The world's longest tunnel officially opened on Wednesday, with the trailblazing rail passage under the Swiss Alps aiming to ease transit through the heart of Europe. With political unity on the continent shaken by a massive influx of migrants and the looming threat of Britain's EU departure, Swiss president Johann Schneider-Ammann said the tunnel would join the people and the economies of Europe.
The centenary of the biggest naval engagement of World War One was marked by commemorative events on Tuesday, 31 May. A service at St Magnus Cathedral in Orkney paid tribute to the 8,648 sailors who died during the Battle of Jutland and a service of remembrance also took place on board HMS Duncan at Jutland Bank, the site of the battle.
According to the UN charter the full measure of self-government of the peoples of the Non-Self-Governing Territories must be the result of the freely expressed will and desire of those peoples, said UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in his message to the opening of the Pacific Regional Seminar on Decolonization, currently taking place in Managua, Nicaragua.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Tuesday that Organization of American States chief Luis Almagro had called for foreign “intervention” in his country by invoking the body’s Democratic Charter in response to the political crisis in Venezuela.
The Falkland Islands Financial Secretary Nicola Granger presented on Tuesday to the Legislative Assembly the 2016/17 financial budget bill with appropriations of £62.9M, funded from revenues anticipated in the year of £61.3M with the remainder coming from the reserves built up from wind-falls in Illex catches and oil and gas exploration in recent years.
By Carmen Reinhart (*) Argentina recently emerged from nearly 15 years of the most litigious sovereign default in modern times, if not ever. Now it has the opportunity to reenter the global financial system and build a more stable and prosperous future. It is a chance that the country must be careful not to squander.
The Argentine news agency Pescare reports that the repeated illegal incursion of Asian vessels in Argentina's Exclusive Economic Zone prompted the issue to be addressed during the recent meeting of the bilateral Argentina/China Subcommittee on Fisheries.
Illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing is about to become much more difficult thanks to the imminent entry into force of the Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA), a ground-breaking international accord championed by FAO.
Recent moves to introduce plain (standardized) packaging of tobacco products can save lives by reducing demand for tobacco products, say the World Health Organization (WHO) and the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Secretariat (WHO FCTC).
French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel appealed on Sunday for Europe to unite to face its current challenges as they marked the 100th anniversary of Verdun, the longest battle of World War I. The 300 days of fighting in northeast France were one of the bloodiest battles of the war, claiming more than 300,000 lives before France emerged victorious.