Argentina’s Federal Planning Minister Julio De Vido referred to the recently published Wikileaks documents by Spanish newspaper El Pais, and advised the US embassy in Buenos Aires “to hire more competent employees” since performing a “cut-and-paste task from the yellow press is something any idiot can do.”
United States unveiled a strategy to spend 53 billion US dollars on high-speed rail and intercity network over the next six years. It's a plan that will, according to Vice-president Joe Biden, bring the US closer to giving 80% of Americans access to high-speed rail in the next 25 years.
The South American/Arab countries III Business Summit will take place April 19 and 20 in Peru confirmed the organizers of the event that was to be held parallel to the suspended South America/Arab leaders’ summit (ASPA) this month in Lima.
Venezuelan authorities say they recorded 48 homicides for every 100,000 inhabitants last year, making it one of the most dangerous places in South America. Venezuela has a population of 28 million and a report for United Nations last year put the homicide rate for South America as a whole around 20 per 100.000 people.
Peruvian exports in 2010 reached 35 billion US dollars, up 30% from 2009, said Foreign Trade and Tourism minister Enrique Ferreyros. He also pointed out in nine years the number of Peruvian companies involved in exporting jumped from 4.086 to 7.200 and markets from 155 to 178 markets.
Brazilian officials say inflation in January was the highest monthly jump in almost six years. The government's IBGE statistics bureau said that January inflation was 0.83%, the biggest monthly jump since April 2005, when inflation was 0.87%.
Brazil announces 50 billion Real (30 billion US dollars) cuts from this year’s budget as President Dilma Rousseff seeks to help the central bank contain inflation and lower some the world’s highest real interest rates.
A former secretary of Nestor Kirchner, the late ex-president of Argentina, has claimed she was his long-term mistress weeks after being sacked by his widow and successor, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.
In Wael Ghonim, Egypt's anti-Mubarak street movement finally found a hero to rally around after a period of leaderless protest. The Egyptian-born Google marketing executive first played a role in organising the opposition through Facebook, only to disappear into police custody for 12 days.
More than a hundred cables from the US embassy in Buenos Aires warned about the fragility of the judicial system and the impunity of criminals, according to an article recently published by Spanish newspaper El País. The leaked documents also spoke of the lack of a true political will to eradicate corruption.