
As Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro kept his name in the headlines over the last weeks by firing ministers and attacking governors, the Supreme Court and Congress, investors fretted over the prospect of a political crisis on top of the coronavirus pandemic.

US President Donald Trump's administration is set to restore partial funding to the World Health Organization (WHO), Fox News reported late on Friday, citing a draft letter.

Former president Lula da Silva says he fears a “genocide” in Brazil because of fierce opposition to coronavirus containment measures by current President Jair Bolsonaro, whom he said should be impeached. Lula is a former union leader who fought Brazil's military dictatorship (1964-1985), then became one of the country's most popular presidents with an anti-poverty crusade.

Britain and the European Union urged each other on Friday to give ground in talks over a post-Brexit trade deal or risk failure in tetchy exchanges after the latest bout of bargaining ended with scant progress.

A plea to all governments to continue providing the World Health Organization, WHO, with sufficient funds has come from physician leaders from across the world.

China on Friday issued a statement calling on all UN member states to actively fulfill their financial obligations to the United Nations, stressing that Washington owes the organization more than US$2 billion.

A Chinese jigger which was illegally fishing in Argentine waters and escaped from a Coast Guard patrol vessel at the end of April, finally was turned in and is being escorted to Puerto Madryn where it will face charges, according to a release from the Argentine Coast Guard.

Uruguay on Thursday turned over to the United States a Mexican man wanted on drug and money laundering charges. Gerardo Gonzalez Valencia is the brother of Abigael González, the former head of the Sinaloa cartel faction known as “Los Cuinis” (The Squirrels). Gonzalez Valencia is also the brother-in-law of Jalisco cartel drug lord Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes.

May 12 was the 35th anniversary of the opening of Mount Pleasant Airport in the Falkland Islands. A milestone that definitively changed the life and future of the Islands, helping to boost trade and tourism.

As the planet battles the seemingly inexorable spread of the coronavirus, Antarctica remains the only Covid-19-free continent - thanks in the main to strict security and not a little luck. The natural isolation of the frozen and desolate expanse has been taken to new extremes since the WHO declared a pandemic on March 11.