Ecuador's left-wing president has ordered the expulsion of a senior US diplomat, accusing him of suspending aid to Ecuador's anti-drugs programme.
The global financial crisis could cause poverty to rise in Latin America by as much as 15% this year, a senior UN official has warned. Rebeca Grynspan, regional head of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), said Latin American governments needed to take action urgently.
Peru begun on Saturday the celebration of Pisco Sour Day, a cocktail considered national cultural heritage and whose origin denomination is under dispute with neighbouring Chile. The celebration includes huge open parties, free tasting, dancing, gastronomy related to the emblematic drink also called the flag liquor of Peru.
Venezuela will spend 1.65 billion US dollars from its National Development Fund in the first quarter to sustain public spending after a drop in international crude prices and the global slowdown have affected the country, said President Hugo Chavez.
Evo Morales, Bolivia's president, has enacted a new constitution which hands greater powers to the country's indigenous majority and allows him to seek a second five-year term.
Colombia's Revolutionary Armed Forces, FARC, released Thursday the last civilian among a group of 22 so-called political captives held by the rebels. Two Red Cross helicopters were involved in the release of the former lawmaker Sigifredo Lopez, 45, held captive by the drug-funded group for almost seven years.
The last civilian hostage to be released by the Colombian rebel group FARC revealed that eleven of his kidnapped peers were killed shot in the back, by the guerrillas in an act of what he described as paranoiac cowardice.
Chile's economy grew 0.5% in December, the worst performance for that month in a decade, according to the latest figures released on Thursday by the country's Central Bank.
Consumer inflation in Chile during January dropped 0.8%, the lowest since the same month in 1943, accumulating 6.3% in the last twelve months, according to the latest report from the country's Statistics Institute, INE.
Repsol has made a significant new oil find in the deepwater area of the Gulf of Mexico, in US waters. The discovery was made in the Buckskin well in Keathley Canyon, 300 kilometres offshore Houston.