Staff Editor

KABUL,  (Reuters) – Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said today the United States was reaching the limits of its patience with Pakistan because of the safe havens the country offered to insurgents in neighbouring Afghanistan.

ISTANBUL  (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today urged Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad to hand over power and leave his country, condemning a massacre near the town of Hama that was blamed on his supporters as unconscionable.

(Barbados Nation) Though grounded, low-fare airline REDjet is still experiencing some turbulence – of the financial kind.

(Trinidad Express) In response to the upsurge in murders, Government was set to implement an immediate crackdown on crime by increasing joint army patrols in crime hotspots from last night.

(Trinidad Express) Attorney General Anand Ramlogan has said that Works Minister Jack Warner is in the clear on bribery allegations.

(Reuters) – U.S. prosecutors urged a judge today to send convicted financier Allen Stanford to prison for 230 years, calling him a “ruthless predator” whose $7 billion Ponzi scheme was among the most egregious frauds ever undertaken.

olice say that at about 1115h today, a police rank went to the lock-ups at the Mahaicony Police Station to take out prisoner Colin Sealey, 53 years, a fisherman of  Zes Kinderen, Mahaicony, ECD, in order for him to be conveyed to the Cove and John Magistrate’s Court.

(Barbados Nation) The University of the West Indies Cave Hill campus has managed to reduce its dependency on public funding for its operations by more than 35 per cent.

(Barbados Nation) Not only is REDjet not getting any financial assistance from the Antigua and Barbuda government, it doesn’t appear to be receiving any moral support either, with Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer declaring that the airline was “doomed to failure”.

Police today said that Conrad Joseph Wright called ‘Ring Leader” and “Blackie” is wanted  for questioning in relation to a series of armed robberies.

Amid the challenge by the government to the budget cuts, Speaker of the National Assembly Raphael Trotman today warned that continued recourse to the courts to challenge legitimate decisions of the National Assembly point to the growing danger of a constitutional crisis.

The Pegasus Hotel today said that it had been left out of the Guyana delegation for this week’s Caribbean Tourism Organisation Caribbean Week event in New York.

NEW YORK,  (Reuters) – Ray Bradbury, a giant of American literature who helped popularize science fiction with works such as “The Martian Chronicles,” died yesterday at age 91, his publisher said today.

(Trinidad Guardian) Prof Selwyn Ryan is denying Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar is paying him TT$2 million to come up with a crime plan.

(Jamaica Gleaner) It appears Contractor General, Greg Christie may have been late off the mark in relation to the barring of China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) from receiving World Bank funded contracts.

Police say that at about 0005h today ranks of a mobile police patrol stopped and searched two men who were walking along Broad Street, Charlestown.

(Trinidad Express) Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler and Opposition Leader Owen Arthur yesterday clashed on economic policy, with Arthur likening the Government’s taxing of allowances to the controversial eight per cent public servants’ pay cut of 1991.

(Trinidad Express) Senior Counsel Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj — one of the attorneys representing the CLICO United Policyholders Group — has called on Finance Minister Winston Dookeran to provide evidence that TT$9 billion has already been paid out to policyholders.

(Trinidad Express) The “Patrick” referred to by Housing Minister Dr Roodal Moonilal was Patrick Caesar, a former manager of Nipdec and not former prime minister Patrick Manning.

LONDON,  (Reuters) – Drug-resistant strains of gonorrhoea have spread to countries across the world, the U.N.