International

• Saturday, December 18th 2010 - 18:53 UTC

  Royal Caribbean sweeps with cruise industry Travel Weekly awards

  

  Miami-based Royal Caribbean swept half a dozen categories in the Travel Weekly awards, including the top spot for “cruise line, overall” as well as “cruise line, domestic” and “cruise line, Caribbean.” Royal Caribbean also won in the category of “cruise line, sales and service,” and the line's much-promoted new Oasis of the Seas swept the categories of “cruise ship, rookie” and “cruise ship, overall.”

• Saturday, December 18th 2010 - 18:47 UTC

  Satellite data provide new way to monitor groundwater in agricultural regions

  

  When you dive into that salad full of lettuce grown in the United States West, there’s a good chance you are enjoying the product of irrigation from an underground water source. These hidden groundwater systems are precious resources that need careful management, but regulatory groups have a hard time monitoring them, owing to a lack of accurate data.

• Saturday, December 18th 2010 - 18:30 UTC

  Dragon and Elephant: complicated neighbourhood

  

  *By Sameer Jafri - Year 2010 marks sixty years of diplomatic relationship between India and China. Though the relations between the two go back to ancient times, the period since 1950 till present is mainly fraught with boundary dispute, which also led to a short-lived war in 1962. But in recent times, both sides have successfully attempted to normalize the bilateral relationship, mainly driven by the mounting bilateral trade.

• Saturday, December 18th 2010 - 09:02 UTC

  UK, France, Germany join forces to freeze EU budget until end of the decade

  

  British Prime Minister David Cameron has joined forces with France and Germany to demand a real-terms freeze in the European Union budget until the end of the decade.

• Saturday, December 18th 2010 - 03:05 UTC

  Bolivia recognizes Palestine as an independent state with pre-1967 borders

  

  President Evo Morales announced on Friday that Bolivia would recognize Palestine as an independent sovereign state. The Bolivian leader made the statement during the Mercosur summit in Brazil.

• Saturday, December 18th 2010 - 00:37 UTC

  Recommendation for an online privacy bill of rights to protect web users

  

  The United States government should create an online privacy bill of rights and an enforceable code of conduct for Internet firms handling consumer data and tracking Web users, the U.S. Department of Commerce has recommended.

• Friday, December 17th 2010 - 22:57 UTC

  NZ obesity epidemic impacts cemeteries: larger caskets and burial plots

  

  The obesity epidemic is forcing New Zealand funeral directors to introduce larger caskets and look for larger plots for burials. Big people are creating bigger problems for funeral directors and cemeteries.

• Friday, December 17th 2010 - 22:43 UTC

  Moody’s shocks EU: downgrades Irish debt five notches to Baa1

  

  Moody's has downgraded debt-stricken Ireland by five notches just days after the Irish parliament approved a multi-billion euro international bailout.

• Friday, December 17th 2010 - 22:38 UTC

  WikiLeaks claims worst attacks are from in Dubai, US, UK and Switzerland

  

  WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said his organisation had come under attack not so much from governments but from banks as he vowed to release damaging leaks about them.

• Friday, December 17th 2010 - 07:17 UTC

  Mercosur after closer trade relations with Cuba, Palestine, Syria and NZ

  

  Member nations of Mercosur will seek to boost economic and political ties with Cuba in a bid to make the island an associate member of the trade bloc.