International

• Tuesday, August 1st 2017 - 07:44 UTC

  Bank of England staff three day strike; first industrial action in over half a century

  

  A three-day strike by Bank of England support staff will go ahead after talks at the conciliation service Acas ended without agreement, the Unite union said. Employees are unhappy about a below inflation pay rise of 1% and protestors are planning to gather outside the Bank of England building wearing masks of Governor Mark Carney.

• Tuesday, August 1st 2017 - 07:24 UTC

  PM May's office denies freedom of movement will continue once UK leaves EU

  

  Suggestions that freedom of movement will continue after the United Kingdom leaves the EU are wrong, Downing Street has said. Last Friday, Chancellor Philip Hammond warned full controls could take “some time”, prompting speculation free movement may continue in all but name after the UK leaves in March 2019.

• Tuesday, August 1st 2017 - 06:36 UTC

  Hammond in Brazil announced the doubling of support for bilateral trade

  

  The Chancellor, Philip Hammond, has unveiled a series of new commercial agreements with Brazil on Monday, on day one of his visit to showcase British business and deepen trade and economic ties with South America’s biggest economies. Among the measures has been doubling support to £3 billion, to promote bilateral trade.

• Tuesday, August 1st 2017 - 06:25 UTC

  Hammond arrives in Argentina on trade mission; scheduled to meet Macri

  

  Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond is scheduled to arrive in Buenos Aires Tuesday evening following a two day business promotion visit to Brazil. It will be the first time a leading UK cabinet minister sets foot in Argentina in sixteen years; the last was when ex Prime Minister Tony Blair met ex president Fernando De la Rua in the Iguazu falls in 2001.

• Monday, July 31st 2017 - 16:43 UTC

  Rome and Vatican praying for rain: city avoids, temporarily, compulsory water rationing

  

  Rome narrowly avoided water rationing after a deal between the regional government and the city's water company defused a row over drawing water from a drought-affected lake. Taps had been due to run dry for 1.5 million Romans for up to eight hours a day from Monday, and Mayor Virginia Raggi urged the central government to intervene.

• Monday, July 31st 2017 - 09:57 UTC

  Cabinet in a state of civil war over Brexit, says Lib-Dem leader Vince Cable

  

  The rift between senior ministers on how long to allow the free movement of people after Brexit shows “all the signs of a Cabinet in a state of civil war”, Vince Cable has said. The Liberal Democrat leader's remarks come after International Trade Secretary Liam Fox dismissed the idea that a consensus had been reached on the issue by the Prime Minister's top table.

• Monday, July 31st 2017 - 08:18 UTC

  Putin reacts to sanctions and expels 755 US diplomats from Moscow

  

  Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a television interview that the U.S. must cut the size of its diplomatic force in his country by more than half, from about 1,210 to 455. Putin said on Sunday that the cut will make the size of the U.S. diplomatic mission in his country equal to that of Russia's diplomatic corps in the U.S.

• Monday, July 31st 2017 - 08:06 UTC

  Spanish economy recovering strongly reaches pre-2008 size

  

  Spain's economy grew by 0.9% in the second quarter thanks to improved exports and household spending. The growth figure, a first estimate from the National Statistics Institute (INE), suggests the country's economy has finally grown back to the size it was before the credit crunch of 2008.

• Monday, July 31st 2017 - 07:46 UTC

  Open divisions on post-Brexit policy surface in the British cabinet

  

  Allowing free movement of people after Britain leaves the European Union would not “keep faith” with the Brexit vote, the international trade secretary said, underling divisions in the government over the issue. Liam Fox told the Sunday Times that senior government ministers had not reached a consensus on retaining free movement of people for a transitional period, a proposal outlined by finance minister Philip Hammond on Friday.

• Saturday, July 29th 2017 - 14:53 UTC

  Hammond admits post-Brexit transitional deal up, but until general election in 2022

  

  Any “transitional deal” in the period after Brexit must end by June 2022, the time of the next general election, Philip Hammond has said. But the chancellor said there must be “business as usual, life as normal” for Britons as the UK left the EU.