Argentina

• Thursday, March 22nd 2012 - 01:55 UTC

  Argentine government and YPF can’t agree on the future of the oil company

  

  Argentina and Repsol-YPF oil corporation again clashed on Wednesday over the future of the Spanish owned company while members of President Cristina Fernandez administration said measures “can not be discarded” thus re-launching fears about further government actions.

• Wednesday, March 21st 2012 - 06:32 UTC

  Argentina denies protectionism; claims imports in 2011 soared 30%

  

  Foreign Affairs minister Hector Timerman said on Tuesday “there is no country” in the world that can say Argentina is protectionist and claimed it is the G20 member that saw imports soar most between 2010 and 2011.

• Wednesday, March 21st 2012 - 06:16 UTC

  HMS Montrose: Argentina thanks Humala; Peruvian opposition calls minister “incompetent and foolish”

  

  During a live press conference on Tuesday, Argentine President Cristina Fernández thanked “the Peruvian government and population” for their decision to leave without effect the scheduled, but controversial, visit of a British frigate “in support of the Argentine sovereignty claim over the Malvinas Islands.”

• Wednesday, March 21st 2012 - 04:41 UTC

  Next Mercosur summit in Mendoza, June 26/28; Brazil takes the relay

  

  The next Mercosur presidential summit is scheduled to take place next 26/28 June in the city of Mendoza, when the rotating chair will be handed for the following six months to Brazil.

• Tuesday, March 20th 2012 - 23:51 UTC

  Spain vows to defend Repsol-YPF interests in Argentina; board meeting to decide on YPF profits

  

  Adding fuel to the quarrel between Argentina and Spain for disagreements over Spanish investors administrated YPF, Spanish Industry minister of José Manuel Soria vowed on Tuesday to defend his country’s interests.

• Tuesday, March 20th 2012 - 22:10 UTC

  Falklands recovers community land 30 after the war, following mines’ clearance

  

  Thirty years after the end of the South Atlantic conflict, the people of the Falkland Islands will be recovering an iconic leisure ground which remained banned for three decades because of the mines planted by the retreating Argentine forces that invaded the Islands 2 April 1982.

• Tuesday, March 20th 2012 - 05:05 UTC

  Mujica promises to “fight to the death” for the future of Mercosur

  

  Uruguayan president Jose Mujica promised on Monday to ‘fight to the death’ for the future of Mercosur in spite of the fact that the group’s junior members Uruguay and Paraguay are suffering the most as Argentina and Brazil implement growing hurdles to trade.

• Tuesday, March 20th 2012 - 01:24 UTC

  Rousseff administration will promote “buy Brazilian” policy to defend industry

  

  “As of this year Brazil will follow the US example giving a 25% margin of preference to local goods in government procurement”, said Fernando Pimentel, Minister for Development, Industry and Foreign Trade.

• Tuesday, March 20th 2012 - 01:16 UTC

  Argentine truckers call for indefinite strike as soy bean crop was taking off

  

  Argentina’s truckers called Monday an indefinite strike to demand higher pay rates, parking their rigs in protest just as exporters were counting on them to haul freshly harvested soybeans to port.

• Monday, March 19th 2012 - 11:18 UTC

  Maverick Norwegian yachtsman Jarle Andhoy is in trouble again.

  

  According to press reports from Norway and New Zealand over the weekend, the 54-foot yacht steel yacht Nilaya is reported to be sailing off Antarctica with a broken boom and is heading for an unspecified Argentine Antarctic base to carry out emergency repairs and to refuel.