
Rockhopper Exploration which has a joint venture agreement with Premier Oil offshore the Falkland Islands, described the oil exploration campaign now terminated as a 'huge success' and underlines the postponement of the Chatham well drilling will have no impact on the Field Development Plan for the Sea Lion oil discovery development.

The Falkland Islands government and Premier Oil have announced on Friday the ocean rig 'Eirik Raude' contract termination, which in practical terms puts an end to the current exploratory campaign and the scheduled drilling of the Chatham well. Nevertheless both sides underlined the success of the now terminated campaign with the oil discoveries at the Zebedee and Isobel Deep prospects in the North Falkland basin and look forward to continue working in the near future.

Bad news for Mercosur aspirations. Low standards at schools in most of South America are a common problem according to the latest report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD, which has the region's students among the last fifteen in a list of 64 countries.

While investors cheered progress on last week's arduous negotiations in New York between Argentine government officials and litigant investors, the administration of president Mauricio Macri still faces an uphill battle as it works to bring other holdouts on board.

The United Kingdom will not change current policy on the Falkland/Malvinas Islands, according to the UK Ambassador to Spain Simon J. Manley, confirming London's stance on the Islands sovereignty.

By the Honourable Mike Summers, OBE (*) - Over the weekend of the 6th and 7th February, the press in Argentina reported that the Government of Argentina (GoA) was going to change its approach to its treatment of the Falkland Islands, its relationship with the United Kingdom and how it intends to “resolve the Falklands question”

Daniel A. Pollack, Special Master presiding over settlement negotiations between the Republic of Argentina and its “holdout” Bondholders issued the following statement today (Friday, Jan 5):

Argentina offered a $6.5 billion cash payment to creditors suing the country over defaulted bonds on Friday, seeking to end an exhausting 14-year legal battle, the sovereign debt trial of the century, that transformed the country into a financial markets pariah. Two out of six leading bondholders have already accepted the offer, the U.S. court-appointed mediator said, hailing the proposal by Argentina's new, business-friendly government as an historic breakthrough.

The Falklands' population composition can be described as 'constrictive' since there is a tendency to ageing in the population pyramid, in other words there are more elderly people than children. Comments belong to a member of an Argentine team of geography and migration experts from a university in Santa Fe province (Universidad Nacional del Litoral, UNL), who have been granted scholarships to collect such data from the Islands, based on a project the team presented.

Brazil's inflation rate rose to a 12-year high, officials said on Friday, as Latin America's largest economy continues to struggle through a protracted recession. Driven by rising food prices, the annual inflation rate hit 10.71%, the highest since November 2003 and well beyond the central bank's target ceiling of 6.5%, said national statistics institute IBGE.