Oil, soy, copper all go bust in Latin America

The booming prices for Venezuelan oil, Brazilian soy beans and Chilean copper that brought prosperity to Latin America are heading for a bust that threatens to erode the hard-won gains of its poor and newly emerging middle class. The global financial meltdown is cooling demand for commodities, the engine that fueled more than a decade of growth and erased generations of suffocating international debt. For Brazilian farmer Aldemire Rostirolla and millions of others who rode the boom, the new reality is sobering. Rostirolla worked 18-hour days for a dozen-plus years to coax corn, sunflower and soy from his sprawling piece of savannah on the edge of the Amazon. Now he may have to let his fields lie fallow as prices plummet for his crops. Worried they might not break even in their next harvest, the 54-year-old farmer and his... [read full story]