International

• Sunday, September 15th 2013 - 18:03 UTC

  Spain’s public debt hits a record high in June equal to 92.2% of GDP

  

  Spain's public debt reached a record high in June, the country's central bank said. The figure has risen to 942.8bn Euros, equal to 92.2% of the country's entire economic output, the bank said. This is nearly 15% higher than the same period last year and above the Spanish government's target limit of 91.4%, despite severe public spending cuts.

• Sunday, September 15th 2013 - 18:01 UTC

  Twitter has decided to go public; private investors estimates: over 10bn dollars

  

  Twitter has decided to go public. The company aptly announced on its short messaging service Friday afternoon that it has filed documents for an initial public offering of stock. San Francisco based Twitter Inc. posted on its official Twitter account that it has “confidentially submitted an S-1 to the SEC for a planned IPO.”

• Sunday, September 15th 2013 - 17:59 UTC

  Rajoy offers talks to Catalonia but no indication of an independence vote

  

  Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy offered to hold talks with Catalonia, but gave no indication he would allow the wealthy north-western region to vote on independence. The offer of talks was made in a letter sent to the head of Catalonia's regional government, Artur Mas, only three days after hundreds of thousands of Catalans formed a 400-km human chain to push their independence bid and demand a referendum.

• Sunday, September 15th 2013 - 17:57 UTC

  Barroso said Spain denied queues at the Gibraltar border were ‘on purpose’

  

  The President of the European Commission said this week that Europe “would not hesitate to act” if it found evidence that Spanish border checks in the Gibraltar border breached EU rules on freedom of movement.

• Sunday, September 15th 2013 - 17:56 UTC

  PM Cameron furious with Barroso for comments on Tories European elections prospects

  

  British Prime Minister David Cameron has hit back at European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso after he warned the Tories were heading for defeat at the hands of UK Independent party in next year’s European elections.

• Sunday, September 15th 2013 - 17:54 UTC

  UK confirms plans to privatize the iconic postal service: tough battle ahead

  

  Britain’s coalition government has confirmed plans to privatize the country’s iconic 497-year-old state-owned postal service, Royal Mail, a move fiercely opposed by postal unions who have already suggested they will hold rolling strikes over the sell-off. The sale would be one of the most significant privatizations in Britain since the 1990s.

• Friday, September 13th 2013 - 20:50 UTC

  Argentina formally requests US Supreme Court to review Appeals court favoring holdout hedge funds

  

  Argentina’s legal representation in Washington DC yesterday sent a petition for a writ of certiorari to the United States’ Supreme Court, requesting Justices to accept its appeal against the Second Circuit Court of Appeal’s ruling in favour of holdout hedge funds, which are demanding full repayment for bonds left unpaid by Argentina’s record-breaking 2002 default.

• Friday, September 13th 2013 - 20:40 UTC

  Canada, Israel, Japan with the most educated status in the world, says OECD

  

  With spiking tuition costs, insurmountable loan balances, and the unemployment rate for recent college graduates at double digit it’s clear that a university education doesn’t receive the best of praise, particularly in developed countries.

• Friday, September 13th 2013 - 20:36 UTC

  Falklands: despite MPs criticisms, “UK government wants full bilateral relationship with Argentina”

  

  A British Conservative Member of Parliament Henry Smith labeled Argentine president Cristina Fernandez as ‘disgraceful’ for how she has treated the people of the Falkland Islands and also claimed she stopped an Argentine prosecutor from testifying before the US congress on the Buenos Aires 1994 bombing of an Israelite mutual association in order to protect a growing alliance with Iran.

• Friday, September 13th 2013 - 02:26 UTC

  Dow Jones industrial average revamped: Alcoa, BofA out, Nike, Visa, Goldman Sachs

  

  The Dow Jones industrial average, one of the world's best known measures of stock market performance, is having a revamp. Alcoa, Bank of America and Hewlett-Packard are being dropped from the index of the top 30 US companies. From 23 September they will be replaced by Goldman Sachs, Nike and Visa.