Mercosur

• Friday, January 16th 2004 - 20:00 UTC

  Meeting of Rive Plate battle veterans.

  A former Royal Navy Lieutenant and a former Von Graff Spee German petty officer paid tribute in a simple but moving ceremony in Montevideo to comrades killed in the River Plate sixty one years ago, during the first major naval battle at the beginning of the Second World War.

• Thursday, January 15th 2004 - 20:00 UTC

  Mad cow ravages US beef exports.

  Almost 37,000 tons of frozen beef are loaded in trucks or stored in port terminals ready to be shipped to countries that have banned meat imports following the report last month of the first case of “mad cow” (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) in the United States.

• Thursday, January 15th 2004 - 20:00 UTC

  Radioactive cargo scheduled to cross Cape Horn.

  A Chilean Congressman following on reports from Greenpeace warned this week about the transportation of radioactive materials belonging to a dismantled California nuclear reactor, along the Chilean and Argentine coasts.

• Thursday, January 15th 2004 - 20:00 UTC

  Good summer season in Bariloche

  Visitors to Bariloche and the surrounding lake area in Argentine Patagonia have almost doubled compared to last season and the occupancy rate has expanded 20% during the first fifteen days of 2004, according to the local Tourist Office.

• Wednesday, January 14th 2004 - 20:00 UTC

  A positive summit for President Bush

  A watered down Nuevo Leon Declaration concluded the two days Americas summit held in Mexico with the participation of the leaders of the entire continent, (minus Cuba), and particularly the presence of US president George Bush in the campaign trail of a re-election year.

• Tuesday, January 13th 2004 - 20:00 UTC

  Lula set to return favours and reshuffle cabinet.

  Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's plan to build a Congressional majority and electoral alliance for the coming municipal polls with one of the parties he once bitterly battled received crucial support this Monday.

• Tuesday, January 13th 2004 - 20:00 UTC

  Argentine bondholders of the world, unite.

  The main world representatives of Argentine defaulted sovereign bond holders founded this week in Rome an international committee with the target of recovering their investments.

• Tuesday, January 13th 2004 - 20:00 UTC

  Half a million Latinamericans in Spain.

  More than half a million Latin Americans are legal residents of Spain, the largest group of documented immigrants in the country.

• Tuesday, January 13th 2004 - 20:00 UTC

  Free-trade declaration for Americas delayed.

  Disagreements over free trade on Tuesday held up agreement over a joint declaration by heads of state attending an extraordinary Summit of the Americas.

• Monday, January 12th 2004 - 20:00 UTC

  Tourism boom in Buenos Aires and Patagonia.

  Argentina's tourism industry is booming with a record 1,2 million foreign visitors in 2003 mostly from Brazil, Chile, United States and Spain.