Politics

• Saturday, March 2nd 2013 - 08:03 UTC

  Obama signs spending cuts after no agreement is reached with the Republicans

  

  US President Barack Obama has signed into effect a wave of steep spending cuts which he has warned could damage the US economy. The cuts - known as the sequester and drawn up two years ago will take 85bn dollars from the US federal budget this year.

• Saturday, March 2nd 2013 - 07:55 UTC

  Argentina offers to pay ‘holdouts’ but on same terms as those who accepted debt restructuring

  

  President Cristina Fernández defended on Friday her debt reduction policies and blasted the so-called vulture funds and multilateral organizations but also admitted Argentina was willing to pay holdouts on the same conditions that those who accepted the 2005 and 2010 debt restructuring.

• Saturday, March 2nd 2013 - 07:46 UTC

  “We want sovereignty over the Malvinas, but in peace”, Cristina Fernandez tells Congress

  

  Argentine president Cristina Fernandez again called on the UK to hold talks over the sovereignty of the Falklands/Malvinas Islands during her address to Congress on Friday when she delivered the ‘State of the Nation’ speech and formally opened the 131st legislative sessions.

• Friday, March 1st 2013 - 14:21 UTC

  Markets fear Argentina could be en route to a ‘technical’ default

  

  “We are representing a government, and governments will not be told to do things that fundamentally violate their principles” lawyer Jonathan Blackman told the Manhattan US appeals court.

• Friday, March 1st 2013 - 13:29 UTC

  Euro-zone unemployment reaching 12%; Greece and Spain above 26%

  

  Unemployment in the Euro zone reached a new high of 11.9% in January, as an additional 201,000 people joined the jobless ranks in the crisis-battered bloc, latest data showed Friday. The unemployment rate has been increasing relentlessly since the middle of 2011.

• Friday, March 1st 2013 - 06:39 UTC

  Be careful: Russia is back to stay in the Middle East

  

  Russia is back. President Vladimir Putin wants the world to acknowledge that Russia remains a global power. He is making his stand in Syria. The Soviet Union acquired the Tartus Naval Port in Syria in 1971 without any real purpose for it. With their ships welcomed in Algeria, Cuba or Vietnam, Tartus was too insignificant to be developed. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia lacked the funds to spend on the base and no reason to invest in it.

• Friday, March 1st 2013 - 02:08 UTC

  Ban Ki-moon calls for a more inclusive dialogue on decolonization

  

  With the world undergoing a “great transition,” it is time for a new kind of inclusive dialogue about decolonization, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said, calling for fresh approaches to resolve the situations of the remaining 16 Non-Self-Governing Territories.

• Friday, March 1st 2013 - 02:01 UTC

  Political challenges for the ambitious US-EU trade agreement to ensure Western preeminence

  

  US-EU plans to join forces via a free-trade agreement are taking on shape. During his Berlin visit, US Secretary of State John Kerry described the planned pact as a priority for President Barack Obama's second term and marked out the agreement as a key element in cementing transatlantic ties.

• Friday, March 1st 2013 - 00:17 UTC

  Relations with Cristina Fernandez are “an impossible mission”, admits Mujica

  

  Uruguayan president Jose Mujica admits that relations between Uruguay and Argentina’s Cristina Fernandez can be “an impossible mission”, but at the same time praised Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez “as the most generous head of state he has ever met”.

• Friday, March 1st 2013 - 00:11 UTC

  World's richest man says Argentina is great and predictable: “you can never get hold of dollars”

  

  Mexico’s Carlos Slim, probably the world’s richest man according to Forbes has referred to Argentina with certain irony when he was asked about the current foreign currency restrictions and changing regulatory framework implemented by the government of President Cristina Fernandez.