
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been named Man of the Year by France's Le Monde newspaper, one of the five publications to cooperate with the whistleblowing website on its its latest release of leaked documents.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced Wednesday the appointment of Major-General Raul Gloodtdofsky Fernandez from Uruguay as head of the United Nations mission in India and Pakistan.

The European Union has strongly criticized European airports for failing to deal with recent freezing weather, which has left thousands of travellers stranded. Around 1,000 flights were cancelled across the continent on Tuesday.

Oil World has for a second time in two weeks reduced Argentina soybean crop hopes warning that, thanks to dry weather, it could be on course for a fall of more than 20%.

With the attendance of the country’s highest political authorities including President Jose Mujica and sports’ figures Uruguay celebrated Tuesday the hundredth anniversary of its sky-blue colours, world famous in international soccer.

Amid a firestorm of criticism from both ends of the political spectrum, the United States Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday adopted the first-ever regulations for broadband Internet service, rules designed to foster the fast-evolving market for TV and movies over the Web.

On the same day that work began on a new Palestinian embassy in Brasilia, Brazilian president Lula da Silva said that peace in the Middle East was impossible with the United States as a mediator, reported the Palestine News Network.

Portugal was put on notice that its credit rating could be cut and fellow Euro zone debtor Spain had to pay more to issue new debt, suggesting the currency bloc's crisis will rage unabated in 2011.

Spain is slowly emerging from recession but needs to cut spending further and introduce labour market reforms, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has said.

Toyota, the largest car-maker in the world is forecasting a 2% rise in global production across Toyota, Daihatsu and Hino models to 8.69 million units, compared to this year’s expected global output of 8.55 million units. Overseas production next year is expected to rise 6% to 4.81 million units, offsetting a 4% drop in domestic output to 3.89 million units.