Latin America

• Thursday, February 21st 2013 - 01:47 UTC

  Nationalized airport operators demand 90 million dollars from Bolivia

  

  The Spanish infrastructure company Abertis said it was seeking 90 million dollars from Bolivia in compensation for the nationalization of its subsidiary Servicios de Aeropuertos Bolivianos (Sabsa). Abertis was also considering other possible legal claims, its chief executive Francisco Reynes said.

• Thursday, February 21st 2013 - 00:24 UTC

  Pinochet generals and ministers incognito and “non official” visits to UK

  

  The fluid relation between Pinochet’s regime in Chile and the UK following Margaret Thatcher’s victory in 1979 is not nothing new, however declassified British documents of the time to which BBC World had access, reveal the intensity of those links in defence and political issues, including in March/April 1982 when the Argentine military invasion of the Falkland Islands.

• Wednesday, February 20th 2013 - 05:26 UTC

  Interpol cracks down on illegal logging in Central and South America: 200 arrested

  

  Interpol has announced that it arrested nearly 200 people in a wide-ranging international operation against illegal logging and the trafficking of timber. The three-month effort spanned 12 Central and South American countries, and 8 million dollars worth of timber was seized.

• Wednesday, February 20th 2013 - 02:45 UTC

  Declassified documents show link between the Beagle channel dispute and the Falklands war

  

  A revealing and unexpected connection between the Falklands conflict of 1982 and the Argentine dispute with Chile over the Beagle channel has been exposed by BBC World in Spanish based on UK declassified documents.

• Tuesday, February 19th 2013 - 05:34 UTC

  Correa pledges land distribution, media clamp but also mining law to attract investors

  

  Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, 49, vowed to press ahead with laws to control the media and redistribute land to the poor as he looks to deepen his revolution after a resounding Sunday re-election victory. Correa has already been in power six years and will add another four.

• Tuesday, February 19th 2013 - 05:30 UTC

  Chavez back from Cuba to spend what is left of his life in Venezuela, says independent medical assessment

  

  Rafael Marquina the Venezuelan doctor who is famous for giving precise information in his Twitter on the health condition of President Hugo Chavez, on Monday published additional data revealing probably what seems the most rational reason for the leader’s return to his home country.

• Tuesday, February 19th 2013 - 05:24 UTC

  Buenos Aires City property sales plummet 27% in 2012 because of the dollar clamp

  

  Property sales in the City of Buenos Aires plummeted 27% during 2012 according to a release from the Notaries College of the Argentine capital. The release shows 46.627 deeds were signed in 2012, which represents a significant 27% shrinkage in comparison to 2011 while the figure in Pesos dropped 21.2%.

• Monday, February 18th 2013 - 17:26 UTC

  Gibraltar and the Falklands referendum: “we are with you every step of the way”

  

  Chief Minister Fabian Picardo has expressed Gibraltar’s “unqualified” support for the people of the Falklands in their forthcoming referendum. Picardo’s remarks were delivered by Samantha Sacramento last week at the Commonwealth parliamentary Association regional conference in the capital of Stanley in Falklands.

• Monday, February 18th 2013 - 16:29 UTC

  Morales nationalizes control of Bolivia three main airports

  

  Populist Bolivian President Evo Morales on Monday nationalized control of the country’s three main airports from Spain’s operator Abertis-Aena, arguing that the company had not fulfilled investments commitments promised for years.

• Monday, February 18th 2013 - 15:44 UTC

  Chavez in Caracas military hospital; presidential oath ceremony expected

  

  Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is resting in Caracas military hospital after his Monday early dawn return from Cuba where he spent ten weeks recuperating from cancer surgery. However contrary to other occasions no video or pictures were shown and officials confirmed he has a tracheal tube which limits speech.