Politics

• Monday, August 7th 2017 - 22:17 UTC

  Cable lashes out at Brexit “martyrs” and accuses them of “masochism” and nostalgic of an imperial past

  

  Liberal Democrat leader Sir Vince Cable has lashed out at hard line Brexit “martyrs” who view economic pain as a price worth paying to break away from Brussels. Cable accused them of “masochism” and claimed older Brexit voters with views “colored by nostalgia from an imperial past” had imposed their will on a younger generation more comfortable with the European Union.

• Monday, August 7th 2017 - 21:14 UTC

  Brazilian army troops storm Rio favelas to crack crime gangs

  

  Thousands of Brazilian army troops raided Rio de Janeiro slums in a pre-dawn crackdown on crime gangs over the weekend, leaving parts of the city looking like a war zone on the first anniversary of the opening of the Olympic Games. Five favelas were targeted by around 1,300 police and 3,600 troops in a sweep starting at 4 a.m., the Rio state security service said in a statement.

• Monday, August 7th 2017 - 16:03 UTC

  Falkland/Malvinas Islands: Forensic field work to identify remains of Argentine soldiers comes to an end

  

  During seven weeks of intense work, which began on 20 June, a team of 14 specialists – from Argentina, Australia, Chile, Mexico, Spain and the United Kingdom – exhumed, analysed, sampled and documented the remains of each of the unidentified soldiers. The work was carried out in a high-tech temporary mortuary built on-site for the purposes of the operation.

• Monday, August 7th 2017 - 07:47 UTC

  Maduro controls attempt to trigger a military uprising

  

  President Nicolas Maduro vowed that a band of anti-government fighters who attacked a Venezuelan army base will get the “maximum penalty” as his administration roots out his enemies. Troops killed two of the 20 intruders who slipped into the Paramacay base in the central city of Valencia early Sunday, apparently intent on fomenting a military uprising, Maduro said in his weekly broadcast on state television.

• Monday, August 7th 2017 - 07:21 UTC

  Lord King calls for a “credible fallback”, in case no EU trade deal is reached

  

  The UK needs a “credible fallback” in case no EU trade deal is reached during Brexit negotiations, former Bank of England governor Mervyn King has said. Lord King said British negotiators needed to show Brussels the country has an alternative over a bad trade deal post-Brexit.

• Monday, August 7th 2017 - 07:13 UTC

  UK top ex diplomat says cabinet divided on Brexit and government has still to put forward a clear position

  

  The UK's Brexit negotiations have not begun well amid “differences” inside the cabinet, a former head of the diplomatic service has said. Sir Simon Fraser, chief mandarin at the Foreign Office until 2015, said the UK side had been “a bit absent” from formal negotiations in Brussels.

• Monday, August 7th 2017 - 06:27 UTC

  Cristina Kirchner/Macri dispute Buenos Aires province Senate seat

  

  With less than a week to the Argentine primaries next Sunday to chose candidates for the October midterm election, the dispute in the province of Buenos Aires which concentrates 35% of the national electorate is particularly interesting as decisive since ex president Cristina Fernandez has good chances of winning the Senate bench.

• Sunday, August 6th 2017 - 11:58 UTC

  US unemployment drops to 4.3%, but hourly earnings remain flat

  

  The United States economy added a solid 209,000 jobs in July, exceeding economists’ estimates as the labor market shows few signs of slowing down. The unemployment rate last month fell to 4.3% from 4.4%, the Labor Department reported on Friday.

• Sunday, August 6th 2017 - 04:53 UTC

  UN, including Beijing., agrees tough sanctions on North Korea banning more than a third of the country's exports

  

  The United Nations Security Council approved tough new sanctions on North Korea on Saturday including a ban on coal and other exports totaling more than US$1 billion — a huge bite in its total exports, valued at US$3 billion last year. U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley praised the new sanctions, telling council members after the vote that it is “the single largest economic package ever leveled against the North Korean regime.”

• Sunday, August 6th 2017 - 00:23 UTC

  Venezuela suspended indefinitely: “Without democracy, you can't be part of Mercosur”

  

  Mercosur foreign ministers meeting on Saturday in Brazil suspended Venezuela indefinitely for failing to uphold democratic norms amid an intensifying crackdown on dissent in the country. The bloc previously suspended Venezuela in December for failing to uphold commitments it made when it joined the group in 2012.