International

• Monday, October 15th 2018 - 08:00 UTC

  The £50 note will survive in a plastic redesign, announced the Bank of England

  

  The £50 note will not be scrapped and will instead get a plastic redesign, the Bank of England has said. Fears that the largest denomination was widely used by criminals and rarely for ordinary purchases had prompted a proposal to abolish it. But ministers said the new version, to be printed in the UK, would be more durable, secure and harder to forge.

• Monday, October 15th 2018 - 07:38 UTC

  Countdown for Mrs. May: EU Brexit talks on Sunday faltered on Irish “backstop”

  

  The UK can still make progress in Brexit talks despite serious unresolved issues, Downing Street has said. Talks between Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab and EU negotiator Michel Barnier faltered on Sunday over the so-called Irish “backstop”, which could see the UK remaining in the customs union. However Number 10 said the government was still “committed to making progress”.

• Monday, October 15th 2018 - 07:17 UTC

  Bavaria's CSU loses its majority in regional election; blow for Merkel's coalition

  

  Angela Merkel's sister party has suffered massive losses in Bavaria's state elections, exit polls suggest, in a blow to the German chancellor. The CSU is set to lose its absolute majority in the state parliament, while the Greens surged into second place and the anti-immigration AfD entered the state parliament for the first time.

• Monday, October 15th 2018 - 04:42 UTC

  Two Chilean bishops no longer priests due to their involvement in cases of sexual abuse

  

  Pope Francis Saturday stripped two Chilean bishops of their priesthood after having been found to be involved in the country's widening sexual abuse crisis, the Vatican said on Saturday. A Vatican statement in Spanish said the pope's decision was definitive and not open to appeal.

• Monday, October 15th 2018 - 04:14 UTC

  The Catholic Church has seven new saints

  

  A former pontiff, a Spanish-born nun who is said to have performed her first miracle in Argentina and a slain Salvadorean Bishop were among the seven new saints canonised Sunday by Pope Francis at the Vatican.

• Sunday, October 14th 2018 - 23:34 UTC

  Nigeria: Abducted ICRC health care workers' execution imminent

  

  The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Sunday made a public appeal to the Nigerian Government in a last attempt to save the lives of Hauwa and Alice, two health care workers abducted in March by ISWAP (Islamic State's West African province group).

• Sunday, October 14th 2018 - 23:27 UTC

  David Davis calls for Cabinet to rebel against May over Brexit deal

  

  Prime Minister Theresa May's former Brexit chief negotiator David Davis Sunday wrote in a newspaper column that the entire British Cabinet should drop any plan and seek a free trade deal in the style of Canada.

• Saturday, October 13th 2018 - 20:49 UTC

  UK assumes Chairmanship of the Community of Democracies

  

  As of 15 September 2018, the United Kingdom has taken up the rotating 6-month chairmanship of the Executive Committee of the Community of Democracies, CoD, which is described as a global inter-governmental coalition that aims to promote democratic values.

• Saturday, October 13th 2018 - 08:02 UTC

  Uruguay and Argentina elected to the UN Human Rights Council

  

  The General Assembly on Friday elected 18 States to the Human Rights Council, the United Nations body responsible for promoting and protecting all human rights around the globe, among which Uruguay and Argentina.

• Friday, October 12th 2018 - 15:48 UTC

  Pivotal South African politician Pik Botha dies, aged 86

  

  Roelof Frederik “Pik” Botha, who served as South Africa’s apartheid-era Foreign Affairs Minister for 17 years until 1994 and then joined Nelson Mandela's Cabinet, passed away at a Pretoria hospital on Thursday night. He was 86.