FAO’s latest forecast for world cereal production in 2013 has been revised upward marginally (2 million tons) since November to a new high of almost 2 500 million tons (including rice in milled terms), 8.4% more than last year and some 6% above the previous record in 2011.
Two scientists from Britain's Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) have been awarded OBEs in the New Year’s Honors list. Professor Jim McAdam from Queen's University Belfast, for services to research and agriculture in the Falkland Islands, and Dr Danny Todd was honored for his contribution to biological sciences and veterinary work, reports Farming Life.
Lawmakers from the Spanish region of Catalonia voted to seek a referendum on breaking away from Spain on Thursday, setting themselves up for a battle with an implacably opposed central government in Madrid. The Catalan Parliament in Barcelona voted 87 to 43, with 3 abstentions, to send a petition to the national parliament seeking the power to call a popular vote on the region’s future.
UK independent Premier Oil reported Thursday that its production rate peaked at 75,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day during December, when the average rate was 69,000 boepd. Premier said that average production for 2013 as a whole was 58,200 boepd, compared to an average rate of 57,700 boepd for 2012.
The Vatican was Thursday pushed for the first time to provide answers to the UN over its commitment to stamp out child sex abuse by priests. The landmark question-and-answer session before the UN's child rights watchdog in Geneva came as Pope Francis said Catholics should feel shame, in an apparent reference to the scandals that have rocked the Church.
Pope Francis shook up the scandal-plagued Vatican bank, removing four of five cardinals from an oversight body in a break with the clerical financial establishment he inherited from his predecessor. It was his latest move to get to grips with an institution that has often been an embarrassment for the Holy See and which he has vowed to either reform or close.
Taiwan is providing an estimated 3.5 million dollars grant to St. Lucia in the Caribbean to fund three projects identified by the PM Kenny Anthony administration.
The detrimental effect that border delays have had on tourism and visitor numbers to Gibraltar has been the subject of recent questions in the House of Commons. In a written question tabled before the lower House, Conservative MP Andrew Rosindell requested information from the Secretary of State regarding the effect that the border delays have had over the last four months.
Type 23 frigate HMS Portland left on Monday from Davenport naval base for the Atlantic to provide on-going protection and reassurance to British interests in the region, which includes the Falklands and other South Atlantic islands.
Fourteen police officers from Uruguay are currently attending courses at the Criminology Institute at Cambridge University, as part of their training for the country's Citizens' Security program, implemented with the support from the Inter American Development bank.