
The Gibraltar Government has provided for more protection for British Gibraltar Territorial Waters with the publication of the revised Southern Waters of Gibraltar Management Scheme.

By Alicia Dunkley-Willis, Jamaica Observer - What does a country with 3,000 people and nearly half a million sheep look like? After 18 hours of flying and trekking through four airports, I was determined to find out.

Several British newspapers have turned their eyes on Argentina arguing that the challenging situation faced by President Cristina Fernandez both domestically and internationally is making her increasingly take advantage of the Falkland Islands dispute as a smokescreen to mask domestic failings.

Argentina’s intention of having the Falklands/Malvinas sovereignty issue included in the agenda of the Americas Defense ministers’ conference currently taking place in Uruguay was rejected, mainly because of the positions from the US, Canada and several Caribbean states.

The head of the Unasur delegation sent to Venezuela to follow Sunday’s electoral process, Carlos Alvarez said that the country had given the world a lesson of democracy because of its extraordinary electoral system and the attitude of the opposition, among other positive elements.

President Federio Franco said he trusted Paraguay would be fully re-incorporated to Mercosur before the general election scheduled for 21 April 2013. Paraguay is currently suspended from the trade block following the removal of Fernando Lugo as president, a decision voted almost unanimously by the country’s Senate but condemned by Mercosur and Unasur.

The British government said that the military exercises scheduled to be carried out in the Falkland Islands beginning Monday are “annual and routine exercises.” The move had been strongly condemned by the Argentine government.

Next Tuesday the Ghana Supreme Court will be holding a hearing to consider a motion from the government of President Cristina Fernandez requesting the annulment of the injunction retaining Argentina’s navy training vessel ARA Libertad following a legal proceeding from a hedge fund holding Argentine defaulted sovereign bonds.

Brazilian banks have room to cut consumer lending rates in half, Brazil's Finance Minister Guido Mantega said in remarks published this weekend in the O Globo newspaper.

Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes has been re-elected with an overwhelming majority in the first round of Brazil's municipal elections. Paes from the centrist Democratic Movement Party will be in charge when Rio hosts the 2016 Olympics.