International

• Tuesday, April 14th 2015 - 18:35 UTC

  China's exports/imports fall in March; trade surplus lowest in 13 years

  

  China's monthly trade data shows exports fell in March from a year ago by 14.6% in Yuan terms, compared to expectations for a rise of more than 8%. Imports meanwhile fell 12.3% in Yuan terms compared to forecasts for a fall of more than 11%.

• Tuesday, April 14th 2015 - 11:19 UTC

  Germany's greatest post WWII writer and Nobel Prize winner dies at 87

  

  German novelist Günter Grass, the Nobel Prize-winning author of “The Tin Drum”, an epic treatment of the Nazi era, on Monday at the age of 87, his publishers said. A broad-shouldered man with a drooping mustache, Grass spurned the German tradition of keeping a cool intellectual distance, insisting that a writer's duty was to be at the frontline of moral and political debate.

• Tuesday, April 14th 2015 - 10:03 UTC

  Intellectual icon of Latin America's left in the seventies and eighties dies in Montevideo

  

  Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano, whose The Open Veins of Latin America became a classic text for the left in the region and propelled the author to fame, died on Monday at age 74. Galeano had been ill with lung cancer for several months.

• Monday, April 13th 2015 - 08:57 UTC

  Francis triggers fury from Turkey recalling the genocide of the Armenian people

  

  Pope Francis uttered the word “genocide” on Sunday to describe the mass murder of Armenians 100 years ago, sparking fury from Turkey which slammed the term as “far from historical reality”.

• Monday, April 13th 2015 - 07:45 UTC

  Mercosur footwear manufacturers want to stop the 'flood' of Asian shoe imports

  

  Paraguay with a population of six million imports annually 25 million pairs of shoes, something considered 'incredible' and totally out of proportion with the economic situation and poverty levels of the country, claimed Mercosur members' footwear chambers and related industries.

• Monday, April 13th 2015 - 07:38 UTC

  French magistrates order HSBC to post a 1bn Euro bail to cover potential fine

  

  French judges have ordered HSBC Holdings to post a one-billion Euro bail to cover a potential fine after the bank was put under formal criminal investigation over allegations it helped customers dodge their taxes.

• Sunday, April 12th 2015 - 10:48 UTC

  Pope Francis appeals to Americas Summit for better distribution of riches

  

  In a message addressed to the President of Panama Juan Carlos Varela, Pope Francis urged leaders attending the OAS Americas' Summit to strengthen efforts against inequality which he considered a “source for conflicts.”

• Sunday, April 12th 2015 - 08:55 UTC

  Obama praised the 'new beginning' in the bilateral relation with Cuba

  

  United States President Barack Obama addressed American leaders in the meeting currently taking place in the City of Panama praising the diplomatic rapprochement between Washington and Cuba which he called “a new beginning” in the bilateral relation.

• Sunday, April 12th 2015 - 08:22 UTC

  Falklands 'raided' by British Special Forces to test the garrison's security, says UK media

  

  British Special forces have carried a raid on the Falkland Islands to test the garrison's security amid fears that Argentina may try to land commandos on the Islands, according to a piece published in the Sunday Express. Apparently such routine exercises are carried out in UK highly sensitive bases and defense compounds.

• Sunday, April 12th 2015 - 07:36 UTC

  Argentina's message to UK and US: “utterly ridiculous considering any regional country a threat.”

  

  Addressing the Americas summit in Panama, Argentine president Cristina Fernandez strongly criticized United States policies towards the hemisphere, particularly Venezuela, and expressed 'surprise' at the parallelism between the Caracas/Washington current dispute and the latest round of Falklands' exchanges between London and her government. President Barack Obama was not present during the Argentine leader's speech on Saturday.