
Under the heading of The sage of Montevideo, The Economist visited the Uruguayan president at his farmhouse in the outskirts of Montevideo where they had a long chat.

Chile has become a single territory for telecommunications and long distance calls with different rates for fixed lines will no longer exist beginning Saturday. This in practical terms will also means a 50% reduction on normal phone calls.

Argentine state-controlled energy company YPF on Thursday announced a shale oil find in the southwestern province of Neuquen in Patagonia. The discovery was made at the Agrio formation, according to CEO Miguel Galuccio, who said at a press conference that production operations will be carried from the neighboring province of Mendoza.

Environmental activist and politician Marina Silva could have been on the plane that crashed on Wednesday and killed presidential candidate Eduardo Campos and six other occupants.

The World Health Organization reiterated its position that the risk of transmission of Ebola virus disease during air travel remains low. “Unlike infections such as influenza or tuberculosis, Ebola is not airborne,” says Dr Isabelle Nuttall, Director of WHO Global Capacity Alert and Response. “It can only be transmitted by direct contact with the body fluids of a person who is sick with the disease.”

A planned presidential summit between the heads of state of the Union of South American Nations (Unasur) has been suspended due to scheduling conflicts amongst member countries, according to the Uruguayan Foreign Ministry.

Argentine holdout creditor Aurelius Capital Management has said that after talks with many financial institutions, the prospects for finding a private-settlement solution to the Argentine sovereign debt dispute had garnered no realistic proposals.

Talks between a group of global banks and at least one major hedge fund about buying a portion of the fund's exposure to Argentine debt have collapsed, a person familiar with the matter told sources in Buenos Aires, amid concerns that the Argentine government has dug in to its refusal to pay certain creditors what they are owed and may not relent for months to come.

The US dollars climbed to a record 13.15 Pesos on the black or 'blue' market on Wednesday trading as fears mount regarding the outcome of the holdout bonds conflict with the New York court. The official dollar rate closed at 8.2750 Pesos.

The hedge fund Elliott Management secured a victory on Tuesday in its pursuit of Argentine assets abroad, as a court in the US state of Nevada granted the corporation discovery rights to 123 companies allegedly linked to the Santa Cruz public works tycoon Lazaro Baez, and believed to be closely linked to the Kirchner family.