UK independent Premier Oil reported Thursday that its production rate peaked at 75,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day during December, when the average rate was 69,000 boepd. Premier said that average production for 2013 as a whole was 58,200 boepd, compared to an average rate of 57,700 boepd for 2012.
US consumer inflation spiked in December, driven higher by rising fuel prices. The consumer price index rose 0.3% on a seasonally adjusted basis, the US Labor Department said.
The Vatican was Thursday pushed for the first time to provide answers to the UN over its commitment to stamp out child sex abuse by priests. The landmark question-and-answer session before the UN's child rights watchdog in Geneva came as Pope Francis said Catholics should feel shame, in an apparent reference to the scandals that have rocked the Church.
Pope Francis shook up the scandal-plagued Vatican bank, removing four of five cardinals from an oversight body in a break with the clerical financial establishment he inherited from his predecessor. It was his latest move to get to grips with an institution that has often been an embarrassment for the Holy See and which he has vowed to either reform or close.
Washington's battles over government funding ended with a whimper today as the US Senate approved a 1.1 trillion dollars spending bill that quells for nearly nine months the threat of another federal agency shutdown.
Taiwan is providing an estimated 3.5 million dollars grant to St. Lucia in the Caribbean to fund three projects identified by the PM Kenny Anthony administration.
United States lawmakers are pressing the Federal Reserve to act more forcefully, and quickly, to limit banks’ involvement in the commodities business, which has been blamed for inflating prices on everyday items like electricity and canned beverages.
Chile's main ports continued paralyzed as negotiations between striking workers and authorities are at an impasse and ugly skirmishes with police play out amid millions of cases of perishable export produce which are likely to spoil.
The detrimental effect that border delays have had on tourism and visitor numbers to Gibraltar has been the subject of recent questions in the House of Commons. In a written question tabled before the lower House, Conservative MP Andrew Rosindell requested information from the Secretary of State regarding the effect that the border delays have had over the last four months.
Type 23 frigate HMS Portland left on Monday from Davenport naval base for the Atlantic to provide on-going protection and reassurance to British interests in the region, which includes the Falklands and other South Atlantic islands.