Regional News

(Antigua Sun) – A Guyanese man who faces deportation after pleading guilty to remaining in Antigua after the expiration of a permit has asked the court for time to sell his two cars and house.

HAVANA (Reuters) – Russia and Cuba have signed contracts that “set the bases” for Russian oil company Zarubezhneft to search for oil in Cuba’s part of the Gulf of Mexico, Cuba’s state-run press said on Wednesday.

Turks police continue search Police in the Turks and Caicos Islands say they are keeping up search and recovery efforts for missing Haitians whose boat sank earlier this week.

(Barbados nation) – There is a backlog of up to 6,000 Caribbean nationals seeking immigrant status in Barbados.

(BBC) – It appears that the protracted dispute between management and pilots of regional carrier LIAT could be resolved soon.

MIAMI,  (Reuters) – The U.S. Coast Guard yesterday called off its search for up to 67 Haitian migrants  missing from a wooden sailboat that sank off the Turks and  Caicos Islands, saying they were presumed lost at sea.

ATLANTA, (Reuters) – About half the U.S. population  should get vaccinated against H1N1 influenza but pregnant women  and healthcare workers should be at the front of the line, U.S. 

HAVANA, (Reuters) – Cash-strapped Cuba should  consider putting more of its state-run economy in the hands of  producers, as President Raul Castro has done with agriculture,  the country’s top economic commentator said yesterday.

(Trinidad Guardian) Prime Minister Patrick Manning disclosed on Monday night that an unnamed organisation was behind a plot to kill him.

HOLGUIN, Cuba, (Reuters) – More belt-tightening may  lie ahead for Cuba as President Raul Castro said yesterday the  government will look at making its second “adjustment to  expenditures” this year due to the effects of the global  financial crisis.

(Jamaica Gleaner) Jamaican families, heavily dependent on remittances, are feeling the tight squeeze of reduction in inflows.

Jamaica Observer) Lady Bustamante, highly regarded as a defender of women’s and workers’ rights, and widow of late former Prime Minister and National Hero Sir Alexander Bustamante, died in the Tony Thwaites Wing of the University Hospital of the West Indies on Saturday afternoon.

(Trinidad Express) The Government has sent out a “Staff Notice” to heads of T&T overseas missions informing them of the education drive by the People’s National Movement (PNM), a move that one former diplomat describes as “very worrying” in that this constitutes a party notice being sent out to Government workers.

(Trinidad Express) – The Health Ministry on Thursday released figures giving the number of suspected dengue fever cases for 2009, but made no mention of the two known cases where the virus killed citizens.

Grenada AG resigns Grenada’s Attorney General James Bristol has resigned, following his acknowledgement of an “error in judgment” in writing to a United States Prosecutor for clemency for his stepson on the official letterhead of the Attorney General’s office.

CDB aid package for Haiti The Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) has announced a four year aid programme for Haiti.

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela will not withdraw its remaining diplomats from Honduras, ignoring an ultimatum by the de facto government of the Central American country, the Venezuelan foreign ministry said yesterday.

(BBC) – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says he will have to reassess ties with Colombia, which is set to allow the US to use its bases for anti-drug flights.

Sao Paulo (BBC News) – A young black teenager in Brazil is nearly three times more likely to die as a result of violence than a white adolescent, a new report has concluded.

(Antigua Sun) – The inability by regional governments to subsidise the airline industry has been cited as among the reasons why LIAT has to maintain high fares.