CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela has halted communication with a top US diplomat in the wake of President Hugo Chavez's death, hardening its anti-US stance ahead of an election next month. Foreign Minister Elias Jaua said yesterday that "any type of contact has been postponed" with US ...

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - As in all areas of crime-fighting and, indeed, law and order, successive T&T administrations have fallen short in combating, let alone suppressing, the traffic in illicit drugs. As the United States State Department's latest Narcotics Report reminds T&T, this co...

KINGSTON, Jamaica - People who view politicians with scepticism and a great deal of suspicion are likely to dismiss the People's National Party's (PNP's) desire to address public perception of corruption in politics. Yet, it is a burning issue that the ruling party should be commended f...

ST JOHN’S, Antigua, CMC – A delegation from the China EXIM Bank has arrived here for talks with government as Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer said his administration had repaid the funds borrowed to purchase the power plant at Crabbes. “We are delighted that we have been able to cl...

CASTRIES, St. Lucia, CMC – The St. Lucia government Wednesday expressed its “most sincere gratitude and appreciation” to civil servants who have defied strike action by their colleagues over demands for increased salaries and have turned out to work. In a statement, the Kenny Antho...

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – The Police Social and Welfare Association (PSWA) Wednesday said that Acting Police Commissioner Stephen Williams had been ill advised when he refused to grant permission to police officers to take a candle light vigil to the police administration building. The P...

NEW YORK, CMC - Jamaican-born legislator, Nick Perry, is calling for more support for illegal Caribbean youths in the United States. Perry, a New York State Assemblyman, who represents the predominantly Caribbean 58th Assembly District in Brooklyn, New York, said that he is standing firmly behind t...

ST GEORGE’S, Grenada, CMC - Eastern Caribbean governments Wednesday said they had finalised an agreement allowing for the transfer of British-American Insurance Company Limited (BAICO) traditional insurance business to Saigicor. In June last year, the government grouped under the Eastern Carib...

CASTRIES, St. Lucia, CMC-Agriculture Ministers from the Windward Islands will be meeting here on Thursday to prepare for another major threat to the still vital regional banana industry. The industry is grappling with the Asian banana disease, described as a new and formidable enemy, which authorit...

KINGSTON, Jamaica - Jamaica faces external non-tariff barriers to trade mainly from the United States, followed by Barbados and Antigua and Barbuda. But a new report also cites Jamaica for throwing up its own internal blockades to trade flows, which hamper exports. The new International Trade Centre...