EDITORIAL - Damp squib from Cabinet retreat

KINGSTON, Jamaica - The People's National Party (PNP) socialists of the 1970s may have been dismal at managing the economy, but they knew how to rally people to their cause. The PNP of the current era, in so far as we can tell, has lost the art of mobilisation. So, the Cabinet has just emerged f...
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Small states, big problems: size does matter

KINGSTON, Jamaica - FOR decades the small developing states of the world, led by the advocacy of Caricom, have been at pains to explain to the world that their economies are very vulnerable to adverse external events, to which they have severely limited capacity for adjustment. On this basis their ...
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Moderate quake rattles

(Jamaica Observer) - A moderate earthquake has rattled Trinidad & Tobago, causing some alarm, but no reported damage or injuries. The US Geological Survey says the magnitude-4.8 quake struck early yesterday and was centred some 50 miles north east of Roxborough, an eastern town on the tourism-d...
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Thirty-three Haitians land in Jamaica

KINGSTON, Jamaica, CMC- Thirty-three Haitians were taken ashore on Saturday afternoon after they were intercepted by Coast Guard officials off the coast of the eastern parish of Portland. The Haitians - 16 adult males, four adult females and 13 children including two infants were spotted by fisherm...
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More than 500 J’cans deported from CARICOM states, Curaçao

KINGSTON, Jamaica - The Ministry of Foreign affairs and Foreign Trade is reporting that 271 Jamaicans were deported from CARICOM states in 2012. Another 254 Jamaicans were deported from Curaçao. This was revealed by AJ Nicholson, foreign affairs minister. He was responding to questions pose...
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EDITORIAL - Give PM free hand to restructure gov’t

KINGSTON, Jamaica - Today is to be the second and final day of a special session of the Cabinet to deal with what the Government has dubbed its growth agenda. It will have been the fourth such extraordinary meeting of ministers in the nearly 14 months since the People's National Party (PNP) rega...
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IMF agreement unlikely by month-end, says Golding

KINGSTON, Jamaica - Former Prime Minister Bruce Golding said the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is unlikely to approve an extended fund facility for Jamaica by the end of March based on the schedule of the executive board. Golding said it is "a matter of concern" that the IMF updated its executi...
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Jamaica developing national budget with IMF programme in mind

KINGSTON, Jamaica, CMC – The Jamaica government says it has agreed on the upcoming national budget in keeping with a programme being worked out with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). A statement issued at the end of the first day of the Cabinet retreat, said that the Portia Simpson Mille...
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CARICOM confidence must not fail now

KINGSTON, Jamaica - Below is an edited version of a public lecture by Ambassador Albert R. Ramdin, assistant secretary general of the OAS, at the UWI, Mona, on March 19. A few weeks ago, I read two separate headlines in the Caribbean press about CARICOM, which may have confused many. The headlines,...
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