United States

• Tuesday, December 18th 2012 - 03:44 UTC

  Argentina replaces ambassador Argüello by an economist and trade expert

  

  The Argentine Foreign Ministry announced on Monday that President Cristina Fernández has decided to appoint Cecilia Nahón as Argentine ambassador to the United States, replacing Jorge Arguello in Washington DC.

• Monday, December 17th 2012 - 20:53 UTC

  US consumer prices falls in November because of sharp drop in gasoline prices

  

  US consumers prices fell in November due to a sharp drop in petrol prices, according to official figures, as inflation in the economy remained weak. The consumer price index fell 0.3% from October, the first decline since May, the US Labour Department said.

• Saturday, December 15th 2012 - 06:37 UTC

  Tearful Obama addresses the nation: calls for “meaningful action against these tragedies”

  

  A tearful President Barak Obama said US leaders must ”take meaningful action'' regardless of politics in response to the mass shooting at a Connecticut elementary school.

• Wednesday, December 12th 2012 - 20:35 UTC

  “Soft” dollar until US unemployment rate falls below 6.5% says Fed

  

  The US Federal Reserve has said it plans to keep interest rates at close to zero at least until the US unemployment rate falls below 6.5%. The Fed previously had a date-driven target, rather than a data-driven one.

• Monday, December 10th 2012 - 19:38 UTC

  Standard Chartered will pay 327m dollars for violating US sanctions on Iran

  

  Standard Chartered will pay more than 300 million dollars to settle charges it violated US sanctions on Iran, Burma, Libya and Sudan. The UK-based bank has been fined 100m by the Federal Reserve and the Department of Justice seized assets worth 227m, the regulators said.

• Monday, December 10th 2012 - 02:17 UTC

  US unemployment down to Dec 2008 level; 12 million still out a job

  

  The US announced that the labour market advanced sharply last month and its jobless rate fell to 7.7%, the lowest level in nearly four years. Washington said that late October's devastating super-storm Sandy had little effect on hiring, as employers unexpectedly added 146.000 new jobs in November, which was substantially more than economists had predicted.

• Thursday, November 29th 2012 - 00:31 UTC

  Argentina saved from a ‘technical default’; court case continues February 27

  

  A US appeals court on Wednesday granted an emergency stay order that gives Argentina more time to argue against making a 1.33 billion dollars payment to investors who rejected two debt restructurings in the nation's 2002 sovereign debt default.

• Wednesday, November 28th 2012 - 18:55 UTC

  BP suspended from new contracts with US government

  

  British Petroleum has been temporarily suspended from new contracts with the US government, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has said. While it is unclear how long the ban will last, it follows BP's record fine earlier this month over the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

• Thursday, November 22nd 2012 - 21:35 UTC

  North Dakota oil and gas production increasing 3% to 5% monthly

  

  Crude production from the Bakken and Three Forks formations in North Dakota could rise by another 50-100% in the next three years, and not start to decline until 2020 or even 2025, according to official projections from the North Dakota Oil and Gas Division.

• Thursday, November 22nd 2012 - 14:50 UTC

  Argentina’s outbursts backfire: Judge Griesa orders payment to holdout bond investors

  

  Argentina suffered a stinging blow late Wednesday when New York federal judge Thomas Griesa, citing threats by the country's leaders to defy his rulings in a decade-old dispute over defaulted sovereign bonds, ordered immediate payment.