Mercosur

• Monday, July 24th 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, region's highest cost of living

  Chile, Brazil and Uruguay have the highest cost of living in Latinamerica according to a report from the Chilean Statistics Institute (INE) released in Santiago.

• Sunday, July 23rd 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  Castro, Chavez visit “Che's” home

  Seemingly unconcerned about an Argentine request to allow a Cuban doctor out of the island to visit her children in Argentina, Cuban leader Fidel Castro yesterday spent his third day in Cordoba province by taking Venezuelan ally Hugo Chavez on an emotional pilgrimage to the boyhood home of Ernesto “Che” Guevara.

• Sunday, July 23rd 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  Sexy Santiago: “Coffee with legs”

  North Americans take their coffee with milk or sugar. Europeans sometimes add chocolate, and the Irish have been known to add a healthy dose of whiskey to their morning or evening beverage. In Chile, however, coffee often comes with legs (café con piernas).

• Sunday, July 23rd 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  Family remembers Brazilian slain by London police

  Family and friends of a Brazilian man who was mistaken by London police officers for a terrorist and killed inside a subway station in this capital gathered Saturday at the site of the tragedy on the one-year anniversary of his death.

• Sunday, July 23rd 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  Aerolineas del Sur to Fly to Buenos Aires

  Chile's Aerolineas del Sur (AS) is opening nine new routes, including Buenos Aires, despite high oil prices and company internal rifts.

• Sunday, July 23rd 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  Israel begins ground offensive in Lebanon

  On the Israel-Lebanon border tanks, bulldozers and armoured personnel carriers knocked down a fence and barrelled over the border yesterday as some 2,000 Israeli forces stepped up a small-scale ground offensive into southern Lebanon to try to root out Hezbollah bunkers and destroy hidden rocket launchers.

• Saturday, July 22nd 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  Russia/Venezuela one billion US dollars arms deal

  Russia's Defence minister announced Friday a deal to sell Venezuela over a billion US dollars in jet fighters and military helicopters.

• Saturday, July 22nd 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  Mexico calls for unity and respect for the law

  The Mexican government called on Friday for national unity and respect for the law while a court rules on challenges to the announced results of the July 2 presidential election which populist candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador followers describe as an “organized fraud”.

• Saturday, July 22nd 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  Uruguay revealed in Cordoba pulp mills dispute with Argentina

  Uruguayan president Tabare Vazquez underlined during the Mercosur summit the “fraternal and long standing links” between Uruguay and Argentina and said it was “senseless” to have third parties solving bilateral disputes.

• Saturday, July 22nd 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  “The value of unity in diversity” is the challenge

  The XXXth. Mercosur presidential summit Friday in Cordoba signalled the official incorporation of Venezuela as the block's fifth full member and the “unity in diversity” concept which seems to underlie the South American customs union.