A package of news briefs from the Caribbean

PUERTO RICO: Fuel spill fouls coastline of US Caribbean territory

GUANICA, Puerto Rico (AP) _ Miles (kilometers) of rocky shoreline and mangrove thickets have been fouled by a fuel spill drifting along Puerto Rico's southwest coast, environmental officials said Friday.

Specialists walked blackened shores as helicopters flew over the area to assess damage and track the slick, which also could threaten a pristine coral reef off the coast of La Parguera, a diving site popular with tourists.

Authorities were still investigating the origin of the spill, which stretched along an estimated 8 miles (13 kilometers) of shoreline from the southwestern town of Guanica to Guayanilla Bay.

"The impact area of this spill has been quite extensive," said Javier Velez Arocho, secretary of the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources, which has closed beaches in the area.

Cleanup crews clad in protective suits and boots walked the shoreline, lugging plastic bags full of oily debris and sand to be trucked away. The workers targeted the most heavily contaminated beaches.

Capt. James E. Tunstall, commander of U.S. Coast Guard operations in the eastern Caribbean, said five shoreline assessment teams were deployed to determine the nature and extent of the contamination.

GUANTANAMO: US says 'mass disturbances' up sharply among detainees

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) _ "Mass disturbances" are up sharply at the Guantanamo Bay prison this year despite a security overhaul and the release of dozens of prisoners, according to a new U.S. military report.

A one-page report titled "Danger Inside the Wire" said there were 385 mass disturbances in the first six months of 2007 compared to 201 for all of 2006, an increase of more than 90 percent with half the year still to go.

The military declined to provide details about the incidents. A Guantanamo spokesman, Army Lt. Col. Ed Bush said the category includes assaults or "other acts" involving at least three detainees that were intended to disrupt operations at the detention center, where about 355 men remain held without charges on suspicion of terrorism or links to al-Qaida or the Taliban.

The report also showed that several other disciplinary categories _ including "forced cell extractions" and "assault with bodily fluids" _ are on pace to match or exceed last year's totals despite the fact that there are fewer detainees and most now are kept under tighter security in the newer, more modern sections of the detention center in Cuba.

Military officials say the numbers show that detainees are still dangerous.

They "continue to wage war by employing various tactics ... to either harm the guard force or bring international attention upon themselves in order to obtain release and return to the fight," Army Col. Bruce Vargo, the commander of the Joint Detention Group at Guantanamo, told AP in an e-mail.

CARIBBEAN: Tropical depression forms in Caribbean; islands warned to prepared

MIAMI (AP) _ A tropical depression formed Friday in the Caribbean, prompting several island governments to issue advisories that a tropical storm could be near.

The National Hurricane Center said that the depression was located about 75 miles (121 kilometers) south of Barbados and about 170 miles (274 kilometers) east of Grenada at 8 p.m. (0000 GMT). It was moving west at about 16 mph (26 kph) and forecasters expected it to pass through the Windward Islands overnight.

Maximum sustained winds were near 35 mph (56 kph). Forecasters said the depression could become a tropical storm Saturday. A tropical storm has sustained winds of at least 39 mph (63 kph).

A tropical storm warning remained in effect for St. Vincent, the Grenadines, Tobago and Grenada. A tropical storm watch remained in effect for Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao and the northern coast of Venezuela from Cumana to Pedernales, including the island of Margarita.

Forecasters warned tropical storm conditions could spread to St. Lucia overnight.

GRENADA: Grenada PM silent on allegations his 1999 campaign received cash from bank scam

ST. GEORGE'S, Grenada (AP) _ Prime Minister Keith Mitchell on Friday refused to respond to allegations made by Grenada's former offshore bank regulator that money from a vast fraud scheme supported his 1999 re-election campaign.

In a sentencing memorandum filed by U.S. federal prosecutors in Oregon, the former regulator, Michael Creft, testified that he solicited money in 1998 from a phony bank and insurance scam for Mitchell's re-election.

"If I answer to this allegation I will continuously have to do so," Mitchell told reporters.

Mitchell's opponents have long speculated that the premier and his New National Party were given undocumented payments by the First International Bank of Grenada, which went into liquidation in 2001 after investors were cheated out of US$170 million (euro124 million) through the offshore entity. Most of the 4,000 investors were U.S. citizens hoping to boost their retirement income.

On Monday, four officers and directors of the defunct bank and its subsidiaries were sentenced in Oregon, where about US$50 million (euro36.4 million) raised during the scheme was funneled through a bank account. The 38-page sentencing memorandum contained Creft's testimony to U.S. prosecutors.

Creft testified that his own failure to crack down on the fraudulent bank was influenced by the flow of cash that went from First Bank to Grenadian government officials, including himself, according to the U.S. sentencing memorandum.

SURINAME: Judge sentences bank, casino officials with violating currency laws

PARAMARIBO, Suriname (AP) _ Top officials of a leading commercial bank and a gaming company at the center of a corruption scandal have been sentenced to jail time for violating Suriname's currency laws, a prosecutor said Friday.

De Surinaamsche Bank president Sigmund Proeve and former president Ed Muller were both sentenced Thursday to six months in prison and received a six-month suspended sentence for conspiring to transfer US$10 million (euro7.3 million) illegally from a casino to the U.S. between 1999 and 2001, prosecutor Chandra Algoe said.

Jeffrey Clague, a Canadian who managed the Palace Hotel and Casino, was also given six months in prison and a six-month suspended sentence along with a US$3,600 (euro2,700) fine, Algoe said.

Prosecutors said casino proceeds were transferred without the permission required by the Suriname Currency Authority.

The now-defunct casino was co-owned by a company called Dorsett Hotels and Resorts Inc. No listing was available for Dorsett, and it was not clear where it was based.

Local newspaper De Ware Tijd quoted lawyers for the bank officials as saying they will appeal the ruling.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Caribbean nation recalls 100,000 more tubes of Chinese-made toothpaste

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) _ Dominican authorities have seized 100,000 tubes of Chinese-made toothpaste they fear may contain a potentially deadly chemical that has been linked to dozens of deaths in Latin America, a Health Ministry official said Friday.

The toothpaste, mostly small tubes distributed to hotels in Santo Domingo's eastern district, was seized this week after the health ministry was warned about the product by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Health Ministry official Luis Emilio Felix Roa said.

Most of the seized toothpaste, which may contain diethylene glycol, known as DEG, came in red or green tubes with brand names written in Chinese characters, Felix Roa said. Health officials did not know Friday if the toothpaste arrived directly from China.

There have been no reported health problems related to the Chinese-made toothpaste in the Dominican Republic, Felix Roa said. Hundreds of thousands of tubes of Chinese-produced toothpaste were recalled in the Dominican Republic in May.

DEG, a thickening agent often used as a low-cost substitute for glycerin, is blamed for the deaths of at least 94 people in Panama after a misleadingly labeled shipment of the solvent, which originated in China, was mixed into cough syrup.

China shut down a chemical plant linked to the deaths, and Panamanian authorities filed charges against the administrator of a Spanish company that allegedly resold the chemical to the country.

HAITI: 'Clowns Without Borders' uses laughter to uplift poor Haitians

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) _ Haiti's troubles over the years have attracted scores of U.N. peacekeepers, aid workers and diplomats. The latest arrival? Clowns.

No kidding.

Clowns Without Borders, a group that brings comic relief to conflict-torn areas around the world, visited the impoverished country's largest slum Friday, entertaining patients at a hospital that only a year ago was seeing several gunshot victims each day.

"It's great that we can come and bring a little happiness to people after all the suffering here," said Alba Sarraute, one of three clowns who performed magic tricks and passed out balloons to sick adults and children at a Belgian-run Doctors Without Borders clinic in the Port-au-Prince slum of Cite Soleil.

Patients sat up in their beds and grinned as the clowns went from room to room, playing a saxophone and cracking jokes.

The clowns, all from Spain, are visiting Haiti for 11 days at the invitation of the Spanish Embassy and UNICEF. Members of group came to Haiti last year but could not enter the slum because of clashes between street gangs and U.N. peacekeepers.

"The people have really welcomed us. It's a pleasure," said Sarraute, as smiling children gathered around her and cheered.

Clowns Without Borders was founded in Spain in 1993 to uplift people in volatile areas "by bringing humor and laughter," according to the group's Web site.