Regional News

The World Health Organisation has urged medical aid agencies to stay in Haiti as long as possible while health care is rebuilt following last month’s earthquake.

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – Canada will help build a temporary administrative base for Haiti’s government from which to manage the country’s rebuilding after last month’s earthquake destroyed many ministries, Canada’s prime minister said yesterday.

(Trinidad Express) – Calypsonian/soca artiste, Kurt Allen, dethroned defending monarch Chalkdust on Sunday to become the 2010 National Calypso Monarch.

(Jamaica Gleaner) – While declaring its intention to maintain pressure on the government to consider its bid for the national airline, the Air Jamaica Staff Acquisition Team has revealed it is considering starting up a new airline operation.

School crumbles A school in Haiti has collapsed under the weight of a mudslide, killing at least four children.

(Antigua Sun) – The long queues of non-nationals on Redcliffe Quay stretching to St Mary’s Street hoping to renew their status will be a thing of the past, the cabinet approves a number of recommendations put forward by a committee set up to review immigration issues.

Heads visiting Haiti Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, was due to arrive in Haiti yesterday for a two-day tour.

BUENOS AIRES, (Reuters) – As an increasingly violent  and costly drugs war clogs up prisons with small-time users,  some Latin American countries are abandoning hardline U.S. 

(Jamaica Observer) – The St Andrew Central Police have asked members of the public who have been robbed of gold jewellery to contact them after they caught a Haitian man attempting to smuggle about 42 pounds of gold jewellery through the Norman Manley International Airport on Thursday.

(Trinidad Express) – A Guyanese woman was taken before a Port of Spain magistrate on Thursday, charged with receiving a laptop computer belonging to former West Indies star batsman Brian Lara.

(Antigua Sun) – Illegal immigrants in Antigua and Barbuda will be allowed to leave the country voluntarily during a six-month period.

(Jamaica Gleaner) – The government has agreed to ensure that Caribbean Airlines is designated the exclusive national carrier of Jamaica under the air services agreements between itself and other states.

(Trinidad Guardian) – Police have arrested seven foreign nationals and seized items believed to be stolen from the home of batting legend Brian Charles Lara, at a house in El Socorro, San Juan, on Tuesday.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Power-rationing has failed. The rains have still not come.

Issues unresolved Caricom is examining ways of giving common law spouses the right to move and work freely if their partners take up jobs within the single trading market.

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – A week before Valentine’s Day, a consignment of cocaine was found hidden among 20,000 roses from Latin America at Amsterdam airport, Dutch authorities said yesterday.

CARACAS, (Reuters) – Facing anger at a major  shortfall in electricity supply, Venezuela President Hugo  Chavez promised consumers and businesses big discounts for  slashing energy consumption, but ordered fines if they do not  comply.

(Jamaica Observer) Dozens of Air Jamaica staff and informal commercial importers (ICIs) on Monday staged a protest outside the Air Jamaica building in downtown Kingston over the Government’s plan to sell the airline to Trinidad-owned Caribbean Airlines.

(Trinidad Express) Fresh from his address to the nation, embattled Sport Minister Gary Hunt visited a school in Moruga on Monday, but brushed off calls for him to resign over the TT$2 million flag he commissioned at the Hasely Crawford Stadium.

(Jamaica Gleaner) As part of a wider initiative to determine how many legal guns are in the hands of Jamaicans – police, licensed firearm holders and gun dealers – National Security Minister Senator Dwight Nelson has ordered an islandwide audit.