Prosperous Caribbean
would be dividend for US
Caribbean leaders this
week met with US politicians and investors in the second US-Caricom
summit in New York.
One of the key agenda
points was a session with investors on Wall Street.
Although no firm
commitments were made the Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister
Baldwin Spencer said it was a good opportunity to lay the
ground work for investment possibilities.
He said ' the
representatives were receptive to some of the ideas put
forward.’
Mr Spencer also reported
that the Caribbean leaders stressed that ‘if the Caribbean
was safe and prosperous, then that would be a dividend for
the United States.’
At the meeting the US
airline Jet Blue announced that it would be increasing its
Caribbean flights.
Court injunction
slapped on SLBC chairman
An extraordinary
shareholders meeting of the Saint Lucia Banana Corporation
came to an abrupt halt, after a court injunction was served
on the corporation chairman, Eustace Monrose.
A group of farmers who
sought the injunction plan to have their own shareholders
meeting on Sunday, in a move that could further polarise an
already divided farming community.
The injunction came as a
surprise to the board of directors of the SLBC.
Mr Monrose said it was
because the meeting was requested by some of the very
individuals who had gone to court to stop it.
He said the meeting had
been called to, among other things, dissolve the SLBC board,
discuss accountability and implement an audit into the
corporation's finances.
Gun crime rocks
peaceful Nevis
They have only had two
gun-related murders for the year so far, but one leading
parliamentarian says Nevis is experiencing unprecedented gun
violence at the moment.
The opposition leader in
the St Kitts/Nevis national assembly Mark Brantley has
appealed to the Nevis Island Administration to move quickly
to curb the current crime wave on the island.
However Premier, Joseph
Parry, has suggested that the matter is being blown out of
proportion.
He said the authorities
have the situation under control.
EU Lifts Cuba ban
The European Union has
lifted sanctions imposed on Cuba in 2003 in protest at the
Cuban government's imprisonment of more than 70 dissidents.
But EU External Relations
Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said the EU would
continue to monitor human rights conditions in Cuba.
The sanctions' removal is
largely symbolic but still a success for Raul Castro's new
government, analysts say.
The decision is expected
to come into formal effect on Monday.
Nomination Day in
Grenada
Candidates for next
month's general election in Grenada filed their nomination
papers on Wednesday.
The two main political
parties, the governing New National Party of prime minister
Keith Mitchell and the National Democratic Congress, are
each expected to contest all 15 seats.
Dr Mitchell's party is
seeking an unprecedented fourth consecutive term -- and a
recent opinion suggested that it could succeed.
That prospect has so
alarmed the official opposition that it has floated the idea
of limiting future Prime ministers to two straight terms.
Grenadians go to the polls
on July 8th.
EU approves immigration
measures
The European Parliament
has approved new rules which could see illegal immigrants
detained for up to 18 months and, once expelled, banned for
five years from re-entering the European Union.
The measures, which have
already been approved by member governments, are part of an
attempt to forge a common immigration policy across the EU.
Opponents say they amount
to an infringement of human rights.
Under the new policy, illegal immigrants will be given
thirty days to leave the EU voluntarily.
But they can be detained
for six months, followed by a further twelve months, if the
authorities believe they may abscond.
Landmark US immigration
ruling
The US Supreme Court has
issued a ruling which will make it easier for foreign
nationals who overstay their visas to remain in the country.
The ruling will allow
those who have agreed to leave voluntarily to avoid forcible
deportation.
They will now be able to
remain in the US while they try to legalise their status.
The Supreme Court's ruling
concerned a Nigerian national who was barred from the US for
ten years after refusing to leave after marrying an American
citizen despite having signed a voluntary departure
agreement.
The ruling could affect
millions of illegal immigrants.
Pessimism on Caricom
economy
The Prime Minister of St
Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves, says its
unlikely that Caricom can achieve a single economy.
It certainly won't happen
in the foreseeable future, he believes.
Dr Gonsalves said that's
one of the reasons that OECS countries decided to push ahead
their own economic union.
Another was they
recognised that arrangements for the sub-grouping within the
Caricom single market, forerunner to the single economy,
were inadequate.
Dr Gonsalves doesn't
believe that Caricom as a group will find it easy to agree
on a common currency and management structures required for
an integrated regional economy.
He was speaking at a
public consultation in Kingstown on the draft OECS economic
treaty.
Governments warned on
prices
There's a warning that
Caribbean governments could find themselves staggering under
an unmanageable fiscal weight if they try to maintain
across-the-board protection from the sharp increases in
basic food items.
It's one of the main
observations coming out of a regional conference in Barbados
on Monday, examining responses to the food price crisis
affecting the Caribbean.
The CDB President, Dr.
Compton Bourne told BBC Caribbean that after reviewing the
strategies adopted in the region so far to tackle to the
food crisis, it was felt that generalised protective
measures could prove unsustainable, especially with some
regional governments already experiencing fiscal
difficulties.
