
By Jaime Trobo (*) - For some time now we have been arguing that Uruguay must strengthen its bonds and contacts with a neighboring territory, in the southern cone, part of our American continent, where families who arrived in our region during the first half of the XIX century live, and with whom those contacts, once very intense, have waned, particularly in the last decades.

While investors cheered progress on last week's arduous negotiations in New York between Argentine government officials and litigant investors, the administration of president Mauricio Macri still faces an uphill battle as it works to bring other holdouts on board.

The United States gave another sign of support for Argentina’s economic policies as US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew spoke on the phone with Finance Minister Alfonso Prat-Gay, striking an optimistic tone regarding the settlement offer made to the holdout funds in New York.

Daniel A. Pollack, Special Master presiding over settlement negotiations between the Republic of Argentina and its “holdout” Bondholders issued the following statement today (Friday, Jan 5):

The latest report from the United States Labor Department for January showed job gains slowed more than expected as the boost to hiring from unseasonably mild weather faded last month. However unemployment dropped to 4.9% of the workforce, the lowest in almost eight years.

Argentina offered a $6.5 billion cash payment to creditors suing the country over defaulted bonds on Friday, seeking to end an exhausting 14-year legal battle, the sovereign debt trial of the century, that transformed the country into a financial markets pariah. Two out of six leading bondholders have already accepted the offer, the U.S. court-appointed mediator said, hailing the proposal by Argentina's new, business-friendly government as an historic breakthrough.

The Falklands' population composition can be described as 'constrictive' since there is a tendency to ageing in the population pyramid, in other words there are more elderly people than children. Comments belong to a member of an Argentine team of geography and migration experts from a university in Santa Fe province (Universidad Nacional del Litoral, UNL), who have been granted scholarships to collect such data from the Islands, based on a project the team presented.

The Confederation of African Football (CAF) is backing Sheikh Salman in the Bahraini royal’s bid to replace Sepp Blatter as FIFA president. Africa’s 54 members represent a large portion of the total of 209 FIFA voters who are eligible to cast a ballot. Not surprisingly, it’s believed that the candidate who gets the support of Africa will be a big favorite.

Brazil's inflation rate rose to a 12-year high, officials said on Friday, as Latin America's largest economy continues to struggle through a protracted recession. Driven by rising food prices, the annual inflation rate hit 10.71%, the highest since November 2003 and well beyond the central bank's target ceiling of 6.5%, said national statistics institute IBGE.

Weather patterns associated with El Niño are sending mixed signals about the early prospects for cereal crops in 2016, especially in the Southern Hemisphere, according to FAO's Cereal Supply and Demand Brief, released on Thursday.