More than 4 million Venezuelans have now fled economic and humanitarian chaos in what the UN’s refugee agency called a “staggering” exodus that has swelled by 1 million people since last November alone. The number of Venezuelan migrants and refugees stood at about 695,000 at the end of 2015, the UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) announced on Friday.

Three and a half years later – with Venezuela immersed in a seemingly intractable social and political crisis – that number has “skyrocketed” to more than 4 million, the groups said. About half of that total have sought shelter in two South American countries – Colombia and Peru – which host about 1.3 million and 768,000 respectively. Many others have made for Chile (288,000), Ecuador (263,000), Brazil (168,000) and Argentina (130,000). The humanitarian groups said “significant” numbers were also heading to the Caribbean, Central America and Mexico. Venezuelan activists and officials in Mexico estimate the exile community there has grown to about 40,000 in recent years.(theguardian)…[+]

A Russian warship and a US warship have come close to collision in the western Pacific Ocean, with each side blaming the other for the incident. Russia’s Pacific Fleet said the cruiser USS Chancellorsville crossed just 50m (160ft) in front of the destroyer Admiral Vinogradov at 06:35 Moscow time (03:35 GMT).

It was forced to perform “emergency manoeuvring” to avoid the US ship. But US forces blamed the Russians, claiming their ship was responsible. US Seventh Fleet Commander Clayton Doss called the Russians “unsafe and unprofessional”, saying their destroyer “made an unsafe manoeuvre against USS Chancellorsville”. He dismissed the Russian allegation as “propaganda”.

Admiral Vinogradov came within 50 to 100 feet (15m-30m) of the USS Chancellorsville in the Philippine Sea, the US said. The Russian Pacific Fleet meanwhile said the incident took place in the southeast of the East China Sea, and added they had sent a message of protest to the US ship’s commanders. In a statement it said the US warship had “suddenly changed direction and crossed the path of Admiral Vinogradov just 50m away,” forcing the Russian crew to make a quick manoeuvre.(BBC)…[+]

A 16-year-old boy and sev­en oth­ers, who were ar­rest­ed dur­ing a po­lice raid at a mosque in Co­corite are ex­pect­ed to be placed on sev­er­al iden­ti­fi­ca­tion pa­rades. Po­lice sources said ac­cord­ing to in­tel­li­gence re­ceived the eight are sus­pect­ed to be in­volved in gang-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties in­clud­ing shoot­ings and mur­ders.

Po­lice al­so said they are be­lieved to be mem­bers of a gang that op­er­ate out of the Wa­ter­hole and Pow­der Mag­a­zine Phase 1 ar­eas. Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, at about 8 pm on Tues­day, a team of po­lice of­fi­cers from the West­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force and St James CID act­ed on in­tel­li­gence and went to a mosque where they con­duct­ed a search.

The of­fi­cers found al­leged­ly hid­den in the ceil­ing of the mosque, sev­er­al masks & ski masks that the of­fi­cers sus­pect were used dur­ing dif­fer­ent shoot­ing in­ci­dents in the said area over the past two weeks. The ex­er­cise was co­or­di­nat­ed by Act­ing Su­per­in­ten­dent Thomp­son and In­spec­tor Vin­cent and in­clud­ed Act­ing Sgt. Samuel, P.C’s Mur­ray, Gilkes, Mc Clean, Gen­ty, Bart, Roberts, Joseph, and sev­er­al oth­er of­fi­cers.(Trinidad Guardian)…[+]