International

• Wednesday, January 25th 2012 - 21:02 UTC

  Tapes confirm Costa Concordia told by managers to steam close to the shore when the accident

  

  The captain of the doomed Italian liner Costa Concordia said he was told by managers to take his ship close in to shore on the night it ran aground and capsized, according to bugged conversations leaked in Italian newspapers.

• Wednesday, January 25th 2012 - 20:44 UTC

  Greek “negotiated haircut” may need to be extended to public sector creditors warns Lagarde

  

  Greece's public sector creditors may need to participate in a restructuring of its debt if a haircut negotiated with private sector bondholders is not enough to make Athens' debt sustainable, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said.

• Wednesday, January 25th 2012 - 20:41 UTC

  Gibraltar “joke time over” Spanish minister tells Foreign Secretary Hague

  

  “This joke is over” Jose Garcia-Margallo, Spanish Foreign Minister told his British counterpart William Hague this week regarding the Gibraltar sovereignty dispute.

• Wednesday, January 25th 2012 - 20:35 UTC

  Greek sovereign debt following “footsteps of Argentina’s 2002 disorderly default”

  

  Greece's sovereign debt restructuring appears to be following the footsteps of Argentina's disorderly debt default of 2002, a creditor that is participating in the negotiations warned this week.

• Wednesday, January 25th 2012 - 19:37 UTC

  FAO underlines importance of agriculture to address world’s environmental challenge

  

  Agriculture is part of the solution to the world's environmental challenge and must play a key role at next June's Rio summit on sustainable development, the Brazilian head of the UN food agency said this week.

• Wednesday, January 25th 2012 - 07:42 UTC

  President Rousseff to address protestors of anti-Davos Economic Forum

  

  Thousands of trade unionists, students and activists for indigenous and environmental causes gathered Tuesday in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre to kick off debate in the anti-capitalist World Social Forum.

• Wednesday, January 25th 2012 - 04:21 UTC

  S&P likely to downgrade Greece’s rating to “selective default”

  

  Standard & Poor's will likely downgrade Greece's ratings to “selective default” when the country concludes its debt restructuring, but that will not necessarily destroy the credibility of the European Union, an official with the ratings agency said on Tuesday.

• Wednesday, January 25th 2012 - 04:06 UTC

  IMF warns Euro zone crisis is dragging down the world economy

  

  The Euro zone debt crisis is escalating and dragging down the world economy, the International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday, as it sharply cut its outlook for global growth and called for policies to restore confidence.

• Tuesday, January 24th 2012 - 04:00 UTC

  Biggest solar storm in 7 years could disrupt satellite and electric ground communications

  

  The biggest solar storm in seven years to hit the Earth will begin Tuesday early morning, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Centre. It will likely cause the largest solar radiation storm that the earth has encountered since 2005.

• Monday, January 23rd 2012 - 23:44 UTC

  Greece publishes “shame” list of tax evaders, totaling 14.8 billion Euros

  

  The Greek government published a list of the country’s worst tax evaders on Sunday, after months of warning those same evaders to pay up or risk being named and shamed.