BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – Barbados Tuesday announced plans to establish a national oil spill contingency fund.
Addressing the start of a two-day regional workshop on the International Liability Compensatory Regimes for Pollution Damage, acting Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of the Environment and Drainage, Edison Alleyne, said that the Regional Marine Pollution Emergency Information and Training Centre for the Wider Caribbean (REMPEITC-Caribe) has offered to assist Barbados the Barbados National Oil Spill Response Committee in the establishment of the fund.

ST. JOHN’S, Antigua, CMC – The Antigua and Barbuda government has warned it would move against people setting up illegal websites to promote the island’s Citizenship Investment Programme (CIP).
Attorney General Justin Simon told Parliament that the Baldwin Spencer administration is in the process of building its own website to promote the CIP that the government hopes will, within three years attract 1,800 new citizens or 450 families and generate US$550 million by offering citizenship in return for investment or a direct financial contribution.

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - Former New York police commissioner William “Bill” Joseph Bratton is expected to arrive in T&T in November to conduct a “diagnostic test” of the Police Service to determine the root cause of its problems and find a way forward for a more efficient organisation and ultimately a safer country. Emphasis would also be placed on immediately rooting out rogue officers rather than having them remain in the service, sometimes for years, on suspension with full pay before their matters are tried and completed.

PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti, CMC – Haitian law enforcement authorities say they have seized more than 2,000 kilogrammes of illegal drugs over the past 20 months and confiscated more than a million US dollars.
Head of the Anti-Drug Unit, Joris Mergelus, said in addition 238 people have been detained in connection with the seizure and illegal rug shipments.
“Of the 238 arrested as of August this year, 31 are woman and 18 have been extradited to the US, the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic," he said.

KINGSTON, Jamaica - Jamaica can create a platform for economic growth by using the example of Barbados, which stood up to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and offered wage cuts as a viable alternative to the Fund's prescription of devaluation when the country almost ran out of international reserves.
But Dr Peter Henry, dean of New York University's Leonard N. Stern School of Business, said it requires the public and private sector to work together on three critical areas, namely discipline, clarity and trust.