
The Xth summit of the Pacific Alliance took off on Wednesday with the attendance of presidents from Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru at the Peruvian sea-side resort of Paracas.

Chile will insist at the two-day Pacific Alliance summit which took off on Wednesday in Paracas, Peru, that a convergence with Mercosur is needed to ensure the integration of Latina America, and this is more evident now that both groupings face similar challenges such as falling prices for commodities, normalization of US monetary policy and an international context of slow growth.

The Mercosur Council will establish an action plan at the next Mercosur presidential summit scheduled for 16/17 July in Brasilia, when the group's chair for the next six months will be handed to Paraguay by Brazil. Other issues on the agenda besides making Mercosur more flexible include addressing the 'special regimes' and the 'free trade zones' in the area, revealed Uruguay's foreign minister Rodolfo Nin Novoa.

Brazil reported a primary budget deficit for May that was its widest for 2015, making its annual savings goal more difficult to achieve despite government efforts to raise taxes and cut spending. Central bank data showed a primary budget deficit of 6.9 billion Reais ($2.23 billion). This compared with a primary surplus of 13.445 billion Reais in April.

Sepp Blatter, president of the world soccer governing body FIFA that is embroiled in corruption investigations, has told a German magazine he has a 'clean and clear' conscience and believes he will “go to heaven one day”.

Gibraltar House in Brussels hosted a board meeting of the European Small Business Association (ESBA). The Gibraltar Federation of Small Businesses was a founding member of ESBA, and currently participates in it as a Board member. ESBA has its headquarters in the city and represents over one million small and medium-sized enterprises and self-employed people from 35 countries.

President Obama formally announced on Wednesday that the United States and Cuba have both agreed to open embassies in each other’s capitals following more than a half-century of hostilities between the two nations.

President Barack Obama and visiting Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff sought Tuesday to cast their nations as natural partners collaborating closely on critical issues like climate and regional diplomacy, glossing over recent tensions over spying that have strained relations between the first and seventh world economies.

Greece on Tuesday became the first developed country to join a roster that includes some of the world’s poorest and worst governed nations, including Iraq, Sudan, Somalia and Zimbabwe. Those are a few of the countries that have missed payments to the IMF as Greece did Tuesday, when it failed to make a loan payment of about 1.5 billion Euros, or $1.7 billion, to the fund.

President Obama will announce on Wednesday that the U.S. and Cuba have reached an agreement to open embassies in Havana and Washington, an administration official has confirmed. The announcement marks a major step in ending hostilities between the longtime foes and an opportunity to re-establish formal diplomatic relations and apparently will be simultaneous from Havana.