WASHINGTON – The United States announced yesterday it will withdraw from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia in six months unless Moscow ends its alleged violations of the landmark 1987 arms control pact.

The United States would reconsider its withdrawal if Russia, which denies violating the treaty, came into compliance with the agreement, which bans both nations from stationing short- and intermediate-range land-based missiles in Europe.

Announcing the move, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the United States would cease to regard itself as being bound by the treaty starting Saturday, which is when Washington will formally inform Moscow of its intent to withdraw, a senior U.S. official told reporters. The announcement may aim to pressure Russia to come to terms during the next six months but it also raised fears of a new U.S.-Russian nuclear arms race in Europe as well as one between the United States and China in Asia. U.S. President Donald Trump repeated U.S. allegations that Russia had violated the INF treaty, which limited only U.S. and Russian arsenals, and he held out the prospect of negotiating a wider agreement, possibly including other nations.(Reuters)…[+]

Even po­lit­i­cal par­ties must find in­no­v­a­tive ways to raise funds to sus­tain op­er­a­tions.

In the case of the Peo­ples Na­tion­al Move­ment, who are con­struct­ing a mul­ti-storey Bal­isi­er House on the site of the ex­ist­ing premis­es, the chal­lenge has been to come up with an idea to raise mil­lions to bankroll the project. That idea has come from one of their mem­bers who saw the work of Caribbean Jew­ellers and sug­gest­ed that an ex­clu­sive col­lec­tion of jew­el­ry could be one of the fundrais­ing tools.

Caribbean Jew­ellers, well known for cre­at­ing com­mem­o­ra­tive pieces for the ed­u­ca­tion sec­tor’s grad­u­a­tion events, have come up with the Bal­isi­er Col­lec­tion, a set of su­perbly craft­ed loy­al­ty rings and oth­er items in­tend­ed to re­flect “un­wa­ver­ing sup­port for the PNM”. The man be­hind this strate­gic part­ner­ship, An­gad Sand­hu, Man­u­fac­tur­ing Di­rec­tor, Sat Naam In­dus­tries Ltd, the par­ent com­pa­ny of Caribbean Jew­ellers, said their di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion ef­forts over the years had gen­er­at­ed the con­cept for this se­ries. “A par­ty mem­ber saw the work we did and ap­proached us. I did the best I could to ful­fil their vi­sion and with our dis­tinc­tive com­pe­ten­cies came up with an ex­ten­sive line of loy­al­ty rings.”(Trinidad Guardian)…[+]

The victims and grieving relatives of a Canadian truck crash, in which 16 people died, will have to wait until March to learn the driver’s sentence. Following an emotionally charged week of victim impact statements, the judge overseeing the case has asked for nearly two months to consider how to sentence the driver, Jaskirat Singh Sidhu. On 6 April last year, his semi-trailer truck collided with the bus of the Humboldt Broncos hockey team after he failed to stop at an intersection in central Saskatchewan.

Sidhu had previously pleaded guilty to all 29 charges he faced — including 16 counts of dangerous driving causing death. Young hockey players, coaches, a trainer and a radio announcer were among those killed. The crown had asked for a 10-year prison sentence and a further 10 years of suspended driving. As part of the sentencing, 75 written victim impact statements were submitted to the court, with 65 read by friends and family over a four-day period. Some included grim details of the parents being unable to fully identify their children – and the tragic extent of some injuries.(theguardian)…[+]

MOSCOW/NEW YORK-  A law firm appointed to act as a buffer between Russian metals magnate Oleg Deripaska and one of his businesses, under a deal that allowed Washington to lift sanctions on the firm, has worked closely with Deripaska for years. Asked about the law firm, the U.S. Treasury Department said it would vigorously monitor arrangements to ensure Deripaska cannot influence board members of the businesses. A representative for Deripaska said there was no scope for the businessman to influence how the law firm acted.

But a senior U.S. senator said the connection between Deripaska and the law firm further bolstered the argument, being made by U.S. President Donald Trump’s Democratic opponents, that the sanctions should not have been lifted. The U.S. Treasury Department agreed to lift sanctions on three businesses controlled by Deripaska on condition that the tycoon – who will still be under sanctions himself – reduces his ownership in the businesses and severs his control.

As part of the deal, some of Deripaska’s voting rights as a shareholder in his main company, En+, were handed over to a “voting trust obligated to vote in the same manner as the majority of shares held by shareholders other than Deripaska,” according to the Treasury Department. On Monday, announcing names of this and other trustees, En+ said that one of the trustees exercising the voting rights was called “Ogier Global Nominee (Jersey) Limited.”(Reuters)…[+]

Police responding to a report of a car crash found more than a kilogramme of marijuana in the vehicle. The accused, Gabriella Jardine, of Cassia Drive, Petit Valley, appeared before the Port of Spain Magistrates’ 4A Court yesterday charged with possession of 1.104 kilogrammes of marijuana, for the purposes of trafficking.

She pleaded not guilty to the offence. Jardine was represented by defence attorney Ian Brooks. She was charged by PC McClean of the Western Division Task Force (WDTF). Magistrate Aden Stroude presided over the matter. After submissions to the court, the matter was adjourned to February 26. Bail was granted, with a surety, at $25,000.

According to police reports, at about 11.15 a.m. on Tuesday, officers of the WDTF, comprising PC McClean, PC Sahadath and WPC Mathews, as well as Sgt Hudlin, PC Davis, and a party of officers from the Police Traffic Branch, responded to a report of a vehicular accident in St James. In the vicinity of Panka Street and Clarence Street, St James, the officers observed a crashed Nissan Note. The officers stopped to render assistance, but they observed two brown packages in the car.(Trinidad Express)…[+]

Special counsel Robert Mueller has signaled to defense lawyers for Roger Stone, the longtime adviser to Donald Trump, that prosecutors might brandish Stone’s bank records and personal communications going back several years as evidence in the case against him. Legal analysts said the move could be significant because the sizable amount of potential evidence listed by Mueller – and its nature, in the case of the bank records – seemed to go well beyond the current known charges against Stone.

A court filing by Mueller on Thursday said prosecutors had seized “voluminous and complex” material including “multiple hard drives containing several terabytes of information”, material seized from search warrants executed on “Apple iCloud accounts and email accounts”, “bank and financial records, and the contents of numerous physical devices (eg, cellular phones, computers, and hard drives)”.

Stone was indicted last week on charges of obstructing an investigation, witness tampering and five counts of making false statements. Two of his residences – one in Florida and one in Manhattan – were raided during his arrest. “It’s interesting that Mueller produced bank and financial records to Roger Stone, given that they don’t appear related to the charges he faces,” former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti tweeted. “Perhaps Mueller’s team has a practice of producing broad discovery to defendants, but it is not required by the rules.(theguardian)…[+]

The Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad has been held liable by a US court for the extrajudicial killing of the Sunday Times war correspondent Marie Colvin and ordered to pay $300m dollars (£228m) in punitive damages. In a judgment published on Thursday, the Syrian government was found to have targeted journalists deliberately during the country’s civil war in order to “intimidate newsgathering” and suppress dissent.

Colvin, an American reporter who operated out of London, and Rémi Ochlik, a French photojournalist, were killed in a rocket attack on a makeshift media centre in the rebel-held city of Homs in February 2012. A claim against Assad’s regime was lodged with a Washington court by her sister Cathleen and her three children. “It’s been almost seven years since my sister was killed by the Assad regime, and not a day goes by when I don’t think of her,” Cathleen said on Thursday.

“My heart goes out to the families of the many thousands of victims of the Syrian conflict. It is my greatest hope that the court’s ruling will lead to other criminal prosecutions, and serve as a deterrent against future attacks on the press and on civilians. “Marie dedicated her life to fighting for justice on behalf of the victims of war and ensuring that their stories were heard. This case is an extension of her legacy, and I think she’d be proud of what we achieved today.”(theguardian)…[+]

JamaicaBig-game hunters from the United States are trying to get permission to head to Jamaica to hunt the white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), which is reportedly breeding at an alarming rate and emerging as a major threat to the natural environment and agriculture, especially in the eastern parish of Portland.

American Thomas McIntyre is seeking permission to take the hunters to Jamaica as a new tourism attraction while creating a lucrative income-generating stream for locals. “I write for several hunting-and-fishing magazines here in the United States and have, for more than 40 years, and I can assure you that my readers would be very interested in a new deer-hunting location on the map, especially one as exotic, to them, as Jamaica,” McIntyre said in an email toThe Sunday Gleaner.

He continued: “If you could please send me information on the deer situation on your island and the presence there of any hunting lodges or tourist operators who might be able to accommodate foreign hunters, I would very much appreciate hearing back from you.(Jamaica Gleaner)…[+]

At least 130 people are missing off the coast of Djibouti after two migrant boats capsized, amid new warnings from the UN that six people a day die on maritime smuggling routes to Europe and elsewhere. According to the International Organization for Migration, the alarm was raised over the latest incident after two survivors were recovered. As the search for more survivors continued, the IOM said on Wednesday that 30 bodies had been found.

Hopeful of finding work in rich Gulf countries, thousands of people from the Horn of Africa region set off every year from Djibouti to cross the Bab al-Mandab Strait for the Arabian Peninsula. “Twenty-three bodies were recovered this morning and the coast guard continues (its) search,” said Lalini Veerassamy, the IOM chief of mission in Djibouti, a day after five people were found dead.

According to local witnesses, the missing people were loaded into two overfilled boats that capsized about 30 minutes after setting sail. According to the IOM, an 18-year old survivor said he had boarded the first boat with 130 people on it. The teenager said he did not have any information about the fate of the second boat.

The latest incident took place as the UN refugee agency, the UNHCR, issued a new report detailing the alarming death toll in the Mediterranean last year.

According to the agency, six lives were lost on average every day as an estimated 2,275 people died or went missing crossing the Mediterranean in 2018, despite a major drop in the number of arrivals reaching European shores. In total, 139,300 refugees and migrants arrived in Europe, the lowest number in five years.(theguardian)…[+]

WASHINGTON– White House national security adviser John Bolton raised questions about the United States’ intentions in Venezuela after he appeared at a briefing on Monday with a notepad containing the words “5,000 troops to Colombia,” which neighbuors Venezuela. It was not immediately clear what Bolton’s notes meant and whether President Donald Trump’s administration was seriously considering sending U.S. troops to Colombia.

It was also not clear if disclosure of the notes was intentional, and there was no indication that such a military option would be used any time soon. Asked about a photograph depicting the notes, a White House spokesman said on Monday: “As the President has said, all options are on the table.” Pentagon spokesman Colonel Rob Manning said the number of U.S. military personnel in Colombia remained unchanged as part of a pre-existing partnership. A U.S. official, who asked not to be named, said they “have seen nothing to support” Bolton’s annotation.(Reuters)…[+]