
Spanish banking giant Santander under its new executive chairperson Ana Botin announced on Monday the purchase of the remaining 25% of Banco Santander Brasil which it did not already own.

Former FIFA official Jerome Champagne has formally announced that he will stand against incumbent Sepp Blatter in next year's election for president of the world soccer body.

The White House weighed in carefully on the Scottish independence referendum, saying Washington would respect the outcome of the vote but would prefer the United Kingdom to remain strong, robust and united.

A leading Scottish business group has called for the country to unite to drive Scotland forward, whatever the result of the independence referendum. The Scottish Chambers of Commerce said the outcome would leave a substantial number of people disappointed.

Sixty years after her last visit the Chief Minister has called on Queen Elizabeth II to visit Gibraltar. He did so in a dramatic call during his National day speech. Fabian Picardo was flanked on stage by Gibraltar Government Ministers, Opposition MPs and a contingent of visiting British MPs and MEPs.

As Argentine President Cristina Fernandez readies for her annual trip to New York to speak at the United Nations General Assembly, US interim ambassador in Buenos Aires Kevin Sullivan ratified that Washington will not back the UN sovereign debt resolution sparked by Argentina’s legal battle with its holdout creditors.

Argentina will pay holders of its restructured sovereign debt, thanks to a bill passed by its Congress last week despite a US court ruling, the country's economy minister told a local radio show on Sunday.

In Europe's eastern half, the disintegration of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia created many new countries. In Western Europe, however, borders of the old nation states seemed to be carved in stone and although there have been secessionist tendencies, some of them militant, they never seemed to have a shot in reality, according to a Deutsche Welle report from Berlin.

Queen Elizabeth II has broken her silence over the Scottish independence vote, saying she hopes Scots will think very carefully about the future when voting in a referendum that could break up the United Kingdom.

Former Spanish Judge and Human Rights activist Baltasar Garzon praised the Sovereign Payment law approved by Argentina’s Congress last week and described the United Nation’s resolution for the creation of a multilateral legal framework for sovereign debt restructuring process as “essential.”