Politics

• Tuesday, August 19th 2014 - 08:20 UTC

  South Korea was a feast, but more important China warmed up to Pope Francis

  

  Pope Francis ended his first official visit to Asia on Monday with a fresh overture to China and a call for reconciliation between South Korea and its totalitarian neighbor, North Korea. As the pope flew across Chinese airspace on his return flight to Rome, he sent a telegram — his second during the trip — to President Xi Jinping, expressing his “divine blessings” for the powerful leader and the Chinese people.

• Tuesday, August 19th 2014 - 08:05 UTC

  Falklands' war statements from Chilean minister praised by Argentine peer

  

  Argentine Defense minister Agustín Rossi praised on Monday his Chilean peer statements relative to Chile's role and attitude during the Falklands war when Britain sent a task force to expulse the Argentine military invasion in 1982.

• Monday, August 18th 2014 - 22:55 UTC

  Marina exposes Dilma's 'soft belly': polls shows she could beat the president in a run-off

  

  Environmentalist Marina Silva could unseat incumbent Dilma Rousseff in Brazil's presidential elections in October, a public opinion poll revealed on Monday, reflecting an altered political landscape since Silva's running mate was killed in a plane crash last week.

• Monday, August 18th 2014 - 07:30 UTC

  Brazil: Marina Silva still unconfirmed, rattles chances of Rousseff and Neves

  

  The Brazilian Socialist Party plans to launch environmentalist Marina Silva as its presidential candidate this week, replacing party leader Eduardo Campos who was killed in a plane clash, a senior party official said over the weekend.

• Monday, August 18th 2014 - 07:19 UTC

  US Panama Canal workers recall and celebrate the century old feat

  

  The 100th anniversary of the opening of the Panama Canal, hailed at the time as one of the world's great wonders, has inspired a celebration in central US state Florida to showcase the experience of the US canal workers behind the engineering feat.

• Monday, August 18th 2014 - 06:52 UTC

  “Chile not proud of Falklands war support”, but “proud of peace treaty with Argentina”

  

  Defense minister Jorge Burgos said that most Chileans are not proud of the attitude of the Pinochet dictatorship when the Falklands/Malvinas war, but also admitted it happened at a very different and difficult moment in the relations between Chile and Argentina.

• Monday, August 18th 2014 - 06:35 UTC

  Exodus: a million more Puerto Ricans on mainland US than in the island

  

  A new study has found that Puerto Rico has undergone such a dramatic population shift that there are now over a million more Puerto Ricans on the US mainland than on the US island territory. The Pew Research Center study showed that between 2010 and 2013, more people left Puerto Rico for mainland US than those who left in the 1980s or 1990s.

• Monday, August 18th 2014 - 06:17 UTC

  Malvinas Museum incorporates San Martin letter referred to links with South Atlantic Islands

  

  The Malvinas Islands Museum in Argentina has incorporated a letter allegedly handwritten by Liberator General Jose de San Martin and dated August 1816, a month after Argentina formally declared independence (07/09/1816) in which he mentions having given instructions to liberate prisoners in Patagones (Patagonia) and Malvinas Islands so they can join the Andes army.

• Monday, August 18th 2014 - 06:13 UTC

  First Kirchnerite governor crosses the line and joins opposition group

  

  The governor from the Argentine province of Rio Negro has decided to cross the line and join one of the leading opposition groups whose head is a strong presidential hopeful for October 2015. The move can be threatening to the government of President Cristina Fernandez if more disenchanted elected officials follow or their lawmakers also decide to cross the line and could jeopardize the government's majority in Congress.

• Saturday, August 16th 2014 - 11:32 UTC

  Trust in Argentine reliability has vanished, as a result of the bonds' litigation

  

  Debt talks on Argentina’s defaulted bonds in the hands of holdout hedge funds ultimately collapsed this week due to disagreements over prices and the absence of a government guarantee to honor payments on the paper, sources close to the discussions said.