Regional News

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.

(Trinidad Express) A mother and her two young children were found murdered at their Plumbago Avenue, La Horquetta, home on Thursday.

(Barbados Nation) Attorney Vonda Pile was placed on Bds$500 000 bail and ordered to report weekly to Central Police Station, on Thursday when she appeared before the District “A” Magistrates’ Court on four charges, including two of money laundering.

(Jamaica Gleaner) The attorneys representing Patrick Powell, the businessman charged with the murder of 17-year-old Khajeel Mais, on Thursday expressed disgust at what they claim was the discourtesy shown to them by the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

(Jamaica Gleaner) History was created on Thursday in the St Mary Circuit Court when a senior citizen who sexually molested his 50-year-old stepdaughter when she was four years old got a 12-month jail sentence for indecent assault.

(Barbados Nation) Twenty-three men perished in Barbados last year to the deadly AIDS virus.

(Jamaica Gleaner) The interim head of a CARICOM security body says a proposed project to facilitate the sharing of critical ballistics information among the Caribbean community could go a far way in smashing criminal networks involved in transnational organised crimes across the region.

(Trinidad Guardian) Consumers can now enjoy a local menu of sweet potato fries from the popular fast food restaurant KFC.

(Jamaica Observer) Businessman Patrick Powell was  charged with murder resulting from the shooting death of 17-year-old student Khajeel Mais and was to face

(Trinidad Guardian) Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s adviser on public engagements, Sasha Mohammed, on Wednesday tendered her resignation from the post “with immediate effect.”

(Trinidad Express) Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has agreed to meet with trade union leaders next Tuesday.

(Jamaica Observer) Homicide detectives are now on the scene of a double murder in Lauriston, a small community on the outskirts of Spanish Town in St Catherine, where two females were beheaded yesterday morning.

(Trinidad Express) By the end of the year, parking on the streets of Port of Spain will no longer be free.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela’s top court yesterday scrapped an investigation of the opposition favourite to run against President Hugo Chavez, calming concerns the government could seek to keep rivals off the 2012 presidential ballot.