International

• Thursday, November 19th 2009 - 13:26 UTC

  Russia opens its first embassy ever in Paraguay’s 200 year history

  

  The Russian Federation has formally opened its first embassy in Paraguay’s 200 year history. Although there have been diplomatic relations the Russian ambassador was concurrent from Buenos Aires and only since two decades ago.

• Thursday, November 19th 2009 - 05:42 UTC

  Israeli president Peres predicts the fall of Chavez and Ahmadinejad

  

  Israel President Shimon Peres predicted on his last day tour of Argentina and Brazil that the people of Venezuela and Iran will make their leaders disappear before too long. Speaking at a forum in Buenos Aires, Peres said both Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have gone crazy over oil, which he said is not bad to sell but “really dangerous if you swallow it.”

• Wednesday, November 18th 2009 - 13:33 UTC

  Praise for the British press for exposing MP’s expenses scandal

  

  The head of Britain’s Press Complaints Commission has praised the exposure of Members of Parliament expenses claims - and said it showed the vital need to retain press freedom to investigate our “dysfunctional democracy”.

• Wednesday, November 18th 2009 - 08:10 UTC

  Cyber-war is here and to stay: ask US, China, Russia, Israel and France

  

  Major countries and nation-states are engaged in a “Cyber Cold War,” amassing cyber-weapons, conducting espionage, and testing networks in preparation for using the Internet to conduct war, according to a new report released by McAfee.

• Wednesday, November 18th 2009 - 03:02 UTC

  Unfriend, with real lex-appeal, word of the year for Oxford American Dictionary

  

  Unfriend“ has been named the word of the year by the New Oxford American Dictionary, chosen from a list of finalists with high technical jargon. Unfriend was defined as a verb that means to remove someone as a ”friend” on a social networking site such as Facebook or MySpace.

• Wednesday, November 18th 2009 - 02:38 UTC

  Chile and Uruguay, least corrupt in Latam and an inspiration for the region

  

  Chile, Uruguay and Costa Rica have the lowest perceived levels of corruption in Latinamerica, a benchmark and inspiration for the Americas according to the latest report from Transparency International. Argentina and Venezuela are among the low performers in a region where there are serious indications of “rampant corruption”.

• Tuesday, November 17th 2009 - 12:48 UTC

  The Chilean currency at its highest in 16 months: 496 to the US dollar

  

  The Chilean peso rose to its strongest level against the US dollar in 16 months after copper prices and global stocks rallied. The peso climbed 1.1% to 496.6 per dollar during trading and touched 494.15, the strongest since July 2008.

• Tuesday, November 17th 2009 - 12:38 UTC

  Brown proposes Afghanistan campaign “transfer timetable” talks

  

  UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown plans to host talks in the New Year to discuss timing for handing over the campaign in Afghanistan to the Afghan government. PM Brown said he wanted the NATO meeting to “set a timetable” for transfer starting in 2010.

• Tuesday, November 17th 2009 - 09:14 UTC

  Shimon Peres in Argentina proposes “a new relation for a new world”

  

  Israeli President Shimon Peres met on Monday with Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. Shimon arrived on Sunday in Argentina, home to Latin America's biggest Jewish community for a two-day visit.

• Tuesday, November 17th 2009 - 09:05 UTC

  Plan to recover two crates of Shackleton’s whisky buried in Antarctica

  

  Explorers are planning to recover a rare batch of whisky lost during explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated voyage to the South Pole a century ago. Two crates of the now extinct “Rare Old” brand of McKinlay and Co whisky have been buried in the Antarctic ice since Shackleton was forced to abandon his polar mission in 1909.