Regional News

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s visit to Iran this weekend may be the last chance to engage Iran over its nuclear programme before fresh UN sanctions, a senior US official said yesterday.

Manifesto torn In Trinidad and Tobago, United National Congress (UNC) leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar has angered the ruling Peoples National Movement (PNM) by publicly tearing to pieces the PNM’s manifesto for the 24 May general election.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela has arrested 19 Colombians accused of carrying illegal arms and cutting trees, in the latest of a series of such incidents stoking tensions between the Andean neighbours, state media said yesterday.

GENEVA (Reuters) – India and Brazil launched a trade dispute against the European Union and the Netherlands yesterday, saying their seizures of generic drugs were hurting healthcare in poor countries and disrupting international trade.

(Trinidad Express) – Police and army personnel were called out to assist with security at Piarco International Airport and Crown Point International Airport on Tuesday.

PM knew all along Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding has admitted to parliament that he knew of attempts to lobby the US government to drop its extradition request for Jamaican national Christopher “Dudus” Coke, who is wanted on drug-related charges.

(Jamaica Gleaner) Gang feuds have been blamed for 38 of the 609 murders committed across the island since the start of this year, but the police accept that marauding criminal gangs are responsible for much more.

(Trinidad Express) A 41-year-old mother of two who had obtained a restraining order against her attacker was murdered by him on Monday morning.

(Jamaica Observer) Several persons, including key figures in the entertainment industry, on Monday gathered in Half-Way-Tree, the St Andrew capital, to pray for their colleague Oneil Edwards.

– relatives claim campaign connection (Trinidad Express) – Five people, including two children, died in a fire at the home of a known United National Congress (UNC) activist, which police and fire officials believe was deliberately set.

CARACAS (Reuters) – “Fatherland, Socialism or  Death!” scream the large red letters on a typical  pro-government street painting in Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela.

(Jamaica Gleaner) Gang activities in many inner-city communities in the Corporate Area and St Catherine have taken on new terrifying and crippling dimensions and residents of these communities now understand that they must obey the orders issued by these hoodlums, or die.

(Jamaica Observer) Former Minister of National Security Dr Peter Phillips says Tivoli Gardens strongman Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke is possibly more powerful than the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Govern-ment which has been attracting a lot of flack over its refusal to act on a United States extradition request for Coke.

CARACAS (Reuters) – A Venezuelan military tribunal  has sentenced an outspoken critic of President Hugo Chavez to  nearly eight years in jail for corruption while he was minister  of defence, state media reported  yesterday.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez  has said a presidential election win in neighbouring Colombia by  former defence minister Juan Manuel Santos would be a disaster  for efforts to repair relations between the two countries.

(Jamaica Observer) – Criminals continued their orgy of slaughter on Thursday by slashing the throats of three men and a woman in a Spanish Town community that reacted with shock and horror at the savagery of the early morning murders.

Haiti bill heading for President’s signature A bill to help Haiti rebuild after its devastating earthquake was headed yesterday to President Barack Obama for his signature.

(Trinidad Express) – Security precautions heightened at the United National Congress’s (UNC) Rienzi Complex headquarters, in Couva, as police investigated reports that there was a $5 million contract out to kill Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar.

HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuba’s government on Monday ousted its transportation minister and sugar minister, faulting their job performance, as President Raul Castro shook up his cabinet.

(Jamaica Gleaner) – A five-year-old boy who was found with his throat slashed at home in Clarendon on Sunday was one of at least nine persons murdered on the weekend as violence continued unabated.