SANTIAGO, Chile (AFP) — European and Latin American leaders wrapped up a two-day summit here yesterday, pledging to reinvigorate their "strategic partnership" for expanded free trade while shunning protectionism.
But the high-profile meeting attended by some 60 countries from both continents was overshadowed by a nightclub fire that killed at least 232 people in Brazil and forced President Dilma Rousseff to cut short her visit.
Accredited Third States
Switzerland—British Prime Minister David Cameron wants nothing to do with a United States of Europe, an idea that’s gaining currency as the countries that use the euro struggle to fix their debt crisis. A day after he shook up Europe’s political landscape by offering citizens the prospect of a vote on whether to stay in the 27-country European Union, Cameron insisted yesterday he wants Britain to remain an integral part of the bloc but that more unification would not be the answer.
SANTIAGO, Chile, CMC – The head of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) has called on the region to build a “more symmetrical, balanced and equitable relationship with Europe.” “We want foreign investment that helps us modernize our production structure, that contributes to employment, that helps us care for the environment and that respects social rights,” said ECLAC’s executive secretary, Alicia Bárcena, in addressing the opening session of the First Community of Latin American and Caribbean States and the European Union (CELAC-EU) Academic Summit here on
HOUSTON (Reuters) – James Davis, the government’s top witness in convicted swindler Allen Stanford’s fraud trial, was sentenced today to five years in prison for his role in a $7 billion Ponzi scheme. Davis, 64, who pleaded guilty in 2009 to three charges and could have been sentenced to 30 years, told the court in a breaking voice, “I am ashamed and I am embarrassed.” He added that he let down his family, co-workers and thousands of investors.
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — One of Hugo Chavez's brothers says the Venezuelan president is expected to return home from Cuba in the coming days as he continues to recover nearly six weeks after undergoing cancer surgery.
Argenis Chavez is one of the president's five brothers and the president of the National Electric Corporation.
NEW YORK, CMC - Fitch Ratings has upgraded Jamaica’s economic outlook from negative to stable and also affirmed the island’s long-term foreign and local currency Issuer Default Ratings (IDRs).
“Jamaica's ratings balance the sovereign's structural strengths, such as relatively high income per capita and social indicators, policy consensus and relatively strong institutional capacity against continued growth underperformance, high vulnerability to external and confidence shocks, weak public finances and fiscal solvency indicators.
Havana, (Prensa Latina) The Foreign Ministers of Cuba and Venezuela, Bruno Rodriguez and Elias Jaua, respectively, agreed on the urge to consolidate the Community of Latin American and Caribbean Countries (CELAC) as space of regional sovereignty.
At a meeting in this capital, they noted the relevance of the 33-member bloc as key mechanism for Latin American and Caribbean integration in the advent of the Jan 27-28 Summit in Santiago de Chile where Cuba is to assume as rotating President of the organization born late in 2011 in Caracas.
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan Vice President Nicolas Maduro said yesterday that he's optimistic that Hugo Chavez will soon return to Venezuela following cancer-related surgery in Cuba. Maduro said that he and other government officials "are always optimistic that we are going to have the president here with us sooner rather than later," but he did not
Cuban authorities are scrambling to contain a cholera outbreak that has sickened dozens of people in Havana, the capital city of 2.2 million residents and a popular tourism destination. In a brief communiqué issued on Tuesday, the Health Ministry said the outbreak was first detected on Jan. 6, and was being contained. "Fifty-one cases have been confirmed to date," the statement read, without mentioning fatalities.
GEORGETOWN, Guyana - On the human level, there is a lot of sympathy for Hugo Chávez in his battle against an unspecified cancer in a Cuban hospital. On the political level, however, his loyal supporters in the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and the Venezuelan government may be doing the cause of democracy in that country something of a disservice by seeking to interpret the national constitution as they are with regard to the postponement of Mr Chávez’s January 10 inauguration.