The Cuban government will cut more than 500,000 state jobs by March as part of a plan to reduce inefficiencies, the country’s largest union said in a statement. The reductions are part of President Raúl Castro’s goal of eliminating 1 million state jobs by 2015, according to the statement.
European Union Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht is expected in Brazil to advance trade talks with Mercosur. Brazil currently holds the Mercosur rotating chair. The top EU official will visit Argentina later in the week.
In the first six months of 2010 Falkland Islands based Argos Resources has made significant progress in developing its PL001 Licence in the North Falkland Basin, to anticipate it will begin an exploratory hydrocarbons drilling campaign in the second half of 2011.
Falkland Islands Desire Petroleum (AIM-DES) is upbeat about the prospects for finding major reserves of oil offshore the Islands despite mixed results so far and revealed plans to further drill four wells in the North Falkland basin.
Virtually unknown to the Spanish market, the rock cod (Gadiculus argenteus argenteus) is a white fish which is of a similar taste to hake, which is abundant in the waters of the South Atlantic near the Falkland Islands and could become an alternative to traditional species.
As President Sebastián Piñera spoke of national unity and moving past quarrels from recent history on the anniversary of the 11 September 1973 military coup that ousted democratically elected President Salvador Allende, protests and demonstrations occurred throughout Chile.
Four Chilean deputies were forcefully removed last week from a jail where hunger striking indigenous Mapuche prisoners are being held. The deputies had announced they too would join the strike.
A member of the Falkland Islands Legislative Council rebutted historical claims made by Argentina over the Islands in a speech to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in Kenya this week, adding that the challenge Falkland Islanders face is Argentina’s “simple desire to steal what is ours.”
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos announced he would redouble the military's offensive against Marxist-inspired, drugs financed FARC guerrillas after several attacks killed 40 police and military officers.
Brazil’s leading news magazine Veja accused presidential candidate Dilma Rousseff's former aide and current presidential chief of staff, Erenice Guerra, of involvement in a graft scheme.