A powerful earthquake of magnitude 8.8 struck central region of Chile during the early hours of Saturday, killing around 47 people. The quake near Conception took place at 3.34 a.m., when most of the citizens were asleep. Conception, second largest city of Chile, is 221 miles from Santiago, capital of Chile and has a population of over 200,000 people.

Death toll may rise, says Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, who urges people to stay calm. However, according to the US weather department, Chile, along with Ecuador and Peru, faces immediate threat of Tsunami. The department later added few areas of Colombia, Central America, and Antarctica to the list. Japan too warned major regions of Pacific about the impending tsunami to Costa Rica and Panama.

The increased sea level indicates that a minor tsunami was generated during the quake. The event could have been more disparaging and coast could have witnessed major destruction; however, the level did not rise further.

Few buildings collapsed in Santiago and there was no power in some portion of the city. Phone likes were down as well, which created more chaos and confusion among people. A new channels confirmed tremors in Argentina as well.

None of the weather department around the world is expecting a tsunami on the eastern coast of US and Canada.

However, they are constantly monitoring the situation.

Mexican government closed a state run firm with about 40,000 employees and 25 million customers. This company provides electricity to the capital and rest of the country is closed because it was no longer economically feasible and was suffering huge losses. Officials sent 5,000 police to close the headquarters and various branches of the company.

Federal police seized the offices of Luz y Fuerza Del Centro and according to the government officials; expenditure of the company was increasingly outpacing sales. President Felipe Calderon uttered this firm faced a shaky financial situation. Closure of the firm led to fight of union leaders and government. Cost of the firm between 2003 and 2008 was 433billion pesos while during sale the cost was 236 billion pesos. Mr. Caldron said the service could not continue to fund without increasing electricity rates or taxes. He added saying that it would be unfair particularly when country is going through tough economic times. He also denied union claims that the government was going to privatize to the company. Luz y Fuerza lost 32.5 percent of the energy that is generated or distribute to its customers. Half of the companies’ staff went towards pensions for 20,000 retired workers. Gomez Mont said Financial and operational inefficiencies of the company need to be blamed this year itself the government paid nearly 3 billion dollar to keep the firm floating.

Brazil raised the strongest level in more than a year after a statement from G7 countries said short of support to stem the dollar’s slide against major currencies encouraging investors to buy higher assets. It climbed 1.3 percent to 1.7598 per U.S dollar. Rise extended to real gain to 32 percent this year.

Marcelo Portilho said in an interview that G7 lacked a stronger language to stop the dollar weakness or calling for measures to make the dollar a stronger currency again. Dollar has dropped down 13 percent since early March. Group met at the end of a week in which policy makers from France and Canada signaled concern that a sliding dollar risks impending their recoveries from the deepest global recession since World War 2. G7 ministers and central bankers said excess volatility and disorderly movement in exchange rates had adverse implications on economic and financial stability. Jean Claude Trichet President of European Central Bank said some growing countries must allow their currencies to strengthen against euro and dollar. Guido Mantega said Brazil would buy up to $10billion in debt from the international monetary fund turning the country into a net creditor of IMF for the first time. Brazil will tap its foreign reserves to buy the two-year bonds from the IMF special drawing rights with quarterly interest payments based on the weighted average of short term rate in US, Japan and UK.

Alberto Fujimori, the ex-President of Peru, has been sentenced to a seven and a half year prison period on charges of corruption. Peru’s Supreme Court had convicted Fujimori of handing over 9.3million pounds or 15million dollars in state funds to his chief undercover agent, Vladimiro Montesinos. The trial alleged that Fujimori illicitly funnelled vast amounts of money to Vladimiro. The 70-yr old Fujimori has acknowledged to making the payment; however he further added that he had reimbursed the money afterwards.

Fujimori whose time in power spanned a decade commencing from 1990 was cut short in the later part of 2000, when fraudulent charges surfaced. This verdict is the third in row handed down to Fujimori from the time when he came back from exile during the later part of 2007. During April last year, he was given a jail term of 25 years for instructing the security forces to undertake carnage and abductions. In addition to that in 2007, Fujimori was also serving a six year term after being found accountable on separate accusations of power misuse.

The huge dollar disbursement was apparently made two months prior to the corruption charges in the end of 2000 that put a stop to his decade old reign.

Vladimiro is presently serving term in prison found guilty of numerous charges inclusive of corruption and cheating. Vladimiro was engulfed in the scandal that got off post videos that exposed him backhanding opposition party politicians and media honchos surfaced.

Fujimori expressed his partial and relative compliance with the charges levelled against him, stating that he only acknowledged the facts, but did not accept the criminal accountability, the sentence or the civil compensation.

The American Air Force Col. Willie Berges, based in Brazil, has signalled that the search operations carried out by the two ships hunting for black boxes of Air France have been discontinued. The commander of U.S. military forces sustaining the search endeavour has said that the other ship tugging a search device will also conclude its lookout venture in few hours.

Berges however stated that a French nuclear submarine is still carrying on the probe for the missing black boxes that will play a significant role in finding the root cause of such an unforeseen tragedy. The Black boxes emit aural pulses also called pings which the French submarine has been trying to locate. However, despite these efforts no success has been achieved in the matter.

The battery life of the aural locator beacon in the black boxes is a mere three weeks after which they start fading. The craggy ocean base coupled with testing ocean storms have also added to the woes.

Significant doubts still loom large over the unexpected breakdown of the Air France Flight 447 that sank into the sea off the Brazilian coast leaving no survivors. The 600 pieces of wreckage inclusive of the structural constituents of the ill-fated flight have been shipped out from the Atlantic Ocean and are being shipped to France for detailed investigations into the 1st June crash. The almost integral tail piece, engine cover, unused life vests, seats and kitchen appliances were first kept in Recife, Brazil, where the search procedures were initiated post the crash.

With the Health Minister, Juan Manzur confirming the death toll from the A(H1N1) virus mounting to a humongous 86,the official estimate and constantly rising. There have been close to 2, 677 confirmed swine flu cases so far. The provincial health minister, Claudio Zin has suggested reducing one-on-one contact especially in mass crowds and gatherings to avoid matters escalating out of hand.

Argentina is the only country in the southern hemisphere to be severely bolted by the severity of the deadly virus with a relatively high rate of morbidity. Argentina now stands third in row for swine flu mortalities after US and Mexico where the pandemic first made its presence felt and has lately outdone even Canada.

As the epidemic spreads its deadly roots during the winter season, many Argentines preferred to remain homebound, several churches in Bolivia including the Bolivian Roman Catholic Church called off weekday masses. Churches in East Santa Cruz city, the hot bed for the virus, having greater than two-thirds of the country’s reported swine flu cases had the bishopric propose that adulators steer clear of the church and rather listen to the mass on television or radio.

Commercial institutions comprising banks, trade quarters, courts, stock exchange were closed for a day all over Argentina. This coalesced with the Independence Day holiday on Thursday, summing up to a four-day holiday weekend wherein most preferred not to venture into crowds or meet up outsiders.

The President, Cristina Fernandez announced a day’s leave to federal public workers with many government organisations followed the day off, along with the densely populated Buenos Aires province. The government has increased the winter vacations twofold to make it one month in case of schools. Expecting women and several susceptible employees have been given leave for 15 days.

Many cinemas have been closed, public occasions have been put on hold and restaurants have devised the policy to maintain a 3-yard distance in between tables.