Mercosur

• Tuesday, January 31st 2006 - 20:00 UTC

  Chile's Bachelet names her cabinet.

  President-elect Michelle Bachelet officially announced 20 cabinet members early Monday evening, naming a mix of old and new political leaders ? 10 men and 10 women - to head the various ministerial posts in her government.

• Tuesday, January 31st 2006 - 20:00 UTC

  British medical support for Brazil's oil industry

  British Trade Minister Ian Pearson launched the Berkeley Training Centre in Macae, 182 kmts. away from Rio do Janeiro which will be the first Medical training centre aimed at the oil and gas industry in Latin America.

• Tuesday, January 31st 2006 - 20:00 UTC

  Low cost of living in most Mercosur cities

  Mercosur capitals figure in the lower half of the world's most expensive cities according to a biannual The Economist Intelligence Unit study which has Oslo, Norway top of the list and Teheran, Iran ranking as the cheapest.

• Tuesday, January 31st 2006 - 20:00 UTC

  Fed raises rates to 4.5%, highest since April 2001

  Arguing that possible increases in resource utilization as well as elevated energy prices have the potential to add inflation pressures the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee decided Tuesday to raise its target for the federal funds rate by 25 basis points to 4.5%.

• Tuesday, January 31st 2006 - 20:00 UTC

  OPEC keeps quota unchanged until next meeting

  The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, (OPEC) oil ministers decided Tuesday in Vienna to keep the official quota of 28 million bpd while the group's second biggest producer Iran, locked in a dispute over its atomic program, gave assurances it would not halt its exports.

• Tuesday, January 31st 2006 - 20:00 UTC

  Dollar and assets bubble, challenges for new Fed chief

  The United States Senate approved Tuesday the nomination of Ben Bernanke to be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve, generally considered the most influential economic policy job in the world.

• Monday, January 30th 2006 - 20:00 UTC

  More than 500 Patagonian toothfish marked for research

  Since 2004, the National Institute for Fisheries Research and Development (INIDEP) has been carrying on a capture-mark-recapture programme for Patagonian toothfish (Dissostichus eleginoides), aimed at providing relevant information about this resource management in the South-western Atlantic ocean.

• Monday, January 30th 2006 - 20:00 UTC

  Pinochet Daughter Drops U.S. Asylum Bid

  The oldest daughter of former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet returned to Chile Saturday to face tax evasion charges after dropping a surprise bid for political asylum in the United States, where she said she lived “a nightmare.”

• Saturday, January 28th 2006 - 20:00 UTC

  Abrupt slowdown of US economy in last quarter

  United States economic growth slowed to its weakest rate in three years in the last quarter of 2005 ending the year with an overall expansion of 3.5%, down from the 4.2% of 2004.

• Saturday, January 28th 2006 - 20:00 UTC

  “Green fuel” car launched in Mexican market

  A Honda hybrid sedan was launched Friday in the Mexican market, which became the first Latin American country to offer consumers a car that runs on both gasoline and electricity.