
Vice-president Danilo Astori said he was surprised at the way events unfolded ending with the decision from the Royal Bank of Canada of leaving Uruguay, but also concerned about the international impact of such a move, triggered by a ‘disorderly’ raid in its offices.

Newly-formed mining giant Glencore Xstrata has written down the value of Xstrata's assets by 7.7bn dollars and reported a drop in revenues. The firm, which was created in May, said the write-down reflected tougher conditions in the mining sector.

Over one million World Cup finals ticket requests were made within the first seven hours of public sale, soccer's world governing body FIFA said on Tuesday. Most demand for tickets came from Brazil, Argentina, United States, Chile and England.

During a debate on the “Malvinas Question”, Argentine ambassador to the United Kingdom Alicia Castro launched a strong attack on Prime Minister David Cameron describing him as “a fool, dumb, and completely useless” politician, because of his comments when the election of Pope Francis.

By Simon Jenkins (*) (The Guardian) Nothing beats a gunboat. HMS Illustrious glided out of Plymouth on Monday (August 12), past HMS Victory and cheering crowds of patriots. Within a week it will be off Gibraltar, a mere cannon shot from Cape Trafalgar. The nation's breast heaves, the tears prick. The Olympic spirit is off to singe the king of Spain's beard. How dare they keep honest British citizens waiting six hours at Spanish border control? Have they forgotten the Armada?

British sovereignty of the Falkland Islands dates to 1765 and although Britain did not establish a permanent presence until 1833, it formally protested at sporadic Argentine attempts to assert sovereignty, points out Howard Drake, British High Commissioner to Canada.

The British authorities forced the Guardian newspaper to destroy material leaked by Edward Snowden, its editor has revealed, calling it a pointless move that would not prevent further reporting on US and British surveillance programs.

The Prime Minister’s office, 10 Downing Street, was kept abreast of the decision to detain David Miranda, the partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald who has written about US and British surveillance programs based on leaks by Edward Snowden, a spokesperson has revealed.

European Commission president Jose Manuel Durao Barroso and Spain’s Mariano Rajoy discussed Gibraltar on the phone and agreed that the Commission should dispatch observers to the border “as soon as possible” to examine controls on the movement of people and goods, the EC said in a statement.

Britain rejected a Spanish proposal to hold one-on-one talks over the sovereignty of the contested British overseas territory (BOT) of Gibraltar after Spain issued an appeal for such negotiations to be held as soon as possible.