By Luisa Marquez

The group says it wants to negotiate a brief truce in the most affected areas to allow it to deliver aid packages.

Correspondents say the fact that the ICRC has spoken publicly about the negotiations shows just how concerned it is by the situation in Syria.

Thousands have died there in an 11-month uprising against the government.

ICRC spokesman Bijan Farnoudi said the group was discussing several possibilities to enable humanitarian aid to be delivered.

He said the aim of the discussions was to facilitate swift Syrian Arab Red Crescent and ICRC access to the people in need.

The Red Cross indicated that any such ceasefire would probably be only for a limited period, possibly only a few hours.

The ICRC has been delivering food and medicine to civilians in Syria since the start of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

It is the only international aid agency operating inside the country, but it has had difficulty reaching the areas badly affected by the conflict.

Human rights groups believe more than 7,000 people have been killed since the uprising began.

The Syrian government says at least 2,000 members of the security forces have died fighting militants.

Syria restricts access to foreign media and it is not possible to verify casualty figures.

By Tony Paul

The price of oil has reached its highest level since June last year due to rising tensions over Iran's nuclear program.

Benchmark US light crude rose 1.7% to $105.01 a barrel and brent crude futures rose $1.14 to $120.72 a barrel.

On Sunday, the country's oil ministry said it had halted oil sales to British and French companies.

The cost of fuel has also risen. In the UK the price of diesel has hit a new high, at 143.16 pence a liter.

The country insists its nuclear program is peaceful, but the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency says it has information suggesting Iran has carried out tests relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device.

The rise in the oil price also pushed UK oil giant BP's shares above 500 pence for the first time since last January.

Analysts say the price of oil has risen as EU countries seek to find new oil suppliers and Iran hunts new buyers for its oil.

The increase in price is a direct result of European importers of Iranian oil looking round to find alternative sources, said Professor Paul Stevens from Chatham House.

Oil prices have also been driven up by an improvement in the performance of the US and Chinese economies.

It's been a combination of a couple of factors, obviously geo-political tensions are rising, especially Iran, said Amrita Sen, an oil analyst at Barclays capital.

But the price support has also come through, because fundamentals have tightened up.

Factors include stronger demand because of Asian growth and the European cold spell. At the same time, supply from South Sudan and Syria to Europe has also been cut.

If there is no further tension in Iran, the oil price may fall back. However, few analysts think this is likely.

That assumes that Iran doesn't do anything else, but that is a doubtful assumption, added Prof Stevens.

If there was a military attack on Iran, then all bets are off.

The food company Kellogg’s Company announced on Wednesday the purchase of the Pringles brand from Procter & Gamble, for $ 2,695 million.

The companies expect to complete the transaction in the summer of 2012, pending necessary regulatory approvals, the company said in a statement on its website.

Pringles is the second largest company in the world of savory snacks with $ 1,500 million in sales through more than 140 countries.

Kellogg's expansion began in the sector by acquiring more than a decade of Keebler, now reinforced with this new purchase, including other brands of snack like Cheez-It Cracker Special K and chips.

Source: www.capitalfinanciero.com

TEHRAN. - The Iranian government is considering extending the oil embargo imposed on France and Britain to other European countries, reported Monday a semi-official Iranian news agency.

The director of the National Iranian Oil Compan, Qalehbani Ahmad said, according to the Mehr report that Tehran could halt oil exports to European Union members who have "hostile acts" against Iran.

Qalehbani estimated that oil prices could exceed $ 150 a barrel, without specifying when.

Oil prices rose Monday to its highest level in nine months to $ 105 a barrel Monday in Asia after Iran announced it would halt exports to France and Britain.

Tehran applied preventive cuts in response to European Union sanctions imposed, to take effect in July, to pressure the Iranian government over its controversial nuclear program.

Source: www.noticias.aollatino.com 

By Susana Lima

The retired general proposal on the legalization of drugs immediately get up controversy among the countries of the region and the nation reporting the largest consumption of  it worldwide, the United States.

Otto Perez has insisted that there is only the launching of the idea to treat it in dialogue, but the U.S. government needed less than 24 hours to completely oppose the idea.

By Robert Damon

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has decreed that a referendum on the new draft constitution will be held on 26 February, states a media report.

The document drops the article giving the ruling Baath Party unique status as the leader of state and society.

The opposition has made clear that it rejects any political moves by the government while there are still violent attacks against protesters.

 On Sunday, President Assad received a copy of Syria's proposed new constitution, which took a national committee four months to produce.

Committee members said they had sought to write a document that guarantees the dignity of the Syrian citizen and secures his basic rights and turns Syria into an example to follow in terms of public freedoms and political plurality, the state news agency Sana reported.

When the new constitution is approved, Syria will have passed the most important stage of laying down the constitutional and legal structure through the reforms and laws that have already been issued to take the country to a new era in co-operation with all spectrums of the Syrian people, Mr Assad was quoted as saying.

The Sana report did not go into detail about the draft constitution, but officials said it did not include Article 8, which made the Baath Party the exclusive leader of both politics and society.

They also said the draft stated that the president could hold office only for a maximum of two seven-year terms. Mr Assad, who succeeded his late father, Hafez, has been in power since 2000.

New political parties could also not be based on a religion, profession, or regional interests, they added. This would prevent the Muslim Brotherhood and Kurdish groups in the north-west from establishing parties.

But, the BBC's correspondent over there says Syria is a country in crisis, and it is hard to see how a referendum can be carried out efficiently and credibly at short notice.

In April, President Assad scrapped the Emergency Law, which had effectively suspended most constitutional protections since the Baath Party came to power in a military coup in 1962. Since that announcement, human rights activists say more than 7,000 people have been killed by security forces.

A member of the main opposition coalition, the Syrian National Council, dismissed both the draft constitution and the plan to hold a referendum.

The Syrian regime is trying another trick in the book to divert attention away from the crimes against humanity happening in Syria in the past three months, but especially in the past few weeks in Homs and in the countryside of Damascus, Idlib and Hama, Anas al-Abdah told the BBC.

Such a regime does not have the moral or the political ability to propose a new constitution to the Syrian people.

Mr Abdah added: The main problem is not the constitution, but the fact that the state has complete control over the army and security forces. As long as you keep that, everything else is just empty promises.

The proposed constitution does not tackle that in any way or form. It is working towards keeping the current regime in place.

By Tony Paul

Some eurozone countries no longer want Greece in the bloc, Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos has said.

He accused the states of playing with fire, as Greece scrambled to finalize an austerity plan demanded by the EU and IMF in return for a huge bailout.

  Greece needs to convince lenders that it will make enough savings, and that its politicians will enact the changes.

 Athens is hoping to get a 130bn-euro (£110bn; $170bn) bailout from the EU and IMF.

The deal also includes a provision to write off a further 100bn euros of debt owed to banks.

Parliament approved a package of austerity measures on Sunday, but eurozone ministers indicated that more detail needed to be given on the cuts.

The ministers also insisted that the major Greek political parties committed to implementing the cuts, regardless of who wins a general election scheduled for April.

Leaders of the two main parties have now signed letters committing them to enacting the changes.

Mr Venizelos said there were very few remaining issues with the austerity package and promised to have them fully clarified before the conference call.

But he also warned that some eurozone countries were playing with fire, saying: There are many in the eurozone who don't want us any more.

Mr Venizelos also said that President Karolos Papoulias had volunteered to give up his salary as an honourable... symbolic gesture. He is reported to earn 280,000 euros a year.

But the austerity plan has been hugely unpopular in Greece.

Anger boiled over during Sunday's vote in parliament, when large groups of protesters clashed with riot police and dozens of buildings were set on fire in Athens.

And eurozone countries appear to be running out of patience with Greece.

Unnamed eurozone officials were quoted as suggesting that Greece's latest assurances still may not be enough, because people no longer trusted the country's politicians.

Greece has failed to deliver on many of the promises it made to secure an earlier bailout deal, EU officials say.

In a press briefing on Wednesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman, Steffen Seibert, denied Germany wanted Greece out of the eurozone.

Amadeu Altafaj, a spokesman for EU economics commissioner Olli Rehn, said eurozone members had stated very clearly that they want Greece to remain a member of the eurozone.

However, a BBC element in Brussels says there is a growing sense among eurozone members that if Greece did leave it would not mean the collapse of the euro.

By Luisa Marquez

At least 300 prisoners have been killed after a massive fire swept through a jail in Honduras, officials say.

Many victims were burned or suffocated to death in their cells in Comayagua, north of the capital Tegucigalpa.

The officials say at least 300 are confirmed dead, but a further 56 inmates, out of the 853 in the prison, are missing and presumed dead.

Relatives of prisoners clashed with police as they tried to force their way into the prison, desperate for news.

Police responded by firing shots into the air and tear gas.

An inquiry is under way whether the blaze was caused by rioting or an electrical fault.

Honduran President Lobo pledged a full and transparent investigation into the lamentable and unacceptable tragedy.

He said local and national prison authorities would be suspended while the inquiry was conducted.

The fire broke out late on Tuesday night and took more than an hour to be brought under control.

Dozens of prisoners died trapped in their cells and were burned beyond recognition.

Comayagua firefighters' spokesman Josue Garcia said there were hellish scenes at the prison and that desperate inmates had rioted in a bid to escape the flames.

Lucy Marder, who heads the forensic services in Comayagua, said that 356 people on the prison roster were unaccounted for.

It was feared many inmates had fled the prison in Comayagua, about 100km (60 miles) north of the capital Tegucigalpa.

Amid the confusion, relatives gathered outside the prison to try to get information.

Local hospitals are treating dozens of people for burns and other injuries.

Authorities have yet to establish a cause of the fire

Some of the injured have been taken to Tegucigalpa for treatment, among them 30 people with severe burns.

Honduran media reported that there had been a riot in the prison before the fire broke out.

Prison service head Daniel Orellana denied this.