Politics

• Monday, August 15th 2016 - 12:21 UTC

  Mercosur Montevideo 23 August meeting to decide sanctions on Venezuela

  

  The coordinators of Mercosur founding members will decide next 23 August at a meeting in Montevideo on the legal measures to be applied on Venezuela, which self proclaimed itself the presidency of the group and is also questioned for not complying with the rules and regulations to be incorporated to the group. In that case Venezuela could lose its full member status.

• Monday, August 15th 2016 - 07:28 UTC

  Argentina's economy: a battle over utility bills is president Macri’s first big crisis

  

  The following article from The Economist points out that the Argentine Supreme Court in the next ten days has to decide on tariff rises for gas and electricity blocked by lower courts. And president Macri cannot afford to lose sine the price increases are a vital part of his plan to restore confidence in an economy undermined by years of reckless spending.

• Monday, August 15th 2016 - 07:19 UTC

  Brazil concerned about the 25% surge of the Real against the US dollar

  

  The Brazilian Real weakened further on Friday after interim President Michel Temer showed concern over currency strength, while stocks edged lower following a heavy batch of quarterly results including state controlled oil company Petrobras.

• Monday, August 15th 2016 - 07:09 UTC

  Mercosur-India talks expected to expand preferential trade agreement

  

  India has begun the process of expanding its preferential trade agreement with the Mercosur trade bloc, opening its market more to South America and negotiations are expected to start in a month or two. The number of products on which tariff concessions is given is likely to increase to more than 3,000 from 450 at present with more agricultural products getting covered in the pact.

• Monday, August 15th 2016 - 06:39 UTC

  Falklands/Malvinas: Malcorra confirms new dialogue with UK in a raft of issues

  

  Argentina is at the beginning of a new dialogue on the Malvinas issue with the current UK government and this includes air links, hydrocarbons, identifying Argentine graves remains in Falklands, a possible meeting of the two countries' leaders in China, but none of this will happen overnight or make media headlines, anticipated foreign minister Susana Malcorra.

• Saturday, August 13th 2016 - 15:11 UTC

  Argentina could receive a squadron of Mirage F1; Air Force will have no combat aircraft by 2018

  

  Argentina's Air Force will have no combat aircraft by 2018 since by then the three A4-AR Fightinghawk which remain operational will be decommissioned, according to Argentine defense sources. At the end of 2015, the outgoing Cristina Fernandez administration witnessed the definitive decommissioning of the few operational French built Mirage III.

• Saturday, August 13th 2016 - 09:05 UTC

  UK embassy in Uruguay announces opening of applications for Chevening scholarships

  

  The United Kingdom embassy in Montevideo has announced the opening of the application period of the Chevening Scholarships, which must be done before 8 November 2016. Chevening Scholarships are the UK government’s global scholarship program, funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and partner organizations, such as ANII here in Uruguay.

• Saturday, August 13th 2016 - 08:50 UTC

  Media exposes Brazil congress 'behind the scenes' plot for a 'corruption amnesty' in the Petrobras case

  

  Brazilian financial newspaper Valor Econômico revealed details of an alleged corruption amnesty currently being discussed by lawmakers who have been accused of alleged involvement in the graft scandal at state oil firm Petrobras.

• Saturday, August 13th 2016 - 08:24 UTC

  Argentina's July inflation falls to 2%, confirming sliding tendency

  

  Argentina's inflation rate eased to 2% in July, less than half of what it was two months before when the government began reporting consumer price data after revamping the country's troubled statistics office. The July figure was released on Friday by the new Indec data agency. A month earlier it reported 3.1% inflation for June and 4.2% for May when it issued its first consumer price report since President Mauricio Macri took office in December.

• Saturday, August 13th 2016 - 08:12 UTC

  Catholic Church criticizes Macri's policies and says 1.4 million more have fallen into poverty

  

  A new report released by the Argentine Catholic University (UCA) points to a somewhat bleak outlook on Argentina’s current socioeconomic situation, with the revelation that 1.4 million people fell into poverty between December 2015 and April 2016. The report also provides a qualitative commentary criticizing President Mauricio Macri’s social policies.