International

• Wednesday, February 13th 2008 - 20:00 UTC

  La Niña current anticipates dry climate for Americas

  

  The current La Niña weather pattern is expected to strengthen and continue through the middle of the year, bringing wetter conditions to Australia and the western Pacific and a drier climate to the Americas, the United Nations World Meteorological Agency (WMO) reported Tuesday.

• Wednesday, February 13th 2008 - 20:00 UTC

  “Project Lifeline” to help contain mortgage mess

  Six major United States banks are taking part in an initiative to help homeowners struggling to pay their mortgages. Bank of America, Citigroup, Countrywide Financial, JP Morgan Chase, Washington Mutual and Wells Fargo are those taking part in “Project Lifeline”.

• Wednesday, February 13th 2008 - 20:00 UTC

  Emerging economies not immune to slowdown warns IMF

  

  The International Monetary Fund Director General Dominique Strauss-Kahn warned that emerging economies are not immune to a slowdown resulting from the financial crisis in United States and thus must prepare to cope with the negative effects.

• Wednesday, February 13th 2008 - 20:00 UTC

  Julia Roberts on holidays in Chilean Patagonia

  

  Hollywood famous star Julia Roberts arrived Wednesday afternoon in Chile surrounded by utmost discretion and accompanied by her three children, a friend and a member of her staff, reported Santiago's Channel 13.

• Tuesday, February 12th 2008 - 20:00 UTC

  Spain summons UK ambassador over Gibraltar oil spill

  Spain summoned British ambassador to Madrid Denise Holt to protest an oil spill off Gibraltar that has polluted Spanish beaches, Environment Minister Cristina Narbona said Monday in the southern city of Seville.

• Tuesday, February 12th 2008 - 20:00 UTC

  Controversial ruling of QM2 walkway accident that killed 16

  Civil claimants in the Queen Mary 2 walkway trial reacted furiously on Monday after a Saint Nazaire French court acquitted eight individual defendants accused of a share of responsibility for the accident, which claimed 16 lives and left 29 people injured in November 2003, reports Lloyd's List.

• Tuesday, February 12th 2008 - 20:00 UTC

  Dakar Rally 2009 will be held in Argentina and Chile

  

  Argentina and Chile will host the 2009 Dakar Rally after this year's race was cancelled because of safety concerns. The 2008 rally was called off in January after four French tourists were murdered in Mauritania on 24 December. An optional version will take place in Central Europe in April.

• Tuesday, February 12th 2008 - 20:00 UTC

  Guessing game: how much presidents really make?

  

  United States president George W. Bush ranks as the highest paid leader in the Americas and Fidel Castro the most modest, according to officially disclosed figures, which are not always entirely reliable, following on a report from the Spanish media.

• Monday, February 11th 2008 - 20:00 UTC

  Whale Valley in Egypt joins UNESCO World Heritage list

  Wadi Al-Hitan, Whale Valley, in the Western Desert of Egypt, which contains invaluable fossil remains of the earliest, and now extinct, suborder of whales, Archaeoceti received the official document which includes it in the UNESCO World heritage list.

• Monday, February 11th 2008 - 20:00 UTC

  G7 agree on downturn forecast but respect “economic diversity”

  U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in Tokyo that the global economy faces “downside risks” from the rout of capital markets that is “serious and persisting” but insisted he was convinced the US economy would continue to grow in 2008. At no time did he use the feared word “recession”.