Pro-Brexit government aides have told Theresa May they are planning a series of resignations on Tuesday unless there are major changes to her deal, the Guardian has learned. Mike Wood, the parliamentary private secretary (PPS) to the trade secretary, Liam Fox, said he would quit his post and join leave-supporting backbenchers unless changes were made to the backstop.The MP for Dudley South was one of more than a dozen elected ministerial aides who met the prime minister last week to express their concerns about the EU withdrawal deal.The development is a fresh blow to May’s hopes of minimising the margin of defeat in Tuesday’s parliamentary vote on the deal, with the chief whip, Julian Smith, relying on the “payroll vote” of more than 100 MPs to support the government.Speaking on Friday, Wood said he had told May he would have to resign unless there were significant changes to the backstop. It is understood that other junior ministers have made similar representations.(theguardian)…[+]

RIO DE JANEIRO/SAO PAULO – Leading global oil traders Vitol, Trafigura and Glencore paid more than $30 million in bribes to employees at state-owned Brazilian company Petrobras in a scheme that may still be going on, prosecutors said yesterday.

Top executives of the international companies had “total and unequivocal” knowledge of the graft involving Petroleo Brasileiro SA, known as Petrobras, investigators said at a news conference. The bribes took place between 2011 and 2014, investigators said.

The details being made public were just the “tip of the iceberg” investigators said, and the latest revelations were the strongest international links yet announced to the sweeping “Car Wash” probe centered on political corruption at Petrobras.

Petrobras employees offered the trading companies lower prices for oil and its derivatives as well as storage tanks in more than 160 separate operations then shared in the savings, authorities said. Those involved, emails obtained by Brazil’s federal police showed, would use nicknames such as Tiger, Flipper or Mr M and discuss below-market prices for oil or tanks, while invoicing their companies at the market rate. The differences could range from 10 cents to a dollar per barrel and the term of art for the bribes was “delta.”(REUTERS)…[+]

Schiz­o­phre­nia is a chron­ic and se­vere men­tal dis­or­der that af­fects how a per­son thinks, feels and be­haves. So when Roger “Bub­bles” Nages­sar charged at po­lice with a cut­lass in his hand, rel­a­tives felt the po­lice could have tak­en pity and shot him in the legs. In­stead, Nages­sar, 44, died at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal af­ter be­ing shot sev­er­al times in the leg and chest Wednes­day night.

A re­port stat­ed that around 8.30 pm Wednes­day, Ste Madeleine po­lice and the Rapid Re­sponse Unit re­spond­ed to a re­port that Nages­sar was walk­ing in the road with a cut­lass. He had been act­ing vi­o­lent­ly and throw­ing bot­tles at his neigh­bours’ homes along Her­rera Street, Friend­ship Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do.

When of­fi­cers ar­rived and called Nages­sar out of his house, where he lived alone, he emerged with a cut­lass. De­spite the of­fi­cers’ in­struc­tions to drop the cut­lass three times Nages­sar re­fused. He re­port­ed­ly said: “Like they want to ex­e­cute my son.” He then walked to­ward the of­fi­cers and they fired six shots at him. He was tak­en to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal (SFGH) where he died.A rel­a­tive, who asked not to be iden­ti­fied, said yes­ter­day that while the of­fi­cers were with­in their rights to de­fend them­selves they could have shot Nages­sar in his leg. He said Nages­sar was an out­pa­tient of the SFGH and be­haved well when he took his med­ica­tion.(Trinidad Guardian)…[+]

A prominent critic of the veteran Rwandan president Paul Kagame has been acquitted of charges that included inciting insurrection and forging of documents. Cheers broke out in the courtroom in the capital Kigali where Diane Rwigara and her mother Adeline were acquitted of charges that were widely seen as politically motivated. They hugged supporters, hands in the air in celebration. “Court rules that Diane Rwigara is innocent,” judge Xavier Ndahayo, one of a panel of three, told the packed courtroom. The judges described the charges as “baseless”.

The country’s first female independent candidate for the Rwandan presidency, 37-year-old Rwigara was accused of forgery in relation to her unsuccessful attempt to run against the long-time president Kagame, and has been in jail for a year. She faced 22 years behind bars if convicted. The Rwandan election commission had said that some of the 600 signatures she had submitted – a requirement for aspiring presidential candidates – were forged, and that some of the people on her list were dead. She was not allowed to run and Kagame won a third term with 99% of the vote.

Rwigara’s mother was accused of inciting insurrection through audio messages sent on WhatsApp, which were intercepted and used as evidence by the prosecution. But the court ruled that these were merely conversations between individuals and did not prove that she was promoting insurrection. After announcing her intention to run for president, nude pictures of the younger Rwigara were leaked online.(theguardian)…[+]

NEW DELHI – Priyanka Chopra, star of Indian film and U.S. television, and Jonas Brothers singer Nick Jonas celebrated their wedding at a glitzy reception in New Delhi yesterday, joined by celebrities ranging from India’s prime minister to Hollywood stars. The event at a New Delhi hotel followed the couple’s three-day long wedding celebration at a heritage Indian palace atop a hill in the western city of Jodhpur, which included cricket matches and Bollywood songs.

The St Elizabeth police suspect that the decomposing body of a female found close to Providence Housing Scheme in Santa Cruz this afternoon may be that of 48-year-old Barbara Findlay of nearby Beadles Boulevard and Kensington, England. Findlay was reported missing last week. Reports are that after detecting a foul smell, residents discovered the body in bushes close to the entrance of the Housing Scheme about 1:00 pm Wednesday and called the police. Investigators say they are awaiting forensics to confirm the identity of the deceased as well to determine the cause of death.(Jamaica Observer)…[+]

People in rich nations will have to make big cuts to the amount of beef and lamb they eat if the world is to be able to feed 10 billion people, according to a new report. These cuts and a series of other measures are also needed to prevent catastrophic climate change, it says.

More than 50% more food will be needed by 2050, according to the World Resources Institute (WRI) report, but greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture will have to fall by two-thirds at the same time. The extra food will have to be produced without creating new farmland, it says, otherwise the world’s remaining forests face destruction. Meat and dairy production use 83% of farmland and produce 60% of agriculture’s emissions. Increasing the amount of food produced per hectare was the most critical step, the experts said, followed by cutting meat-eating and putting a stop to the wasting of one-third of food produced. “We have to change how we produce and consume food, not just for environmental reasons, but because this is an existential issue for humans,” said Janet Ranganathan, vice-president for science and research at the WRI.(theguardian)…[+]

PARIS – France’s prime minister yesterday suspended planned increases to fuel taxes for at least six months in response to weeks of sometimes violent protests, the first major U-turn by President Emmanuel Macron’s administration in 18 months in office.

In announcing the decision, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said anyone would have “to be deaf or blind” not to see or hear the roiling anger on the streets over a policy that Macron has defended as critical to combating climate change. “The French who have donned yellow vests want taxes to drop, and work to pay. That’s also what we want. If I didn’t manage to explain it, if the ruling majority didn’t manage to convince the French, then something must change,” said Philippe.

“No tax is worth jeopardising the unity of the nation.” Along with the delay to the tax increases that were set for January, Philippe said the time would be used to discuss other measures to help the working poor and squeezed middle-class who rely on vehicles to get to work and go shopping. Earlier officials had hinted at a possible increase to the minimum wage, but Philippe made no such commitment.(REUTERS)…[+]

Shocked rel­a­tives of Joash Pan­tin, 13, emerged from the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James yes­ter­day af­ter­noon with their eyes filled with tears, as their great­est fears were re­alised when the au­top­sy con­firmed he was bug­gered and stran­gled to death. Po­lice sources told the T&T Guardian that they had ar­rest­ed two sus­pects, ages 36 and 16, in con­nec­tion with the heinous crime.

Speak­ing with the T&T Guardian min­utes af­ter close rel­a­tives and friends ex­it­ed the cen­tre, a male rel­a­tive, who wished not to be iden­ti­fied, said the fam­i­ly be­came even more “de­pressed, shocked and pained” af­ter get­ting the au­top­sy re­sults. “Luck­i­ly, the po­lice have two of them in­side. In fact, one of them live close to where Joash lived and they say­ing that he is known to prey on chil­dren, that this is not the first time,” the rel­a­tive said. Pan­tin’s great un­cle Hay­den Wil­son de­scribed the per­pe­tra­tor/s as ei­ther a “psy­chopath or so­ciopath.”(Trinidad Guardian)…[+]

MEXICO CITY– Veteran leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador took office as Mexican president on Saturday, vowing to see off a “rapacious” elite in a country struggling with corruption, chronic poverty and gang violence on the doorstep of the United States. Backed by a gigantic Mexican flag, the 65-year-old took the oath of office in the lower house of Congress, pledging to bring about a “radical” rebirth of Mexico to overturn what he called a disastrous legacy of decades of “neo-liberal” governments.

“The government will no longer be a committee at the service of a rapacious minority,” said the new president, who is often nicknamed AMLO. Nor would the government, he said, be a “simple facilitator of pillaging, as it has been.” Lopez Obrador later addressed a massive crowd of supporters in the heart of the capital, promising to put Mexico’s sizeable indigenous minority first in his drive to root out inequality.

A major challenge facing the new leader is managing relations with Mexico’s top trading partner, the United States, after repeated broadsides by President Donald Trump against Mexico over illegal immigrants crossing the U.S. border.Lopez Obrador repeated he was seeking to contain migration through a deal with Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to foster development in Central America and Mexico. (REUTERS)…[+]