A div­er lost at sea was able to swim ap­prox­i­mate­ly 44 miles, bat­tling strong cur­rents in the At­lantic Ocean, be­fore mak­ing it ashore in To­co on Thurs­day. Christo­pher Bu­gros, 24, be­came sep­a­rat­ed from his group as a 350-pound bull shark swept past them about 9 am on Wednes­day.

Bu­gros is now suf­fer­ing from ex­treme ex­haus­tion and de­hy­dra­tion and was re­ceiv­ing med­ical treat­ment at the San­gre Grande Dis­trict Hos­pi­tal. He spent al­most 16 hours in the ocean. By 6 pm he had al­ready been ad­min­is­tered four bags of IV drips, rel­a­tives said. Bu­gros was part of a group of four divers who left their re­spec­tive homes on Wednes­day to go div­ing off To­co.

At about 9 am while he and two oth­er divers were in the deep wa­ters a 350-pound bull shark wad­ed pass them. The trio tried to es­cape. Two of them man­aged to sur­face, how­ev­er, Bu­gros got in­to dif­fi­cul­ty and was swept away about 100 feet away from the boat by strong un­der­cur­rents, ac­cord­ing to his un­cle Ri­car­do.(Trinidad Guardian)…[+]

“DADDY, don’t kill Mommy” was the earnest cry of a 12-year-old girl when her father chased her mother and shot her before killing himself on Waltham Park Road yesterday. Prior to beseeching her father, the girl had told her mother to run when she saw her father heading towards her with a gun.

Moments later she cried “Daddy kill Mommy” as she bolted along Woodpecker Avenue onto Willow Drive where her mother Rouleene Clarke-Gowans had been living since January, when she moved out of the matrimonial house in Portmore, St Catherine. The child, who had been heading to a high school in Kingston when her father Patrick Gowans aborted his task to take her to school after he saw her mother along the roadway, feared the worst.

Her cries were not enough, neither was her strength when she tried to prevent him from killing her mother, days before her 13th birthday. The subdued pre-teen gave bits and pieces of how the murder-suicide unfolded as relatives and representatives from her high school consoled her.(Jamaica Observer)…[+]

A baby with DNA from three people has been born in Greece following a controversial fertility treatment. The baby boy, weighing 2.9kg (6lb), was born on Tuesday and both he and his mother, who is 32, are said to be in good health.

The doctors behind the treatment, from Greece and Spain, say it marks a historic advance – it is the first time an IVF technique involving DNA from three people has been used with the aim of addressing fertility problems. But UK experts criticised the decision to proceed with the treatment, which they said was not backed by evidence and involved unjustifiable risks.

The experimental IVF treatment, known as mitochondrial donation, involves using an egg from the mother, sperm from the father and another egg from a female donor. The vast majority of a person’s genes – about 99.8% – are found on the 23 pairs of chromosomes that sit inside the nucleus in each cell in the body, and in the IVF procedure this DNA comes from the two parents.However, a tiny proportion of genetic material also resides in a cell’s mitochondria, small structures that act as the cell’s batteries and float around freely in the cell body. In mitochondrial donation, the mother’s mitochondria are removed from her egg and replaced by a donor’s.(Theguardian)…[+]

After nearly 30 years in power, Sudan’s president Omar al-Bashir has been ousted and arrested, the defence minister says. Speaking on state TV, Awad Ibn Ouf said the army had decided to oversee a two-year transitional period followed by elections. He also said a three-month state of emergency was being put in place.

Protests against Mr Bashir, who has governed Sudan since 1989, have been under way for several months. Mr Ibn Ouf said the “regime” was being removed and Mr Bashir would be kept in a “safe place”. He said the country had been suffering from “poor management, corruption, and an absence of justice”. Mr Ibn Ouf added that Sudan’s constitution was being suspended, border crossings were being closed until further notice and airspace was being closed for 24 hours.

Mr Bashir is the subject of an international arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which accuses him of organising war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sudan’s western Darfur region. However it is unclear what will happen to him following his arrest.(BBC)…[+]

A tragic love story. This were the words used to describe the relationship between Anthony and Violet Nelson. Violet Nelson married her teenaged crush, Anthony Nelson. They had a child who died and three years later they had another baby. This child was eight months old when her father died in a vehicular accident on a Carnival Monday ten years ago.

The man who caused the accident, Jason Samaroo, was last month found guilty of causing Nelson’s death by dangerous driving. Jason Samaroo was the driver of the vehicle which struck head-on the car in which Nelson was a passenger. Samaroo, 41 of Morne Diablo was yesterday sentenced to a jail term before Justice Lisa Ramsumair-Hinds at the San Fernando High Court.

The judge said, “I am acutely aware that there’s no sentence that can adequately address the deprivation and devastation to the loved ones. No amount of compensation, no term of imprisonment, no stern sentiment can assuage the trauma associated with Mr Nelson’s death.”(Trinidad Express)…[+]

The prime minister, Scott Morrison, is poised to call an Australian federal election on Thursday morning after ministers unveiled a spate of last-minute political appointments to government bodies. On Wednesday evening the shadow treasurer, Chris Bowen, told Radio National that Labor reserved the right to cancel appointments made in proximity to the caretaker period, in a warning shot to the Coalition not to take advantage of what may be its last days in office if Labor’s small but consistent poll lead holds.

Appointments confirmed on Wednesday included the former Liberal partypresident and Howard government minister Richard Alston, who was added to the National Gallery of Australia council and former Liberal MP Ewen Jones, who was appointed to the National Film and Sound Archive board. The attorney general, Christian Porter, countered it was “not unusual” to make nominations in a “compressed timetable” before the caretaker period. Asked on Wednesday night if the election would be called imminently, Porter replied: “There’s an election due before not too long, the prime minister will call that at a time he thinks is appropriate – everyone is gearing up for an election, that much is obvious.” Key staff are in place in the Liberal party headquarters in Brisbane, and the Labor campaign set up operations in Sydney at the weekend.(theguardian)…[+]

A Fulham FC fan living in California is suing a state agency after he was banned from having the letters COYW on a personalised car number plate, as they feared the slogan “Come on you whites” had racist connotations. University professor Jonathan Kotler said he was “shocked” at the decision.

Launching his legal case, he claimed the decision by the California Department of Motor Vehicles violated his right to freedom of speech. “It’s just a shirt colour,” he said. “The people at the DMV are either extra thick or very PC.” Prof Kotler applied for a plate that would read COY-W – an abbreviation of the slogan commonly used by Fulham football fans – and a hashtag seen every weekend on many Twitter posts about the club.(BBC)…[+]

The image is striking: a young woman, alone, standing above the crowd, urging them on with songs of revolution. Taken on Monday night in the centre of Khartoum, as tens of thousands thronged the roads in front of the heavily-guarded complex housing the headquarters of the military and the feared intelligence services, the picture of the woman in white with gold circular earrings has become an icon of a protest.

Lana Haroun told CNN she had taken the picture. “She was trying to give everyone hope and positive energy and she did it,” she said. “She was representing all Sudanese women and girls and she inspired every woman and girl at the sit-in. She was telling the story of Sudanese women … she was perfect.” She added: “We have a voice. We can say what we want. We need a better life and to stay in a better place.” She said when she saw the photo on her phone, “I immediately thought: this is my revolution and we are the future.” That the woman in white has become such a symbol in a country that has long known systematic repression of women by the state has surprised some observers. But women have played a central role in the demonstrations in Sudan in recent months, with men often in a minority amongst the crowds calling for President Omar al-Bashir to step down.(theguardian)…[+]

BANGKOK,  – At least 11 million people in India risk being uprooted from their homes and land as authorities build highways and airports and cordon off forests, activists said on Tuesday, undermining a government push to provide housing for all citizens by 2022. The estimate includes about 1.9 million indigenous families whose land claims under the Forest Rights Act have been rejected, said advocacy group Housing and Land Rights Network (HLRN). Last year alone, authorities demolished at least 114 houses every day, evicting about 23 people every hour, according to HLRN’s report published Tuesday in New Delhi.

Slum clearance and city “beautification” drives accounted for nearly half the evictions, while infrastructure and development projects, and forest protection made up a fourth each, it said.“Evictions have become so common, they are normalised, and we don’t see the outpouring of sympathy and help that we see when there is a big natural disaster,” said Shivani Chaudhry, executive director of HLRN.(Thomson Reuters Foundation)…[+]

Port of Spain – Medium, small and microenterprises (MSMEs) comprise the majority of businesses in the region and must be recognised as key pathways towards achieving climate resilient, inclusive and environmentally sustainable economies in the Caribbean. This was one of the key priorities identified by government, private sector and civil society organisations, including the
Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (CANARI), at the Green Climate Fund (GCF) Caribbean Private Sector Engagement Workshop from April 2-4, 2019 in Montego Bay, Jamaica.

The workshop explored mobilising private sector investment for climate action in the Caribbean and introduced participants to the GCF Private Sector Facility, as part of Jamaica’s GCF Readiness and Preparatory Support grant – Mobilising private sector support for low carbon and climate resilient development in Jamaica and other CARICOM States. The workshop was attended by over 90 persons
from National Designated Authorities, Accredited Entities, large and small private sector organisations (national development banks, credit unions, insurance companies) and private sector umbrella groups in the Caribbean.

At the workshop, CANARI urged meeting participants on the need to reform climate finance to increase MSME participation and investment, and enhance climate change adaptation and mitigation in the Caribbean. CANARI noted the issue of scale as a major limiting factor for MSMEs in the Caribbean and called for strategies for MSMEs to invest in new business opportunities and commercialise climate-friendly products and services, especially in priority sectors. Partnerships
between private sector and public sector entities were also noted as an important strategy to mobilise private sector participation in the Caribbean and to access further climate financing such as from the GCF…[+]