
Southern Chile's Puyehue volcano was calm Sunday, one day after raining down ash and forcing thousands to flee, although the cloud of ash it had belched out still darkened skies as far away as neighbouring Argentina and was heading to the Atlantic coast.

President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner said that the restructuring of Argentina’s debt allowed the resumption of relations with Italy, and in human rights, art and culture Argentina was back in the world map with ‘a bang’.

Southern Chile's Puyehue volcano erupted on Saturday for the first time in half a century prompting evacuation orders for 3,500 people and turning into dark the Argentine Patagonian resort of San Carlos de Bariloche, 100 kilometres to the east as it was covered with ash.

Two Argentine opposition groups announced this week their presidential tickets for the coming October election that are expected to compete with President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner who has to yet confirm her bid even when all opinion polls show her a clear winner in the first round.

An Argentine court ruled this week that the adopted children of one of the country’s largest media group must submit to DNA tests to determine if they were stolen as babies during Argentina's military dictatorship.

Argentina and Brazil agreed Thursday to abide by the 60-day retention period applied to products affected by non automatic tariff trade barriers and accelerate trade in the agricultural sector with the purpose of overcoming the conflict that erupted mid May and had virtually frozen bilateral operations.

Argentina’s second- biggest soybean producer Los Grobo, plans to transfer some assets to a new company and sell shares of the business in an initial public offering in Brazil.

Argentine president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner invited Italian business-people to invest in Argentina underlining the close links between the two countries and the fact her visit was the re-launching of normal relations after a decade.

Argentina's Senate on Wednesday passed a bill called for by President Cristina Fernandez, CFK, to toughen financial controls and meet global standards on fighting money-laundering.

The Argentine Lower House passed a law that bans smoking in public spaces and forbids advertising, promoting and sponsoring tobacco companies and forces manufacturers to include warnings on the back of all cigarette packs detailing the harmful effects of smoking on health.