
*By Sameer Jafri - Year 2010 marks sixty years of diplomatic relationship between India and China. Though the relations between the two go back to ancient times, the period since 1950 till present is mainly fraught with boundary dispute, which also led to a short-lived war in 1962. But in recent times, both sides have successfully attempted to normalize the bilateral relationship, mainly driven by the mounting bilateral trade.

The former archbishop of Concepción, Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati Andrello, has been named as the new archbishop of Chile’s capital Santiago. He will replace cardinal Francisco Javier Errázuriz Ossa.

At least fourteen presidents, including Colombia’s Juan Manuel Santos and Venezuela’ Hugo Chavez, and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have confirmed they will be present next January first in Brasilia when Dilma Rousseff takes office as Brazil’s first woman president.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has joined forces with France and Germany to demand a real-terms freeze in the European Union budget until the end of the decade.

United States president Barack Obama signed Friday into law an 858 billion US dollars bill extending for two years Bush-era tax cuts to boost a fragile economy and add jobs.

Argentina has 40.09 million inhabitants, up 10.6% from the 2001 figure of 36.2 million, according to preliminary results from the 2010 National Census of Population, Households and Homes released on Friday.

President Evo Morales announced on Friday that Bolivia would recognize Palestine as an independent sovereign state. The Bolivian leader made the statement during the Mercosur summit in Brazil.

The United States government should create an online privacy bill of rights and an enforceable code of conduct for Internet firms handling consumer data and tracking Web users, the U.S. Department of Commerce has recommended.

Senators representing agricultural parts of Chile strongly criticized the Central Bank and President Sebastian Piñera this week for turning a deaf ear to the “social, cultural and economic problems” created by the falling value of the US dollar, now hovering at 470 pesos to the dollar.

Uruguayan president Jose Mujica called on the Mercosur summit for a quick incorporation of Venezuela as full member of the group and said it was time the rest of Latin America moved closer to the integration process.