Argentina’s president has hit back at British Prime Minister David Cameron’s claims that her government has “colonialist” aims on the Falkland Islands.

Returning to work after what proved to be a false cancer diagnosis that prompted doctors to remove her thyroid, Cristina Fernandez showed off her scar during an animated address to her ministers that was broadcast nationwide.

Questions raised by opposition media about her diagnosis and operation had prompted Fernandez to release her medical records.

Doctors removed the entire gland after discovering several more lumps during surgery. Tests then showed the growths were benign.

She concentrated much of her speech at Cameron, who angered Argentines while she was away by accusing them of having “colonialist” attitudes toward the Falklands. “I heard they’re calling us colonialist. … One is always tempted to respond, but I think it’s better to avoid it. When they say these things it’s exactly because they don’t have reasons or arguments,” she said.

Argentina has called on Britain to negotiate the sovereignty of the remote South Atlantic archipelago it calls the Malvinas. Britain has maintained a military presence there since liberating the islands in 1982 from an ill-fated Argentine attempt to take them back.

Fernandez announced that she is making public the Rattenbach Report, a long-secret analysis of Argentine leadership failures that called the war a “military adventure” and recommended criminal penalties for those responsible. The report was prepared in 1982, just before the end of Argentina’s dictatorship, but was kept classified to keep anyone from being punished.

Fernandez sought to draw a clear line between what she called the militarism of other governments and the democracy she leads.

“Next year will mark 180 years since the usurpation by the government of United Kingdom, which threw out the Argentines who were there (on the islands). They want to make us out to be the bad and violent little ones, something we’re not,” she said.

She noted that there are more British people living in Buenos Aires than on the disputed islands, and praised the many British businesses located in Argentina. “I would advise Cameron to have a little talk with the executives of these businesses, so that they can tell him how we Argentines are.”

To see where the enormous sums of humanitarian aid directed to Haiti after its catastrophic earthquake in 2010 went, a good place to start is the ocean harbour. That’s where the island’s shore meets the rest of the world. And the best place for that is at the seaport in the nation’s capital: Port-au-Prince, near the earthquake’s epicentre.

There, at this moment, a gigantic “super maritime” cargo ship called the Sarine is off-loading more than five metric tons of rice that has just arrived from Miami.

If you think of the rice as post-earthquake assistance money – the individual grains as donated dollars – you might get some idea about what’s happened since the earthquake of 12 January, 2010. Not to mention a sense of where the individual rice grains (or the dollars) have gone.

And, like the grains of rice aboard, the dollars mount into the hundreds of millions; even billions. According to some reports, the United States government, American individuals, families and humanitarian groups donated approximately US$3 billion. That’s just from America with a total of something like US$12 billion coming from all donor nations for funds to be disbursed.

Still, somehow, no one seems quite sure precisely how many grains – or dollars – we’re talking about. The accounting seems to have a sliding scale that can move hundreds of millions of dollars one way or another. At the time of publication, President Bill Clinton, the UN Special Envoy to Haiti and the co-chair of overseeing the nation’s re-construction for the last two years, hasn’t responded to repeated requests by Global Post regarding specific aid and cash donation figures.

Where those billions went following the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that left a government an estimated figure of 220,000 people dead and at least 1.6 million more homeless remains a confounding mystery. Inside of the recovery effort, however, are unquestionable successes along with the failures. And, to be fair, because the money came in so quickly and in such great volume, much of it has been wasted or lost like so much rice spilling on the docks. Or stolen, like the sacks of rice from the seaport which will end up in Haiti’s black market for food.

As for this specific ship, the Sarine, it has a double-steel hull and is roughly 330 feet long. And now, pulled up to the quay in Port-au-Prince, the “grabbing box” from a huge off-load crane reaches down into the vessel’s hold, and, like the hand of God, lifts another half-ton or so of rice out – hundreds of thousands of individual grains of rice. Then the loose rice is dumped into a white, V-shaped steel hopper whose nozzle sits inside a small hut on the Port-au-Prince waterfront.

Using gravity, the hopper directs the rice into 25-kg (55-pound) white plastic bags, with blue stars on their fronts and the words “AMERICAN RICE” written on their sides. After that – using a sewing machine – the top of each bag is sealed.

The rice bags move from the factory along an assembly line to waiting trucks which will travel deeper into Haiti to feed a nation still suffering from hunger on a vast scale.

But the economy of rice in Haiti says everything about the condition the country is in. The U.S. government subsidizes and “donates” ton after ton of rice in Haiti and in so doing has through the last several decades completely undercut Haitian rice farmers and left them destitute and migrating into cities where they live in hovels that were destroyed by the quake.

As recently as the early 1980s, Haiti was producing just about all of its own rice. Now more than 60 percent is imported from the U.S., making it the fourth largest recipient of American rice exports in the world. That was before the quake and now with donated rice coming in as well, Haiti is even more awash in rice while American agribusiness makes billions of dollars every year through generous government subsidies.

There is perhaps some bitter irony here that the subsidies were promoted in large part by President Clinton to help his home state of Arkansas, the largest rice producing state in the U.S., thereby crippling a sector of the economy in Haiti where Clinton has worked so tirelessly to help with the recovery.

“You might say it is a perfect metaphor for what is wrong with aid to Haiti,” says Marc Cohen, a senior researcher for Oxfam, one of the largest non-government organizations (NGOs) in the world, which raised approximately US$106 million for a three-year response in Haiti and finds itself struggling to deliver the aid effectively.

“Instead of bringing subsidized rice in on ships from Miami, we could be helping Haiti grow rice in its own fields,” adds Cohen, who worked for many years in Haiti with the International Food Policy Research Institute and studied the broad economic impact of US rice subsidies, or “Miami rice,” as it is known in Haiti.

Cohen was part of a team at Oxfam America that this week delivered a scathing report on how reconstruction in Haiti was proceeding at a “snail’s pace,” leaving half a million Haitians still homeless two years after the quake. It urged the Haitian government and donor countries to accelerate the delivery of funds for reconstruction. It applauded the initial emergency relief effort, but said the Haitian government and donor countries have failed to come up with a coordinated strategy to rebuild the country and house the more than 500,000 people still living in tents and under tarpaulins without access to running water, a toilet or a doctor.

According to recently published reports by Oxfam, the UN, the U.S. Government Accountability Office and international aid experts interviewed by Global Post, billions of dollars of aid were pledged to Haiti’s reconstruction, but promises of funding have not translated into money on the ground. According to the UN report, as of the end of September 2011, donors had disbursed just 43 percent of the total US$4.6 billion pledged for reconstruction in 2010 and 2011.

Officials heading up USAID’s efforts in Haiti say they are frustrated by the political and practical realities that slow the pace of reconstruction. They point to costly and painful failures such as the lack of preparedness for the cholera outbreak which still looms over Haiti. But they also point to hard-fought successes particularly in agriculture, where the average salary of a farmer has risen from US$600 a year to US$1,100 a year through improved irrigation and infrastructure which have resulted in higher yields.

Elizabeth Hogan, Director of Haiti Task Team for USAID, told Global Post, “Fixing Haiti is not something that can be done in the short term. It requires Haitians to take ownership of fixing their own country and their own problems with the support of the international community and increasingly private investment.”

As the Argentine jet he shot down plunged to earth in a plume of smoke, Navy gunner Neil Wilkinson was certain the pilot would die.

And the terrifying image from the Falklands War haunted him for the next three decades, leaving him with post-traumatic stress and many a sleepless night.

But 30 years on, the 53-year-old discovered pilot Mariano Velasco safely ejected and survived the strike. And Neil has now had an emotional reunion with the 62-year-old in his homeland. They have even become firm friends.

Dad-of-two Neil said: “I’m so ecstatic. He welcomed me with open arms and that’s all I wanted. It’s too massive to put into words. Part of it is closure really, but meeting him in the flesh I now know he is alive and we are friends.”

Neil, of Leeds, was serving on HMS Intrepid when he blasted Mariano’s Skyhawk fighter jet out of the sky on May 27, 1982 during the conflict with Argentina over the disputed Falklands.

He was only doing his job, but the idea he had killed another human tormented him. He added: “I was seeing this aircraft every day with the black smoke trailing behind. I thought, ‘He’s dead, there’s no way anyone could get out of that’.”

But in 2007 he saw Mariano telling of his ordeal on a TV ­documentary to mark the 25th anniversary of the war. When he described how he was shot down and ejected, Neil knew he must have been his victim from the description of events.

Military record checks confirmed his belief and he set about tracking down Mariano. Neil contacted him by email and after five years of long-distance conversation they met last year.

Their reunion, in the remote Argentinian village where Mariano lives with his family, is to be screened on a BBC Inside Out documentary tonight at 7.30pm as the 30th anniversary of the conflict approaches.

Mariano said: “Good soldiers should be able to forgive each other and afterwards why can’t they be friends?”

Mexican President Felipe Calderon has inaugurated the world’s highest cable-stayed bridge. The 403m (1,321ft) tall Baluarte bridge spans a deep ravine in the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains in the north. It is part of a new highway crossing some of Mexico’s most rugged terrain, from Mazatlan on the Pacific Coast to Durango in the interior. The cable-stayed bridge is so tall that the Eiffel Tower would easily fit under its central span. “This project will unite the people of northern Mexico as never before,” President Calderon said at the inauguration ceremony. Officials from the Guinness World of Records were on hand to present him with an award recognising the engineering feat.

The opening of the 1,124m (3,687ft) long bridge is part of celebrations to mark 200 years of Mexico’s independence from Spain. It is expected to open to traffic later this year, and Mexican officials hope it will boost tourism and commerce in the region. The Mazatlan-Durango highway replaces a notoriously dangerous winding road known as the “Devil’s backbone” that crosses the jagged peaks of the Sierra Madre Occidental. As well as Baluarte, there will be eight other bridges over 300m high, as well as more than 60 tunnels. Officials say it will reduce the journey between Mazatlan and Durango by about six hours. Eventually, it will form part of a modern highway linking the Pacific and Atlantic coasts. As the highest cable-stayed bridge in the world, it surpasses the famous Millau Viaduct in France.

LIVFund awarded more than US$5,000 in scholarships to facilitate cultural exchanges in Latin America in their inaugural year (2011).

In 2012, they will be awarding 24 scholarships to outstanding individuals who are inspired to do something different – learn, intern or volunteer abroad in Latin America.

They currently have scholarship recipients in Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua.

For more information, please visit www.LIVFund.org or email info@livfund.org.

A huge Pre-Inca 50-by-50-foot burial pit has been found near an ancient Northern Peru pyramid. The pyramid is part of the Sicán site, the capital of the Lambayeque people who ruled Peru’s northern coast from about 900 to 1100 A.D. There are possibly more than 100 nude bodies, with some of them being headless. Almost all the bodies are males, with the exception of two children, each accompanied by what appears to be an adult woman. All the dead were likely willing participants from local communities engaged in a ritual that celebrated death so that new life could emerge.

As more and more places in the developed world join those already heavily reliant on non-domestic resources, it’s no wonder that folks in some developing nations might be worried about the future – and in Brazil, they are. According to the results of a new poll, half of all Brazilians surveyed are either certain, or strongly believe that within the next 20 years an attack will be waged on their homeland for control of the resource-rich Amazon rainforest. But who would do such a thing? Well, 37 percent say the United States is a likely aggressor.

The survey, conducted by the Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEA), found that out of the 3,796 Brazilians questioned, there are underlying concerns about the state of their nation’s resources. All told, 50 percent of respondents were seriously concerned about attacks pertaining to the Amazon; 45 percent believed that access to Brazil’s pre-salt resources could lead to an attack.

When asked which nation they feared was most likely to attack, 37 percent said the United States. Meanwhile, only 32 percent perceived the United States as an ally.

“People still find themselves threatened with countries which have unmatched military capabilities. At the same time, U.S. companies export, make investments and the possibility of partnership is very high. This ambiguity stems from the variety and versatility of U.S. power,” researcher Rodrigo Fracalossi tells G1 Globo News.

To many Americans, this scepticism felt by Brazilians in regards to U.S. foreign policy in Latin American may come as a surprise. But it wouldn’t be the first time charges that the U.S. might use force to acquire resources has been levelled. The notion that the U.S. military in recent Middle East conflicts was driven by oil persists to this day, both domestically and abroad.

With the world becoming an ever more crowded place, where the finite resources are already being stretched thin in places, it seems entirely possible that future international conflicts will be spurred not by the traditional triggers, but by a lack of water, arable farmland, or fossil fuels. And if that is indeed the case, Brazil, with its abundance of natural resources, could very well find itself on the front line one day.

A 10-year-old Mexican girl has given premature birth to a baby boy weighing 1.5 kilograms (3.3 pounds), Mexican media outlets reported.

The mother was initially admitted to Hospital de la Mujer in Puebla, located about 60 miles southeast of Mexico City, on 22 October, suffering from seizures and other medical problems. Surgeons at the hospital delivered the infant by Caesarean section after a 31-week pregnancy.

According to UpFront News, hospital officials have confirmed the birth.

Hospital director Rogelio Gonzalez told The Latin American Herald Tribune that the child is in the neonatal intensive care unit, recovering from pneumonia. The mother, who has since been released, has been breastfeeding the child.

“[She] comes every day with her mother to breastfeed her son every four hours and she is recovering very well from her surgery,” Gonzalez said.

The young girl, who is almost 11 years old, is reportedly from the San Francisco Totimehuacan community. According to Gonzalez, the state’s minimum age of consent is 12 and abortion is illegal unless the mother was the victim of a sexual assault. As a result, the Puebla state Attorney General’s Office has been notified of the birth and is investigating.

Other girls have given birth at that age or younger. In August 2010, an 11-year-old girl who was allegedly raped by her stepfather gave birth after she was denied an abortion because she was in her fourth month of pregnancy, ksee24.com reported.

The youngest mother on record for giving birth is Lina Medina. According to Mid Day, she was five years old when she gave birth to a baby boy in 1939. The father was not positively identified.

In regard to this most recent case, Gonzalez told aciprensa.com he has the “best expectations” for the child’s recovery.

It was once thought that all Yanomami Indians of the Brazilian Amazon had been contacted during the latter half of the 20th century.

This photograph shows otherwise.

Released by Survival International last week, the image reveals that there is a community of uncontacted Yanomami still living in the heart of the largest forested indigenous territory in the world, in northern Brazil.

But illegal gold mining camps are operating just 15 kilometres from where they live. If the miners are not expelled as a matter of urgency, they could come into contact with the community and pose a threat to their lives: the Yanomami will have little or no immunity to diseases brought in by outsiders.

At least 800 people from Brazil’s army and police force are now involved in a mission to remove the gold miners; it has been reported that so far, 30 have been evicted.

“There are many uncontacted Indians,” Davi Kopenawa, a spokesman for the Yanomami, told Survival International recently. “I want to help my uncontacted relatives, who have the same blood as us. They have never seen the white man’s world.”

If they do not want to join the white man’s world, that’s entirely up to them. It is their choice – and their right – to remain isolated.

The Amazon Rainforest has been voted as one of the New 7 Wonders of Nature, based on a first count of worldwide voting, which closed on 11th November 2011. The other 6 Wonders are Halong Bay (Vietnam), Iguazu Falls (Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay), Jeju Island (Korea), Komodo (Indonesia), Puerto Princesa (Philippines), and Table Mountain (South Africa). Results are subject to change; a final list will be released in 2012. Locals are optimistic that these results may boost tourism in the Amazon and surrounding regions, potentially raising the standards of living of many impoverished people seeking social advancement.