Latin America

• Friday, May 27th 2011 - 08:58 UTC

  Chavez sacks half of PDVSA board following a 500 million USD fraud

  

  Venezuela’s government giant oil corporation sacked half its board of directors Thursday after PDVSA ’s pension fund lost about 500 million US dollars in a Ponzi scheme linked to a Connecticut-based investor.

• Friday, May 27th 2011 - 08:48 UTC

  Real estate operations in Punta del Este reached 2.25 billion USD in 12 months

  

  Real estate operations in Uruguay’s hottest resort and leisure farms’ area totalled 2.55 billion US dollars in the twelve months to April 2011, equivalent to daily deals involving 7 million USD.

• Friday, May 27th 2011 - 08:32 UTC

  Unasur ‘won’t collapse’ as happened with TIAR during the Malvinas war

  

  Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner praised the success of Unasur and forecasted that the South America Defence Council will be far more effective and robust than the previous experience with the TIAR, which “collapsed in 1982 during the Malvinas war”.

• Friday, May 27th 2011 - 01:53 UTC

  Montevideo port ranked ahead of Brazil’s Rio Grande in 2010

  

  In a ranking of the busiest port terminals in Latin America & Caribbean, elaborated in a work of Infrastructure Services Unit of ECLAC, Port of Rio Grande (RS) lost position for the Port of Montevideo, Uruguay. So they were, respectively, the 21st and 19th positions from the list.

• Thursday, May 26th 2011 - 16:10 UTC

  Ban Ki Moon to visit Uruguay that will hold UN Human Rights Council presidency

  

  Uruguay will be holding next month the presidency of the UN Human Rights Council during 2011/2012 and for this motive UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is scheduled to visit Uruguay June 16th when he will be meeting President Jose Mujica and other top officials.

• Thursday, May 26th 2011 - 00:46 UTC

  Mercosur praises accord that opens way for Honduras return to OAS

  

  Mercosur described the reconciliation agreement reached by Honduras president Porfirio Lobo and his predecessor Manuel Zelaya, ousted in 2009, as a fundamental step in the process of normalizing relations in the hemisphere.

• Wednesday, May 25th 2011 - 15:48 UTC

  Exhibits commemorate Chile’s immigrants from eight communities

  

  Chileans of German, British, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, French, Arab and Israeli descent sacrificed part of their heritage in the late 19th and early 20th centuries upon immigrating to Chile. Though their history is oft-forgotten in modern-day Chile, new exhibitions on display in Santiago and Valparaíso this month will show more than 70 photographs and 50 personal items representing the immigrant experience.

• Wednesday, May 25th 2011 - 15:27 UTC

  Uruguay the most peaceful country in Latam, says Global Peace report

  

  Uruguay is the most peaceful country in Latin America followed by Costa Rica and Chile according to the latest edition of the Global Peace reported released Wednesday by the Institute for Economy and Peace.

• Tuesday, May 24th 2011 - 22:04 UTC

  New York Times says sacrificing Chilean Patagonia for a power is an irreparable mistake

  

  The New York Times has joined the Aysén region project controversy in Chilean Patagonia which was recently approved but has triggered massive protests from environmentalists and an overwhelming rejection from the majority of the population according to public opinion polls.

• Tuesday, May 24th 2011 - 18:59 UTC

  Former president Allende’s family petitioning return of the AK47, a gift from Fidel Castro

  

  The family of Chile’s former president, Salvador Allende, petitioned for the rifle AK-47 used on his alleged suicide to be found. Allende is supposed to have committed suicide in the midst of a violent army coup led by general Pinochet in September 1973.