Regional News

(Trinidad Express) State carrier Caribbean Airlines has officially launched its service from Port of Spain to Orlando, Florida.

CARACAS, (Reuters) – Venezuela’s convalescing  President Hugo Chavez dismissed rumours of a reshuffle yesterday and kept all his ministers in their jobs, thanking  them for their work while he underwent cancer surgery in Cuba.

JOHANNESBURG, (Reuters) – A century ago, it was the  explorers and infantrymen of Europe’s great powers slugging it  out for slices of Africa.

BRASILIA, (Reuters) – Brazil’s transport minister yesterday became the latest top official to quit because of  corruption allegations, adding to the recent struggles of  President Dilma Rousseff’s six-month-old government.  

(Barbados Nation) Regional neighbours are slamming doors on many Barbadian-made products.

(Jamaica Observer) persons are now behind bars after the St James Police seized about 2,000 pounds of compressed ganja in Irwin district in the parish on Tuesday.

(Trinidad Guardian) Thick black smoke formed a canvas over sections of the Trincity Industrial Estate on Tuesday as a fire flattened Lots 31 and 32 of manufacturing company Thermoplas Limited, located on Tissue Drive.

MANAUS, Brazil, (Reuters) – Thirty years after he  first visited Brazil’s Amazon to observe natural gas seeps,  geologist Marcio Mello is back to fulfill what he gleefully  calls his “destiny” — to lead a rush for the region’s oil.

(Trinidad Express) Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has stated that the Caricom heads of Government, at their meeting over the weekend in St Kitts, have agreed in principle to waive immunity from cocaine prosecution for individuals at the Caricom Implementation Agency for Crime and Security (Impacs).

(Jamaica Observer) ROMAN Catholic priest Monsignor Gregory Ramkissoon has issued a call for wealthy Jamaicans to give more of their resources and time to the country’s vulnerable, poor and the youth in the face of overwhelming need.

(Trinidad Guardian) Lured by high interest rates, shareholders who invested in the Hindu Credit Union (HCU) went from prosperity to poverty, after HCU’s funds had dried up in June 2008.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s ever-theatrical President Hugo Chavez made a surprise homecoming yesterday after cancer surgery in Cuba, thrilling supporters with an emotional pledge to win the fight to regain his health.

(Trinidad Guardian) Plans are afoot to slash this country’s TT$4 billion food import bill in half by growing rice, corn, peas and beans on a large scale by 2012.

(Jamaica Gleaner) Six years ago when Lorraine Carpenter found out her sixth child was a girl, she was filled with joy and decided that she would stop having children.

(Jamaica Gleaner) Finance Minister Audley Shaw says Jamaica is planning to return the bailout funds it got from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as he moves to re-engineer the debt-servicing bill on padded foreign reserves.

(Jamaica Gleaner) Western Bureau: Doctors at the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH) worked hard to save 17-year-old Khajeel Mais’ life last Friday night, and when nothing seemed to be working, one of the medics held the Kingston College sixth-form student and prayed.

(Trinidad Guardian) Government must first examine what will happen “at home” in T&T regarding the Clico matter before it can consider outside, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has said, noting regional concerns about the Clico issue.

(Barbados Nation) Church leaders have denounced the lewdness and vulgarity of Crop Over, particularly Kadooment, and are advising members of their faiths to steer clear of the festival in its present form.

(Jamaica Observer) A police inspector assigned to a Corporate Area Police Division was on Saturday nabbed by members of the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) with more than 100 lbs of ganja.

(Trinidad Express) There should be a clause in the Constitution where whenever the Prime Minister is unable to report for duty, there is an “automatic identification” of who shall perform such duties (as Prime Minister), Acting Prime Minister Winston Dookeran said on Friday.