BRIDGETOWN– The following is a statement from Caribbean Development Bank President Dr. W^m. Warren Smith on the passing of Sir Alister McIntyre.

The Caribbean Development Bank joins the wider regional community in mourning the loss of Sir Alister McIntyre, OCC, a   Caribbean statesman, a scholar, a true Caribbean son. Though we mourn his passing, we celebrate his life – one which he dedicated to the cause of Caribbean integration and development.

Born and raised in Grenada, Sir Alister shared his intellect and ability with our entire Region.  His work and his scholarship as a development economist and an integrationist influenced many of our leaders; and his legacy will endure through generations. We are especially grateful   for the leading role he played in shaping CARICOM and the University of the West Indies as Secretary-General and Vice Chancellor, respectively.

Sir Alister’s vision of a stronger, more integrated Caribbean is one which we share at CDB. Almost 50 years ago, the architects of the Bank mandated us to promote economic cooperation and integration among our regional members, having special and urgent regard to our less developed member countries.  We will continue to build on the strong foundation which Sir Alister left behind as we work to accelerate the economic development of our Region.  We offer our deepest condolences to his wife, Marjorie and children, Arnold, Andrew, Helga and Nicholas. We thank them for sharing him with us…[+]

Sur­veil­lance on Venezue­lans le­gal, il­le­gal and crim­i­nal. The TT Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) is mon­i­tor­ing the con­nec­tions be­tween Venezue­lan crim­i­nals who have been iden­ti­fied in T&T and the lo­cal gangs. And TTPS and oth­er se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies are al­so mon­i­tor­ing the move­ments of Venezue­lans en­ter­ing Trinidad & Tobago legal­ly as well as il­le­gal­ly.

Act­ing Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Ed­mund Dil­lon con­firmed this in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day when he was grilled by Op­po­si­tion MPs Rod­ney Charles, Roodal Mooni­lal and Vidia Guyadeen-Gopeesingh on re­ports about il­le­gal Venezue­lans in Trinidad & Tobago and crim­i­nal links with lo­cal gangs.

“A num­ber of mon­i­tor­ing and in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing ex­er­cis­es are tak­ing place right now from the TTPS,” Dil­lon said, de­tail­ing ac­tiv­i­ties. Dil­lon, act­ing for an ab­sent Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, was grilled about the sit­u­a­tion fol­low­ing re­ports that 25 Venezue­lan na­tion­als were held for il­le­gal­ly en­ter­ing T&T and claims that lo­cal gangs are be­ing in­fil­trat­ed by cer­tain no­to­ri­ous Venezue­lan drug car­tels.(Trinidad Guardian)…[+]

The funeral of Lyra McKee, the journalist shot dead in Derry last week, brought a rare political unity to Northern Ireland on Wednesday. Theresa May joined dignitaries including the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, the Irish PM, Leo Varadkar, the Irish president, Michael D Higgins, and the Irish minister for foreign affairs, Simon Coveney, at the funeral.

The New IRA shot McKee, 29, while she observed rioting in Derry last Thursday. The group has apologised and said its gunman was aiming at police. The Northern Ireland secretary, Karen Bradley, and leaders of Northern Irish political parties are also at the service, which started at 1pm at St Anne’s Cathedral in central Belfast.

McKee’s death has prompted calls for the leaders of Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) to restore power-sharing, which collapsed in acrimony in 2017, leaving a political vacuum. McKee’s north Belfast family is from a Catholic background but chose a Protestant cathedral because it wanted a cross-community, cross-border and multi-cultural service. The service is led jointly by Stephen Forde, the dean of St Anne’s, and Fr Martin Magill, a Catholic priest. Members of the National Union of Journalists are to form a guard of honour. McKee is due to be buried later on Wednesday at Carnmoney cemetery.(theguardian)…[+]

Hundreds of people have had to leave their homes in Norway as emergency services try to extinguish forest fires raging in the south of the country. Some 148 homes were evacuated around the town of Sokndal, where fires have been burning since Tuesday.

Police say the fires are still out of control and warn that heavy winds could help them to spread. April is very early for forest fires in Norway, and experts have warned of a dramatic increase across the continent. This month alone, wildfires have broken out in Sweden, Germany and the UK.

Fires in Europe “are way above the average” for this time of year, an official at the EU’s European Forest Fire Information System (Effis) told the BBC. “The season is drastically worse than those of the last decade.” The official added that a “very dry winter in most of Europe” and persistent drought had contributed to the rise in forest fires, and that the “long term forecast is not promising for an improvement”.(BBC)…[+]