Brazilian industrial output posted its first annual increase in more than a year in October as a tax break on autos helped support a nascent recovery in the country's beleaguered manufacturing sector.
Uruguay’s inflation in November was over 9% in the last twelve months despite government efforts to contain it by agreeing a price freeze with leading supermarkets and having public utilities’ rates unchanged.
Paraguay declared “entirely unacceptable” statements from Brazilian Foreign minister Antonio Patriota who said that the April 2013 elections are “only an important step to re-examine” the country’s suspension from Unasur and Mercosur. Patriota’s statement was supported by Argentina.
The Organization of American States (OAS) will hold, on December 6 and 7 in Lima, Peru, the Meeting of Government Experts on the Management of Socio-Environmental Conflict for the countries of Central America and the Andean Region.
The Brazilian government extended tax breaks to the country's construction industry in a new effort to encourage investment and boost flagging growth which is putting pressure on the government to further include other stimuli measures.
Countries – especially those with a long mining history -- can substantially reduce lead poisoning in children by mapping contamination levels in the soil to identify high-risk areas and by taking measures to keep children away from those areas, according to a study published this month in the public health journal, the Bulletin of the World Health Organization.
Royal Navy has welcomed its newly-appointed Fleet Commander and Deputy Chief of Naval Staff at a handover ceremony in Portsmouth. Vice Admiral Philip Jones takes up the role from outgoing Fleet Commander Admiral Sir George Zambellas who will continue in his NATO role, Commander Maritime Command, at Northwood in North West London.
London Mayor Boris Johnson heaped pressure on Prime Minister David Cameron this week by calling for a referendum on a deeply pared back British membership of the European Union.
Argentine Jewish organizations strongly criticized Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa after he defended the Iranian government, comparing the 85 people killed in the 1994 AMIA attacks in Buenos Aires with the victims of “NATO bombings in Libya” in 2011.
Mercosur and Unasur democracies did not rank very encouragingly in the latest Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index 2012 with all countries, except Chile and Uruguay, ranking below the score of 50, on a scale from 0 (perceived to be highly corrupt) to 100 (perceived to be very clean).