Stories for December 12th 2008

Friday, December 12th 2008 - 20:00 UTC
Falkland Islands: Weekly Penguin News Update

Headlines: Vice Chief of Defence makes Falklands visit; BA Honours degree for Nancy; Missing drugs: Spanish fisherman pleads guilty to charge of burglary.
Friday, December 12th 2008 - 20:00 UTC
Peruvian opinion poll confesses corruption is rampant

An overwhelming majority of Peruvians believe their country is corrupt or very corrupt, according to a national public opinion poll published Friday in the capital Lima press.
Friday, December 12th 2008 - 20:00 UTC
Fire scorches centuries old forests in Tierra del Fuego

A federal state of emergency has been declared in Argentina's extreme south Tierra del Fuego province, where more than 6.000 hectares of centuries-old forest have been scorched or are threatened by several fires, forcing the evacuation of dozens of people, according to an official release.
Friday, December 12th 2008 - 20:00 UTC
Ecuador defaults on bonds; promised restructure

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa has ordered halting payment on foreign bonds he calls “illegal” and “illegitimate”. If this is the case it would be Ecuador's second default in a decade.
Friday, December 12th 2008 - 20:00 UTC
Bush, Obama support emergency aid for US car industry

The outgoing George Bush administration said it may be willing to give emergency aid to the ailing US car industry, keeping open the prospects for a bailout the day after Congress failed to approve a deal.
Friday, December 12th 2008 - 20:00 UTC
WTO admits not enough consensus for world trade talks

World Trade Organization (WTO) chief Pascal Lamy has abandoned attempts to restart the world trade talks. Lamy told ambassadors in Geneva that he has decided there was not sufficient consensus among major economies to call new ministerial talks on a trade deal.
Friday, December 12th 2008 - 20:00 UTC
Ex Nasdaq chairman fraud could trigger hedge funds-run

The former chairman of the Nasdaq stock market has been arrested and charged with securities fraud, in what may be one of the biggest fraud cases yet. Bernard Madoff ran a hedge fund which ran up 50 billion US dollars of fraudulent losses and which he called “one big lie”, prosecutors allege.
Friday, December 12th 2008 - 20:00 UTC
London police accepts full responsibility for Menezes death

London's Metropolitan Police accepts “full responsibility” for the death of Jean Charles de Menezes, its acting head said on Friday. Sir Paul Stephenson, the acting commissioner of the force, said officers made a “most terrible mistake” when they shot the innocent 27-year-old dead in Stockwell on July 22 2005.
Friday, December 12th 2008 - 20:00 UTC
A “boxing weekend” for Uruguay's ruling coalition congress

Uruguay's ruling coalition national congress of delegates meets this weekend to decide on the presidential candidate --or hopefuls-- for next October's election, but contrary to the long tradition of the catch-all movement, no consensus has been reached or seems achievable.