Stories for February 2012

Tuesday, February 21st 2012 - 04:36 UTC
Rousseff promises fiscal and credit stimuli to promote exports and innovation

Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff said the government will implement fiscal and credit access measures to stimulate production and exports with the purpose of gaining competitiveness in a global context of crisis.
Tuesday, February 21st 2012 - 04:28 UTC
UK Secretary discusses Falklands’ defence in Parliament

UK Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said on Monday that the British military presence in the Falklands has not increased recently since there was no recorded change to Argentine force levels, and there was no “current or credible” threat.
Tuesday, February 21st 2012 - 04:14 UTC
Protestant parson and human rights activist next German president

German Chancellor Angela Merkel bowed to pressure on Sunday and agreed to back popular opposition candidate Joachim Gauck to become president, averting a political fight that might have distracted her government from solving the euro zone crisis.
Tuesday, February 21st 2012 - 04:03 UTC
Argentine opposition demand open debate on Malvinas, not the “official speech”

Argentine members of the opposition have warned that they will not attend a Friday special session of the Senate and Lower House Foreign Affairs committees to be held in Tierra del Fuego and dedicated to the Malvinas issue unless the overall position of the diplomatic conflict is openly debated.
Saturday, February 18th 2012 - 06:25 UTC
Zurich and Tokyo, and Geneva and Osaka, the world’s most expensive cities

The strong Swiss franc has seen Zurich top Tokyo as the world's most expensive city in a survey out this week. Zurich, ranked fourth last year, took the unenviable crown in the 2012 Worldwide Cost of Living Survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit.
Saturday, February 18th 2012 - 06:22 UTC
Russian billionaire buys New York penthouse apartment for 88 million dollars

The family of a Russian billionaire has bought a New York City penthouse apartment for 88 million dollars. The Wall Street Journal says the property at 15 Central Park West in Manhattan is now the most expensive apartment in New York.
Saturday, February 18th 2012 - 01:52 UTC
“Argentina is not a country you’d want to be associated with”, says Falklands’ MLA

Falkland Islands lawmaker Mike Summers accused Argentina of acting as a “schoolyard bully” trying to take sweets from others and described as intolerable that a country of that size should be trying to bully a country of 3.000 people into submission. “It’s a country you’d not want to be associated with”.
Saturday, February 18th 2012 - 00:15 UTC
Argentina now takes Falklands’ dispute to satellite imagery

The Argentine newspaper Ambito Financiero reported on Friday, without revealing sources, that oil exploration rig Leiv Eiriksson, contracted by two oil companies to drill to the south of the Falkland Islands “was found, on Thursday, exploring in Argentine waters”, according to ‘irrefutable’ satellite images.
Friday, February 17th 2012 - 23:32 UTC
US member of Congress begins one week visit to Falklands next Monday

A US member of the House of Representatives is scheduled to visit the Falkland Islands next week beginning Monday. Republican Congressman F. Jim Sensenbrenner has represented, uninterruptedly, the 5th district of the state of Wisconsin since first elected in 1978 which includes most of the state capital Madison.
Friday, February 17th 2012 - 18:49 UTC
Songbird wheatear breeds in the Artic, flies across the Atlantic to spend winter in Africa

The sharp-eyed northern wheatear is a songbird that weighs a mere 25 grams, about the same as two tablespoons of flour. With its spindly legs, its muted white, brown and black colour, who would think such a lightweight capable of heroic endurance?