Belize

Some 7,312 foreigners have become Turkish citizens over the past three years by investing in property in the country, daily Milliyet has reported.

"Turkey started a citizenship program in 2017. In 2017-2018, any foreigner investing $1 million in Turkey can apply for citizenship. Since Sept. 18, 2018, the limit was lowered to $250,000," the daily reported on Nov. 22.

A powerful magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck in the Caribbean Sea between Jamaica and eastern Cuba on Jan. 28, shaking a vast area from Mexico to Florida and beyond, but there were no reports of casualties or heavy damage.

The availability and capacity to actively contribute through parliamentary diplomacy to strengthening EU relations with the African, Caribbean and Pacific group of states was central theme of talks held Thursday by Chairman of the Romanian Senate Calin Popescu-Tariceanu with a group of senior representatives of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly (ACP-EU).

Radu Paltineanu is the first Romanian to have cycled the Americas north to south from Alaska (US) to Tierra del Fuego - Argentine, in a more than 34,500 km journey that started on August 5, 2015 and saw him reach the finish in Ushuaia, at the 'End of the World' on the evening of October 22, 2018, after 3 years, 2 months and 17 days.

The UN Human Rights Committee, which monitors implementation by States of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), will meet in Geneva from October 8 to November 2 to review Belarus, Belize, Bulgaria, Guinea, Sudan, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

The meetings will be webcast here and #CCPR124 will be the recommended hashtag for the meeting.

An earthquake of magnitude 7.6 on the Richter scale shook the Caribbean. The epicenter was near the islands belonging to Honduras. There is no information yet about casualties and damages. However, there is a danger of tsunami in the territories of Mexico, Cuba, Belize, Costa Rica, Panama, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.

The National Bank of Moldova on Thursday published a detailed summary of the second investigative report by US company Kroll and Steptoe & Johnson, which backs prosecution claims that the banker and mayor of the town of Orhei Ilan Shor was behind the huge bank fraud that rocked the country in 2014.

Following a BIRN Albania investigation, Albania's General Prosecutor on Thursday said the Tirana District Prosecutors had opened an investigation into the Democratic Party's acounts about how much it had spent on US lobbying companies.

The surface of the Earth is full…of holes. Some are on the ground, some underwater but all of them are exciting!

Whether holes are natural or artificial, it is a reminder that we live in a truly amazing planet.

(Click to enlarge)

Belize

Bahamas

Three companies will be fined by the Commission for the Protection of Competition because they have sold "non-standard" cheese in which cow's milk has been mixed with non-animal fats. The offenders are "Rafti-milk", "Sirma Prista" and "Ceh - Yosif Novosad" and sanctions are 1% of their turnover for 2016, the CPC said yesterday.