Trinidad and Tobago votes for parliament, PM, with opposition in lead
Voters will choose the 41 members of the lower House of Representatives for a five-year term.
Any party that emerges with a majority of seats will form a new government with its leader as prime minister.
If none does, a coalition government is likely in the nation known for attracting tourists with its carnival, nature and sandy beaches.
Former energy minister Young, 50, took over as prime minister earlier this month after Keith Rowley resigned to make way for new blood.
But his center-left People's National Movement (PNM) has been lagging in polls behind the centrist United National Congress (UNC) of former prime minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, 73.
"We are peaking at the right time," Persad-Bissessar -- who has campaigned on promises of higher public wages -- she said ahead of Monday's vote.
Unrealistic promises, according to Young, who said "there is no way that a government, any government, could afford" the additional $2-billion bill this would entail.
Trinidad and Tobago has a population of 1.4 million people, of whom just over 1.1 million are eligible to vote Monday at 2,130 polling stations countrywide.
Police commissioner Junior Benjamin has warned of intelligence suggesting "that things are afoot to disrupt the electoral process," without providing details.
Since December, the country was under a state of emergency that ended this month. It was declared to contend with a rise in gang-related killings.
Official data shows more than 600 homicides committed in the nation last year, many of them linked to criminal gangs.
According to a US Department of State report from March, the murder rate of 37 per 100,000 people made Trinidad and Tobago the sixth most dangerous nation in the world.
The report said Latin American-based transnational criminal organizations operated in, and trafficked illegal goods through, Trinidad.
"The country's southern border, which is approximately 10 miles from the Venezuelan coast, remained porous and vulnerable to illegal migration, drug trafficking, and human trafficking and smuggling," it said.
"Venezuelan organized criminal organization and designated terrorist organization Tren de Aragua has been known to exploit this proximity for the transit of personnel and material."
The Caribbean's second-largest producer of natural gas, Trinidad and Tobago has also been battling an economic downturn blamed partly on a decline in production.
It had been banking on exploitation of the Dragon gas field in nearby Venezuelan waters, but has seen its licence withdrawn by the administration of US President Donald Trump under renewed sanctions against that country.
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Euronews
a day ago
- Euronews
Ukraine: Kharkiv hit by massive Russian aerial attack
The US administration has appointed Lt. Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich as both the next top US general in Europe as well as the SACEUR. The appointment by Trump will be especially welcomed following media reports in recent months that the US was considering relinquishing the role of SACUER which has always been appointed by a US president to NATO. "It's a very important decision and there is relief from NATO's point of view as it's a positive sign of American engagement and staffing," a US-based source familiar with the issue told Euronews. US Army General Dwight D. Eisenhower was NATO's first SACEUR in 1951, and the role has remained with the US ever since. 'Upon completion of national confirmation processes, Grynkewich will take up his appointment as the successor to General Christopher G. Cavoli, United States Army, at a change of command ceremony at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe in Mons, Belgium, expected in the summer of 2025,' a statement from NATO read. Meanwhile, NATO defence ministers agreed to a significant surge in defence capability targets for each country, as well as moving to spending 5% of GDP on defence. They've agreed that 3.5% of GDP would be used for 'core defence spending' - such as heavy weapons, tanks, air defence. Meanwhile 1.5% of GDP per year will be spent on defence- and security-related areas such as infrastructure, surveillance, and cyber. However, the full list of flexibility has not yet been negotiated. 'These targets describe exactly what capabilities Allies need to invest in over the coming years,' NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte told journalists. The US has been pushing NATO allies to dramatically increase spending, and expects to see 'credible progress' immediately, according to US Ambassador to NATO Mathew Whitaker. 'The threats facing NATO are growing and our adversaries are certainly not waiting for us to re-arm or be ready for them to make the first move," 'We would prefer our Allies move out urgently on reaching the 5%,' he told journalists in a briefing on the margins of the meetings. Ambassador Whitaker also said the US is 'counting on Europe' to the lead in providing Ukraine with the 'resources necessary to reach a durable peace' on the continent. Mark Rutte reiterated NATO's recent warnings that Russia could strike NATO territory within the next couple of years. 'If we don't act now, the next three years, we are fine, but we have to start now, because otherwise, from three, four or five years from now, we are really under threat," he said, adding: "I really mean this. Then you have to get your Russian language course out, or go to New Zealand.' 'It's good to have continuity about the US in NATO, but with Ukraine it's a different story. I just don't think Trump really cares about Ukraine," the US-based source told Euronews. 'Trump just doesn't care about Europe – it doesn't make him richer or help him politically,' the source said. Referring to the forthcoming NATO summit taking place next month in The Hague, the source said the presence of Ukraine at the summit "will likely be scaled back", since the US will say, "they're not members' so they don't need to be there". A large Russian attack with drones and missiles has hit Ukraine's eastern city of Kharkiv on Saturday, killing at least three people and injuring 21, local officials said. The barrage — the latest in near daily widescale attacks — included aerial glide bombs that have become part of a fierce Russian onslaught in the three-year-war . The intensity of the Russian attacks on Ukraine over the past weeks has further dampened hopes that the warring sides could reach a peace deal anytime soon — especially after Kyiv recently embarrassed the Kremlin with a surprise drone attack on military air bases deep inside Russia. According to Ukraine's Air Force, Russia struck with 215 missiles and drones overnight, and Ukrainian air defenses shot down and neutralised 87 drones and seven missiles. Several other areas in Ukraine were also hit, including the regions of Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Odesa, and the city of Ternopil, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in a post on X. 'To put an end to Russia's killing and destruction, more pressure on Moscow is required, as are more steps to strengthen Ukraine,' he said. Kharkiv's mayor Ihor Terekhov said the attack also damaged 18 apartment buildings and 13 private homes. Terekhov said it was 'the most powerful attack' on the city since the full-scale invasion in 2022. Kharkiv's regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said two districts in the city were struck with three missiles, five aerial glide bombs and 48 drones. Among the injured were two children, a month and a half year old baby boy and a 14-year old girl, he added. The attack on Kharkiv comes one day after Russia launched one of the fiercest missile and drone barrages on Ukraine, striking six Ukrainian territories and killing at least killing at least six people and injuring about 80. Among the dead were three emergency responders in Kyiv, one person in Lutsk and two people in Chernihiv. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Air Force said it shot down a Russian Su-35 fighter jet on the Kursk front inside Russia, the Ukrainian daily Ukrainskaia Pravda reported. No more details were given immediately. U.S. President Donald Trump said this week that his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, told him Moscow would respond to Ukraine's attack on Russian military airfields last Sunday with "Operation Spiderweb" In a new statement bound to cause offense in Kyiv and amongst its allies, Trump told journalists on board Air Force One on Friday evening local time when asked about "Operation Spiderweb": "They gave Putin a reason to go in and bomb the hell out of them last night. That's the thing I didn't like about it. When I saw it I said 'Here we go, now it's going to be a strike'." The European Union is readying a new round of sanctions against Russia to pile extra pressure on the Kremlin and pressure it to agree to a 30-day unconditional ceasefire in Ukraine, a step that Western allies consider indispensable for serious peace negotiations. Ursula von der Leyen has already provided an outline of what that package, the 18th since February 2022, is supposed to target: Russia's financial sector, the "shadow fleet" and the Nord Stream pipelines, which are currently non-operational. On top of that, the president of the European Commission has pitched a downward revision of the price cap on Russian oil to further squeeze profits from worldwide sales, a crucial cash flow to sustain the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. "We need a real ceasefire, we need Russia at the negotiating table, and we need to end this war. Pressure works, as the Kremlin understands nothing else," von der Leyen said earlier this week after meeting with US Senator Lindsey Graham. But there's a catch: unlike other sanctions the bloc has imposed on Russia, such as the multiple export and import bans, the price cap has a political and practical dimension that exceeds the institutional sphere of Brussels and stretches across the ocean. More specifically, to Washington, DC. The price cap on Russian oil was introduced in December 2022 by the Group of Seven (G7) under the initiative of the Joe Biden administration. It was hailed as an ingenious, ground-breaking mechanism to mobilise the collective power of Western allies and cripple Russia's high-intensity war machine. As part of the plan, the G7, together with Australia, passed laws prohibiting their domestic companies from providing services, such as insurance, financing and flagging, to Russian tankers that sold seaborne crude oil above a predetermined price. The secret lay in market power: for decades, Western firms, particularly British ones, have dominated the sector of Protection and Indemnity (P&I), a type of insurance that gives shipowners broad protection and allows them to cover potentially huge costs from any accidental harm caused to the crew, their property or the environment. Due to the inherent risks of moving oil in high waters, P&I is today considered the norm in maritime trade and a must-have to be accepted in a foreign port. By leveraging their leading firms, the G7 intended to create an extraterritorial effect that would cap the price of Russian oil not only within their jurisdictions but all around the world. Following intense behind-the-scenes talks, the cap was set at $60 per barrel, a compromise between hard-line and cautious member states. The strategy only worked up to a point however. Although the price of Russian Urals oil gradually decreased, it consistently remained above the $60 mark, often exceeding the $70 threshold. The blatant circumvention was attributed to the "shadow fleet" that Russia deployed at high sea. These tankers are so old and poorly kept that they fall outside P&I standards and rely on alternative, obscure insurance systems that escape G7 surveillance. By the time the cap entered into force, Moscow "had spent months building a 'shadow fleet' of tankers, finding new buyers like India and China, and creating new payment systems, to the point that its oil does not need to be greatly discounted to sell," Luis Caricano, a professor at the London School of Economics, wrote in a recent analysis. "What should have been a blow became a manageable problem," Caricano said. With few sectors in the Russian economy left to sanction, Brussels has turned its sight to the cap as a means to tighten the screws on the Kremlin and secure a ceasefire in Ukraine. The Commission has reportedly pitched a revision between $50 and $45 per barrel, which the UK and Canada are believed to support. However, the US has so far refrained from endorsing a lower price cap, raising the stakes ahead of crunch talks at the G7 summit in Alberta, scheduled for mid-June. Now, a tough question emerges: Can the EU dare, and afford, to go it alone? In the strictest legalistic sense, the EU could, indeed, establish a lower price cap on its own. After all, the G7, as an organisation, lacks regulatory powers: each ally amends its laws individually to fulfil a collective mission. In this case, the EU introduced new legislation to prohibit EU companies – rather than, say, American or British companies – from servicing Russian tankers that bypassed the $60-per-barrel cap. Similarly, the bloc could now change the text to adjust that prohibition to a tighter price without waiting for other allies to reciprocate. Here appears the first roadblock: any change to sanctions must be approved by a unanimous vote among member states. It is highly unlikely that all 27 countries would choose to move forward with a lower cap without having an explicit guarantee that Washington will follow suit. Hungary, in particular, has fully aligned itself with the Trump administration and could veto any proposal opposed by the White House. Even if the bloc managed to overcome internal differences and agreed to a lower cap on its own, more formidable obstacles could impede its success. The bloc's revised cap would have to co-exist with America's existing cap. This means that one side of the Atlantic Ocean would apply a $50-per-barrel limit while the other side would apply a $60-per-barrel limit, creating a cacophony for all actors involved. "Different price caps across G7 countries could confuse maritime service providers and weaken overall enforcement," Petras Katinas, an energy analyst at the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), told Euronews. "A solo move by the EU could cause friction within the Price Cap Coalition, damaging trust and coordination, both of which are crucial for keeping pressure on Russian oil revenues," Katinas added, warning the project could be rendered "largely symbolic". The legislative chaos would immediately benefit the Kremlin, which has long sought to exploit loopholes to evade and undermine international sanctions. Moscow, though, would also face hurdles: the continued crackdown on "shadow fleet" vessels has forced the country to increase its reliance on G7 insurance, which, in theory, could make it easier for the EU to apply the revised measure. "If the EU alone decides to tighten the screws on the cap, it's an additional constraint on Russia's oil exports but not as tight as with a whole of G7 approach," said Elisabetta Cornago, a senior researcher at the Centre for European Reform (CER). Besides practical snags and legal matters, there is geopolitics to consider. One of the reasons why the G7 initiative has fallen short of expectations is that, as the name suggests, it has remained a G7-exclusive plan. Countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa have refused to play along and join the coalition. China and India openly buy Russian crude oil, sometimes to refine it and resell it under a different label. Having the EU and the US go separate ways would further destabilise the Western alliance and create the impression of a transatlantic break-up. But for many, that is already a reality: the "Coalition of the Willing", born after Donald Trump unilaterally launched negotiations with Vladimir Putin, bears testament to the political divide. "The price cap was a G7 + EU initiative, and so in its current form, I do not see any pathway in which the EU could adjust the cap without the support of the broader coalition, including the US," said Ben McWilliams, an affiliate fellow with Bruegel. "That said, the EU is free to implement whatever measures it wants on its own domestic ships and insurance companies, which it could likely encourage the UK to join," McWilliams added. "So the EU can still move ahead – it would just need to be under a different institutional format than currently exists."
Euronews
a day ago
- Euronews
Israel recovers body of Thai national taken by Hamas on 7 October
After their 2-0 defeat against Venezuela in the South American qualifiers for the 2026 World Cup, the Bolivian national team has faced a new setback: the Venezuelan authorities have prevented their flight from leaving Maturin airport, without offering clear explanations. The Bolivian delegation, which claims it had all the necessary documentation and permits to return to its country, was forced to return to its hotel in the middle of the night after hours of waiting without authorisation to leave Venezuela. The technical director of the Venezuelan team, Óscar Villegas, said that the situation took them by surprise, as they had previously asked a Bolivian government minister to coordinate with the Venezuelan government of Nicolás Maduro to facilitate their departure. Harold Howard, in charge of security and logistics for the team, spoke of "sabotage" by the Venezuelan regime, explaining that they were informed of an alleged problem with "air traffic" as the reason for the hold-up, despite the fact that there were only two planes landing at the time. The incident has generated outrage in the Bolivian sporting and political community, which has called on the national authorities to intervene and demand answers from the Venezuelan government. The situation has also affected the planning of the Bolivian team, which was scheduled to leave for La Paz at around 5:00 (local time) and train that afternoon ahead of Tuesday's match with Chile in El Alto. This episode adds to a series of obstacles and problems that, according to complaints, Maduro's regime has imposed on foreign delegations, displaying a lack of reliability and transparency in the treatment of visiting teams. Israel says it has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage kidnapped into Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, as it continues its military offensive across the strip, killing at least 95 people in the past 24 hours, according to Gaza's health ministry. The prime minister's office said Saturday that the body of Thai citizen Nattapong Pinta was returned to Israel in a special military operation. Pinta was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz and killed in captivity near the start of the war, said the government. This comes two days after the bodies of two Israeli-American hostages were retrieved. Fifty-five hostages remain in Gaza, of whom Israel says more than half are dead. The defence minister said on Saturday that Pinta's body was retrieved from the Rafah area. He had come to Israel from Thailand to work in agriculture. The army said he was taken into Gaza by the Mujahideen Brigades, the small armed group that it said had also abducted and killed Shiri Bibas and her two small children. It's also the same group that took the two Israeli-American hostages, Judith Weinstein and Gad Haggai, whose bodies were retrieved by the army on Thursday. Later on Saturday, the Israeli army announced that they believed to have found the body of Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar, killed in Gaza last month. The IDF also said that four of its soldiers were killed when a building collapsed following a booby trap in southern Gaza's Khan Younis on Friday. Pinta's body was found based on information received from the hostage task force and military intelligence, the IDF explained. A statement from the hostage forum, which supports the hostages, said it stands with Pinta's family and shares in their grief. It called on the country's decision makers to bring home the remaining hostages and give those who have died a proper burial. Thais were the largest group of foreigners held captive by Hamas militants. Many of the Thai agricultural workers lived in compounds on the outskirts of southern Israeli kibbutzim and towns, and Hamas militants overran those places first. A total of 46 Thais have been killed during the conflict, according to Thailand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Before Pinta's body was retrieved, three Thai hostages remained in captivity and two were confirmed dead. The fate of Pinta was uncertain until today, according to the hostage forum. Four strikes hit the Muwasi area in southern Gaza between Rafah and Khan Younis. In northern Gaza, one strike hit an apartment, killing seven people including a mother and five children. Their bodies were taken to Shifa hospital. Israel said Saturday that it's responding to Hamas' 'barbaric attacks' and is dismantling its capabilities. It said it follows international law and takes all feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm. Staff at Nasser hospital where six of the bodies were taken, said they were killed while on their way to get food assistance. Israel's army said Saturday that despite prior warnings that the area is an active combat zone during night time hours, several suspects attempted to approach army troops operating in the Tel al-Sultan area overnight 'in a manner that posed a threat to the troops'. The army said the troops called to drive them away but as they continued advancing they fired warning shots. The army said it was aware of reports of casualties. An army official who can't be named in line with military procedures, said the warning shots were fired approximately one kilometer from the aid distribution site. Estonia will lease space at Tartu Prison to Sweden and accept up to 600 inmates under a new agreement being negotiated between the two countries. The draft legislation has been sent to the parliament. Meanwhile, the Estonian Office of the Chancellor of Justice and the Internal Security Service emphasise the risks that placing foreign prisoners in Tartu may bring. Amid the possible worsening situation for the Estonian prisoners, the main concern is that people with connections to extremism or international organised crime may arrive in Estonia. The Internal Security Service has forwarded the recommendations to the government and hopes that it will take them into account to the greatest extent possible. Marta Tuul, spokesperson of the Internal Security Service commented on Estonian TV: "The main concerns we see are that people with connections to extremism or international organised crime do not arrive in Estonia. We also see that foreign prisoners may begin to be visited by individuals with connections to extremism or international organised crime." In 2023, the number of inmates in Estonia dropped below 2,000 for the first time and has been decreasing by about one hundred people each year. Meanwhile, the Swedish government aims to impose tougher and longer sentences, making it unlikely that the number of prisoners there will decline in the near future. Indrek-Ivar Määrit, Head of Inspection Department of the Office of the Chancellor of Justice told Estonian public TV: "For us, there are three main concerns here: Firstly, the situation of Estonian prisoners must not worsen because foreign prisoners are coming. Secondly, these foreign prisoners themselves must be treated in accordance with Estonian law and international requirements. And thirdly, in the broadest sense, Estonia's internal security should not be endangered, and we are not only mindful of the danger that these people themselves pose, but also the danger that may accompany this process." For Swedish offenders, the Estonian state plans to use the S-Wing of Tartu Prison, which has approximately 350 places across 175 cells, followed by the E-Wing, which has 631 places in 318 cells. Rait Kuuse, Secretary General for Prisons at the Ministry of Justice further elaborated on the plams: "We prefer not to accept prisoners who are women or children. These would be male prisoners, either people convicted of crimes against the person or convicted of drug crimes, who do not have signs of being part of a network and who should not pose a significant threat to Estonia as a whole." Through the agreement, Estonia hopes to generate at least €30 million in additional revenue.
