International

• Tuesday, February 19th 2013 - 23:38 UTC

  HMS Argyll begins her West Africa and South Atlantic tour

  

  The Royal Navy frigate HMS Argyll left on Monday from Devonport for the West African region and the South Atlantic to undertake a range of tasks in support of British interests worldwide. She replaces in her South Atlantic tour HMS Edinburgh, ‘Fortress of the Seas’ which is to be decommissioned next June.

• Monday, February 18th 2013 - 17:26 UTC

  Gibraltar and the Falklands referendum: “we are with you every step of the way”

  

  Chief Minister Fabian Picardo has expressed Gibraltar’s “unqualified” support for the people of the Falklands in their forthcoming referendum. Picardo’s remarks were delivered by Samantha Sacramento last week at the Commonwealth parliamentary Association regional conference in the capital of Stanley in Falklands.

• Monday, February 18th 2013 - 16:29 UTC

  Morales nationalizes control of Bolivia three main airports

  

  Populist Bolivian President Evo Morales on Monday nationalized control of the country’s three main airports from Spain’s operator Abertis-Aena, arguing that the company had not fulfilled investments commitments promised for years.

• Monday, February 18th 2013 - 06:39 UTC

  Scandal-hit Vatican bank tries to make clean start but again stumbles

  

  The Vatican appointed a German lawyer to head its bank, but the bid to turn the fortunes of the scandal-hit institution was clouded by his business links to a military shipbuilder.

• Monday, February 18th 2013 - 06:33 UTC

  Head of Italy’s main defence firm arrested on allegations of corruption in helicopter sales

  

  The chairman and chief executive of the Italian defence firm Finmeccanica, has formally resigned. Giuseppe Orsi was arrested in Italy this week as part of a corruption investigation involving the sale of helicopters to the Indian government. India has started the process of cancelling the 750m dollars contract.

• Monday, February 18th 2013 - 06:29 UTC

  Russian meteor: 17 metres wide, weighed 10.000 tons and crashed at 64.373 km/h says NASA

  

  The meteor that exploded over Russia Friday was slightly larger than previously thought and more powerful, too, NASA scientists say. The explosion over the city of Chelyabinsk, on Friday injured more than 1,000 people and blew out windows across the region in a massive blast captured on cameras by frightened witnesses.

• Saturday, February 16th 2013 - 21:05 UTC

  G-20 rejects a ‘currency war’, but global situation too fragile to confirm it in facts

  

  The Group of 20 nations declared there would be no 'currency war' and deferred plans to set new debt-cutting targets in an indication of concern about the fragile state of the world economy.

• Saturday, February 16th 2013 - 20:44 UTC

  Trawling for the next generation of antibiotics at the bottom of the ocean

  

  Researchers are embarking on an £8m project to discover new antibiotics at the bottom of the ocean. A team, led by scientists at Aberdeen University, is hunting for undiscovered chemicals among life that has evolved in deep sea trenches.Prof Marcel Jaspars said the team hoped to find “the next generation” of infection-fighting drugs.

• Friday, February 15th 2013 - 19:12 UTC

  Stranded cruise vessel docks in Alabama; “the ship’s afloat, so is the sewage”

  

  More than 4,000 people, passengers and crew members, disembarked on Friday from a crippled cruise ship that docked at Mobile, Alabama four days after an engine fire knocked out power while sailing in the Gulf of Mexico.

• Friday, February 15th 2013 - 18:56 UTC

  Top UK trade and media birdwatchers aiming for Falkland Islands’ experience

  

  The Falkland Islands Tourist Board (FITB) will be hosting some of the UK’s top bird watchers at the end of this month, on a trip led by Tim Appleton, cofounder and organiser of the prestigious British Birdwatching Fair.