Yemen peace talks have been held onboard a UN-chartered boat anchored in the Red Sea in an attempt to find a neutral venue acceptable to both sides.

Patrick Cammaert, a retired Dutch general and head of the UN mission in Yemen, chaired the meeting on the ship moored off the port city of Hodeidah. Houthi rebel military officials had refused to meet in government-held areas in southern Hodeidah, citing security fears.The dispute over the talks venue had prevented military leaders from the two sides meeting since 2 January. The first two meetings had been held in Houthi-controlled zones.The meetings of the regional redeployment committee (RCC) are seen as critical to building on the UN-brokered agreement reached in Stockholm in Decemberthat under which Houthi fighters would be redeployed out of Hodeida’s city and port. The agreement envisaged a new security force taking over the city, a move critical to preventing famine and to opening humanitarian corridors.(theguardian)…[+]

WASHINGTON – The United States announced yesterday it will withdraw from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia in six months unless Moscow ends its alleged violations of the landmark 1987 arms control pact.

The United States would reconsider its withdrawal if Russia, which denies violating the treaty, came into compliance with the agreement, which bans both nations from stationing short- and intermediate-range land-based missiles in Europe.

Announcing the move, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the United States would cease to regard itself as being bound by the treaty starting Saturday, which is when Washington will formally inform Moscow of its intent to withdraw, a senior U.S. official told reporters. The announcement may aim to pressure Russia to come to terms during the next six months but it also raised fears of a new U.S.-Russian nuclear arms race in Europe as well as one between the United States and China in Asia. U.S. President Donald Trump repeated U.S. allegations that Russia had violated the INF treaty, which limited only U.S. and Russian arsenals, and he held out the prospect of negotiating a wider agreement, possibly including other nations.(Reuters)…[+]

Even po­lit­i­cal par­ties must find in­no­v­a­tive ways to raise funds to sus­tain op­er­a­tions.

In the case of the Peo­ples Na­tion­al Move­ment, who are con­struct­ing a mul­ti-storey Bal­isi­er House on the site of the ex­ist­ing premis­es, the chal­lenge has been to come up with an idea to raise mil­lions to bankroll the project. That idea has come from one of their mem­bers who saw the work of Caribbean Jew­ellers and sug­gest­ed that an ex­clu­sive col­lec­tion of jew­el­ry could be one of the fundrais­ing tools.

Caribbean Jew­ellers, well known for cre­at­ing com­mem­o­ra­tive pieces for the ed­u­ca­tion sec­tor’s grad­u­a­tion events, have come up with the Bal­isi­er Col­lec­tion, a set of su­perbly craft­ed loy­al­ty rings and oth­er items in­tend­ed to re­flect “un­wa­ver­ing sup­port for the PNM”. The man be­hind this strate­gic part­ner­ship, An­gad Sand­hu, Man­u­fac­tur­ing Di­rec­tor, Sat Naam In­dus­tries Ltd, the par­ent com­pa­ny of Caribbean Jew­ellers, said their di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion ef­forts over the years had gen­er­at­ed the con­cept for this se­ries. “A par­ty mem­ber saw the work we did and ap­proached us. I did the best I could to ful­fil their vi­sion and with our dis­tinc­tive com­pe­ten­cies came up with an ex­ten­sive line of loy­al­ty rings.”(Trinidad Guardian)…[+]