Regional News

(Trinidad Express) Government is moving to regulate the foreign used car industry by early next year, Trade Minister Stephen Cadiz said on Thursday.

UNITED NATIONS, (Reuters) – U.N. Secretary-General  Ban Ki-moon announced yesterday the creation of an independent  panel to investigate Haiti’s cholera epidemic, which some  Haitians have blamed on U.N.

FOZ DO IGUACU, Brazil, (Reuters) – Brazil’s  President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said yesterday he will work  on alleviating poverty in Africa when he steps down from  office, but played down speculation that he might be interested  in heading the United Nations.  

FOZ DO IGUACU, Brazil, (Reuters) – South American  trade bloc Mercosur launched a plan yesterday to adopt common  trade, investment and immigration policies to help underpin  unprecedented economic growth in the region.  

CARACAS, (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Hugo  Chavez is taking decree powers for a year in a move he says is  needed to deal with disastrous floods but opponents denounce as  a calculated blow to democracy.

HAVANA, (Reuters) – Icing and pilot error caused the  Nov. 4 crash of a Cuban Aero Caribbean passenger plane in which  the 68 people on board were killed, the Cuban government said  yesterday.  

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – World Bank President Robert  Zoellick said yesterday that $49.3 billion had been pledged  by rich and emerging market countries to help the poorest  nations during a drive to replenish a fund devoted to that  purpose.

CARACAS, (Reuters) – Venezuelan President moved yesterday to bypass parliament and rule by decree  for a year in South America’s biggest oil producer, prompting  opposition accusations of behaving like a dictator.

BUENOS AIRES,  (Reuters) – Argentine President  Cristina Fernandez accused political rivals yesterday of  encouraging land grabs and fomenting squatter violence in which  at least three people were killed last week.

WASHINGTON,  (Reuters) – The U.S. Treasury yesterday  said it tightened sanctions on the financial network of two top  Colombian drug traffickers, blacklisting 20 individuals and 25  business enterprises.

(Trinidad Express) – The Caribbean Airlines board will not resign. Tired of being punched by its line Minister Jack Warner, CAL’s board sought to defend its actions in a three-page statement issued on Sunday.

(Trinidad Express) – Businessman Lawrence Duprey is disappointed about what is described as the People’s Partnership Government’s poor management of the collapsed CL Financial conglomerate and he is willing to return to Trinidad and Tobago “to set things right”.

(Jamaica Gleaner) John Maxwell, the fiery journalist and environmentalist, died from lung cancer late Friday at the age of 76.

PORT-AU-PRINCE  (Reuters) – Two of the top three candidates in Haiti’s presidential election yesterday rejected a plan to have vote tally sheets rechecked by a new commission amid allegations of irregularities and fraud.

(Barbados Nation) Dame Olga Lopes-Seale, also popularly known as ‘Aunty Olga’ has been hospitalised in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) after falling at her Stanmore Crescent, Black Rock, St Michael home and breaking a hip on Thursday evening.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan opposition leaders said yesterday they feared President Hugo Chavez would use decree powers he has requested to override an electoral setback that stripped him of a super-majority in parliament.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – Detailed genetic tests  confirm that the cholera strain that has killed more than 2,000  people in Haiti came from south Asia and most closely resembles  a strain circulating in Bangladesh, U.S.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, (Reuters) – Haiti’s electoral  authorities said yesterday they would urgently recheck vote  tally sheets from the Caribbean country’s troubled presidential  elections to try to defuse a dispute over the results that has  triggered nationwide unrest.

(Jamaica Gleaner) The contractor general Greg Christie has again questioned whether there is the political will in Jamaica to address the problem of corruption.

SANTIAGO, (Reuters) – Fire engulfed a prison in the  Chilean capital early yesterday, killing 81 inmates and  critically injuring 14 others, the government said, in the  country’s third-deadliest blaze ever.