
The BRICS group of emerging-market powers kept up the pressure for a revamped global monetary system that relies less on the US dollar and for a louder voice in international financial institutions.

Venezuela in Mercosur will act as a balancing element and Unasur has more than proven its merits, said Paraguay’s new Foreign Affairs minister Jorge Lara Castro who insisted the country must work urgently to overcome asymmetries in the region and passive integration is not enough.

Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner cancelled her trip to Mexico City and rescheduled it for May 30 after being told by Presidential Medical Unit doctors to rest for a further 24 hours, despite showing a 'satisfactory improvement' from the turn of low blood pressure she suffered Tuesday.

United States lawmakers are poised to cut spending on the United Nations by hundreds of millions of dollars, less than a week after UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon came to Congress to ask for continued strong support.

Foxconn in planning to invest as much as 12bn US dollars in Brazil, according to President Dilma Rousseff currently on an official visit to China. Taiwan-based Foxconn operates the majority of its factories in China, producing goods for firms like Apple, Hewlett Packard and Dell.

Leaders of the world's major emerging powers will meet again Thursday in China to tackle the conflict in Libya, reform of the international financial system and look at how developing nations can exercise more clout on the global stage.

Chinese President Hu Jintao came under pressure from fellow BRICS members Brazil, Russia, India and South Africa to open the Chinese market to goods ranging from Indian drugs to Brazilian planes as leaders gathered on a tropical south China island for a summit.

A closely divided Senate has passed legislation to overturn an amnesty for human rights crimes committed by the military and security forces during Uruguay's 1973-85 dictatorship, overruling voters who in two referendums upheld the law in 1989 and 2009. The decision triggered strong controversy in the Uruguayan political system.

EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gutch together with Colombian Minister for Trade Sergio Diaz-Granados Guida and Peruvian Deputy Minister for Foreign Trade Carlos Posada Ugaz, celebrated Wednesday in Brussels the initialling of an ambitious trade agreement between the EU, Colombia and Peru.

President Barack Obama called for an overhaul of the U.S. tax code for individuals and businesses and said he wants to raise an additional 1 trillion US dollars through tax increases over the next decade.