LATAM Airlines Group today announced it will operate a new, non-stop service between Santiago and Melbourne, Australia, from 5 October 2017. The westbound Santiago-Melbourne leg – measuring more than 11,000 km in distance with a flight time of approximately 15 hours – will become the longest non-stop flight in LATAM´s history.
Calls mounted on Monday from populist and other opposition leaders for quick elections in Italy, seeking to capitalize on Premier Matteo Renzi's humiliating defeat in a referendum on government-championed reforms. But President Sergio Mattarella told Renzi to stay in office a bit longer until a critical budget law is passed. Some officials say Parliament could pass that law as soon as the end of the week.
Chile's economy contracted for the first time in seven years in annual terms, as manufacturing and mining activity fell, potentially paving the way for the central bank to cut interest rates to spur growth. Economic activity fell 0.4% in October from the year-earlier month, the first annual contraction since October 2009, central bank data showed on Monday.
The Human Freedom Index 2016, (HFI), was released on Monday, the second annual report that represents the state of overall freedom in the world based on a broad measure of personal, civil and economic freedom. Co-published by the Cato Institute, the Fraser Institute (Canada) and the Liberales Institut (Germany) from the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, it looks into 179 distinct indicators in 159 countries on issues ranging from freedom of speech and association to women’s freedoms, the extent of voluntary exchange, safety and security, the rule of law and more.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will honor war dead but won't apologize when he becomes the first Japanese leader to visit Pearl Harbor this month, a top government spokesman said on Tuesday.The move follows Barack Obama's historic May trip to Hiroshima, the first by a sitting US president, where he spoke of victims' suffering but offered no apology for dropping the world's first nuclear bomb.
The government and treasury of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands issued a new Crown coin that pays tribute to and celebrates the centenary anniversary of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, also known as the Endurance Expedition. The expedition was named after its ship and is considered by some to be the last major expedition of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.
Brazil's Senate Speaker Renan Calheiros was suspended from duties by a Supreme Curt judge Monday, pending his trial where he faces corruption charges in what constitutes anothe blow to President Michel Temer's administration. The decision, made by judge Marco Aurelio Mello was effective immediately, but needs to be confirmed by a majority of judges on the supreme court bench, a court official said.
Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori was hospitalized over concerns he may be at risk of cerebral ischemia, a reduced blood supply to the brain, it was reported Monday by authorities of the detention facilities where he is serving a sentence for human rights violations.
The South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) Monday officially awarded the 2016 South American Cup title to the Brazilian team Chapecoense, who lost most of their players and staff as their airplane crashed in Colombia last week on its way to playing the final's first leg in Medellín against the local squad of Atlético Nacional, who was awarded the Conmebol's Fair Play Centennial prize.