Latin America

• Tuesday, January 28th 2014 - 05:56 UTC

  Three crucial ministries in Chilean president elect Bachelet cabinet

  

  Chile’s President-elect Michelle Bachelet ended weeks of speculation about the composition of her Cabinet as she prepares to re-take the presidency on March 11 following her overwhelming win with her New Majority coalition in December 2013. Three ministries will be crucial if Bachelet is to keep her education reform program: Education, Finance and Interior.

• Tuesday, January 28th 2014 - 05:05 UTC

  Argentine market cautious reaction to new rules on foreign exchange and dollar savings

  

  In what promises to be a week of surprises as the Argentine government unfolds measures to contain the price of the US dollar, this Monday the peso held relatively stable after last week's sharp devaluation. While the official rate remained unchanged at 8.01 Pesos for a greenback, in the parallel market it climbed to 12.15 Pesos.

• Tuesday, January 28th 2014 - 05:00 UTC

  Brazil current account deficit ended 2013 at its widest in twelve years

  

  Brazil's current account ended 2013 at its widest deficit in 12 years amid a weakened foreign trade balance, heavy outgoing service payments, overseas profit remittances and an overall lack of confidence in the country's economic policies.

• Tuesday, January 28th 2014 - 04:36 UTC

  Cristina Fernandez has lunch with Fidel Castro and blasts banks' “speculative practices”

  

  Argentine President Cristina Fernández used her personal Twitter account to blast figures in the banking and financial industries, which according to the head of state used speculative practices to send Argentina into default in 2001.

• Monday, January 27th 2014 - 19:26 UTC

  Coca Cola CEO warns youth unemployment is a great risk for social peace

  

  Unemployment among teens and young adults represents a huge global problem, says Muhtar Kent, CEO of Coca-Cola. In the United States, teenage unemployment totaled 20.2 percent in December and if the situation isn't addressed, the results could be devastating, the social peace and fabric of the world is in danger.

• Monday, January 27th 2014 - 16:48 UTC

  Falklands Islands, CELAC and the right to self-determination

  

  By Tim Cole - This week the CELAC Summit will be held in Havana and the Cuban government will be in charge of finalizing the language in the Summit declarations. Inevitably there will be one on the Falkland Islands and I suspect it will ignore the referendum held on the Islands last year when 99.8% voted in favor of the Islands remaining an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom.

• Sunday, January 26th 2014 - 12:36 UTC

  Belize and Guatemala agree on 'road map' to address the territorial dispute

  

  Belize and Guatemala agreed at the headquarters of the Organization of American States on a “Road Map and Plan of Action”, which has as its main objective the strengthening of the bilateral relationship between the two countries during 2014 in order to make concrete the holding of popular consultations to enable the consideration of the territorial dispute before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

• Sunday, January 26th 2014 - 09:27 UTC

  Uruguay, Ecuador and Malta boast best climates in the world

  

  Uruguay, Ecuador and Malta were named as the best three countries in the world when it comes to climate.

• Saturday, January 25th 2014 - 03:25 UTC

  Argentina rolls back dollar restrictions hoping to contain market volatility; Monday test day

  

  Argentina lifted on Friday restrictions on personal US dollar purchases for citizens, ending a prohibition on greenback savings that began at the end of 2011. The new measures, which occur one day after both the official and parallel 'blue' dollar saw record rises, were announced in a short press conference by Cabinet Chief Jorge Capitanich and Economy Minister Axel Kicillof. The measures become effective from Monday onwards.

• Friday, January 24th 2014 - 03:35 UTC

  Mercosur/EU with their own problems still don't have a date to continue negotiations

  

  Mercosur and the European Union continue to work on their tariff reduction proposals list but have no scheduled date for negotiators to meet and advance on a long delayed trade agreement according to Uruguayan diplomatic sources. However what is certain is that when the date is agreed it will be clear if Mercosur consensus proposal will include all founding members of the group.