Chile and Ecuador will be proposing their peers of Unasur, (Union of South American Nations) the establishment of a scientific research base in Antarctica, according to Ecuador’s Foreign Affairs minister Ricardo Patiño.
Ecuador's constitutional Court approved this week a 10-question referendum that will let voters decide whether to ban gambling and bullfighting but also ask them to boost President Rafael Correa's power over the judiciary.
US oil giant Chevron says it will appeal against an 8.6 billion US dollars fine imposed by Ecuador judges, carrying on a long-running row over pollution. Chevron's Kent Robertson told the BBC the case was an extortion scheme, and accused Ecuador's state-run firm of polluting the country's Amazon region.
The Uruguayan government officially delivered this week the formal ratification of the UNASUR (Union of South American Nations) founding charter thus turning the political project into juridical reality.
President Sebastian Piñera described Antarctica as the continent of the future and confirmed Chile’s commitment to the values of peace and environment conservation represented by the southern pole mass.
Future cooperative agreements among the countries of the Pacific Ring could reduce electricity costs in Chile’s far north by up to 25 percent. Chile’s energy costs are currently the highest in the region.
The Ecuadorean government is the latest in Latin American to recognize Palestine as a sovereign state. The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that President Rafael Correa officially recognized Palestine on Friday as free and independent, with its borders since 1967 before the Israeli occupation.
For the first time ever South American countries will jointly share and disclose data on their military expenditures, according to the Ecuadorian Ministry of Defence. It is anticipated that next March all member countries from Unasur (Union of South American Nations) will make public the information following on this year’s approval of a common methodology to measure Defence expenditure.
The presidents of Colombia and Ecuador announced Friday they will resume full diplomatic relations after more than two years of estrangement.
Brazil’s Petrobras is abandoning Ecuador after not having reached an agreement on the new oil contracts with the government while Spanish-Argentine Repsol-YPF will remain, announced Minister of Non renewable natural resources Wilson Pastor.