Mercosur

• Tuesday, June 20th 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  Judge approves sale of Varig to employees

  A Brazilian bankruptcy judge approved on Monday an offer by an employee-led group to buy Varig, Brazil's flag air carrier after getting guarantees the buyers have enough money to finance the transaction.

• Tuesday, June 20th 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  LAN Argentina non-stop flight to USA

  LAN Argentina announced that it will begin operating the Miami-Buenos Aires route on August 15, 2006, with a non-stop flight that departs from Ezeiza airport in Buenos Aires at 10:15 p.m. and arrives at Miami International Airport at 6:05 a.m. the following morning.

• Tuesday, June 20th 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  Argentine fishing company pleads guilty

  Estremar SA, an Argentine company formerly known as ASC South America SA, last week pleaded guilty to violating federal anti-fish and wildlife trafficking law by importing and attempting to sell Patagonian toothfish, often marketed by the trade name Chilean seabass, without the documentation required to show it was legally harvested.

• Tuesday, June 20th 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  Kirchner of business trip to Spain

  Argentine president Nestor Kirchner begins Wednesday an official visit to Spain expected to the dominated by business discussions.

• Tuesday, June 20th 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  EU admits “slight room” for concessions in trade talks

  The European Union's Agriculture Commissioner said the EU still had ??slight room'' to offer more concessions in key world trade talks if others, notably the United States, were also ready to compromise more to open up agricultural markets.

• Tuesday, June 20th 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  Number of millionaires jumped to 8.7 million in 2005

  The number of millionaires around the world rose to 8.7 million over the past year, fueled by a sharp increase in emerging markets such as South Korea, India and Russia, showed a survey released this week.

• Tuesday, June 20th 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  New York the politest city; London half courteous

  Brazil's Sao Paulo the second most populated city in Latinamerica, figures as the most polite megapolis in the region according to a good manners survey which rated New York in first place.

• Tuesday, June 20th 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  Optimism returns for Mercosur presidential summit

  What was forecasted to be a diplomatic flop only a month ago has turned dramatically in the last week and now promises to be a huge success: next month's Mercosur presidential summit in Cordoba, Argentina.

• Monday, June 19th 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  Uruguay: Botnia speeds up work

  The Finnish firm Botnia is planning to hire some 2,000 new workers in the coming weeks, as it speeds the construction of a mammoth paper pulp plant in the Uruguayan town of Fray Bentos, a news report in Montevideo said yesterday.

• Sunday, June 18th 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  Peruvian elected president invited to Chile this week

  Peruvian elected president Alan Garcia will be visiting Chile next Thursday specially invited by his counterpart Michelle Bachelet.