Regional News

Jamaica says it won’t default Jamaica’s Prime Minister, Bruce Golding, has fended off suggestions that the island might default on its debt repayments.

(Jamaica Gleaner) – At least one, and maybe more, of the young girls reported missing under the Ananda Alert system are in St Catherine, working as prostitutes on the Port Henderson strip, better known as ‘Back Road’.

BRASILIA (Reuters) – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in Brasilia yesterday seeking support for his controversial nuclear programme, the first leg of a South American tour that critics say could dent Brazil’s ambitions on the global diplomatic stage.

(BVI Daily News) – A man who fathered a child with a minor and pleaded not guilty to the offence of having sex with a girl under the age of 16 will stand trial today in the High Court.

Democracy ‘health check’ needed A report published yesterday says that many Commonwealth countries have failed to encourage open political competition.

BOGOTA (Reuters) – Colombia will not be provoked into armed conflict with Venezuela despite the neighboring country’s aggressive rhetoric and its dynamiting of two cross-border pedestrian bridges, Colom-bia’s defense minister said yesterday.

(Antigua Sun) – The 24-year-old Guyanese man who was convicted last month for uttering false documents to immigration officials is expected to be jointly charged with a Guyanese woman believed to be an accomplice.

Nine million added to poverty list The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) says an additional nine million people have sunk into poverty this year.

(Trinidad Express) – Crime Stoppers International launched the Caribbean’s Most Wanted website on Tuesday night.

(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.