Regional News

PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico,  (Reuters) – Led by Mexico, major Latin American nations pledged to deepen commercial and economic ties yesterday as they sought to counter the risk of a deepening trade war sparked by U.S.

SAN SALVADOR, (Reuters) – El Salvador yesterday began taking emergency measures in a drought that has plagued the country for a month and cost tens of thousands of farmers their corn crops, the civil protection agency said.The east of the Central American country has gone 33 days without rain and temperatures have hit a record 41 Celsius (107.6 Fahrenheit), leaving many families without water.

BRASILIA,  (Reuters) – Brazil condemned the violence against anti-government protesters in Nicaragua and recalled its ambassador in Managua yesterday after the death of a Brazilian student.

SANTIAGO, (Reuters) – The Chilean public prosecutor’s office has summoned the archbishop of Santiago to testify in an investigation into the alleged cover-up of child sexual abuse by members of the Catholic Church, the archbishopric said yesterday.

BOGOTA, (Reuters) – Former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe resigned his Senate seat yesterday after the Supreme Court called on him to testify in an investigation into whether he participated in witness tampering and bribery.

(Trinidad Guardian) The Law Association will have to wait a little while longer to find out if it can resume its investigation into misconduct allegations levelled against embattled Chief Justice Ivor Archie.

(Reuters) – The Chilean civil authorities are investigating 36 accusations of sexual abuse against bishops, clerics and lay workers in the Roman Catholic Church, the national prosecutor’s office said yesterday.

(Reuters) – Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega said yesterday that holding early elections would create instability in the country, after almost 300 people were killed in weeks of clashes stemming from a government clampdown on protests.

BARCELONA,  (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – When the Caribbean island of Barbuda was battered by Hurricane Irma last September, about 90 percent of homes were destroyed or damaged, and the entire population had to be evacuated.

(Trinidad Express) The Zoological Society of Trinidad and Tobago (ZSTT) has commended Government for the planned signing of the Legal Notice this Thursday declaring one of our national birds, the Scarlet Ibis as an Environmentally Sensitive Species (ESS).

(Trinidad Guardian) Two best friends died on the spot when the car they were travelling in collided head-on with another vehicle travelling in the opposite direction along the Valencia Stretch early yesterday.

(Trinidad Express) From captain to commissioner. Gary Griffith, 53, the man who senior Government sources on Saturday confirmed is the choice for Police Commissioner, was uncharacteristically quiet when the Sunday Express contacted him.

HAVANA,  (Reuters) – Cuba’s economy grew less than expected in the first half of 2018 and an ongoing liquidity crisis will force fresh belt tightening, President Miguel Diaz-Canel said yesterday.

(Trinidad Guardian) Attaining a medical degree after five years of hard work was supposed to bring financial rewards.

(Jamaica Gleaner): Senior Superintendent of Police Dermot Lawrence is believed to have committed suicide.

HAVANA, (Reuters) – A draft of Cuba’s new constitution keeps the Communist Party as its leading political force but states as its aim the construction of socialism rather than communism, reflecting changing times, top officials told lawmakers this weekend.

(Trinidad and Tobago Guardian): Police yesterday arrested the two sons of a high-ranking colleague after they seized 1.5 kilogrammes of marijuana during an exercise at a house in Mt Hope.

(Trinidad Guardian) There’s no Government support for acting Police Commissioner Stephen Williams to be confirmed for the post since the fight against crime isn’t where Government wants it to be.

MANAGUA,  (Reuters) – For almost six hours, one of the leaders of the resistance to Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega hid in a house while police and paramilitary groups laid siege to the last opposition stronghold, which finally fell this week.

CARACAS,  (Reuters) – Dead palm trees and a dried-up lagoon are what you see when you enter Caracas’s botanical garden.

(Trinidad Express) Carib Queen Jennifer Cassar of the Santa Rosa First Peoples Community has died.

(Trinidad Guardian) Prosecutors have made another blunder in the case again 10 men charged with the murder of former Independent Senator Dana Seetahal, SC.

(Trinidad Guardian) Prosecutors have made another blunder in the case again 10 men charged with the murder of former Independent Senator Dana Seetahal, SC.

(Jamaica Observer) Business and church leaders, as well as National Integrity Action (NIA), have requested an urgent meeting with Prime Minister Andrew Holness to discuss their recommendations regarding the handling of the Petrojam oil refinery issue.

BRASILIA,  (Reuters) – A plastic surgeon known as “Dr. Bumbum” or “Dr. Butt” on social media because of his buttock-enhancement operations was arrested yesterday in Rio de Janeiro, four days after one of his patients died, police said.

(Trinidad Guardian) A 19-year-old man who was shot was taken to the Port-of-Spain General Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

PARAMARIBO/AMSTERDAM,  (Reuters) – Suriname politicians yesterday slammed Holland’s Foreign Minister Stef  Blok for saying the former Dutch colony was a “failed state” as a result of its diverse ethnic makeup.

MANAGUA, Nicaragua, (Reuters) – Hundreds of opponents of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega are in hiding in safe houses and planning their next steps to push for his resignation after Ortega loyalists, supported by police, took over a stronghold this week.

(Trinidad Express) Almost two weeks after the leak at the Couva Marine 2 well ruptured in the Gulf of Paria, pre-abandonment works have begun.

MEXICO CITY,  (Reuters) – Mexican plane leasing company Damojh said on Monday that black boxes retrieved from the wreckage of a plane that crashed in Cuba in May showed a steep take-off due to human error by its Mexican crew was to blame.

(Trinidad Guardian) One man was killed and another wounded after being ambushed by gunmen while sitting in a car in Mount Hope.

(Trinidad Guardian) Long immigration lines in the arrival lounges at this country’s two major airports could soon be a thing of the past, after the Ministry of National Security, Ministry of Works and Transport and the Airports Authority of T&T yesterday launched a new automated border control system at the Piarco International Airport.

SAN JOSE, (Reuters) – U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said yesteday that groups linked to Nicaragua’s government were using “unacceptable” lethal force against citizens, and urged an end to violence that has killed at least 275 people in months of protests.

BOGOTA,  (Reuters) – Colombian President-elect Ivan Duque yesterday admitted he faces great challenges when he takes office next month and said while he is not a miracle worker, he will do all he can to push the nation forward and reduce the gulf between rich and poor.

HAVANA, (Reuters) – Communist-run Cuba has started providing internet on the mobile phones of select users as it aims to roll out the service nationwide by year-end, in a further step toward opening one of the Western Hemisphere’s least connected countries.

(Reuters) – A former official at a Venezuelan state-run electric company pleaded guilty yesterday to U.S.

(Barbados Nation) It has to stop! This is Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley’s clear message about the lawless behaviour and gun violence in society.

(Jamaica Observer) Chinese seafood merchants have already begun buying lobster and fish from other countries as tariffs make American seafood too expensive, according to a recent article out of Beijing, China.

(Trinidad Guardian) Dillon Lucas was stabbed multiple times as he tried to protect his common-law wife from unwanted sexual advances from an older man outside a Debe casino on Sunday.

(Trinidad Guardian) Dillon Lucas was stabbed multiple times as he tried to protect his common-law wife from unwanted sexual advances from an older man outside a Debe casino yesterday.

(Trinidad Guardian) The reluctance of T&T to make the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) its final court of appeal is an embarrassment.

(Trinidad Guardian) If a reform of state-owned oil company Petrotrin is actually achieved it will define this Government, economist Dr Roger Hosein has said.

(Jamaica Gleaner): British High Commissio-ner to Jamaica Asif Ahmad said Jamaica can generate significantly high levels of economic growth from the Government’s implementation of the Global Logistics Hub Initiative (GLHI), which incorporates special economic zones (SEZ).

(Trinidad & Tobago Guardian): The T&T Chamber is maintaining a cautious stance on the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) projection that T&T’s economy is entering a phase of slow economic recovery.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, (Reuters) – Haitian Prime Minister Jack Guy Lafontant resigned on Saturday as he faced a non-confidence vote after a move to lower fuel subsidies prompted days of violent protests in the impoverished Caribbean nation.

LIMA (Reuters) – Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra fired his justice minister yesterday after local media released an audio of a secretly-recorded phone conversation between the minister and a judge under investigation for influence peddling.

(Reuters) – A U.S. judge in California yesterday ordered President Donald Trump’s administration to pay the costs of reuniting immigrant parents with children separated from them by officials at the U.S.-Mexican border, rather than forcing the parents to pay.

RIO DE JANEIRO, (Reuters) – Billionaire Flavio Rocha dropped his bid to become president of Brazil yesterday as rival centre-right parties seek to draw his Brazilian Republican Party (PRB) into an alliance for the October elections.

BOGOTA,  (Reuters) – Former Marxist FARC rebel commanders in Colombia, headed by their leader Rodrigo Londono, appeared before a tribunal yesterday that will try crimes allegedly committed during the country’s five-decade civil war.

(Trinidad Guardian) The Rowley administration has priorities and decriminalising marijuana isn’t one of them.