CARIBBEAN: 9 killed in fire on Greek-owned cargo ship off Venezuela’s Caribbean coast; 5 injured

CARACAS, Venezuela _ A Venezuelan navy official says a fire on a Greek-owned cargo ship in the Caribbean has killed nine crew members and injured five.

Adm. Carlos Maximo Aniasi Turchio tells Venezuelan state television that six of the dead crew members were from the Philippines and three from Greece. They had initially been listed as unaccounted for.

He says five injured crew members were taken by helicopter to Margarita Island and were to be transferred later to a military hospital in the capital, Caracas. The fire has been extinguished.

The Aegean Wind was carrying more than 37,000 tons of iron ore from Brazil to Houston when a blaze broke out in the mess hall before dawn Friday. The ship was about 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of Venezuela.

JAMAICA: Airport says approach lights knocked out as AA jet landed, overshot runway

KINGSTON, Jamaica _ Offshore lights that guide pilots into Jamaica’s main airport had been knocked out for more than a month when an American Airlines jet landed in driving rain and overshot the runway, injuring most of the 154 people on board, officials said Friday.

An underwater electrical fault in November disrupted the 1,300-foot (400-meter) stretch of white lights on a sandbar stretching into the Caribbean Sea, according to Norman Manley International Airport operations director Stanley Smith. Pilots have been regularly advised about the outage, and the runway itself was fully lit, he said.

“The airport has been fully operational since (the outage) … so we wouldn’t presume that would be a cause. But clearly the investigation is still preliminary,” airport vice president Mark Williams told The Associated Press.

American Airlines Flight 331 skidded off the runway as it landed in heavy rain Tuesday night, arriving from Washington’s Reagan National Airport by way of Miami. The Boeing 737-800′s fuselage cracked open, the left main landing gear collapsed and the nose was crushed as the plane lurched to a halt at the ocean’s edge.

All 154 people aboard survived. Ninety-two were taken to hospitals, with no injuries considered life-threatening.

GUANTANAMO: Rather than shutting down, Guantanamo gears up for more detainee trials in 2010

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico _ Rather than shutting Guantanamo, the U.S. military is gearing up for the war-crimes trial of a former child soldier at the navy base on southeastern Cuba this summer.

The case of detainee Omar Khadr highlights how President Barack Obama has struggled to carry out a pledge he made immediately after taking office to close the globally unpopular military prison, which he called a recruiting tool for terrorists.

But if some trials are to proceed without delay, there is no other viable location, thanks to congressional opposition to moving terror detainees to U.S. soil, plus the time required to buy and renovate an Illinois prison _ the one place where they would be welcome.

“The prosecutors in Khadr’s case have informed us that if the trial takes place in July 2010, it will be held at Guantanamo,” said Army Maj. Jon Jackson, one of the detainee’s Pentagon-appointed attorneys.

Court proceedings against Khadr, who is accused of killing an American soldier in Afghanistan, are farthest along. But pretrial hearings are anticipated for several other detainees at Guantanamo this year.

GUYANA: Guyana president orders investigation into Cabinet minister’s death

GEORGETOWN, Guyana _ Guyana’s president is ordering an investigation into whether hospital negligence caused the recent death of an education minister.

Desrey Fox was one of three Amerindians in the president’s Cabinet and an icon in native minority communities. She died Dec. 11 after two days in the hospital following a car crash.

President Bharrat Jagdeo said Thursday that he was told the 54-year-old minister had suffered only fractures and was stunned when she died.

The health minister defended the hospital and said Fox received its best possible care.

Fox led an Amerindian affairs unit at the University of Guyana and held a linguistics doctorate from Texas’ Rice University. She translated the national anthem into six native languages.