ARGENTINA

Canada-based Pan American Silver Corp. said Monday it will pay about $1.5 billion in a cash and stock to buy Minefinders Corp. Ltd., which owns a huge silver mine in northern Mexico, among other mining assets.

The world economy will lose momentum in 2012 but it will keep moving in the right direction, according to Reuters polls of around 600 economists who said crisis-hit Europe would drag on global growth.

The founder of a French company at the heart of an international health scandal acknowledged on Wednesday that he had used unapproved silicone in breast implants, but said France's recommendation for women to have them removed was criminal.

Former England captain David Beckham agreed to a new contract with the MLS Champs.

LONDON, Jan 17 - The downgrade of much of Europe's credit ratings demonstrates in perhaps the bluntest terms so far the collapse of any lingering -- if lazy -- assumptions that developed states are somehow safer than emerging counterparts.

A stranded Russian science satellite, loaded with rocket fuel for a roundtrip mission to Mars, is expected to plunge back to Earth on Sunday, but officials said on Friday they don't know when or where it will hit.

Russia said on Thursday said it was expecting debris from its failed Mars probe to fall to earth from Sunday to Monday, but added it could not be sure of the exact crash site.

French footballer Eric Cantona said on Tuesday that he had launched a bid to join the 2012 presidential race. If serious (which it isn't) he would compete against incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist candidate Francois Hollande in April.

Messi is the first-ever player to win the FIFA Player of the Year award three-straight years.

The times and trends are always changing, and some benefit consumers while others do not. But the shopping Web site dealnews did a good job in recent days noting things that will be less expensive and more expensive in 2012. Among the items that will get cheaper in 2012, according to dealnews, is wine and homes.

Hip-hop artists sing about it, a famous housewife sells it and the wine world is abuzz about Moscato, a sweet, lightly fizzy drink that is the biggest thing to hit the wine business since White Zinfandel.

Gov. Soria and his wife, Susana, were reportedly in their bedroom early Sunday after spending New Year's Eve at their home in General Roca, according to authorities. Emergency personnel received a call and arrived at the home just before 5 a.m., local media reported. Gov. Soria was found bleeding in bed, yet alive. He was taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Fernandez, 58, will undergo an operation on January 4.

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez has thyroid cancer and will undergo surgery next month, her government said Tuesday, adding that the cancerous cells had not spread.

In what may be considered the closest real-life case of the movie Snakes on a Plane, a Czechoslovakian man was stopped from boarding a transatlantic flight from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Madrid, Spain for trafficking 247 animals, including five-foot venomous yarara snakes, in his suitcase, according to Agence France-Presse.

Staff and technicians from Ezeiza Airport in Buenos Aires, Argentina stopped a Czechoslovakian man from boarding a transatlantic flight from Argentina to Spain for carrying 247 animals in his suitcase, according to reports.

Heyn was last seen having dinner at the Argentine embassy on Tuesday evening.

Think of wine critic Robert Parker as the E.F. Hutton of fermented grapes. When he talks, oenophiles listen.

A senior Argentine official has been found dead in Montevideo during a summit meeting of the South American trade group Mercosur according to the police.

Prosecutors have been aggressively enforcing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act over the last several years to combat overseas bribery, hitting a peak of 48 lawsuits in 2010. Now the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is leading the effort to narrow the scope of the law.

Researchers have for the first time identified remains of plant-eating dinosaurs in Antarctica. The Argentinean research team suggests that these large bodied sauropod dinosaur or advanced titanosaurs were widespread during the Late Cretaceous era.