Regional News

(Jamaica Gleaner) – Claiming Jamaica appears close to defaulting on its debts, ratings agency Moody’s Investors has downgraded the country’s local and foreign currency bonds from B2 to Caa1 with a negative outlook.

OECS discuss economic union Leaders from the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) are this week furthering talks on plans to establish an economic union, at their meeting in Anguilla.

STOCKHOLM/BRUSSELS, (Reuters) – European Union trade  negotiators are within days of a deal to cut tariffs on bananas  imported from outside the African and Caribbean regions, notably  from Latin America, EU trade commissioner Catherine Ashton said.

MIAMI, (Reuters) – Venezuela has shown little  interest in curbing the number of illegal flights hauling  Colombian cocaine from its territory for the United States and  Europe, a U.S.

SANTIAGO, (Reuters) – BHP Billiton halted operations  at its Spence copper mine in Chile after striking workers  invaded the installations, a company official said on  Wednesday, the 37th day of the strike.

TERESINA, Brazil, (Reuters) – Raimundo Alves used to  get his food by scavenging at a garbage dump on the outskirts  of Teresina, the capital of the impoverished northeastern  Brazilian state of Piaui.

(Trinidad Express)  Prime Minister Patrick Manning called the media to a meeting on Sunday night at the newly- commissioned National Academy for the Performing Arts, to announce that the 15,000-capacity Queen’s Park Savannah Carnival Centre is the next project on the government’s development agenda.

(Jamaica Gleaner) Government officials are expressing concern about recent pronouncements from Britain aimed at further tightening its immigration policies.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Peru will quit an APEC summit in Singapore after recalling its envoy to Chile over charges a Peruvian military officer had spied for the Chilean government,  Peru’s foreign minister said yesterday.

(Trinidad Express) Trinidad and Tobago is officially in a recession. Central Bank Governor Ewart Williams has confirmed what the business sector and the labour force have been reeling from for months — that the local economy contracted for the third consecutive quarter.

(Antigua Sun) – The Lower House of Parliament met Tuesday evening to debate a motion in an effort to find answers to the recent increase of rape and other violent crimes against women and to come up with solutions.

HAVANA (Reuters) – Peas and potatoes have become the harbingers of change in Cuba as President Raul Castro chips away at some of the Cuban revolution’s most hallowed social programmes.

Patent office recommended Caribbean ministers have agreed to recommend one office for the region for issuing patents.

SAO PAULO (Reuters) – United Nations peacekeeping forces will not leave Haiti any time soon as the country, one of the world’s poorest, remains fragile, the Brazilian general in charge of the UN troops told Reuters.

Cuba must make human rights gestures The European Union’s development commissioner wants Cuba to show signs it’s serious about protecting fundamental human rights.

HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuba has ordered all state enterprises to adopt “extreme measures” to cut energy usage through the end of the year in hopes of avoiding the dreaded blackouts that plagued the country following the 1991 collapse of its then-top ally, the Soviet Union.

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – David Williams acknowledges the enormity of the task, but he feels West Indies can spring a surprise, and topple Australia in their three-Test series, starting later this month.

(Jamaica Observer) Government on Sunday opened tenders for the construction of a modern firearms tactical training unit at the Jamaica Police Academy in Twickenham Park, St Catherine.

(Trinidad Express) Prime Minister Patrick Manning could not hide his feeling of vindication and national pride as he opened the TT$480 million controversial National Academy for the Performing Arts on Monday.

(BBC) The International Monetary Fund has approved a US$1.7 billion loan programme to help the Dominican Republic through the economic crisis.