Following the election last week of two new members to the Legislative Assembly of the Falkland Islands, MLA Dr Barry Elsby and MLA Ian Hansen, councillors have favoured stability and continuity in the allocation of portfolio responsibility, with the newly elected councillors largely taking on the responsibilities left vacant by the resignation of former members, Emma Edwards and Bill Luxton.
New Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy named on Wednesday a cabinet of mostly close advisers charged with reviving the sluggish economy while slashing spending to reassure investors the Euro zone's No. 4 economy can stay solvent.
Brazilian meat processors BRF Brasil Foods and Marfrig announced a deal on Thursday to trade assets, including a block of properties that Brazilian anti-trust body CADE mandated to be sold as part of the Sadia and Perdigao approval in July.
Europe's banks borrowed nearly 490 billion Euros from the European Central Bank at its first-ever offer of three-year loans on Wednesday, encouraging demand for the Euro and stocks on hopes the funding will ease the two-year old debt crisis.
Reacting to the news this week that all Mercosur member countries had agreed to close their ports to ships flying the Falkland Islands flag, Cheryl Roberts, chair of the Falkland Islands Fishing Companies Association, stated that: “It is still too early to say exactly what the effect might be, whilst obviously disappointing we are now working to find solutions to minimise any potential impacts, both operational and economic, of the recent decision.
“Malvinas is not an Argentine cause, it’s a global cause because they are taking our fisheries and oil resources” said Argentine president Cristina Fernandez on taking the Mercosur rotating chair for the next six months.
Mercosur member countries (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay) finally agreed Tuesday to close its ports to ships flying the flag of the disputed Falkland/Malvinas Islands, announced Uruguay's president at the closing of the group’s two-day summit in Montevideo.
President Hugo Chavez claimed that a small group of Paraguayan lawmakers, manipulated by a “powerful black hand”, are impeding the long-delayed access of Venezuela as full member of Mercosur.
Paraguayan president Fernando Lugo called for the free flow and free access of his country’s goods to Mercosur senior members’ markets and insisted on the energy integration of the block.
Mercosur signed a free trade agreement with the Palestinian Authority on Tuesday, the first between the territories and a block of nations outside the Arab world. The ceremony took place during Mercosur presidential summit in Montevideo.