KINGSTON, Jamaica - RATING Agency Standard and Poor's says that last week's approval by the International Monetary Fund of a new agreement with Jamaica does not warrant a review of that country's credit worthiness at this time, as the details of the agreement were in line with expectatio...

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, (IPS) - Officially, the Caribbean’s rainy season begins in June, coinciding with the start of the hurricane season. But recently, heavy rains have signalled an early start to the rainy season, flooding streets, swelling rivers and causing widespread damage to crops. &...

ST JOHN’S, Antigua – Hours after coming under heavy criticism for his remarks on the issue of increased pay for LIAT’s pilots, the airline’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Captain Ian Brunton said the company has not made any decision on the matter. Late Saturday, Chairman of...

ST JOHN’S, Antigua – A suggestion that regional carrier LIAT should be put under the umbrella of essential services, has been pegged as a move to deny workers’ right to withdraw their labour when there is a deadlock over a dispute. Former chairman of the Leeward Islands Airline Pi...

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 ...

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 Howa...

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 shou...

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 pa...

GEORGETOWN, Guyana - Brazil’s ambassador to the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Roberto Azevêdo, is to be approved by acclamation, as the Geneva-based organisation’s new director-general, at next Tuesday’s meeting of its general council. Dr Azevêdo is only the WTO’s second leader from the developing...

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - There is an obvious irony in the hemispheric choice of Trinidad and Tobago as the venue for the eighth Americas Competitiveness Forum in October 2014. The most recent World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report moved T&T from 86 out of 133 countries in 2010, to 81 ...