Mercosur

• Friday, October 8th 2004 - 21:00 UTC

  Argentina wins latest round in effort to restructure debt.

  Argentina won an important battle on Thursday in its attempts to restructure about $100bn (?81bn, £56bn) in defaulted debt after the country's private pension funds agreed to accept the government's forthcoming offer.

• Friday, October 8th 2004 - 21:00 UTC

  Kenyan Environmentalist Wins Peace Prize.

  Kenyan environmental activist Wangari Maathai won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for her work as leader of the Green Belt Movement, which has sought to empower women, improve the environment and fight corruption in Africa for almost 30 years.

• Thursday, October 7th 2004 - 21:00 UTC

  “Historic” agreement for reforming Chilean constitution.

  Fourteen years after recovering democracy Chile managed a political agreement that will open the way to reforming some of the harshest and most controversial aspects of the 1980 Constitution inherited from the military regime of General Pinochet.

• Thursday, October 7th 2004 - 21:00 UTC

  Military pockets and secrets to be exposed.

  A group of Chilean Deputies from different political parties have requested President Ricardo Lagos to sponsor a bill repealing the highly secretive Reserved Copper Bill which deals with military financing and procurement.

• Wednesday, October 6th 2004 - 21:00 UTC

  Soybeans flatten, and cattle is back in Argentina.

  The considerable profit margin of planting soybeans over growing livestock in Argentina has begun to dramatically revert, according to a report from the Meats Trade and Industry Chamber of Argentina, Ciccra.

• Wednesday, October 6th 2004 - 21:00 UTC

  Argentine: Fisheries News.

  Headlines:
  Argentine ban on Patagonian toothfish catch; Sub-Patagonian squid stock data to be released in 30 days; USD 565 million of fish and shellfish in exports registered up to August.

• Wednesday, October 6th 2004 - 21:00 UTC

  Pension increase for Malvinas veterans.

  The Argentine government decided this week to increase Malvinas war veterans' pension from the equivalent of 133 to 309 US dollars.

• Tuesday, October 5th 2004 - 21:00 UTC

  Costa Rica demands OAS Secretary General resignation.

  Costa Rican President Abel Pacheco called Monday for the resignation of Organization of American States Secretary General Miguel Angel Rodriguez following strong allegations he was involved in corrupt practices in his homeland.

• Tuesday, October 5th 2004 - 21:00 UTC

  Peron's plans to dominate South America.

  A retired Brazilian diplomat who during the forties was a spy in Argentina claims that former Argentine president Juan Domingo Peron was planning to annex several neighbouring countries if the Nazis had won the Second World War, reports the Brazilian magazine “Veja” in its latest edition.

• Tuesday, October 5th 2004 - 21:00 UTC

  Bielsa: “a blessing Argentina is not a US priority”

  Argentine Foreign Affairs Secretary Rafael Bielsa candidly admitted that Argentina does not figure among United States priorities, which he described as “a blessing”, because when the country had Washington's attention in the nineties the administrations “overacted that priority” to the extreme of ending in the December 2001 crisis.