
Dutch Caribbean dependency the Netherlands Antilles has ceased to exist with a change of the five islands' constitutional status. Curacao and St Maarten have become autonomous countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, joining Aruba, which gained the status in 1986.

Spanish is the third most common language in the web with 136 million users which represents 8% of the total number of internauts in the world, behind English (38%) and Chinese (22%) according to a report from Fundacion Telefonica New York.

The European Union and the Mercosur trade bloc resumed on Monday a new round of talks in Brussels aimed at reaching free trade agreement in the near future after years of no talks. In the immediate the blocs are seeking to outline a work scheme that could be kicked off in December.

A delegation of Saudi agro-business entrepreneurs headed by the Agriculture minister (and member of the royal family) visited Uruguay with the purpose of establishing a fluid trade exchange and on the long term a strategic alliance.

Uruguay celebrated on Thursday the 25 years since being accepted as Consultative member of the Antarctic Treaty. The event coincided this year with the XXXIIIth Antarctic Treaty Consultative meeting which for the first time was hosted by Uruguay last May.

China has reacted angrily to news that one of its dissidents has won this year's Nobel Peace Prize, labelling it obscene and saying the prize has gone to a criminal. Nobel Committee president Thorbjoern Jagland announced the illustrious award in Oslo.

Brazil’s ruling party candidate Dilma Rousseff is playing up her Roman Catholic background in efforts to win back religious voters, whose doubts about her faith and position on abortion rights may have cost her an outright victory in Sunday’s presidential election.

“The IMF wants to make us believe that the policies which caused the crisis are now going to be part of the solution”, said Argentina’s Central bank president Mercedes Marcó del Pont following the opening of the IMF/World Bank annual assembly.

World leaders must defuse currency tensions before they worsen to avoid repeating the mistakes of the Great Depression, the head of the World Bank President Robert Zoellick told reporters.

The 2010 Nobel literature prize winner Peruvian born author Mario Vargas Llosa said that he felt a great joy'' when he was called with the news, but at first, he thought it might be a joke, I thought I had been completely forgotten by the Academy. I didn't even know the prize was being given this month.''