Regional News

HAVANA,  (Reuters) – Cuban Idalberto Echavarria maneuvered his wife Olga in a wheelchair to the front of the line at Terminal 2 of Havana’s airport, dodging luggage and a sea of people bidding farewell to friends and family.

TEGUCIGALPA,  (Reuters) – Honduran police discovered nearly half a metric ton of the synthetic drug fentanyl hidden in a shipping container, officials said yesterday, in the first such seizure of the opioid in the Central American country.

MEXICO CITY, (Reuters) – Costa Rican authorities detained eight employees from the country’s largest commercial bank on Wednesday in connection to the theft of more than $6 million, the biggest crime in the bank’s 109-year history.

AYOLAS, Paraguay,  (Reuters) – Heavy rains caused by the El Nino weather phenomenon has sent hundreds to shelters in the town of Ayolas in southern Paraguay, with residents bracing for more flooding on the way.

(Jamaica Gleaner) Lawmakers expressed outrage in Parliament on Tuesday over a deadly attack on a taxicab in Salt Spring, St James, which left a man and two young boys dead on Monday evening.

BRASILIA,  (Reuters) – Brazil’s Senate approved yesterday a historic reform on consumption taxes, but the effective implementation depends on subsequent bills, over an extended transition period.

SANTIAGO, (Reuters) – A fire in an informal immigrant neighbourhood in the southern Chilean city of Coronel left 14 dead, most of them children, on Monday night, according to local authorities.

PANAMA CITY,  (Reuters) – Two people taking part in an anti-government protest in Panama were shot dead yesterday by an unknown assailant, authorities said, aggravating social tension that has welled up since anger over a lucrative mining contract sparked demonstrations.

BOGOTA,  (Reuters) – Deforestation in Colombia’s Amazon is forecast to have fallen 70% in the first nine months of 2023 from the year-ago period, Environment Minister Susana Muhamad said yesterday, though she warned drought could reverse the trend.

(Trinidad Guardian) Republic Financial Holdings Ltd (RFHL), the Port-of-Spain-based holding company for Republic Bank, yesterday announced that it recorded profit attributable to its shareholders of $1.75 billion for the year ended September 30, 2023.

THE HAGUE, (Reuters) – Venezuela today objected to a decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to resume an investigation into alleged human rights abuses that could constitute crimes against humanity by Venezuelan officials.

CARACAS/HOUSTON, (Reuters) – Venezuela’s state-owned PDVSA is in talks with local and foreign oilfield firms to hire equipment and services that would allow it to revive depressed output, sources close to the meetings said, after the U.S.

SAO PAULO, (Reuters) – Half a million residents of Sao Paulo remained without electricity yesterday three days after a storm knocked down power cables, leaving much of Brazil’s largest city in the dark. 

BEIJING, (Reuters) – China’s President Xi Jinping met Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People today, Chinese state media reported, a day after the Cuban leader signed cooperation documents with Xi’s deputy at a trade fair.

(Trinidad Guardian) Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley’s identification card number, his driver’s permit number and his passport number have been found to be compromised in TSTT’s data breach.

(Trinidad Express) POLICE officers were among the men who engaged in sexual exploitation of a trafficked 16-year-old girl over several months between 2014 and 2015.

(Jamaica Gleaner) An 82-year-old Clarendon man was chopped to death at his home in Top Halse Hall on Sunday, the police say.

(Trinidad Guardian) Local businesses seeking to get US dollars from the Jamaican banking system using the T&T dollar may no longer be able to do so.

(Reuters) – Uruguay’s interior minister and two other members of the government resigned yesterday over a case that has already prompted the foreign minister to quit, involving a passport issued to an internationally wanted drug-trafficking suspect.

PARAMARIBO, (Reuters) – Suriname’s government has launched a process to attract potential investors to develop bauxite projects in the so-called Bakhuis area in the west of the country, it said in a statement yesterday.