
Brazil has positioned itself as a strategic player in the global competition for critical minerals such as graphite, nickel, and niobium, which are essential for clean energy technologies, batteries, and defense systems. Both the United States and the European Union have stepped up diplomatic and commercial engagement with Brasília to secure supply deals and cooperation in value chains considered vital for the energy transition and industrial security.

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said on Friday that global politics is entering a critical phase in which “multilateralism is being thrown out by unilateralism,” and argued that US President Donald Trump is effectively proposing “to create a new UN in which he alone is the owner,” referring to Washington’s plan to set up a Peace Council tied to the administration of Gaza.

The European Union and Ecuador have concluded negotiations on a Sustainable Investment Facilitation Agreement (SIFA), in what Brussels is portraying as the bloc’s first such deal with a Latin American country, according to an EFE report on Friday.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the European Union is prepared to provisionally implement the EU–Mercosur trade agreement as soon as Mercosur countries begin completing their ratification procedures, seeking to reassure partners after a European Parliament vote injected fresh uncertainty into the bloc’s approval track.

Independent review site documents which operators deliver on promises.

Argentina’s ambassador to France, Ian Sielecki, halted the start of a hearing at France’s National Assembly and refused to speak while a map behind him displayed the Falklands/Malvinas as UK territory. Proceedings resumed only after a staff member covered the islands with a sticky note.

The run-up to the Commonwealth Games has officially begun in the Falkland Islands, with plans for a King’s Baton Relay revealed by the National Sports Council. In previous years, one baton has travelled around the whole Commonwealth but this time each nation has received their own blank baton.

We are buying the best icebreakers in the world, and Finland is known for producing them, US president Donald Trump said, as part of his campaign to take over Greenland and his concern as the Arctic Ocean becomes more navigable and with more trade routes.

By Gwynne Dyer - After the Danish and Greenland foreign ministers came out of a meeting in Washington on last week convinced that Donald Trump really intended to seize Greenland, things moved very fast.

The European Parliament voted on Wednesday to freeze its approval track for the EU-Mercosur trade agreement and request a legal opinion from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on whether the deal is compatible with EU treaties. The motion passed by a razor-thin margin —334 in favour, 324 against, with 11 abstentions— injecting new uncertainty into a pact that the two blocs had only just signed in Asunción after a quarter-century of negotiations.