Politics

• Friday, May 27th 2011 - 22:21 UTC

  Brazilian government promises tax breaks in support of industry

  

  Brazil will respond to the requests from industry and unions to reduce taxes to help boost local manufacturing and thus cut into the growing impetus of imports, promised Vice-President Michel Temer during a seminar sponsored by the powerful São Paulo Federation of Industries, FIESP, together with the two main organized labour unions.

• Friday, May 27th 2011 - 22:03 UTC

  Unasur Defence Council has to protect the region’s vast and strategic resources

  

  The Union of South American Nations, Unasur, has among the objectives of the recently created South American Defence Council protecting the natural resources of the region which include 25% of the world’s drinking water and proven oil reserves estimated in 123 billion barrels of oil.

• Friday, May 27th 2011 - 18:37 UTC

  Lagarde too committed to the Euro to be nominated IMF chief, says top economist

  

  Finance Minister Christine Lagarde is the wrong choice to head the International Monetary Fund as it gets deeper into the Euro-zone rescue, a former IMF chief economist said this week.

• Friday, May 27th 2011 - 09:26 UTC

  Defence minister denies Argentina is “obstructing” the Falklands economy

  

  Defence minister Arturo Puricelli denied Thursday that Argentina was obstructing the economy of the Malvinas Islands as claimed by Falklands’ governor Nigel Haywood in his state of the nation speech to the elected Legislative Assembly of the Islands.

• Friday, May 27th 2011 - 09:24 UTC

  Pimentel anticipates more ‘active measures’ to defend Brazil’s industry

  

  The Brazilian Government announced that it is considering additional import restrictions on top of the ones already applied to vehicles, as a measure to defend their national industry.

• Friday, May 27th 2011 - 09:15 UTC

  Lamy calls G20 not to fall prey of protectionism; points to Russia and Argentina

  

  World Trade Organization Director General Pascal Lamy warned world leaders that adopting protectionist measures can have “devastating effects” on the global economy. Addressing the G 20 group Lamy called on the leaders to resist “the temptations of protectionism”.

• Friday, May 27th 2011 - 09:11 UTC

  Top economists anticipate ‘restructuring’ of Greek debt or ‘booting’ out of the Euro

  

  Nouriel Roubini, the New York University economist known as Dr Doom, says Greek restructuring would not bring down Europe's financial system. The economist, who earned his nickname by predicting the global financial crisis, says an orderly debt restructuring could pre-empt more trouble.

• Friday, May 27th 2011 - 08:58 UTC

  Chavez sacks half of PDVSA board following a 500 million USD fraud

  

  Venezuela’s government giant oil corporation sacked half its board of directors Thursday after PDVSA ’s pension fund lost about 500 million US dollars in a Ponzi scheme linked to a Connecticut-based investor.

• Friday, May 27th 2011 - 08:32 UTC

  Unasur ‘won’t collapse’ as happened with TIAR during the Malvinas war

  

  Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner praised the success of Unasur and forecasted that the South America Defence Council will be far more effective and robust than the previous experience with the TIAR, which “collapsed in 1982 during the Malvinas war”.

• Thursday, May 26th 2011 - 23:53 UTC

  G8 promises aid in support of ‘Arab spring’ and democratic consolidation

  

  The Group of Eight leaders meeting in France are expected to approve on Friday billions of dollars in aid in support of the ‘Arab spring’ with a program designed to foster change sweeping North Africa and the Middle East.