United States

• Thursday, July 19th 2012 - 18:29 UTC

  US meats’ farming massive use of antibiotics creating more resistant bacteria

  

  The factory farming of cows, pigs, poultry and fish sucks up 29 million pounds—80%—of antibiotics sold in the United States. Many illness-causing bacteria are now resistant to most or all of the antibiotics that once killed them.

• Thursday, July 19th 2012 - 18:17 UTC

  US worst drought since 1956 sends soybeans and corn skyrocketing

  

  The commodities soy and corn’s prizes sky rocked on Thursday thanks to the severe drought that has been punishing the United States heartland. Soy and corn were being sold at record high of 638.89 dollars/ton and 320.26 dollars/ton respectively.

• Wednesday, July 18th 2012 - 17:03 UTC

  Geithner defends US response during the 2008 Libor-rate credibility slump

  

  US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner defended his response in 2008 to concerns that emerged over the benchmark Libor interest rate, arguing on Wednesday that US regulators pushed early and forcefully for reforms.

• Tuesday, July 17th 2012 - 20:13 UTC

  Bernanke concerned with US economy but with no clues about what steps to follow

  

  Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Tuesday offered few new clues on whether the US central bank was moving closer to a fresh round of monetary stimulus, even as he underscored his concerns over the economy's weakness.

• Tuesday, July 17th 2012 - 19:27 UTC

  HSBC grilled in US Senate for lax controls enabling billions of money laundering

  

  The CEO of the U.S. division of the big international bank HSBC is apologizing for lax controls that lawmakers say allowed Mexican drug cartels to launder billions of dollars through the US operation and many other illicit transactions for years.

• Monday, July 16th 2012 - 23:55 UTC

  Drought stretching across US threatens economies of farming states and food prices

  

  A worst-in-a-generation drought from stretching across the United States is damaging crops and rural economies and threatening to drive food prices to record levels. Agriculture, though a small part (1.2%) of the 15.5 trillion dollars US economy, had been one of the most resilient industries in the past three years as the country struggled to recover from the recession.

• Saturday, July 14th 2012 - 07:06 UTC

  Visa and Mastercard agree to largest settlement with retailers over card fees

  

  Credit card companies Visa and Mastercard and major US banks have agreed to a 7.25bn dollars settlement to retailers over card fees. The case, which has been going on for seven years, is over firms colluding to fix the fees that stores pay to process credit and debt card payments.

• Saturday, July 14th 2012 - 00:46 UTC

  Chavez becomes an issue of the US presidential campaign

  

  President Hugo Chavez denied on Friday that Venezuela was a threat to anyone, after US presidential hopeful Mitt Romney criticized Barack Obama for playing down the risk posed by the socialist leader.

• Saturday, July 14th 2012 - 00:26 UTC

  Brazil’s 2012/13 soybean crop in place to dispute the US supremacy

  

  Next season, 2012/13 Brazilian soybean growers could be in place to jump from the world's No. 2 producer and dispute the US first place. Brazil's 2012-13 soybean production is expected to rise 25% from this season’s drought-punished, to 83.1 million tons.

• Thursday, July 12th 2012 - 07:05 UTC

  Washington says Paraguay should not be suspended from OAS and calls for regional unity

  

  Paraguay should not be suspended from the Organization of American States, OAS, despite the removal of President Fernando Lugo, said on Wednesday Roberta Jacobson, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs.