Latin America

• Monday, April 11th 2011 - 20:52 UTC

  January’s gas rates conflict in Punta Arenas takes its toll: governor resigns

  

  Governor Liliana Kusanovic, from the extreme south Chilean Magallanes region has resigned alleging the need to care for family affairs and denying any link with January’s gas prices strike which paralyzed the region for a week. Ms Kusanovic’s resignation, which belongs to the ruling coalition, was accepted and made public Monday.

• Monday, April 11th 2011 - 20:34 UTC

  Crime and violence cost Central American countries 8% of GDP, says World Bank

  

  Growing crime and violence in Central America not only have an immediate human and social toll but they also pose a tremendous threat to development potential in the region since it is estimated that these sources of instability cost 8% of GDP, once health, institutional, private security, and material expenses are accounted for.

• Monday, April 11th 2011 - 20:04 UTC

  U2 current worldwide tour nets 558m; beats Rolling Stones record

  

  U2's current worldwide 360° tour has become the highest grossing in history, beating the record previously set by The Rolling Stones between the years 2005-2007, reported Live Nation Entertainment.

• Monday, April 11th 2011 - 06:29 UTC

  South America military expenditure up 2010, but insignificant in global terms

  

  The region with the largest increase in military expenditure in 2010 was South America, with a 5.8% increase in real terms, reaching a total of 63.3 billion US dollars according to the latest report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI.

• Monday, April 11th 2011 - 06:17 UTC

  With Colombia support Venezuela gets temporary extension of Andean membership

  

  Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez agreed over the weekend to temporarily extend the bilateral trade pact within the framework of the Andean Community, or CAN, despite Venezuela’s pending withdrawal from that regional organization on April 21.

• Monday, April 11th 2011 - 06:04 UTC

  Unemployment in Latam to remain strong into 2012 because of ‘uncertainties’

  

  An estimated 17 million people will suffer unemployment in Latin America well into 2012 according to latest estimates from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, ECLAC.

• Monday, April 11th 2011 - 05:54 UTC

  Venezuela’s most populated areas suffer another major blackout

  

  Blackouts blamed on forest fires left without power whole areas of north and central Venezuela, including Caracas, officials said. The power outages began last Thursday due to the collapse of electrical lines located 250 kilometres west of Caracas, Electricity Minister Ali Rodriguez said.

• Monday, April 11th 2011 - 05:47 UTC

  Controversy in Bolivia about the true volume of proven natural gas reserves

  

  Bolivia has fallen from second to sixth place in the ranking of largest holder of proven natural gas reserves in South America, with Peru behind Venezuela as the two leading countries, admitted a Bolivian Hydrocarbons Association, or CBH, report.

• Monday, April 11th 2011 - 05:40 UTC

  Guatemala’s First Couple ‘team’ ready for September’s presidential election

  

  A Guatemalan judge granted the country’s First Couple divorce petition thus opening the way for First Lady Sandra Torres to run in September’s presidential election for which her husband President Alvaro Colom is barred under constitutional rule.

• Monday, April 11th 2011 - 05:18 UTC

  Santos and Chavez meet Lobo and agree on helping Honduras return to the OAS

  

  The presidents of Colombia, Venezuela Juan Manuel Santos and Hugo Chavez held a non announced meeting with their Honduran peer Pofirio Lobo and said they were committed to help the outcast country rejoin the Latin American family by returning to the Organization of American States, OAS.