International

• Friday, August 16th 2013 - 02:57 UTC

  Paraguay new president pledges ‘war on poverty’ and improved relations with neighbours

  

  Conservative businessman Horacio Cartes was sworn in as president of Paraguay on Thursday, amid slowly improving relations with South American neighbors, and Mercosur members, damaged by the 2012 removal of populist President Fernando Lugo, who was impeached on incompetence.

• Thursday, August 15th 2013 - 15:23 UTC

  Invoking Falklands and common cause with Argentina, ‘Rajoy has burnt his boats with PM Cameron’

  

  Roger Boyes, Diplomatic Editor of The Times, has criticised the recent tactics by Spain and urges the conservative government to return to a more positive approach to the Gibraltar question. Likewise by invoking the Falklands and making common anti-British cause with Argentina the Spanish PM “has burnt his boats with British PM David Cameron”.

• Thursday, August 15th 2013 - 13:35 UTC

  Malvinas/Gibraltar in Garcia Margallo’s agenda when he visits Argentina and meets Timerman

  

  Spain’s Foreign affairs ministry Director General Ignacio Ibañez confirmed that Spain’s Foreign Minister José Manuel García-Margallo, would raise Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands with his Argentine counterpart, Hector Timerman, during a visit to Buenos Aires in early September.

• Thursday, August 15th 2013 - 03:20 UTC

  UK likely to win at EU court the Gibraltar border ‘excessive checks’ case

  

  Britain is likely to win a case against Spain over the imposition of excessive border queues and could get an interim order to ease the controls from the European Court of Justice said Professor Damian Chalmers an expert in EU law at LSE and who is a Jean Monnet Chair and was editor of the European Law Review and EU Jurist.

• Thursday, August 15th 2013 - 02:56 UTC

  Malvinas/Gibraltar hand-to-hand with Argentina: “a ridiculous adventure” opposition tells Rajoy

  

  The leader of Spain’s opposition Socialist Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba called on the government of president Mariano Rajoy “to avoid adventures that could end looking ridiculous” such as the possibility of a ‘hand to hand’ with Argentina on the Malvinas and Gibraltar cases and instead should look at all the money laundering that takes place in the British Overseas Territory.

• Wednesday, August 14th 2013 - 20:40 UTC

  Spain anticipates it will target Gibraltar bunkering

  

  As queues at the border with Gibraltar get longer and little advance is seen in the diplomatic front, Spain’s Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Environment, Miguel Arias Cañete, warned that Madrid would continue to impose the border checks and has plans to target bunkering in ‘Spanish protected waters’.

• Wednesday, August 14th 2013 - 20:21 UTC

  Shackleton’s Endurance could still be in good conditions on the Antarctic sea bed

  

  Ernest Shackleton's famous ship, the Endurance, which he had to abandon in 1915 on his ill-fated Antarctic expedition, is probably still in very good condition on the ocean floor. This is one conclusion from research that studied how sunken wood degrades in southern polar waters.

• Wednesday, August 14th 2013 - 20:16 UTC

  EU climbs out of 18-month recession led by Germany and France, but still fragile

  

  European stock markets mostly rose on Wednesday after official data showed that the Euro zone had finally escaped from a record 18-month recession. The Euro-zone climbed out of recession with surprisingly strong growth of 0.3 percent in the second quarter led by Germany and France, announced the European Union.

• Wednesday, August 14th 2013 - 19:53 UTC

  US imposes anti-subsidy duties on shrimp from Malaysia, China, Ecuador, India and Vietnam

  

  Imports of shrimp from Malaysia will be subject to anti-subsidy duties as high as 54.5%, the U.S. Commerce Department said, while lower penalties were set for similar goods from China, Ecuador, India and Vietnam.

• Wednesday, August 14th 2013 - 03:32 UTC

  Gibraltar will challenge “misleading versions propagated” by the Spanish media on the situation

  

  The Gibraltar Government said it appreciated the “huge” level of support for Gibraltar from UK, European and Spanish parliamentarians, and announced the launching of a media operation to reverse the ‘bought-in’ misleading versions propagated by the Spanish government on the current situation.