Panama Foreign minister Fernando Núñez Fábrega underlined his country's traditional and committed support for Argentina's sovereignty claims over the Malvinas and other South Atlantic Islands and their adjoining maritime spaces, an issue that was discussed during this week's visit to Buenos Aires, a special guest of his peer Hector Timerman.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy drew a line under the diplomatic bag incident at the Gibraltar border following a conversation with his British counterpart, David Cameron. The two men spoke on the side lines of an EU summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, although their conversation centered mostly on Scotland and Catalonia, according to Spanish reports. “This (incident) has been resolved” said the Spanish president.
The Falkland Islands government said on Friday that Argentina's latest illegal attempt to undermine the Islands economy is in direct contradiction with its alleged claim that it wants to establish a dialogue and is yet another effort to disrupt the lives of 3.000 people who want to live in peace and with good neighborly relations.
Hooded far right extremists disrupted an academic event in the Spanish port of Algeciras at which Gibraltar Chief Minister Fabian Picardo was due to have delivered a speech on cross-border cooperation Thursday night. They were joined by a group of fishermen from La Linea and Algeciras standing next to a banner that read “Picardo Fascista”.
The troubled state of Brazil’s 2014 World Cup preparations and Qatar 2022 concerns are expected to be the main talking points at next week’s FIFA Executive Committee meeting in Salvador de Bahia.
United Nations independent expert urged authorities in Argentina to undertake an audit of its external debt to improve transparency, and to intensify efforts to improve social conditions for their people.
Argentina, Chile and Brazil have been elected to be members of the International Maritime Organization Council for the 2014/15 biennium by the IMO assembly, which is meeting in London.
A safety engineer at the World Cup stadium where a giant crane collapse killed two workers allegedly warned his supervisor of possible problems with the operation, only to have his concerns brushed aside, a labor union leader charged on Thursday, as sniping over the accident heated up.
Corruption is not new in Brazil nor does it surprise public opinion but the magnitude of such extended practice is only coming to light with a recent study from the powerful manufacturing lobby, FIESP (Federation of Industries of Sao Paulo State) which states that the average annual cost of corruption in the country is between 1.38% and 2.3% of GDP, which the World Bank in 2012 estimated at 2.3 trillion dollars.
Mining giant Vale has agreed to pay the Brazilian treasury 9.6 billion dollars to settle a decade-long dispute over back taxes, after the country’s tax authority offered to reduce the corporation's original 14.1bn debt.