Latin America

• Friday, November 26th 2010 - 14:55 UTC

  Lula da Silva promises energy, communications and trade aid for Guyana

  

  Brazilian President Lula da Silva announced Friday an ambitious integration program for its northern neighbor Guyana, on the sidelines of a regional presidential summit taking place in Georgetown.

• Friday, November 26th 2010 - 14:47 UTC

  Venezuela pays 690m USD for 81% of French Casino supermarkets in the country

  

  Venezuela agreed to pay Casino Guichard-Perrachon SA 690 million US dollars for an 81% stake in the Saint-Etienne, France-based company’s local supermarkets, said Elias Jaua, vice president of the Venezuela’s official news agency, AVN.

• Friday, November 26th 2010 - 05:39 UTC

  Unasur ministers reach consensus on a “democratic clause”

  

  Unasur Foreign Affairs ministers meeting in Guyana reached on Thursday a consensus on a “democratic clause” to be incorporated to the group’s charter with the purpose of preventing coups in the region. The draft will be officially presented to the twelve nations’ presidential summit.

• Friday, November 26th 2010 - 02:18 UTC

  Uruguay’s Lower House approves Unasur; Senate votes next Tuesday

  

  Uruguay’s Lower House approved on Thursday the Unasur (Union of South American Nations) constitution protocol sending a strong message of support to the group’s summit in Guyana.

• Thursday, November 25th 2010 - 21:25 UTC

  First time ever woman president (for a few days) in Uruguay

  

  Uruguay’s First Lady and speaker of the main Senate group in the ruling coalition Lucia Topolansky will be sworn as interim president on Friday, the first woman-president in the history of the Uruguayan democracy.

• Thursday, November 25th 2010 - 04:34 UTC

  Latinamerica not involved in an arms race and can further reduce defence costs

  

  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.

• Thursday, November 25th 2010 - 04:26 UTC

  The Economist analyzes Uruguay’s debate on rejecting the “Expiration Law”

  

  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.

• Wednesday, November 24th 2010 - 22:12 UTC

  Petrobras abandons Ecuador: no agreement on new oil contracts

  

  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.

• Wednesday, November 24th 2010 - 20:50 UTC

  Colombian oil industry booming; Ecopetrol plans 8.5 billion investments

  

  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.

• Wednesday, November 24th 2010 - 05:28 UTC

  Lula da Silva not interested in Unasur secretary general post

  

  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.