
Britons will feel “renewed confidence and pride” in 2018, Prime Minister Theresa May has said in her New Year message. The prime minister said that while Brexit will be “crucial” in the coming year, it is “not the limit” of the government's ambitions, and it will focus on schools, the police and NHS to change people's daily lives.

Labour is “staking out the centre ground in British politics”, British opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn has said in a New Year message. Mr. Corbyn said the prospect of a “new Britain” was “closer than ever” and he was leading a “government in waiting”.

A fire was registered late Friday at the Refining Complex of Amuay, northwest of Venezuela. The accident baddly affected a distiller. El secretary of the Petroleum’s workers federation, Iván Freites, denounced irregularities due to the lack of maintenance and investment in the oil industry by the State’s PDVSA

The main coalition of opposition parties, Democratic Unity Table (MUD), made this Friday a self-critical statement on its balance of 2017 in which it admits not having reacted efficiently to the people suffering, in addition to not having been able to accompany the people who have protested these days for lack of food and other items

This Thursday, the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence (VVO) published its annual report, in the hands of its director, the sociologist Roberto Briceño León, which shows a 2017 full of irregularities by the State and a high rate of abuse of the same and towards it.

The daughter of Sir Joshua Hassan, a very outstanding political figure from Gibraltar, Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, has been appointed deputy mayor of Jerusalem. Gibraltar Chief Minister Fabian Picardo congratulated Fleur on Twitter, highlighting that her appointment was “a living demonstration of the strong links between Gibraltar and Israel”.

Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and one of his leading political rivals appeared on Thursday before prosecutors investigating payments to politicians by Brazilian construction company Odebrecht. Kuczynski and ex congresswoman Keiko Fujimori are being investigated by anti-corruption prosecutors in separate probes. Both have denied wrongdoing.

Condemning the pardoning of former President of Peru, Alberto Fujimori, a group of United Nations independent human rights experts have said that the move undermines the work of the judiciary and the international community to achieve justice.

The head of Brazil’s Supreme Court suspended parts of a Christmas decree from President Michel Temer granting pardons to convicted criminals on Thursday, saying Temer’s actions needed further examination by the court. Cármen Lúcia ruled largely in favor of a legal challenge by Brazil’s top prosecutor, Raquel Dodge, who said on Wednesday that the pardons were unconstitutional and threatened a probe into the country’s largest-ever corruption scandal.

Relatives and friends of some of the 132 police officers killed in Rio de Janeiro this year have taken part in a protest to honor their loved ones. It was organized by human rights NGO Rio de Paz. Police uniforms stained with red paint and red roses in their pockets were hung alongside plaques with the names of the officers killed in 2017.