Politics

• Wednesday, July 11th 2012 - 22:28 UTC

  Rajoy raises VAT to 21% and drastically cuts benefits and other perks

  

  Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy announced a swathe of new taxes and spending cuts designed to slash 65 billion Euros from the budget deficit by 2014 as recession-plagued Spain struggles to meet tough targets agreed with Europe.

• Wednesday, July 11th 2012 - 22:23 UTC

  Italy’s caretaker PM Monti says next year’s election can be looked at “with serenity”

  

  Italy's technocrat Prime Minister Mario Monti, appointed last year to steer his country through a debt crisis, said he was confident a stable government would be formed after elections in 2013, playing down fears of deadlock after he steps down.

• Wednesday, July 11th 2012 - 19:24 UTC

  With Venezuela, Mercosur will extend from Patagonia to the Caribbean

  

  Brazilian Foreign minister Antonio Patriota again supported the access of Venezuela as full member of Mercosur and the suspension of Paraguay, which he described as a clear message for all those possible “anti-democratic adventures”.

• Wednesday, July 11th 2012 - 07:17 UTC

  Defence of Argentine sovereignty over Malvinas has become “a regional issue”

  

  The Argentine ambassador in London Alicia Castro said that South America has reached such a degree of unity that it is possible to think “on the defence of Argentine sovereignty over the Malvinas in regional terms”.

• Wednesday, July 11th 2012 - 06:43 UTC

  PM Cameron/Hollande summit: France admits “Europe at different speeds”

  

  President Francois Hollande and British Prime Minister David Cameron tried Tuesday to shake off a rocky start to their relationship despite lingering differences over the Euro zone crisis.

• Wednesday, July 11th 2012 - 06:28 UTC

  CFK announces pay rise for the military and plays the nationalistic tune

  

  Argentine President Cristina Fernández, CFK, announced Tuesday evening a pay rise for all military personnel, effective July first during the Armed Forces annual dinner at the Libertador Building, in the Ministry of Defence.

• Wednesday, July 11th 2012 - 01:20 UTC

  Uruguay president and vice-president clash over Venezuela’s Mercosur admission

  

  Uruguayan Vice president Danilo Astori openly clashed with President Jose Mujica over the recent decision to incorporate Venezuela to Mercosur arguing it was “the deepest institutional injury” suffered by the block and questioned the concept that the juridical “has to be at the service of the political”.

• Tuesday, July 10th 2012 - 23:48 UTC

  OAS report to the Permanent Council does not favour suspending Paraguay

  

  The Organization of American States Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza said that to suspend Paraguay from the OAS “would not contribute to the achievement of our objectives”, governance, the electoral process and institutional normality.

• Tuesday, July 10th 2012 - 21:02 UTC

  The 34-country OECD has 48 million jobless with little hopes until 2014

  

  Unemployment in advanced economies will remain high until at least the end of 2013, with young people and the low-skilled bearing the brunt of what is by far the weakest economic recovery in the past four decades, the OECD said today.

• Tuesday, July 10th 2012 - 14:27 UTC

  Argentine Navy tall ship Libertad visits Guyana and Suriname

  

  Argentina’s Navy tall ship ARA Libertad is docked some ten miles off the coast of Guyana and entertained Prime Minister Samuel Hinds and members of the diplomatic corps as a part of its round-the-world trip which concludes in December of this year.