The UK will be opening a general consulate office in Belo Horizonte, capital of Minas Gerais, one of Brazil's most dynamic states, which outstands both for agriculture and industrial production. Foreign Office minister for Latin America, Hugo Swire is scheduled to be present at the opening ceremony on Friday.
Uruguayan lawmaker Jaime Trobo said that a blockade in the Americas was 'unacceptable' and called for closer links between the Falkland/Malvinas Islands and the continent, urging the private sector to take advantage of the business opportunities in trade and services.
Brazil's Congress on Wednesday voted to uphold most of President Dilma Rousseff's vetoes on billions of dollars in additional expenses, marking a partial victory for the president, who is fighting a weakening economy and calls for her ouster, plus a plunging currency.
Cars and the environment are two things that Germany cares so deeply about that they form part of the national character. So Germans are shocked to discover that for years the country's mightiest car manufacturer Volkswagen has been rigging environmental tests for diesel emissions in the US.
France is to use a new European opt-out scheme to ensure a ban on the cultivation of genetically modified crops in the country remains in place. The European Union's largest grain grower and exporter has asked the European Commission for France to be excluded from some GM maize crop cultivation under the new scheme, the farm and environment ministries said in a joint statement.
Bank of Spain governor Luis María Linde on Monday stated that if Catalonia secedes from Spain, there could be a risk of a corralito, the popular term for economic measures that include a freeze on clients’ accounts, with the aim of halting a potential bank run.
The scandal that has undermined Germany's Volkswagen in the United States spread to its core market of Europe on Tuesday, after the company admitted that eleven million of its diesel cars worldwide were equipped with software that was used to cheat on emissions tests in the US.
Uruguay's central bank was forced to sell almost 65 million dollars on Tuesday, the highest volume so far this year, to keep the US dollar from ballooning as fears of the collapse of the Brazilian economy are felt through the region. The dollar finally ended trading with a slight 0.12% increase at 28,826 Pesos to the greenback.
Brazil's currency fell to its weakest level ever as investors cast a wary eye on negotiations over spending bills that could further complicate the country's tenuous fiscal position. The currency, like others across Latin America, was also hammered by a global rise in the dollar sparked by increased expectations that the US Federal Reserve is still on track to raise interest rates this year.
Of all four Pacific Alliance countries, Colombia spends most on its congressional representatives, despite the South American country’s low wages. According to a report published on Monday by economic newspaper La Republica, the state pays Colombia’s congressmen a total of nearly $2.1 million per month in salaries, almost double the total of Chile, whose congressmen have the highest individual salaries, but in total cost the state $1.2 million per month.