Colombia marches against Chavez

Protests against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez have got under way in several cities across Latin America.The demonstrations were organised by Colombian activists after Mr Chavez criticised Colombia for allowing US forces access to seven military bases.Organisers used social networking sites to set up “No more Chavez” protests.President Chavez’s supporters have also turned out to show [...]

China: Trade with LatAm up 40 percent last year

Trade between China and Latin America reached a record of more than $140 billion last year, the governor of China’s central bank said Saturday, and pledged to help ease the economic crisis’s impact on the region.

Biden makes first trip to Latin America as VP

Vice President Joe Biden makes his first official trip to Latin America this weekend, attending a summit in Chile where he and like-minded center-left politicians will seek solutions to the global economic crisis.
via Biden makes first trip to Latin America as VP – Americas AP – MiamiHerald.com.

Writer picks top 10 tales of Latin American journeys

1. “The Motorcycle Diaries: A Journey Around South America,” by Ernesto Che Guevara
2. “Mad White Giant,” by Benedict Allen
3. “Tristes Tropiques,” by Claude Lévi-Strauss
4. “Travels With a Circus,” by Katie Hickman
5. “Robbery Under Law: The Mexican Object-Lesson,” by Evelyn Waugh
6. “Love in the Time of Cholera,” by Gabriel García Márquez
7. “Mornings in Mexico,” by D.H. [...]

UN: Latin America needs help vs. drug traffickers

Central American nations need urgent international help to confront the increasingly dangerous presence of Mexican and Colombian drug cartels, the head of a U.N.-backed commission investigating organized crime in Guatemala said Tuesday.
“Latin America has no time,” U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Carlos Castresana warned. “This is a situation of emergency.”
Mexican drug cartels are increasingly using Central American [...]

What About Latinos?

A child from a poor family and of little respect in his or her village will often receive little respect and attention in school. The same applies to people who come to the United States from a country that has not been respected by the U.S. government.
In Mexico, we heard Obama’s interview with Chicago’s famous [...]

China set to boost Venezuela ties

Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping is due in Venezuela as part of a visit to boost Chinese ties in the region.
Mr Xi is expected to sign agreements including joint ventures with Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA, the Venezuelan foreign ministry said.
China is also set to inject $4bn (£2.8bn) into a joint investment fund that was [...]

Argentina’s GDP forecast to fall

Argentina’s gross domestic product is expected to decline by about 2 percent in 2009 following several years of robust growth, according to the Latin American Economic Research Foundation (FIEL), an independent think tank based in Buenos Aires.
After years of high prices for its agricultural exports, Argentina, one of the largest economies in Latin America, is [...]

Latin American Private Equity Strong Despite Global Economic Crisis

Private equity (PE) investors in Latin America don’t expect the region’s deal market to begin recovery until possibly 2010, but say it continues to offer greater investment opportunity than many other areas, according to the 2009 Annual Latin America Private Equity Survey of PE stakeholders by KPMG LLP, the audit, tax and advisory firm.
While all [...]

Former Latin American Presidents Support Marijuana Decriminalization

Three former Latin American presidents said Wednesday that regional policymakers should consider the decriminalization of marijuana because long-standing attempts to curb the production and trafficking of illicit drugs have failed.
In a report by the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy, former presidents Cesar Gaviria of Colombia, Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico and Fernando Henrique Cardoso [...]