Latinamerican countries are not involved in an arms race and can further cut into military expenditure because it is essentially a region of peace, said the Defence ministers of the Americas IXth conference meeting in Bolivia.
Néstor Kirchner Argentina’s late former president first became popular by pushing for the repeal of the amnesties and pardons that prior governments had granted to members of the country’s bloody 1976-83 dictatorship. Argentines cheered when the Supreme Court ruled the laws unconstitutional in 2005, and have supported the hundreds of prosecutions for human-rights abuses that have been launched since then.
Brazil’s Petrobras is abandoning Ecuador after not having reached an agreement on the new oil contracts with the government while Spanish-Argentine Repsol-YPF will remain, announced Minister of Non renewable natural resources Wilson Pastor.
Colombian state oil company Ecopetrol announced investments of roughly 8.5 billion US dollars in 2011, with 5% of that total to be allocated for projects in the United States, Brazil and Peru.
Brazilian president Lula da Silva has no plans or intentions of becoming the next secretary general of Unasur, Union of South American Nations said his spokesperson Marcelo Baumbach who discarded all speculations related to the issue.
Peru is the country with less citizen support for democracy in the Americas while in Uruguay, Costa Rica and Argentina the system enjoys massive approval.
Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez announced he would again run for office in 2012 underlining that “there’s no turning back” from the current “Bolivarian revolution” process which he has been leading for the last twelve years.
Petroleos de Venezuela SA and Italy’s Eni SpA said they’ll jointly invest 17 billion US dollars to produce and refine heavy crude in the Orinoco Belt.
Bolivian President Evo Morales delivered a blunt reply on Monday to visiting US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates's warning about dealings with Iran, saying Bolivia will ally with whomever it wants.
Trade among Latinamerican countries is expected to increase 22% during 2010, which is higher than forecasted, according to the UN Economic Commission for Latinamerica and the Caribbean, Cepal. This follows a drop of 0.9% in 2009 when the full impact of the global crisis.