Regional News

NAIROBI (Reuters) – Pirates seized a US-owned  and Italian-flagged tugboat with 16 crew yesterday in the  latest hijacking in the busy Gulf of Aden waterway, a regional  maritime group said.

Washington (Miami Herald) – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday that the Obama administration is reviewing a US policy of deporting undocumented Haitians and left open the possibility of expanding travel to Havana beyond the families of Cuban exiles in the United States.

LA PAZ (Reuters) – Bolivian security forces thwarted an assassination plot against President Evo Morales yesterday, killing three people in a half-hour shootout at a hotel, government and police officials said.

(Barbados Nation) – There is an unofficial fishing agreement between Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago.

BOGOTA (Reuters) – Colombia’s popular President Alvaro Uribe moved closer being allowed to run for a third term next year when a Senate committee approved a bill late on Wednesday aimed at clearing the way for a 2010 campaign.

CARACAS (Reuters) – A Venezuelan prosecutor is seeking to freeze the assets of a top opposition leader who is in hiding following corruption charges by the government of leftist President Hugo Chavez, the government said yesterday.

…as summit approaches (Trinidad Express) Business and consumer spending has stalled in Port of Spain during the past week, and now there are fears of million-dollar losses on the opening day of the Fifth Summit of the Americas tomorrow.

(Trinidad Express) – Seeta Singh, 20, fears that police may not be able to protect her from a gang of men who shot her and burnt her children to death on Tuesday.

(Trinidad Express) – Summit officials along with accredited delegates and media were forced to evacuate the National Secretariat’s headquarters, at the new International Waterfront Centre, when a fire alarm was triggered by generators, following a power outage at the building yesterday.

(Antigua Sun) – A new airline is set to begin servicing Montserrat in the near future in order to further stimulate the island’s economic growth.

Mr Ban wants jobs for Haiti UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called on donor countries to create at least 100,000 jobs in Haiti over the next two years.

(Jamaica Observer) A three-year-old boy on Monday afternoon used his aunt’s service revolver, which he snatched from beneath her pillow, to shoot and kill his five-year-old brother at their home in Clarendon, according to police sources.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – Haiti yesterday won $324  million in new commitments from donors for the next two years  to rebuild the poorest country in the Americas.

BRASILIA, (Reuters) – Brazil said yesterday that  the U.S. lifting of limits on family travel and remittances to  Cuba was a good first step but that it should not require  gestures from the Cuban government before dismantling trade  sanctions against the island.

(Jamaica Observer) – Eleven people were murdered between Holy Thursday and Easter Sunday, bringing to 33 the death toll for the first 12 days of this month, according to a tally of Constabulary Communication Network releases.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – President Barack Obama  will try to establish a cooperative new relationship with Latin  America this week, but U.S.

(Jamaica Observer) Mon-tego Bay, St James – The court-ordered search for an incriminating e-mail that allegedly libelled hotelier Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart appears headed back to court after an aborted weekend operation at Senator Noel Sloley’s Jamaica Tours Limited (JTL) offices.

(Trinidad Guardian) Fear of an impending depreciation of the T&T dollar, after the Fifth Summit of the Americas, is forcing citizens to buy and hoard US currency.

(Antigua Sun) – Some 77 employees of the Stanford International Bank (SIBL) and Stanford Trust were sent home on Wednesday, empty handed and with no word as to whether or not they will receive their severances.

MIAMI (Reuters) – The United States, facing a clamour of calls to normalize ties with Cuba, does not want the prickly Cuban issue to dominate a summit of Western Hemisphere leaders next week, a senior US diplomat said yesterday.