International

• Thursday, April 9th 2015 - 01:35 UTC

  Brazil inflation soars as electricity rates go up 22% in March and 60.42% in the last 12 months

  

  Consumer prices in Brazil picked up in March, putting the 12-month rate at the highest level in more than eleven years, highlighting one of the main challenges facing Latin America's largest economy in the year ahead. The rolling 12-month IPCA was up 8.13% through March, up from 7.70% in February, remaining well above the central bank's 6.5% ceiling. In the first quarter of the year, prices have risen 3.83%, while the 12-month figure marked the highest level since December 2003, when it reached 9.30%.

• Thursday, April 9th 2015 - 00:54 UTC

  Pope Francis will meet President Cristina Fernández for the fifth time, next June

  

  Pope Francis and Argentine president Cristina Fernández will meet for the fifth time at the Vatican in June, according to government sources. The head of state will visit the pontiff between June 7 and 9, two months before the PASO primaries and ahead of national elections that are to be held in October. It will be their fifth meeting since Francis was elected and the first one under the administration of Eduardo Valdés, the Argentine Ambassador to the Vatican, appointed in December.

• Wednesday, April 8th 2015 - 17:40 UTC

  Obama/Castro in Panama: 'grip and grin” photo or historic head-to-head sit down?

  

  President Barack Obama will attend a Summit of the Americas in Panama this week, a gathering that could see the first substantive meeting between US and Cuban leaders in half a century.

• Wednesday, April 8th 2015 - 14:44 UTC

  Argentina's few friends in the world; China and Russia, Cristina Fernandez foreign policy priorities

  

  Argentina's foreign policy, under president Cristina Fernández, has new priorities, China and Russia, according to columnist Joaquin Morales Solá, one of the outstanding political analysts of Argentina. This means a radical change from democratic Argentina (since 1983) when the interests of the country were targeted in Latin America, particularly Brazil, Europe and the US, although the importance of the short list varied according to the different elected presidents.

• Tuesday, April 7th 2015 - 09:24 UTC

  FAO Food Price Index down in March helped by a sharp drop in sugar

  

  The FAO Food Price Index continued to decline in March, dropping 1.5 percent from February and 18.7 percent (40 points) below its level a year earlier.

• Tuesday, April 7th 2015 - 07:51 UTC

  World soy production forecasted to fall next season; Argentina could be the exception

  

  World soybean production will fall next season for the first time in four years, undermined by a drop in US output, although the fall may not prove sufficient to support prices, Oil World said. However in South America, Argentina and Paraguay could be heading for new record crops.

• Tuesday, April 7th 2015 - 06:25 UTC

  Falklands/Malvinas war documents declassified; Argentine Defense ministry has 30 days to make them available

  

  The Argentine government on Monday officially declassified secret files relating to the country's 1982 war with Britain over the Falkland Islands. The Defense Ministry has 30 working days to establish a mechanism for members of the public to consult the records, according to a resolution published in the official gazette.

• Tuesday, April 7th 2015 - 05:43 UTC

  Europe at center of debate in UK electoral campaign that anticipates no clear winner

  

  Several lawmakers from British Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservatives will join the anti-EU UK Independence Party if he renews a coalition with the pro-EU Liberal Democrats, UKIP’s leader Nigel Farage forecasted.

• Monday, April 6th 2015 - 17:07 UTC

  Unlikely Gibraltar talks in 2015: elections in UK, Spain and the Rock

  

  If tripartite talks were restarted between Gibraltar, Spain and UK and agreements reached, as they were under the ‘Cordoba’ experience, these would almost certainly need to take the form of treaties so that Spain can be relied on to stick to them. Nevertheless 2015 is year of elections in UK, Spain and Gibraltar.

• Monday, April 6th 2015 - 06:20 UTC

  International legal actions against Petrobras keep climbing

  

  One of Sweden’s largest investors has pledged to take direct legal action against Petrobras, becoming the third large investor to seek damages individually from the Brazilian oil group.