Punta Arenas in the extreme south of Chile is encouraged by the cruise industry prospects for its port and facilities: this season Norwegian Sun has returned with at least ten calls and for 2016/2017 a line will be cruising to Antarctica with Punta Arenas as a home port.
Despite current low oil prices, the oil and gas industry in the Falkland Islands is continuing to go from strength to strength as its first project, Premier Oil’s Sea Lion, moves closer to commercialization, according to an analyst with research and consulting firm GlobalData.
Norway’s Statoil said that it has signed an agreement with Tullow Oil to secure a 35% working interest in a Uruguay’s Pelotas basin exploration block 15, about 200 kilometers off the coast of Uruguay.
A Philippine crew member from the Norwegian Sun cruise vessel jumped overboard before reaching a port in South Chile and has been declared 'disappeared' by the Chilean navy which organized a rescue operation.
Under this heading Dante Caputo, a former Argentine foreign minister (1983/89) with an impeccable domestic and international academic background addresses the 'Malvinas question' and proposes Argentina sets a 2033 target for a new attempt on the Islands, this time trying to convince the Falkland Islanders, and that in seventeen years time, the country is reliable and sovereignty discussions should then take place.
The court-appointed mediator in the bonds dispute says Argentina has reached a settlement with bondholders seeking about 1% of the US$10 billion being pursued by investors. Mediator Daniel Pollack announced on Tuesday in New York the deal in the class action case. The deal came nearly two weeks after he announced two of six leading bondholders settled claims for more than US$1 billion.
Four of the world's biggest oil-producing nations moved to freeze their production on Tuesday to try to halt the 70 percent drop in the price of crude because of a glut of oil on world markets. The agreement was reached by the oil ministers of Russia and three members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Qatar, during a closed-door meeting in Doha, the Qatar capital.
Michael Fallon, the British Defence Secretary, has become the first Defence Secretary to visit the Falkland Islands in 14 years. The House of Commons is currently in recess this week and the Defence Secretary’s visit directly follows the visit of four other British MPs to the Falklands.
Four British Members of Parliament have been in the Falkland Islands over the past week, whilst the House of Commons is in recess. The cross-party group includes two Labour and two Conservative MPs, with an FIG Representative from London accompanying them.
UN John J. Metzler(*) Reversing the trend of economic mismanagement, ending a fifteen year debt impasse with foreign lenders, calming a percolating political crisis over the disputed Falkland/Malvinas islands in the South Atlantic, and overcoming the image of unpredictability, Argentina’s new conservative government faces serious obstacles in reintroducing Argentina to an often skeptical world.