(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) has launched an online system which allows consumers in 14 Member States to alert authorities on dangerous products which they detect in the market.

It is called the CARICOM Rapid Exchange System for Dangerous non-food Consumer Goods, (CARREX) and was developed in response to concerns voiced by consumer bodies of the need to strengthen the Region’s market surveillance for unsafe consumer goods.

IN THE future, producers of fruits and vegetables and their products will be required to identify where any potential hazards can occur, establish control points, monitor how well their systems work and fix problems when they occur.

This is according to Juliana Almeida, a Representative of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) who spoke at a workshop organised by the Barbados Manufacturers’ Association (BMA) on the “New Requirements and Opportunities to Export Fruit and Vegetables to the USA” held recently at BMA headquarters.

A LEADING agricultural official is questioning why regional governments have refused to invest more funds in the agricultural sector when it has the best prospect for growth and can save valuable foreign exchange.

(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Barbadian Rosina Wiltshire has been appointed the First Caribbean Community Advocate for Gender Justice for the year 2010.

As part of her terms of reference, Dr. Rosina Wiltshire will be required to coordinate the research on Gender Based Violence (GBV) within the Caribbean Region and raise awareness of the need for further action to develop and strengthen integrated responses that will “address all social and legal sectors for the purposes of protection, provision of services; justice; and prevention.”

CHRIST CHURCH, BARBADOS – “It is with a measure of disappointment that on the eve of my departure from office as Prime Minister of Jamaica and Chairman of the Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee on External Negotiations of CARICOM, the FTAA – a central, and probably the most important element of our collective vision - has faltered on the rock of political will.”  These were the sentiments of the Prime Minister of Jamaica, Most Hon. P. J.