EU trade ministers agreed on Friday to approve a free trade pact with Colombia and Peru that could boost European car and chemical exports and lift food and mineral exports from the South American countries.
Uruguay’s minister of Foreign Affairs Luis Almagro described on Friday as ‘inadmissible” the exclusion of Cuba from the VI Summit of the Americas scheduled for next April 14/15 in Cartagena, Colombia.
Cuba said it was unacceptable that it will not be invited to an upcoming hemispheric summit in Colombia and blamed the United States for insisting that Cuba be excluded.
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos Venezuela's Hugo Chávez will return home next week from Cuba where he is recovering from surgery to remove a cancerous tumour.
Colombia's feared FARC rebel group said it would abandon its decades-long policy of economic kidnapping and free all military and police hostages it holds in jungle camps, another sign the drug-funded Marxist inspired insurgents may want peace.
The US State Department said on Monday that if Cuba wants to participate in the coming Summit of the Americas to be hosted by Colombia, it must first fully integrate to the Organization of American States and guarantee the basic liberties of its citizens.
The Cuban government has expressed its interest in attending the coming Summit of the Americas scheduled for next April in Cartagena, revealed Colombian Foreign Affairs minister Maria Angela Holguin following a visit to Havana.
Colombia aims to be Latin America's third largest economy after Brazil and Mexico by 2015, said the country's trade minister this week during a business conference in Madrid.
President Hugo Chavez Venezuela is on track to set a new record for murders and to remain South America's most violent country, according to data released by a crime watchdog. The Venezuela Violence Monitor (OVV) said this week that 19 336 people had been murdered in 2011, an average of 53 per day in a country of 29 million.
Banco Santander SA said late Tuesday it has agreed to sell all of its units in Colombia, including Banco Santander Colombia, to Chilean CorpBanca as part of its efforts to collect fund to comply with European regulators.