Mercosur

• Monday, October 6th 2003 - 21:00 UTC

  Cuba the next objective

  President George Bush is committed to the disappearance of the current regime in Cuba and will maintain the economic embargo as a “tool” to ensure this objective.

• Monday, October 6th 2003 - 21:00 UTC

  Divorce in spite of the Catholic Church

  Chile, one of the most conservative Latinamerican societies and the only Western country that contemplates no legal marriage dissolution is involved in a fierce dispute over the approval of the first ever divorce law. But supporters of the bill fear that so many amendments have been added that it could make the procedure non effective.

• Monday, October 6th 2003 - 21:00 UTC

  Public Utility rates increases “not imminent”.

  Argentina's Congress has handed the government sweeping powers to increase privatised utility companies rates and thereby meeting a central demand of the International Monetary Fund.

• Monday, October 6th 2003 - 21:00 UTC

  UNCTAD criticizes free trade policies

  Latin American governments should restructure debt burdens and play a more active role in economic development, the UN Conference on Trade and Development has urged. In its latest annual trade and development report, Unctad sharply criticised the market-friendly and trade-oriented policies adopted during the 1990s and said they had contributed to a “premature de-industrialisation” in the region.

• Sunday, October 5th 2003 - 21:00 UTC

  Mercosur extraordinary meeting in Montevideo

  Mercosur full member countries Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Economy will be meeting as of this Monday in Montevideo, Uruguay to consider free trade market negotiations with the Community of Andean Nations, CAN.

• Sunday, October 5th 2003 - 21:00 UTC

  Uruguay's toothfish quota at risk

  Although all eyes will be set in the trial and “exemplary measures” Australia has promised for the Uruguayan flagged longliner and alleged poacher of Patagonian toothfish, “Viarsa 1”, actually the future of Uruguay's toothfish industry will be decided in mid month in Tasmania.

• Sunday, October 5th 2003 - 21:00 UTC

  Clash with the Bush administration.
  Chilean inflation in nine months

  Brazilian Minister of Foreign Affairs Celso Amorim accused United States of “threats” and insisting with a “very destructive” pressure to push forward negotiations for a Free Trade Association of the Americas.

• Saturday, October 4th 2003 - 21:00 UTC

  Chileans Mark End of Pinochet Rule

  Chileans are celebrating the referendum that marked the beginning of the end of the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet 15 years ago.

• Thursday, October 2nd 2003 - 21:00 UTC

  More British Airways flights to Argentina.

  British Airways beginning next January 2004 will increase the number of weekly Buenos Aires-London flights from three to four.

• Thursday, October 2nd 2003 - 21:00 UTC

  Flat economy and record exports in Brazil.

  Brazil economic growth forecast for 2003 has been cut by more than half from 1,5% to 0,6%, according to the latest quarterly report from the Central Bank.