Mercosur

• Thursday, April 20th 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  Kirchner calls for 90 days truce in pulp mills dispute

  Argentine president Nestor Kirchner once again called on the European companies, Finnish Botnia and Spanish Ence, building pulp mills in Uruguay to temporarily suspend construction.

• Thursday, April 20th 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  Cuba celebrates 45th anniversary of Bay of Pigs victory

  Forty-five years after the Cuban communist regime successfully defeated a Untied States supported invasion in the Bay of Pigs, Fidel Castro accused Washington of continued harassment and pledged he would never “beg” the US for peace.

• Wednesday, April 19th 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  Proposal to hike fines on Falklands licenced vessels

  Tierra del Fuego Senator Mario Daniele presented a bill proposing stronger sanctions on those foreign flagged fishing vessels caught in Argentina's EEZ operating with “illegitimate” licences extended by the Falkland Islands government.

• Wednesday, April 19th 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  British MEPs on Gibraltar fact finding visit

  Conservative Member of the European Parliament for the South West and Gibraltar Mr Neil Parish visited his constituents on the Rock last week and was briefed on the latest developments in Gibraltar.

• Wednesday, April 19th 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  The US Navy is “not going to intimidate us”

  Venezuelan Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel said Wednesday that the United States military exercises in the Caribbean “are not going to intimidate us”.

• Wednesday, April 19th 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  Mercosur is “not useful” for Uruguay's objectives

  Uruguayan president Tabare Vazquez said that Mercosur is “not useful” to his country's aspirations and proposed deep changes in the functioning of the South American block which also includes Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay.

• Tuesday, April 18th 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  Gold, oil up, yet rate fears weigh

  Gold hit a fresh 25-year high on Tuesday as oil neared a record, pushing shares of Asian commodity firms like BHP higher, but broader stock gains were checked by fears that high oil prices would hurt economic growth.

• Tuesday, April 18th 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  Common hake landings pegged at more than 75,000 tonnes

  Up to the first week of April, 75,218 tonnes of common hake (Merluccius hubbsi) were landed at Argentine maritime ports.

• Tuesday, April 18th 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  Venezuela took back 27,000 sq. km from oil companies

  Venezuela reclaimed more than 27,000 square kilometers in potential drilling acreage from private oil companies last month by requiring them to join new state-controlled joint ventures, a local daily reported yesterday.

• Tuesday, April 18th 2006 - 21:00 UTC

  Brazil's landless peasants recall massacre

  Brazil's Landless Movement, MST, marked this week the tenth anniversary of the deaths of a score of its members at police hands by occupying ranches, blocking roads and looting cargo trucks in protests that extended across the country.