South America

QUITO, July 9 (NNN-PRENSA LATINA) — Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Gustavo Manrique revealed that Ecuador is negotiating the construction of a migrant center to attend people who want to travel to the United States.    

Manrique affirmed he has held conversations with the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, so that the South American nation may be part of the initiative and have an office here.

ASUNCION, July 6 (NNN-PRENSA LATINA) — Paraguayan law enforcement officers on Wednesday destroyed as many as 11 tons of marijuana seized from alleged drug traffickers in the northeastern department of Amambay, bordering Brazil, the ABC Color newspaper reported.    

The Strategic Intelligence Directorate officers, attached to the National Anti-Drug Secretariat, managed to detect the drug during an investigation at a production and storage center at the La Paraguaya Natural Reserve.

BOGOTA, July 6 (NNN-MERCCOPRESS) — Colombia’s main rebel group National Liberation Army (ELN) ordered its forces to stop “offensive military actions” as of July 6.

However, in a message posted on the rebel group’s website, its members were advised to be prepared to “respond to threats or attacks by any armed group against our units or against the civilian population.”

CARACAS, July 5 (Xinhua) -- The recent U.S. administrations have launched the worst attacks against Venezuela in the past two centuries, a top Venezuelan lawmaker said Wednesday.

Speaking at a ceremony marking the 212th anniversary of Venezuela's Declaration of Independence, Jorge Rodriguez, president of Venezuela's National Assembly, denounced the U.S. sanctions against the South American country as "crimes against humanity."

Washington has "subjected Venezuela to the worst aggression it has experienced in the last 212 years," Rodriguez said.

PUERTO IGUAZU (Argentina), July 5 (NNN-XINHUA) — Bolivian President Luis Arce on Tuesday rejected constraints imposed by the US financial system, urging the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) to “reduce dependence on the US dollar.”

In a speech at the 62nd Summit of Heads of State of Mercosur and Associated States in Puerto Iguazu, Argentina, Arce said the region “is seriously impacted by the restrictions and regulations imposed by the US financial system, which limit financing options and chances to access international markets.”

PUERTO IGUAZU (Argentine), July 5 (NNN-MERCOSUR) — Argentina Economy Minister Sergio Massa said during a conference with his Mercosur peers on the opening day of the bloc’s 62nd Summit in the province of Misiones, that “in order to strengthen intra-Mercosur trade, it is essential to consolidate local currency agreements among our countries.”

Massa, one of the leading candidates to become Argentina’s president by the end of the year, insisted on “coordinating the use of local currencies in trade within the bloc.”

ATALAIA DO NORTE, Brazil (AP) — In 1976, Binan Tuku ventured to meet a Brazilian government’s expedition on the banks of the Itui River in a remote area of the western Amazon rainforest. After some initial suspicion, he and his father accepted machetes and soap in what was the beginning of the Matis tribe’s contact with the non-Indigenous world.

CARACAS, July 3 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A pilot was killed when a Russian-made fighter jet crashed in a mountainous area in northern Venezuela during practice exercises ahead of a parade to mark the country’s independence, President Nicolas Maduro said.

“I regret to inform that during the practice manoeuvres … an aircraft of our Bolivarian Military Aviation fell to the ground, causing the physical loss of the distinguished pilot Col. Paulino Jose Millan Sabino,” the president wrote on Twitter.

BRASILIA, July 2 (NNN-MERCOPRESS) — Trade relations between Brazil and Argentina are improving with an overall volume of US$12.5 billion in the first five months of this year. Brazil exported US$7.5 billion worth of goods and imported US$ 5 billion from Argentina, according to the Comexstat portal of the Brazilian Ministry of Industry, Commerce, and Services.

LA PAZ, July 1 (NNN-MERCOPRESS) — Bolivia’s state-owned company Yacimientos de Litio Bolivianos (YLB) signed two separate agreements whereby Chinese and Russian companies will invest over US$1.4 billion to build two industrial complexes for the production of lithium carbonate, it was reported in La Paz.

China’s Citic Guoan and Russia’s Uranium One Group — both with a major government stake — will partner with YLB to build two lithium carbonate processing plants, President Luis Arce announced.