
Venezuela's economy contracted 4.5% in the third quarter, far more than expected, and the second straight quarterly contraction this year after a drop in oil income affected public and consumer spending, the Central Bank said Tuesday.

Beginning Tuesday Chile belongs to the select group of eleven countries who have insignificant risk of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease. This places Chile among the nations with the best sanitary conditions on the planet.

The Cuban Official ruling Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma called on Cubans to open their minds and “disagree”, adding that it was “erroneous to coincide with all opinions” in a community that has been forged on the basis of “commitment and consensus”.

The Argentine embassy in Bolivia officially protested, and demanded the immediate withdrawal of a National Geographic world-map circulating among the Bolivian Chamber of Customs agents and where the Malvinas Islands figure “with a colour different to that identifying Argentina”.

The presence of Ernesto Che Guevara in Cuba was “the worst that could have happened to my country” said Juanita Castro, sister of the ruling brothers of Cuba, (Fidel and Raúl Castro) and fellow fighters with the Argentine-born doctor in the Caribbean island revolution half a century ago

Two key United States lawmakers say that Washington should allow its citizens to travel to Cuba to help promote 'democratic reforms' in that country. Veteran Republican Senator Richard Lugar and Democratic Congressman Howard Berman insist that the Cuba travel ban has been obsolete and should be discarded as a foreign policy measure.

Since the United States 2004 election cycle, a network of Cuban-American donors and political action committees (PACs) has donated in excess of 10 million US dollars to more than 300 US federal candidates in order to thwart any changes in the US embargo of Cuba, claims Public Campaign, a US citizens group working for “clean money, clean elections”

Honduran ousted president Manuel Zelaya claims the United States in partnership with de facto leader Roberto Micheletti are involved in an operation to “launder” the coup d’etat of June 28th.

In separate statements this weekend, Chilean Foreign Minister Mariano Fernandez and government spokesperson Carolina Toha refuted the spying accusations made by Peruvian officials late last week.
“Chile does not spy” said the Chilean government officials.

United Kingdom Foreign Secretary David Miliband said on Monday a politically binding deal on climate change will only be struck with the agreement of leading South American countries.