BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC) — Barbados has made a request of the social networking website, Facebook, for information on the use the social media site by three of its citizens. Barbados is the only Caribbean Community country to have made such a request, so far. Facebook has, for the first time, published data on how often governments around the world request data on its users, and according to the social network, Barbados made three requests on three individual users in the last six months.

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Nation News - A THROW-YOUR-HANDS-up-in-the-air Budget! That was how Opposition Leader Mia Mottley described yesterday’s Financial Statement and Budgetary Proposals delivered by Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler. “It is a cut-and-paste Budget with no clear concept as to where we are going or what we will achieve. Bajans will feel pain but, unlike the past, you will not know its severity or to what end,” she told the MIDWEEK NATION during an interview at the Opposition’s office.

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Guardian - THERE has been a major shift in financing the education of Barbadians attending the University of the West Indies (UWI). Finance and Economic Affairs Minister, Christopher Sinckler, made the announcement yesterday that from September next year Barbadians will be called on to pay tuition fees at the UWI.

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Guardian - FINANCE and Economic Affairs Minister, Christopher Sinckler, has announced a freeze in hiring within the public service. There will be a “total freeze on all new hiring in the central public service and across all statutory entities”. This was the word coming from the Minister as he presented his Budget and Financial Measures in the House of Assembly yesterday. “As reported in the Growth and Development Strategy 2013-2020, a broad objective is to reduce the fiscal deficit to below 2.0 per cent by 2020/21,” the Minister said.

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Guardian - Eighteen government entities are in line for a merger or elimination was the implication made by the Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs, Christopher Sinckler as he outlined the 2013 budgetary proposals. The Minister of Finance pulled together a team of senior officials in the ministry to conduct a preliminary assessment of a list of statutory entities currently funded by government and to make recommendations for their reorganisation.