Politics

• Wednesday, December 21st 2011 - 05:49 UTC

  Chavez claims five Paraguayan lawmakers are impeding Venezuelan access to Mercosur

  

  President Hugo Chavez claimed that a small group of Paraguayan lawmakers, manipulated by a “powerful black hand”, are impeding the long-delayed access of Venezuela as full member of Mercosur.

• Wednesday, December 21st 2011 - 05:39 UTC

  Lugo complains restrictions on market access and in energy integration

  

  Paraguayan president Fernando Lugo called for the free flow and free access of his country’s goods to Mercosur senior members’ markets and insisted on the energy integration of the block.

• Wednesday, December 21st 2011 - 05:34 UTC

  Mercosur signs free trade agreement with Palestinian Authority

  

  Mercosur signed a free trade agreement with the Palestinian Authority on Tuesday, the first between the territories and a block of nations outside the Arab world. The ceremony took place during Mercosur presidential summit in Montevideo.

• Wednesday, December 21st 2011 - 05:29 UTC

  Ecuador wants closer ties between Mercosur and the Andean-Pacific countries

  

  Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa said he was satisfied with having presented an official request for his country to join Mercosur and also called for closer links between Mercosur and the Andean Nations Community, CAN.

• Wednesday, December 21st 2011 - 02:33 UTC

  Forty years ago the Catholic Liberation Theology was born in Latinamerica

  

  Four decades ago a book written by a Peruvian priest sent shockwaves inside the Latinamerican Catholic Church having set the foundations for what was known as the Liberation Theology.

• Wednesday, December 21st 2011 - 02:28 UTC

  Regional inter-trade expands 25% and is expected to reach record 160bn dollars

  

  Trade among ALADI, Latin American Integration Association, which includes all the hemisphere countries with the exception of a few from Central America and the Caribbean, is expected to reach a historic record in 2011 close to 160 billion dollars, ahead of the 2008 record with 146 billion dollars.

• Wednesday, December 21st 2011 - 02:26 UTC

  Congress votes Rajoy PM who anticipates even tougher austerity measures

  

  Spanish lawmakers voted Tuesday to make conservative leader Mariano Rajoy the new prime minister, approving his program of sweeping budget cuts and tough economic reforms.

• Wednesday, December 21st 2011 - 02:22 UTC

  Chilean student leader Camila Vallejo, person of the year for The Guardian

  

  Chile’s 23-year-old student leader Camila Vallejo, has been chosen as the person of the year in a poll of readers of British newspaper, The Guardian. Vallejo, the international face of 2011’s student protests in Chile, topped the poll with an overwhelming 78% of votes.

• Wednesday, December 21st 2011 - 00:48 UTC

  ”Gibraltar at this moment, a minor issue” says Spanish Conservative think-tank

  

  A senior director at a Conservative think-tank founded by Jose Maria Aznar, Spain’s former Popular Party prime minister, said Gibraltar was low on the list of priorities for Madrid, particularly at a time of crisis when it needed the UK as an ally.

• Wednesday, December 21st 2011 - 00:32 UTC

  Chavez tells Obama “leave us alone” and called him “clown” and an “embarrassment”

  

  President Hugo Chavez called on Barack Obama to stop meddling in Venezuelan affairs, “leave us alone” and described the US leader as a “clown” and an “embarrassment”. Chavez is currently in Montevideo for the Mercosur summit.