Ecuador will implement this year a plan to reinforce its borders, particularly with Colombia, to eliminate the presence of guerrillas and irregular forces in its territory, announced the country's Defence minister Javier Ponce.
Chilean president Michelle Bachelet administration showed a positive public opinion assessment, for the first time in twelve months, according to the latest CEP polls published over the weekend.
Cubans will be permitted to build their own homes using their own private funds, President Raul Castro announced on Sunday, in the latest reforms to back off the centralized economy hard-line orthodoxy of the past five decades.
Brazil plans to double the number of troops along the borders of its vast Amazon rain forest area in the framework of the Protecting Amazon project, reported O Estado de Sao Paulo” this weekend.
British PM Gordon Brown praised the new Falkland Islands constitution which enshrines the right to self determination and promised UK continued support for the development of the Islands hydrocarbons sector.
Former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's influential economics adviser, Sir Alan Walters, has died aged 82. Sir Alan's return as an adviser led in 1989 to the resignation of Chancellor Nigel Lawson, with whom he had clashed over the exchange rate mechanism (ERM).
Cuban president Raul Castro will be visiting Uruguay this year, according to reports in the Uruguayan government oriented press. Castro was extended an invitation last June when Uruguayan president Tabare Vazquez was in the island and later confirmed in an official letter.
The Organization of American States (OAS) Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza announced Monday his withdrawal from the Chilean presidential elections scheduled for next December.
The current director-general of the World Trade Organization, Pascal Lamy, is the only candidate for the position. He was the only candidate when nominations closed on 31 December.
On the eve of the 176th anniversary of the illegitimate occupation of the Islas Malvinas by the United Kingdom (January 3rd.) the administration of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner issued a statement emphasizing Argentina's sovereignty claims over the South Atlantic archipelago and described as unjustified the British negative to address the question.