PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - The most troubling thing about the current fuss about free travel at Caribbean Airlines is how familiar it all is. During the many decades of the airline’s previous incarnation as BWIA, flights were plagued with freeloading and flight status abuses, whimsical efforts at pampering wealthy, powerful people who were perfectly capable of paying for their own first-class tickets to any destination to which the airline formerly known as BWee flew.
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - The time has come for the Corporation Sole as represented by Finance Minister Larry Howai to step in and rescue the public interest from the politics and mismanagement at Caribbean Airlines (CAL). With red ink running across the airline’s balance sheets, Minister Howai needs to invoke his authority as the representative of shareholding taxpayers and assume his responsibility for taking the airline in hand. That he has already allowed so much wrong to continue without acting is unacceptable.
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados - FORMER DIRECTOR GENERAL of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture, Dr. Chelston Brathwaite, has called for a new focus on local agriculture that will bring benefits including a reduction in the food import bill.
He said the new vision for agriculture should have a focus on making it an integral part of driving agro-related sectors of the economy, including tourism and others.
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados - The news that our offshore sector was recently severely criticized in the Canadian parliament is one more inconvenient truth that the Barbados economic policymakers will have to face.
In a report earlier this month, the Standing Committee on Finance of that country’s parliament made recommendations to its government on a number of proposals to come down hard on Canadian companies and individuals using this country and other low-tax jurisdictions.
ST. JOHN’S, Antigua, CMC – The Government of Antigua and Barbuda has announced that it will continue to benefit from the PetroCaribe agreement.
According to a Government statement, at the recently concluded 9th Ministerial Meeting of PetroCaribe and the Summit of Heads Venezuelan it was agreed that the PetroCaribe programme will continue in its current form .
GEORGETOWN, Guyana, CMC – Guyana will host a multi-stakeholder consultation on Tuesday in preparation for the Third International Conference on Small Island Developing States (SIDS). Adviser to the President on Sustainable Development, Science and Technology, Navin Chandarpal, says participants will discuss various issues including the recommendations from the Barbados Programme of Action (BPOA) and that based on the outcomes of the consultation the national report will be prepared.
KINGSTON, Jamaica - Former Prime Minister P J Patterson, speaking at the launch of Ambassador Rudy Insanally's new book Multilateral Diplomacy for Small States, bemoaned the fact that people from Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries are no longer in top posts in international organisations.
Mr Patterson is quite correct on that score. But what is now important is to conduct an analysis of why this has happened.
In the past, Caricom citizens held top posts in international organisations, bringing the region much pride and the inevitable benefits.
The Organisation of Amercan States (OAS) Secretariat through the Caribbean Sustainable Energy Program (CSEP) and the Energy Efficiency Working Group of the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas (ECPA), hosted a workshop on energy efficiency designs for office and public buildings in tropical climates. The event took place at the Bay Gardens Inn in Rodney Bay from February 28th through March 1st, 2013. The CARICOM Secretariat is a Partner of the CSEP Project.
The Governments of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago and the Cooperative Republic of Guyana on 1 March 2013 signed a Memorandum of Understanding between both countries that seeks to promote greater cooperation in energy and energy related matters over the next two years.
Under the MoU, both parties will meet annually (or sooner, as mutually agreed) to review the status of the cooperation executed under the MOU, which includes support for the following areas: