British ambassadors to Chile, Brazil and Uruguay respectively, Fiona Clouder, Alex Ellis and Ben Lyster-Binns are currently visiting the Falkland Islands to familiarise themselves with the people and economy and to discover what opportunities there are to increase links between the Islands and their host countries.
Colombian FARC guerrillas on Saturday vowed to lay down their weapons and reinvent themselves as a political party, if the Colombian government follows through with the reforms under discussion in peace talks.
Rebels with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC, on Saturday invited the newly-crowned Miss Universe to attend peace talks with the Colombian government.
The governments of Guyana, the United States, Peru and Uruguay confirmed this week to the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States (OAS) their consent to receive on site visits as part of the Fifth Round of the Mechanism for Follow-up on the Implementation of the Inter-American Convention against Corruption (MESICIC) of the OAS.
Three scholarships for Falkland Islanders at the National Energy Skills Centre (NESC) in Trinidad and related to the oil and gas industry are likely to be available within two years and will be overseen by the Training Centre in the Falklands.
HHSL Systems Limited of Trinidad and Tobago and Invenio Falkland Islands Limited signed a Memorandum of Understanding ( MOU) to mark the start of a relationship that will see the Trinidad-based company help train Invenio representatives in the oil and gas industry.
The Falkland Islands and its people want to be 'good neighbors, have trade links, cooperation agreements and closer relations with the southern cone of South America, but 'without losing our identity', said Falklands lawmakers to Punta Arenas Prensa Austral that was present at the celebrations last Saturday for the 250th anniversary of the first flying of the Union Flag in the Islands marking the beginning of British rule.
Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is expected to sign agreements with China to increase military co-operation, including construction of new warships for the Argentine Navy, during her current state visit to Beijing, according to media reports and Jane's Defense Weekly.
Uruguay will be attempting a new approach to the human rights and disappeared persons issues, a still unfinished legacy from the military dictatorship, (1973/1984) and the decade of armed sedition which preceded the collapse of the country's democracy. The announcement is expected later this month and basically means replacing truth and justice for truth and memory, following to a certain extent the South African experience.
Moody's Investors Service has downgraded the credit rating of Brazil's state-owned oil company Petrobras because of the widening kickback-corruption scandal affecting the country's largest corporation.The credit rating agency announced its decision late Thursday in a statement posted on its website.