Regional News

(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.

Debt relief for Jamaica Britain says it is about to provide Jamaica with debt relief, to the tune of some $7.4 million.

(Trinidad Guardian) – Prime Minister Patrick Manning says T&T is “more difficult to govern now,” and as a consequence, reducing his salary was not being considered.

(Trinidad Express) – Paul Hubert Bristol’s rage at his ex-girlfriend was apparently so intense that it endured the process of a trip from Trinidad to England, where she lived, and where he went to allegedly stab her to death.

(Jamaica Gleaner) – Senator Dwight Nelson and West Portland Member of Parliament Daryl Vaz have emerged two of the big winners, while two former ‘shining stars’, Clive Mullings and Colonel Trevor MacMillan, were the ‘losers’ when Prime Minister Bruce Golding reshuffled his Cabinet on Monday.

(Trinidad Express) – One hundred and nineteen steel workers received retrenchment letters from Point Lisas-based steel giant Arcelor Mittal Steel on Monday.

(Trinidad Express) – Brothers and liming partners Stephen Osbourne, 28, and Addil Osbourne, 19, were slain on Monday morning by the occupants of a jeep that followed them as they made their way home from a beach lime.

Amnesty for St Kitts tax defaulters Tax payers in St Kitts and Nevis have been given a six month amnesty.

(Jamaica Observer) – Prime Minister Bruce Golding last night announced a public sector wage freeze “at the levels which obtained on March 31”, and in an obvious effort to make the decision more palatable, said that he will be taking a 15 per cent salary cut this year in addition to foregoing the seven per cent increase which would have been due to him effective April 1.

Trinidad Express) – Soca, the music, is loved by the masses across this country.

Pilots accuse management of lining up for huge bonus (Antigua Sun) – The salary battle between the management of LIAT and the Leeward Islands Airline Pilots Association (LIALPA) has gone sour again.

(Jamaica Gleaner) Aluminum producing giant UC RUSAL, which is based in Russia, may widen output cuts to up to 20 per cent – 11 per cent more than it originally announced – as it takes steps to reduce costs and save the beleaguered company from bankruptcy.

(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.