
49.5 million people are registered to cast their votes in the UK general election on Thursday 7 May. Polls open at 07:00 BST at around 50,000 polling stations across the United Kingdom. A total of 650 Westminster MPs will be elected, with about 50 million people registered to vote.

Uruguay's economy is strong enough to navigate in a challenging global and regional environment in which the U.S. dollar is strong and inflation is starting to rise, Uruguayan Central Bank, (BCU), chairman Mario Bergara said during a conference in Montevideo where he discussed the central bank's mission in the current world environment.

Brazil's Supreme Court ordered another engineering executive released from jail on Wednesday, complicating prosecutors' efforts to expand the current corruption investigation at Petrobras.

For a third year in a row the United States will be the top wheat supplier for Brazil, displacing Argentina from its historic position, according to the latest release from Brazilian consultancy Trigo & Farinhas. This piece of information is significant given the world prices for grains and wheat planting prospects in South America.

Brazil's securities industry regulator accused the former board of state-run oil producer Petrobras of setting a fuel pricing policy that misguided investors and hurt the company.

The Organization of American States has started the deployment of the Electoral Observation Mission of the Organization of American States to the general and regional elections scheduled iin Guyana for Sunday May 11. This is the fifth time the OAS has observed elections in Guyana, following Missions in 1997, 2001, 2006 and 2011.

Uruguay's foreign minister Rodolfo Nin Novoa called on Mercosur to overcome hollow rhetoric and advance towards the elimination of barriers which restrict access to other markets and intra-region trade.

Pope Francis and Cuban President Raul Castro will meet privately on Sunday at the Vatican, a spokesman said, four months before the pontiff's trip to the Caribbean island, his first as leader of the Catholic Church.

In another chapter of the ongoing dispute between Argentine president Cristina Fernández and a non-submissive Judiciary, the country's Supreme Court issued a statement on Tuesday ratifying Ricardo Lorenzetti as Chief Justice for three more years starting in 2016, following versions that he was pushing to leave the SC on yet unclear moral fatigue grounds.

The US Treasury Department has approved licenses for passenger ferry service between the United States and Cuba, a Treasury Department official announced. One of the licenses was issued to Baja Ferries, part of a major shipping group with passengers and cargo operations, including on Mexico's west coast, according to a lawyer who handled the license application.