Regional News

CARACAS (Reuters) – Police raided a house on Thursday owned by the president of a leading Venezuelan television station critical of President Hugo Chavez, who has threatened to punish the channel in recent days.

(Barbados Nation) – Ambassador to Caricom MP Denis Kellman, wants to see pan-Caribbean companies take the region’s productive sectors into the export markets.

The governor of the US Virgin Islands says he has submitted a $20 million energy programme for funding under President Obama’s stimulus programme.

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – Floods triggered by torrential rains have killed at least 11 people in Haiti, as the poor Caribbean nation struggles to recover from last year’s disasters, civil protection officials said yesterday.

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – Former US President Bill Clinton’s role as UN special envoy to Haiti will help raise world awareness of its plight as the poorest state in the Americas, Haiti’s prime minister said on Wednesday.

NEW DELHI, (Reuters) – India’s rebel Twenty20 league  faced a bleak future yesterday with many players seeking to  be released from their contracts to return to official cricket.

The Inter-American Development Bank yesterday approved a US$48.75 million loan to Trinidad and Tobago for the first phase of a programme to improve the quality and equity of education, with a focus on early childhood.

(Trinidad Express) Bad aviation fuel from State-owned National Petroleum (NP) shut down the domestic airbridge on Tuesday afternoon, leaving passengers stranded.

Tourism campaign planned The Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association says it is planning a campaign to highlight the importance of tourism to island economies.

CARACAS (Reuters) – President Hugo Chavez is threatening to close Venezuela’s top anti-government television station in his latest push to weaken the opposition and build a socialist state in South America’s top oil exporter.

BRASILIA, (Reuters) – Brazil is trying to forge an  alliance with African and South American countries to defend  seabed mining rights and strategic shipping lanes in the South  Atlantic, its defence minister said yesterday. 

(Jamaica Observer) The global economic downturn is hitting home with remittance inflows for the January to March period declining by 15 per cent to US$414.6 million compared to the corresponding period in 2008, the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) revealed in a report on Monday.

BOGOTA, (Reuters) – Colombian senators yesterday  approved a proposed referendum on whether President Alvaro  Uribe can run for re-election in 2010, taking the popular  conservative one step closer to an unprecedented third term.  

(Barbados Nation) The National Insurance Scheme (NIS) will continue to invest in Barbados, and Government is about to become a big client.

  Douglas stays on Prime Minister Denzil Douglas has been re-elected for a 21st consecutive year as leader of the governing Labour Party in St Kitts and Nevis.

(Jamaica Observer) – A number of clergymen here have fallen prey to fraudsters – some of them operating from right here on the island – who have hacked into their e-mail accounts and sought to swindle money from contacts listed in their address books.

MANILA (Reuters) – The Philippines, which has more gun-related deaths than any other country in Asia relative to its size, needs tougher gun control laws as the number of illegal weapons has topped one million, a police general said yesterday.

-Bodies dumped in river (TRINIDAD EXPRESS) IN A SCENE that bore resemblance to that of a mafia movie, two construction workers were found dead in the Felicity River.

HAVANA, (Reuters) – The United States and Cuba  offered a glimmer of hope last month that they might be ready  to end years of hostility, but neither side has moved much  since then to widen that window of opportunity.

(Jamaica Gleaner) The pain of 47-year-old Brigitte Smith is poignant as she revealed to The Sunday Gleaner how her now 72-year-old father allegedly raped her from as early as age four.