KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, CMC – Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves is to travel to Rome to accept an award from the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) in recognition of St. Vincent and the Grenadines significantly reducing the number of people suffering from undernourishment.
KINGSTON, Jamaica - THE GOVERNMENT is considering several measures, among them the imposition of a levy on fast foods, to fund health care on the island. Health Minister Dr Fenton Ferguson, who will today head to the Carter Hall, Holy Cross Church, in Half-Way Tree, St Andrew, for the second in a series of consultations on user fees in public health facilities, said the proposal to impose a tax on fast foods is among several that are being considered.
ST JOHN’S, Antigua – The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) has established a working group on the United States Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), the first positive steps taken towards compliance.
A press release from the central bank stated that the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU) Working Group will ensure that financial institutions, which operate within the ECCU, are prepared to comply with the requirements of FATCA.
BELLE ANSE, Haiti - The hardship of hunger abounds amid the stone homes and teepee-like huts in the mountains along Haiti's southern coast.
The hair on broomstick-thin children has turned patchy and orangish, their stomachs have ballooned to the size of their heads and many look half their age — the tell-tale signs of malnutrition.
Mabriole town official Geneus Lissage fears that death is imminent for these children if Haitian authorities and humanitarian workers don't do more to stem the hunger problems.
KINGSTON, Jamaica - It is generally accepted that for small developing countries, like Jamaica, who are in severe economic difficulties, there are few, if any, alternatives to the policy stipulations of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Even traditional political allies such as America, Britain and Canada will not provide certain critical financial assistance without the IMF's vaunted seal of approval.
GEORGETOWN, Guyana (CMC) — Caribbean Community (Caricom) countries have told the Organisation of America States (OAS) that budget cuts are threatening the provision of scholarships and the activities of OAS national offices in the Caribbean.
A Caricom Secretariat statement issued here last Friday said that Caricom foreign ministers, who attended the 43rd General Assembly of the OAS that ended in Guatemala on Thursday, met with OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza and Assistant Secretary General Albert Ramdin.
KINGSTON, Jamaica - Calls from Foreign Trade Minister A.J. Nicholson for the parliamentary Opposition and other critics to end the bickering with Trinidad and Tobago over claims of unfair trade practices have not gone down well with members of the local manufacturing sector.
Yesterday, Christopher Zacca, president of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ), said he was "concerned by the tone of the senator's comment" during a sitting of the Upper House last Friday, and argued that Nicholson needed to take note of which country he has been called to represent.
KINGSTON, Jamaica - Whatever it is A.J. Nicholson drank last Friday, we hope Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller will insist that he recommend it to Industry Minister Anthony Hylton. The foreign minister, speaking in the Senate, properly dressed down critics of Trinidad and Tobago's trade practices, saying that if there are genuine issues concerning the application of the Treaty of Chaguaramas, aggrieved parties should take them to the Caribbean Court of Justice.
KINGSTON, Jamaica - THE first in a series of planned consultations, across this region, for the introduction of a Five-Year Strategic Plan for CARICOM had a low-profile start in Barbados last Wednesday. First official news on the beginning of the consultative process came from the Georgetown-based Community Secretariat and, at best, media coverage was quite patchy or, worse, absent.
KINGSTON, Jamaica - The relationship of Jamaica with its Caribbean neighbours in a regional organisation was first publicly discussed at a conference in Montego Bay in 1947, called by the British secretary of state, Arthur Creech Jones, to discuss the question of regional political integration.
From this opening discussion, 11 years later, the West Indies Federation was born, comprising 10 English-speaking countries, none independent. All were seeking independence through the federal structure.