France’s Environment Minister François de Rugy has announced his resignation after being accused of extravagant spending, including on private dinners. He lashed out at what he described as a “media lynching”, saying the energy he had spent defending himself had hampered his work as minister. An investigative website said he had spent large sums of taxpayers’ money on gala dinners and refurbishing his apartment when speaker of parliament. He denies any wrongdoing.

“The attacks and media lynching targeting my family force me to take the necessary step back… I presented my resignation to the prime minister this morning,” said Mr de Rugy.  The Mediapart website accused him of hosting friends to luxury dinners, featuring lobster and vintage wines, while he was speaker of parliament, and spending public money to refurbish his government-provided apartment.

Mr de Rugy acknowledges hosting the meals, saying it was normal for the National Assembly’s speaker, but has pointed out that he does not like lobster. “I don’t like it, I don’t eat it, I have an intolerance for shellfish,” he previously told BFMTV. “I don’t like oysters… I hate caviar, and champagne gives me a headache.”

The claims came in the context of the “yellow vests” protests over inequality, and accusations against French President Emmanuel Macron that he was a “president of the rich” because of his pro-business policies.(BBC)…[+]

At least four people have been killed and more than 30 are trapped after a four-storey building collapsed in the Indian city of Mumbai, officials say. The cause of the collapse in the Dongri area of southern Mumbai is not clear. Reports say the building was up to 100 years old. Recent monsoon flooding may also have been a factor.

It’s estimated disasters such as this kill about 2,000 people a year in India. Poor construction standards and dilapidated buildings are often blamed. Rescue teams from the fire department and the national disaster response force are looking for those trapped by debris, officials told the BBC’s Marathi language service. Local news reports show images of people forming a human chain to remove debris with their bare hands. It’s reported that at least five people, including a child, have been rescued.

“We heard a loud noise. Everybody shouted, ‘building is falling, building is falling’. I ran. It felt like a big earthquake,” a witness to the collapse told the NDTV news channel. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has offered his condolences to the families of the dead.(BBC)…[+]

A Trinidad & To­ba­go na­tion­al, An­dre Sted­man, has been sen­tenced to eight years in prison for rap­ing a mi­nor girl. The for­mer se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer who is in his late 50s was al­so slapped with a 12-month prison sen­tence for in­de­cent as­sault, a re­port by BVI News said. His sen­tences are to run con­cur­rent­ly.

In hand­ing down the sen­tence on Fri­day, Jus­tice Ann-Marie Smith said his con­tin­u­ous de­nial of the of­fences, the ap­par­ent abuse of trust, the fact that the of­fences took place in the com­plainant’s bed­room, the threats that Sted­man al­leged­ly made, cou­pled with the neg­a­tive im­pact on the mi­nor were con­sid­ered as ag­gra­vat­ing.

The court al­so heard that the mi­nor, who was 13-years-old at the time of the rape, has con­sid­ered harm­ing her­self since the in­ci­dent. This is ac­cord­ing to the vic­tim’s hand­writ­ten wit­ness im­pact state­ment which was read in court. The court heard that the mi­nor had dif­fi­cul­ties fo­cus­ing on her school work, of­ten felt ‘weak’, and be­came un­com­fort­able among her peers.(Trinidad Guardian)…[+]