Britain's Foreign Office has announced the temporary closure of its embassy in the Peruvian capital Lima for security reasons following a reported threat.

"Due to a reported threat against the British embassy in Lima, the embassy will be closed on 30 and 31 December," the Foreign Office said on its website.

A Foreign Office spokesman added, "For security reasons and as a temporary measure we have closed the British embassy in Lima."

In a contest of pure strategic skill, Argentina's Néstor Kirchner could eat George W. Bush for breakfast. Make it Cheney or Rove. Or Cheney and Rove. Consider Bush's strategic scenario: an omnipresent, easy-to-hate enemy of the US, the magically growing american productivity numbers, record corporation profits to turn into campaign donations, and a severely split Democratic party. Pfui! Piece of cake.

GOLD Fields intends to develop its first South American gold mine at the Cerro Corona gold project in Peru within two years as the company moves to diversify its asset base outside South Africa.

The world's fourth-largest gold producer has bought a 92% stake in Peruvian company Sociedad Minera La Cima, which owns the Cerro Corona project in the Cajamarca district of northern Peru.

One of the demands from Bolivia's October protests was a constituent assembly to re-found the country and, essentially, rewrite the rules of the democratic game. It's now clear a constituent assembly will happen, though its format's still undecided. But it's important to note that this demand — fervently launched by Mallku, Evo, Solares, and their lot in October — has been picked up by very different quarters — namely, the comites civicos of Santa Cruz & Tarija (along w/ other similar groups). So. What does this mean?

This year's defining economic factoids, courtesy of the United Nations Economic Comission for Latin America, via the often perceptive Financial Times:

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• LatAm is exporting... $41 bn trade surplus (its first in 50 years!)
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• ... -thanks in part to high commodity prices- ... Overall commodity prices rose 15.9 per cent
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• ... and it's actually fiscally conservative! Most countries are running primary fiscal surpluses.
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• Nonetheless, income per capita is low...: Below 1997 levels
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• ...and it shows... More than 10 per cent overall unemployment rate.
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• ...pretty bad. Almost 45 per cent of Latin Americans live below the poverty line.
  

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The news from Ecuador this week:

Rumble in the Jungle
US media outlets are reporting on the ongoing battles between Ecuador's indigenous population and oil companies that want to drill in the Amazon jungle.

Reuters says: "In the northern Amazon, Indians are suing a U.S. oil company over environmental damage they say ruined their land and made people sick. Further south, indigenous demonstrators have led violent protests to keep firms off their property."

It was indeed the week before Christmas as everything slowed down, politics appeared not to matter as Venezuelans began celebrating the Christmas they did not enjoy a year ago due to the general strike. The Government and the opposition continued trading barbs, the Government accusing the opposition of massive fraud in the petition drive to recall Hugo Chavez, and the opposition refusing to hand in the signatures until the Electoral Council guaranteed that the rules for evaluatoong the signatures would not be changed after the signatures were handed in.

Last Thursday, people still mostly unidentified stole 700kg of high explosives from a mine operation in the southern state Neuquén. You can do a lot with 700 kg of that stuff, up to an including leveling pretty much an entire city block. Needless to say, everybody was quite worried, as hypothesis from mass jailbreaks to terrorism were put forward. To general relief, the explosives (although not the equipment that had been stolen with them) were found ditched in a nearby canal last Monday by some kids. Police suspects that the thieves were after all not very sophisticated, and lacking the capability to move the explosives out of the zone, were forced to leave them behind.

"Lulawrence of Arabia" returned from his Middle Eastern journeys and announced that his travels weren't over, with trips planned next year to China and India. He also announced that Brazil is expecting a visit of Vladimir Putin, as the four cornerstone nations of the G20 work to form a new economic bloc to counter the power of the EU and the US.

Brazil's Senate finally approved the state pension reform legislation. The legislation will take effect immediately, with the first big change being a 30% reduction in all pensions over R$2400 (about US$800). Merry Christmas, middle class Brazil! Lula has been quoted as saying he wasn't thrilled with the structure of the reforms, but satisfied that at least some progress had been made.

Each month Living in Latin America will showcase photographic work by professional and amateur photographers capturing the essence of what it means to live in Latin America.

We invite bloggers and so-called 'mobloggers' to contribute their work for everyone to enjoy on the site.

At the end of the month we will select five photos to be displayed on rotation throughout the website.

To submit your photo email and please ensure the photo is landscape, 300 pixels wide and a maximum of 30k in size.