As could be expected soccer was not absent from the Argentina-Uruguay presidential summit in Buenos Aires on Monday. Mauricio Macri has been president of Boca Juniors, one of the two strongest and most popular Argentine sides and steered the club to reach several regional and continental cups.
Argentine president Mauricio Macri promised his Uruguayan peer Tabare Vazquez to look into the draft of a Uruguay/China free trade deal, and expressed their deep concern about political events in Venezuela suggesting that under the current circumstances the Nicolas Maduro government cannot be considered a member of Mercosur.
Uruguay and Argentina, and their cabinets will be meeting this Monday in Buenos Aires to address a bilateral agenda, which was agreed long before hand, but the real issue will not necessarily be trade, dredging canals, pulp mills, customs or facilitating people's movement, but rather the negotiations for a free trade agreement which supposedly Uruguay is about to begin discussing with China.
The relation between the Catholic church and the administration of president Mauricio Macri is a mature relation and links are as they should be, and this is based on autonomy and cooperation which is good for both sides, according to Monsignor Jose Maria Arancedo, head of the Argentine Episcopal Conference, CEA.
Extreme left wing organizations protested on Thursday outside Britain's embassy in Buenos Aires against UK military exercises which are being carried out in the disputed Falkland Islands. The groups also slammed the Argentine government's pursuit of closer ties with the United Kingdom.
The Argentine ministry of Defense has confirmed that the Navy was involved in military exercises in the high seas last February including firing an upgraded version of MM38 Exocet missiles and trials with a refurbished torpedo from a submarine, reports the Buenos Aires media.
Dressed in black, Argentine women took to the streets to protest the brutal rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl, the latest incident of gender violence to shock the country. Others walked off the job as a sign of protest, in what was described as women's first national strike. Similar demonstrations took place in solidarity in many Latin American cities from Montevideo to Mexico City.
Argentina's main state-run bank said it lowered its headline interest rates for loans to businesses on Monday amid expectations that inflation will begin to slow in Latin America's third-largest economy, a move that will help put credit back within firms' reach. Banco Nacion, the country's largest financial institution and which also acts as a development bank, set its annual nominal reference rate for business loans at 27%, down from 32%.
Argentine foreign minister Susana Malcorra said that the recent diplomatic row with the UK over military exercises in the Falkland Islands shows that the consequences of the war persist and reiterated her disappointment with London for not giving the Argentine government any previous warning.
Argentina extended on Monday its congratulations to Portuguese former prime minister and ex UN High commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres for his appointment by the UN General Assembly as the next UN Secretary General for the 2017/2021 period.