Mexico City: Mexican emigrants sent home just less than $1.5 billion in November, down 14.43 percent from the same month in 2008 and the lowest monthly total since March 2005, the Mexican central bank said.

Of that total, $1.45 billion was sent via electronic transfers, $25.61 million in money orders and $20.82 million in cash, the Banco de Mexico said Monday.

The size of the average remittance in November, $297.28, reflected a 10.65 percent decline from November 2008.

Remittances to Mexico have undergone 13 consecutive months of declines and shown a pullback of 15.81 percent in the first 11 months of 2009.

Economists at BBVA Bancomer said that in the second quarter of 2010 they expect to “observe more consistent signs of improvement in remittances” in Mexico, coming in concert with an anticipated economic recovery in the US.

By far, most of the remittances Mexico receives come from the US, home to 12 million Mexicans – about half of them undocumented immigrants – and millions more descendants of Mexican immigrants.

Although remittances have fallen in dollars, the depreciation of the Mexican peso vis-a-vis the dollar was able to almost completely make up for that decline in income among families who are receiving them from loved ones abroad.

Thus, the cumulative annual variation in the remittances has been practically zero this year once they are converted into pesos.

“November shows that the declines are beginning to moderate themselves, although they are continuing at substantially lower levels to those seen in previous years (when the remittances were characterised by a continuing dynamism),” said the Ixe bank in an analysis released Monday.

Yet, the report by Ixe bank analysts Luis Flores and Lucia Martin says that “Mexicans (abroad) continue to be hit by the lack of employment, and they have not been able to reactivate the sending of remittances to their relatives”.

“The resumption of the hiring of workers in the US and the consequent creation of jobs for Hispanic workers will be the only catalyst that will be able to reactivate the sending of resources in 2010,” they maintained.

Ixe estimates that remittances in Mexico contracted by some 14 percent in 2009 to $21.27 billion, their lowest level since 2005.

Money from relatives abroad represents close to 19 percent of total income for urban Mexican households and 27 percent for rural households, according to official figures.

La Paz: Bolivia has called on India’s Jindal Steel and Power Limited to honour its pledge to invest $2.1 billion in an iron ore joint venture project in the country.

“We see that there’s a delay in the investments. We trust that Jindal will understand that it has to respect its commitments. We’re demanding fulfillment of those commitments,” Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera told reporters Tuesday.

The Bolivian government and the Indian company signed a joint-venture agreement in 2007.

As per the agreement, Jindal would invest $300 million annually for five years and $200 million annually over the next three years. It would invest $2.1 billion in a span of eight years.

The project will be implemented in the country’s eastern Santa Cruz province.

The pact stipulates that Jindal and the Bolivian government develop the El Mutun iron ore reserve in a 50-50 partnership.

The contract came into effect in May this year and Bolivian authorities plan to evaluate the firm’s compliance with its investment obligations beginning that same month of 2011.

Bolivia’s mining director Freddy Beltran has said if Jindal fail to make the investments stipulated under the contract by that time, the Bolivian government could enforce an $18 million performance bond and “cancel the contract for non-compliance”.

However, the company’s director in Bolivia, Arvind Sharma, told the state-run ABI news agency that the company had faced “some technical problems” related to electricity supplies, which caused a “small” delay in the approval of the investment plan.

He said the joint venture’s board of directors would meet in January to set a timetable for the company’s first exports and also to consider a new version of the investment plan, which the government has already rejected twice.

El Mutun is located in the Puerto Suarez town, near the border with Brazil, and contains mainly iron and magnesium deposits of about 40 billion tonnes.

Jindal began the project this year with two mineral processors with a 400-tonne-per-hour capacity, and is awaiting approval of its investment and development plans so it can export the iron ore.

Caracas: The US is preparing to attack Venezuela using Colombian soldiers under the pretext of attacking guerrilla camps supposedly located on Venezuelan soil, President Hugo Chavez has said.

Chavez Monday said during a military ceremony that “the verbal war” began several days ago when spokespersons of the Colombian government again accused Venezuela of having guerrilla camps on its territory and protecting rebel leaders.

“Repeating it so often has some people believing it, and with that they prepare what they call ‘a false positive’ to launch an attack on Venezuela simulating the existence of a guerrilla camp,” Chavez said.

The “false positive” would consist of shifting into Venezuela people killed in Colombia, building an improvised camp, planting rifles and guerrilla propaganda and presenting it to the world as confirmation of their accusations, Chavez said.

The president said that he has “evidence” of this plan and added that the story, once concluded, would be spread around the world by the oligarchy-owned media and by Washington’s “great ability to fool the world”.

The president said that the operation is being prepared with spy planes and unmanned drones that take off from US bases in Colombia and fly over Venezuelan air space.

“Hopefully common sense will prevail in the Colombian government, but the thing is that those in charge are in Washington,” Chavez said.

Colombian Defence Minister Gabriel Silva said Dec 18 that his government had identified 60 direct collaborators with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, guerrilla group in several countries around the world including Venezuela, where intelligence reports indicate some 15 rebels operate.

Chavez said it was “absolutely false” that there were any rebel leaders or camps in Venezuela.

The president spoke about the situation during the armed forces Christmas ceremony that is held at the nation’s military bases and on this occasion was at Fort Mara, the chief military bastion in the northwestern region, attended by some 5,000 soldiers.

Cairo : An airstrike Thursday killed 30 men suspected of plotting attacks against Yemeni and foreign targets on behalf of the Al Qaeda terrorist network, a security official said.

The pre-dawn strike targeted a meeting of Al Qaeda members in eastern Yemen’s Shabwa province, an official from Yemen’s High Security Committee told Yemen’s state-run 26 September website (26sep.net).

The “preemptive” strike targeted a meeting of “brutal terrorists”, including leading militants Nasser al-Wahaishi and Said al-Shihri, to plan attacks against Yemeni and international targets and military installations, he said.

The men were planning to retaliate for raids in Yemen’s Abyan and Sanaa provinces that together killed some 34 people and led to the arrest of 29 others last Thursday, the official told 26 September.

Yemen’s parliament Sunday summoned officials regarding reports of a large number of civilian deaths from those attacks, the official news agency SABA reported.

The SABA report said parliament had urged the government to “enhance the accuracy of its targets to avoid error” in pursuing terrorists and insurgents.

Santiago : Chilean flagship airline LAN has signed a deal to purchase 30 Airbus A320 jets at a price of around $1.97 billion, the company said, adding that they will gradually be incorporated into its fleet between 2011 and 2016.

The new airplanes will operate flights in Latin America and domestic routes in Argentina, Peru, Ecuador and Chile and will be used for the renewal and growth of the company’s short-haul fleet.

In a statement Wednesday, LAN said its fleet-renewal plan also involves the sale of five Airbus A318 aircraft in 2011.

LAN’s chief operating officer, Ignacio Cueto, said the investment “ensures the company’s future growth and reaffirms LAN’s commitment to the development of commercial aviation in Latin America, as well as to the economic growth and social development of countries in the region”.

“These aircraft are operated by the world’s best airlines and feature the latest technology, creating a substantial change in terms of service, quality and comfort, and allowing LAN to offer the best travel experience to our passengers,” Cueto said.

In its statement, the company said the new Airbus A320 jets reflect “LAN’s strong commitment to the environment” because they incorporate the industry’s most advanced technology and “are highly efficient in fuel consumption, allowing for a substantial reduction in emissions, while also decreasing noise levels”.

LAN – one of whose main shareholders is billionaire Sebastian Pinera, the front-runner in Chile’s Jan 17 presidential runoff – is among the leading passenger and cargo airlines in Latin America.

The airline and its affiliates occupy a leading position in Chile and Peru as well as an important presence in the Argentine domestic market.

Caracas :Venezuela and China have signed several new accords, one of which calls for Caracas to sell 500,000 barrels of oil per day to the Asian country and another providing $1 billion in Chinese credit for Venezuelan mining projects.

The agreements were signed here at the end of a meeting of a high-level bilateral commission, in a ceremony presided over by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and the chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, Zhang Ping.

“Twenty-nine accords” were reached during the meeting “but only 15 were signed” in the official ceremony due to time restraints, Chavez said during a speech in which the fierce critic of US foreign policy hailed China as “a great power, but for good”.

The agreements included a one-year contract – signed by Venezuela’s PDVSA and Petro China – that calls for Venezuela to ship 500,000 barrels per day of crude and related products to China.

Venezuela is the fourth-leading supplier of oil to China and the Asian country’s fifth-biggest trade partner in Latin America and the Caribbean, officials in Beijing say.

At the beginning of this year, PDVSA said it was selling 331,000 barrels of oil per day to China and planned to increase that total to 1 million bpd within a period of four years.

Venezuela and China also signed a framework agreement to create a joint refinery venture in the Venezuelan state of Guarico and a deal to quantify and certify oil reserves in the Boyaca 3 Block of Venezuela’s Orinoco Belt.

State-owned China National Petroleum Corp. is participating – along with companies from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Spain, India and Iran – in an international process to certify the Orinoco Belt’s reserves, initially estimated at 234 billion barrels of heavy and extra-heavy crude.

Added to another 80 billion barrels in other parts of Venezuela, these reserves would push the country’s proven reserves to 314 billion barrels, the most in the world.

Caracas and Beijing Tuesday also signed a framework agreement to set up and manage a joint venture to develop the Junin 8 Block in the Orinoco Belt. The goal is to produce 200,000 barrels per day of extra-heavy crude, according to an official report.

They also signed a memorandum of understanding that calls for Chinese companies to provide “offshore drilling services in deep- and ultra-deep (Venezuelan) waters”.

In a finance deal, state-owned aluminium producer Corporacion Venezolana de Guayana and the China Development Bank signed a contract under which the latter will provide a $1 billion line of credit to fund mining projects in southern Venezuela.

Mexico City : Restoration work on a church and a cathedral in the central Mexican city of Zacatecas has led to the finding of 37 mummified bodies and a Bible from 1575 written in several languages, authorities said.

The mummies were found in the Church of Santo Domingo, along with a small stairway leading to a grotto in which the skeleton of a Spanish colonial official was resting, the Zacatecas state government said Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the Bible was found in the bibliographic archive of the Zacatecas Basilica Cathedral. It is written in Hebrew, Chaldean, Greek and Latin, and according to the state government there exist only 100 copies like it in the world.

The finds were made during the process of restoration being carried out at both religious locations, a task in which 75 workers are taking part and which is costing 51 million pesos ($4.1 million).

Zacatecas, a state rich in minerals, became one of the main enclaves of the colonial epoch, a fact that serves to explain the construction of lavish buildings of which the cathedral and the Santo Domingo church are the most important.

The 16,000 artistic items and documents at the cathedral are also being classified, restored and preserved.

The restoration work is about halfway finished, the Zacatecas government said in a statement.

Guatemala City : White corn production in Guatemala fell 10.8 percent in 2009 due to the prolonged drought in the country, the agriculture ministry said Tuesday.

Corn production in 2009 totaled 26.5 million quintals.

Millions of families in the rural areas have been affected as a result of the low harvest, the ministry said in a report.

White corn is one of the staple diets of the Guatemalans.

In addition to the drought, diseases and heavy rains, among other factors, contributed to the low harvest in the eight corn-growing regions of the country’s 22 provinces.

The losses were valued at about 119 million quetzales ($14 million), and this forced the price of corn in the local market to rise by 25 percent between August and November.

The ministry, however, predicts a slight recovery in production in 2010, which could amount to 27 million quintals, given a normal rainy season.

Meanwhile, the government has decided to put forward a request for more than $100 million in aid from the international community to mitigate the food crisis in the country.

According to a study, about 45 percent children in the country suffer from chronic malnutrition and 52 percent of Guatemala’s 13.3 million people live below the poverty line.

Madrid: Thousands of travellers, many of them Latin American immigrants trying to head home for Christmas, remained stranded here after Spanish airline Air Comet shutdown its operations.

The low-cost carrier, which flies between Spain and several Latin American countries, announced Monday it was shutting down after a British judge ordered its fleet of leased aircraft impounded amid a pile of unpaid bills.

Air Comet will soon ask permission from the Spanish government to dismiss all of its roughly 700 employees, but the airline, which owes creditors an estimated 100 million euros ($143 million), will wait until Jan 24 to seek bankruptcy protection from the courts.

Hundreds of passengers who had planned to fly with Air Comet to Peru, Ecuador, Cuba and Argentina protested Tuesday at Madrid Barajas International Airport, as they lay on the floor or sat propped against their suitcases on the conveyor belts and cried out against the airline and its owners.

Most of the passengers trapped in Barajas are Latin American immigrants who work in Spain and are returning to their home countries to spend Christmas with their families.

“There are kids, old people and workers who work all year so they can pay 1,200 euros ($1,700) per ticket to be able to see their loved ones,” one of the protesting passengers told EFE.

Air Comet’s shutdown comes three years after another Spanish budget carrier, Air Madrid, ceased operations on the eve of the peak period for holiday travel, leaving thousands of travellers stranded.

To help the approximately 7,000 people stranded in Madrid, the Spanish government will charter two airliners to Latin America this Wednesday, probably to Lima and Bogota, though these destinations are not yet finalised, an official said.

Madrid :A total of 49.5 million foreign visitors arrived in Spain between January and November, placing the drop in tourist arrivals at 8.9 percent for that period, according to government data.

Through October, the decline in international tourist arrivals had been 9.3 percent, while in the high season – July, August and September – the accumulated fall-off was around 10 percent, according to survey results published by the Industry, Tourism and Commerce Ministry Monday.

In November, Spain received 2.8 million foreign tourists, 3.1 percent fewer than in the same month last year but a slight bit better than the drop for the month of October versus that month last year, which had been 3.6 percent.

So far this year, Britain has been the main tourist supplier for Spain’s tourism industry, despite the fact that the number of travellers coming from the British Isles fell 15.6 percent to 12.73 million.

Germany, the second-largest tourist supplier, registered a decline of 11.3 percent to 8.5 million.

In contrast, travellers from France increased for the second consecutive month, seeing a 4.3 percent rise in November, although their numbers for the year have also fallen, albeit by only 2.9 percent to 7.5 million.