Politics

• 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.

• Sunday, December 31st 2017 - 06:09 UTC

  PM May New Year message: more Brexit, and promises of focus on schools, police and the NHS

  

  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.

• Sunday, December 31st 2017 - 06:00 UTC

  Corbyn said the “new Britain was closer than ever”, and Labour “is a government in waiting”

  

  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”.

• Saturday, December 30th 2017 - 11:49 UTC

  Fire in the Venezuela’s biggest refinery

  

  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

• Saturday, December 30th 2017 - 11:32 UTC

  Democratic Unity Table (MUD) recognizes not having reacted efficiently

  

  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

• Friday, December 29th 2017 - 10:35 UTC

  Venezuelan Observatory of Violence published its annual report

  

  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.

• Friday, December 29th 2017 - 10:30 UTC

  Gibraltarian woman has been appointed deputy mayor of Jerusalem

  

  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”.

• Friday, December 29th 2017 - 10:19 UTC

  Kuczynski and Keiko Fujimori questioned by prosecutors on alleged Odebrecht payments

  

  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.