CONAKRY, Guinea (AP) – Ebola could continue to spread in West Africa for months in one of the most challenging outbreaks of the disease the international community has ever faced, health experts said yesterday.

Dr Keiji Fukuda of the World Health Organisation said that while other outbreaks have seen more cases, the current one is remarkable for the wide area over which it has spread – from Guinea’s remote tropical forests to the country’s capital and over the border to Liberia. The fact that it has touched the teeming Guinean capital, Conakry, is also a concern.

WASHINGTON/LUHANSK, Ukraine (Reuters) – US Secretary of State John Kerry accused Russian agents and special forces yesterday of stirring separatist unrest in eastern Ukraine, saying Moscow could be trying to prepare for military action as it had in Crimea.

Armed pro-Moscow protesters were still occupying Ukrainian government buildings in two cities in the largely Russian-speaking east yesterday, although police ended a third occupation in a lightning night-time operation.

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – The Trinidad and Tobago government has announced the establishment of a National Security Special Operations Group to deal with criminal activities in the country.

But National Security Minister Gary Griffith made it clear that the new unit comprising, highly trained and specialised people capable of dealing  with hostage negotiation, counter-terrorist activities and gang warfare, was different from the Special Anti-Crime Unit of Trinidad and Tobago (SAUTT) that the coalition government disbanded soon after coming to office in 2010.

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar has denied reports that Tobago Development Minister Dr. Delmon Baker had resigned from her Cabinet due to allegations of improper conduct.

“That is totally untrue. He remains a member of my government,” she told the NEWSDAY newspaper on Wednesday.

There had been widespread speculation that Baker, a member of the Tobago Organisation of the People (TOP), one of the four parties in the coalition People’s Partnership government, had submitted his resignation.

CASTRIES, St. Lucia, CMC – As St. Lucians await the presentation of the 2014-15 national budget, providers within the tourism sector , will from this month, pay a 10 per cent Value Added Tax (VAT) on some services initially exempted from the fiscal measure.

Government introduced the VAT in October 2012 and St Lucia became the last member state in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) single market to introduce the  tax that replaced a raft of taxes and duties. St Lucia’s VAT is to be levied at 15 per cent on goods and services and at eight per cent in hotels.