
Russia's formally joined on Wednesday 22 August the World Trade Organization after having waited for 18 years. On July 21, President Vladimir Putin signed the final accession document approved by all WTO countries, a final step clearing the way for Wednesday’s formal entry.

The Atlanta based Carter Centre said this week that it declined an invitation from Venezuela's National Electoral Council to have a team at the country's Oct. 7 presidential election. The Centre said it received the invitation too late ”to evaluate it and organize the necessary experts and financing”.

Forbes magazine ranked German Chancellor Angela Merkel the most powerful woman in the world for the second year in a row in the annual list dominated by politicians, businesswomen and media figures. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton placed second, followed by Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, making the top three spots unchanged from last year.

Some 130 billion dollars will be invested in Venezuela's Orinoco Oil Belt between 2013 and 2019 to boost national production from 3 million barrels per day to 6 million bpd, President Hugo Chavez announced on Tuesday evening.

Venezuela, the latest entry as full member of Mercosur has the cheapest petrol price in the world, 8 pennies per liter, (1 £ trading at 1.59 dollars on 22 August) according to the latest report from UK website, “This is money”, based on a research from Evans Halshaw.

Less than a year ago an Ecuadorean judge denied a request to extradite Aliaksandr Barankov to Belarus, the former Soviet bloc nation whose president has been nicknamed Europe's last dictator, reports the US and European media.

Argentine consumers’ inflation expectations for the next twelve months reached a record of 39.8% climbing for the third month running, according to the latest release from the University of Torcuato Di Tella.

Argentine lawmaker and close counsellor of President Cristina Fernandez Carlos Kunkel rejected on Tuesday the idea that the ‘Kichnerite era’ could end if President Cristina Fernández is not re-elected in 2015 presidential elections as has been suggested by some of her followers and the opposition.

The Peruvian government announced that it will be sending Congress a bill that punishes the negation of the terrorist violence suffered by the country during the last decades of the last century. The bill against “negationism” is in ‘support of democracy and a unified front against terrorism’ which is still active in some parts of the country in alliance with the drug lords.

The Swedish government will not extradite Julian Assange to the US should he face the death penalty there, as any possible extradition request from Washington is then subject to strict conditions, an official from the country’s Justice Ministry.