Regional News

WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO,  (Reuters) – U.S. authorities are transferring into federal prisons about 1,600 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees, officials told Reuters yesterday, in the first large-scale use of federal prisons to hold detainees amid a Trump administration crackdown on people entering the country illegally.

(Barbados Nation) Massy Distribution (Barbados) Ltd., on behalf of Regal Products Limited, the manufacturer for Regal products out of Trinidad and Tobago, has issued a voluntary recall for Regal Glucose – 225 grammes.

BRASILIA,  (Reuters) – Far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro said yesterday that China was an “exceptional partner” of Brazil, softening earlier criticism that Chinese investors were taking over Latin America’s largest economy.

HAMILTON,  (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Bermuda’s top judge yesterday ruled against a new law banning same-sex marriage in the British overseas territory, a decision the government could now appeal, lawyers and witnesses said.

(Jamaica Gleaner) Minister of State in the Ministry of Labour and Social Security Zavia Mayne yesterday held an emergency meeting with representatives of China Harbour Engineering Company Limited and Sinopharm Pan Caribbean.

(Trinidad Guardian) Agriculture Minister Clarence Rambharat yesterday admitted that land fraud is rampant in T&T and that as line minister for land, he had to report land fraud to the police for an investigation.

HOUSTON/CARACAS  (Reuters) – Venezuela’s state-owned oil firm PDVSA is considering a declaration of force majeure if customers do not accept new contract terms to ease a bottleneck of tankers around its two main export ports, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

(Jamaica Gleaner) Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton has announced that starting January 2019, sugary drinks will be restricted in schools.

(Trinidad Express) Police suspect that the killing of two men in Beetham Gardens on Monday night was a reprisal for a killing earlier in the day.

(Trinidad Guardian) Oropune residents are now said to be showing genuine regret, remorse and sadness for the man they badly beat last week, after they claimed he attempted to lure a five-year-old girl away from a nearby playground.

WASHINGTON,  (Reuters) – U.S. Vice President Mike Pence will travel to Brazil and Ecuador at the end of June in an effort to strengthen trade and security ties with countries grappling with growing numbers of refugees fleeing Venezuela’s economic crisis, his spokeswoman said on Monday.

HAVANA,  (Reuters) – U.S. Senator Jeff Flake, former Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt and the Trump administration’s top diplomat in Cuba met yesterday with new Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, the highest-level U.S.

MEXICO CITY,  (Reuters) – Mexican firms will need to cut deals with suppliers and consider buying goods elsewhere once a conflict over U.S.

(Barbados Nation) Sagicor Financial Corporation has welcomed Government’s decision to get help from the International Monetary Fund.

(Trinidad Guardian) Petrotrin recorded revenue of $11.3 billion for the six month period ending March 31 —a 9.6 per cent increase compared with the corresponding period in 2017.

(Barbados Nation) Owen Arthur has been advised to “see politics and leave it” after repeatedly failing to minimise the appeal of Mia Mottley.

(Barbados Nation) The Barbados Government’s decision to suspend debt payments to external commercial creditors has triggered a credit rating downgrade for Barbados by a regional agency.

VATICAN CITY,  (Reuters) – Pope Francis has called for an end to violence in Nicaragua, where at least 15 people were killed this week in protests against President Daniel Ortega and his proposed changes in social security.

HAVANA,  (Reuters) – Cuba’s national assembly named former President Raul Castro yesterday to head the commission charged with carrying out changes to the constitution that would provide legal backing to the island’s economic and social opening.

SAO PAULO, (Reuters) – Rampant corruption scandals and a deep recession soured many foreign investors on Brazil in recent years, but one Canadian group saw opportunity.

HAVANA,  (Reuters) – Seven people drowned and two remain missing as a result of flooding last week in Cuba caused by storm Alberto that forced tens of thousands to evacuate and caused a spill of oily water in Cienfuegos bay, Cuba’s Civil Defense authority said.

(Jamaica Observer) Four young men were yesterday shot dead during a firefight with police from the St Catherine South Division in Cressa Lane, Old Braeton.

(Barbados Government Information Service) The Government of Barbados yesterday announced a multi-pronged plan to address critically-low levels of international reserves, unsustainably high levels of public indebtedness, poor growth and major failings in public infrastructure and social safety nets.

(Jamaica Observer) NEGRIL, Westmoreland — Two women were among four people killed in a bizarre, two-motorcycle collision on the Sheffield main road here on Wednesday night.

HAVANA,  (Reuters) – Cuba and the United States are making the re-establishment of postal services permanent after a trial run, the state-run Cuban News Agency reported yesterday, as cooperation in some areas inches forward despite a chill in relations under the Trump administration.