Caribbean

A Mission Viejo woman visiting the Caribbean island St. Martin vanished a week ago while on a nighttime walk to a casino, her husband said Friday. Leta Lynn Cordes was last seen Jan. 11 shortly before 11 p.m. when she left their vacation home for the Westin St. Martin hotel to gamble, her husband, Frank Cordes, said. "The Westin is about 10 minutes away walking time," Cordes said in a telephone interview from the island. "She had made that walk before."

The dining room of the Sunbury Plantation great house, its varnished mahogany table glittering with china, crystal, candles and silver, looks to be awaiting a banquet to celebrate a man of letters who has sailed in from the English mainland. In the cellar of the stately 300-year-old home, hand-tooled leather saddles, wrought iron carriages, horseshoes and buggy whips speak to yesteryears of wealthy white planters being squired about the island.

Before writing the letter that British sprinter Dwain Chambers presented to anti-doping authorities about Chambers' deceptive practices, BALCO founder Victor Conte sounded alarms about the Olympic track and field success of Caribbean countries, including sprint power Jamaica. Conte said that he urged the World Anti-Doping Agency to investigate drug testing and supervision of athletes in Caribbean nations that lack an independent, state-run anti-doping body.

Half of the tiny island is Dutch (St. Maarten) and the other half is French (St. Martin), giving this popular Eastern Caribbean cruise ship port a split personality: It's the smallest island in the world to be divvied up between two nations. Shopper's nirvana Several days a week, a small flotilla of cruise ships moors alongside the docks at Philipsburg, the Dutch capital, and thousands of travelers spill out ready to take advantage of the island's duty-free shopping.

Worried about the Stars and Stripes waving from your tail fin as you land in a country hostile to the United States? Concerned about your security if kidnappers or terrorists realize that a billionaire might be aboard your plane? Need to slip into an executive airport without the competition knowing you're in town? Flying incognito isn't just for celebrities anymore.

CRUISE fares have fallen so sharply in recent months that travelers waiting for their ship to come in may find that it's just on the horizon and sailing toward them at full speed. "There are some fantastic deals out there," said Emerson Hankamer, president of discount agency Vacations to Go. "They're the lowest prices I've ever seen."

Even if terrorism suspect Russell Defreitas were no more than an angry man with vague notions of a spectacular attack, he was able to tap into a network of Islamic extremists in the Caribbean -- potentially dangerous and right in the backyard of the United States, authorities said Saturday.

A mud-spewing fissure in the ocean floor has given birth to a tiny island in the Caribbean. The island, 500 feet long but breaching the ocean's surface by only a few inches, was discovered recently about five miles northeast of Trinidad, said seismologist Roderick Stewart. An advisory has been issued for small boats, which could lose buoyancy because of gas bubbling from the fissure or run aground in the mud. The danger may be short-lived.

President Hugo Chavez pledged to meet Caribbean nations' oil needs for years to come, and urged the region to unite and seek greater independence from the United States. Chavez deepened past pledges to share his country's oil wealth as he addressed a summit of nations taking part in Venezuela's Petrocaribe oil initiative, which supplies fuel under preferential terms. "If we truly unite . . . the grandchildren of our grandchildren will have no energy problems," Chavez said.

In the warm seas midway between Africa and the Americas, Tropical Storm Dean was born Tuesday -- and forecasters said it could grow into a powerful hurricane that could take aim at the Caribbean and South Florida. While still too early to say where the system will go, long-range projections call for it to churn over the Lesser Antilles as a minimal hurricane on Saturday and close in on the Dominican Republic and Haiti on Sunday with sustained winds near 110 mph.