International

• Thursday, February 13th 2020 - 08:25 UTC

  Francis dismisses proposal to allow married men to be ordained in Amazon region

  

  Pope Francis, in one of the most significant decisions of his papacy, on Wednesday dismissed a proposal to allow some married men to be ordained in the Amazon region to ease an acute scarcity of priests.

• Wednesday, February 12th 2020 - 11:24 UTC

  Heathrow may fall behind Paris as Europe’s number 1 airport hub

  

  Despite record-breaking start to the year at Heathrow, latest figures show that EU competitor, Charles de Gaulle, is growing at twice the rate and is set to overtake as Europe’s leading hub airport within the next 2 years.

• Wednesday, February 12th 2020 - 09:52 UTC

  Argentine flatworm and predator Obama nungara, has become a plague of French gardens

  

  One of the consequences of globalization is the inadvertent human-mediated spread of invasive species. The presence of a new invader, named Obama nungara, is reported in France by an international team led by Jean-Lou Justine of ISYEB (Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France). This is the first study of this invasion, reported in an article published in the open-access journal PeerJ.

• Wednesday, February 12th 2020 - 09:38 UTC

  New chapter of the legal saga: Google will appeal a 2.4bn Euro penalty from the EU's antitrust regulator

  

  Google and the EU have a big day in court on Wednesday as the search engine giant enters a new phase of a legal saga that began a decade ago. The Silicon Valley juggernaut is appealing a 2.4 billion Euro (US$2.6 billion) fine from 2017 that was the first in a series of major penalties from the European Commission, the EU's powerful anti-trust regulator.

• Wednesday, February 12th 2020 - 09:32 UTC

  Brazilian governor believes less protection of sugar will mean lower prices for consumers

  

  The governor of Sao Paulo said on Monday at an industry conference that less protection of sugar would guarantee better access and lower prices for consumers. “Sugar is the most protected product in the market, the reduction of tax and non-tax barriers would guarantee better access,” Joao Doria said in his opening remarks at a three-day industry meet in Dubai.

• Wednesday, February 12th 2020 - 09:30 UTC

  Guaido returns to Venezuela greeted by supporters but also attacked by Maduro government thugs

  

  Opposition leader Juan Guaido returned to Venezuela on Tuesday following a 23-day international tour in which he defied a ban on leaving the country imposed by President Nicolas Maduro's government. Guaido announced his return on Twitter before being greeted by a throng of cheering supporters at the Caracas international airport, where he arrived on a flight from Portugal.

• Wednesday, February 12th 2020 - 09:25 UTC

  The Danish central bank experience with record negative interest rate could be coming to an end

  

  Denmark and Switzerland have long shared the world record in negative interest rates, at minus 0.75%. But that may be about to change. Economists at some of the biggest Nordic banks say Denmark, which pegs the krone to the euro, is likely to raise its key rate in the coming months.

• Wednesday, February 12th 2020 - 09:20 UTC

  Coronavirus, COVID-19, “Public Enemy Number 1” and more powerful than a terrorist attack, WHO chief

  

  China's coronavirus outbreak poses a “very grave threat for the rest of the world” and should be viewed as “Public Enemy Number 1”, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.

• Wednesday, February 12th 2020 - 08:58 UTC

  US and German intelligence services had direct access to secret communications from governments

  

  US and German intelligence services raked in the top-secret communications of governments around the world for decades through their hidden control of a top encryption company Crypto AG, US, German and Swiss media reported on Tuesday.

• Wednesday, February 12th 2020 - 08:41 UTC

  Brazilian and Indonesia billionaires clash over the sale of a US$ 3.5bn pulp mill

  

  The business dispute between the disgraced billionaire Batista brothers in Brazil and the heir to an Indonesian pulp and paper fortune is throwing a wrench in meatpacker JBS SA’s plans to list its international operations in the United States.