Former Paraguayan President and current Senator Fernando Lugo returned to Asunción Friday on a private flight after eight months of medical treatment in Buenos Aires for a brain stroke. Little over a month before the April 30 elections, opposition politicians still wonder whom the former Catholic bishop will favor: former Foreign Minister Euclides Acevedo (New Republic) or Efraín Alegre (National Concertation)
The US State Department has added three Paraguayan nationals to its list of significantly corrupt officials just one day after signing a new arrangement with the South American country whereby military engineers would assist in future waterway developments.
A new team of prosecutors created this week by Attorney General Emiliano Rolón will investigate former Paraguayan President Horacio Cartes for alleged false statements in the Pandora Papers inquiry and for his involvement in the operations of the Venezuelan-Iranian Boeing 747-300 freighter and its 18 crew members.
As of Monday last week, Argentina's General Administration of Ports (AGP) started issuing invoices for navigation settlements of the previous months. In other words, a fee began to be collected for the passage of Paraguayan cargo through the Santa Fe-Confluencia section.
Brazil's Federal Police Monday freed 19 Paraguayan nationals who were working at a Rio de Janeiro clandestine cigarette factory in slave-like conditions, Agencia Brasil reported. The workers arrived in Brazil blindfolded and did not even know they were in the municipality of Duque de Caxias, in Baixada Fluminense.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva Thursday told his Paraguayan colleague Mario Abdo Benítez about his intentions to reorganize Unasur and reinforce Mercosur's unity. Lula and Abdo met at the Itaipu hydroelectric power plant in Foz do Iguazú.
Paraguayan authorities insisted this week before the US Embassy that there were no sanitary impediments for the northern country to welcome beef shipments from the South American nation, only red tape was hindering progress in that regard.
Paraguay's leftwing Concertación's presidential hopeful Efraín Alegre stressed this weekend that a person who is not willing to submit to a debate before the public opinion cannot aspire to be President. He made those remarks after candidate Santiago Peña of the ANR refused to discuss with him how he planned to rule the country if elected on April 30.
Presidents Alberto Fernández of Argentina and Mario Abdo Benítez of Paraguay met Friday at the former's Olivos residence to discuss a broad bilateral and regional agenda, including the current situation of Mercosur and the challenges facing the bloc under Buenos Aires' pro-tempore presidency.
Paraguayan health authorities Friday confirmed 43 people had died nationwide of chikungunya, while the total number of cases rose to 11,467 over the past three weeks. Eight of the victims were children under one year of age, while 35 others were adults aged over 30, according to the latest epidemiological report released by the General Directorate of Health Surveillance. The mortality rate is 0.6 per 100,000 inhabitants and the case fatality rate is 0.1 %, the document read.