BBC Caribbean News in Brief

St Maarten vote

Voters in Dutch St Maarten are voting today to elect 15 members to parliament in the new country status.

St Maarten and Curacao are to become countries within the Dutch Kingdom on 10 October 2010 while Bonaire, St Eustatius and Saba are to become municipalities within the Dutch Kingdom.

There are some 19,601 eligible voters on the island, while four political parties namely the Concordia People’s Alliance (CPA), the Democratic Party (DP), the United People’s Party (UPPA) and the National Alliance (NA) are vying for seats in the island’s first parliamentary election.

Caricom on crime

The Caribbean Community (Caricom) and the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) have come together to draft an action plan on crime prevention.

A release from the Caricom Secretariat said that the plan aims to empower victims as well as reducing violence.

A series of consultations looking at the action plan begin next week in Trinidad and Tobago.

The sessions are scheduled to be held across the entire Caricom region over the next few weeks.

Hurricane watch

Hurricane Karl has gained more strength as it moves through the Gulf of Mexico, becoming a major hurricane pushing winds of almost 120mph (195km/h).

The Category Three storm was set to hit Mexico’s coast later yesterday, with the National Hurricane Centre warning it could be yet more powerful by then.

Karl has already forced Mexico’s Pemex oil to halt production at 14 offshore wells and evacuate staff.

To the east Hurricane Igor has weakened slightly, but remains a major storm. Igor, which is pushing sustained speeds of 125mph, is threatening to pass directly over Bermuda on Sunday, the US-based NHC has warned.