International

• Monday, June 8th 2009 - 13:04 UTC

  British far right party gains first seat (former Labour) in EU parliament

  

  British Primer Minister Gordon Brown's hopes of political survival have been dealt another blow as the far right British National Party achieved a major electoral breakthrough gaining their first seat in the European Parliament.

• Monday, June 8th 2009 - 10:16 UTC

  EC recommends UK/Spain “friendly accord” on Gibraltar waters dispute

  

  Spanish diplomatic sources have said that the PSOE Government is willing to offer an agreement on the current dispute over Gibraltar territorial waters that sets sovereignty to one side and concentrates on issues of practical cooperation.

• Sunday, June 7th 2009 - 19:16 UTC

  Chilean wine prices on sales to UK fall on average 31.2%

  

  Chilean bottled wine prices fell an average of 14.6% on the international market in April, while the quantity of bottled exports increased by 5.2%, according to a recent report by industry advocacy group Wines of Chile.

• Saturday, June 6th 2009 - 14:48 UTC

  Nuclear sub joins Flight 447 search; Iberia tailing flight sheds some light

  

  While France announced Friday it was sending a nuclear submarine to help find the flight data recorders of the Air France plane, which this week disappeared over the Atlantic, a press report in the Spanish press involving an Iberia plane on the same route but flying ten minutes behind could shed light into what really happened.

• Saturday, June 6th 2009 - 14:38 UTC

  Peru joins Odyssey/Spain dispute over recovered sunken treasure

  

  United States treasure hunters Odyssey Marine Exploration were dealt a heavy blow this week after a Florida judge ordered the company to hand thousands of silver and gold coins to Spain. The case however could be exposed to another demand, this time from Peru which claims the original gold and silver came from the colonial viceroyship of Lima.

• Saturday, June 6th 2009 - 14:14 UTC

  Right wing British National Party wins several county council seats

  

  Right wing British National Party has won its first county council seats in Lancashire and Leicestershire as Labour was humiliated in local elections across England. Elsewhere, Peter Davies of the English Democrats celebrated victory in Doncaster's mayoral election and Labour lost its four remaining county councils to the Tories.

• Saturday, June 6th 2009 - 14:07 UTC

  Chinalco “disappointed” with Rio Tinto’s decision to scrap deal

  

  Aluminium Corp. of China, or Chinalco, confirmed Friday that Australian mining firm Rio Tinto has scrapped the proposed 19.5 billion US dollars of investment by Chinalco, and Rio Tinto would pay a break fee of 195 million U.S. dollars to the Chinese aluminium maker.

• Saturday, June 6th 2009 - 14:01 UTC

  Rio Tinto decision was not “political” Australia assures Beijing

  

  The Australian government reassured China on Saturday that miner Rio Tinto's decision to walk away from a 19.5 billion US dollars by investment by Beijing was not a political move.

• Saturday, June 6th 2009 - 13:52 UTC

  PM Brown and reshuffled cabinet cling on

  

  British Prime Minister Gordon Brown unveiled Friday a reshuffled cabinet and vowed to “fight on” with his “resilient” team to rescue the economy and clean up politics. He admitted Labour had suffered “a painful defeat” in Thursday's polls but added: “I will not waver. I will not walk away. I will get on with the job.” And he unveiled Glenys Kinnock as Europe minister in a surprise move.

• Friday, June 5th 2009 - 13:35 UTC

  Air France crash mystery deepens

  

  The mystery surrounding the crash of an Air France plane off the coast of Brazil deepened after Brazilian officials said items they had pulled from the sea were not in fact debris from the downed Airbus.