Staff Editor

LILONGWE, (Reuters) – Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika has died after a heart attack, medical and government sources said today, although few of his countrymen mourned a leader widely seen as an autocrat responsible for a stunning economic collapse.

(Jamaica Gleaner) The St. Catherine Police are now questioning a 44-year-old man of a Harbour View address in Kingston, following the attack on the life of his girlfriend, Jody-ann Gray, a 28-year-old broadcaster and journalist yesterday.

(Barbados Nation) After pumping more than $23 million into Almond Village in the past 12 months, Neal & Massy’s board of directors rejected any proposal to put in millions more to upgrade and capitalize the faltering hotel group.

(Trinidad Express) Former Trinidad and Tobago cricket captain Rangy Nanan is on the road to recovery after suffering a stroke on Saturday.

(Trinidad Express) Petrotrin chairman Lindsay Gillette said yesterday the multi-billion dollar World Gas To Liquid (GTL) plant would be dismantled and sold as scrap iron.

(Trinidad Express) Groups of angry, barebacked men from Mt D’or, Champs Fleurs, yesterday squared off against heavily armed police, following the killing of 27-year-old Atiba “Happy Feet” Duncan by police.

Police say that at about 1000h yesterday Guyanese national Mohan Lall, 45 years of Hampton Court, Essequibo; along with Venezuelan nationals Hector Benjamin Marine, 38 years; Frank Lopez, 47 years; Raquel Lopez, 27 years; Marian Salazar, 33 years and Yenna Hernandez, 32 years, were in the Wenamu River, Cuyuni, when they were held up by five men who were reported to be Venezuelan nationals and who were armed with a shotgun, knives and cutlasses.

The police say they are investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of Leord Edwards, 43 years of Edinburgh Housing Scheme, East Bank Berbice, whose body was found with suspected stab wounds at about 0930h today in a yard at Edinburgh.

Former Central Bank director Rabindra Moonan has been appointed chairman of the state-owned Caribbean Airlines (CAL), less than 24 hours after George Nicholas III quit, the Caribbean Media Corporation reported today.

Police say that at about 1930h yesterday, sales clerk Vela Wong, 34 years; driver Taij Singh, 57 years; and porter Gerald Wong, 64 years, who are all employed with a businessman at Best Village, Vreed-en-Hoop, WCD, were held up by three men, one of whom was armed with a handgun.

AMSTERDAM,  (Reuters) – The Netherlands slammed as “totally unacceptable” a vote by lawmakers in its former colony Suriname granting amnesty to the suspected killers of 15 opponents of President Desi Bouterse 30 years ago.

The Government has sold its 20% shares in the Guyana Telephone & Telegraph company to a Chinese company for US$30M, Cabinet Secretary Dr Roger Luncheon announced today.

(CMC) Chairman of CARICOM’s Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee on Cricket, Antigua and Barbuda’s Prime Minister, Baldwin Spencer, announced last evening that the year-long impasse between the embattled Jamaican and the WICB had been resolved.

The announcement by Minister of Finance Ashni Singh at the reading of the national budget last week that the electricity tariff in Linden will be increased resulted in a street protest this morning.

Notice has been served that APNU MP Carl Greenidge will move a motion in Parliament for the repeal of the controversial former presidents’ benefits act but without prejudice to the payment of benefits.

(de Ware Tijd) PARAMARIBO – “There is absolutely no independent and impartial judge at the December trial.

(de Ware Tijd) PARAMARIBO/THE HAGUE – Yesterday, Yasser Riedewald (29), son of Harold Riedewald, one of the victims of the 1982 ‘December murders,’ left the Parliament building during the vote on amending the 1989 Amnesty Act, as he finds it difficult to swallow that in spite of fierce protests by the opposition, it seems the coalition will rush through the proposed amendment, and that his father and the fourteen other December victims are now portrayed as common criminals who wanted to topple the ‘legitimate government.’

(Trinidad Express) Cheryl Miller, the woman who was reportedly forcibly removed from her office and taken to the St Ann’s Hospital two weeks ago, was yesterday described as a “quiet, introspective” woman by co-workers.

(Trinidad Express) Sangre Grande police officers are investigating a report by the parents of a five-year-old primary school pupil who complained she was dragged into the principal’s office by an older male pupil and assaulted.

PARIS, (Reuters) – French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said today he was not optimistic that international peace mediator Kofi Annan’s plan for ending fighting in Syria would succeed and accused President Bashar al-Assad of only pretending to be committed to it.