
The Falkland Islands government, FIG, announced that the first loligo season has come to a close as of 28 April, and on Thursday a number of vessels arrived in Stanley Harbor and Port William.

A Buenos Aires crude oil refinery operated by Argentine state-controlled energy firm YPF is running with a minimal level of workers due to a drop in consumption and a lack of storage space amid a crash in global oil prices during the coronavirus pandemic, a spokesman said on Wednesday.

Mercosur member Paraguay has a high likelihood of bouncing back best once the novel coronavirus is contained, Rebeca Grynspan, head of the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB), told Radio Nacional del Paraguay on Thursday.

The Falkland Islands government announced on Monday that a decrease in electricity prices will come into effect on from this Friday 1 May 2020. The move is part of the government’s comprehensive suite of measures to assist businesses, private sector employees and households during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The U.S. central bank that has already slashed interest rates to zero reiterated on Wednesday they will stay there until the economy is clearly back on track. It has also rolled out around US$ 2 trillion in lending commitments, and Fed chief Jerome Powell said it was ready to do more as needed.

President Donald Trump ordered meat-processing plants to stay open to protect the food supply in the United States, despite concerns about coronavirus outbreaks, drawing a backlash from unions that said at-risk workers required more protection.

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday left interest rates near zero and repeated a vow to do what it takes to shore up the U.S. economy amid an ongoing coronavirus pandemic that will not only “weigh heavily” on the near-term outlook but poses “considerable risks” for the medium term as well.

The European Union and Mexico finalized a major upgrade to their free trade deal on Tuesday after the two sides agreed to grant reciprocal market access to each other’s tenders for public contracts.

Uruguayan president Luis Alberto Lacalle Pou and his Argentine peer, Alberto Fernandez held a half-hour video conference Tuesday mid-morning to address the recent decision by the current Argentine administration to freeze Mercosur free trade negotiations with potential new partners and instead concentrate efforts in overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic and its sanitary, social, economic and employment consequences.

Argentina’s latest effort to restructure its overseas debt probably won’t be its last, according to ex IMF advisor and Harvard University economist Carmen Reinhart, who has sounded alarms overcoming emerging markets crises in Venezuela and Turkey.