Chile announced a stimulus plan increasing spending by four billion US dollars in an effort to create jobs and prop the economy. This means that for the first time in six years Chile will run a budget deficit, 2.9% of GDP.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez forecasted that the unity of the world's big producers of crude will restore stability to global petroleum markets and anticipated that even if the price of Venezuelan oil falls to zero, the Bolivarian revolution will continue.
Wealthy Latin Americans are among the biggest victims of an alleged 50 billion US dollars Ponzi scheme orchestrated by financier Bernard Madoff, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
South Korea and Japan reopened their markets to Chilean pork, according to a release in Seoul from the Ministry of Agriculture and Food.
Cubans will be permitted to build their own homes using their own private funds, President Raul Castro announced on Sunday, in the latest reforms to back off the centralized economy hard-line orthodoxy of the past five decades.
The Organization of American States (OAS) Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza announced Monday his withdrawal from the Chilean presidential elections scheduled for next December.
The Venezuelan government has cut the official number of dollars Venezuelans can spend abroad with their credit cards from $5,000 to $2,500 a year.
Damien Hirst, the British artist with a personal fortune estimated in excess of 300 million US dollars has hired four personal bodyguards who are all former members of the SAS, British special forces.
Cuba says it has suffered one of the most difficult financial years since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Economy minister Jose Luis Rodriguez said the Cuban economy had grown by 4.3% in the past year, falling short of the 8% forecast by the government.
President Raul Castro called for austerity measures including cutbacks in official travel and bonuses.
The Inter-American Development Bank Group increased loan, credit guarantee and grant approvals by about a quarter to a record 12.2 billion US dollars in 2008, in an effort to help Latin America and the Caribbean weather the global financial crisis.