The garbage that is piling up in residential communities of the city is the result of the new collectors not being familiar with the layout of the communities, a source at the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) said. Yesterday, unemptied receptacles lined some streets in areas such as Kitty, Subryanville and North Cummingsburg, creating an obnoxious scene. During a drive around, an acrid stench from receptacles was in the air.(theguardian)…[+]

Vladimir Putin has accused Ukraine’s president, Petro Poroshenko, of orchestrating a naval “provocation” in the Black Sea at the weekend to bolster his popularity ratings before an election next year.

Russia seized three Ukrainian naval vessels and their crews on Sunday over what it said was their illegal entry into Russian waters, which Ukraine denies. “It was without doubt a provocation,” Putin said. “It was organised by the president ahead of the elections. The president is in fifth place ratings-wise and therefore had to do something. It was used as a pretext to introduce martial law.”

The Russian president, speaking at a financial forum in Moscow, said the west was ready to forgive Ukrainian politicians their shortcomings because it bought into the anti-Russian narrative that Kiev was promoting. He said the Ukrainian vessels had clearly been in the wrong. “Military vessels intruded into Russian territorial waters and did not answer [the border guards] … What were they supposed to do?” he said.

“They would do the same in your country, this is absolutely obvious,” he told a foreign investor. “These territorial waters were always ours, even before Crimea joined Russia.”(theguardian)…[+]

U.S. President Donald Trump threatened yesterday to eliminate subsidies for General Motors Co in retaliation for the automaker cutting U.S. jobs and plants, and the automaker also took fire from Canadian political and labor leaders for cutbacks there.

“The U.S. saved General Motors, and this is the THANKS we get! We are now looking at cutting all @GM subsidies, including … for electric cars,” Trump said on Twitter.

Trump did not explain what “subsidies” he was referring to. GM electric vehicles are eligible for a $7,500 tax credit under federal law, but it is not clear how the administration could restrict those credits or if Trump had other subsidies in mind.

Trump’s harsh words rattled investors, who bid down GM shares by 2.6 percent on Tuesday after sending them up on Monday in response to the automaker’s cost-cutting. Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “discussed their disappointment in the announced closures of General Motors plants in their respective countries” during a phone call on Tuesday, White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said.(Reuters)…[+]

The Barbados Water Authority (BWA) will be looking to part ways with 75 of its workers before the end of this week. In a press briefing earlier yesterday, Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU) general secretary Toni Moore revealed that the state-owned enterprise was looking to reduce its staff complement by 10 per cent in the first phase of its Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation (BERT) programme retrenchments.

Meanwhile, Moore indicated that the union would be meeting with BWA workers at Solidarity House on Wednesday at 8 a.m. to discuss relevant matters. As a result, the BWA has advised customers that its payment centres at The Pine, St Michael and Probyn Street, The City will open at 1 p.m. to accommodate the meeting.(Barbados Nation)…[+]

LUXEMBOURG – Britain can unilaterally reverse its decision to leave the European Union, an urgent hearing of Europe’s top court was told today in a case supporters of EU membership hope could pave the way to a second referendum and ultimately stop Brexit.

Lawyers for a group of Scottish politicians want the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to interpret whether Britain can revoke its notice to withdraw from the EU under Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty without agreement of the other 27 states.Britain is due to exit the EU on March 29, two years after London served notice in line with a June, 2016 vote to leave.But the fate of Brexit remains up in the air, with Prime Minister Theresa May’s draft divorce deal, agreed with the EU on Sunday, facing a difficult vote in parliament on Dec. 11. May has said that if her deal is voted down, Britain could leave without a deal or there could be no Brexit at all.

Some opponents of Brexit want a second referendum giving British voters the option to remain in the EU. May’s government says a second referendum will not happen, and any ruling that would allow the reversal of Britain’s withdrawal notice would be irrelevant since it is against government policy.(Reuters)…[+]

MORE than 500 police patrol vehicles worth tens of millions of dollars have ended up as scrap over the past three years. And Police Commissioner Gary Griffith has a plan to keep the new fleet roadworthy by targeting road hogs—in police uniform.

Griffith acted last Friday after CCTV footage captured two newly-purchased Toyota RAV-4 patrol vehicles crashing into a truck in Charlieville that day. It turned out that the police officers driving those vehicles were not responding to any distress call.

The officers, assigned to the newly-launched Emergency Response Patrol, had just installed a GPS tracking system in the patrol vehicles. And it was that very tracking system that allowed their seniors to know that before the crash, the officers were driving at 140 kilometres per hour on the Uriah Butler Highway, where the speed limit is 100kph, and at 89 kph on the secondary road (the speed limit is 40kph) when they wrecked the State vehicles.

The officers have been suspended from driving police vehicles until the case is investigated by an internal disciplinary committee. The two patrol vehicles, worth more than $500,000, were extensively damaged and have joined the hundreds of other cars, SUVs, pick-up trucks and police buses being kept at compounds in north and south Trinidad.(Trinidad Express)…[+]

Port of Spain- Local community enterprises are a powerful pathway to a blue economy that is inclusive and fair, environmentally sustainable and resilient.

This was the message from a side event at the international Sustainable Blue Economy Conference held this week in Nairobi, Kenya by the Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (CANARI). The event entitled “Local blue enterprises: SIDS inclusive economic development through community-led conservation and social enterprises” attracted participants from the Caribbean, Latin America, Africa, the Pacific, the United States and Europe.

The international conference is being attended by over 4,000 participants from all over the world, including a strong Caribbean contingent from government, regional agencies and civil society. The conference is exploring how ocean resources can be sustainably used to support inclusive economic development. CANARI’s participation was supported by the Commonwealth Foundation.

CANARI’s Executive Director, Nicole Leotaud, explained that blue economy is based on the same principles as green economy but focuses on ocean resources. She emphasised that “it’s not important what colour we call it, but that we focus on the four key principles of economic development, environmental sustainability, inclusiveness, and resilience to climate change and natural hazards.”

She presented a tool developed by the Institute to support local community small and micro-enterprises to enhance their delivery of economic, environmental and social co-benefits. The self-assessment tool is called the Local Green-Blue Enterprises Radar and uses specific indicators of economic, environmental and social benefits to help community entrepreneurs identify where their business is strong and where they can improve…[+]

The Indian state of Uttar Pradesh says it will build the world’s tallest statue, weeks after the current record holder – an 182-metre likeness of founding father Sardar Patel – was completed in another part of the country.

If constructed, the 221m-high effigy of the Hindu god Ram in the town of Ayodhya could make India home to the world’s three tallest statues, with a 212-metre likeness of the medieval ruler Shivaji also currently under construction off the coast of Mumbai. Plans for the bronze Ram statue were unveiled over the weekend, with five construction firms giving presentations to the the state’s chief minister, Yogi Adityanath, a firebrand Hindu monk accused of instigating violence against’s the state’s Muslim minority.

Ayodhya has been considered a crucible for the Hindu nationalist movement since 1992, when thousands of adherents stormed a Mughal-era mosque in the town and demolished it, believing it was built at the site where Ram was born, and where an ancient Hindu temple had been torn down by earlier Muslim rulers.(theguardian)…[+]

Emmanuel Macron has said the “battle scenes” in central Paris between police and protesters over the weekend risked unnerving foreigners.

The French president told ministers at a cabinet meeting on Monday that the government must respond after images were relayed around the world of police firing teargas and water cannon at protesters who set up barricades, lit fires and smashed restaurants and shopfronts on the Champs-Élysées. France was still clearing up on Monday after the clashes, which were sparked by anger over fuel tax rises. The clean-up operation continued along what France calls the “most beautiful avenue in the world”, as city authorities mobilised 200 extra workers to repair the damage to streets and buildings.

Shopkeepers whose windows were smashed and tagged with graffiti during what was supposed to be a peaceful demonstration by the gilets jaunes (yellow vests), had been hoping for a busy weekend after the Champs-Élysées’s celebrated Christmas lights were turned on last week.(theguardian)…[+]

Relatives of a woman locked up in a Syrian prison for just under a year wants the state to assist in having her repatriated. Adill Ramirez, who last communicated with his mother, Summer Ramirez in January last year spoke with Sunday Newsday after receiving a letter from her on Thursday. Ramirez said that the letter is penned in his mother’s handwriting. He said his mother was held trying to cross into to Syria trying to make her way back home.

Both Ramirez and her husband Chris Lewis left TT in 2014 supposedly to fulfill their religious obligation and take part in the holy pilgrimage of Hajj in Saudi Arabia. Ramirez said after performing Hajj and their sins forgiven, the couple wanted to remain in an Islamic country, Ramirez told Sunday Newsday. He said as a Muslim his mother had to obey her husband, who he said had militant views and wanted to fight for his beliefs.(Trinidad Newsday)…[+]