Latin America

• Wednesday, May 11th 2011 - 08:10 UTC

  IISS: cross-border sanctuaries have been key for the survival of Colombia’s FARC

  

  The ability of Colombia’s largest insurgent group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (FARC), to rely on cross-border sanctuaries has long been key to its survival, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

• Wednesday, May 11th 2011 - 08:00 UTC

  Chile will become first develop country in Latam, says world’s richest man

  

  Chile will become the first developed country in Latin America, predicted Mexican communications mogul Carlos Slim, the richest man in the world, in an economic presentation given in Honduras last Thursday.

• Wednesday, May 11th 2011 - 07:52 UTC

  Torres del Paine Park must double protected area to meet UNESCO latest criteria

  

  Torres Del Paine National Park, in southern Chile’s Patagonia, is easily among the country’s most iconic natural attractions, hosting 170,000 tourists a year. Yet to maintain the park’s UNESCO classification as a biosphere reserve, Chile must greatly expand the protected areas to more than double the current boundaries.

• Wednesday, May 11th 2011 - 07:46 UTC

  Brazil’s oil giant Petrobras the most valuable brand in Latin America

  

  Brazil’s oil and gas corporation Petrobras was ranked first in a new listing of the most valuable brands in Latin America, with an estimated brand value of 13.4 billion US dollars.

• Wednesday, May 11th 2011 - 01:37 UTC

  “Shape up or ship out”, Cuban communist party tells unprofitable companies

  

  Cuban government companies and cooperatives repeatedly “inefficient” (non profitable) will be handed to the private sector or liquidated, according to the reforms program approved by the island’s VI Communist Party congress and which was officially published Monday.

• Wednesday, May 11th 2011 - 01:34 UTC

  Fearing US reaction, Cuba makes public full-scale offshore oil exploration plans

  

  Cuba hopes to counter US worries over its plans to start its first full-scale offshore oil exploration in a rare presentation this week to an energy audience outside the island.

• Wednesday, May 11th 2011 - 01:25 UTC

  Unasur to achieve a “South American continent united and in peace by 2020”

  

  Unasur new Secretary General, former Colombian Foreign Affairs minister Maria Emma Mejía is convinced that South America will be a united continent and in peace, in ten years time.

• Tuesday, May 10th 2011 - 20:46 UTC

  Falklands will receive another group of Chilean exchange students next September

  

  Another group of Chilean students from Punta Arenas will be travelling to the Falkland Islands next September in the framework of the exchange program agreed between city officials and Falklands’ authorities, according to a report in La Prensa Austral.

• Tuesday, May 10th 2011 - 18:17 UTC

  Measles vaccination campaign in Chile following several confirmed cases

  

  Undersecretary of Health Jorge Díaz confirmed Saturday that there are seven contagious cases of measles in Chile, but emphasized that “it’s not an epidemic or anything of the sort.”

• Tuesday, May 10th 2011 - 11:18 UTC

  Valenzuela, US top State Department official for Latam tenders resignation

  

  Expressing a desire to return to his academic post at Georgetown University, Chilean-born Arturo Valenzuela tendered his resignation as the head United States advisor for Latin American Affairs on Friday, May 6.