
The Birkenhead shipyard Cammell Laird said it saw off competition from Europe and beyond including Korea and Singapore to be selected as the preferred bidder to build a new vessel for the UK-funded Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). The contract was signed last week and it is expected that full production will start in June next year, and on completion the vessel will be operated by NERC’s British Antarctic Survey (BAS).

Representatives from the Falkland Islands will be attending the Overseas Territories Joint Ministerial Council 2015, JMC, in London on the 1-2 December. The fourth meeting of the Overseas Territories Joint Ministerial Council (JMC) will be held at Lancaster House and will be hosted by FCO Minister for the Overseas Territories James Duddridge MP.

On 25 November, the World Health Organization (WHO) joins partners in calling for the elimination of all forms of violence against women and girls to ensure their health, well-being and human rights.

Commodities hit 13-year lows on Monday as metals markets crashed but a steady close in oil and higher grains markets helped a key sector benchmark settle off the day's trough. Copper and nickel prices fell to multi-year lows, forcing the Thomson Reuters/Core Commodity CRB Index to its lowest levels since November 2002.

Mercosur is only waiting for the European Union to begin the political negotiations on the long delayed overall trade agreement, announced Paraguay's foreign minister Eladio Loizaga in Asunción, just back from Brussels where he met with EU and Belgian officials.

By Rengaraj Viswanathan (*) Mauricio Macri’s win will inspire the centre-right opposition parties that hope to replace leftist governments in Brazil and Venezuela but it is too early to declare, as some observers are doing, that the result marks the end of the Left in the region

The UK government is looking forward to working with the new government of Argentina and hopes the people of the Falkland Islands will not suffer the bellicosity shown by the current administration, said Foreign Office minister Hugo Swire in Parliament.

President-elect Mauricio Macri has tapped a top United Nations official to be Argentina's next foreign minister. Macri announced on his Facebook page on Tuesday that he picked Susana Malcorra, Cabinet chief for U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon since 2012.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the Marine Management Organization (MMO) co-hosted a workshop on ensuring global compliance with illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing regulations, demonstrating the UK’s continued lead in the fight against illegal fishing.

A landmark summit of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) has opened in the Iranian capital Tehran with the participation of the heads of nine member states. Presidents of Iran, Russia, Venezuela, Iraq, Bolivia, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, Turkmenistan as well as the Algerian prime minister are the key participants.