IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn warned on Wednesday about soaring food prices and the need to cushion the impact on the poor and revealed that the fund is already advising governments and central banks in Latin America on how to limit the second-round effects of the price shocks on the poor.
More than 5 000 people had been evacuated in southern Chile, following the eruption of the Chaiten volcano. On Monday, authorities evacuated the town of Futaleufu, some 60 kilometers from the volcano while the remaining residents of the town of Chaiten had left over the weekend.
The Organization of American States Secretary General, OAS, Jose Miguel Insulza praised on Monday the Bolivian promoters of the Santa Cruz autonomy referendum for having expressed no secessionists or contrary to law intentions.
The huge nuclear powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington has reached Argentine waters ready to begin annual naval exercises with its Argentine counterpart in the South Atlantic
Global port operator Dubai Ports World has started the construction of the 300 million US dollars Muelle Sur Container Terminal at the Port of El Callao, Peru.
The richest region of Bolivia, Santa Cruz voted overwhelmingly for autonomy on Sunday in a vote widely seen as a rejection of President Evo Morales' radical reforms. However President Morales said the referendum had failed categorically because less than 50% had voted and called all governors to build a true autonomy.
The Chilean Navy has begun the evacuation of 2.000 people who were forcibly displaced from their villages in southern Chile after a volcano considered dormant for thousands of years became active belching fire and ash, and generating minor earth tremors that continued on Saturday.
Following long discussions until early Saturday morning, the Organization of American States, OAS, supported the territorial integrity of Bolivia but abstained from condemning the autonomy referendum which is scheduled for Sunday in the province of Santa Cruz, the country's richest.
President Hugo Chavez ordered the expropriation of Venezuela's largest steel maker after attempts by the government to acquire a majority stake in the Italian-Argentine conglomerate Techint failed.
The international hydrocarbons corporations which last October were awarded oil exploration licences in the extreme south of Chile signed on Wednesday the operation contracts with the Chilean government during a ceremony headed by President Michelle Bachelet in Punta Arenas.