The United States biotech giant Monsanto says it respects people’s rights to express themselves, but that its genetically-modified seeds improve farm productivity and food quality.
Argentina's April industrial production rose 1.7% over the same month a year earlier with a big jump in automobile output and more modest gains in the production of building materials, government data showed on Friday.
Colombia and the Marxist-led FARC rebels have reached agreement on the critical issue of agrarian reform, the two sides said in what appeared to be a major step forward for the peace process aimed at ending their long war.
Mercosur must negotiate any possible incorporation to the Alliance of the Pacific “as a block” since it is important that its member countries remain ‘united’ and respect the current charter, said the Mercosur High Representative, Ambassador Ivan Ramalho from Brazil.
Brazil has announced that it will cancel or restructure almost 900m dollars worth of debt with Africa. Oil- and gas-rich Congo-Brazzaville, Tanzania and Zambia are among the 12 African countries to benefit. The move is seen as an effort to boost economic ties between the world's seventh largest economy and the African continent.
The Argentine ambassador to Uruguay, Dante Dovena, assured that authorities are “working intensely” in preparations for the next Mercosur summit scheduled to take place on June 28th in Montevideo. However news form Paraguay doesn’t indicate the same optimism and are demanding respect for ‘the country’s dignity and rule of the law”.
All is ready for the massive ‘decade won’ celebration that President Cristina Fernández plans to hold on Saturday May 25 to commemorate the ten years since her late husband Nestor Kirchner first took office, but which must also be interpreted as a rally in support of her administration battered by inflation, a slowing economy, political battles and growing claims of rampant corruption.
Falkland Islands elected lawmaker Mike Summers will attend next week the Caribbean Regional Seminar of the Special Committee on Decolonization which is to be held in Quito, Ecuador in anticipation of the main C24 annual meeting in New York.
Former Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo was extradited on Friday to the United States to face money laundering charges, the US embassy in Guatemala said. A US grand jury decided in 2009 that Portillo, who was in office from 2000 to 2004, should face charges that he laundered 70 million dollars through US banks.
Brazil's jobless rate rose slightly in April for the fourth straight month but remained near record lows, suggesting that tight labour conditions bolstered a gradual recovery and fed into inflation, statistics agency IBGE said this week.