Latin America

• Monday, November 15th 2010 - 19:50 UTC

  Chile targets a million visitors to thermal hot springs by 2015

  

  A new business association promoting Chile’s thermal hot springs hopes to bump visits up 12% to 1 million people by 2015. Last year only 700,000 people visited Chile’s hot springs, which exist in all corners of this mountainous, volcano-rich country.

• Monday, November 15th 2010 - 19:20 UTC

  East Asia more than doubles Latin America’s investment in infrastructure

  

  In spite of healthy economic growth in Latin America, local and foreign companies alike single out one area as deficient, especially compared with Asia: infrastructure.

• Monday, November 15th 2010 - 19:05 UTC

  Chile promotes nudism-naturism tourism; holds regional conference in 2012

  

  The nudism and naturism movement in Chile will soon be in the international spotlight, as the country was recently named headquarters for the Latin American Nudism-Naturism Conference, scheduled for March 2012.

• Friday, November 12th 2010 - 18:22 UTC

  Ambitious 1.000 km pipeline project to deliver water to desert dry north Chile

  

  A 3.85 billion US dollars pipeline to carry freshwater some 1,000 kilometres from central Chile to the country’s northern desert will provide a cheaper alternative for users now reliant on desalinization of ocean water, a business news Web site said this week.

• Friday, November 12th 2010 - 13:44 UTC

  Peruvian economy steaming ahead at 8%; top of the list in the region for business

  

  Finance Minister Ismael Benavides said Peru's economy should grow between 8% and 8.5% this year, with inflation ending the year from 2.2% to 2.5%. The Peruvian Central Bank latest forecast was annual growth of 7.5% to 8%.

• Friday, November 12th 2010 - 13:21 UTC

  Colombian Senate approves Unasur founding charter

  

  Ecuadorean Foreign Affairs minister Ricardo Patiño hailed the approval by the Colombian Senate of the Union of South American Nations, Unasur, charter which leaves the group one short of its legal constitution. The Uruguayan parliament is expected to follow suit in coming days.

• Friday, November 12th 2010 - 00:47 UTC

  Japanese companies will help Bolivia with lithium added-value by-products

  

  Japan’s Sumitomo and Mitsubishi will send experts and equipment to Bolivia to support efforts to produce value-added lithium by-products in the Andean nation, state media reported.

• Thursday, November 11th 2010 - 22:04 UTC

  Latin American leaders at G-20 call for responsibility from rich countries

  

  Leaders from Brazil, Mexico and Argentina in the framework of the G-20 summit in Korea called on rich countries for a commitment to end the “currencies war” and ensure balanced growth out of the current crisis.

• Thursday, November 11th 2010 - 21:35 UTC

  Former FARC hostage claims Colombia treats her “as a criminal, not a victim”

  

  Ingrid Betancourt, a former Colombian presidential candidate who was held captive by the FARC guerrilla for six years, accuses Colombia of treating her “worse than a criminal” since she was rescued in 2008, according to reports in the Argentine press.

• Thursday, November 11th 2010 - 20:29 UTC

  Chilean government supports Muslim school girl use of ‘hijab’

  

  Yasmin Elsayed, a 9-year old girl who was prohibited from wearing a hijab (an Islamic head scarf) at the W. A. Mozart School in the La Reina borough of Chile’s capital Santiago, was allowed to register again for the 2011 school year this week.