In an unprecedented week for international geopolitics – during which Donald Trump praised the North Korean leader shortly after disparaging Canada’s prime minister – one group of people has been particularly shocked by the US president’s upending of diplomatic norms. Canada’s small community of North Korean defectors has been shocked and infuriated by Trump’s contrasting treatment of the two leaders: insults for Justin Trudeau after the G7 meeting in Quebec and flattery for Kim Jong-un at the summit in Singapore.

Julie and David – who both asked to use pseudonyms for fear of retaliation– are a married couple who escaped from North Korea in 2005 and now live in Toronto. Speaking through a translator, Julie could not contain her anger at Trump’s behaviour. “Attacking Prime Minister Trudeau but then, 24 hours later, going to Singapore and praising a dictator who is a murderer – it was unbearable to watch,” she said. She was particularly incensed by Trump’s failure to raise the subject of human rights abuses during his meetings with the Kim, who he described as a “very talented man” with a “great personality”.(theguardian)…[+]

The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen has launched an all-out assault on the rebel-held port of Hodeidah in a move that coalition leaders have claimed could be completed within a week. Sulaiman Almazroui, the United Arab Emirates’ UK ambassador, said the Red Sea port could be captured without disrupting vital humanitarian supply lines or directly endangering the lives of more than 600,000 people living in the city and surrounding areas.

Coalition warplanes and warships on Wednesday pounded fortifications in the Houthi-controlled city to support ground operations by Yemeni, UAE and Sudanese troops massed on its southern approaches. The information minister of the exiled Yemeni government, Muammar al-Iryan, warned Hodeidah residents not to “allow any sniper or gunmen from Houthi [rebel] militia on the roofs of your houses. Stay away from military camps … Do not store petrol products.”

Almazroui told reporters the coalition had contingency plans to replace any loss of aid caused by coalition airstrikes. Saying the operation, known as “Golden Victory”, was still in a preliminary phase, he explained “the way we see it going we don’t think it is going to take that long”, adding: “We are hoping it will take days not months. If things go as planned, there will be no shortage of food.”(theguardian)…[+]

BRIDGETOWN – The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) has added an electric vehicle to its transportation fleet, as part of its commitment to advance a clean energy agenda in the Region. Energy security is a consideration integrated throughout CDB’s work—both within the organisation and throughout its Borrowing Member Countries, under the Bank’s 2015-2019 Strategic Plan.

The vehicle, a Nissan Leaf Tekna purchased through the Barbados-based company, Megapower Ltd., produces zero emissions and will reduce the Bank’s carbon footprint as it transports packages and officials throughout the island. In 2015, CDB adopted an Energy Sector Policy and Strategy that set out the CDB’s approach for tackling the Region’s energy challenges, including emphasising energy security and access; prioritising renewable energy and energy efficiency; and promoting a holistic approach to energy sector transformation.(CDB)…[+]

Some of Africa’s oldest and biggest baobab trees have abruptly died, wholly or in part, in the past decade, according to researchers. The trees, aged between 1,100 and 2,500 years and in some cases as wide as a bus is long, may have fallen victim to climate change, the team speculated.

“We report that nine of the 13 oldest … individuals have died, or at least their oldest parts/stems have collapsed and died, over the past 12 years,” they wrote in the scientific journal Nature Plants, describing “an event of an unprecedented magnitude”.

“It is definitely shocking and dramatic to experience during our lifetime the demise of so many trees with millennial ages,” said the study’s co-author Adrian Patrut of the Babeș-Bolyai University in Romania. Among the nine were four of the largest African baobabs. While the cause of the die-off remains unclear, the researchers “suspect that the demise of monumental baobabs may be associated at least in part with significant modifications of climate conditions that affect southern Africa in particular”.(theguardian)…[+]

A Texas-born man who prosecutors say rose to the top ranks of a Mexican drug cartel using ruthless violence to defeat rivals and secure control of drug trafficking routes was sentenced Monday by a federal judge in Atlanta to serve nearly five decades in prison. Edgar Valdez Villarreal, known as “La Barbie” because of his light eyes and complexion, was sentenced to serve 49 years and one month and was also ordered to forfeit $192 million, which prosecutors say is a conservative estimate of the value of the cocaine Valdez was responsible for importing into the United States. Valdez, 44, was accused of bringing trucks full of cocaine from Mexico to the eastern United States and shipping millions of dollars in cash back to Mexico.

He was arrested in Mexico in 2010 and was among 13 people extradited to the US from Mexico in September 2015 to face charges. He pleaded guilty in January 2016 to charges of conspiring to import and distribute cocaine, and conspiring to launder money. Valdez was born in Laredo, Texas, on the Mexican border. His father was a nightclub and bar owner, and they lived in a middle-class subdivision populated by border patrol agents, police officers and firefighters.(theguardian)…[+]

Hundreds of the migrants and refugees onboard the Aquarius rescue ship are being transferred to Italian coastguard and naval vessels to begin their journey to Spain, despite pleas for them to be allowed to recuperate in the nearest port. On Tuesday afternoon, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said the crew of the Aquarius had been instructed by the maritime rescue coordination centre in Rome to transfer 400 of the 629 people onboard to the two vessels, which will then sail for Valencia.

The migrants and refugees, including children and pregnant women, were saved by the French NGO SOS Méditerranée from waters off the coast of Libya on Saturday, but the Aquarius was caught in a dramatic standoff over the weekend in which both Italy and Malta refused to allow it to dock.(theguardian)…[+]

Pope Francis has accepted the resignations of a Chilean bishop he robustly defended earlier this year despite claims of a cover-up of clerical sexual abuse, a move that later forced the pontiff into making a public apology.

In his continuing efforts to show he has grasped the extent of the Catholic church’s sexual abuse scandal, and intends to deal with those embroiled in it as perpetrators or colluders, Francis accepted the resignations on Monday of Juan Barros, as well as his fellow bishops Gonzalo Duarte and Cristián Caro. They were among 34 Chilean bishops who offered to resign last month after Francis said the country’s religious hierarchy was collectively responsible for “grave defects” in handling sexual abuse cases and the church’s resulting loss of credibility.

Juan Carlos Cruz, a survivor who has been a vocal critic of Barros and repeatedly called on the Vatican to take action, said: “A new day has begun in Chile’s Catholic church. “I’m thrilled for all those who have fought to see this day. The band of delinquent bishops … begins to disintegrate today.” On Monday, a Vatican statement said Francis had accepted the resignations of the bishops and appointed temporary replacements. In January, the pope caused an outcry when he denounced sexual abuse survivors on a visit to Chile, saying claims Barros was complicit in a cover-up were a “calumny”.(theguardian)…[+]

The idea of killer robots rising up and destroying humans is a Hollywood fantasy and a distraction from the more pressing dilemmas that intelligent machines present to society, according to one of Britain’s most influential computer scientists. Sir Nigel Shadbolt, professor of computer science at the University of Oxford, predicts that AI will bring overwhelming benefits to humanity, revolutionising cancer diagnosis and treatment, and transforming education and the workplace. If problems arise, he said, it will not be because sentient machines have unexpectedly gone rogue in a Terminator-like scenario. “The danger is clearly not that robots will decide to put us away and have a robot revolution,” he said. “If there [are] killer robots, it will be because we’ve been stupid enough to give it the instructions or software for it to do that without having a human in the loop deciding.”(theguardian)…[+]

A Kirtland air force base officer with top security clearance who disappeared 35 years ago has been found, alive and well and living under another name in California. The air force office of special investigations said in a news release this week that William Howard Hughes Jr was apprehended at his home after a fraud investigation involving a fake identity he had been using. Hughes was involved in classified planning and analysis of Nato control, command and communications surveillance systems during the cold war. He specialized in radar surveillance.(theguardian)…[+]

The family of Oleg Sentsov, the Ukrainian film director imprisoned in Russia who is on hunger strike, have called on President Vladimir Putin to release him before the World Cup, which kicks off on Thursday. “He says he’s going to carry his hunger strike through to the end, and Oleg is the kind of person who doesn’t go back on his word,” Sentsov’s cousin Natalia Kaplan told the Guardian. “We have very little time left and I really hope that Putin will take the decision to release him and all the Ukrainian political prisoners before the World Cup.”

Sentsov has been on hunger strike since 14 May, saying he will stop only if all Ukrainian political prisoners are released. His lawyer, Dmitry Dinze, who visited Sentsov in prison last week, said his client had lost 8kg since he began his hunger strike and was at risk of kidney failure. Prison officials have said they will begin force-feeding Sentsov if his health deteriorates to a critical point.Sentsov was jailed for 20 years by a Russian military court in 2015 on charges of terrorism. He was accused of deliberately setting fire to the offices of United Russia, a pro-Kremlin political party, in Crimea. He denied all charges and said he was being punished for organising peaceful resistance to the Russian takeover of the peninsula in 2014.(theguardian)…[+]