RAPOSA SERRA DO SOL, Brazil,  – A decade after the Macuxi people won a bloody legal battle to expel rice planters from their reservation in a remote part of Brazil, their hold over ancestral lands has come under threat again from new right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro. The sprawling 1.7 million hectares (6,600 square miles) of savannah on the border with Venezuela — a reservation called Raposa Serra do Sol — is home to 25,000 native people whose main livelihood is raising cattle.But the land remains coveted by commercial farmers and mining prospectors who believe the area is rich in minerals such as gold, diamonds, copper, molybdenum, bauxite and even niobium, a metal used to strengthen steel that Bolsonaro considers “strategic.”(Reuters)…[+]

Two days after being sentenced to four years imprisonment, prisoner John Lambert, during the wee hours of yesterday morning, escaped from the Lusignan Holding Bay. Police and prison authorities have since issued a wanted bulletin for Lambert, 24, of Lot 158 North Haslington, East Coast Demerara. He was jailed for the possession of narcotics for the purpose of trafficking…[+]

Barbados – A collaboration between the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) aims to improve the availability of data to guide evidence-based decisions about the future of sugar in CARICOM.

CDB will provide a grant of USD97,488 to fund a technical study on the substitutability of plantation white for refined sugar in the Region’s manufacturing sector. The findings will enhance the capacity of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) to make decisions on the CARICOM sugar regime, and will also contribute to a wider exercise being undertaken by the Customs Committee of the COTED to comprehensively review the Common External Tariff, to facilitate the transition to the free circulation of goods and a more modernised application of rule of origin.

CDB’s Director of Projects, Daniel Best notes, “We import two-thirds of the estimated 320,000 tonnes of the refined sugar consumed annually within CARICOM. If plantation white can be substituted for refined white sugar, regional producers can capture a larger share of the sugar market and the Region can save considerable foreign exchange. The findings of this study will provide, therefore, data needed to make critical investment decisions for the sugar industry.” Barbados, Belize, Guyana and Jamaica, four sugar producing countries in the CSME, account for an average of 10 percent of earnings from sugar exports. In Belize, Guyana and Jamaica, the industry is also a major employer in rural communities, providing an average of 16,000 direct jobs.(CDB)…[+]

Fears were mounting of renewed civil war in Libya after militias allied to the government in Tripoli captured scores of troops from a powerful rival force, and the UN secretary general, António Guterres, warned that he was ending a visit to the country “deeply concerned”.

Guterres suggested that a key meeting with eastern commander, Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, had not resulted in assurances from the strongman leader to avoid an escalation of tensions. “I leave Libya with a heavy heart and deeply concerned. I still hope it is possible to avoid a bloody confrontation in and around Tripoli. The UN is committed to facilitating a political solution and, whatever happens, the UN is committed to supporting the Libyan people,” Guterres said in a tweet late on Friday.After Haftar ordered his forces to advance on the capital, militias supportive of the UN-backed government in Tripoli took prisoner 145 of his soldiers from a rival force advancing from the country’s east. Haftar’s men were captured in the town of Zawiya, west of Tripoli, along with 60 vehicles, a commander told Reuters.(Theguardian)…[+]

ADDIS ABABA/SEATTLE– Faulty sensor readings and multiple automatic commands to push down the nose of a Boeing plane contributed to last month’s fatal crash in Ethiopia, leaving the crew struggling to regain control, according to a preliminary accident report.

The first substantial account of the last minutes of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 from Addis Ababa to Nairobi on March 10 described how the captain three times called out: “Pull up” and was acknowledged by the first officer, but to no avail.

Boeing’s top-selling aircraft, the 787 MAX, has been grounded worldwide since the March 10 disaster, which killed 157 people and came just five months after a Lion Air crash in Indonesia that killed 189 in a plane of the same model. Families of the victims, regulators and travellers around the world have been waiting for signs of whether the two crashes are linked, and the extent to which Boeing technology and the actions of the Ethiopian Airlines pilots played a role.

The doomed flight crashed six minutes after take-off from Addis Ababa in clear conditions. “Most of the wreckage was found buried in the ground,” said the report by the Ethiopian Civil Aviation Authority’s Accident Prevention and Investigation Bureau published on Thursday.(Reuters)…[+]

A 20-year-old student has more than ten million reasons to be happy. The young man from east Trinidad was the Lotto Plus player who bought the winning jackpot ticket for the $10,245,770.54 prize when the Lotto Plus was drawn on March 6.

He played a quick pick with the winning numbers 16, 21, 22, 26, 32 and the powerball number two. The student said he received the shock of his life when he checked the National Lotteries Control Board (NLCB) website and realised he was the winner. He said he contained his excitement, telling only his father. The winner said in a statement: “(It) still feels as though it’s a dream, but (I’m) excited and nervous at the same time.”(Trinidad Express)…[+]

The man accused of murdering 50 people in the New Zealand mosque attacks has appeared via video link in the Christchurch high court, in his second formal court appearance since the shootings. Australian Brenton Tarrant faces a total of 89 charges in the high court, 50 murder charges and 39 attempted murder charges – the most ever laid in New Zealand history.

Tarrant will undergo mental health tests before his case proceeds. A silent and largely motionless Tarrant appeared on a large screen in the courtroom, a small cell showing in the background. The courtroom’s public gallery was packed with dozens of friends and families of the victims, some who stared quietly at the defendant throughout.

During the half-hour hearing Justice Cameron Mander ordered Tarrant to undergo two assessments to determine whether he may be mentally impaired, legally insane or fit to stand trial. This is a routine step during many New Zealand trials. Mander suppressed the names of those Tarrant is accused of attempting to kill. The accused is being held in the maximum security wing of Auckland prison – more than 1,000km north of Christchurch – and has laid a complaint regarding his detention, saying he is being deprived of his basic rights.

Tarrant, 28, a suspected white supremacist, was previously charged with only one murder following the attack and has been remanded without a plea. He has not applied for bail or name suppression, and his duty lawyer described him as “aware, lucid” in the hours following the massacre, and presenting as an “everyday sort of person”.(theguardian)…[+]

MOSCOW– Venezuela’s deputy foreign minister Ivan Gil said today he does not rule out that more Russian military personnel may arrive in Venezuela under agreements already concluded with Russia, Interfax news agency reported. The deputy minister also said Russian forces will stay in Venezuela as long as needed, and that there is no set period for their stay.“The group of military specialists is (in Venezuela) in the context of our agreements and contracts for military-technical cooperation,” Interfax quoted Gil as saying.

Earlier the Kremlin said Russian military specialists are in Venezuela to service pre-existing contracts for the supply of Russian arms. The U.S. special representative for Venezuela said last week U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has a list of options, including sanctions, that Washington could use to respond to the presence of Russian troops in Venezuela.(Reuters)…[+]

The Ministry of Health continues its recruitment drive of medical professionals from Cuba with the recent intake of 58 specialist healthcare professionals. According to a Health Ministry statement, this ongoing recruitment is part of the Ministry of Health’s overall strategy to address the shortage of appropriately qualified and experienced health professionals in the public health system.

This is the second batch of Cuban nationals who have been integrated into the public health sector for 2019. As with their predecessors, they have been contracted for a period of three years to fill vacancies that have not been filled by qualified nationals.

Of the fifty-eight healthcare professionals in this cohort, eleven are pharmacists and forty-seven are nurses who specialise in the fields of Neonatology, Haemodialysis, Oncology, Obstetrics, Neurosurgery, Paediatrics, Community, Emergency and Intensive Care. These nurses and pharmacists are currently undergoing a one-week orientation and will join their colleagues at the Regional Health Authorities. The Ministry of Health continues to steadfastly move towards the delivery of first class healthcare to the public, with the recruitment of qualified professionals a key part of that goal.(Trinidad Express)…[+]