Regional News

(Trinidad Guardian) The murder toll continued to rise, after two men were gunned down at Desperlie Crescent, Laventille, on Thursday. 

The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) and the Government of Antigua and Barbuda announced on Saturday that the ECCB has assumed control of the ABI Bank after it had encountered difficulties conducting its normal operations due to an inadequacy of liquid assets.

(Trinidad Express) This country will not be shut down by the labour movement and Government will survive whatever action it takes, says Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar.

(Jamaica Observer) The Government on Tuesday banned the scrap metal trade in a desperate move to save the country’s infrastructure by putting a new breed of brazen scavengers out of business.

(Jamaica Observer) More than four months after Jamai-can Shanique Myrie was finger-raped, verbally abused, locked up and kicked out of Barbados, the Barbadian Government is yet to respond to correspondence from her lawyers.

TAMPA, Fla., (Reuters) – The Cuban government has  given the green light to air service between Tampa and Havana  and charter flights could begin as early as September 10, the  chief executive of the Tampa airport said yesterday.

CIEGO DE AVILA, Cuba, (Reuters) – Cuba is pressing  ahead with plans to revamp its economy and fine tune its one  party political system, but it will take time, Vice President  Jose Ramon Machado Ventura said yesterday in a nationally  televised address.

(Barbados Nation) Barbados is making steady progress towards becoming the first country in the world to have free wireless access everywhere.

(Jamaica Observer) Caribbean media practitioners have been challenged to expand their role as social advocates and demand accountability from governments in the face of increasing evidence of corruption.

(Trinidad Express) Health Minister Dr Fuad Khan decided on Monday night to give up his private medical practice, hours after he was given an ultimatum by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar to choose between it and his ministerial position.

(Jamaica Observer) SANTA CRUZ, St Elizabeth — The community of Junction in South East St Elizabeth is in shock following the shooting death of a 17-year-old girl close to her home Monday night.

(Jamaica Gleaner) A financial institution has been ordered by the Supreme Court to pay US$70,000 with interest to one of its customers who was given wrong advice by one of its employees to invest her money in the failed investment scheme Cash Plus Ltd.

(Trinidad Guardian) The theft of five guns from gang members in Picton Road, Laventille, is said to be linked to the killing of seven men in east Port-of-Spain and Laventille during the past three weeks. 

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will seek another six-year term in an election next year despite recent surgery to remove a cancerous tumor, he told a state newspaper in an interview published late on Sunday.

BOGOTA (Reuters) – The leader of one of Colombia’s most powerful criminal groups was gunned down by his own bodyguards yesterday in the drug-plagued Antioquia province, police said.

PARAMARIBO (De Ware Tijd) – With the reactivation of its membership of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Suriname is going for financing of its agrarian programs by the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), the OIC’s financing branch.

CARACAS (Reuters) – South American independence hero Simon Bolivar was not murdered by Colom-bian foes as suggested by Hugo Chavez but may have died of accidental poisoning, according to a study ordered by Venezuela’s leader.

Jamaican Karl Rodney, 73, the founder and head of the weekly New York Carib News, has been sentenced to two years probation and 500 house of community service for lying to the US Congress, according to the Caribbean Media Corporation.

(Trinidad Express) Best friends Abigail Johnson and Allana Duncan, along with construction worker Kerron “Fingers” Eccles, were shot dead by police on Friday night.

(Jamaica Gleaner) As the Jamaican society continues to reel from the gory practice of beheadings being perpetrated by hoodlums, a fourth person suffered the horrific fate early on Saturday, but miles away from the ghastly scene of the first three.