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Chávez declares electricity emergency
President Hugo Chávez has declared a state of emergency, fearing that Venezuela’s chronic electricity shortages could put at risk economic growth and national security
Costa Rica elects first woman president
Laura Chinchilla, a protege of Nobel peace laureate and incumbent president Oscar Arias, has vowed to continue his pro-business policies after winning a landslide victory
Kirchner undergoes emergency surgery
The husband and predecessor of Argentine President Cristina Fernández and the man widely believed still to be the pulling the strings of power in her government, had emergency surgery on his carotid artery
Warning on former Colombian paramilitaries threat
Colombia’s disbanded paramilitary groups have morphed into criminal gangs that are contributing to a surge in violence, according to a report by Human Rights Watch
OAS urged to normalise Honduran relations
The Organisation of American States should discuss restoring full membership to Honduras just seven months after coup, according to a senior US diplomat
Argentina president picks ally to head bank
An economist with close links to the government is the new central bank governor after a battle to remove the former chief for failing to hand over reserves to pay off debt
Panama Canal vows to stick with toll increases
The administrator of the Panama Canal has defended the waterway’s recent programme of toll increases despite complaints that they are aggravating the shipping market crisis
Falklands oil plan angers Argentina
Foreign ministry protests against drilling ‘in areas of the Argentine continental shelf subject to illegitimate British occupation’
Argentina’s central bank chief resigns
After weeks of political crisis sparked by his refusal to hand over reserves to pay off debt, Martín Redrado has resigned, blasting a government he said was trampling the nation’s institutions
Argentine congress to examine Redrado’s fate
A political battle for control of the central bank is set to escalate when a bicameral commission meets to discuss the issue concerning the governor, who is fighting the president’s bid to oust him










