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Trinidad to begin negotiations for gas deal with Venezuela
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Canadian miner stops processing ore at Panama mine
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Brazil's Lula concerned about economy, high interest rates
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U.S. flags little room for compromise in Mexico corn spat
Feb 23 (Reuters) - The latest in Latin American politics today: BOGOTA - Colombia's leftist government condemned Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega's expulsion of hundreds of prominent critics earlier this month and called for international monitoring and a criminal inquiry, a statement by the Colombian foreign ministry said. The criticism by the government of Colombian President Gustavo Petro is the latest from the region's mostly leftist governments, after Chile also denounced Nicaragua's ejection of more than 200 political prisoners to the United States whom Ortega has called criminal mercenaries. Trinidad to begin negotiations for gas deal with Venezuela in March
PORT OF SPAIN - Trinidad and Tobago next month expects to formally begin negotiations with Venezuela on a promising offshore natural gas project, the Caribbean nation's energy minister said.
A deal would help revive its gas production, which contributes a large part of its export revenue and has been in decline. Energy Minister Stuart Young has traveled to Caracas twice to inaugurate the negotiations since the United States in January issued a license allowing the two nations to revive the Dragon gas field on the Venezuelan side of the maritime border with Trinidad. That project has been idled for over a decade. Canadian miner stops processing ore at Panama mine
PANAMA CITY - First Quantum Minerals suspended ore
processing operations at a mine in Panama, the Canadian miner
said.
The company and Panama's government have been locked in a
prolonged contract dispute with tax and royalties at the heart
of the stalemate.
First Quantum's unit Minera Panama will begin a partial
demobilization of its workforce of over 8,000 employees and
contractors, and expects the impact to increase significantly in
the coming weeks if concentrate shipments do not resume, the
company said.
Panama's trade and industry ministry brushed off the miner's
announcement as "pressure tactics" that will not help
negotiations, in a statement released later on Thursday.
Brazil's Lula concerned about economy, high borrowing costs
BRASILIA - Brazil's Management Minister Esther Dweck said President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is very concerned with the resumption of economic growth, adding that high interest rates affect funding costs for companies and families. In an interview with news website UOL, she also said that the leftist administration is not guided by the idea of spending a lot to drive economic growth but "to spend correctly." Dweck argued that the high level of current and future interest rates "ends up preventing them from being able to then take out the loans to make the investments necessary for the economy to continue to grow." U.S. flags little room for compromise in Mexico corn spat
ARLINGTON, Va. - The Mexican government's plan to ban imports of genetically modified corn destined for humans is "not a situation that lends itself to a compromise," said U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. The United States said earlier this month that it was "disappointed" in the Mexican government's latest decree to prohibit so-called transgenic corn for human consumption. (Compiled by Peter Frontini and Brendan O'Boyle Editing by Sandra Maler and Grant McCool)
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