
Paraguay meat industry exports in the first seven months of the year reached 839 million dollars, which is 45% higher than the same period a year ago (577m) according to official data from the National Livestock quality and health services, Senacsa.

Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff officially confirmed her attendance to the inauguration ceremony of Paraguayan president-elect Horacio Cartes next 15 August, according to the Transmission Committee that is coordinating the event

Paraguay and Mexico have made significant advances in reaching a trade agreement in the framework of the Latinamerican Integration Association, ALADI, according to Paraguayan diplomatic sources.

Influential Latin American newspapers have been extremely critical of Brazilian diplomacy in its unsuccessful attempts to ‘subdue Paraguay’, while at the same praising the landlocked country’s dignity in demanding from Mercosur respect and compliance with the rule of the law.

Paraguay’s incoming government foreign policy advisor Eladio Loizaga downplayed Mercosur veiled warning calling for a quick return of the country to the block because ‘Paraguay is landlocked and needs the Parana River and the River Plate to reach the sea’.

Paraguayan president Federico Franco replied to his Uruguayan peer Jose Mujica ironic remarks saying that ‘evidently he’s good at geography; I guess he passed with the highest grades’ since he is aware that Paraguay is a landlocked ‘Mediterranean’ country.

Uruguayan president Jose Mujica was ironic about the conditions Paraguayan president elect Horacio Cartes demanded for his country’s return to Mercosur, but also in a veiled message called for ‘intelligence and pragmatism’ recalling that Paraguay is a landlocked country.

Paraguayan president-elect Horacio Cartes declined a personal invitation from his peer Dilma Rousseff to attend Francis mass on Sunday in Rio do Janeiro, the closing event of the pope’s visit to Brazil, according to one of his top foreign policy advisors.

Jose Miguel Insulza, Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS) received on Wednesday the National Order Award of Merit, ‘Don Jose Falcon’ from the government of Paraguay.

The Organization of American States Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza said on Wednesday that Paraguay should return to Mercosur because “it’s not good to have exclusions in South America”, but insisted that the solution to the problem is in the hands of the ‘protagonists’ and not in president elect Horacio Cartes.