Nearly 100 years after Sir Ernest Shackleton’s legendary Antarctic survival journey, a team of British and Australian explorers have completed their expedition to recreate it. Team leader Tim Jarvis and climber Barry Gray arrived at the Stromness whaling station in South Georgia on Sunday, despite extreme weather over the weekend that had put the expedition in jeopardy.
The 43rd British Islands and Mediterranean Region Annual Conference of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association hosted by the Falkland Islands for the second time begins on Tuesday. Over forty delegates have travelled to the Islands for the Conference and Falklands Radio will be broadcasting some of the sessions.
Prime Minister Mario Monti accused his media magnate rival Silvio Berlusconi of trying to buy votes with impossible promises as Italy's election campaign entered its last phase. With February 24-25 vote two weeks away, polls suggest the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) will win a solid lower house majority but may need a deal with Monti's centrists to gain the control of the Senate it must have to govern.
With Pope Benedict's stunning announcement that he will resign end of the month, the time may be coming for the Roman Catholic Church to elect its first non-European leader and it could be a Latin American. The region already represents 42% of the world's 1.2 billion-strong Catholic population, the largest single block in the Church, compared to 25% in its European heartland and is has several outstanding candidates, according to Church sources.
Millions of people are celebrating Lunar New Year, also known as Chinese New Year, the most important annual holiday in much of Asia. The New Year began in China at midnight Saturday, with firework displays and family gatherings. It marked the opening of the year of the snake, taking over from the dragon.
A new crossfire has emerged between the Argentine President Cristina Fernandez and the Jewish community over the agreement reached by the Argentine government with Iran to investigate the 1994 bombing of a Jewish institution in Buenos Aires which left 85 dead and hundreds injured, and remains unresolved.
British Prime Minister David Cameron conceded that Scotland had what it takes to be an independent nation, but said it currently enjoyed “the best of both worlds”, imploring it not to break the United Kingdom apart.
British ambassador in Uruguay Ben Lyster-Binns said the coming referendum in the Falkland Islands involves the people of the Islands, United Kingdom and Argentina and expects the Uruguayan government to respect the referendum even when Foreign Minister Luis Almagro anticipated that the country will not recognize the results of the ballot.
Foreign Secretary William Hague has accused Argentina of bullying and intimidatory behaviour towards the Falkland Islands. Mr Hague in a Sunday interview with The Sun promised never to negotiate over the islands' sovereignty unless their people called for it - a referendum will take place next month.
Five people are dead following a lifeboat safety drill aboard a cruise vessel in the Canary Islands that turned in to a tragedy. The lifeboat fell about 20 meters when a cable snapped, trapping crew members beneath it and killing five of them