CASTRIES, St. Lucia, CMC – St. Lucia says Taiwan is funding a project to reduce energy consumption in the public sector through the installation of energy-efficient lighting in public buildings.
One component of the Sustainable Energy project is the replacement of the costly incandescent lights with light emitting diode (LED) lighting.
ANTIGUA AND BARUDA - Antigua & Barbuda is looking pretty good on the international front right now. Good things are just happening for the country in rapid succession. Just recently, a crew from US reality television show, The Bachelorette, which is said to attract approximately eight million viewers worldwide, was in the country filming its season finale. It meant the beauty of the country’s tourism product was exposed to those millions of viewers.
UNITED NATIONS, CMC - Dominica Monday called for an end to the conflict in Syria and condemned the attack on the mall by militants in Nigeria that killed almost 100 people.
“We must continue to fight terrorism in all its forms and manifestations,” the island’s UN ambassador to the United Nations Vince Henderson said as he also condemned “unreservedly the use of chemical weapons which is a gross violation of international law”.
GEORGETOWN, Guyana - In a recent editorial entitled, ‘Obama, Syria and a world rearranging itself,’ we suggested in focusing on events in the Middle East, that changes were taking place in countries’ perceptions of each other that were inducing the major powers, and specifically the United States, to relook at their relations to each other.
KINGSTON, Jamaica - The Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA) says it is paying close attention to the shutdown in the United States (US) because of its likely impact on the country's tourism sector.
The US remains Jamaica's largest source of tourists, providing over 65 per cent of the land-based visitors to the island; however, with more than 800,000 government workers forced to stay home yesterday, this could have a devastating impact.
"A number of our visitors are government workers," said JHTA President Evelyn Smith.
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - Agricultural production is up and an additional 4000 acres will be put into cultivation next year, Food Production Minister Devant Maharaj has announced. Speaking at the second ceremonial harvest launch of the Caroni Green Initiative at Orange Valley, Couva, Maharaj said the sector expanded by 5.1 per cent over the past year “The contribution of agriculture to the GDP was $345.9 million and has increased by 77 per cent to $610.8 million in 2013,” he said
GEORGETOWN, Guyana - After a 10-year hiatus, the Caribbean Week of Agriculture (CWA), which was launched back in 1999, will be hosted by Guyana October 4-12. The steering committee for the event is drawn from the Agriculture Ministry, the Caribbean Community (Caricom), the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA).
The theme chosen for this edition of the CWA is, “Linking the Caribbean for Regional Food and Nutrition Security and Rural Development”.
Santo Domingo.- While a Dominican Republic high court ruling which jeopardizes mostly people of Haitian descent and prompted Port-au-Prince to recall its ambassador in Santo Domingo, an agreement on aviation has uplifted relations among the Hispaniola neighbors.
The Dominican Civil Aviation Institute (IDAC) on Monday signed a search and rescue agreement with Haiti and Canada’s National Civil Aviation Office in Montreal.
The announcement was made during the annual International Civil Aviation Organization assembly, which started September 24 at its Montreal headquarters.
GENEVA.- The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on Tuesday condemned the Dominican Constitutional Court ruling which refuses nationality to offspring born in the country of undocumented parents, which mostly affects descendants of Haitians.
"This decision deprives tens of thousands of people of a nationality, which will have a very negative impact on the rest of their fundamental rights," warned spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani in Geneva today.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) -- The Haitian government is recalling its ambassador in the Dominican capital in response to a court ruling from the neighboring Dominican Republic that strips citizenship from the children of Haitian migrants .
The decision comes almost a week after a ruling by the Dominican Republic's Constitutional Court blocked citizenship for thousands of people born to Haitian migrant workers since 1929.
The two countries share the island of Hispaniola.