Latin America

• Monday, February 13th 2012 - 07:17 UTC

  Venezuela opposition unites and vote candidate to face Chavez next October

  

  Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles easily won a primary election on Sunday to become the unity candidate against President Hugo Chavez, vowing to end 13 years of socialist rule that he said has left the country in deep crisis.

• Monday, February 13th 2012 - 05:39 UTC

  Chile denies ‘media rumours’ of Argentine sea and air blockade to the Falklands

  

  Chilean Foreign Affairs minister Alfredo Moreno denied rumours that Argentina had requested Chile to join a blockade of the Falklands Islands and also reassured that the government of President Cristina Fernandez has not questioned the commercial air link between Santiago and the Islands.

• Friday, February 10th 2012 - 02:03 UTC

  Debate on Cuba’s attendance to the coming Americas summit in Colombia

  

  The Cuban government has expressed its interest in attending the coming Summit of the Americas scheduled for next April in Cartagena, revealed Colombian Foreign Affairs minister Maria Angela Holguin following a visit to Havana.

• Friday, February 10th 2012 - 01:08 UTC

  Antigua and Barbuda deny supporting bar on Falklands flagged vessels

  

  The government of Antigua and Barbuda by way of a press statement issued Wednesday, disassociated the Caribbean nation from statements made in the wake of the recent Eleventh ALBA summit, which were carried in the local, regional and international press, about a ban on Falkland Islands-flagged ships.

• Thursday, February 9th 2012 - 23:55 UTC

  Chilean community in Falklands march in support of the air link with Santiago

  

  One hundred members of the Chilean population living in the Falkland Islands were joined by 50 to 60 Islanders in a show of unity against the possibility that the weekly Lan Chile flight between Santiago and the Falklands might be discontinued at the request of Argentine President Cristina Fernandez.

• Thursday, February 9th 2012 - 23:17 UTC

  Mujica says Mercosur is “a chewing gum”; promises trade deals with third countries

  

  Mercosur from a real point of view exits, but institutionally it’s a “chewing gum” claimed Uruguayan president Jose Mujica who anticipated he would demand from the block’s partners that Uruguay be allowed to sign bilateral trade agreements with third parties.

• Thursday, February 9th 2012 - 07:47 UTC

  Trade restrictions, main point of agenda when Cristina Fernandez visits Chile

  

  Santiago media reports increasing disappointment in the Chilean government and private sector with the latest batch of Argentine measures to restrict imports and want the issue ‘top of the agenda’ when President Cristina Fernandez visits Chile at the end of the month.

• Thursday, February 9th 2012 - 07:30 UTC

  Hantavirus public alert in Chile after outbreak kills three people, infects ten others

  

  Chile declared a public health alert this week over a hantavirus outbreak that has killed three people and infected at least 10 others and which have been blame of the wildfires of a very hot summer.

• Wednesday, February 8th 2012 - 06:13 UTC

  Half a century embargo and nine US president later Fidel Castro is still around

  

  The 50th anniversary of the US trade embargo against Cuba on Tuesday was met with little fanfare on the island, where Cubans said it was a failed policy that had succeeded only in making their lives more difficult.

• Wednesday, February 8th 2012 - 06:06 UTC

  “Unlikely” Peru would back Argentina in a new Malvinas conflict

  

  Peru’s former Foreign Affairs minister, Jose Antonio Garcia-Belaunde, says it is unlikely that Peru would back Argentina if there were a new conflict with the United Kingdom over the Falkland Islands, newspaper El Comercio reported.