The latest Mercosur summit, held last week in Brazil included a special statement, --besides the main regular declaration with 69 articles--, blasting the UK for violating international law and Argentine domestic law over the exploration of hydrocarbons in the Argentine continental shelf in proximity of the Malvinas Islands.
France favors a stronger organization behind the Euro led by a vanguard of countries, French President Francois Hollande said in an interview published Sunday. In the past week the European spirit prevailed in addressing the Greek crisis, he told the weekly Journal du Dimanche.
Banks in Greece expect long queues but no major problems when they reopen this Monday for the first time in three weeks, although withdrawals will still be limited and capital controls will remain, senior banking officials said on Sunday.
Guyana on Sunday warned it would “stoutly resist” plans by Venezuela to register residents in Essequibo and issue them identification cards for the neighbouring Spanish-speaking nation. Venezuela claims the region and has launched an aggressive campaign at domestic and international level calling president David Granger a 'provocateur”.
Brazil's Finance minister Joaquim Levy warned that any attempt to relax spending-reduction goals for this year would inevitably extend the duration of the current fiscal adjustment program. The statement was made on Sunday in a long interview with one of Brazil's leading dailies, Folha de Sao Paulo.
Argentina's conservative PRO party won the Buenos Aires City mayoral runoff on Sunday, clinging to its stronghold for a third consecutive term ahead of presidential elections in October, but by a smaller-than-expected margin. Horacio Rodríguez Larreta won 51.6% of ballots cast while his opponent Martin Lousteau picked up 48.4%. Public opinion polls anticipated a ten points difference.
Mercosur agreed at the Brasilia summit that in the second half of the year they will address alternatives for the elimination of tariff and other similar barriers that impede the natural flow of trade of goods and services among its members. The initiative was agreed by Common Market Council, CMC, on the first day of deliberations and confirmed on Friday by the presidents of the group's full members.
In what can be considered her last speech before a Mercosur summit, Argentine president Cristina Fernandez, who is stepping down next December, hailed what she called the “magnitude of the importance of integration” in South America with the inclusion of both Venezuela and Bolivia showing the “success and the resounding failure for those who forecasted for years that the Mercosur was going to fail.”
The incumbent candidate for government chief of Buenos Aires City, Horacio Rodriguez Larreta, was at least fifteen points ahead of his challenger in Sunday's runoff, according to the latest public opinion polls before the 48 hours ban on all campaigning.
If they say I committed suicide, look for the murderer. It's not my style, investigate, said ironically Argentine judge Claudio Bonadio when he was asked how he felt after having been removed from the case looking into alleged money laundering and tax elusion in one of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner family businesses in the hotel industry, Hotesur.