International

• Saturday, May 23rd 2015 - 10:17 UTC

  On St Helena Day, 21 May 2016, begins air link of the island with South Africa

  

  British Overseas Territory St Helena only link with the outside world, currently by sea, will be coming to an end in May 2016, when the proposed official opening of the airport which is being built by South African contractors, will be taking place, according to the 12 May meeting of the island's Executive Council.

• Friday, May 22nd 2015 - 10:21 UTC

  El Niño could again disrupt global food markets later this year

  

  A strong El Niño is likely to increase prices of staple foods such as rice, coffee, sugar and cocoa, say scientists. Forecasters agree that the El Niño effect, which can drive droughts and flooding, is under way in the tropical Pacific, but they say it is too early to say how severe it will be.

• Friday, May 22nd 2015 - 08:52 UTC

  PM Li Keqiang in Bogotá: China and Colombia considering free trade accord

  

  Chinese Premier Li Keqiang vowed to deepen economic ties with Colombia after arriving to Bogotá on Thursday, as part of his four-nation South American tour aimed at boosting trade and investment. Li is the highest-ranking Chinese official to visit Colombia since the two nations established diplomatic ties 35 years ago and his visit was hailed as historic by President Juan Manuel Santos.

• Friday, May 22nd 2015 - 08:20 UTC

  Lloyd Register Group appointed a new CEO and will take the post next October

  

  Alastair Marsh, current CFO at the Lloyd’s Register Group Ltd. (LR), has been appointed as the successor to CEO Richard Sadler who has decided to step down at the end of 2015. Sadler will pass the CEO role to Marsh on October 1, 2015 and commence a formal handover period until the end of December 2015.

• Thursday, May 21st 2015 - 07:08 UTC

  Five world leading banks fined 5.7bn dollars for manipulating foreign exchange markets

  

  Five of the world's largest banks are to pay fines totaling $5.7bn for charges including manipulating the foreign exchange market. Four of the banks - JPMorgan, Barclays, Citigroup and RBS - have agreed to plead guilty to US criminal charges, while the fifth, UBS from Switzerland will plead guilty to rigging benchmark interest rates.

• Thursday, May 21st 2015 - 06:56 UTC

  Iranian officers' interviews, allegedly linked to AMIA bombing, attract world media attention

  

  The interviews with former Iranian officials accused of the 1994 AMIA bombing of a Jewish organization in downtown Buenos Aires aired this week by Argentine news channel C5N were covered by a number of international media outlets.

• Thursday, May 21st 2015 - 06:40 UTC

  Pope Francis prays for Argentina on the country's National Day

  

  Pope Francis has sent a letter to President Cristina Fernández to mark festivities for May week, during which Argentina commemorates the formation of the First Patriotic Government on 25 May 1810.

• Wednesday, May 20th 2015 - 22:09 UTC

  Falklands: “We are an Overseas Territory, very content with the status and endorsed in the 2013 referendum”

  

  The Falkland Islands are very pleased with their current political and democratic status based on the UN charter and confirmed in the 2013 referendum, enjoy a prosperous economy with emphasis on social policies and environment conservation and have good neighborly relations with nearby countries, except for Argentina that “continues to ignore our people's right to self-determination and covet our territory”.

• Wednesday, May 20th 2015 - 20:44 UTC

  'Record' seven-foot conger eel trawled off Plymouth in UK

  

  Commercial fishermen trawling off the coast of the United Kingdom near Plymouth were stunned last week when they brought aboard a seven-foot, roughly 130-pound conger eel. The eel had gotten caught up in the trawler’s nets and was already dead by the time it was brought out of the water, but its sheer size surprised even the fishermen on board.

• Wednesday, May 20th 2015 - 20:34 UTC

  Research icebreaker Polarstern en route to investigate climate change in Arctic

  

  Research icebreaker Polarstern left its home port in Bremerhaven on Tuesday setting a course for the Arctic. Led by Dr Ilka Peeken from the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) a team of 53 researchers from 11 countries will investigate the effects of climate change in the Arctic, from the surface ice floes down to the seafloor