Regional News

(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.

CARACAS, (Reuters) – Military and civilian allies of  Venezuela’s convalescent President Hugo Chavez insisted yesterday he was still running the OPEC oil-producing nation  despite his prolonged absence in Cuba for the removal of a  cancerous tumor.

LONDON, (Reuters) – Despite a recent move to classify  mobile phones as possibly carcinogenic, the scientific evidence  increasingly points away from a link between their use and brain  tumours, according to a new study yesterday.

Six Caribbean countries are to benefit from technical assistance grants from the USA under the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas (ECPA), but Guyana is not among them.

(Trinidad Express) The health of the local economy depends on the country’s ability to fix the disparity between the wages of men and women.

(Trinidad Guardian) A father was sentenced on Wednesday to a total of 57 years in prison with hard labour for having sex on three occasions with his young daughter and sexually assaulting her. 

(Jamaica Gleaner) Senator Dorothy Lightbourne has been dumped from her post as justice minister and attorney general, making her the biggest casualty of the long-anticipated reshuffle of the Bruce Golding Cabinet.

(Jamaica Gleaner) The United States Embassy in Kingston has finally responded to Prime Minister Bruce Golding’s allegation that its officials were, among other things, “belligerent and aggressive” in diplomatic talks relating to the extradition request for accused drug kingpin Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke.

NEW YORK,  (Reuters Life!) – Flights at John F.  Kennedy International Airport were delayed shortly yesterday  when about 150 diamondback terrapin turtles were spotted  crossing a runway, authorities said.

LONDON, (Reuters) – Annual funding for research and  development (R&D) in the fight against malaria has quadrupled  over 16 years, generating the strongest pipeline of potential  treatments in history, according to a report yesterday.

(Jamaica Gleaner) With Jamaica getting ready to celebrate 50 years of political independence from the United Kingdom next year, most Jamaicans are of the view that the country would have been better off had it remained a colony of Britain.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Demands by Venezuela’s opposition for information on President Hugo Chavez’s health grew louder yesterday and bond prices rallied on speculation the socialist leader could be seriously ill.

(Trinidad Express) – A letter of complaint from the Congress of the People (COP) denouncing changes in the People’s Partnership administration was delivered to Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar on Sunday night.

(Trinidad Express) Business mogul Lawrence Duprey on Thursday made moves to stall the Commission of Enquiry into the collapse of financial conglomerate CL Financial, scheduled to kick off on Monday.