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Coast Guard: South Florida relatives fueling Haitian migrant smuggling

Family members in South Florida are possibly behind a dangerous new trend in the Caribbean: the smuggling of undocumented Haitian immigrants from the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico, a senior Coast Guard official said Wednesday.
“The new thing that’s happening is in the Mona Passage between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico and it’s being fueled, we think, by money from relatives probably, almost assuredly up here in South Florida,” said Rear Adm. William D. Baumgartner, commander of the Seventh U.S. Coast Guard District in Miami.

EDITORIAL - Tax havens in retreat

KINGSTON, Jamaica - A development that could affect the economics of some of Jamaica's more prosperous Caribbean neighbours and, perhaps, the pocketbooks of some of our better-heeled citizens, passed largely unnoticed here last week.
Ten of Britain's overseas territories and colonies, acquiescing to the prompting of the UK Prime Minister David Cameron, signed an agreement to share financial information with other jurisdictions.
Of the group, two, the Cayman Islands, and the Turks and Caicos Islands, are Jamaica's near neighbours in the northern Caribbean.

Take charge of your health

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados - Health is unarguably the most important issue for any society. When health is impaired there is a reduced standard of life and, in some cases, a loss of life. When one considers economic hardships, educational challenges, community unrest, or even criminal activity, they all pale in comparison to one’s very physical existence as each person enjoys the health needed to live life.

CAL’s unfriendly skies

GEORGETOWN, Guyana – The news that our Minister of Tourism, Irfaan Ali is engaging his Trinidadian counterpart about the unilateral, dramatic increase of airfares by Caribbean Airlines Limited (CAL) from Guyana is welcome. Even more welcome would be news that the talks have resulted in the reduction of those fares to more tolerable levels as has prevailed earlier this year. In several cases, for instance to New York and Trinidad, the fares have almost doubled.

Haiti receives US$15 million policy-based grant from IDB

WASHINGTON, CMC – The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has furnished a US$15 million grant to Haiti to support policy, legal and institutional reforms in the agricultural sector. The Washington-based financial institution said farming plays a “fundamental role in the Haitian economy,” accounting for around half of the country’s jobs and almost one quarter of national income. “The new grant is the second in a series of programmatic operations that provide the Haitian government budget support as some of its key agencies address constraints affecting agriculture,” the IDB said.

High-level talks on future of CAL

KINGSTON, Jamaica - Jamaica has given the new board of the Trinidad-based Caribbean Airlines (CAL) a month to indicate how it intends to use the Air Jamaica brand in the future.
Transport Minister Dr. Omar Davies, Tuesday, met with a high- level delegation from Trinidad and Tobago that included Trade Minister Vasant Bharath and CAL board members, to discuss the airline's Jamaican operations and its arrears to local entities including the Customs Department and the Airports Authority of Jamaica.

Events in Syria increase global turmoil

GEORGETOWN, Guyana - Increasingly intense diplomacy among the Nato powers about the turmoil in Syria has been a feature of the last few weeks leading to this week’s G8 meeting hosted by Britain in Northern Ireland, once a similar scene of political-religious and military turmoil. The European powers have been pressing an apparently reluctant President Obama to join them in supplying military assistance to what are called the rebels in Syria.

Syria in for a summer offensive

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados - LEADERS OF THE G8 countries – United States, Japan, Canada, Russia, Germany, France, Britain and Italy (representing just over half of the US$71.7 trillion global economy) – met this week in Ireland ostensibly to discuss the global economy.
However, the conflict in Syria predictably dominated the summit which began on Monday, with Russia facing pressure to back away from its unwavering support for President Bashar al-Assad.

Antigua’s opposition alert

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - THE parliamentary opposition Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party (ABLP) has alerted the secretariats of both the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the Organisation of American States (OAS) to what it views as a serious threat to constitutional, democratic governance in that twin-island  Eastern Caribbean country.

Tale behind Khan’s e-mail comment

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - In the opinion of Jon Berryhill, the IT expert contracted by lawyer Israel Khan to review the package of e-mail documents read in Parliament by Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley, “There is nothing that is believable in any of it.” His verdict on the documents read into Hansard by Dr Rowley in May mirrored the evaluations offered by local IT professionals.

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