Accredited Third States

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Syria's prime minister escaped an assassination attempt Monday when a bomb went off near his convoy in Damascus, state media reported, the latest attack targeting a top official in President Bashar Assad's regime.
Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi was unhurt in the bombing in the capital's western neighborhood of Mazzeh, state TV said. The TV showed footage of heavily damaged cars and debris in the area of the blast as firefighters fought to extinguish a large blaze caused by the explosion.

Cuba and Venezuela have signed accords for 51 joint projects worth $2 billion US dollars in Havana, local media reported Sunday. At the close of 13th Cuba-Venezuela Intergovernmental Meeting Saturday night, Cuban President Raul Castro and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced the deals for projects in such areas as education, health, sports, culture, food production, construction, transport, communications, energy and support of social missions.

ABOARD THE HIGHSPEED VESSEL SWIFT (AP) — Drug smugglers who race across the Caribbean in speedboats will typically jettison their cargo when spotted by surveillance aircraft, hoping any chance of prosecuting them will vanish with the drugs sinking to the bottom of the sea. That may be a less winning tactic in the future. The US Navy last Friday began testing two new aerial tools, borrowed from the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, that officials say will make it easier to detect, track and videotape drug smugglers in action.

WASHINGTON, CMC – The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says the Caribbean and other low-income countries are among the fastest-growing economies in the world, but warn that many remain vulnerable to shocks and spillovers from advanced and emerging markets.
“Low-income countries have worked to develop institutional capacity and build fiscal buffers that they were able to use during the crisis, and now, all the hard work has paid off,” said IMF Deputy Managing Director Min Zhu told an IMF seminar.

LONDON, CMC – The London-based human rights watchdog, Amnesty International, has urged United States authorities to urgently end indefinite detention at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, following reports that more than half the detainees are now on hunger strike.
According to Amnesty International, it has been confirmed that 84 of the 166 detainees held at the US naval base are on hunger strike. The detainees began their protest in early February to protest against what they said were abusive cell searches and deteriorating conditions.

PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti, CMC – Police were searching for the killers of Canadian priest who was shot outside a bank minutes after he withdrew US$1,000 on Thursday.
Police said 62-year-old Richard E. Joyal had just withdrawn the money from the bank when two men on a motorcycle approached and grabbed a bag he was carrying. The passenger shot him three times in the back.
Police inspector Aladin Jean-Louis said the authorities later found the money in Joyal’s wallet and the contents of his billfold included a driver’s license showing he was from Quebec.

WASHINGTON, CMC– The World Bank says a ground-breaking initiative has created thousands of jobs for young Jamaicans in the virtual global economy.
On Wednesday, the Washington-based financial institution announced that Digital Jam 2.0 - a digital job and market fair, has created employment for over 4,000 young people on online platforms. It has also established funds to support start-ups in the app economy and the commercialization of apps.

WASHINGTON, CMC - The World Bank says Grenada has advanced towards fiscal governance and investment promotion and that it is also seeking to modernise several areas of its operations as part of a project to enhance fiscal governance and promote investment.
The Washington-based financial institution said the new Keith Mitchell administration developed capacity in the conformity assessment for exported goods, noting that customs procedures have became automated and cargo clearance time has “significantly reduced from days to hours”.

SAVAR, Bangladesh (AP) — An eight-story building housing several garment factories collapsed near Bangladesh's capital Wednesday morning, killing at least 87 people and trapping many more in a jumbled mess of shattered concrete and bricks, officials said. The collapse stirred memories of a fatal fire at a garment factory in November that killed 112 people and raised an outcry about safety in the nation's $20 billion-a-year textile industry, which produces clothing for global fashion brands worn around the world.

NEW YORK – Children are every country’s most vital resource. This is true not just morally, but also economically. Investing in the health, education, and skills of children offers the highest economic returns to a country. A new study by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) shows which high-income countries are doing well when it comes to making these investments – and which are doing poorly. The report, ‘Child Well-Being in Rich Countries’ takes a holistic view of the conditions of children in the United States, Canada, and Europe – 29 countries in all.