Politics

• Saturday, October 6th 2012 - 15:09 UTC

  Borders and Coast Guards in conflict won’t yield; government looks for scapegoats

  

  Argentina’s Security Ministry decided the intervention of the Border Guards’ Department of Judicial Affairs due to “severe deficiencies” found in the application of the officers' “wage demands”, which led to the current situation that on Friday night was beginning its fifth consecutive day of conflict.

• Saturday, October 6th 2012 - 15:06 UTC

  Brazil wants Paraguay back in Mercosur following “democracy compliance” test

  

  Brazilian Foreign minister Antonio Patriota said on Friday that Paraguay could resume membership of Mercosur and Unasur without the need to wait for presidential elections next April 2013 as long as “full compliance with democracy” can be verified.

• Saturday, October 6th 2012 - 14:58 UTC

  Cuban dissident freed; court asks seven years for Spanish youth activist

  

  Cuban authorities released prominent dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez late on Friday after detaining her on the eve of a Spanish activist's high-profile manslaughter trial in the eastern city of Bayamo.

• Friday, October 5th 2012 - 22:51 UTC

  Significant drop in US unemployment triggers controversy with former GE CEO

  

  The US unemployment rate fell last month to its lowest rate since January 2009, figures from the Department of Labour have shown, surprising analysts who had been expecting a small rise.

• Friday, October 5th 2012 - 22:41 UTC

  Pentagon chief flies to Uruguay for Defence Ministers of the Americas conference

  

  United States Defence Secretary Leon Panetta starts on Friday a week-long trip to Peru and Uruguay where he will attend the Conference of Defence Ministers of the Americas, the Pentagon announced on Thursday.

• Friday, October 5th 2012 - 22:06 UTC

  HMS Protector on route to the Antarctic previous surveying in St Helena

  

  The Royal Navy’s Ice Patrol ship HMS Protector is on her way for an eight-month deployment surveying and patrolling Antarctica. She left Portsmouth late September and is currently visiting St Helena to conduct surveys of the harbour in preparation for the building of a new jetty.

• Friday, October 5th 2012 - 20:38 UTC

  Cuban prominent blogger detained in Cuba ahead of trial involving Spanish politician

  

  Cuba was reported to have arrested prominent blogger Yoani Sanchez Friday in a crackdown on dissidents as the vehicular manslaughter trial of a Spanish politician got under way here. Angel Carromero, 27 who runs the youth wing of Spain’s ruling Popular Party went on trial for the death of a prominent dissident, Oswaldo Paya, in a car crash near this town in eastern Cuba.

• Friday, October 5th 2012 - 20:31 UTC

  Residents leave doors open ‘round the clock’ in crime-free Falkland Islands

  

  By Alicia Dunkley-Willis - Keys left in ignitions, house doors left unlocked, just about one murder over the last 30 years and police officers who don't carry firearms on the beat is the nothing less than utopic reality of the Falkland Islands.Falkland Islands Governor Nigel Haywood is a willing witness.

• Friday, October 5th 2012 - 20:15 UTC

  Southern Europeans flocking to Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela and Mexico

  

  A European Union (EU)-funded IOM study released on Friday on migratory flows in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), and between LAC and the EU, shows a marked increase in migration from the EU to LAC and a marked decrease in the number of LAC migrants entering the EU.

• Friday, October 5th 2012 - 19:57 UTC

  Capriles claims Chavez ‘handed out’ 9 billion dollars to Mercosur allies

  

  Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Henrique Capriles claims that the regime of President Hugo Chavez handed out nine billion dollars to Mercosur members (except for Brazil and Chile) as part of his plan to “export the Bolivarian revolution”.