Caribbean News Desk Radio Programme

Last Updated on Monday, 20 October 2014, 23:00 by GxMedia

The St. Lucia-based Caribbean Electric Utility Service Corporation (CARILEC) is dispatching teams from power companies across the region to assist hurricane-hit Anguilla and Bermuda.

Dutch Sint Maarten residents are also grappling with limited water or no electricity supply in parts of that territory.

In all three territories, residents and authorities said life was gradually returning to normal- the major problem being downed power lines and trees.

You can listen to Monday’s edition of Caribbean News Desk by clicking the player or downloading the programme:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6s8nlaspt8d2xkc/caribnews_oct20_2014.mp3?dl=0

Guyana says Caricom countries enjoy the right to bar certain non-nationals from entering.

That’s in the wake of a Guyanese Muslim, Gerald Perreira claiming that he was asked to disembark a Jamaica-bound flight last week Friday because Kingston did not want him there.

He, like Trinidad and Tobago former coup leader Yasin Abu Bakr, had been going to Jamaica for the 19^th anniversary of the Million Man March that was held on Sunday under the auspices of the Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam.

The Caribbean hopes that the United States does not ban or restrict Queen Conch exports, as  a result of a lobby by a non-governmental organization.

The Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism’s Executive Director, Milton Haughton told the recently-held Caribbean Week of Agriculture in Suriname that the region has supplied new data.

He expects the US to make its decision known in early November.

Cuba is sending more health personnel to West Africa to fight the deadly Ebola virus.

Cuban President Raul Castro on Monday announced that two health brigades from the island will be dispatched to Liberia and Guinea Conakry early this week .

The Spanish News Agency – Agencia EFE – reported that Cuban Health Minister Roberto Morales said at the ALBA meeting on Tuesday Cuba will send 53 health care workers to Liberia and 38 to Guinea Conakry,

In Sierra Leone, one of the African nations that has been most severely affected by Ebola, a group of 165 Cuban health professionals has been treating Ebola patients since early October.

Port workers in Martinique’s capital, Fort-de-France, went on strike Monday to protest potential health threats from an industrial-waste processing facility in the port.

The Spanish News Agency – Agencia EFE reported  that the workers want port management to address the spread of metal dust as well as “visual contamination, bad odor and noise” generated by operations at the Metal Dom facility.

The work stoppage began early Monday, as strikers picketed outside the port and near the sprawling Metal Dom complex.

Talks between the workers and port management were expected late Monday.

Martinique is a French overseas territory with approximately 380,000 inhabitants

Venezuela plans to includel include radars sensitive to gunfire and drones equipped with video cameras to help fight crime.

Interior Minister Miguel Rodriguez has announced that the devices will be put into operation starting in April 2015, when Venezuela.

He said fifty thousand cameras installed will be installed to monitor spaces with high concentration of people with the aim of strengthening … public safety,” the minister told private broadcaster Canal I.

Rodriguez said that the cameras on the unmanned aircraft “will be integrated into the 911 emergency (telephone) system,” just like a number of “radars for the detection of gunfire.”

He also said that “special equipment to … block cell phone calls in prisons, where it has been determined that criminal leaders are extorting citizens” via bands of thugs on the outside, will be purchased abroad.