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Argentina Asks the U.N. Law of the Sea Tribunal to Halt Falklands Oil Drilling as Britain Urges Interpol to Reject Milei’s Arrest Requests: October 13, 2026

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Argentina said Tuesday it has asked the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea for provisional measures to stop British-authorized oil activity off the Falkland Islands, escalating a dispute that The Guardian reported has pushed tensions over the islands to levels not seen since the 1982 war, according to Reuters and the Argentine broadcaster TN.

The request aims to prevent the United Kingdom from exploiting hydrocarbons on the continental shelf of the North Falklands Basin, where the Sea Lion project is being developed, and “seeks to preserve Argentina’s sovereign rights over its continental shelf and prevent activities authorized unilaterally and illegally by the United Kingdom,” the government said, Reuters reported. TN said the filing to the Hamburg-based tribunal came the day after a two-week deadline President Javier Milei gave Britain on Sept. 28 expired, and forms part of an arbitration case Argentina opened under Annex VII of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Britain, meanwhile, has written to Interpol urging it to treat Argentine “red notice” requests for the arrest of people involved in Sea Lion, including British nationals, as politically motivated, The Guardian reported. Interpol is understood to have replied that it would respect Article 3 of its constitution, which bars interventions of a political character, the paper said. “One would hope that Interpol wouldn’t necessarily take action,” said Andrea Clausen, chief executive of the Falkland Islands government.

Milei has opened criminal proceedings against Israeli company Navitas Petroleum and its British partner Rockhopper Exploration, the core companies in Sea Lion, and a bill before Argentina’s Congress would toughen penalties on companies and individuals working on Falklands resources without Argentine authorization. The companies have said they do not expect Argentina’s actions to derail the project, which The Guardian said could triple the islands’ GDP.

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham told Parliament on Monday that he had raised “the clear and declared will of the islanders to remain British” with President Donald Trump, according to The Guardian. Argentina claims sovereignty over the islands, which it calls Las Malvinas, and dismisses a 2013 referendum in which 99.8% of voters chose to remain a British territory.

Sources: Reuters (via Devdiscourse), The Guardian, TN

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Americans Robert Hall and Michael Woodford Win the Nobel Economics Prize for Models Central Banks Use to Tame Economic Shocks: October 12, 2026

STOCKHOLM — U.S. economists Robert E. Hall of Stanford University and Michael Woodford of Columbia University won the 2026 Nobel memorial prize in economic sciences on Monday for work on how monetary and fiscal policy can smooth out swings in the economy, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced, Al Jazeera, CBC News and The Guardian reported.

“The laureates’ work has provided us with a stable theoretical foundation for the models that are now used by central banks and governments around the world,” said John Hassler, chair of the prize committee. “With them, we are better equipped to deal with shocks in the economy, such as energy crises or sudden changes in how much households consume.”

The academy credited the pair with “a paradigm shift in stabilisation policy.” When the oil shocks of the 1970s brought high inflation and high unemployment at the same time, the Keynesian models then in use stopped working. “This is the Keynesian recipe and it worked well — until it didn’t,” committee member Timo Boppart said, according to CBC News. Hall built models on forward-looking household behavior, and Woodford built on that work to create the New Keynesian model, now the main tool for policymakers, which was used after the 2008 financial crisis, The Guardian said.

Woodford spoke to the committee by phone from New York. “It’s a tremendous honour, it’s a surprise,” he said.

The prize, formally the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, was established by Sweden’s central bank and first awarded in 1969. It is worth a combined $1.2 million and is the last of this year’s Nobel prizes. Last year’s winners were Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt.

Sources: Al Jazeera, CBC News, The Guardian

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EU Adds Nearly 1,600 Russian Individuals and Companies to Its Sanctions List in Its Biggest Expansion Since the Invasion: October 12, 2026

LUXEMBOURG — The European Union approved its largest-ever round of sanctions listings against Russia on Monday, targeting nearly 1,600 individuals and businesses tied to Moscow’s war effort as EU foreign ministers met in Luxembourg, DW and Al Jazeera reported.

“This is the single largest expansion of our sanctions list since Russia started its war,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas wrote online, adding that more than half of the new listings are connected to the production chain for ballistic missiles. “We are making it significantly harder, slower and more expensive for Russia to produce the weapons it uses to kill Ukrainians,” she said.

Besides the military-industrial listings, the package names another 77 people and groups linked to what the EU regards as illegal elections in occupied parts of Ukraine, DW reported. German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, who missed the Luxembourg meeting because of a party conference in Berlin, called the measures an “unprecedented sanction blow” to President Vladimir Putin’s war. “The message is clear: Russia cannot and will not win this war,” he said.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the West should go further. “This is the moment when the entire West … should show Russia and Putin that it is ready to pursue a policy of containing Russia by even more decisive means,” he told the Warsaw Security Forum, saying he would go to Brussels to urge European partners to consider increasing sanctions.

The move puts Europe at odds with Washington, which on Friday eased sanctions on Russian diesel. “This deal doesn’t help, neither the crisis of the oil products, nor the unity within the transatlantic community when it concerns Russia,” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys said, according to The Guardian. “Our way is to increase pressure because we already see how it works.”

Sources: DW, Al Jazeera, The Guardian

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Venezuela Authorizes Elon Musk’s Starlink to Operate Nationwide After Satellite Service Proved Itself in June Earthquake: October 10, 2026

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela’s interim President Delcy Rodríguez has authorized Starlink, the satellite internet service operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, to operate in the country under an agreement with the U.S. company, the Venezuelan government said, Reuters reported.

The national telecommunications regulator, Conatel, said its board on Thursday granted general license HGTS-00639 and seven Ku-band concessions to the local company SpaceX VZ, legally authorizing Starlink satellite internet service throughout the national territory, with a formal domicile and oversight in Venezuela.

The approval follows technical cooperation during the June 24 earthquake, which severely damaged land-based telephone and internet infrastructure in La Guaira state, Conatel said. Temporary permits issued then allowed more than 1,600 terminals to be activated to coordinate rescue and relief work, and were used to test direct-to-device text messaging between the country’s three mobile operators via satellite, according to El Nacional, which described the June quake as the deadliest in Venezuela in a century.

Conatel said in a statement that the grant reaffirms the state’s commitment to promoting new technologies and the digital inclusion of the population. El Nacional said the arrangement includes agreements with local private operators such as Digitel, which already used SpaceX’s satellite constellation to back up its mobile network, and is expected to expand data coverage in rural and hard-to-reach areas.

Rodríguez, Nicolás Maduro’s former vice president, has led Venezuela as interim president since U.S. forces seized Maduro in a raid on Caracas in January.

Sources: Reuters (via StreetInsider), Conatel, El Nacional

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Trump Strikes Deal With Putin to Release Russian Diesel, Drawing Zelensky’s Fury as Ukraine Talks Continue in Miami: October 10, 2026

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed to release Russian diesel to U.S. and global markets, a sharp reversal of years of Western pressure on Moscow that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned as a gift to the Kremlin, BBC News and The Guardian reported.

In a Truth Social post after a call with Putin, Trump said Russia would immediately supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel, followed by 500,000 tons in November, 1 million tons after that and a further 3 million tons “within a short period,” depending on the condition of Russian refineries that Ukraine has attacked. “Diesel prices for Americans and, indeed, the world, will be COMING DOWN, IN RECORD NUMBERS, AND FAST!” he wrote. The U.S. Treasury issued a temporary license allowing Russian diesel onto world markets through April 2027, DW reported.

The Kremlin said Putin had confirmed Russia’s “willingness to supply oil and petroleum products to the US market and global markets at large,” and Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said additional volumes could begin flowing in October. Putin’s envoy Kirill Dmitriev said “Russia-US co-operation on diesel and energy will benefit the world.”

Zelensky called the deal “an investment in a war that must be ended, not prolonged” and said Russia would repay it with “further terror and perfidy.” He told Axios it “looks like a happy birthday present for Putin,” according to The Guardian. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and two other Democratic senators said “this is what failure looks like,” and Republican Rep. Don Bacon wrote that “propping up Putin’s war economy is morally wrong.” Britain said it would maintain “the toughest sanctions regime ever imposed by the UK.”

Trump has spent months grappling with soaring fuel prices driven by the war with Iran, which began in February; the average U.S. diesel price is $6.28 a gallon, down from a record $6.53 at the end of September, according to AAA figures cited by the BBC. Analysts questioned the impact: the first tranche equals about 2.25 million barrels, against U.S. consumption of around 3.8 million barrels a day, Tim Armitage of Quilter Cheviot told the BBC. The announcement came as U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Ukrainian and European officials in Miami for talks on ending the war, which Witkoff described as “constructive,” DW said.

Sources: BBC News, The Guardian, DW, NPR

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Nvidia-Backed Firmus Scraps What Would Have Been Australia’s Biggest Share Listing Since Telstra: October 9, 2026

SYDNEY — Firmus Technologies, an Nvidia-backed builder of artificial intelligence data centers, has scrapped plans for what was set to be Australia’s biggest stock market listing in decades, citing “recent market volatility and prevailing market conditions,” BBC News and The Guardian reported.

“Firmus will now pursue capital from the private markets and consider alternative public and private market options,” the company said Friday. Its bankers had aimed to raise A$7 billion at A$11 a share ahead of a listing on the Australian Securities Exchange on Oct. 23, Guardian Australia reported, with an anticipated valuation of A$44 billion — more than US$30 billion, according to the BBC. It would have been the largest ASX debut since Telstra in 1997.

Firmus builds liquid-cooled data centers it calls “AI factories” for clients including OpenAI and Meta, and is backed by Nvidia, Blackstone and Jane Street. But investors balked at its valuation for a startup with just two small operating sites, The Guardian said. “We think that Firmus indeed has a compelling story. It just doesn’t have a compelling valuation,” John Pearce, chief investment officer of the pension fund UniSuper, which declined to take part, told the BBC.

The retreat has rattled other parts of the market: shares in Firmus investor Maas Group plunged more than 20 percent on Thursday, and data center operator CDC this week ended a deal with Firmus known as Project Southgate. The decision comes as investors question the hundreds of billions of dollars being poured into AI. “It’s more like a bet on a dream,” said Phillip Wool of Rayliant Investment Research.

Sources: BBC News, The Guardian

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Japan Raids Asahi, Kirin, Sapporo and Suntory Over Suspected Beer Price-Fixing Cartel: October 8, 2026

TOKYO — Japan’s antitrust regulator has raided the country’s four biggest brewers over suspicions they colluded to raise the price of beer and other drinks, BBC News and The Guardian reported.

Asahi, Kirin, Sapporo and Suntory confirmed that the Japan Fair Trade Commission searched their premises and said they would cooperate fully. The four together control more than 90 percent of Japan’s domestic beer market, The Guardian said. Kirin Holdings said its brewing subsidiary was searched “on suspicion of a violation of the Antimonopoly Act” and that it takes the matter “very seriously.” Shares in Asahi, Kirin and Sapporo fell after news of the raids broke on Wednesday; Suntory’s beer business is not publicly listed.

“I do not deny that an investigation is being conducted today, but I’d like to refrain from commenting on the details as a preliminary review is underway,” JFTC Secretary General Hiroo Iwanari said, according to local media cited by the BBC. Japanese media quoted sources as saying sales executives were suspected of meeting secretly over a long period to coordinate the timing and size of price increases, and that the probe could lead to a criminal complaint.

The brewers all raised prices at the same time, most recently in April last year and also in October 2022 and October 2023, citing higher costs for raw materials and logistics. Japan’s alcohol sales reached ¥3.8 trillion ($24.3 billion) in 2024, with beer accounting for 30 percent, The Guardian reported. The raids follow a June investigation into alleged cartel activity among some of Japan’s biggest ice cream makers.

Sources: BBC News, The Guardian

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African Union Launches Continent’s First Credit Rating Agency to Rival Wall Street’s Big Three: October 7, 2026

PORT LOUIS, Mauritius — The African Union is launching the continent’s first credit rating agency on Wednesday, seeking to offer an alternative to the “big three” global ratings firms as debt burdens weigh on many African economies, Reuters reported.

The Africa Credit Rating Agency, or AfCRA, will be based in Port Louis and will rate sovereign borrowers, financial institutions and private companies. “AfCRA complements existing global credit rating agencies by offering a perspective rooted in African data, expertise and realities,” the African Union said in a statement. The AU said the agency will operate independently and be funded through shareholder capital and its own operations, but did not name the shareholders.

African leaders have long accused Western agencies of failing to fairly assess the risk of lending to African countries and of downgrading them too quickly during crises such as conflicts and pandemics, Reuters said. The AU says 23 economies on the continent lack a rating from the three big agencies, and that the new body should improve access to capital markets and give investors more context-specific assessments. It will also rate non-African entities where appropriate.

The project has been nearly a decade in the making. The AU Assembly endorsed it in 2018, finance ministers backed it in a 2023 declaration in Nairobi, and its governance and methodology were developed under the African Peer Review Mechanism, according to the AU. The launch coincides with the 2nd Annual African Conference on Credit Ratings in Mauritius.

Sources: Reuters, African Union

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Argentina Launches $350,000 Citizenship-by-Investment “Golden Passport” Scheme: October 3, 2026

PARIS / BUENOS AIRES — Argentina’s government launched a citizenship-by-investment program offering wealthy foreigners a path to Argentine nationality via a non-refundable $350,000 contribution to the National Treasury or an $800,000 government bond created for the scheme, Deutsche Welle and the Buenos Aires Herald reported.

Economy Minister Luis Caputo and Cabinet Chief Diego Santilli announced the program during “Argentina Week” in Paris. Applications are due to open in the fourth quarter of 2026. The Economy Ministry said the move aims to “further strengthen the Argentine Republic’s fiscal and financial position” and attract capital under President Javier Milei’s pro-investment agenda.

Spouses and children aged 18–25 (single, childless) would pay $100,000 each; minors $25,000. A typical family of a principal applicant, spouse and two minors could apply for a total of $500,000, the ministry said. Funds must move through the formal financial system under anti-money-laundering rules. Caputo said the design incorporates OECD and FATF standards and advice from international investment-migration firms.

Applications will be vetted by a Citizenship by Investment Programs Agency with input from intelligence, financial-crime and security bodies; Argentina’s National Directorate of Migration makes the final grant or refusal. Payment alone does not guarantee approval.

Sources: Deutsche Welle, Buenos Aires Herald

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TotalEnergies Plans $10 Billion Energy Investments in Argentina: October 1, 2026

PARIS — French energy major TotalEnergies plans about $10 billion of investments in Argentina across offshore gas and Neuquén shale projects, Chief Executive Patrick Pouyanné said Thursday at Argentina Week in Paris, Reuters reported.

Pouyanné said the portfolio includes a new offshore development in Tierra del Fuego and expansion of gas production in Neuquén, with an aim of boosting output toward 16 million cubic metres per day and roughly $4 billion to $5 billion of spending over the next decade on the gas side alone. Argentine and regional outlets said the Tierra del Fuego project was dubbed “Alberdi” after talks with President Javier Milei, with about $1.5 billion earmarked offshore and a large San Roque shale-oil push in Vaca Muerta potentially seeking RIGI investment incentives.

Pouyanné linked the renewed appetite to Argentine policy changes including freer dividend remittances and the RIGI large-investment regime. TotalEnergies has operated in Argentina for years; the fresh package marks one of the largest European energy commitments announced into the Milei-era investment push.

Sources: Reuters via MarketScreener, Infobae

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