Nine farmers have taken advantage of a 2 million dollar revolving fund, being facilitated through the Barbados Agricultural Society. That’s according to Minister of Agriculture, Food and Nutritional Security Indar Weir, who is encouraging farmers to utilise the funds from the loan scheme announced by Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley during the March 2023 budgetary proposals. Minister Weir is reminding farmers that they must qualify to access the funds.

The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting concluded in Samoa with leaders reaffirming their commitment to tackling global economic, environmental and security challenges. Barbados was represented by Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley. Countries have also adopted the Apia Commonwealth Ocean Declaration for One Resilient Common Future, which calls on all Commonwealth nations to protect and restore the ocean in the face of severe climate change, pollution and impacts related to over-exploitation. Key aspects of the Declaration include recognition of national maritime boundaries in the face of sea-level rise and the urgent finalisation of the Global Plastics Treaty. Commonwealth Secretary-General, the Right Honourable Patricia Scotland says the progress made with the Blue Charter that underpins the Declaration helps member states rise to today’s climate challenges and seize tomorrow’s opportunities. Ms. Scotland says Commonwealth leaders tackled a range of topics and this is seen in the communique. She says action was taken on several matters. Antigua and Barbuda meanwhile was announced as the incoming Chair-in-Office and host country for the next Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.

Photo: Serhii Lysak/Dnipropetrovsk Regional Military Administration via CNN Newsource (CNN) — Russia struck a major Ukrainian hospital used to treat injured soldiers, killing at least five people, Ukrainian officials said. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the Mechnikov Hospital in the south-central city of Dnipro one of the country’s “most important.” Before the war it treated up to 40,000 patients a year. Five people, including a child, were killed in the strikes overnight, said Serhii Lysak, head of the Dnipro regional military administration, posting on his official Telegram. The strike comes just days after Russian President Vladimir Putin faced calls from world leaders attending the BRICs summit in Kazan, Russia to end the war in Ukraine. Zelensky made a pointed reference to this week’s summit in his statement posted on social media, saying that “after everything said in Kazan, Russian murderers have resumed their usual business.” “This proves once again that aggression cannot be stopped by words alone but only by decisive action in defense of the state and the people against whom this war is waged,” the Ukrainian leader added. At least 21 people were injured in the attack on Dnipro including a 17-year-old boy who is in a “serious condition,” according to Lysak. “As a result of the overnight missile attack, there is damage in several locations in the city,” Lysak said, adding that one apartment building had been destroyed and two dozen others damaged by the strike. Photos shared by Lysak showed rescuers working through huge piles of rubble and the inside of what looked to be a hospital room with blown out windows. The city’s mayor, Borys Filatov described a sleepless night he spent as missiles descended upon the city. “This is not just a two-story building. This is an ordinary residential building with eight apartments hit with a ballistic missile,” Filatov added. Dnipro was not the only major Ukrainian city hit overnight. The capital, Kyiv also experienced a drone attack, according to the head of the military administration, Serhii Popko. A young girl was killed after her apartment building in the Solomianskyi district was struck, Popko said. A woman in her 50s was also killed by strikes in the Kyiv region, according to the regional military administration. More than 100 people were evacuated from the same residential building in the city after what Popko said was the sixteenth air attack on Kyiv this month alone. The Ukrainian Air Force said Russia used a combination of “various types of missiles, Shahed-type attack UAVs, and drones of unspecified type” to carry out attacks across the country. Ukrainian air defenses succeeded in shooting down 44 out of 91 Russian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), the Air Force said on Telegram. Three Iskander-M/KN-23 ballistic missiles launched by Crimea were also detected, according to the air force.