BRUSSELS (AP) – Italy on Friday gave crucial support to plans by the European Union to seal a huge free trade deal with five South American nations neighboring Venezuela that has been negotiated for over 25 years.
NEW YORK (AP) - Oil prices resumed their rise because of the war with Iran, but U.S. stocks held steadier this time around. The S&P 500 rose 0.3% Tuesday and added to its gain from the day before, which was its best since the war began. The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged up 0.1%, and the Nasdaq composite gained 0.5%.
PARIS (AP) – Dozens of angry farmers demonstrated in France and Greece Thursday, halting traffic and blocking key roads with tractors to protest European Union plans to move forward with a free trade deal with five South American nations.
The U.S. counterterrorism official who resigned Tuesday had been a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump through his 2020 election defeat, the Jan. 6 riots and years of conservative media advocacy and failed congressional bids. But Trump’s war in Iran and his alliance with Israel against the Islamic clerics who led the Tehran government were too much for Joe Kent.
SAO PAULO (AP) – Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said on Saturday he hopes the massive free-trade deal between South American bloc Mercosur and the European Union will be signed in January. Protests on Friday by European farmers and opposition from France and Italy threatened to quash an agreement that has been under negotiation for more than 26 years.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – Israel kept up its campaign of targeting Iran’s leaders on Wednesday, killing the country’s intelligence minister, and an Iranian offshore natural gas field was struck in a sign of the war’s mounting pressure – from both sides — on the region’s economic lifeblood: energy.
BRUSSELS (AP) – Italy signaled on Wednesday that it might not support a massive transatlantic free trade deal between the European Union and South American countries, casting further doubt on the agreement as European leaders gather for a summit in Brussels and farmers enraged by the trade pact descend on the capital.
Excerpts from recent editorials in the United States and abroad:
BRUSSELS (AP) – France is throwing up a last-minute obstacle to a massive trans-Atlantic trade deal between the 27-country European Union and the five South American nations of the Mercosur bloc that’s taken a quarter-century to negotiate.