
Two days ahead of the Toronto G-20 summit the US Federal Reserve anticipates it will keep its main interest rate at a near zero level, for an extended period. The Federal Open Market Committee said on Wednesday that subdued inflation and other factors are likely to warrant keeping rates at their historic lows.

The number of US workers filing new claims for jobless benefits jumped last week after three straight declines, the Labour Department said on Thursday. First-time claims rose by 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 472,000, the highest level in a month.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton promised this week after meeting with Colombian president Alvaro Uribe that when she returns to Washington she will begin “a very intensive effort to try to obtain the votes to get the free trade agreement with Colombia finally ratified”.

Hundreds of pilots for Spirit Airlines, which services the Caribbean, walked off their jobs early Saturday morning after negotiations over pay broke down. In what industry analysts say is the first strike at a US passenger airline in nearly five years, pilots at the low-cost carrier took industrial action as negotiations reached a stalemate.

The US government posted a smaller budget deficit in May than forecast as a growing economy helped bring in more tax revenue, Treasury Department statistics showed. The excess of spending over revenue fell to 135.9 billion last month from a shortfall of 189.7 billion in May 2009, according to a report issued today in Washington.

The size of the United States Hispanic community grew by 3.1% in 2009 to 48.4 million people, or 15.8% of the total population, the largest minority in a country that is ever more diverse, the Census Bureau said Thursday.

United States promised to deliver the Union of South American Nations, Unasur, all the necessary information regarding its military presence in Colombia, said Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa, following a meeting with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

In his angriest words yet after being widely criticized for his response to the Gulf oil spill, President Barack Obama said he was talking to experts because he wants to know whose ass to kick.

United States Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Charles Evans reiterated on Tuesday that now is not the right time for the US central bank to raise benchmark interest rates. He also said the US unemployment rate will decline slowly after the “disappointing” May jobs report.

The US government does not consider that there’s an arms race in the Americas and estimates the majority of countries invest more on social areas than in military hardware said Assistant US Secretary of State for Hemispheric affairs, Arturo Valenzuela.