Mercosur

• Monday, June 26th 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  Buenos Aires and Montevideo among cheapest cities

  Moscow has replaced Tokyo as the world's most expensive city, according to the latest Cost of Living Survey from Mercer Human Resource Consulting. Seoul is in second place, climbing three places since last year and Tokyo moves down two positions in the rankings to take third place, followed by Hong Kong.

• Sunday, June 25th 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  Argentina targets Falklands' “sovereignty umbrella”

  A “drastic change” in Argentina's policy towards the Falklands/Malvinas dispute including a dismantling of the “sovereignty umbrella” was openly admitted by President Nestor Kirchner's administration in reports published over the weekend in Buenos Aires main dailies and attributed to sources with access to the “president's office”.

• Saturday, June 24th 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  Kirchner's populist pals criticized

  A day after President Néstor Kirchner spoke up for the presidents of Bolivia and Venezuela in a joint press conference with the Spanish Primer Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Spanish press was not satisfied with the visiting head-of-state's words.

• Saturday, June 24th 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  Varig, and 28.000 Brazilians overseas grounded

  A bankruptcy judge annulled Friday the sale of Brazil flag carrier Varig airlines after a workers' group failed to make the first required payment. The decision threatens to leave thousands of Brazilians football fans stranded in Germany.

• Saturday, June 24th 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  Garcia/Chavez rift widens and ties could be severed

  Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called Peruvian elected president Alan Garcia a United States “lap puppy” and put in doubt the outcome of the recent elections in Peru.

• Saturday, June 24th 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  Morales accepts defeat and declares he's Catholic

  Bolivian president Evo Morales said Friday he was Catholic and admitted praying regularly to ask favours from God and therefore will not eliminate religion classes in Bolivian government schools.

• Saturday, June 24th 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  Lula confirms re-election bid and leads 3 to 1 in polls

  Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced Saturday in Brasilia his re-election bid for the coming general election next October 1.

• Friday, June 23rd 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  End of XXth century hottest in 400 years

  There is sufficient evidence from tree rings, boreholes, retreating glaciers, and other “proxies” of past surface temperatures to say with a high level of confidence that the last few decades of the 20th century were warmer than any comparable period in the last 400 years, according to a new report from the US National Research Council.

• Friday, June 23rd 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  South Korea eyeing UN Secretary General post

  The South Korean government formally requested Chile's support for the candidacy of Foreign Affairs minister Ban Ki-Moon to the post of Secretary General of United Nations, reported diplomatic sources in Santiago.

• Friday, June 23rd 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  Bolivia begins taking over oil companies' assets

  Petrobras Bolivian affiliate will cease to distribute fuel and refined products in Bolivia as of next July 1 in accordance with the May nationalisation decree from President Evo Morales government.