
The Emirates airline has announced an order for up to 36 Airbus A380s. The US$16bn deal amounts to a reprieve for the A380 after Airbus threatened to stop making the jet if it could not come to a deal with Emirates.

A powerful bird of prey native to the Falkland Islands was captured on Wednesday after escaping from London Zoo and spending 10 days on the loose. There were repeated sightings of the two-foot tall raptor, called a Striated Caracara, in Camden this week, with one report that it was seen “ripping into a whole cooked chicken”.

China invested US$20.9 billion in Brazil in 2017, the most since 2010 as a recession helped push down asset prices and attracted investors, according to Brazil’s planning ministry.The energy, logistics and agriculture sectors drew the most Chinese capital, including investments in Brazil’s rich pre-salt oil fields and China’s State Power Investment Corp US$2.25 billion deal to operate the São Simão hydropower plant.

The Foreign Office Director of the Economic Diplomacy Directorate Hugh Elliot is currently in Chile on a two day visit to discuss the UK’s transition process from the European Union with the Chilean Government. Mr. Elliot is the UK's government main interlocutor for the transition program of agreements and third countries.

Pope Francis celebrated the first-ever airborne papal wedding on Thursday, marrying two flight attendants from Chile’s flagship airline at 36,000 feet during a flight from Santiago.

Among the sanctioned are the number two of the government, Diosdado Cabello; Néstor Reverol, minister of Justice and Maikel Moreno, president of the Supreme Court of Justice. These are new individual sanctions, which include the freezing of assets and the prohibition to travel to the countries of the European bloc to at least seven senior Venezuelan officials.

The European Union chief executive Jean-Claude Juncker renewed an offer to Britain on Wednesday to stay in the European Union and said he hoped that even if it goes through with Brexit it would apply to rejoin the bloc.

China cuts its holdings of U.S. Treasury securities in November 2017 after adding US$ 8.4bn in October. China's holdings of U.S. treasuries dropped by US$ 12.6bn to US$ 1.1766 trillion in November last year. China remained the largest holder of U.S. treasuries.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) on Wednesday ruled out further political concessions in the preliminary coalition agreement between the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Christian Social Union (CSU) and German Social Democrats (SPD).

French film legend Brigitte Bardot attacked the #MeToo movement on Wednesday, claiming that actresses who complain of sexual harassment were just looking for publicity. “The vast majority are being hypocritical and ridiculous,” she told the French magazine Paris Match.