Politics

• Wednesday, November 25th 2009 - 13:24 UTC

  Paraguayan president allegedly also has a 22-year old daughter, claims relative

  

  Paraguayan president Fernando Lugo, a former Catholic bishop that is facing at least two paternity demands was again involved in a similar controversy when his niece claimed his uncle had a non recognized 22 year old daughter who married over the weekend.

• Wednesday, November 25th 2009 - 10:07 UTC

  Venezuela’s Chavez steps up program to confiscate “idle land”

  

  Venezuela’s Landholdings Institute and the National Guard occupied in the last few days at least 31 farms in different states including one belonging to opposition leader Manuel Rosales, currently exiled in Peru.

• Wednesday, November 25th 2009 - 10:01 UTC

  Brazil to scrutinize Argentine imports licences system

  

  Mercosur senior partners are again clashing over trade. Brazilian government announced that it will run an exhaustive study of all the non-automatic import licenses that President Lula da Silva’s administration believes cause nothing but Argentine restrictions on Brazilian products.

• Wednesday, November 25th 2009 - 09:58 UTC

  Moratinos downplays incidents in Gibraltar waters with the Guardia Civil

  

  Spanish foreign affairs minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos said the Guardia Civil continued to cooperate with law enforcement agencies in the sea around Gibraltar, despite Spain not recognising British sovereignty of those waters.

• Wednesday, November 25th 2009 - 05:41 UTC

  Peru proposes a South American “peace force” to contain regional conflicts

  

  Peru will propose the creation of a South American “Peace Force” next Friday in Ecuador when the meeting of the Union of South American Nations Defence Council, announced Peruvian Production minister Mercedes Araoz following a meeting in Montevideo with Uruguayan president Tabare Vazquez.

• Wednesday, November 25th 2009 - 04:42 UTC

  Colombia/Ecuador re-establish trade relations after 21 months

  

  Ecuador and Colombia formally established this week ties at trade representation level, official sources said in Quito and Bogotá. The two governments announced that “full normalization” will take place when the so called “sensitive” issues have been addressed and solved.

• Tuesday, November 24th 2009 - 13:16 UTC

  Disenchantment factor ahead of next Sunday’s Uruguayan presidential runoff

  

  With less than a week for Sunday’s runoff when Uruguay’s next president will be definitively elected, public opinion polls show support for both candidates “frozen” with a significant percentage undecided or with the intention of voting blank or spoiling their vote.

• Tuesday, November 24th 2009 - 13:12 UTC

  Argentina defends the right of the Palestine people to have a State

  

  Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner defended the right of the Palestinian State to “have its own frontiers” in a lunch shared with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, at the Government House.

• Tuesday, November 24th 2009 - 13:11 UTC

  Baroness Thatcher returns to Downing Street

  

  Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher moved back into Downing Street, in the shape of a portrait by royal artist Richard Stone. Nicholas Glass reports. The unveiling had been delayed several times due to the ailing health of Baroness Thatcher, 84, who attended Monday the private reception.

• Tuesday, November 24th 2009 - 13:03 UTC

  Family of de Menezes reaches compensation agreement with London police

  

  The family of Brazilian citizen Jean Charles de Menezes has agreed a compensation deal with the London Metropolitan Police. Relatives of the Brazilian have been locked in an often acrimonious legal battle with the force since he was shot dead at Stockwell Tube station on July 22, 2005.