Regional News

(Jamaica Gleaner) – Trinidad-owned Caribbean Airlines has revealed that it intends to hire about 1,000 people from the total workforce currently employed to Air Jamaica.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Delighted at his cyber success, Venezuela’s new Twitter convert President Hugo Chavez yesterday invited Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Bolivian President Evo Morales to join the micro-blogging site too.

BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazil’s Supreme Court rejected a case yesterday that could have opened the way for prosecutions of officials who committed crimes such as torture during the country’s 1964-1985 military dictatorship.

(Jamaica Observer) – The ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) has admitted that the decision to approach US law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips originated within its ranks and revealed that the mystery government minister who met  State Department officials and representatives of the law firm was junior foreign minister Dr Ronald Robinson.

BRASILIA (Reuters) – President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said yesterday he would try to use Brazil’s influence to persuade Iran not to develop nuclear weapons when he visits Tehran next month.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Top Democratic and Republican lawmakers said yesterday they have reached a deal to help Haiti recover from its earthquake by opening the US market to more of the country’s clothing and textiles.

(Jamaica Gleaner) – Operations at Jamaica’s two international airports were  brought to a standstill yesterday morning as disgruntled air Jamaica workers withdrew their services.

– US general WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A top US military official played down any role of Iranian special forces in Venezuela yesterday, saying Tehran’s activities there were diplomatic and commercial in nature — and not military.

(Antigua Sun) – The former boss of the Financial Services Regulatory Commission (FSRC) Leroy King has been committed for extradition to the Unites States (US) to face criminal charges.

(Trinidad Express) – Prime Minister Patrick Manning is panicking; he is desperate and fears that on May 24 he will lose the general election, UNC and COP political leaders Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Winston Dookeran say.

A group of 250 Haitians has been transported to Mexico by a navy ship, after being granted humanitarian visas to join relatives living in that Latin American country.

(Jamaica Gleaner) Since the start of this year, 150 members of the force, including recently installed commissioner, Owen Ellington, have faced polygraph tests, but the Police High Command has not said how many have failed these tests.

(Jamaica Observer) Organised criminal gangs and drug dealers are behind the growing multimillion-dollar trade in illicit cigarettes locally, the Sunday Observer has learnt.

Obama man sent back (Trinidad Guardian) UNC Political Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar says the deportation of Bernie Campbell — the former campaign strategist of Barack Obama — is an international disgrace that will affect diplomatic relations between T&T and the US.

(Trinidad Express) – Prime Minister Patrick Manning says there are strong and dangerous men surrounding United National Congress Political Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar.

PM hints of early election Antigua and Barbuda appears to be inching closer to a general election just over a year after the last national poll.

(Jamaica Observer) – The government of Jamaica is siding with deejay Vybz Kartel following his ban from performing in the sister Caribbean island of St Lucia and now has the matter under investigation.

(Jamaica Observer) – Dancehall entertainer Ninja Man and his son were remanded when they appeared in the Home Circuit Court yesterday.

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) – Crackberry is no joke. American college students are hooked on cell phones, social media and the Internet and showing symptoms similar to drug and alcohol addictions, according to a new study.

(Jamaica Observer) – Reggae singer, Jah Cure, has found himself on the wrong side of the law again.