Cuban security agents detained dissidents across the country to prevent protests at the funeral of a leading dissident who died on a prison hunger strike and which has sparked international indignation. Cuban president Raul Castro said he regrets the death of Orlando Zapata and denies the rights activist had been tortured.
Latinamerica’s Economic Climate Index (ECI), --developed between the German Ifo Institute from the University of Munich and Brazil’s Getulio Vargas Foundation, FGV-- increased to 5.6 points from 5.2 between October 2009 and January 2010, consolidating the trend of economic recovery in the region.
Citizens from Mercosur full members and some associate countries will be allowed to travel to Venezuela with no need of a passport, simply with their national ID, as of next Thursday announced Venezuela’s Identification and Foreigners office.
Mexico’s GDP shrank by 6.5% last year amid the global recession, greater than the 6.2% of 1995 but the less severe end of the range of 6.5 percent to 7.5% decline forecast by the Mexican central bank.
Latinamerican and Caribbean nations are to set up a new regional bloc of all the countries in the Americas, with the exception of the United States and Canada. The decision was formalized Tuesday at a regional summit of the so called Rio Group in the Mexican resort of Cancun.
The new Latin American and Caribbean bloc planned without regional neighbours Canada and the United States are consistent with US goals for the region, a State Department spokesman said Tuesday
Latin American leaders will work to diffuse tensions between Colombia and Venezuela after presidents Alvaro Uribe and Hugo Chavez, got into a shouting match and exchange of insults at the Rio Group summit in Mexico.
United States currently has no interest in having US troops stationed and with access to military bases belonging to other Latinamerican countries, such is the case with Colombia said a top Pentagon official during a visit to Nicaragua.
Latin American oil and gas firm GeoPark Holdings Ltd announced this week it had successfully tested two new oil wells on the Fell Block, Springfield formation, Magallanes basin in the extreme south of Chile, bordering Argentina and the Atlantic access of the Magellan Strait.
Argentine President Cristina Kirchner said on Monday Latin American and Caribbean leaders backed her objections to oil exploration in the disputed Falkland Islands as drilling of the first well began on Monday.