Carlson Hotels Worldwide today introduced a comprehensive new "green guide" outlining sustainability strategies and practical steps for environmental responsibility, that can be applied across all of Carlson's five hotel brands. Entitled "Practical Guide to Greening Your Hotel," the green guide is part of Carlson Hotels' global initiative to develop programs, policies and partnerships based on responsible business practices.

The new guide and strategy were announced at the American Hotel & Lodging Association Fall Conference taking place here this week. Carlson Hotel brands include Regent Hotels & Resorts; Radisson Hotels & Resorts; Park Plaza Hotels & Resorts' Country Inns & Suites By Carlson and Park Inn.

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Today, the Finance and Foreign Affairs ministers and the presidents of Central Banks of Mercosur members are meeting to discuss their plans for the continuing financial crisis.The crisis is affecting the whole world, not just the US and Europe as some had initially hoped, necessitating some kind of coordinated response.Primary on the agenda is the upcoming November 15th meeting in Washington about the crisis, to which Argentine, Brazilian, and Mexican leaders have been invited.According to Mercopress, the global financial crisis is not the only controversial issue on the table today.Leaders will also discuss the commercial asymmetries among country members and Uruguay’s veto of former Argentine President Nestor Kirchner’s bid for the chair of Unasur (Union of South American Nations).

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The entire world is talking about the global financial crisis, and this certainly includes Argentina, who has just called for an emergency meeting of Mercosur to address their position on these problems.According to Mercopress, they want the Common Market Council to meet, enabling Foreign Affairs and Economy ministers from all participating nations to give their input.Already, the region is feeling the crisis. The Brazilian real dropping in value and the Argentine peso is falling against the dollar; all Latin American markets and currencies are affected by the weakening dollar, collapse of Wall Street, and general global instability.What can they do?Argentine Minister Jorge Taiana says that they must move quickly to prepare their economies for the “real life” effects of these still somewhat abstract problems.

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IBM announced that it had just opened three new Global Delivery Centers in Argentina, representing an investment of 60 million dollars over the next ten years.According to a press release on Trading Markets, these new centers support the demand for server, database, network, and storage monitoring and support for 20 countries around the world.IBM chose Argentina for its centers because the company has been trying to expand its global presence and wants to take advantage of the fact that the Spanish-speaking market is one of the fastest growing in the world.In the last few years, IBM has tripled its number of employees in South America, now 15,000, and has plans to develop its Virtual IT Campus services here as well.Virtual IT Campus in Argentina already monitors 5,000 servers of top companies in all sectors and industries of the region, making it an important hub.

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Fighting global warming is an important responsibility, and Argentine scientists have been doing their part by keeping the methane in cow burps out of the atmosphere.How are they doing it?According to Reuters, pink tanks are strapped to the backs of cows and a tube is put into their stomach.Then, scientists can analyze the air that would have become a bovine burp. A researcher in the National Institute of Agricultural Technology says that cows actually may be the source of 30 percent of Argentina’s green house gases.While this seems hard to imagine—Buenos Aires has a lot of cars and buses—a cow can produce 800 to 1,000 liters (28 to 35 cubic feet) of emissions each day.

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Hey, Divas!

Be sure to check out the special year-end issue of Glimpse Quarterly, "Global Greening: Lessons from Abroad," which offers a compelling look at how the rest of the world is responding to increasing environmental threats through the eyes of our student and young adult correspondents Check out the PDF at this link: http://glimpsefoundation.org/downloads/issues/winter2007/Issue.pdf

The issue features:
- Returned study abroad student Leanne Cameron reminisces about London’s pedestrian-friendly streets and laments America’s over-dependence on cars.
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Hilton Hotels Corporation recently announced short and long term goals and objectives towards building sustainability into the core fabric of its businesses worldwide. Christopher J. Nassetta, President & CEO, outlined directional targets for improvement in the company’s sustainability performance throughout the next five years within systemwide hotels globally. By 2014, goals for the Hilton Family of Hotels are to:

• Reduce energy consumption from direct operations by 20%
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