Latin America

• Wednesday, December 21st 2011 - 05:58 UTC

  “Malvinas is a global cause” because it involves the grabbing of natural resources

  

  “Malvinas is not an Argentine cause, it’s a global cause because they are taking our fisheries and oil resources” said Argentine president Cristina Fernandez on taking the Mercosur rotating chair for the next six months.

• Wednesday, December 21st 2011 - 05:53 UTC

  Mercosur supports Argentina: bans access to all Falklands/Malvinas flagged vessels

  

  Mercosur member countries (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay) finally agreed Tuesday to close its ports to ships flying the flag of the disputed Falkland/Malvinas Islands, announced Uruguay's president at the closing of the group’s two-day summit in Montevideo.

• Wednesday, December 21st 2011 - 05:49 UTC

  Chavez claims five Paraguayan lawmakers are impeding Venezuelan access to Mercosur

  

  President Hugo Chavez claimed that a small group of Paraguayan lawmakers, manipulated by a “powerful black hand”, are impeding the long-delayed access of Venezuela as full member of Mercosur.

• Wednesday, December 21st 2011 - 05:39 UTC

  Lugo complains restrictions on market access and in energy integration

  

  Paraguayan president Fernando Lugo called for the free flow and free access of his country’s goods to Mercosur senior members’ markets and insisted on the energy integration of the block.

• Wednesday, December 21st 2011 - 05:29 UTC

  Ecuador wants closer ties between Mercosur and the Andean-Pacific countries

  

  Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa said he was satisfied with having presented an official request for his country to join Mercosur and also called for closer links between Mercosur and the Andean Nations Community, CAN.

• Wednesday, December 21st 2011 - 02:33 UTC

  Forty years ago the Catholic Liberation Theology was born in Latinamerica

  

  Four decades ago a book written by a Peruvian priest sent shockwaves inside the Latinamerican Catholic Church having set the foundations for what was known as the Liberation Theology.

• Wednesday, December 21st 2011 - 02:28 UTC

  Regional inter-trade expands 25% and is expected to reach record 160bn dollars

  

  Trade among ALADI, Latin American Integration Association, which includes all the hemisphere countries with the exception of a few from Central America and the Caribbean, is expected to reach a historic record in 2011 close to 160 billion dollars, ahead of the 2008 record with 146 billion dollars.

• Wednesday, December 21st 2011 - 02:22 UTC

  Chilean student leader Camila Vallejo, person of the year for The Guardian

  

  Chile’s 23-year-old student leader Camila Vallejo, has been chosen as the person of the year in a poll of readers of British newspaper, The Guardian. Vallejo, the international face of 2011’s student protests in Chile, topped the poll with an overwhelming 78% of votes.

• Tuesday, December 20th 2011 - 21:48 UTC

  Venezuela’s full incorporation doesn’t have to be decided today, said Chavez

  

  Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez arrived in Uruguay on Friday to push for his country's incorporation into the Mercosur trade bloc, in his first official trip abroad since undergoing cancer surgery in June.

• Tuesday, December 20th 2011 - 21:02 UTC

  Uruguay bars vessels but will never share a maritime or economic blockade of the Falklands’ people

  

  Uruguayan President Jose Mujica addressing his peers at the Mercosur summit in Montevideo ratified the country’s position barring Falklands’ flagged vessels from Uruguayan ports in active support of Argentina’s sovereignty claim over South Atlantic Islands, which has led to a serious diplomatic controversy with the UK.