Regional News

APUI, Brazil (Reuters) – Fire brigades in the Brazilian Amazon are battling blazes off to their worst start in 20 years for the rainforest, according to government satellite data, following a record-breaking drought aggravated by global warming.

PANAMA CITY,  (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro gave a scathing response to an offer yesterday from his Panamanian counterpart, Jose Raul Mulino, to facilitate his departure to a third country to allow for a political transition.

(Trinidad Guardian) The number of deaths from Dengue Fever is now up to eight, as the Ministry of Health has revealed two more laboratory-confirmed deaths overnight, in its latest epidemiological update and advisory, issued yesterday.

PANAMA CITY,  (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro gave a scathing response to an offer today from his Panamanian counterpart, Jose Raul Mulino, to facilitate his departure to a third country to allow for a political transition.

SAO PAULO,  (Reuters) – A regional turboprop plane crashed near Sao Paulo in Brazil today, killing all 61 people on board, the airline said.

Bahamaian Police Commissioner Clayton Fernander says senior members of the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency (NCA) will arrive this month to “personally oversee” aspects of the investigation surrounding voice notes that purported to capture a quid-pro-quo arrangement involving a senior police officer, a lawyer and two murdered men, Michael Fox Jr and Dino Smith.

CARACAS,  (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro yesterday said he had signed a decree to block access to social media platform X for 10 days, after earlier saying social media was used to incite violence following the country’s presidential election.

BRASILIA, (Reuters) – Brazil and Nicaragua expelled each other’s ambassadors yesterday in a tit-for-tat retaliation as relations deteriorated between two formerly allied leftist governments.

CARACAS,  (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro today said he had signed a decree to block access to social media platform X for 10 days, after earlier saying social media was used to incite violence following the country’s presidential election.

(Trinidad Guardian) The Maraval woman who was found lying in a pool of blood on her kitchen floor on Tuesday afternoon, may have been killed as a result of a family dispute.

(Reuters) – A U.S. judge dismissed yesterday much of Mexico’s $10 billion lawsuit seeking to hold U.S.

BRASILIA, (Reuters) – Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rose in July, breaking a 15-month streak of falling destruction under President Luiz Inacio da Silva, preliminary government data showed yesterday, amid a strike by environmental workers.

CARACAS,   (Reuters) –  Venezuela’s legal system mounted more challenges against the country’s political opposition yesterday, as the candidate the alliance says won the July 28 election was ruled in contempt of court and now faces imprisonment.

 (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres spoke today and expressed readiness to support a Venezuelan-led process toward the re-establishment of democratic norms, the State Department said.

SANTIAGO, (Reuters) – Chile’s President Gabriel Boric said today he does not recognize Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro “self-proclaimed” victory in the country’s hotly contested election late last month.

(Trinidad Guardian) Energy Minister Stuart Young admitted yesterday that there is “uncertainty” about when T&T could expect to begin receiving natural gas from Venezuela due to the political unrest in that country.

(Trinidad Guardian) Former attorney general Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, SC, is mourning the loss of his brother Kris, who died in the United States yesterday while serving a life sentence for a double murder he always maintained he did not commit.

CARACAS,  (Reuters) – Venezuela’s Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino yesterday reaffirmed the military’s “absolute loyalty” to President Nicolas Maduro, amid an ongoing dispute over the country’s contested presidential election  results.

(Trinidad Express) The Office of the Procurement Regulator will be asked to investigate the Housing Development Corpora-tion’s (HDC) intention to award China Harbour Engineering Company (T&T) Ltd a near half-a-billion-dollar contract to construct houses in Santa Rosa.

(U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Florida) MIAMI – Former British Virgin Islands (BVI) Premier Andrew Alturo Fahie was sentenced yesterday to 135 months in federal prison by U.S.