By Jimmy Burns - The snapped moment of encounter projected fast and globally on the world wide web has become as much as a characteristic of the Francis papacy, as his twitter account @pontifex. This is a papacy with a charismatic personality and instinctive communicator at its helm. It is also a papacy advised by media specialists and diplomats that know something about the opportunity offered by the digital age to spread a message with an impact that would have inconceivable just a few years ago.
Guatemala’s prosecutor’s office said Friday that it has requested the Supreme Court's permission to start an impeachment process for President Otto Perez Molina over a sprawling corruption case that has held the country in the grip of political turmoil for months. The move came hours after the former vice president was placed under arrest for her own alleged role in the scandal.
The Falklands' Retail Price Index for the quarter ending June 30, 2015 decreased by 0.8%, meaning that the annual Retail Price Index (RPI) as at the end of June was 0.3%, helped by lower prices of fuel and power.
Artful, the third of the U.K. Royal Navy’s new Astute Class attack submarines, has arrived at her Scottish base port from where she will carry out sea trials before entering service later this year, the U.K. Ministry of Defense announced.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel pressed Brazil's government on Thursday to further open its markets to foreign companies, and said she saw an opportunity to reach a free-trade deal between the European Union and the Mercosur trade bloc. Merkel is on a two-day visit to Brazil with a large delegation of government officials and representatives from German companies.
A slump in commodity markets will burden the global economy for some time to come, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff told Germany's Handelsblatt business daily, adding she hoped the Brazilian economy would pick up in a year.
Brazil unions and left groups staged a string of protests in a show of support for President Dilma Rousseff, although turnout was markedly lower than at massive anti-government rallies over the weekend. The protests hit back at the growing push to impeach Rousseff, who less than a year into her second term is struggling for political survival.
Brazil's unemployment rate rose for a seventh straight month in July to the highest in over five years, government data showed on Thursday. The non-seasonally adjusted jobless rate rose in July to 7.5% from 6.9% in June, statistics agency IBGE said.
Brazilian prosecutors on Thursday asked the Federal Supreme Court to authorize prosecution of the speaker of the lower house of Congress, Eduardo Cunha, in a massive corruption case centered on state-controlled oil giant Petrobras.
Spain’s Foreign Minister, José Manuel García-Margallo, came under flak from the opposition PSOE for his ‘frivolous and inappropriate’ comments about Gibraltar, which were dubbed ‘Francoist’ by one Socialist politician, reports the Gibraltar Chronicle.