Sweden’s parliament has voted to give the Social Democrat leader, Stefan Löfven, a second term in office at the head of a new centre-left minority government, ending more than four months of deadlock following an inconclusive election.

The caretaker prime minister will take office on Monday, governing in a coalition with the Green party and with the parliamentary backing of the Centre and Liberal parties, formerly members of the four-party centre-right opposition Alliance. The 9 September election produced a hung parliament, with the centre-right and centre-left blocs that have dominated Swedish politics for decades each securing about 40% of the vote and separated by a single seat, heralding months of complex coalition talks.

Neither bloc was easily able to form a new government without in some way involving the third-biggest party, the far-right, anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, with whom all other parties have refused to cooperate at national level. “More and more governments are becoming reliant on parties with an anti-democratic agenda,” Löfven said after winning the vote in parliament. “But in Sweden we stand up for democracy, for equality. Sweden has chosen a different path.”(theguardian)…[+]

CARACAS – Venezuela will receive 2,000 Cuban doctors who left Brazil following a dispute between the Communist-run island and the government of far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who ordered an end to their stay after taking office this year. Bolsonaro said some 11,000 doctors were being used as “slave labor” and demanded that the Cuban government, which took 75 percent of their salaries, allow them to be paid in full and have their families join them.

Cuba refused and pulled the doctors out.“Next week, we’re going to have a special event that celebrates the arrival of 2,000 new community doctors that Cuba is sending us. They are coming from Brazil,” President Nicolas Maduro said in a televised broadcast. “Brazilian fascism ended the health plan, and the 2,000 doctors are coming to Venezuela,” he said. Clinics run by Cuban doctors were a signature program of late socialist leader Hugo Chavez, who enjoyed an oil windfall during his 14-year rule that ended with his 2013 death from cancer. Venezuela paid for the medical services with shipments of oil.(reuters)…[+]

A Canadian man, who reportedly attempted to smuggle just more than seven pounds of cocaine out of the island last November, is likely to plead guilty to breaches of the Dangerous Drugs Act when he reappears in the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court today.

The accused, 55-year-old David Barnes, an upholsterer of Toronto, Canada was arrested and charged with possession of cocaine, dealing in cocaine and attempting to export cocaine after the drugs was found in his luggage at the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston. According to a police report, on November 11, about 2:20 pm, Barnes checked into the airport to board a flight home when a drug-sniffing dog at the airport led authorities to one of his suitcases which allegedly had cocaine weighing more than seven pounds.

The Canadian was subsequently arrested and charge for the drugs, which is estimated to have a street value of $4 million. When Barnes appeared in court Wednesday his Attorney Alicia Campbell told Parish Judge Vaughn Smith that her client was planning to take a certain course but that she needs to have further discussion with him. He was subsequently remanded to return to court today.(Jamaica Observer)….[+]