A painting by Francis Bacon of his friend and fellow artist Lucian Freud has become the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction after it fetched 142 million dollars in New York. The triptych, Three Studies of Lucian Freud (1969), is considered one of Bacon's greatest masterpieces.
The European Union has clinched a deal on a sharply trimmed 2014 budget after a marathon 16-hour session ending a long dispute over how best to spend taxpayers' money. After decades of growth, next year's EU budget is set to be around 7% lower than this year's at 135.5 billion Euros in contributions by member states.
Chilean Foreign Affairs Minister Alfredo Moreno has said that the UK has been granted Observer Status of the Pacific Alliance. The announcement was made by Moreno during his recent visit to Europe. The Pacific Alliance is made up of Chile, Peru, Colombia and Mexico and is consolidating as the fastest growing group in the region.
An Iceberg, the size of Manhattan in area, was derived from the Pine Island Glacier, and is currently moving through the Southern Ocean. To keep track of its movements and melting Professor Grant Bigg of UK's University of Sheffield has been awarded a £50,000 grant from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) for the 6 month project.
Japan unveiled a new wind farm off the coast of Fukushima last week. Only thirteen miles offshore from the Fukushima Daichi nuclear power station, the same nuclear station that notoriously attracted the world's attention during the 2011 Japanese tsunami, the new wind farm is expected to produce upwards of one gigawatt from 143 wind turbines. For comparison, the now-inoperable Fukushima Daichi nuclear power plant could provide 4.4 gigawatts.
“I’m afraid the Argentines are behaving irrationally and not very well.” This was the opinion expressed in Stanley on Thursday morning by the Attorney General for England and Wales.
Uruguay made a formal complaint against Argentina before Mercosur regarding the administration of President Cristina Fernandez decision banning Argentine exports from transshipment in Uruguayan ports. The complaint was filed on Wednesday in Caracas at Subgroup 5 which addresses Mercosur maritime transport by Uruguay's Deputy Transport minister Pablo Genta.
The business climate (ICE) in Uruguay was down in the third quarter of the year, which means the country dropped from position 5 to 7 in the ranking of the eleven economies contemplated in the index elaborated by the Brazilian Getulio Vargas Foundation and Germany's respected IFO.
The remains of former Brazilian President Joao Goulart (1961/1964) were exhumed Wednesday due to suspicions that he may have been murdered on orders of the military regime that once ruled the country from 1964 to 1985.
In a landmark judgment, Brazil's Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld more than a dozen jail terms handed down in a political corruption scandal which broke in 2005.