
US President Barack Obama received a royal 41-gun salute at Buckingham Palace Tuesday to begin a two-day state visit aimed at ensuring the United States and Britain keep the special in their relationship.

United States announced new sanctions on Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA and six other smaller oil and shipping companies for engaging in trade with Iran in violation of a US ban.

The Australian Climate Commission has warned that acceleration of sea level-rise will be faster than anticipated. Global sea level is projected to rise by one meter by 2100, according to the Commission's first report published on Monday.

One Italian in four currently faces poverty as a result of the global financial crisis and their country's chronically low growth, the national statistics institute Isat said on Monday in a report.

Latin American stocks fell to an eight-month low on Monday triggered by concerns that the Euro zone debt problem was deepening and signs of slower growth in China. The region’s largest market Brazil’s Bovespa ended at its lowest since July 2010

The best way to cool soaring food prices is to boost output, the Argentine government said, following talks on a French proposal for increased regulation of commodity markets in the framework of a G20 meeting in Buenos Aires.

Mexico central bank Governor Agustin Carstens will be presented as a candidate for managing director of the IMF, the Finance Ministry said in an e-mailed statement Sunday.

Spain's ruling Socialist Party sustained heavy losses in municipal elections on Sunday, amid widespread protests against high unemployment. The conservative People's Party (PP) took 37.5% of the vote compared with almost 28% for Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero's PSOE, with more than 90% of votes counted.

Uruguay ratified to visiting UK Foreign Minister for Latin America Jeremy Browne, Montevideo’s “continental solidarity” policy with Argentina regarding the Falklands/Malvinas dispute but also described relations with the UK as “extremely cordial”.

Air France plane crashed into the Atlantic in 2009 because of a sudden stall, the German Spiegel magazine reported Sunday citing an expert involved in analysing data from the plane's flight recorders.