
A proposed visit by a team of rugby players to the Falkland Islands, scheduled to arrive for a week long visit on December 12, has caused controversy in the Islands, reports the Penguin News.

Spanish authorities have arrested a pilot for Dutch airline Transavia.com on charges he flew death flights for Argentina's former military rulers, a Dutch Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Wednesday.

Mar del Plata, Argentina will host the next Ibero-American summit in November 2010 in coincidence with the bicentennial of the country, announced Ibero-American chairman Enrique Iglesias following a meeting with President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner in New York.

Argentina has not yet reached a definitive agreement with holdouts from its 2005 debt restructuring, the country's Economy Minister Amado Boudou said on Monday. He added that Argentina's economic strategy is to access the international markets in order to obtain credits.

Argentina reported another sharp drop in the fiscal primary surplus for August, while the overall government accounts were once again in the red. Growth in public spending has outpaced growth in tax revenues, eroding the surplus adding to the economic downturn.

Uruguay denied on Monday Argentina's claims at the International Court of The Hague that a pulp mill on a river separating the two countries is polluting the air and water, saying it meets environmental protection standards.

Argentina’s Economy minister Amado Boudou meets this week with its French peer Christine Lagarde for the resumption of negotiations with the Club of Paris. The meeting will take place previous to the G-20 presidential summit in Pittsburgh.

The coming trip to the Falkland Islands for the official inauguration of the memorial at the Argentine cemetery in Darwin, “somehow represents the end of a long mourning period”, but at the same time “re-signifies the strong meaning that the Malvinas have for the Argentine people”, said Cesar Trejo representative of the Malvinas Families Commission.

Football legend Diego Maradona had his earrings seized by Italian authorities to help pay off his back taxes, according to media reports. The current coach of Argentina's national team was staying at a clinic in northern Italy in a bid to lose weight when finance police swooped, according to Reuters and later confirmed by the Argentine press.

Argentina's August trade surplus dropped 48% from the same month a year ago to 1.16 billion US dollars as exports sank, the government said on Friday. Imports fell by 37% during the month to 3.25 billion, while exports dropped by an even bigger 40% to 4.40 billion USD due to lower prices and reduced volumes, particularly by the drought-hit farming industry.