Mercosur

• Friday, December 10th 2004 - 20:00 UTC

  English, undisputed business language

  Half of the world population in 2015, an estimated three billion people will speak English according to a report from the “British Council”, which promotes British culture and language.

• Friday, December 10th 2004 - 20:00 UTC

  Repsol-YPF surveying Malvinas Basin.

  Repsol-YPF CEO Antonio Brufau revealed Thursday in Buenos Aires that the company is involved in seismic surveying in the Malvinas Basin, “a geological high risk operation”, but if successful will mean the incorporation of a new oil province for Argentina.

• Friday, December 10th 2004 - 20:00 UTC

  Argentina: Mutton exports top entire 2003

  Fresh mutton exports between January and October 2004, totaled 5,642 tons for a value of 14.4 billion dollars, exceeding shipments for all of 2003, when 4,737 tons were shipped for a total value of 9.1 billion dollars.

• Thursday, December 9th 2004 - 20:00 UTC

  South American Community promises integration and austerity

  A dozen of South American countries constituted Wednesday in the Peruvian Andes the South American Community of Nations in the framework of the III regional presidential summit.

• Wednesday, December 8th 2004 - 20:00 UTC

  Mexican candidate for OAS Secretary General

  Salvadoran President Antonio Saca said in Miami that Central America will unite behind one candidate for the Organization of American States, OAS, Secretary General post but refused to comment the candidacy of Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez.

• Wednesday, December 8th 2004 - 20:00 UTC

  Brazilian government promises to declassify military documents

  The Brazilian government said this week it would comply with a court ruling to open military archives on a guerrilla group which operated in the Amazon's Araguaia region and was annihilated by the then-dictatorship in the early 1970s.

• Wednesday, December 8th 2004 - 20:00 UTC

  US-Colombia controversy with “Chess Master”

  Colombia and the United States government have been forced into a controversy regarding the conditions on which a notorious Colombian drug lord was extradited to Miami to face trial.

• Wednesday, December 8th 2004 - 20:00 UTC

  Chavez signs controversial press law

  Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez signed Wednesday the controversial “Radio and Television Social Responsibility Act” which he described as a “libertarian” landmark and the opposition condemned it as “gag rule.”

• Wednesday, December 8th 2004 - 20:00 UTC

  Pascal Lamy, EU candidate for head of WTO

  The European Commission decided Tuesday to formalize the candidacy of former EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy as the future head of the World Trade Organization, WTO.

• Wednesday, December 8th 2004 - 20:00 UTC

  EU/Mercosur contacts “have been re-established”

  European Union-Mercosur trade talks will continue stagnant until next March when a ministerial meeting is scheduled. Negotiators from both sides were unable last week to agree on a calendar of talks and will be meeting again at the beginning of 2005 to arrange the ministerial summit.