Latin America

• Tuesday, December 7th 2010 - 08:36 UTC

  Chavez wins regional elections but loses second most populated city, Maracaibo

  

  Candidates from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s party PSUV won seven municipalities and one state in regional polls, the populist socialist leader’s first test since suffering a setback in September legislative elections, state television reported.

• Tuesday, December 7th 2010 - 08:16 UTC

  Chile outlines conditions for a possible Bolivian access to the Pacific

  

  Chile is willing to cooperate with a sea-outlet for landlocked Bolivia but will not cede sovereignty because “we will never accept something that divides the country in two”, said the Chilean Foreign Affairs minister Alfredo Moreno.

• Tuesday, December 7th 2010 - 07:43 UTC

  Wikileaks and Latin America: Same Old Imperious U.S. Diplomats

  

  by Former Senior Research Fellow Nikolas Kozloff
  As more and more documents become available from Wikileaks, the public has gotten a novel and close up view of U.S. diplomats and their operations abroad.

• Monday, December 6th 2010 - 05:38 UTC

  Wikileaks messages generate rift at Mar del Plata’s summit on education and democracy

  

  The commitment to end illiteracy in the next five years and the overwhelming approval of a democratic clause in support of institutional democracy was the outstanding consensus of the Ibero-American leaders’ summit held in Mar del Plata hosted by President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

• Monday, December 6th 2010 - 05:35 UTC

  Lula da Silva praised the Argentina/Brazil strategic alliance Kirchner helped forge

  

  Brazilian president Lula da Silva praised the late Argentine president Nestor Kirchner saying he was the leader who helped Argentines recover their self-esteem and marked a historic change in relations between Brazil and Argentina.

• Sunday, December 5th 2010 - 19:29 UTC

  Business deals “above 600 million USD” in Chile’s naval and maritime expo

  

  The recent Exponaval 2010 and Transport 2010 exhibit held in the Chilean port of Valparaíso was described as a complete success by the organizers of the event that convened over 150 exhibitors, 34 foreign navies’ delegations and totalling business deals “above 600 million US dollars”.

• Saturday, December 4th 2010 - 06:58 UTC

  Unasur secretary general nomination could be delayed until mid December

  

  The nomination of a secretary general for Unasur, Union of South American Nations, could be delayed until mid December since discussions on the sidelines of the XXth Ibero-American summit in Mar del Plata, Argentina, are currently stalled and time is running short, according to political analysts.

• Saturday, December 4th 2010 - 01:31 UTC

  Lula da Silva and Obama, best evaluated leaders in Western Hemisphere

  

  Brazil’s Lula da Silva and US Barack Obama are the Western hemisphere leaders best evaluated and most respected, according to a paper based on a public opinion poll and which was released Friday by the NGO Latinobarometro.

• Saturday, December 4th 2010 - 01:26 UTC

  GeoPark Chile raises 113 million USD for further oil exploration in Magallanes

  

  The Latin American oil and gas explorer and producer GeoPark which has been successfully drilling for oil and gas in the extreme south of Chile has made a private placement of 133 million US dollars to invest in expanding activities.

• Friday, December 3rd 2010 - 06:24 UTC

  Mexican top officials admit loosing control of parts of the country to drug cartels

  

  Several top Mexican officials admitted the government was in danger of losing control of parts of the country to powerful drug cartels, according to U.S. State Department documents made public by WikiLeaks.