
By Graham Bound, London - Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez will get her wish on Monday or Tuesday, when she meets Prime Minister David Cameron in the fringes of the G20 meeting in Mexico to talk about the Falkland Islands.

Chilean Defence Minister Andrés Allamand achieved this week a unanimous vote in the Chamber of Deputies for the proposal to change the funding system for the Armed Forces. The proposal, should it gain approval in the Senate, would put an end to the so-called “copper law,” which has been in effect since 1958.

Chile’s central bank kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged at 5% for a fifth consecutive month as inflation in the world’s top copper producer eased and unemployment continued to decline.

US Assistant Secretary of State for Political and Military Affairs Andrew Shapiro said that 2012 is already a record-breaking year for US foreign military sales, which are government-to-government sales.

The chair of the UN Decolonisation Committee Ecuadorian ambassador Diego Morejón Pazmiño described the UK announcement of a referendum in the Malvinas Islands as a “political ploy”, insisting that the Falkland Islanders can not appeal to the right of self determination.

Ireland has this banking advice for Spain: imagine the worst and double it. Like Ireland, Spain sought a bank bailout after being felled by a real-estate crash. Now, just as the Irish did, the Spanish are awaiting the results of outside stress tests gauging the size of the hole in the banking system.

Economics Nobel prize (2011) Thomas Sargent admitted feeling “ashamed” when some officials from the US government make recommendations to Europe, Spain and other countries on what policies they should adopt to climb out of the current crisis.

Germany's Angela Merkel regretted the lack of confidence among Euro leaders and warned against “mediocrity” as she stood firm against “growth quick fixes” to Europe's crisis.

Paraguay sent the Army after at least 18 people were killed and over eighty wounded, many of them seriously, on Friday in armed clashes that erupted when police tried to evict landless peasant farmers squatting a privately-owned farm in Paraguay, officials said.

The Euro zone economy faces serious risks and no inflation threat, European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said on Friday in comments that heightened expectations the ECB could cut interest rates or take other policy action soon.