1.   However, intensive lobbying from domestic US interests ensured that the bill excluded most of the main products of the Caribbean region, severely limiting its effectiveness.

2.   The Caribbean region could find itself with much less competition.

3.   The eight-team competition for North and Central America as well as the Caribbean region has added significance this season.

4.   A British freighter carrying nuclear waste has passed well south of the controversial Caribbean region on its way to Japan, the environmental group Greenpeace said Monday.

5.   A Sandinista official from the Caribbean coastal region, Wilfredo Pineda, said that masked paramilitaries had decapitated Sandinista activist Simeon Gonzalez over the weekend.

6.   A weak ridge of surface high pressure will begin to build into the northeast Caribbean region on Wednesday.

7.   Approval of the Caribbean Investment Fund comes the same week the London-based Commonwealth of Britain and its former colonies launched a similar initiative for the Caribbean region.

8.   But officials at the scene blamed it on poor visibility caused by heavy rains associated with Hurricane Erin as it passed through the Caribbean region.

9.   Delegates to a regional conference met behind closed doors Thursday to map out a coordinated strategy for combating drug trafficking in the Caribbean region.

10.   El Salvador and Costa Rica, the other two competitors in the six-team North and Central America and Caribbean region, were idle this weekend.