World

NEW YORK,  (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – British billionaire Richard Branson and two dozen Caribbean nations and territories announced in Jamaica yesterday the creation of a multi-million dollar programme to turn the hurricane-prone region into a green tech hub resilient to disasters.

ADEN, (Reuters) – Saudi-led coalition air strikes on Thursday killed dozens of people, including children travelling on a bus through a market, in Yemen’s Saada province, a Yemeni health official and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said.

BRASILIA, (Reuters) – Brazil complained yesterday that Venezuela was doing nothing to stop the spread of an outbreak of measles in Brazil and other neighboring countries that has been sparked by an exodus of Venezuelans fleeing economic collapse.

KINSHASA, (Reuters) – Congo’s President Joseph Kabila will not stand in the election scheduled for December, a spokesman said, finally agreeing to obey a two-term limit but picking a hard-core loyalist under European Union sanctions to stand instead.

BOGOTA,  (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Two dams being built in Guatemala have damaged the environment and local communities, according to a formal complaint by rights groups and indigenous leaders who urged the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to withdraw financing.

(Reuters) – Russian operatives have penetrated some of Florida’s election systems and could delete registered voters ahead of the November elections if the systems are not adequately protected, Florida U.S.

MOSCOW, (Reuters) – Russian aluminium giant Rusal is concerned about an impending catastrophe if U.S.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – Washington said yesterday it would impose fresh sanctions on Russia by the end of August after it determined that Moscow had used a nerve agent against a former Russian agent and his daughter in Britain.

Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley has declared that the hands of the Barbados Government are clean in the matter of the relocation of the Ross University School of Medicine (RUSM) from Dominica to the land of the flying fish.

HOUSTON/PUNTO FIJO, (Reuters) – Venezuela’s state-run oil company PDVSA has limited the damage from an unprecedented slump in crude exports by transferring oil between tankers at sea and loading vessels in neighboring Cuba to avoid asset seizures.

KUALA LUMPUR,  (Reuters) – Malaysia’s embattled former Prime Minister Najib Razak was charged yesterday with three counts of money laundering as part of a probe into money missing from state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

HAVANA,  (Reuters) – Cuba said on Tuesday it was doubling the amount of land it granted would-be farmers and the lengths of their leases in an effort to increase stagnating agricultural output.

(Reuters) – Apple Inc, Alphabet Inc’s YouTube, Facebook Inc and Spotify all took down podcasts and channels from U.S.

ALEXANDRIA, Va., (Reuters) – Rick Gates, a longtime business associate of U.S.

BRASILIA,  (Reuters) – Lawyers for jailed former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva yesterday withdrew a request before Brazil’s Supreme Court that he be freed because it risked shutting the door on his candidacy in the October presidential election.

ACCRA,  (Reuters) – Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo sacked Energy Minister Boakye Agyarko yesterday, a statement from the presidency said, giving no official reason.

LOS ANGELES,  (Reuters) – The Mendocino Complex became the largest wildfire in Californian history yesterday as it raged at the southern tip of the Mendocino National Forest where crews battled to keep flames from descending into foothill communities.

RIYADH/OTTAWA,  (Reuters) – Canada on Monday refused to back down in its defense of human rights after Saudi Arabia froze new trade and investment and expelled the Canadian ambassador in retaliation for Ottawa’s call to free arrested Saudi civil society activists.

CAIRO, (Reuters) – The president of South Sudan and head of the country’s main rebel group signed a final cease fire and power-sharing agreement yesterday and hailed a new longed-for era of peace in the country.

DENPASAR, Indonesia, (Reuters) – At least 82 people were killed when Indonesia’s resort island of Lombok was hit by a powerful magnitude 7.0 earthquake yesterday, triggering widespread panic as thousands fled their homes for emergency shelters as buildings collapsed.