KINGSTON, Jamaica - JAMAICA has benefited significantly from the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act (CBERA), and more generally from the Caribbean Basin Initiative, Jamaica's Ambassador to the United States Stephen Vasciannie told a public hearing of the United States International Trade Commission in Washington, DC last Thursday.
ST JOHN’S, Antigua – The arrival of the first new 68-seat LIAT ATR 72-600 aircraft at the VC Bird International Airport yesterday was hailed a “game changer” by LIAT Chief Executive Officer Ian Brunton.
Brunton said by updating the fleet, the airline will be able to lower fares, but not before 2015 at least.
“With airlines, the operating costs are really what grab you and the maintenance costs are so high on old airplanes,” he said.
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - BRITISH Prime Minister, David Cameron, is today hosting the annual G8 Summit, with the Heads of State and Government of the United States of America, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and Japan. With these countries still comprising half of global GDP, the bold steps we take by working together through the G8 can make a real difference by driving prosperity, not just in G8 countries, but all over the world.
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - The Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) will make history in Grenada this week with the recording of its first-ever completely video-based syllabus orientation. The recording is being done for the launch of CXC’s CAPE Digital Media Syllabus and will be facilitated by BrightPath Foundation, a Trinidad-based technology education non-profit. A team of teachers, CXC officers and volunteer digital media specialists will be working together to produce the orientation video.
KINGSTON, Jamaica - It is quite possible that in less than a decade from now, raw Caribbean sugar will cease to enter the European market. If as seems likely this happens, it will bring to an end not just the preferential arrangements that Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) sugar producers have enjoyed since 1975, but also a trade that for evil and good has played a central role in the making of the Caribbean and its ties with Europe.
KINGSTON, Jamaica – The state of the Jamaican economy and the increasing hostility to trade with Trinidad and Tobago by Jamaican manufacturers are matters that should concern all of the other 13 member countries of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM). It may be that in some form of quiet diplomacy unknown to the publics of the 15-nation CARICOM, the secretary general of the CARICOM Secretariat is already engaged in behind-the-scenes activity to try to end the verbal slogging that has characterised the recent relations between Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - Maybe it is time for the Caricom secretary general to arrange a one-and-one encounter between heads of the Trinidad and Tobago Manufacturers’ Association (TTMA) and its Jamaican counterpart, the Jamaican Manufacturers’ Association (JMA). Clearly these two entities need to talk, rather than keep throwing fighting words.
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – Barbados says it will raise with the Caribbean Community Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) a situation involving the production of beers in the sub-regional Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). Industry, International Business, Commerce and Small Business Development Minister, Donville Inniss, in an interview with the Advocate newspaper here, said that multinational corporations (MNCs) in the OECS were producing items and then benefiting from lower duties when those products enter Barbados.
KINGSTON, Jamaica – CARIBBEAN Community (CARICOM) governments often reveal surprising reluctance to publicly respond to challenges relating to violations of fundamental human rights and the rule of law when, generally, the United States of America is involved.
This attitude was quite in evidence prior to and during meetings with US Vice-President Joseph Biden last month in Port of Spain, where virtual back-to-back meetings also took place with China's President Xi Linping.
GEORGETOWN, Guyana - What began on May 28 as a protest against the planned redevelopment of a park in Istanbul, to accommodate the construction of a replica Ottoman-era barracks and a mosque, has snowballed into a national political crisis for Turkey’s Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and his Islamist-leaning Justice and Development Party (known by its Turkish acronym, AKP). But, with at least five deaths and thousands injured and imprisoned, Mr Erdogan does not seem to be dealing with the crisis very well.