Politics

• Tuesday, May 22nd 2018 - 06:32 UTC

  Mercosur and Japan scheduled to begin trade talks next November in Argentina

  

  Mercosur trade bloc looks to begin economic and trade talks with Japan as soon as November, Brazil's foreign minister said, calling trade with Asia essential to regional economic health as the U.S. embraces protectionism.

• Tuesday, May 22nd 2018 - 06:19 UTC

  Lima Group does not recognize Maduro's reelection and recalls ambassadors

  

  The fourteen members of the Lima Group will not recognize the re-election of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro in a Sunday vote marred by international accusations that it was rigged.

• Tuesday, May 22nd 2018 - 06:01 UTC

  Indian Navy all-women crew return to Goa after circumnavigating the globe aboard INSV Tarini

  

  An all-woman crew commanding the Indian Navy INSV Tarini on Monday returned to Goa after successfully circumnavigating the globe in a 55-foot sailboat in more than eight months, the first-ever Indian expedition steered by women sailors.

• Monday, May 21st 2018 - 09:12 UTC

  Foreign Secretary honors Argentine fallen during the Falklands conflict in Buenos Aires

  

  British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson on Sunday laid a wreath to honor Argentine soldiers fallen while fighting the British in the 1982 Falkland Islands conflict. Johnson, who is in Buenos Aires for a Group of 20 meeting, visited the Monument of the Fallen Soldiers on Sunday along with Argentine Foreign Minister Jorge Faurie.

• Monday, May 21st 2018 - 09:02 UTC

  Lula's political “handy man” Dirceu, starts 31-year prison sentence for corruption

  

  Jose Dirceu, former chief of staff under ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, surrendered last Friday to start a nearly 31-year prison sentence for corruption, officials said. Dirceu lost an appeal against his conviction for money laundering, corruption and membership of a criminal group, at a court in Porto Alegre on Thursday.

• Monday, May 21st 2018 - 08:52 UTC

  US/China trade war “on hold”; Beijing agrees to “substantially reduce” surplus

  

  The United States and China are pulling back from the brink of a trade war after the world's two biggest economies reported progress in talks aimed at bringing down America's massive trade deficit with Beijing. “We are putting the trade war on hold,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Sunday.

• Monday, May 21st 2018 - 08:42 UTC

  Nicaraguan truce on the cliff after claims police attacked and shot students

  

  Nicaraguans were back on the streets in their thousands on Sunday to protest what they called a government breach of a two-day truce agreed during Church-mediated peace talks. Students at a university in northeastern Managua claim police attacked them during a demonstration outside the campus on Saturday night in which four students were shot and injured.

• Monday, May 21st 2018 - 08:33 UTC

  Maduro re-elected, but with massive abstention and other candidates call for fresh elections

  

  Venezuela’s populist leader Nicolas Maduro won a new six-year term on Sunday, but his main rivals disavowed the election alleging massive irregularities in a process critics decried as a farce propping up a dictatorship. Victory for the 55-year-old former bus driver, who replaced Hugo Chavez after his death from cancer in 2013, may trigger a new round of western sanctions against the populist government as it grapples with a ruinous economic crisis.

• Monday, May 21st 2018 - 08:26 UTC

  UK and Spain discuss Brexit and Gibraltar in Madrid: “constructive meeting”

  

  Gibraltar was discussed in Madrid on Saturday during a wide-ranging meeting on Brexit between the UK’s Minister for the Cabinet Office, David Lidington, and Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alfonso Dastis. Speaking after the meeting, Mr Lidington expressed confidence that a constructive agreement would be reached on Gibraltar’s post-Brexit relations with Spain and the wider EU.

• Monday, May 21st 2018 - 08:17 UTC

  Commons report: “Moscow's Gold: Russian Corruption in the UK”

  

  The UK has been accused of turning a “blind eye” to Russia's “dirty money”, putting national security at risk. The House of Commons foreign affairs committee said London was being used to hide the “corrupt assets” of President Vladimir Putin and his allies.