(Miami Herald) - UNITED NATIONS Hoping to improve peace and security around the world, Argentine President Cristina Fernández led a day-long Security Council meeting Tuesday where she and other leaders said regions in turmoil could learn from how Latin American and the Caribbean have settled internal conflicts.
CARACAS, Venezuela — The United States is conducting a diplomatic full-court press to try to block Edward J. Snowden, the fugitive American intelligence contractor, from finding refuge in Latin America, where three left-leaning governments that make defying Washington a hallmark of their foreign policies have publicly vowed to take him in. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. took the unusual step of telephoning President Rafael Correa of Ecuador to urge him not to give asylum to Mr. Snowden.
In their recent trips to Latin America and the Caribbean, President Obama and Vice President Biden were right to focus on the economic opportunities in a region whose prospects have never been brighter. Despite the global economic crisis, more than 70 million of our citizens have escaped poverty in the last 10 years, and the number of middle-class families could double within a generation.
GENEVA, CMC - Latin America and Caribbean region has met a number of targets for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), including halving the extreme poverty rate, according to a United Nations report released here on Monday.
The report noted that the proportion of people in the region living on less than US$1.25 a day fell from 12 per cent in 1990 to six per cent in 2010.
SANTIAGO, Chile, CMC – The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) says the container throughput in Latin American and Caribbean ports remained sluggish in 2012, confirming the slowdown in the region's foreign trade over the past year.
ECLAC on Wednesday attributed this to the recession in Europe and slower growth in the United States and China.
Remittances sent to Latin America and the Caribbean grew less than 1 percent in 2012 but showed larger increases in countries more dependent on money sent home by migrants living in the United States, according to an Inter-American Development Bank study released Monday. Last year, the region received $61.3 billion in remittances — the money sent by migrants to sustain family and friends in their homelands. That’s $300 million, or 0.6 percent, more than in 2011. The tally doesn’t include countries, such as Cuba, which aren’t IDB members
America GEORGETOWN, Guyana - With Nicolás Maduro’s narrow victory in Venezuela’s presidential election still being contested by the Venezuelan opposition, even though he has already been sworn in as president, there is a growing feeling that, with a majority of only 50.7 per cent of the popular vote, the self-styled ‘son’ and heir of Hugo Chávez may well be in for a rough ride.
SANTIAGO, Chile, CMC - The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) is predicting a two per cent growth for Caribbean economies in 2013.
ECLAC said that the anticipated result is “on the back of the buoyancy of economies specialized in producing and exporting raw materials, mainly Guyana and Suriname, and the recovery in countries more focused on exporting tourist services, as a result of the improved economic situation in the United States”.
ASUNCIÓN, Paraguay — Horacio Cartes, a Paraguayan tobacco magnate, faced various challenges during his presidential bid. He was pressed to explain why antinarcotics police officers apprehended a plane carrying cocaine and marijuana on his ranch in 2000; why he went to prison in 1989 on currency fraud charges; and why he had never even voted in past general elections. till, voters across the country seemed ready to give Mr. Cartes the benefit of the doubt, handing him a solid victory in Paraguay’s presidential election on Sunday.
Most Latin American and Caribbean economies survived the Great Recession in relatively good shape. But now as the global slowdown threatens to hang on indefinitely, what is their fate?
The countries of the region will grow faster — at an estimated rate of 3.9 percent over the next five years — than the global economy. “Latin America will gain weight in the world economy,’’ said José Juan Ruiz, chief economist at the Inter-American Development Bank.