Politics

• Monday, April 18th 2011 - 19:13 UTC

  S&P downgrades US debt outlook from “stable to negative”, because of budget deficit

  

  The United States have been warned that the credit rating on its government debt could be cut by Standard & Poor's. The risk rating agency is concerned that Democrats and Republicans will not be able to agree a plan to reduce the growing US deficit.

• Monday, April 18th 2011 - 18:57 UTC

  RAF biggest ever aircraft transport and tanker begins testing in UK

  

  The Royal Air Force largest ever aircraft with a 60 metre wingspan and nearly 60 metres long arrived in the UK for the first time this week, the MOD has announced. The new future strategic tanker aircraft (FSTA) has also been named publicly by the RAF as Voyager.

• Monday, April 18th 2011 - 09:51 UTC

  An estimated 40% of Argentine live on less than 8 US dollars per day

  

  An estimated 16 million Argentines, (out of a population of 40 million) live on less than 800 pesos per month which is equivalent to 8 US dollars per day, according to the latest data from the official Homes Standing Poll.

• Monday, April 18th 2011 - 07:14 UTC

  Investigation on Allende’s death gives hope to relatives of former Brazilian leader

  

  Relatives of former Brazilian president Joao Goulart who have long argued that he was the victim of the Southern Cone military government’s ‘terrorist’ operations in the seventies are encouraged by the Chilean justice decision to exhume and analyze the remains of former president Salvador Allende.

• Monday, April 18th 2011 - 07:05 UTC

  Syrians mark Independence Day in the streets calling for freedom

  

  Thousands of Syrians chanted slogans calling for greater freedom at Independence Day rallies, witnesses said, a day after President Bashar al-Assad promised to lift emergency law.

• Monday, April 18th 2011 - 06:38 UTC

  Cuba’s geriatric leadership admits it lacks a reserve of well-trained replacement

  

  Cuba will consider placing term limits on its leaders to assure new blood in the government, President Raul Castro said in a speech kicking off a Communist Party congress on the island he and his brother have led for more than five decades.

• Monday, April 18th 2011 - 06:23 UTC

  Mercosur organized joint program to combat dengue

  

  Mercosur will consider next June adopting a regional joint program to combat the mosquito transmitted dengue disease, which has become endemic in the group with the exception of Uruguay, and which has forced landlocked Paraguay to declare a national emergency.

• Saturday, April 16th 2011 - 10:02 UTC

  Argentina has not replied IMF recommendations for an inflation index

  

  IMF Western Hemisphere Director Nicolás Eyzaguirre said the organization had not yet received any official communication from the Argentine government regarding IMF recommendations over its inflation index.

• Saturday, April 16th 2011 - 02:20 UTC

  EU agriculture impact report before presenting “proposal list” to Mercosur

  

  The European Commission will be presenting in the next weeks a report on the consequences for the European agriculture of a trade agreement with Mercosur, announced EU Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos following a Thursday meeting of the Agriculture Council in Luxembourg.

• Saturday, April 16th 2011 - 00:41 UTC

  Eichmann’s escape helped by German intelligence and Roman Catholic Church

  

  The notorious Holocaust planner Adolf Eichmann was helped out of Germany by members of the German intelligence service and the Roman Catholic Church, according to a series of articles by Spiegel based on secret documents.