Regional News

(Trinidad Guardian) Apart from the fact the Zika virus can be spread by an Aedes aegypti mosquito, scientists have discovered two cases of the virus in semen, including one case where it was sexually transmitted.

RECIFE, Brazil, (Reuters) – For scores of women in the epicenter of the Zika outbreak in Brazil, the joy of pregnancy has given way to fear.

DES MOINES, Iowa/ COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa, (Reuters) – Republi-cans Donald Trump and Ted Cruz battled yesterday to persuade their supporters to turn out and tried to lower expectations on how well they will do in the first U.S.

(Trinidad Guardian) Government will pump TT$400 million into restoration work on the controversial Red House project by the end of March.

(Gleaner) The Ministry of Health has confirmed one case of the Zika virus in Jamaica.

(Trinidad Express) – The Ministry of National Security is clamping down on the use of aerial drones being operated by people to record personal and public events.

(Reuters) – Companies and scientists are racing to create a Zika vaccine as concern grows over the mosquito-borne virus that has been linked to severe birth defects and is spreading quickly through the Americas.

CARACAS, (Reuters) – Venezuela’s opposition must define within weeks its strategy for ending Nicolas Maduro’s presidency given the OPEC nation’s “monstrous” economic crisis, opposition leader Henrique Capriles believes.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, (Reuters) – Thousands of supporters of Haiti’s outgoing President Michel Martelly have been taking to the streets in the capital, demanding speedy elections to end a crisis of power in the Caribbean nation.

(Press release from Office of Antiguan Prime Minister) ST JOHN’S, Antigua and Barbuda – 30thJanuary, 2016…….Twelve

BOGOTA, (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Truck drivers are part of the problem in the widespread sexual exploitation of children in Brazil along the nation’s highways but they now are becoming part of the solution, experts say.

(Barbados Nation) Top United States drug fighters have given Barbadian cops high marks for steering clear of corruption.

RECIFE, Brazil, (Reuters) – Children born with abnormally small heads and brain defects linked to the outbreak of Zika virus in Brazil are also suffering serious damage to their eyesight and possibly their hearing, doctors said yesterday.

RECIFE, Brazil, (Reuters) – Angela Rocha, a pediatrician in northeastern Brazil, measures the head of a child born with microcephaly, a tragic neurological complication linked to Zika, the mosquito-borne virus sparking a health scare across the Americas.

(Barbados Nation) Attorney General and Minister of Home Affairs Adriel Brathwaite has given a thumbs down to people who want to use current limited economic opportunities as an excuse to push the cultivation of marijuana.

RIO DE JANEIRO, (Reuters) – President Dilma Rousseff said yesterday that Brazil must wage war against the Aedes aegypti mosquito that spreads the Zika virus linked to a surge in cases of a dangerous birth defect, focusing on eliminating the insect’s breeding grounds.

CARACAS, (Reuters) – President Nicolas Maduro has spent more than 500 hours addressing Venezuela since winning power nearly three years ago, demonstrating a loquacity reminiscent of his late predecessor Hugo Chavez, according to a watchdog.

SAO PAULO, (Reuters) – Beach-side apartments in Brazil may have been used as bribes and to launder money for members of the ruling Workers’ Party, police and prosecutors said yesterday after ordering six arrests and 15 search warrants.

(Trinidad Guardian) The UK Privy Council has ruled the repeal of the controversial Administration of Justice (Indictable Proceedings) Act was lawful.

CARACAS, (Reuters) – President Nicolas Maduro is unlikely to complete his six-year term, and could even be replaced this year, as Venezuela’s economic crisis worsens, the head of the new opposition-led congress said yesterday.