
The Argentine Navy said that repair works in the corvette ARA Espora, which has been stranded in South Africa for over five weeks “are 65% completed” and denied there were any debts pending with the German company that is responsible for the maintenance of the MEKO class corvettes as was reported earlier in the Buenos Aires press.

The BBC agreed to pay 185,000 pounds to a former treasurer of Britain's Conservative Party wrongly accused of child sex abuse as a result of one of its reports. The settlement came as media reports said one of the BBC's former stars had been arrested as part of an ongoing police investigation into sex crimes centred on the publicly funded broadcaster.

There was a marked escalation in the dispute over Gibraltar’s territorial waters as Britain and Spain both hardened their diplomatic stance in the wake of recent incursions.

Spanish President Mariano Rajoy stated that he “would have liked” his Argentine counterpart, President Cristina Fernández to have attended the XXIIth Ibero-American summit, starting Friday in Cádiz.

The XXII Ibero-American summit which takes off Friday in the city of Cadiz will be focused on the Euro zone crisis and the need to boost investments in Latin America of which Spain can become the “vertebrate axis” said Spanish Foreign minister Jose García Margallo.

Visiting Chilean president Sabastian Piñera and PM David Cameron reaffirmed the two countries long standing close relations, pledged to increase trade and acknowledged their views on the Falkland Islands and the coming referendum during a meeting on Thursday at 10 Downing Street.

By Hector Timerman - Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman underlined Argentina’s struggle against paying ‘vulture funds’ in an article written for US newspaper Huffington Post about how Latin American and Africa are affected by these funds.

BP Plc agreed on Thursday to plead guilty to a raft of charges in the deadly Gulf of Mexico spill and pay a record 4.5 billion dollars including the biggest criminal fine in United States history. Three BP employees were also charged, two of them with manslaughter.

Xi Jinping has been confirmed as the man to lead China for the next decade. Mr Xi led the new Politburo Standing Committee onto the stage at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, signalling his elevation to the top of China's ruling Communist Party.

The International Monetary Fund ratified on Thursday that “on December 17” it will assess the “quality of Argentine statistics, particularly those referred to inflation”, an issue over which it had already warned the administration of President Cristina Fernandez.