A package of news briefs from the Caribbean

GUYANA: FBI agents to visit country for investigation of alleged JKF plot

GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) _ FBI agents investigating the alleged plot to bomb New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport will travel next week to Guyana, the home country of three suspects, the U.S. ambassador said Friday.

The agents will meet with government and security officials to "follow up investigations," David Robinson said. He did not provide further details.

Two suspects from this South American nation are in custody in Trinidad and Tobago _ Abdul Kadir, a former opposition legislator in Guyana's Parliament, and Abdel Nur. A third, alleged mastermind Russell Defreitas, is a U.S. citizen held in New York.

The men and a fourth suspect from nearby Trinidad allegedly sought support there from Jamaat al Muslimeen, a Muslim organization inside the Caribbean island nation that launched a bloody coup attempt in 1990.

Friends and family members have expressed skepticism that the suspects could have organized a plot to ignite fuel lines feeding the U.S. airport, saying several have mental problems and other issues.

Also Friday, Guyanese Police Chief Henry Greene said maps seized earlier this week from the home of Kadir, a civil engineer, were of a project in Guyana and were not related to Kennedy airport.

JAMAICA: Police should face legal action in cricket coach Woolmer's death, team official says

Jamaican police should face legal action for declaring Pakistan cricket coach Bob Woolmer's death a homicide, the team's World Cup spokesman said Friday, alleging the high-profile case unfairly cast suspicion on the country's players.

"The name of Pakistan has been maligned and the names of Pakistani cricketers have been maligned, because everybody became a suspect," spokesman Pervez Jamil Mir told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Pakistan.

Several media outlets have reported that Jamaican police will announce they believe the 58-year-old Woolmer died in his hotel room in Jamaica of natural causes after his team's upset defeat to Ireland in the cricket World Cup. Police have said he was strangled.

Jamaican Police Commissioner Lucius Thomas said Wednesday his office has new information in the case and will make an announcement in coming days, but refused to comment on the reports.

Woolmer's body was found in his Kingston hotel room March 18 and later pronounced dead at a hospital. A government pathologist, Dr. Ere Sheshiah, initially called the burly Englishman's death "inconclusive" but four days later ruled he was strangled.

Three Pakistan team members were fingerprinted and swabbed for DNA as part of the investigation, although police said they were never officially suspects.

But Mir said those acts along with repeated police statements that Woolmer was strangled only fed speculation that Pakistan team members were somehow involved.

GUANTANAMO: Pentagon to seek review of rulings that stalled detainee trials

WASHINGTON (AP) _ The Defense Department said Friday that it will ask two judges to reconsider their decisions earlier this week that stalled the military's move to put detainees at Guantanamo Bay on trial.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the department is filing a motion with the judges to reconsider their rulings dismissing charges against two Guantanamo detainees, saying that the problem is largely semantics.

Military judges ruled Monday that the Pentagon could not prosecute Salim Ahmed Hamdan and Omar Khadr because they had not first been identified as "unlawful" enemy combatants, as required by a law passed last year by Congress. Khadr and Hamdan previously had been identified by military panels here only as enemy combatants, lacking the critical "unlawful" designation.

Whitman called the issue a slight difference in terminology that should be settled quickly. He said the motion for reconsideration would be filed Friday.

"There is no material difference between the term enemy combatant used by the combatant status review tribunal process and the term unlawful enemy combatant as utilized in the military commissions act, as it pertains to the individuals in question," said Whitman.

He said the department reviewed various options and opted to go back to the original two judges with a renewed legal argument.

ST. VINCENT: Opposition leader leads islanders in protest against sales tax

KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent (AP) _ The opposition leader of St. Vincent and the Grenadines on Friday led hundreds of islanders in a demonstration to call for the repeal of a sales tax critics say is hurting families in this archipelago in the southeast Caribbean.

Arnhim Eustace, chief of the opposition New Democratic Party, told supporters in the capital of Kingstown that St. Vincentians are feeling the pinch of rising prices since a 15 percent sales tax was introduced on May 1.

"We have to change the direction in the way things are happening in this country. So many people in this country are having it hard," Eustace, a former premier, said to the applause of demonstrators.

Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves was not immediately available for comment, but had previously described Eustace's criticism as inaccurate and politically motivated. Gonsalves has said the tax was necessary to boost revenue and modernize the economy.

The start of the value-added levy on goods and services made St. Vincent the latest Caribbean nation to seek a more streamlined tax scheme.

The Caribbean nations of Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago have had a value-added tax for several years. Dominica and Guyana introduced one in early 2006.

CRICKET: Panesar takes 4-50 as England ease to 175-run lead over West Indies

MANCHESTER, England (AP) _ England gained the upper hand on the second day of the third test against West Indies on Friday, with bowlers Monty Panesar and Ryan Sidebottom combining to help the home team to a 175-run first innings lead.

Spinner Panesar took four wickets in the final session and Sidebottom grabbed 3-45.

West Indies bowled England out for 370 on the second day at Old Trafford before collapsing to 229 all out after tea. England was 34-1 at stumps.

The tourists lost their last six wickets for 13 runs in 44 balls as Panesar took 4-50 alongside left arm seamer Sidebottom, who took 3-45.

Top scorer Shivnarine Chanderpaul watched from the other end as Dwayne Bravo, Danesh Ramdin, Darren Sammy and Jerome Taylor were out for the addition of nine runs.

Chanderpaul was the next to go for an innings-high 50, clipping Panesar to Andrew Strauss at first slip, and the tailenders added just four more runs between them.

"I'm very disappointed," West Indies coach David Moore said. "We went from a very good position at tea to a very poor position. I expected us to bat for the day but the batters didn't back up the bowlers."

England had been bowled out before lunch after Ian Bell helped rally the team with 97 after starting the day on a 296-7, adding 74 with some lusty blows from the tail.

It was the first time in the four-test series _ which England leads 1-0 _ that West Indies bowled out the home side.