Regional News

(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.

PARIS (Reuters) – Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said yesterday the restoration of credit and the fight against the “drug” of protectionism were the most urgent problems facing G20 leaders meeting in London this week.

(BBC) Caribbean offshore financial sectors say they are bracing for tougher measures on tax havens expected to come out of the summit of rich nations known as the G20 Group in April.

(Jamaica Gleaner) Jsmaican pharmaceutical company, Indies Pharma, is gearing up for a court battle with international drug-manufacturing giant, Pfizer-USA, over local distribution of hypertension medication used by thousands of Jamaicans living with the debilitating illness.

(Trinidad Guardian) Acting Director of Public Prosecu-tions Carla Brown-Antoine believes that Finance Minister Karen Tesheira should be investigated by the DPP’s office for her role in the CL Financial issue.

(Jamaica Gleaner) – Caribbean thinkers are agreeing that an immediate need to find liquidity to support Jamaica’s budget, as well as those of other islands in the region, should be the foremost issue on the agenda of Prime Minister Bruce Golding and other Caribbean Community (Caricom) leaders when they meet with United States President Barack Obama at the fifth Summit of the Americas in Trinidad next month.

(Jamaica Observer) – Minister of National Security Trevor MacMillan is awaiting a report from the Jamaica Defence Force regarding an incident in which soldiers allegedly assaulted a civilian during an operation by security forces in St Andrew on Wednesday.

(Trinidad Express) PORT-OF-SPAIN – An injunction barring the CL Financial Group from transferring or disposing of its assets of the subsidiary, Clico, has been extended further to April 8 by Justice Judith Jones.

EU takes aim at US ban The European Union said Thursday that US laws restricting online gambling contravene World Trade Organisation rules.

(Jamaica Observer) – Gunmen went on a murder spree in the Corporate Area and St Catherine on Tuesday, killing seven persons in an almost 15-hour span.