Politics

• Saturday, May 16th 2009 - 13:10 UTC

  British voters want snap election; Labour support down to 22%

  

  Almost two in three British voters believe a general election should be called as soon as possible amid mounting public anger about Member of Parliaments' taxpayer-funded expense claims, a poll has revealed.

• Friday, May 15th 2009 - 12:09 UTC

  Uruguay’s president calls for “deeds” and an end to Argentine pickets

  

  Uruguayan president Tabare Vazquez called for “deeds” from Argentina and insisted that the administration of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner must remove the pickets which for two years have cut the traffic between the neighbouring countries in protest over the construction of a pulp mill.

• Friday, May 15th 2009 - 12:00 UTC

  Falkland Islands: Weekly Penguin News Update

  

  Sei whale washes up on Carcass. -
  
  ONE animal’s misfortune has become the gain of hundreds of others on Carcass Island.The body of an enormous sei whale was found dead with hundreds of giant petrels around it, when the island’s owner Rob McGill discovered it on Sunday.

• Friday, May 15th 2009 - 11:49 UTC

  Cristina plans to celebrate May 25th with Lula da Silva and Lugo

  

  Argentine president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner will celebrate the May Revolution National Day in a city bordering Brazil and Paraguay where she expects to hold a presidential meeting with her peer-neighbours, according to the Buenos Aires press.

• Friday, May 15th 2009 - 11:25 UTC

  Bolivia says relations with Peru are at “high risk”

  

  Bolivia's president said relations with Peru are at “high risk” after the neighbouring nation gave refuge to two more former Bolivian officials accused in the 2003 army killings of dozens of protesters.

• Friday, May 15th 2009 - 11:21 UTC

  Colombia’s Uribe closer to the second “re-election of his ideas”

  

  Colombia's senate has delayed a vote on scheduling a referendum that could let President Alvaro Uribe seek a third term. Lawmakers had been expected to vote Wednesday but the body put off consideration of the measure until May 19 for lack of quorum.

• Friday, May 15th 2009 - 11:12 UTC

  Booing incident gets the sack for Spain’s state television sports editor

  

  Spain's state television sacked its head of sports coverage on Thursday, saying it was a mistake not to have shown a soccer crowd from Catalonia and the Basque Country booing the Spanish national anthem during the country's Copa del Rey final.

• Friday, May 15th 2009 - 09:23 UTC

  British MPs expenses scandal claims first scalps

  

  British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has suspended ex-minister Elliot Morley from the Parliamentary Labour Party and an aide to Tory leader David Cameron quit his post as the Westminster expenses scandal claimed its first scalps.

• Thursday, May 14th 2009 - 08:21 UTC

  Governance post-June 28 takes hold of Argentine electoral campaign

  

  Argentine mid term elections have given a nasty turn as more opposition candidates are calling for “an orderly transition” that ensures governance from the day after June 28 until the end of the current presidential mandate of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

• Thursday, May 14th 2009 - 07:55 UTC

  Married Catholic Priests call on Vatican for “optional celibacy”

  

  The Latinamerican Federation of Married Catholic Priests called on the Vatican to accept “optional celibacy” for members of the Church and acknowledge as something natural that clergy members can marry.