
US President Donald Trump said on Thursday he will leave the White House if the Electoral College votes for president-elect Joe Biden, the closest he has come to conceding the Nov 3 election, even as he reiterated his unfounded claims of massive voter fraud.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said on Thursday he would refuse a coronavirus vaccine, the most recent of his vaccine-skeptic statements. “I'm telling you, I'm not going to take it. It's my right,” he said in remarks aired over several social media platforms.

Britain reduced its foreign aid spending commitment on Wednesday to 0.5% of gross domestic product from 0.7%, causing junior minister Baroness Liz Sugg to resign and an immediate outcry from development organizations and the spiritual head of the Church of England.

Diego Maradona in life, as in death, was involved in chaos and controversy, and his funeral was not the exception. In effect Argentine police and fans who were lined up to see the casket of the football icon clashed on Thursday as authorities moved to shut down access to the Casa Rosada presidential palace ahead of a planned mid-afternoon shutoff for the public wake.

Venezuela has resumed direct shipments of oil to China after U.S. sanctions sent the trade underground for more than a year, according to Refinitiv Eikon vessel-tracking data and internal documents from state company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA).

On Wednesday 25 November, the Falkland Islands ExCo approved a proposal by the Spirit of Sydney expedition cruise vessel operator to transmit a small number of people back to the UK via the Falklands in late January 2021.

Time is running out to find a Brexit agreement between Spain and Britain over Gibraltar, Spanish Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya said on Thursday. At stake in the talks is avoiding a hard European Union border in southern Spain after Britain completes its departure from the EU at the end of this year.

The British government said on Friday it has asked its independent medicines regulator to assess AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine as part of the formal approval process for the drug to be rolled out by the end of the year.

An Iranian diplomat goes on trial in Belgium on Friday accused of plotting to bomb an opposition rally outside Paris, in a case that has stoked tensions with Teheran. In June 2018 Belgian authorities thwarted what they said was an attempt to smuggle explosives to France to attack a meeting of one of Iran's exiled opposition movements.

Latin American corporate credit indicators point to an improving economic and operating environment for most countries across the region in 2021, according to a series of new reports from Fitch Ratings.