A conference in Brussels backed by the Israeli government is to push for all European political parties to sign up to “red lines” that declare boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) tactics to be “fundamentally antisemitic”.

The two-day convention, attended by Israel’s minister of Jerusalem affairs, Ze’ev Elkin, will propose a text for prospective MEPs and political parties to sign up to before European elections in May next year.

The text urges EU member states to sign up to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s “working definition of antisemitism” and exclude from government any politicians or parties that breach it.

Most controversially, one of the red lines – based on a resolution adopted by Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union in Germany in 2016 – calls on “all political parties to pass a binding resolution rejecting BDS activities as fundamentally antisemitic”.(theguardian)…[+]

Pim, pom, pi, di, pom, pom…The ‘Bass Man’ is gone! Win­ston “The Mighty Shad­ow” Bai­ley passed away yes­ter­day at 3.50 am at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex, Mt Hope. The ca­lyp­so icon, po­et and philoso­pher’s death came mere days be­fore he re­ceived what many said was long in com­ing – an hon­orary doc­tor­ate from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies’ St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus for his life­long con­tri­bu­tion to the coun­try’s na­tion­al mu­sic and ca­lyp­so in par­tic­u­lar.

With Bai­ley’s death yes­ter­day, im­me­di­ate con­cerns were raised by some re­gard­ing whether he would still be con­ferred with the hon­orary de­gree promised by UWI – though no posthu­mous­ly.

UWI cam­pus prin­ci­pal Pro­fes­sor Bri­an Copeland was quick to put that to rest, how­ev­er, when he con­firmed that not on­ly would the uni­ver­si­ty still be con­fer­ring the doc­tor­ate on Bai­ley, but that it would al­so be cel­e­brat­ing him dur­ing Sat­ur­day’s grad­u­a­tion ex­er­cise at UWI Spec.(Trinidad Guardian)…[+]

MANAGUA-At least 17 people have died when trying to cross flooded rivers in the last few days, said Nicaraguan Vice President and presidential spokesperson Rosario Murillo on Monday.

“We’re still on red alert (maximum) although weather conditions have improved,” said Murillo in a statement published by official newspaper El 19 Digital. Those killed had attempted to cross rivers and streams on foot, horse or bicycle, according to the statement. “In total, we counted 17 deaths from trying to cross river and streams,” she said.

Nicaragua is currently passing through its rainy season, which usually begins in May and ends in October. Heavy rains have caused floods and landslides in some areas of the country. The vice president also regretted that a landslide killed four members of a peasant family on Saturday in the northern province of Jinotega on the border with Honduras. Two children, aged 4 and 13 were killed along with their parents, 62-year-old Felix Vasquez Hernandez and 36-year-old Sandra Estrada Hernandez.  (Xinhua)…[+]

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has publicly torn down Saudi claims that the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi died in a fight in its Istanbul consulate, making fresh allegations that his “savage” murder was premeditated and calling for an independent investigation in Turkey.

Erdoğan had billed his hotly anticipated address at the Turkish parliament in Ankara as the moment he would reveal the “naked truth” about what happened to Khashoggi. He said he was not satisfied with Riyadh’s suggestion that the killing was a rogue extradition operation gone wrong, and called for the “highest ranked” of those responsible to be brought to justice. “Intelligence and security institutions have evidence showing the murder was planned … Pinning such a case on some security and intelligence members will not satisfy us or the international community,” he said. “From the person who gave the order, to the person who carried it out, they must all be brought to account.”(theguardian)…[+]

Three men, said to be gangsters, were killed during a shootout with the police in Trelawny, on Monday. Two of the deceased have been identified as Adrian Walker, alias ‘Lippy’ and ‘Macka’; and Robert Miller, alias ‘Ghost’ and ‘Tiler’. The third man remained unidentified up to the time of publishing. The confrontation occurred sometime after 5:00 p.m. in the community of Friendship. The police recovered two firearms following the shootout. The three were said to be members of the Bunkers Hill Gang, formerly known as the Ski Mask Gang. Police in Trelawny continue their search for other members of the gang.(JAMAICA GLEANER)…[+]

The far-right favourite to become Brazil’s next president has vowed to spearhead a historic purge of his leftwing political foes in a menacing address that delighted supporters and left opponents outraged and unnerved.Jair Bolsonaro looks set for a landslide victory over his Workers’ party (PT) rival Fernando Haddad when the world’s fourth-largest democracy returns to the polls on Sunday for the decisive second round of its presidential election. Latest polls give him an 18-point lead over Haddad.

In a confrontational video address to supporters on Sunday, the pro-torture former paratrooper pledged to use the presidency to launch a frontal assault on his “red” political rivals. “Either they go overseas, or they go to jail,” Bolsonaro told thousands of cheering supporters who had packed Avenida Paulista, one of São Paulo’s main arteries, for one of his final campaign acts.(theguardian)…[+]

KABUL-The voting process of Afghan parliamentary elections concluded Sunday evening and the ballot counting continued, the chairman of the Independent Election Commission (IEC) said. “The voting process in 32 out of 34 Afghan provinces concluded Sunday evening,” Chairman Gula Jan Abdul Badi Sayad told reporters.

Balloting started on Saturday as the IEC initially planned to hold the polls in one day, but the IEC officials extended the voting to Sunday as scores of polling centers were not open or run on Saturday after long delays due to militants’ attacks, irregularities, and low attendance of election workers. The elections covered 32 out of the country’s 34 provinces. Voting in Kandahar and Ghazni provinces has been postponed due to security reasons. Ballot counting in 80 percent of the polling centers were completed on Saturday but the counting will continue in some polling centers till late Sunday, Sayad added.

More than 2,500 candidates are contesting for the Wolesi Jirga or the 249-seat lower house of the parliament. Most of the candidates stand independently as the country did not have many regular and standard political parties. (Xinhua)…[+]

Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Senator Kamina Johnson Smith is reassuring concerned members of the public that no Jamaican students were hurt during recent protests at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine Campus. This follows reports which indicated that students have been protesting since Thursday because of alleged safety and security concerns at the institution.

The minister, in a release today, said: “Our High Commission in Trinidad and Tobago advised that reports from the Jamaican Student Association in Trinidad and Tobago (JASATT) indicated that no Jamaican students were hurt.” The ministry said it was further advised that the protesters were largely Trinidadian nationals, although some members of other regional student associations had supported them”.(JAMAICA OBSERVER)...[+]

Cameroon’s two major cities were tense on Sunday and riot police were on the streets as security forces try to prevent protests before the results of the country’s controversial presidential election are released. Dozens of riot police, some armed with machine guns, surrounded the activist and politician Kah Walla’s house on Sunday afternoon, preventing her from leaving to attend a peaceful demonstration planned in the centre of Douala, the economic capital.

The election results are due to be released on Monday morning, and are widely expected to show a resounding victory for Paul Biya, the country’s octogenarian president who put himself forward for a seventh term. The protest was billed as a march “to say goodbye to Biya” who, in his 36th year as president, spends a significant amount of his time on holiday in Geneva. The opposition has said there was widespread fraud and voter intimidation in the 7 October election, and rejected the results early on despite the fact that they had not yet been released. Legal attempts to have the election rerun have failed.(theguardian)…[+]

Donald Trump was being “playful” when he praised a Montana congressman who assaulted a Guardian reporter, said a Republican senator whose new book sets out to “heal” America’s glaring political divide.

In Missoula, Montana on Thursday, Trump discussed Greg Gianforte’s attack on Ben Jacobs, which happened in May 2017 when Jacobs asked the then candidate a question about healthcare. To laughter, the president mimed a “body slam” and said Gianforte was “my guy”. The attack broke Jacobs’ glasses and injured his elbow. On Sunday, Ben Sasse of Nebraska appeared on CNN’s State of the Union. “I got to admit I don’t follow the rallies,” said the conservative critic of Trump with rumoured White House ambitions who nonetheless usually votes with the president. “But I think the first amendment is the beating heart of the American experiment. So we need to have a president who celebrates the first amendment and not pretends that beating up a reporter is OK.(theguardian)…[+]