Gaston Browne is on course to win 15 of the 17 seats in parliament after calling snap election
Gaston Browne, the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, is set to win a fourth term in the country’s snap general election with preliminary results showing his party on course to win 15 of the 17 seats in parliament.
Addressing supporters early on Friday morning, Browne said: “You have spoken, you have spoken clearly. You have indicated that the Antigua and Barbuda Labour party (ABLP) is the best institution to run this country.”
The US is withdrawing 5,000 troops from Germany, the Pentagon announced on Friday, as Donald Trump also threatened Italy and Spain for not helping to reopen the strait of Hormuz.
The president’s move to reduce the number of personnel deployed in Germany came after the country’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said the US was being “humiliated” by Iran.
UNITED NATIONS: The escalating crisis in the Strait of Hormuz could push tens of millions into poverty, trigger a surge in global hunger and even tip the world toward recession, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned on Thursday.
The closure of the vital waterway is “strangling the global economy,” the secretary general said in remarks to the press.
Guterres decried the restrictions on free passage through the strait, a crucial chokepoint, which he said is impeding the delivery of oil, gas, fertiliser and other critical commodities.
Even if restrictions on shipping and trade were lifted immediately, “supply chains will take months to recover, prolonging lower economic output and higher prices,” he said.
Setting out three possible trajectories for a world still reeling from the shocks of a pandemic and the war in Ukraine, Guterres said the best-case scenario would see global growth fall from 3.4 per cent to 3.1pc, with inflation rising to 4.4pc and trade slowing sharply.
If disruptions arising from Iranian attacks and threats and the US blockade of Iranian ports continue through midyear, the consequences would deepen significantly, he added.
Under that scenario, 32 million people would be pushed into poverty, 45 million more would face extreme hunger as fertiliser runs low and crop yields fall, and “hard-won development gains” could be reversed overnight.
In a worst-case scenario, where severe disruptions persist through the end of the year, “we confront the spectre of a global recession with dramatic impacts on people, on the economy, and on political and social stability,” he warned.
“These consequences are not cumulative. They are exponential,” Guterres stressed, cautioning that the longer the vital artery is choked, the harder it will be to reverse the damage.
Guterres highlighted diplomatic efforts underway to break the deadlock in the US-Iran talks.
“My message to all parties is clear: Navigational rights and freedoms must be restored immediately,” Guterres said. “Open the Strait. Let all ships pass. Let the global economy breathe again.”
Workers wrote ‘Katrina declaration’, warning that funding cuts made US dangerously unprepared for natural disasters
Fourteen employees with the US Federal Emergency Management Agency returned to work this week, after spending eight months on administrative leave for signing a public letter criticising the Trump administration.
The so-called “Katrina declaration”, sent last August to members of Congress and a federal council formed to help determine Fema’s future, was written as a rebuke from the workers about the dangerous erosion in US capacity to prepare for and respond to natural disasters.
US President Donald Trump and the head of the Secret Service said on Thursday the federal agent injured during the attack at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner had not been hit by friendly fire, as authorities released a video of the incident.
Jeanine Pirro, the US Attorney for the District of Columbia, posted the nearly six-minute video on social media amid lingering questions over whose bullet struck the officer.
Pirro noted that the security footage captured suspect Cole Tomas...
Login
