International

• Monday, December 5th 2011 - 06:42 UTC

  Havelange, 95, again beats his detractors: he resigns from IOC and end ethics inquiry

  

  Former FIFA president Joao Havelange resigned from the International Olympic Committee on Sunday, just days before he was to face an ethics inquiry it was reported by the Sao Paulo press.

• Monday, December 5th 2011 - 05:22 UTC

  Brazil and BRIC beat forecast of the man who coined the term

  

  Ten years ago this week, Jim O’Neill, chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, coined the term BRIC, elevating the profile of four countries, Brazil, Russia, India and China, that he thought were poised to become “growth economies.”

• Monday, December 5th 2011 - 04:11 UTC

  Rajoy will outline his austerity plan before EU Conservative summit

  

  Incoming Conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy called on all Spaniards to work together to overcome the debt crisis and promised a new economic policy to deal with unemployment that is more than double the European Union average.

• Monday, December 5th 2011 - 04:06 UTC

  Gibraltar’s Caruana confident of new Spanish government commitment to “trilateral dialogue”

  

  The leader of the ruling GSD in Gibraltar, Peter Caruana said he was confident Spain’s Partido Popular would remain committed to trilateral dialogue, even if not necessarily to the Trilateral Forum (Gib, UK and Spain) itself in its present form.

• Friday, December 2nd 2011 - 22:42 UTC

  Sarkozy prepares the stage for next week’s announcement of a new EU treaty

  

  Prime Minister David Cameron held emergency talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Friday, as France and Germany tried to drum up support for a new EU treaty to enforce budget discipline.

• Friday, December 2nd 2011 - 22:12 UTC

  Merkel warns Europeans face long, hard ‘marathon’ to restore lost credibility

  

  German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for rapid EU treaty change to remedy the root causes of the Euro zone's debt crisis but warned that Europeans faced a long, hard “marathon” to restore lost credibility.

• Friday, December 2nd 2011 - 19:41 UTC

  Brazil ready to support IMF but demands greater power for BRICS countries

  

  Brazil conditioned the disbursement of more funds for the IMF to help countries in crisis to a greater say in the multilateral organization and the advance of European initiatives to solve the current Euro and debt crisis.

• Friday, December 2nd 2011 - 15:38 UTC

  Spanish regions pledge to control spending; unemployment reaches 21.52%

  

  Leaders of Spain’s indebted autonomous regions pledged on Thursday to control spending after meeting incoming Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to discuss their troubled accounts, which are at the heart of the country’s economic crisis.

• Friday, December 2nd 2011 - 15:34 UTC

  Falklands 2012, “a moment of genuine celebration in all Overseas Territories”

  

  British Prime Minister David Cameron reiterated before Parliament his support for the Overseas Territories, including the Falkland Islands, and their right to remain British. Cameron made special mention to the fact that next year in the anniversary of the liberation of the Falklands “which will be a moment for genuine celebration in all Overseas Territories”

• Friday, December 2nd 2011 - 05:24 UTC

  France denies Uruguay is a “fiscal haven”; underlines strong bilateral links

  

  “Uruguay does not figure in the list of countries with which France has financial difficulties”, said a special envoy from President Nicholas Sarkozy who visited Montevideo this week, thus ending the controversy triggered at the end of the early November G8 Cannes summit when Uruguay was described as a “fiscal haven”.