Politics

• Wednesday, March 31st 2010 - 18:20 UTC

  Texas Congress discuss violence from drug war along border with Mexico

  

  The violence raging in Mexico’s drug war is worse now than the terror that enveloped Colombia during the 1980s and 1990s ever was, Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve Mc Craw told state lawmakers this week in Austin.

• Wednesday, March 31st 2010 - 18:15 UTC

  Former Defence minister leads in Colombia’s presidential May election

  

  According to the latest poll by Ipsos-Napoleon Franco published by Colombian newspaper Semana over the weekend, the former Defence minister in President Alvaro Uribe cabinet, Juan Manuel Santos, is clearly ahead in the presidential polls with 36% vote intention.

• Wednesday, March 31st 2010 - 18:13 UTC

  Colombia’s FARC warns next release only under “humanitarian exchange”

  

  Colombian army Sgt. Pablo Emilio Moncayo emerged from more than a dozen years in captivity Tuesday as Marxist inspired drug funded FARC rebels released him to a humanitarian delegation headed by opposition Senator Piedad Cordoba.

• Wednesday, March 31st 2010 - 04:03 UTC

  Analysts doubt Argentina can sell global bonds at one digit interest rate

  

  Argentina’s accelerating inflation and deteriorating finances will undermine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s goal of selling global bonds with an interest rate below 10%, said Silvia Marengo who helps manage 500 million USD of debt at Falcon Private Bank in Zurich in a report compiled by Bloomberg.

• Wednesday, March 31st 2010 - 04:01 UTC

  Two more Cuban dissidents on hunger strike; EU-Havana talks postponed

  

  Two dissidents, one of them behind bars, have joined Guillermo Fariñas in a hunger strike, the unofficial Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation said Tuesday.

• Wednesday, March 31st 2010 - 02:30 UTC

  Mercosur is Uruguay’s main market for value-added exports, says Mujica

  

  Uruguayan president Jose “Pepe” Mujica admitted Mercosur has its problems but it is also the market for Uruguayan exports with most added value: “to the rest of the world we sell mostly commodities, to Mercosur Uruguayan input”.

• Wednesday, March 31st 2010 - 02:25 UTC

  Argentina begins next week to pay debts with Central Bank reserves

  

  Following an Argentine federal court ruling approving the use of Central Bank reserves for the payment of foreign debt the administration of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner will begin transactions next week using the liberated funds.

• Wednesday, March 31st 2010 - 02:15 UTC

  Bolivia denies modernizing the Army “to provoke” neighbouring Paraguay

  

  Bolivian president Evo Morales strongly denied Tuesday that furnishing new equipment to the Armed Forces was directed to provoke neighbouring Paraguay and accused his opponents to take advantage of the situation to confront the two countries.

• Wednesday, March 31st 2010 - 02:08 UTC

  US criticizes Canada over its Arctic policy

  

  Hillary Clinton has criticised Canada for failing to invite indigenous groups and Scandinavian countries to talks on the future of the Arctic.

• Tuesday, March 30th 2010 - 22:48 UTC

  Senator McCain calls for troops to be deployed along Mexican border

  

  The influential US Senator John McCain from Arizona sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano calling for the deployment of National Guard troops along the “southern border region” between the US and Mexico to help counter the growing violence from the drug cartels.