New Zealanders will likely need to wait two or three weeks to find out who will next lead their country after a general election on Saturday ended with an inconclusive result. Prime Minister Bill English's National Party won the most votes but not enough to form a government without help from other political parties.
Canada will impose targeted sanctions against 40 Venezuelan senior officials, including President Nicolás Maduro, to punish them for “anti-democratic behavior,” the foreign ministry announced. Canada’s move, which followed a similar decision by the United States, came after months of protests against Maduro’s government in which at least 130 people have been killed.
The Royal Gibraltar Regiment recently deployed one of its officers to Santiago in Chile. Major Timothy Cumming deployed from July 12/August 2 to Santiago to assist in the delivery of some critical Pre-Deployment Training (PDT). This training was delivered to members of the Chilean Armed Forces that were going to make up the latest United Nations Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) contingent.
British Prime Minister Theresa May will meet European Council President Donald Tusk on Tuesday - the first time since the PM set out plans for a two-year transition period post-Brexit. It comes a month before the council will decide whether sufficient progress has been made to begin trade talks.
Spain has repeated its traditional position on Gibraltar during an address to the UN General Assembly in New York, describing the Rock as “an anachronism” and highlighting Madrid’s co-sovereignty proposal. Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis focused on Gibraltar briefly during a 17-minute speech that covered key areas of Spanish foreign policy.
The prime minister and her cabinet lack the basic skills to get a good Brexit deal, Wales First Minister Carwyn Jones has claimed. Addressing the Labour Party conference in Brighton, the First Minister said Theresa May was incapable of listening to other people's views.
Jeremy Corbyn is resisting pressure from Labour MPs to commit the party to keeping the UK in the EU single market after Brexit. As activists gathered in Brighton for the start of Labour’s annual conference, 30 senior figures have written an open letter calling for the party to do whatever it takes to keep Britain in the single market and the customs union.
Spain’s central government and regional Catalan authorities argued this weekend over who controls the regional police force that is considered key to the success of a planned independence vote for the north-eastern region. The exchanges came as thousands of Catalan separatists rallied in public squares in Barcelona and other towns on Sunday in support of a disputed referendum on independence of from Spain.
Chancellor Angela Merkel clinched a fourth term in Germany’s election Sunday, but her victory was clouded by the entry into parliament of the hard-right AfD in the best showing for a nationalist force since World War II. Merkel, who after 12 years in power held a double-digit lead for most of the campaign, scored around 33% of the vote with her conservative Christian Union (CDU/CSU) bloc, according to preliminary results.
A cross-party group of Scottish politicians has asked the Spanish government to allow people in Catalonia to decide their future democratically. The move comes amid rising tensions in Spain, after the devolved Catalan administration decided to call an independence referendum next Sunday, which Madrid has described the move as illegal.