Victims of a tower block fire in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka on Thursday may have been trapped because emergency exits were locked, officials say. At least 25 people died and 70 others were injured in the blaze.

Six of the victims are believed to have fallen to their deaths when they jumped from the burning high-rise building. Shajahan Shikdar, from Dhaka’s fire department, told the BBC’s Bengali Service that there was also a shortage of fire safety equipment inside. It is not yet clear what caused the fire in the commercial district of Banani. The government has ordered an investigation.

The fire broke out at about 12:50 local time (06:50 GMT) on Thursday, quickly engulfing the high-rise property and trapping people inside. Many are believed to have been stuck on the upper floors of the building, above where the fire had started. “The fire safety system of this building was not satisfactory,” Mr Shikdar told BBC News. “There was only a narrow, two-feet-wide iron staircase available as a fire escape, but it was found locked on different floors. So the people in this building were not able to use it during the fire.”(BBC)…[+]

 St Vin­cent and the Grenadines Prime Min­is­ter Dr Ralph Gon­za­lves has hint­ed that Lee­ward Is­lands Air Trans­port (LI­AT) could drop Trinidad and To­ba­go from its sched­ule of routes as the air­line seeks to re­struc­ture amid fi­nan­cial bur­dens.

Gon­za­lves, who is al­so the Cari­com Lead among Heads of Gov­ern­ment for Trans­port (Mar­itime and Avi­a­tion), made the com­ment dur­ing an in­ter­view with WE FM in St Vin­cent and the Grenadines.

LI­AT is cur­rent­ly seek­ing an in­jec­tion of US$5.4 mil­lion to help keep the air­line in the sky and the mat­ter has been tak­en to Cari­com for as­sis­tance. But Gon­za­lves said so far on­ly Grena­da has re­spond­ed pos­i­tive­ly to a Min­i­mum Rev­enue Guar­an­tee (MRG) pro­pos­al. “The oth­er gov­ern­ments of the Caribbean….on­ly Grena­da has said they will come aboard to pro­vide some emer­gency fund­ing and no­body else. Every­body is say­ing they agree the­o­ret­i­cal­ly for a min­i­mum guar­an­tee for the routes but they have not re­spond­ed pos­i­tive­ly, on­ly Grena­da alone,” Gon­za­lves said.(Trinidad Guardian)…[+]

 Bridgetown– The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) is supporting Member States of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) in their efforts to build capacity to develop robust climate change projects for financing.

Today, the Bank’s Board of Directors approved a grant from the German international development agency, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), in the amount of EUR249,860 for the initiative. CDB and the OECS Commission contributed EUR24,986 and EUR12,493, respectively to the venture. “The grant from GIZ will help our Borrowing Member Countries in the OECS tackle the effects of climate change and make the transition to resilient, low-carbon economies,” said Monica La Bennett, CDB Vice-President of Operations. Following the Paris Agreement, the historic international climate change deal made at the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2015, the OECS countries outlined their intended climate actions after 2020 to meet their obligations under the Paris Agreement.

The grant aims to assist Eastern Caribbean countries in developing bankable, financially viable projects to tackle climate change. The venture will help Eastern Caribbean countries advance project ideas to the concept note stage so that they can be considered for funding by the Green Climate Fund (GCF), the Adaption Fund (AF) or CDB. It is planned that project concepts will be developed for four pilot countries – Dominica, Saint Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Thirty technical staff throughout the sub-Region will also be trained to use SOURCE, an online tool for project preparation and management. In addition, the OECS Commission will hold a workshop on priority investment projects. (CDB)…[+]