
Argentina has become the most visited country in South America with arrivals in 2011 reaching almost six million tourists, said Leonardo Boto head of the country’s National Tourism Promotion Institute, Improtur.

Argentina lost a bid on Monday to prevent bondholders from obtaining documents from two banks about the country's assets outside the United States. A three judge panel of the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in New York said in an opinion that the Argentine government could not prevent a lower court's order forcing the banks to produce the documents.

Several groups allied to Argentine president Cristina Fernandez are actively promoting a constitutional review that would allow re-election for a third consecutive four year mandate. The last Argentine constitutional review was in 1994 when the four-year mandate was introduced with the possibility of an only immediate re-election, thus modifying the six year mandate but with no re-election.

Spanish fishermen expressed perplexity at the announcement by the Gibraltar Government that it will not be granting permission for commercial fishing with nets to be carried out in Gibraltar waters. The controversy has caused several incidents in the bay between the Spanish Guardia Civil and Gibraltar Royal Police and there are fears of a resumption of the conflict.

With droughts parching farms in the United States and near the Black Sea, weak monsoon rains in India and persistent hunger in Africa's Sahel region, the world could be headed towards another food crisis, experts say.

The Falkland Islands government has appointed Macclesfield based consultancy Tyler Grange to undertake a landscape and visual impact assessment for a new harbour development near the capital Stanley.

Argentina has taken the first steps toward formally accusing the European Union of violating World Trade Organization rules in a dispute over restrictions on bio-fuels exports to the EU from the Mercosur member country.

The Union of South American Nations (Unasur) called for dialogue to solve the crisis between Ecuador and Great Britain regarding the diplomatic asylum granted by the Andean country to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange who is holed in at the embassy in London.

Ecuador has reiterated its intention of joining Mercosur but this needs to be compatible with the rules from the Community of Andean Nations, CAN, (to which it now belongs) said Ecuadorean ambassador Horacio Sevilla Borja.

Argentina trade surplus in the first half of the year reached 7.336 billion dollars, up 26.8% over the same period a year ago, with exports reaching 39.647bn dollars and imports 32.311bn, according to the official stats office Indec.