
Left-wing activists have protested outside the British embassy in Buenos Aires to demand Argentina break off diplomatic relations with the UK over the Falkland Islands dispute.

Russia is already better prepared to host the 2018 World Cup than Brazil, which will stage the 32-team soccer competition in 2014, FIFA president Sepp Blatter said on Friday.

Yielding to strong opposition from the high tech community, United States Senate and House leaders said Friday they will put off further action on legislation to combat online piracy.

Italy's cabinet on Friday approved legislation to deregulate service sectors and professions in an effort to increase competition, cut costs to consumers and boost chronically weak growth in the Euro zone's third largest economy.

General Motors Co regained its title as the world's top-selling automaker in 2011, less than three years after its 2009 taxpayer-funded bankruptcy under the Obama administration.

The global average temperature in 2011 was the ninth-warmest in the modern meteorological record, continuing a trend linked to greenhouse gases that saw nine of the 10 hottest years occurring since the year 2000, NASA scientists said this week.

The European Union considers that the new tense situation between Argentina and the UK over the Falklands/Malvinas Islands is a “bilateral issue”, however the Falklands figure under EU treaties as a British Overseas Territory, said the EU Foreign Affairs Representative spokesperson.

Fitch expects its ratings review of six Euro zone states will result in downgrades of one to two notches in most of those countries, senior director Ed Parker said at a Fitch conference in Madrid.

UK unemployment rose by 118,000 in the three months to November to 2.69 million, official figures show. The Office of National Statistics (ONS) said the unemployment rate also rose to 8.4% from 8.3%, the highest since January 1996.

The British newspaper arm of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp has acknowledged to victims that executives covered up the scale of illegal activity by destroying evidence and lying to investigators, victims' lawyers said.