The UK military base in the Falkland Islands has the “minimum necessary force to prevent a repeat of the illegal invasion such as that of 1982” committed by Argentina said Foreign Office Minister of State for Latinamerican affairs Hugo Swire during an interview with the Argentine news agency, Diarios y Noticias. (*)
Chief Minister Fabian Picardo has told German readers of Frankfurter Allegmeine Zeitung that he is firmly convinced that Gibraltar will never be Spanish because today’s Europe is about the people rather than the states.
Brazil’s Congress approved legislation that opens up state-owned ports to private investment and lifts restrictions on the building of private ports in a bid to eliminate serious bottlenecks strangling the country’s export growth. The Brazilian Association of Infrastructure and Basic Industries praised the approval of the bill and anticipate investment of 25bn dollars.
Argentina’ icebreaker Almirante Irizar, docked for repairs since 2007 is en route to becoming another major scandal involving the Ministry of Defence and the Argentine Navy’s fleet. In the last six years Argentina has invested the equivalent of 200 million dollars in the recovery of the vessel that caught fire in 2007 and another 75 million dollars in contracting vessels to supply the Antarctic bases and stations.
Brazil’s main financial newspaper Valor Economico revealed that the recent summit between Presidents Cristina Fernandez and Dilma Rousseff from Argentina and Brazil was far from polite and enlightening, rather the contrary with “strong disagreements in the fields of trade and investment” shaking the foundations of Mercosur.
The business representative of the Iranian embassy in Buenos Aires Alí Pakdaman announced on Monday that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad endorsed without Congress approval the Memorandum of Understanding signed by Argentina and Tehran in order to investigate the AMIA Jewish centre bombing which killed 85 people in 1994.
Argentina questioned the UK after its negative vote at the United Nations General Assembly to place French Polynesia back on the UN list of non autonomous territories that should be decolonised Additionally Argentina renewed its claim over the Falkland Islands sovereignty and described the UK attitude, ‘colonial hypocrisy’.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel met Pope Francis and, apparently responding to his criticism of a heartless dictatorship of the economy and the “cult of money”, called for stronger regulation of financial markets.
Venezuelan authorities have released a dissent ex-general who was jailed on charges of inciting unrest after the country’s disputed presidential election. Retired General Antonio Rivero, who is also a member of the opposition movement Popular Will, said he would “take care of my health” as he was freed late Friday.
Lan Chile admitted the company had to yield to the demands from the Argentine company Intercargo, which monopolizes ground services in all the country’s air terminals, so that they could resume normal traffic in Argentina. It also said that it was not leaving Argentine but would review future investments and expects more common sense from local authorities.