Staff Editor

ABUJA,  (Reuters) – Nigeria’s financial crimes watchdog charged a former attorney general suspected of taking bribes to facilitate a $1.3 billion oil block sale, the agency said today, in the latest twist in one of the industry’s biggest alleged corruption scandals.

 (Trinidad Guardian) The T&T Gov­ern­ment has backed Bar­ba­dos’ po­si­tion not to send a rep­re­sen­ta­tive to to­day’s meet­ing be­ing held by US Sec­re­tary of State Mike Pom­peo with sev­er­al Caribbean lead­ers in Ja­maica.

Attorney Anil Nandlall today condemned a statement made yesterday by the Chair of the PNCR Volda Lawrence for APNU+AFC supporters to assemble outside of polling stations on elections day at the close of poll and to follow ballot boxes.

The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has acknowledged receipt of a request by three political parties for a “joinder” of their lists of candidates.

BEIJING,  (Reuters) – Bundled up in winter clothes as they head home for the Lunar New Year holiday amid a health scare over a mystery new virus, Chinese travellers on the teeming concourse of Beijing West station were evenly split between the masked and the barefaced.

LOS ANGELES, (Reuters) – South Korean thriller “Parasite” was the upset winner at the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) awards yesterday, while Joaquin Phoenix and Renee Zellweger were named best actors, cementing their roles as frontrunners at the Oscars next month.

(Trinidad Guardian) State-owned Na­tion­al Pe­tro­le­um Mar­ket­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (NP) lost over US$500,000 in a bad deal on the sale of bunker fu­el on the in­ter­na­tion­al mar­ket.

(Barbados Nation) Barbados will not be at the table when Caribbean leaders meet with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Jamaica, on Tuesday.

The Competition and Consumer Affairs Commission (CCAC) has summonsed Rabeena Khan or the Proprietor of Selena Auto Sales to appear before the Board of Commissioners of the CCAC on January 23, 2020 at 1 pm.

The Jamaica-based pan-Caribbean NCB Financial Group says that it has sealed a US$ loan to Nabi/KCL Oilfield Construction Services Guyana to partially finance the construction of a “major, new landmark facility” on the East Coast of Demerara.

BEIJING,  (Reuters) – China is stepping up restrictions on the production, sale and use of single-use plastic products, the state planner said today, as it seeks to tackle one of the country’s biggest environmental problems.

XINGU INDIGENOUS PARK, Brazil, (Reuters) – Leaders of native tribes in Brazil issued a rallying call to protect the Amazon rainforest and its indigenous people from what they called the “genocide, ethnocide and ecocide” planned by the country’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.

President David Granger this morning departed Guyana for Cuba to undergo a scheduled follow-up medical evaluation by his doctors at Centro de Investigaciones Medico Quirurgicas (Center for Surgical Medical Research) CIMEQ.

NAYPYITAW,  (Reuters) – China and Myanmar inked dozens of deals today to speed up infrastructure projects in the Southeast Asian nation, as Beijing seeks to cement its hold over a neighbour increasingly isolated by the West.

WASHINGTON,  (Reuters) – President Donald Trump turned to some legal heavyweights to help defend him in his Senate impeachment trial with the addition today of former independent counsel Ken Starr, who paved the way for former President Bill Clinton’s 1998 impeachment, and prominent lawyer Alan Dershowitz.

TOKYO,  (Reuters) – Suicides in Japan in 2019 fell to their lowest number in more than 40 years, police said today, marking the 10th straight year of declines.

 (Trinidad Express) National Security Minister Stuart Young has given the assurance that Venezuelan migrants who were given registration cards will receive “an automatic six-month extension” at the end of the expiry period.

(Trinidad Express) A day after his 43rd birthday, Julien Christopher Caleb was gunned down.

(Barbados Nation) Former Barbadian Cabinet Minister Donville Inniss was today found guilty on all counts.

Addressing the Annual Officers’ Conference of the GDF at State House today, President David Granger said that the Defence Force today “is fit for role”.