Regional News

A Guyanese woman who allegedly went on a more than $80 000 shopping spree with someone else’s credit card, triggered a medical emergency in a Barbados court on Thursday when she collapsed after being remanded.

BOGOTA, (Reuters) – Colombia’s Marxist ELN rebels must free all 19 hostages it holds before President Ivan Duque, who is evaluating peace talks with the group, will resume dialogue, a senior government official said on Friday.

(Trinidad Guardian): The new TTT television station must be the “gold standard” of quality in broadcasting and lead the charge in providing factual, accurate information and combating “fake news,” Prime Dr Keith Rowley has indicated.

(Trinidad Guardian): A billion-dollar Petrotrin payout is ahead to refinery workers who will lose jobs—including an early retirement package for those over 55 who will receive full pensions.

(Trinidad Guardian) Exit packages for the more than 3,000 employees at state-owned Petrotrin are being worked out but the company is in no position to say how much this exercise will cost, what exactly will be offered or how soon payments will be made.

CAMPOS LINDOS, Brazil,  (Reuters) – When farmer Julimar Pansera purchased land in Brazil’s interior seven years ago, it was blanketed in tiers of fruit trees, twisted shrubs and the occasional palm standing tall in a thicket of undergrowth.

(Trinidad Guardian) With $8 billion in losses in the past five years and a bullet payment of US$850 million due in 2019, Petrotrin chairman Wilfred Espinet says terminating its Refining and Marketing operations and retrenching 1700 permanent and casual employees was the only way to save the company after 100 years of operations in the industry.

(Trinidad Express) It’s official. Petrotrin’s refinery is to close. And 2,600 workers will be impacted.

(Trinidad Express) Government will suffer political death for blessing the decision by Petrotrin’s Board to close the company’s refinery operations and send home workers.

(Trinidad Express) Three men were killed in Arouca on Monday night. 

(Trinidad Guardian) By the end of today the country will be clearer on the future of the state oil company Petrotrin.

(Trinidad Express) A cancer survivor and her husband narrowly escaped being crushed by an avalanche of boulders and mud which crashed into their Laventille house on Sunday.

(Trinidad Express) An East Trinidad woman, charged with two counts of sexual penetration against a male child, has appeared before the Arima Magistrates’ Court, to answer to the charges.

(Barbados Nation) The insurance company linked to the money laundering charges faced by former Minister of Commerce Donville Inniss, will not face the United States law courts.

BRASILIA, (Reuters) – Brazil’s Supreme Court will weigh in September an appeal by jailed former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to be set free so he can join the presidential campaign already under way, a court spokesperson said yesterday.

BOGOTA, (Reuters) – Colombian President Ivan Duque on Monday said the Andean nation will withdraw from Unasur, a South American bloc set up a decade ago to counter U.S.

(Reuters) – A federal court ruled yesterday that North Carolina Republicans illegally drew up U.S.

VALENCIA, Venezuela,  (Reuters) – About 100 workers protested outside tire manufacturer Pirelli’s Venezuela plant yesterday after finding the gates locked, ten days after the country announced a broad set of reforms including a massive hike in the minimum wage.

(Trinidad Guardian) Energy Minister Franklin Khan is sending a strong warning that Petrotrin’s current state of affairs has the ability to “bankrupt” the country, as he yesterday described the state oil company as coming to what is referred to in astrophysics as a “black hole”.

BARCELONA,  (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Insufficient cash is hampering a flagship international fund to help poor nations combat climate change, which is not working as fast and efficiently as the urgency of global warming requires, said former U.N.