BARBADOS-Appeal Court Judge Andrew Burgess is set to become the first Barbadian to be appointed to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ). It takes effect in January at the Trinidad and Tobago-headquartered regional institution.

The CCJ is the highest appellate court for Barbados as well as the final authority on disputes concerning the interpretation and application of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, which regulates how the CARICOM Single Market and Economy functions. Attorney General Dale Marshall on Tuesday offered Burgess congratulations and said he always held him in the highest regard.

“I was fortunate to have had Mr Justice Burgess as a lecturer and a tutor in the Faculty of Law in my student days. As a lecturer, he inspired me and all of his students with his teaching, and with his obvious intellect. He has proved his worth as a legal scholar, as an international jurist and has also distinguished himself with his contribution to our jurisprudence in our own Court of Appeal,” he said.  (Barbados Nation)…[+]

A Princes Town man is due to ap­pear be­fore a Siparia Mag­is­trate to­day, charged with the pos­ses­sion of a firearm af­ter be­ing ar­rest­ed by of­fi­cers of the South West­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force (SWDTF) dur­ing an an­ti-crime ex­er­cise in Pe­nal yes­ter­day. Karl Richard­son, 29, a labour­er of Bor­de Narve Vil­lage, Princes Town, was ar­rest­ed by of­fi­cers around 5:30 pm on Tues­day. Dur­ing the ex­er­cise, of­fi­cers had cause to stop and search a gold Ti­i­da mo­tor ve­hi­cle with a lone oc­cu­pant at Gopie Trace, Pe­nal.

The search re­sult­ed in a knap­sack con­tain­ing a pis­tol and an emp­ty mag­a­zine be­ing dis­cov­ered on the back seat of the ve­hi­cle. Richard­son was sub­se­quent­ly charged for the of­fence by Cpl (Ag.) Den­ver Marsh of the SWDTF on Tues­day. The ex­er­cise was co­or­di­nat­ed by Snr. Supt. Neville Adams, Supt. De­onar­ine Bas­deo and ASP (Ag.) Wayne Ab­bott, con­duct­ed by Sgts. Shel­don Ablacks­ingh and Fa­reed Khan and in­clud­ed of­fi­cers of the Pe­nal Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tions De­part­ment.(TRINIDAD GUARDIAN)…[+]

Police are investigating the deaths of two sisters from Saudi Arabia whose bodies, bound together with tape, washed up on New York City’s waterfront last week.

The sisters, Tala Farea, 16, and Rotana Farea, 22, were discovered on 24 October on a bank of the Hudson River, about 225 miles from Fairfax, Virginia, where they lived and were reported missing in August. As of Tuesday, investigators had not determined how they died. The sisters’ bodies were taped together and facing each other, but had no obvious signs of trauma, police said. They were both fully clothed.

The day before the bodies were discovered, their mother told detectives that she had received a call from an official at the Saudi Arabian embassy, ordering the family to leave the US because her daughters had applied for political asylum, New York police said on Tuesday. Saudi Arabia’s consulate general in New York said in a statement that it had “appointed an attorney to follow the case closely”. It said embassy officials in Washington had contacted the family and “extended its support and aid in this trying time”. It added that the sisters were students “accompanying their brother in Washington”.

New York City police sent a detective to Virginia to learn more about the sisters. Chief of detectives Dermot Shea said they were particularly interested in finding out what happened since they were reported missing, and what led them to New York City. “We are looking at all clues in their past life,” Shea said.(theguardian)…[+]

Dominic Raab has appeared to suggest the UK’s Brexit negotiations with the European Union could be completed before 21 November, in a letter to a Commons select committee that emerged on Wednesday.

Writing to the Brexit select committee, the cabinet member responsible for the day-to-day negotiations said he would be “happy to give evidence when a deal is finalised, and currently expect November 21 to be suitable”.

The suggestion was contained in an optimistic three-page letter dated 24 October but only released on Wednesday afternoon by the committee of MPs that also said “we are not far from an agreement” on the vexed question of what backstop arrangements to adopt if a free trade deal cannot be signed.

The UK wants the EU to agree to drop the Northern Ireland-only backstop in favour of allowing the entire UK to remain in a country-wide “temporary customs arrangement” with the 27-country bloc if no free trade deal can be concluded by time the transition period ends in December 2020. Raab’s letter suggests the EU has accepted the idea of the temporary customs arrangement. “We agree on the principle of a UK-widecustoms backstop,” the Brexit secretary wrote.(theguardian)…[+]

The FBI has been asked to investigate whether a hoaxer offered women money to make false allegations about Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. Several journalists and bloggers in the US received an email this month purporting to be from a woman who had been offered money to smear Mueller with bogus claims of inappropriate behaviour decades ago.

After Mueller’s office was told about the email, it referred the matter to federal investigators, who are now likely to examine whether the hoax scheme described in the woman’s email is real – or if the email itself contains false information.Peter Carr, Mueller’s spokesman, said in a statement on Tuesday: “When we learned last week of allegations that women were offered money to make false claims about the special counsel, we immediately referred the matter to the FBI for investigation.”This statement itself was rare for Mueller’s office, which has built a reputation over the past 17 months for almost never making public remarks about its activities outside of court hearings and legal filings.

Mueller has come under sustained pressure from Donald Trump and some Republicans in Congress, who have tried to dismiss his investigation as a “witch-hunt”. Mueller has so far obtained criminal convictions of Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort for financial crimes, along with guilty pleas from several people including Mike Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, and Rick Gates, his former deputy campaign chairman.(theguardian)…[+]

Brazil’s far-right president-elect, Jair Bolsonaro, has reaffirmed his defense of his country’s brutal 21-year dictatorship and rejected claims that he is a fascist, instead painting himself as a Churchillian patriot determined to lead his crisis-stricken country “out of this quagmire”.

In one of his first television interviews since being elected on Sunday with nearly 58 million votes, the former paratrooper, who is notorious for his inflammatory rhetoric, did little to suggest he would temper his discourse after taking power on 1 January.

Bolsonaro told TV Band, one of Brazil’s major channels, it was his leftwing detractors who were fascists, not him. “They always accuse others of being what they are themselves,” he said. “It’s these leftwing people, who always put themselves above the rest, who are fascists.” The veteran politician, who paints himself as a political outsider, also refused to say he regretted saying the military regime that ruled Brazil from 1964 until 1985 should have killed 30,000 people. In a now infamous 1999 television interview Bolsonaro also said: “You’ll never change anything in this country through voting. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”(theguardian)…[+]

BRIDGETOWN- The Government of the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) is taking steps towards improving the country’s solid waste management systems through a loan of USD672, 500 from the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB).

Solid waste management has become an increasingly critical issue in the tourism-dependent territory as rapid growth in the tourism sector, population increase and changing consumption patterns have led to a corresponding increase in solid waste generation. Consequently, inadequate solid waste management has been identified as one of the key environmental threats facing TCI, an issue which the Technical Assistance project will help the country assess and address. Director of Projects at CDB, Daniel Best said the goal of the project is to create an environmentally sustainable system that can serve the country well into the future.

The loan will assist with the costs of consulting services to develop an integrated solid waste management strategy for the country and preparing a feasibility study of solid waste management options. It will also aid in creating detailed engineering and architectural designs for the preferred infrastructure options and developing a related programme of institutional strengthening and capacity-building. Independent Environmental and Social Impact Assessments for the proposed works will also be undertaken…[+]

Pressure is mounting on Sri Lanka’s president to allow parliament to decide between two men claiming to be the country’s lawful prime minister, amid warnings that the constitutional dispute could lead to a “bloodbath”.

President Maithripala Sirisena announced on live TV on Friday that Ranil Wickremesinghe, with whom he had governed in a fragile coalition since 2015, had been dismissed. In his place he has appointed the former president Mahinda Rajapaksa. On Monday a cabinet minister was arrested and there were long queues outside petrol stations in the capital, Colombo, as the crisis entered its third day.

Wickremesinghe continued to occupy his official residence, and hundreds of supporters gathered outside, while Rajapaksa took control of the prime ministerial office and starting naming a cabinet. “At the moment there is a vacuum, no one is in full charge of the country,” Wickremesinghe said during a press conference at the residence.

Wickremesinghe argues he cannot legally be dismissed until he loses the support of parliament. His party, which holds a plurality of seats in the 225-member assembly, was prevented from holding a vote when Sirisena abruptly suspended parliament on Saturday until 16 November. Wickremesinghe said in a Facebook post on Monday he had obtained the signatures of 126 MPs calling for parliament to be returned immediately to end the political standoff.(theguardian)…[+]

LONDON-Big brands – from Coke to Kellogg – pledged today to cut all plastic waste from their operations in what the United Nations called the most ambitious effort yet to fight plastic pollution.

The initiative comes as public pressure mounts on manufacturers and retailers to pare back the deluge of plastic packaging that is clogging landfills and choking the seas.

“We know that cleaning up plastics from our beaches and oceans is vital, but this does not stop the tide of plastic entering the oceans each year. We need to move upstream to the source of the flow,” said Ellen MacArthur, the record-breaking British sailor who is behind the plastic initiative.

The pledge by 250 organisations included many of the world’s biggest packaging producers, leading consumer brands, retailers and recyclers, as well as governments and NGOs. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation launched its New Plastics Economy Global Commitment in collaboration with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).(Thomson Reuters Foundation)…[+]

BRIDGETOWN – The Board of Directors of the Caribbean Development Bank on Thursday approved a loan of USD40.4 million (mn) to upgrade infrastructure and services at the Grantley Adams International Airport (GAIA) in Barbados. The Grantley Adams International Airport Pavement Rehabilitation and Expansion Project will support improved quality of infrastructure at GAIA; improve the institutional capacity of GAIA Inc.; and reduce energy consumption from pavement lighting at the Airport.

 “Air transport is the principal mode of connectivity supporting the tourism sector, the main pillar of the Barbados economy. It is also vital to the international business sector, and most other sectors on which the livelihoods of the residents of Barbados depend. This Project will support critical improvements at GAIA, boosting competitiveness of the tourism sector and the wider economy,” said Daniel Best, Director of Projects at CDB.

The Project will address ageing and weakening airside pavements at GAIA. In addition, it will support the construction of a new apron to meet the demand for improved capacity for corporate and other general aviation aircraft, particularly during peak seasonal travel. At GAIA, high-intensity runway and apron lighting contribute to high energy costs. The Project will replace existing edge lights and apron lights with light-emitting diode (LED) fixtures to reduce energy consumption and operational costs. On the land side, parts of the main car park and other roads on the GAIA facility will be rehabilitated or upgraded. The works will also facilitate the installation of charging stations for electric vehicles…[+]