Mercosur

• Tuesday, June 25th 2002 - 21:00 UTC

  Trade dispute with neighbors

  Chile formally requested last week the intervention of the World Trade Organization, WTO, regarding “discriminatory” taxing by Uruguay and Peru, against imported goods.

• Tuesday, June 25th 2002 - 21:00 UTC

  Grass root politics for Alfonsín

  Former Argentine president Raúl Alfonsín is expected to resign his Senate bench and commit himself fully to “grass root politics”, according to his closest aides.

• Tuesday, June 25th 2002 - 21:00 UTC

  Menem leads among Peronists

  Former Argentine president Carlos Menem who ambitions a third mandate leads among Peronist hopefuls according to a poll published this week in the Buenos Aires press.

• Tuesday, June 25th 2002 - 21:00 UTC

  King Juan Carlos invited to Antarctica

  Chile has extended an official invitation to Spain's King Juan Carlos to tour Chilean Antarctic stations and visit the different scientific research programs.

• Monday, June 24th 2002 - 21:00 UTC

  The “Lula factor”

  In an attempt to avert the “black” Friday of last week, and his presidential chances, Brazil's Socialist candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva promised to honor foreign debt and continue with the current stabilization program if he wins October's presidential election.

• Monday, June 24th 2002 - 21:00 UTC

  “Strangled Argentina”

  Argentina will seek this week in Washington the green light from the International Monetary Fund, IMF, for the rescheduling of its foreign debt maturing in the coming 18 months.

• Friday, June 21st 2002 - 21:00 UTC

  Uruguay prepares for the worse

  Two days after the International Monetary Fund, IMF, approved a massive support package, Uruguay announced the free flotation of its currency.
  
  Uruguay, locked between its two powerful Mercosur partners, Argentina and Brazil, has been suffering the direct consequences of the regional financial instability, particularly when Argentines fearing a contagion flocked to withdraw deposits from Uruguayan banks.

• Thursday, June 20th 2002 - 21:00 UTC

  Mercosur openly supports Argentina's sovereignty claim over the Falklands in United Nations

  The Special Committee on Decolonization of the United Nations adopted a draft resolution, presented by Chile, calling on Britain and Argentina to resume negotiations to find a peaceful resolution to the sovereignty dispute over the Falkland Islands/Malvinas. The resolution presented Wednesday morning in New York was sponsored by Chile, Bolivia, Cuba and Venezuela, and specifically supported by Mercosur.

• Thursday, June 20th 2002 - 21:00 UTC

  People's power

  A delegation of Peruvian cabinet ministers and local elected officials from the city of Arequipa reached an agreement suspending the controversial privatization of public utilities that triggered a week of violent protests in the south of Peru.

• Wednesday, June 19th 2002 - 21:00 UTC

  G 7 Optimistic

  Finance Ministers of the seven most industrialized countries, meeting in Halifax Canada, expressed confidence in the world's economic prospects, that they describer as “encouraging”.
  
  The economies of the G 7, United States, Canada, Germany, Britain, Italy, France and Japan “have not ceased to strengthen and should continue to do so for the rest of the year”, said the official release after the meeting was over.