International

• Friday, March 18th 2011 - 03:45 UTC

  Wikileaks: Argentina’s self centred attitude almost had her thrown out of G20

  

  Disappointed and shocked with the self-centred performance of President Cristina Kirchner at the G-20 summit in Washington in 2008, a group of powerful countries seriously considered kicking Argentina out of the industrialized and emerging countries’ Group of Twenty.

• Friday, March 18th 2011 - 03:29 UTC

  If power is restored and if pumps work Fukushima reactor could be cooled

  

  Engineers at Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant have managed to lay a cable to reactor 2, the UN's nuclear watchdog reports. Restoring power should enable engineers to restart the pumps which send coolant over the reactor.

• Thursday, March 17th 2011 - 15:27 UTC

  Brazilian industry creates a Chinese Studies Centre to monitor bilateral trade

  

  Brazil’s powerful Federation of Industries of Sao Paulo State (Fiesp) is set to create a Chinese Studies Centre in partnership with the federal government, the president of the federation said in Sao Paulo.

• Thursday, March 17th 2011 - 07:44 UTC

  Japanese tsunami surprises Midway atoll killing thousands of albatrosses

  

  Thousands of albatrosses and other endangered species at a wildlife sanctuary north-west of Hawaii have been killed by the tsunami which devastated Japan, US officials say.

• Wednesday, March 16th 2011 - 23:28 UTC

  UK unemployment hits 17-year high: 2.5 million Brits out of a job

  

  The number of unemployed in the UK has hit a 17-year high of more than 2.5 million and pushed the unemployment rate to 8%, official data showed Wednesday.

• Wednesday, March 16th 2011 - 23:25 UTC

  Wikileads cables reveal Japan was warned about poor safety at nuclear plants

  

  As concerns about a meltdown at the Fukushima plant escalate, Britain’s the Telegraph revealed a series of two-year-old cables the paper obtained from Wikileaks that show unnamed experts telling Japanese officials they needed to update their nuclear safety protocols.

• Wednesday, March 16th 2011 - 15:05 UTC

  WHO: radiation risk in Japan limited to area next to damaged nuclear plant

  

  The risk of the contamination of food products from nuclear radiation in Japan is limited to the specific area surrounding the damaged nuclear plant, according to a source from the World Health Organization (WHO).

• Wednesday, March 16th 2011 - 14:38 UTC

  MEP warns on dangers to Scotland of ‘cheap meat’ imports from Mercosur

  

  European Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos has been warned of the dangers facing Scotland if the EU opens its markets to large quantities of ‘cheap meat’ imports from Mercosur, reports the Farmers’ Guardían.

• Wednesday, March 16th 2011 - 06:07 UTC

  Japan seems unable to control stricken nuclear plant; fears of radiation

  

  Workers were ordered to withdraw from a stricken Japanese nuclear power plant on Wednesday after radiation levels rose, Kyodo news reported, a development that suggested the crisis was spiralling out of control.

• Wednesday, March 16th 2011 - 05:58 UTC

  Gaddafi ever more confident he can defeat Benghazi ‘dogs and traitors’

  

  Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi appeared at a Tuesday evening rally in a huge tent in Tripoli, condemning the rebels as rats, dogs, hypocrites and traitors. As he spoke, thousands gathered in a Benghazi square denouncing him as a tyrant and throwing shoes and other objects at his image projected upside down on a wall.