on a review of the constitution, education and tax reforms, legalizing same sex marriage, government managed pension funds and strengthening unions' bargaining power, among other issues.
Brazilian police fired tear gas and have arrested scores of protesters in the country's main city Sao Paulo when a march demanding free public transportation for students turned violent. The protest on Friday evening blocked key city streets and disrupted the public transportation system in the city of 11 million. Police reported the arrest of at least 78 people.
Sunday's midterm election in Argentina has become crucial for the government of President Cristina Fernandez who must retain control of Congress in the last two years of her mandate ahead of the 2015 presidential election, otherwise she runs the risk of becoming a lame duck accompanied by a most unwished end for the legacy of the Kirchner couple decade-plus rule.
The Paraguayan foreign affairs ministry will represent Mercosur next December when the exchange of proposals with the European Union for a long pending free trade agreement, announced Uruguayan president Jose Mujica on Friday following private talks with his visiting peer from Paraguay, Horacio Cartes.