Mercosur

• Friday, September 24th 2004 - 21:00 UTC

  Tasty Chilean sea bass may be an illegal catch.

  Chilean sea bass is moist, flaky and buttery -- and if you buy it at the store or in a restaurant, there's a good chance it was illegally caught, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Environmental Trust.

• Friday, September 24th 2004 - 21:00 UTC

  Repsol YPF-Shell reach deal for natural gas project in Iran.

  Royal Dutch/Shell said Thursday it reached an agreement with Spanish oil giant Repsol YPF to exploit natural gas reserves in Iran, although the start of the joint project is at least two years away.

• Friday, September 24th 2004 - 21:00 UTC

  Aridity eating away at Argentina.

  Though Argentina is known for its fertile “pampa humeda” - a vast, moist, topsoil-rich plain - a new official survey says three-quarters of the breadbasket and beefy nation is arid and that large chunks are “desertified” each year.

• Friday, September 24th 2004 - 21:00 UTC

  New OAS chief champions democracy.

  At his installation ceremony here Thursday, the new OAS chief, former Costa Rican President Miguel Angel Rodriguez, championed a hemisphere “united in support of shared growth” to free the Americas from the bonds of poverty.

• Thursday, September 23rd 2004 - 21:00 UTC

  Bielsa: Argentina may chair Security Council

  Argentine Foreign Minister Rafael Bielsa yesterday said that as from next year Argentina may chair the United Nations' 15-member Security Council, the agency in charge of preventing armed conflicts worldwide.

• Thursday, September 23rd 2004 - 21:00 UTC

  ”This is the only offer we'll make'

  President Néstor Kirchner, speaking before the Council of the Americas in New York, yesterday bluntly reaffirmed that his government is only ready to repay 25 percent of the roughly 90 billion dollars Argentina defaulted on nearly three years ago amid its deepest economic crisis in history.

• Thursday, September 23rd 2004 - 21:00 UTC

  Dialogue on flights could be reopened.

  Argentina could restart negotiations with the United Kingdom to establish scheduled commercial flights between the continent and the Falklands/Malvinas Islands, an objective that appears and disappears with regularity from the bilateral agenda.

• Wednesday, September 22nd 2004 - 21:00 UTC

  UN: Kirchner criticized the IMF and sent a clear message to Great Britain.

  The President said during his speech that “a redesign of the international credit organization is needed”, affirmed his position against terrorism and urged the United Kingdom to restart negotiations for the Falklands-Malvinas.

• Wednesday, September 22nd 2004 - 21:00 UTC

  Death Toll Passes 800 in Haiti Flooding.

  U.N. peacekeepers fired into the air to keep a hungry crowd at bay Wednesday as aid workers handed out the first food in days for some in this city devastated by floods from Tropical Storm Jeanne. Meteorologists said the storm could strike the United States by this weekend.

• Wednesday, September 22nd 2004 - 21:00 UTC

  Fishermen attack striking rangers at Galapagos nature preserve.

  Scores of fishermen on Wednesday stormed Galapagos National Park and attacked striking park rangers who were preventing the newly appointed park chief from assuming his post, one of the rangers told to the press.