
The Falkland Islands Executive Council (its effective Cabinet) agreed late last week a set of budgeting principles for the Government over the coming financial year beginning 1st July 2018. These principles are likely to apply throughout the four year term of the current Legislative Assembly, though will be formally reviewed by the Assembly annually.

President Mauricio Macri said on Monday that government employees in Argentina won't receive pay raises this year as part of a string of measures aimed at cutting spending. Macri also announced the elimination of 1,000 political positions and the firing of family members appointed as advisers by government ministers. The measure is expected to save the government about US$75 million.

Prime minister Theresa May has been warned the UK risks disaster unless she sees off hard Brexiteers in her own party amid continuing Tory divisions over Europe. Ex-minister Anna Soubry said the PM must not let what she said were 35 MPs dictate the terms of the UK's EU exit.

Andrew McCabe, the FBI's No. 2 official whom President Donald Trump publicly criticized for alleged political bias and reportedly wanted fired, stepped down from the bureau Monday, weeks ahead of his retirement. The move followed months of blistering criticism by Trump and his Republican allies that McCabe, 49, was an anti-Trump partisan. Recent reports said McCabe had been pressured to leave the bureau.

Brazil's popular but scandal-plagued leftist ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva got an unlikely morale boost on Monday from a political nemesis, current President Michel Temer. Lula easily leads the polls heading to October's presidential election but his dream of returning to office was left in doubt last week after an appeals court upheld an earlier corruption conviction against him.

French President Emmanuel Macron called for further European Union sanctions on Venezuela, days after the 28-nation bloc agreed a travel ban and asset freezes on seven senior Venezuelan officials. The West accuses President Nicholas Maduro's government of violating democracy and human rights in the oil-producing nation, which is in the grip of a major economic and social crisis with millions suffering food and medicine shortages.

Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski’s approval rating has fallen to 19% since he granted a pardon to authoritarian former President Alberto Fujimori, a decision that has deeply divided the country, a poll showed on Sunday.

They formed the number 44 on the ice as they headed into the Antarctic while performing a traditional military salute next to their ship, the ARA Almirante Irizar. Forty-four submariners on the ARA San Juan were lost in the waters of the South Atlantic on 15 November.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is expected to institute a ban on fishing, drilling and freight transport in British overseas territories in the South Atlantic in an effort to protect wildlife in the area. The South Sandwich Islands, which plays host to Antarctic scientists but has no permanent residents, lie around 1,500km east of the Falkland Islands.

A long-awaited major trade deal between the EU and Mercosur may this week take a key step towards realization with ministerial teams from both sides meeting in Brussels on Monday. They are expected to give negotiators a new, decisive political impulse to reach agreement in a matter of weeks, according to Irish sources.