Britain's Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has accused Argentina of bullying after it announced on Friday in London that it was starting legal action against companies drilling for oil and gas near the Falkland Islands.
A British-led team has recovered a $50m trove of silver coins that has lain on the seabed since the steamship carrying them from Bombay to England was sunk in 1942. The SS City of Cairo was torpedoed 772km south of St Helena by a German U-boat and sank to 5,150m. The 100 tons of coins, recovered in the deepest salvage operation in history, belonged to HM Treasury.
Three oil explorers drilling in the Falkland Islands, including Houston based Noble Energy have shelved plans to drill a second well in the south and east Falklands following the steep drop in oil prices, one of the partners said on Monday. Partners, which also include London-listed Falkland Oil and Gas (FOGL) and Edison International, said they would continue drilling in other parts of the region.
US Secretary of State John Kerry and Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez have held talks, in the highest level meeting between the two countries in more than half a century. The two were involved in closed-door discussions after arriving in Panama for a summit.
Fitch Ratings lowered Thursday the outlook on Brazil's investment grade BBB rating to negative, warning that government efforts to turn around the economy risked getting derailed. The Brazilian economy, the world's seventh-largest, stagnated with just 0.1% growth last year as the drag of rising inflation erased the effect of hosting the football World Cup in June and July and gearing up for the Rio Olympics next year.
The UK Foreign Office summoned Argentine Ambassador Alicia Castro to object recent remarks regarding the Falkland Islands by President Cristina Fernandez and the diplomat based in London. An FCO spokesperson said that Britain has no doubt about its sovereignty over the Falkland Islands and surrounding maritime areas, nor about the Falkland Islanders' right to decide their own future.
Uruguay is considering extending the length of its oil exploration contracts with foreign companies drilling in its waters in order to shore up investment at a time of plunging crude prices, it said on Wednesday. BP, BG Group, Total, a joint venture of Tullow Oil and Inpex, and a consortium of YPF, Royal Dutch Shell and Galp all have exploration agreements and have invested around $2 billion to date.
The World Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) has ordered Argentina to pay 405 million dollars to French company Suez, who saw their contract for water and drainage provision cancelled in 2006. The service had been privatized in the nineties during the presidency of Carlos Menem.
Argentine President Cristina Fernández will be heading to Moscow in just under two weeks upon invitation from Russian President Vladimir Putin to mark 130 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries. The announcement of the president’s 22/23 April visit to Russia came amid news that she would also visit Pope Francis in the Vatican on June 7.
Argentina's government on Thursday formally accused five oil companies of conducting illegal exploration work off the British-ruled Falkland Islands, which Buenos Aires claims as its own. The companies are Britain's Rockhopper Exploration plc, Premier Oil plc and Falkland Oil and Gas Ltd; Houston-based Noble Energy Inc.; and Italy's Edison International SpA, Argentina's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.