
Due to the Paraná river drought, which affected Argentina’s soy oil-exporting capacity, Cattalini Terminais Marítimos, which handles almost 70% of Brazil’s soy oil exports through its facilities in the port of Paranaguá, predicts a 25% increase in shipments this year.

The emergence of the so-called Frugal Five led by Austria and Netherlands, has blocked so far the European Union recovery plan, with a massive injection of funds, and forebodes hard times to finally reach the implementation of an EU trade agreement with Mercosur.

The southern state of Santa Catarina, which borders with the Argentine province of Misiones decreed on Saturday strict confinement measures following a record death toll from the coronavirus pandemic.

Mercosur associate, Suriname elected a new president Monday, ending the dictatorial rule of Desi Bouterse. Chan Santokhi, an Indian-origin former police chief, won a landslide victory in the general elections conducted in the country in May.

European Ombudsman Emily O'Reilly has opened an inquiry into why the European Commission did not finalize an updated Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA) before the conclusion of the Mercosur-EU trade agreement in June 2019.

Mercosur full-member presidents and their associate peers backed Argentina's sovereignty claim over the Falklands/Malvinas Islands in the framework of the 56th Heads of State summit, which took place in Paraguay through a video conference when the pro tempore chair was delivered by Brazil to Uruguay for the second half of 2020.

French president, Emmanuel Macron, declared his opposition to the free trade agreement between the European Union (EU) and Mercosur. In addition, 265 civil society organizations were also mobilized against the agreement. The decision follows the defeat of Macron in the municipal elections and the strong advance of the Greens.

Argentina and Brazil are monitoring the movement of a 15-square-kilometer locust swarm in Argentina’s northeast, though authorities and specialists said so far it had not caused significant damage to crops in the South American countries.

A few months ago, Foreign Minister Ernesto Talvi, at his rallies as a candidate for the presidency of Uruguay, did not hesitate to describe the Venezuelan government as a dictatorship. However, in an interview this Saturday he affirmed that he “won't say in this role” that the regime of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is a dictatorship.

Argentina's industrial output crashed 33.5% in April from the same month last year, the government's statistics agency said on Thursday, as the national lockdown to fight the coronavirus pandemic bludgeoned Latin America's No. 3 economy.