Scottish farmers have openly expressed their opposition to the ongoing trade talks between the European Union and Mercosur demanding guarantees on human health, animal health and food safety before any additional access for imported products from the South American block is agreed.
Risks are still high that developed nations will face difficulties in rolling over their debt and possibly trigger a crisis the International Monetary Fund said in its “Fiscal Monitor” report released this month.
World Bank President Robert Zoellick has called on bickering G-20 nations to bring gold back into the global monetary system as an anchor to guide currency movements.
Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner travels Monday to South Korea in order to take part in the Heads of State Group of Twenty (G-20) Summit that will be held Thursday and Friday in Seoul.
Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday consecrated a world monument to family, the Sagrada Familia church, in Spain but faced a gay kiss-in protest before he attacked abortion and defended male-female marriage.
The new Cunard cruise ship ‘Queen Elizabeth’ called into Gibraltar for the first time on Friday. She is scheduled to become a frequent visitor to the Rock returning later this month with more port calls next year.
Plans to build massive wind farms off the coast of Britain are in doubt due to an obscure piece of legislation that means oil companies can force turbines to be moved if fossil fuels are discovered in the area, according to a report in the Daily Telegraph.
Australia and India have both raised interest rates by a quarter percentage point amid fears of rising inflation. The central bank of Australia put up rates from 4.5% to 4.75%, surprising markets with the first rise since May.
In a move that runs counter to the United States' Fed 600-billion-US-dollar liquidity injection to stimulate the economy the European Central Bank on Thursday kept its benchmark interest rate steady at 1%. This was the eighteenth consecutive month that ECB has frozen its main interest rate.
The Bank of England held UK interest rates at a record low and decided not to pump more money into the economy via quantitative easing (QE). The Thursday decision to make no change to policy comes after recent figures on the UK economy showed good growth.