Politics

• Tuesday, January 2nd 2018 - 11:03 UTC

  Berlusconi looks as kingmaker for 4 March general election; Merkel wished him good luck

  

  Italians will head to the polls on 4 March in elections that look set to result in renewed instability and thrust former leader Silvio Berlusconi back to the centre of the political stage. Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni's cabinet set the date for the election after President Sergio Mattarella dissolved parliament.

• Tuesday, January 2nd 2018 - 07:27 UTC

  New Year in Uruguay begins with a raft of goods and services price increases

  

  New Year has taken off in Uruguay with a raft of utilities' rates increases which includes power, fuels, drinking water, telecommunications, urban bus fares, plus extra taxes on tobacco and gambling. Inflation in the twelve months to November was 6.30%.

• Tuesday, January 2nd 2018 - 06:55 UTC

  Icebreaker Irizar calls at Ushuaia on her 2017/18 Antarctica campaign

  

  Argentina's flagship of Antarctica operations is back after ten long years. The refurbished icebreaker ARA Almirante Irizar, called at Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, on New Year before leaving for the 2017/18 summer campaign.

• Tuesday, January 2nd 2018 - 06:33 UTC

  UK's foreign aid will go to projects that promote government aims and interests

  

  The UK's aid budget will be shifted to projects that promote its interests, the foreign secretary Boris Johnson said underlining the money will be “more sensibly distributed” to support foreign policy aims such as denying safe havens to Islamist militants.

• Tuesday, January 2nd 2018 - 06:20 UTC

  Latin American poverty and extreme poverty rose in 2015/16 following a decade of decline

  

  Poverty and extreme poverty levels rose in Latin America as a regional average in 2015 and 2016, after more than a decade of declines in the majority of countries, while in 2017 they are expected to hold steady, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) said.

• Sunday, December 31st 2017 - 20:47 UTC

  Corruption in Uruguayan government “very much extended”, says opinion poll

  

  Although Uruguay is well positioned internationally when it comes to corruption perception, it is considered among the least corrupt together with Chile in Latin America by Transparency International and LatinoBarometer, a public opinion poll published the last week of 2017 in Montevideo seems to show quite a different perception, particularly among young people.

• Sunday, December 31st 2017 - 10:32 UTC

  Temer paves the way for the privatization of jumbo power company Electrobras

  

  Brazilian President Michel Temer signed a measure that paves the way for the privatization of Eletrobras, Latin America’s largest power company, according to a government official.

• Sunday, December 31st 2017 - 10:27 UTC

  Brazil denies any hypothesis of credit rating downgrade

  

  “The government does not work on the hypothesis of a rating downgrade by the main credit rating agencies”, said Brazil's Treasury Secretary Ana Paula Vescovi during an interview to release the primary results of the Central Government.

• Sunday, December 31st 2017 - 10:18 UTC

  Margaret Thatcher's panda-phobia: “the history of pandas...is unlucky”

  

  Ex prime minister Margaret Thatcher spurned the photo opportunity of sharing a transatlantic, Concorde flight to Washington with a giant panda, newly released files from the National Archives have revealed, according to an article from The Guardian..

• Sunday, December 31st 2017 - 06:26 UTC

  Lula's presidential ambition: on January 24 a Porto Alegre court will rule on his appeal

  

  Brazil's former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will learn in January whether a prison sentence against him is upheld, officials said, potentially knocking him out of next year's presidential election. Lula was sentenced in July to 9.5 years behind bars after being convicted of corruption in Brazil's huge “Car Wash” graft scandal.