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The bad blood continues to ferment between Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands over rum taxes, as the two territories vie for perks to lure the lucrative industry. In the latest round, the U.S. Virgin Islands is accusing Puerto Rico and its backers of spreading “misinformation” related to a recent move by liquor company Diageo to open a rum plant in the Virgin Islands. Diageo, which owns Captain Morgan, is ending a long-standing relationship with Puerto Rico’s Destilería Serrallés. In a Nov. 13 letter to House Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), Gov. John deJongh of the Virgin...

Yo Ho Ho and a bottle of rum? Well not quite. Last year the plant of the company that produces Captain Morgan Rum announced that it was moving from Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.The Move was based on a the Virgin Islands subsidizing the production Captain Morgan Rum throughout the 30-Year Deal. Rum is an industry that gets subsidized from the federal government out of U.S. rum taxes, the Virgin Islands planned on using the money from the Rum Taxes to pay the Morgan manufacturers. Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands are now fighing in Congress. Puerto Rico wants...

Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum. With little fanfare, a deal is moving forward to direct billions in U.S. tax dollars to an unlikely beneficiary -- the giant British liquor producer that makes Captain Morgan rum. Under the agreement, London-based Diageo PLC will receive tax credits and other benefits worth $2.7 billion over 30 years, including the entire $165 million cost of building a state-of-the-art distillery on the island of St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Virgin Islands officials say the arrangement complies with the letter and spirit of tax law and will help the islands' sagging economy. The...

<p>WASHINGTON - At least 80 wealthy liberals have pledged to contribute at least $1 million each to fund a network of think tanks and advocacy groups, to compete with the potent conservative infrastructure built up during the last three decades.</p>

Michael Steele owes his dramatic victory in the race for Republican National Committee chairman to votes from island territories outside the 50 United States. Now, the question is what else he owes them. The residents of the five territories, from Puerto Rico in the Caribbean Sea to the tiny Northern Marianas in the Pacific Ocean, provided Steele with a bloc of 15 votes - one more than his margin of victory - when they swung into his camp late in the balloting last week. Now, a leading committee member from the Virgin Islands, former shadow Senator Holland Redfield, said they...

WASHINGTON - The United States Mint today announced six new designs that will grace the quarters issued next year to honor the District of Columbia and the five United States territories: the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, United States Virgin Islands and Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The coins will be put into circulation in approximately two-month intervals throughout the year. "Like the 50 State Quarters® Program before it, these new quarters will encourage Americans to appreciate the unique history of the District of Columbia and the territories of the United States," said United States Mint Director...

(English-language translation) A strong earthquake was felt throughout all of Puerto Rico, with the strongest intensity in the town of Las Piedras, where the Seismic Network reported damage. The quake had an intensity of VI according to the Modified Mercalli Scale which measures earthquakes on a scale of I to X. Those measuring VI are characterized by a strong quake with a potential to cause slight structural damage. "At the moment of generating this bulletin damage has been reported; additional reports of minor damage can be expected considering the size and location of this earthquake," the Seismic Network reported on...

Quote: "It is wonderful to be back in Oregon," Obama said. "Over the last 15 months, we’ve traveled to every corner of the United States. I’ve now been in 57 states? I think one left to go. Alaska and Hawaii, I was not allowed to go to even though I really wanted to visit, but my staff would not justify it."

'08er Skips Easter at Wright's Church. Barack Obama was able to take the focus off of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright on Friday by picking up the endorsement of (a bearded) Bill Richardson. Obama's allies are hoping the focus will stay off of Wright this Easter Sunday when the Democratic frontrunner skips services at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago and heads on vacation. Per ABC News' Sunlen Miller, sources familiar with Obama's plans say the Illinois Democrat is expected to go on a tropical vacation with the most likely bet appearing to be St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin...

A COASTAL FLOOD WARNING MEANS COASTAL FLOODING IS OCCURRING...IS IMMINENT...OR IS EXPECTED TO OCCUR WITHIN THE NEXT 12 HOURS. PEOPLE IN THE WARNING AREA SHOULD TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION TO PROTECT LIFE AND PROPERTY. LISTEN TO LOCAL RADIO...TELEVISION...OR NOAA WEATHER RADIO FOR FURTHER INFORMATION. A HIGH SURF WARNING MEANS THAT BREAKING WAVES OF OVER 20 FEET ARE IMMINENT OR ARE ALREADY OCCURRING. DANGEROUS...BATTERING WAVES WILL POUND THE SHORELINE. THIS WILL RESULT IN VERY DANGEROUS SWIMMING CONDITIONS...AND DEADLY RIP CURRENTS. Coastal Flood Warning COASTAL HAZARD MESSAGE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE SAN JUAN PR 1036 AM AST WED MAR 19 2008 ...VERY LARGE NORTHERLY...

"Water, water every where, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water every where, Nor a drop to drink." --Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner ----------------------------------------------------- Iran isn’t an energy-independent country. I’m well aware that Iran produces more than 4 million barrels of oil per day, the fourth-highest production in the world. And with the near-constant reporting about Iranian crude reserves during the past six months, I find it difficult to believe that anyone could be unaware that Iran has 132 billion barrels in proven reserves--or, at least, they claim to. But what’s often ignored is that...

<p>Old Miami-Dade Metro cop sources confirmed to me tonight that accused cop killer Shawn labeet has "ties to" Miami Islamic community. The depth of the connection is not known at this time.</p> <p>He said it is under VERY active investigation. It is somehow linked to his brother Ishmael Labeet who killed 8 Americans "because they were White" in US Virgin Islands years ago, then fled to Cuba.</p>

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Some 400 illegal migrants have been intercepted entering the U.S. Virgin Islands over the past six months, officials say. From Oct. 1 through Tuesday, 277 Cubans, 45 Haitians, 42 Chinese, 14 Dominicans, 14 Poles and one Chilean were intercepted coming in to the U.S. Virgin Islands, Ricardo Castrodad, spokesman for the U.S. Coast Guard in San Juan, said this week. The Coast Guard said smugglers are increasingly using a route that runs northwest along the Leeward Island chain and through the British Virgin Islands. It is difficult to choke off because the British Virgin Islands...

Ending the second-longest vacancy of a US diocese, in one of the more intriguing appointments of the modern era the Pope has named George Murry SJ, currently bishop of St Thomas in the Virgin Islands, as bishop of Youngstown. The Ohio see has been open since the last day of March 2005, when Bishop Thomas Tobin was transferred to Providence in one of Pope John Paul II's deathbed provisions. A Jesuit of the Maryland Province, Murry -- who turned 58 over Christmas -- is a native of the Philadelphia area, born across the river in Camden. Ordained a priest...

It was a typical US Internal Revenue back door maneuver. Without hearings, without notice, in the dead of night in late 2004, an obscure provision affecting taxes in the US Virgin Islands was slipped into a 650-page bill that amended US Internal Revenue Code. The USVI provision has caused financial havoc in the islands, a sunny paradise that has been America's little-known offshore tax haven for decades. Many hundreds of wealthy individuals and hundreds of businesses could be driven away and the USVI Treasury could lose upwards of $300 million in annual revenues -- all because some faceless IRS bureaucrats...

A small piece of the 'American Paradise' can be found in Afghanistan, as Virgin Island reservists bring their distinctive island music to their deployment. FORWARD OPERATING BASE ANED, Afghanistan, Nov. 4, 2005 — Land-locked Afghanistan, with its dry, mountainous, dusty climate, in no way resembles a tropical island, yet Reggae and Calypso music and that certain accent associated with small islands in the Caribbean can be heard drifting from one room in the barracks on Forward Operating Base Aned, Afghanistan. That room is the temporary home away from home for eight members of the 652nd Engineering Detachment, a reserve unit...

ATLANTA, July 8, 2005 – The U.S. Virgin Islands don't have any active duty military installations, but Army and Air National Guardsmen and their families can boast of living in America's Caribbean paradise with breathtaking beaches, secluded coves, pristine coral reefs and untouched rainforests. This U.S. territory also can boast of having caring and compassionate support for citizen-soldiers and airmen fighting the global war on terrorism and the loved ones they leave behind. "The services we render are to children and family members of the Virgin Islands National Guard, particularly those who are deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan," said Evelyn...

CHARLOTTE AMALIE, U.S. Virgin Islands (AP) - A federal judge threw out evidence against four men charged with laundering more than $60 million through their chain of U.S. Virgin Islands grocery stores, ruling that FBI agents acted in "reckless disregard for the truth." The ruling, released Monday, found that the FBI's search warrant was obtained improperly. It said agents, who had claimed to have seen suspicious tax records from the men, admitted they had only seen a computer printout of the records and did not thoroughly verify the evidence with the U.S. Caribbean territory's Internal Revenue Bureau. U.S. Attorney spokesman...

Certain major airlines are misinforming customers that travelers will be required to carry a US passport when reentering the 50 states from the U.S. territories of Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Apparently, the confusion stems from the recently created rule, attached to a defense authorization bill, that passports will be required for travel to and from, among other places, the Caribbean. American Airlines, for one, have bundled Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands into their definition of Caribbean. Various tourism organizations in both U.S. territories have demanded clarification of the rule. The Department of State has...

Charles Pasqua, a former French minister of interior, has emerged as one of the highest-ranking targets of the widening investigations into the Iraq oil-for-food scandal. United Nations, US and French investigators are examining Iraqi documents that show officials in Baghdad were instructed to transfer his lucrative oil allocations to an offshore company, to shield him from criticism. Mr Pasqua's alleged role has emerged as inquiries turn to the role of foreign governments in the corruption within the humanitarian aid programme. France and Russia, which opposed the 2003 invasion, have long been accused in the US of being too close to...

China's player looks to the big game Entertainment chief's raid could make him leading online contender China's second-richest man, Chen Tianquiao, looks poised to become the country's leading new media player after staging the sector's first aggressive raid on a rival's shares. In a stealthy swoop over the spring festival holiday, Mr Chen's online game company Shanda Interactive Entertainment bought a 19.5% stake in Sina Corp, China's leading internet news portal, for $196m (£102m). The move finally turned the tables on Sina, which had tried to buy Shanda in 2003. The possibility of a takeover that would create China's...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Assistant Attorney General Eileen J. O'Connor, of the Justice Department's Tax Division, Attorney Kenneth L. Wainstein of the District of Columbia, Mark W. Everson, Internal Revenue Service Commissioner; and Daniel J. Black, Deputy Chief Financial Officer for the District of Columbia's Office of Tax and Revenue, jointly announced the indictment and arrest of Walter Anderson, 51, a local telecommunications entrepreneur, on tax evasion and related charges. A federal grand jury sitting in Washington, D.C. returned the 12-count indictment last Wednesday under seal. Anderson was arrested Saturday, February 26 and will be presented this afternoon before a U.S....

Ghost story Several unexplained phenomena at the old courthouse in St. Thomas have sent chills through many. Ian Gillespie, Free Press Columnist 2004-04-30 03:05:48 ST. THOMAS -- Somebody calls the newspaper with a tip and I find myself clambering up the steps of the old St. Thomas courthouse, thinking I'm wasting my time on a wild goose chase. Maybe a wild ghost chase. It's a grand old building, to be sure. First built in 1852, it burned down in 1898 and was rebuilt the following year. Situated atop the hill on Wellington Street, the three-storey structure features five arches out...

TORONTO -- Canada's most prominent genital enhancement doctor plans to create virgins in the Virgins. Robert Stubbs says he has been forced to travel to the British Virgin Islands to restore the hymens of patients who are non-residents of Canada because the Canadian Medical Protective Association no longer insures malpractice claims for problems with surgery performed in Canada. The association, which defends 95 per cent of the country's medical practitioners against such lawsuits and pays any compensation awarded, introduced the new policy on Jan. 1 as a way of avoiding the kind of multimillion-dollar malpractice awards that have become common...

Fifty-eighth General Assembly Fourth Committee 2nd Meeting (PM) SPEAKERS STRESS NEED TO ‘STAY THE COURSE’ UNTIL 16 REMAINING NON-SELF-GOVERNING TERRITORIES ACHIEVE SELF-DETERMINATION, AS FOURTH COMMITTEE BEGINS DEBATE Stressing the need to stay the course until the 16 remaining Non-Self- Governing Territories achieved self-determination, speakers reaffirmed their commitment to the mandate of the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization), as that body began its general debate on decolonization issues this afternoon. Noting that nearly three years after the proclamation of the Second International Decade on the Eradication of Colonialism some 2 million people still struggled towards self-determination, the representative of Iran...