FIFA elected on Friday Gianni Infantino to replace disgraced president Sepp Blatter in an unexpected turn of events. UEFA secretary general Gianni Infantino defeated expected frontrunner Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa of Bahrain, former FIFA vice president Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein of Jordan and former FIFA executive Jerome Champagne.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said the global economy has weakened further and warned it was highly vulnerable to adverse shocks and the weakening has come amid increasing financial turbulence and falling asset prices.
French government has been trying to defuse the week-long protests by farmers over the collapsing prices of agriculture including cereals, milk and vegetables.The depression of prices is partly due to EU agriculture ministers, who have come under pressure from the French government to ease Russian trade sanctions and to remove excess meat and dairy products off the European market.
Britain has protested to Spain after a Spanish warship “manoeuvred dangerously” during an incursion into British Gibraltar territorial waters, risking collision with a Royal Navy patrol boat.
Greenpeace celebrates the 'incredible' news that Iceland has cancelled the fin whale hunt for the current season and underlines that nowadays “there is simply no place for commercial whaling” plus the fact that Iceland and Japan have stockpiles of unwanted whale meat.
Argentine President Mauricio Macri flew after midday to Rome ahead of Saturday’s meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican. Macri flew in an Alitalia commercial flight accompanied by his wife Juliana Awada, their small daughter Antonia and a small delegation of close aides and three provincial governors specially invited for the occasion.
The five contenders for the FIFA throne pitched the regional confederations in Zurich on Thursday in a last-ditch plea for votes in Friday’s election. Sheikh Salman, Gianni Infantino, Prince Ali, Jerome Champagne and Tokyo Sexwale made their appeals to CONCACAF, UEFA and Oceania congresses staged at various hotels in the Swiss city where Sepp Blatter’s successor will be 26 February.
Luis Alberto Lacalle, the Ex-President of Uruguay, is currently in the Falkland Islands on a week-long tour, along with Uruguayan Elected Representative Mario Jaime Trobo. Lacalle served as President from 1990 to 1995 and Trobo is presently a Member of the International Affairs Committee.
The visit of French president Francois Hollande was described as most positive and this was reflected in the over twenty bilateral agreements signed in all fields, plus a very significant 'personal link' with his Argentine peer Mauricio Macri, said Susana Malcorra, foreign minister on Wednesday at the Casa Rosada.
Moody's Investors Service on Wednesday joined the two other major credit rating agencies in downgrading Brazil's sovereign debt to junk territory. Moody's lowered Brazil's credit rating by two notches from Baa3 (its lowest investment-grade rating) to Ba2 and changed the country's outlook to negative, a move that follows similar actions by Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor's.