Politics

• Wednesday, July 24th 2013 - 07:19 UTC

  Mass with 400.000 Catholics in Copacabana beach marks opening of World Youth Day

  

  Around 400,000 Roman Catholics have joined a Tuesday evening ceremony on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro to mark the opening of World Youth Day. The highlight of the festival will be a visit on Thursday by Pope Francis.

• Wednesday, July 24th 2013 - 07:15 UTC

  Mujica flies to Havana to meet the Castro brothers and celebrate 60 years of Cuba’s revolution

  

  Uruguayan president and former guerrilla Jose Mujica left Tuesday night for Cuba where he is scheduled to hold meetings with President Raul Castro, the revolution leader Fidel Castro and attend the celebrations of the sixtieth anniversary of the assault on the Moncada military fort.

• Wednesday, July 24th 2013 - 07:09 UTC

  Cristina Fernandez candidate for Army Chief questioned over human rights record

  

  Argentine President Cristina Fernandez has defended the designation of César Milani as head of the Armed Forces, and complained that “those who previously voted for the Due Obedience and Final Stop laws put in doubt” her administration's “human rights record”.

• Wednesday, July 24th 2013 - 07:03 UTC

  South Georgia coin with privy mark to congratulate the Royal Couple

  

  Following the birth of His Royal Highness, the Prince of Cambridge, Pobjoy Mint has announced the release of three coins which have had a special privy mark added to them to congratulate the Royal Couple and to commemorate the historic occasion. The coins will be released on behalf of British Virgin Islands and South Georgia & South Sandwich Islands.

• Wednesday, July 24th 2013 - 06:59 UTC

  IMF backs down from siding with Argentina before the US Supreme Court on hedge funds case

  

  The International Monetary Fund no longer plans to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review Argentina's case in its decade-old legal battle with holdout creditors due to a lack of support from the U.S. government, the IMF said on Tuesday.

• Wednesday, July 24th 2013 - 06:56 UTC

  Fed expected to trim bond buying to 65bn in September, says Bloomberg survey

  

  Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke in September will trim the Fed’s monthly bond buying to 65 billion from the current pace of 85 billion dollars, according to a growing number of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.

• Tuesday, July 23rd 2013 - 15:01 UTC

  Falklands send message of congratulations to the Royal Family

  

  The Falkland Islands Government has sent a letter of congratulations to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on the safe arrival of their baby son.

• Tuesday, July 23rd 2013 - 08:15 UTC

  Santos and Maduro agree to open a new chapter of neighbourly relations

  

  Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and Colombian counterpart Juan Manuel Santos on Monday agreed to turn the page on a diplomatic dispute triggered when Santos met with Venezuela's main opposition leader in May.

• Tuesday, July 23rd 2013 - 08:06 UTC

  Argentina refuses to inform Paraguay on a nuclear reactor it is planning along the border

  

  The administration of President Cristina Fernandez rejected a request from Paraguay on the nuclear plant, and area of influence, Argentina plans to build in the neighbouring province of Formosa. The situation was exposed by Paraguayan lawmaker Olga Ferreira de Lopez who called the Argentine president a ‘perverse woman’.

• Tuesday, July 23rd 2013 - 08:00 UTC

  Polls confirm support for Rousseff has crashed and Lula da Silva becomes an option

  

  Former president Lula da Silva is back leading opinion polls as the most likeable candidate for Brazil’s presidential election in 2014, eleven percentage points ahead of his successor and current president Dilma Rousseff according to the latest public opinion polls released over the week end.