Regional News

(Trinidad Express) A fifty-one-year-old “tripped” on Saturday morning. He butchered his estranged wife, then his two sons.

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran and Venezuela opened a joint bank yesterday to develop economic projects, Iranian state television reported.

(Antigua Sun) – Business-man, Sir R Allen Stanford, has categorically denied the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC)’s allegations that he was running a US$8 billion Ponzi scheme.

(Trinidad Express) – International police have been called in to help the local national security services keep “career rioters” and “professional protesters” at bay, while this country hosts the Fifth Summit of the Americas.

(Antigua Sun) – Management and staff of the Antigua and Barbuda Waste Recycling Corporation (A&BWRC) have been left baffled following what appeared to have been an arson attempt on the facility Wednesday night.

(Jamaica Gleaner) – Reggae singer Luciano has denied any criminal ties and expressed remorse for the shoot-out at his St Andrew home last week, which ended with the death of a gunman and injury to three policemen.

(Barbados Nation) – Terry Tyrone Harper’s 59 previous convictions far outweigh his age.

(Trinidad Express) – Trinidad and Tobago’s jobs are disappearing amid a worsening downturn in the local economy.

Senator pushes for envoy to Cuba US Senator Richard Lugar has urged President Barack Obama to reach out to Cuba by opening talks and naming a special envoy to the long-time US foe.

(Trinidad Express) – Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday has officially fired Tabaquite MP Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj as the Parliament’s Chief Whip.

HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuban authorities accused blogger Yoani Sanchez yesterday of staging a “provocation against the Cuban Revolution” after she and others spoke publicly about censorship during an arts performance in Havana.

(Jamaica Gleaner) – Joseph Plummer still can’t come to terms with the “brutal beating” he received early Tuesday morning while at Harmony House, the studio of his friend, singer Beres Hammond.

(Jamaica Observer) – The government will continue absorbing, for at least another three months, the billions of dollars it is costing to keep Air Jamaica flying.

(Jamaica Gleaner ) – The Sexual Offences Act 2009 has been passed in the House of Representatives.

(Jamaica Gleaner) Gang members are reportedly giving up their guns for training and gainful employment, thanks in part to an in-your-face Government initiative.

-Gov’t receives less due to stalled sugar divestment (Jamaica Gleaner) The European Union (EU) has held on to €2 million (J$253 million), which it should have presented to Jamaica last Thursday, because of the Government’s failure to complete its divestment of the sugar industry.

(Jamaica Observer) After spending the weekend behind bars, Reggae singer Luciano was yesterday charged with harbouring a fugitive by detectives from the St Andrew Central Police Division.

(Antigua Sun) Millennium Bank, in St. Vincent & the Grenadines, has been placed in the hands of Receiver, KPMG International, by the country’s government.

(Trinidad Express) With only 18 days before the Fifth Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain, Prime Minister Patrick Manning has struck a positive note with Cuban President Raul Castro that could set the tone to move Cuba closer to the Latin American and Caribbean integration process.

(Trinidad Express) – Alicia Kizzy McKenzie, of Central Street, Vistabella, a witness to the March 13 Marabella murder of Jason Fullerton, of Ramsamooj Street, Marabella has been found dead.