Politics

• Wednesday, September 1st 2010 - 05:37 UTC

  US drops investigation into China’s current currency policy

  

  US government has decided to drop a general investigation of China's currency policy, avoiding a major trade dispute. However the department ruled that more than $500m of aluminium imports had been unfairly subsidised. The US will retaliate with duties of up to 137% on the relevant products.

• Wednesday, September 1st 2010 - 02:48 UTC

  Lifting Mercosur out of its “institutional paralysis”, Rousseff’s main challenge

  

  Consolidating South American integration would be the main foreign policy priority of the Brazilian ruling party presidential candidate Dilma Rousseff if public opinion polls are confirmed at the ballot box next October 3 and she emerges as the successor of Lula da Silva.

• Wednesday, September 1st 2010 - 02:44 UTC

  UK and US media blast the Kirchners for attempting “to lock-hold the press”

  

  British daily Financial Times ran an op-ed Tuesday morning blasting Argentina’s presidential couple for their attempt to “secure a lock-hold on Argentina’s press,” and accusing them of mirroring the “black arts” tactics of the Mexican Institutional Revolutionary party.

• Wednesday, September 1st 2010 - 02:13 UTC

  Timerman visits Paraguay, announces two new bridges linking with Argentina

  

  Argentina’s Foreign Affaire minister Hector Timerman announced Tuesday in Asuncion the construction of two new bridges linking Argentina with Paraguay and the upgrading of an existing one.

• Wednesday, September 1st 2010 - 01:49 UTC

  Fidel admits ‘full responsibility’ for the ‘unjust’ persecution of gays and lesbians

  

  Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro acknowledges the persecution of gays and lesbians during the Revolution, according to an interview published Tuesday in the Mexican newspaper La Jornada.

• Wednesday, September 1st 2010 - 00:43 UTC

  Canada, South Africa, India in preliminary trade talks with Mercosur

  

  Canada, South Africa and India are scheduled to begin this year trade talks with Mercosur, according to reports from Ottawa and Johannesburg.

• Wednesday, September 1st 2010 - 00:36 UTC

  London denies UK and France could share aircraft carriers

  

  The UK Ministry of Defence has confirmed that Defence Secretary Liam Fox is to meet his French counterpart to discuss further defence co-operation. But a senior MoD source has told the BBC there are no plans for the two countries to share aircraft carriers.

• Wednesday, September 1st 2010 - 00:31 UTC

  Amorim admits Brazil imposes non-trade barriers to its Mercosur associates

  

  Foreign Affairs minister Celos Amorim implicitly admitted that access to the Brazilian market for other Latin American countries, including Mercosur, is not easy because of a proliferation of non trade barriers which has resulted in large surpluses with most of the region’s countries.

• Tuesday, August 31st 2010 - 05:10 UTC

  Uruguay/Argentina implement the end of the pulp mill dispute

  

  Argentina and Uruguay signed Monday in Montevideo the agreement which puts an end to an ongoing years-long litigation over the construction of a pulp mill along a shared river.

• Tuesday, August 31st 2010 - 03:51 UTC

  Former Chavez advisor claims Army weapons were supplied to Colombian FARC guerrilla

  

  Carlos Molina Tamayo, a former national security advisor to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, claims that he was witness to the Venezuelan government first attempts to clandestinely supply Colombian FARC guerrillas with weapons.