CARACAS -- Just months after losing his race for the presidency, Miranda Gov. Henrique Capriles, may get a second shot at the top-spot and take on the anointed successor of the late Hugo Chávez.
FORT LAUDERDALE, CMC – A major cruise line here says more than 100 passengers aboard an 11-day cruise to the Caribbean fell ill with a bad gastrointestinal virus.
On Saturday, Royal Caribbean announced that at least 105 of the 2,000 guests as well as three crew members, fell victim to what was believed to be a norovirus, a common but potent virus that is typically transmitted by fecal contamination in food or water.
The cruise line said the 915-foot vessel Vision of the Seas returned to port here on Friday after the 11-day voyage to St. Kitts, Barbados, Grenada and Aruba.
NEW YORK, CMC – Newly-elected Prime Minister Dr. Keith Mitchell has called for all hands on deck and unity in re-building the tri-island nation.
During a town hall meeting at Brooklyn College, late Saturday,Mitchell, whose New National Party (NNP) swept the polls in the historic February 19 general elections, urged all nationals to come on board in addressing the country’s dire economic plight.
ST JOHN’S, Antigua – Venezuela Ambassador Carols Perez Silva is dismissing claims in international media that the late President Hugo Chavez wasted state resources on charity for Antigua and Barbuda and other Caribbean states.
He says mischievous media, both in Venezuela and internationally is responsible for spreading that misconception.
Perez Silva says he expects Chavez deputy and now acting president, Nicolas Maduro to be successful in the upcoming by-election.
ST JOHN’S, Antigua – Former Prime Minister Lester Bird labelled the recently deceased Venezuelan president a “despot” and questioned the inner workings of Venezuela’s $200 million loan to the nation.
In an interview played on the Big Issues yesterday, Lester Bird said Hugo Chavez did not carry out “normal processes” of loaning money to Antigua & Barbuda through PetroCaribe and the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas (ALBA).
WASHINGTON, CMC - With the death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, a major think tank here is querying the future of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) and the Petrocaribe oil agreement with Caribbean countries.
Chávez died last week after a long struggle with cancer.
The Washington-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) noted that the ALBA bloc is made up of a number of Caribbean and Latin American states, whose leaders were “friendly to Chávez, such as Ecuador’s Rafael Correa and Bolivia’s Evo Morales.
NEW YORK, CMC – Secretary of the United States’ Homeland Security Department, Janet Napolitano, has warned passengers at John F. Kennedy International Airport to schedule extra hours for travel as the department faces a 5 percent cut in the US federal budget battle.
Napolitano told reporters that while passengers at New York’s airports are yet feel the impact of spending cuts that went into effect on Friday, security lines at airports in other cities, including Los Angeles and Chicago, were already twice as long .
CARACAS -- Hundreds of thousands of President Hugo Chávez’s followers waited hours in a three-mile-long line Thursday to file past the late leader’s coffin as Cuban leader Raúl Castro and other presidents arrived to attend Friday’s state funeral.
Castro’s unexpected arrival in the early afternoon at the Simon Bolivar International Airport was broadcast live by the official Venezuelan television network VTV. He was greeted by Foreign Minister Elías Jaua and a small military honor guard, but did not make public comments.
WASHINGTON, CMC – The United States on Wednesday joined the global community in expressing sadness over the passing of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.
Chávez, the firebrand socialist and avowed enemy of the United States who transformed politics in his native country, died Tuesday at 58. He had struggled with cancer for almost two years.
KINGSTON, Jamaica - Readers of these columns are well aware that we have always been critical of the undemocratic actions of late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. For we hold firmly to the view that democracy demands the co-existence of opposing views, and people should not be punished for dissent.
No one can deny that President Chavez is loved by Venezuela's poor and working class because his wealth redistribution policies have helped many of them.