International

• Saturday, January 19th 2013 - 03:29 UTC

  Santos could seek popular approval for any peace and political accord with FARC

  

  Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos opened the door to a popular vote on any peace accord negotiated and signed with FARC rebels, but rejected a guerrilla demand to change the constitution if a deal is clinched.

• Saturday, January 19th 2013 - 03:16 UTC

  Canada’s new plastic banknotes with the wrong maple leaf

  

  The Bank of Canada has barked up the wrong maple tree with its new plastic banknotes, using a foreign Norway maple leaf as the emblem on the notes instead of the sugar maple that the country has on its national flag, an eagle-eyed Canadian botanist says.

• Saturday, January 19th 2013 - 00:29 UTC

  Anywhere from 30 to 50% of world food production lost to waste, says engineers’ group

  

  The report “Global Food: Waste Not Want Not” by the UK’s Institute of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE) has found that 30-50%, or 1.2-2 billion tons, of produced food is wasted by poor storage, bad distribution and exacting quality standards in the developed world.

• Friday, January 18th 2013 - 06:12 UTC

  Argentina thanks Indonesia for support on Falklands issue and blasts multilateral organizations

  

  President Cristina Fernandez thanked Indonesia for the “permanent support” extended to Argentina in the “Malvinas cause” and reiterated that Argentina is only asking for the UK to respect and abide the United Nations resolution, but at the same time attacked multilateral organizations such as the UN and WTO for “favouring the great powers”.

• Friday, January 18th 2013 - 00:20 UTC

  Dengue fastest growing tropical disease; represents ‘pandemic threat’, says WHO

  

  Dengue is the world’s fastest-spreading tropical disease and represents a “pandemic threat,” infecting an estimated 50 million people across all continents, the World Health Organization (WHO) said this week.

• Thursday, January 17th 2013 - 23:45 UTC

  European Parliament calls for speeding EU/Mercosur trade negotiations

  

  The European Parliament regretted that negotiations for an association agreement between the European Union and Mercosur remain stalled or have hardly advanced since they officially resumed two years ago.

• Thursday, January 17th 2013 - 15:38 UTC

  Atlantic countries concerned with UK presence in Falklands; call for talks with Argentina

  

  Twenty one countries from South America and Africa strongly supported their commitment to keep the South Atlantic free of arms of massive destruction and expressed concern over the British military presence in the Falklands/Malvinas, which are claimed by Argentina.

• Thursday, January 17th 2013 - 08:26 UTC

  World Bank says global economy remains fragile: forecasts GDP growth at 2.4%

  

  Four years after the onset of the global financial crisis, the worst appears to be over. However, the global economy remains fragile, as high-income countries continue to suffer from volatility and slow growth, says the World Bank’s latest Global Economic Prospects, issued on Wednesday.

• Thursday, January 17th 2013 - 08:18 UTC

  Lifetime speech for Cameron: how much Europe Brits are willing to tolerate

  

  British Prime Minister David Cameron came under renewed pressure to loosen his country's ties with the European Union today, two days ahead of a major speech in which he will spell out plans to renegotiate Britain's membership of the EU.

• Thursday, January 17th 2013 - 00:37 UTC

  Britain’s prized AAA credit rating under ‘significant pressure’; review in March

  

  Britain’s prized AAA credit rating remains under “significant pressure”, the Fitch rating agency warned this week. David Riley, the head of global sovereign ratings at the agency, said Chancellor George Osborne’s admission in last month’s autumn statement that he would miss his 2016 target date for public debt to start falling had been a “negative event” for the UK.