TRINIDAD – Valen­tine’s Day turned out to be a scary ex­pe­ri­ence for an el­der­ly cou­ple when they woke up to find a four-feet Boa Constrictor in their bed­room ceil­ing Thursday.  Robin Nages­sar, 73, and his wife Sum­intra, 61, re­mained out­side their home for about four hours un­til the snake was cap­tured by se­nior Game War­den Steve Seep­er­sad.

Re­call­ing the scary en­counter, Nages­sar said he got up around 3 am be­cause his wife had to go out.  Nages­sar said he saw the snake around 6.30 am when he was about to ap­ply med­ica­tion in his eyes.  He said he did not at­tempt to cap­ture it be­cause he was too afraid.  His wife re­called, “I was wash­ing wares when my hus­band said to come and see some­thing. When I came clos­er I saw a big snake, watch­ing. I was fright­ened. I stayed out of the house un­til about 12 o’clock when they moved it. I was too fright­ened to go back in­side.”  She sus­pect­ed that the snake crawled out of the bush­es and in­to their house dur­ing the night.

Their daugh­ter, who lives near­by with her hus­band, called the Fire Ser­vice who then con­tact­ed the game war­den.  Seep­er­sad said he found the two-year-old red tail boa, in the ceil­ing be­tween the galvanize and rafter. He de­scribed the snake as a ba­by as it usu­al­ly grows to about 12 feet long. “It is def­i­nite­ly non-ven­omous. If it were to bite you, it would feel as if you got a bite from a dog,” Seep­er­sad said.

Seep­er­sad sus­pect that the snake sought refuge in the cou­ple’s home from the bush fires. He said the snake is pro­tect­ed and any­one who kills it could face a fine of $10,000. He not­ed that the fine was in­creased from $200 to $10,000 as of Jan­u­ary 1. (Trinidad Guardian)…[+]

A team of British investigators is in Bulgaria looking into whether the 2015 suspected poisoning of a local arms dealer has links to the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter last year in Salisbury. “There is a British team here on the ground,” Bulgaria’s prime minister, Boyko Borisov, told the Guardian in an interview in Sofia. “They are jointly conducting an investigation with Bulgarian law enforcement authorities.”

Emilian Gebrev, who runs a Bulgarian company that produces and exports weapons, fell into a coma in April 2015, along with his son and one of his company directors. All three survived the suspected poisoning, but the case was never solved.

In October last year, after talking over the Skripal case with a friend, he approached Bulgarian prosecutors with the results of laboratory tests from 2015, which he believed showed he could have been poisoned with a nerve agent similar to novichok, the substance British authorities believe was used against Skripal and his daughter.(theguardian)…[+]

ABUJA – A tribunal today issued an arrest warrant for Nigeria’s suspended chief judge for failing to appear for trial over alleged breaches of asset declaration rules, days before Saturday’s presidential election.

The ‘code of conduct tribunal’ had ordered chief judge Walter Onnoghen to appear for trial on Wednesday. The tribunal issued the warrant for Onnoghen to appear on Feb. 15.

“The inspector general of police is hereby ordered to arrest and bring the defendant to court unfailingly on the next sitting of the court on Friday,” Chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) Danladi Umar said. Onnoghen was suspended by President Muhammadu Buhari last month pending the tribunal’s verdict on his alleged violation of wealth declaration rules, weeks before a Feb. 16 presidential election in which Buhari is seeking a new mandate.(Reuters)…[+]

Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith has with immediate effect, raised the policing alert from ‘Amber’ to ‘Red’, as a result of ongoing gang activities and homicides.

In a statement yesterday afternoon, Commissioner Griffith said that law abiding citizens may experience some inconvenience due to these intensified operations, however, it is necessary to deal with criminal activity and to maintain law and order across the country.The Commissioner will host a media briefing tomorrow, at 10a.m. at the Police Administration Building, Port of Spain, to update the nation on the status of the policing operations.(Trinidad Express)…[+]