
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the European Union is prepared to provisionally implement the EU–Mercosur trade agreement as soon as Mercosur countries begin completing their ratification procedures, seeking to reassure partners after a European Parliament vote injected fresh uncertainty into the bloc’s approval track.

Independent review site documents which operators deliver on promises.

Argentina’s ambassador to France, Ian Sielecki, halted the start of a hearing at France’s National Assembly and refused to speak while a map behind him displayed the Falklands/Malvinas as UK territory. Proceedings resumed only after a staff member covered the islands with a sticky note.

The run-up to the Commonwealth Games has officially begun in the Falkland Islands, with plans for a King’s Baton Relay revealed by the National Sports Council. In previous years, one baton has travelled around the whole Commonwealth but this time each nation has received their own blank baton.

We are buying the best icebreakers in the world, and Finland is known for producing them, US president Donald Trump said, as part of his campaign to take over Greenland and his concern as the Arctic Ocean becomes more navigable and with more trade routes.

By Gwynne Dyer - After the Danish and Greenland foreign ministers came out of a meeting in Washington on last week convinced that Donald Trump really intended to seize Greenland, things moved very fast.

The European Parliament voted on Wednesday to freeze its approval track for the EU-Mercosur trade agreement and request a legal opinion from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on whether the deal is compatible with EU treaties. The motion passed by a razor-thin margin —334 in favour, 324 against, with 11 abstentions— injecting new uncertainty into a pact that the two blocs had only just signed in Asunción after a quarter-century of negotiations.

A major new British Antarctic Survey (BAS) facility at Rothera Research Station is being presented as evidence of the UK’s standing in polar research. The £100 million Discovery Building—together with a new services network at Rothera—has been formally opened by BAS Director Professor Dame Jane Francis, completing what BAS describes as the largest UK construction project ever carried out in Antarctica.

The Chagos Archipelago is of major military significance as it hosts the strategically located Diego Garcia base.

The UK Ministry of Defense has said, “it will never compromise on our national security,” after US president Donald Trump condemned London’s “great stupidity” for handing over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. Under the agreement UK is allowed to keep control of the Diego Garcia military base while agreeing to hand the islands to Mauritius.