
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said the global economy has weakened further and warned it was highly vulnerable to adverse shocks and the weakening has come amid increasing financial turbulence and falling asset prices.

French government has been trying to defuse the week-long protests by farmers over the collapsing prices of agriculture including cereals, milk and vegetables.The depression of prices is partly due to EU agriculture ministers, who have come under pressure from the French government to ease Russian trade sanctions and to remove excess meat and dairy products off the European market.

Luis Alberto Lacalle, the Ex-President of Uruguay, is currently in the Falkland Islands on a week-long tour, along with Uruguayan Elected Representative Mario Jaime Trobo. Lacalle served as President from 1990 to 1995 and Trobo is presently a Member of the International Affairs Committee.

The visit of French president Francois Hollande was described as most positive and this was reflected in the over twenty bilateral agreements signed in all fields, plus a very significant 'personal link' with his Argentine peer Mauricio Macri, said Susana Malcorra, foreign minister on Wednesday at the Casa Rosada.

Moody's Investors Service on Wednesday joined the two other major credit rating agencies in downgrading Brazil's sovereign debt to junk territory. Moody's lowered Brazil's credit rating by two notches from Baa3 (its lowest investment-grade rating) to Ba2 and changed the country's outlook to negative, a move that follows similar actions by Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor's.

Argentina's President Mauricio Macri received fresh endorsement of his economic measures on Wednesday when French President Francois Hollande flew in to Buenos Aires with 30 business leaders looking for investment opportunities. The visit reflected a turnaround in Argentina's global profile since Macri took power two months ago and immediately set about mending diplomatic ties and his country's tattered credit ratings.

Argentina and a group of hedge funds are nearing a deal that would pay investors about 70% of what they say they are owed, as the government moves closer to re-entering the global bond markets following its 2001 default.

Argentine president Mauricio Macri said he wants to reach an agreement with the UK that will enable collaboration in areas of mutual interest, despite the dispute over the Falkland/Malvinas Islands, although 'we will never drop Argentina's historic claim on the issue'.

Early indications from scientific surveys are showing “no big concentrations of Illex,” in the Falkland Islands waters or on the high seas, “which is worrying,” said Falkland Islands Government Senior Fisheries Scientist Sasha Arkhipkin as reported by the Penguin News.

Argentina is planning to issue an estimated 15bn dollars in bonds, with which to pay the bondholders involved in years of litigation, and thus abandon its default situation which impedes it from having access to global money markets. The news was released by the Argentine Ministry of Finance.