Latin America

• Thursday, September 19th 2013 - 07:36 UTC

  HMS Lancaster visits Colombia to participate in the multinational exercise Unitas

  

  The Royal Navy warship HMS Lancaster has visited Colombia to strengthen relationships with the country. The vessel called at the port of Cartagena ahead of Exercise Unitas, a multinational exercise being played out in the region headed by the US Navy.

• Thursday, September 19th 2013 - 07:18 UTC

  “One child-one laptop” program in Uruguay has failed to improve results in maths and reading

  

  The Uruguayan pioneering program “one child-one laptop” did not improve their performance in basic subjects such as maths and reading, according to a report from the country’s Institute of Economy and financed by the same education authorities. The report also points out to the lack of content in the laptops and the poor training of teachers.

• Wednesday, September 18th 2013 - 21:33 UTC

  Malvinas: Uruguay also considers it has historic sovereignty rights over the Islands

  

  Uruguay has founded claims over Malvinas Islands sovereignty based on international treaties and proclamations dating back to the nineteenth and eighteenth centuries, according to a paper put to consideration of the ruling coalition program draft committee, it was revealed by the Montevideo press.

• Wednesday, September 18th 2013 - 20:55 UTC

  FARC reiterate call for a Colombia truth commission at Havana peace talks

  

  Colombia’s Marxist rebel organization, FARC reiterated on Wednesday its call to the Colombian government to establish a truth commission to deal with the history of the internal conflict in the country that goes back to 1964.

• Wednesday, September 18th 2013 - 20:30 UTC

  Paraguay businesses react to Cartes words: ‘first find the scoundrels and only then the claims’

  

  Paraguay’s Industrial Union, UIP, reacted strongly to President Horacio Cartes claims that the private sector was responsible for much that is wrong in government, and suggested an ‘intelligence work’ in the civil service to catch the ‘scoundrels and corrupt’.

• Wednesday, September 18th 2013 - 19:43 UTC

  Argentina’s YPF main partner, Chevron, blasted by Correa who is expected in Buenos Aires

  

  A couple of days before Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa is set to arrive in Argentina he sank his right hand into the bushes of the Ecuadorean Amazon and then showed it to the dozens of journalists summoned for the demonstration: it was covered in oil.

• Wednesday, September 18th 2013 - 07:05 UTC

  Cristina Fernandez on the trail campaign ahead of the October mid-term election

  

  Argentine President Cristina Fernández was again on the campaign trail on Tuesday participating in several inaugurations and political rallies at the province of Buenos Aires in support of her candidate running for Congress in October’s mid term ballot, Martin Insurralde.

• Wednesday, September 18th 2013 - 07:00 UTC

  Uruguay expects a floor of 230 cruise calls this coming 2013/14 cruise season

  

  Uruguay is expecting over 230 cruise calls this coming 2013/14 season and is in the process to install a network of cameras for crime control in downtown Montevideo, announced the Ministry of Tourism director Benjamin Liberoff.

• Wednesday, September 18th 2013 - 06:39 UTC

  Venezuela breaks three Mercosur human rights on human rights on abandoning IACHR

  

  By Juan Francisco Alonso - El Universal - Venezuela is not only a full member of the bloc since July 2012, but it also holds the pro-tempore presidency. The entry into force of Venezuela's denunciation of the American Convention on Human Rights, which implies its withdrawal from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR Court), breaches at least three regulations of Mercosur regional trade bloc.

• Wednesday, September 18th 2013 - 01:55 UTC

  Paraguay expects to return to Mercosur in 2014; Chile offers closer links and access to the Pacific

  

  President Horacio Cartes said that during 2014 links between Paraguay and Mercosur will be fully re-established and by then all the skirmishes motivated by the access of Venezuela as full member of the group, “will be overcome”. However Cartes also mentioned that Paraguay, with support from Chile has a strategic access to the Pacific basin.