Chilean authorities have fined the world's largest gold mining company, Barrick Gold Corp, more than 16 million dollars for environmental offences. Construction at the Pascua-Lama mine, on the border with Argentina, has been suspended until a system to contain contaminated water is put in place.
“The Malvinas Islands are not only Argentine, they are Latinamerica”, said Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa who claimed it was time to put an end to the ‘colonial situation’ of the disputed Islands in the South Atlantic and blasted the Organization of American States, OAS for dragging its feet on this and other crucial issues for the continent.
Colombia and the Marxist-led FARC rebels have reached agreement on the critical issue of agrarian reform, the two sides said in what appeared to be a major step forward for the peace process aimed at ending their long war.
Mercosur must negotiate any possible incorporation to the Alliance of the Pacific “as a block” since it is important that its member countries remain ‘united’ and respect the current charter, said the Mercosur High Representative, Ambassador Ivan Ramalho from Brazil.
The Argentine ambassador to Uruguay, Dante Dovena, assured that authorities are “working intensely” in preparations for the next Mercosur summit scheduled to take place on June 28th in Montevideo. However news form Paraguay doesn’t indicate the same optimism and are demanding respect for ‘the country’s dignity and rule of the law”.
Falkland Islands elected lawmaker Mike Summers will attend next week the Caribbean Regional Seminar of the Special Committee on Decolonization which is to be held in Quito, Ecuador in anticipation of the main C24 annual meeting in New York.
Former Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo was extradited on Friday to the United States to face money laundering charges, the US embassy in Guatemala said. A US grand jury decided in 2009 that Portillo, who was in office from 2000 to 2004, should face charges that he laundered 70 million dollars through US banks.
Brazil's jobless rate rose slightly in April for the fourth straight month but remained near record lows, suggesting that tight labour conditions bolstered a gradual recovery and fed into inflation, statistics agency IBGE said this week.
The Alliance of the Pacific announced this week that Paraguay had been accepted as an observer of the regional group. Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos chair and host of the alliance summit in Cali made it official during the reading of the final declaration.
The Alliance of the Pacific bloc that includes Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Chile on Thursday agreed to eliminate tariffs on most goods to promote free trade between the countries and increase exports to Asia.