On behalf of the United Nations and all of its Member States here, I would like to thank the Government of Greece for hosting this third Global Forum on Migration and Development.
What a fitting place for us to meet. Greece is a crossroads. One of the most beautiful words in the Greek lexicon is philoxenia -- friendship towards strangers. For thousands of years, the sons and daughters of Greece have been venturing to all reaches of our planet. Today, Hellenes can be found almost everywhere in the world contributing in countless ways to the societies of which they are now an integral part.
Read full article
November 6, 2009
Athens, Greece, 4 November 2009 - Remarks to the Third Meeting of the Global Forum on Migration and Development (as delivered)
Smart ID card coming
Published on: 11/5/2009.
by TREVOR YEARWOOD
A single, multi-purpose, “high-security” ID card is to replace the three major ones issued by Government.
It will simplify transactions for people who have had to show their National Identification Card, driver’s licence and National Insurance & Social Security card to access goods and services.
Continue reading
November 5, 2009
Caribbean leaders gear up for immigration showdown
(Trinidad Guardian) - The fight for undocumented workers in the US has moved from the pulpit to the streets, and finally to Capitol Hill.
Taking a page form the African American churches that were at the forefront of the 1960s civil rights movement, the Caribbean clergy has emerged as the key player in the struggle for comprehensive immigration reform.
Continue reading
November 4, 2009
Chinese construction workers in Trinidad protest
They haven't been paid in months, they were seen eating "dry bread", cannot speak a word of English and would rather return to the crowded streets of Fujian Province than stay to work as labourers in Trinidad.
However, they want the money that they claim is owed to them before they leave.
This is what about 85 Chinese nationals say they were protesting when they gathered on the South-bound lane of the Uriah Butler Highway, near Guayamare, early yesterday morning.
Continue Reading
Here for some time - from the Guardian
Here for some time
While 25,000 immigrants passed through eight detainee centres, photographer Melanie Friend captured a take on their lives
* Marc Leverton
* Society Guardian, Friday 7 November 2008 00.05 GMT
* Article history
continue reading
November 2, 2009
Barbados' New Immigration Policy is Online
If you're interested in reading the Green Paper - A Comprehensive Review of Immigration Policy and Proposals for Legislative Reform, you may visit four websites: (i) barbadosparliament.com (ii) gisbarbados.gov.bb (iii) investbarbados.org (iv) foreign.gov.bb You may share your views by emailing gapplewhaite@barbados.gov.bb
October 24, 2009
Oneika Russell of ART:Jamaica speaks to Annalee about On the Map
Annalee Davis, experienced visual artist, activist, designer tells us about a recent project, ON THE MAP, a documentary video project. For artists who are interested in venturing into making documentaries and some activist projects, Davis sets an example. What is 'On the Map' about and what does it seek to achieve? ON THE MAP is a thirty minute video project airing intimate discussions with undocumented Caribbean migrants who speak of life between the cracks. More specifically, it looks at the movement of people from Guyana to Barbados, revealing gaps between the official stand on Caribbean integration & the experience of unskilled Caribbean migrants, within the context of the CSME (The CARICOM Single Market & Economy). The goals of ON THE MAP are: 1.To give a voice to the numerous voiceless and tell a contemporary story of intra-Caribbean migration. 2. To sensitise the public and policy makers to key social issues. 3. To contribute to conflict resolution at the community level while promoting tolerance, understanding & respectful coexistence. 4. To foster policy debates and political attention to the development of sound socio-economic policies under the integrative sheme. 5. To use my voice as a visual artist as a legitimate language to back chat to the state and engage in debate. keep reading
October 16, 2009
October 13, 2009
Region can't turn back, says Carrington
HEADS MEET.From left, Deputy Prime Minister and Attorney-General of Barbados Freundel Stuart, Prime Minister of Antigua, Baldwin Spencer, Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Patrick Manning, Barbados’ Prime Minister David Thompson, Chief Justice of Barbados, Sir David Simmons, and CARICOM Secretary General Dr Edwin Carrington at yesterday’s opening of the convocation of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy.
Published on: 10/10/2009.
THE REGION HAS COME too far to turn back now from CARICOM integration.
THE REGION HAS COME too far to turn back now from CARICOM integration.
CARICOM Secretary General Edwin Carrington said at the opening ceremony of the Convocation of the CARICOM Single Market And Economy (CSME) yesterday at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre, Two Mile Hill, St Michael, that it is time to get on with the business of building of a community which is 36 years old.
'Immigration crisis could strike T&T'
Friday, October 9th 2009
Chief economist and director of research at the Central Bank Alvin Hilaire has warned that the immigration situation in Trinidad and Tobago could face some serious challenges, given the fact that this country's economy was still doing better than others in the region, and as such, workers from all over the region could begin flocking here.
Continue Reading
Chief economist and director of research at the Central Bank Alvin Hilaire has warned that the immigration situation in Trinidad and Tobago could face some serious challenges, given the fact that this country's economy was still doing better than others in the region, and as such, workers from all over the region could begin flocking here.
Continue Reading
Few Caricom heads confirm attendance at CSME forum
Friday, October 9th 2009
JUST five Caribbean Community Heads of Government had confirmed, by yesterday, their participation in the two-day forum on the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME) that gets under way today in Barbados.
Among the confirmed, apart from Barbados Prime Minister David Thompson-host for the event-are the Prime Ministers of Trinidad and Tobago (Patrick Manning), Antigua and Barbuda (Baldwin Spencer), St Vincent and the Grenadines (Ralph Gonsalves) and Dominica (Roosevelt Skerrit).
PEP COLUMEN: Time to go beyond CSME
Published on: 10/9/2009.
THE People's Empowerment Party (PEP) extends a warm welcome to all Heads of Government, civil society leaders and technocrats of our Caribbean Community (CARICOM) who are in Barbados attending this weekend's Convocation on the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME).
These regional leaders are expected to give careful consideration to the findings of an 'audit' which was recently carried out in all CARICOM states on the workings of the CSME. It is also anticipated that they will propose strategies for advancing the process of constructing a 'single economy'.
OUR CARIBBEAN: CARICOM CSME 'audit' forum on today
by RICKEY SINGH
SO, HOW MUCH PROGRESS has really been achieved by the member governments of the Caribbean Community to transform it into a fully integrated CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) by a much revised target date of 2015?
A better understanding, if not a precise answer, should be forthcoming by tomorrow before the curtains are drawn on a two-day "CSME Convocation" that gets under way this morning at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre, Two Mile Hill, St Michael.
October 8, 2009
Carrington tells Mexicans: CARICOM ripe for investments
CARICOM Secretary-General Edwin Carrington told a business forum in Mexico last Friday that Mexicans establishing a business in any CARICOM Single Market and Economy member state would benefit from some key elements of the CSME.
He noted that with a functioning single market and a population of approximately 15 million, the region stands ready to welcome business enterprises.
October 6, 2009
Bolivarian alliance for the peoples of Latin America (ALBA): South-South co-operation?
In the Diaspora
(This is one of a series of weekly columns from Guyanese in the diaspora and others with an interest in issues related to Guyana and the Caribbean)
D. Alissa Trotz
Alissa Trotz is editor of the Weekly In the Diaspora Column
Last week, I participated in a discussion in Toronto on the Venezuelan-led PetroCaribe and ALBA initiatives. PetroCaribe is a concessionary oil facility where a portion of the receipts from crude oil imports goes into a special fund to be used for social investment, and is available to 16 countries in the greater Caribbean. ALBA, created in 2004, is an integration arrangement that describes itself as a people-centred alternative to free trade integration models. St Vincent and the Grenadines and Antigua and Barbuda have signed statements of support while Dominica has acceded to ALBA. The 2008 summit was also attended by St Kitts-Nevis and Haiti.
October 2, 2009
Finally, the big CSME event
The Caribbean Community Secretariat has announced, at last, the dates for a long expected and overdue special consultation on the status of its flagship project, the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME).
The announcement on Monday said that it will take the form of a two-day "Convocation on the CSME" in Barbados on October 9-10 and will involve leading stakeholder representatives.
October 1, 2009
Crane clamps down on illegals
THE CRANE RESORT will conduct daily checks on all sub-contracted workers to ensure that they are legally documented to work in this country.
The new policy came into immediate effect yesterday after 20 workers were reportedly rounded up, interviewed and removed from the St Philip hotel by the Immigration Department last Friday.
Continue reading
September 30, 2009
Split views on airport policy
TWO TRAVELLERS who returned to Barbados last Wednesday said they were told they had no choice but to be fingerprinted or else be put back on the plane.
The two, who live in Barbados and were returning from business in Trinidad, said they believed their human rights were violated when they were forced to be fingerprinted on arrival at the Grantley Adams International Airport.
Need for 'Obama spirit' in Caricom
Analysis by RICKEY SINGH
AS WE FOLLOW United States President Barack Obama's inspiring, relentless efforts to win decisive congressional support for his imaginative plan for health care reform, I wonder if, with humility, Caribbean Community leaders could also summon some of that "Obama-like spirit" in the interest of advancing the major goals of CARICOM.
If they could summon at least half of Obama's passion - if not eloquence - to inspire public confidence, then we would probably witness pessimism giving way to a new hope for the transformation of CARICOM into a seamless regional economy, despite today's worsening economic gloom.
September 15, 2009
Hatchlings - A Requiem (2009)
The Treaty of Chaguaramas established the Caribbean Community and Market, later known as CARICOM, and was signed by Barbados, Jamaica, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago in 1973.
In 2001, a revised Treaty of Chaguaramas establishing the Caribbean Community including the CARICOM Single Market and Economy, (CSME) was signed by six member countries and now has fifteen members. The treaty was expected to be fully implemented by 2008 with harmonization of economic policy, the free movement of all CARICOM nationals and possibly a single currency.
The Revised Treaty is yet to be fully implemented and the region is witnessing increased fragmentation. Many question if CARICOM is still relevant.
Hatchlings - A Requiem, situates the fifteen member countries as insular national states, lying on a bed of the shredded Revised Treaty of Chaguramas.
When I look at this piece, in my head, I hear David Rudder singing, 'Rally 'round the West Indies' as a requiem.
Installation - Velvet, shredded Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, fifteen nests, acrylic on fifteen chicken eggs . Size - 13"w x 12'd x 35"h
Photo Credit - Dan Christaldi
Photo Credit - Dan Christaldi
Mormons issue could have been handled better – Jagdeo
President Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday said the issue involving 50 Mormons here without permits could have been “better handled” as there was no need for the missionaries to be rounded up and taken into custody even though the police had a right to do so. “I didn’t think, frankly speaking, that we needed to round people up. It is not the image of Guyana that we want to portray, particularly where it concerns religious people,” the President told reporters yesterday at the opening of the new East La Penitence Health Centre. “But the police have to enforce the immigration laws of our country. We are an open society, we are very welcoming but we also have laws,” he added.
SLOW PROGRESS OF CARICOM SINGLE MARKET BOTHERS PATTERSON
By HG HELPS, Editor-at-Large helpsh@jamaicaobserver.com Monday, September 07, 2009 Retired Jamaican Prime Minister PJ Patterson is unhappy that the Caribbean Single Market (CSM) is not yet a reality. More than three years after Caribbean heads of government held a ceremonial inauguration of the CSM and formal signing of the document for its implementation at the Mona Visitors' Lodge in Kingston, on January 30, 2006, the CSM remains virtually non-existent. The inauguration and signing would have made the Caribbean Community and Common Market - (Caricom) only the second group to form a single market, the other being the European Union. It is geared toward bringing the Caribbean region closer together and removing regional hurdles to trade and employment. The process would have been completed with the implementation of the extended Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME), which the heads at the time agreed to have implemented by the end of last year.
Patterson. it would appear that we have just abandoned things
OUR CARIBBEAN: Concerns following 'a warning'
by RICKEY SINGH I RETURNED to Barbados last week from a visit abroad with my wife, to further learn of concerns by professional media colleagues, family members and others, about recent comments by Prime Minister David Thompson that have been interpreted as directed at me as a "writer" who has engaged in "unfair and unwarranted maligning of Barbados and Barbadians" over its immigration policy. The Prime Minister was at the time delivering the feature address at the August 23 annual conference of his Democratic Labour Party (DLP) when he made references, without calling names, to criticisms pertaining to the Government's immigration policy and, in particular, what he chose to describe as "the definitive action we have taken on the issue of undocumented migration in Barbados . . .".
‘Good job’ by immigration officers
(Barbados Nation) A Bridgetown magistrate has thrown his support behind immigration officers who attend court, saying lurid stories about treatment by officers of Guyanese do not apply to them. Magistrate Christopher Birch made the comments as he dealt with an out-of-status non-national in the Bridge-town Traffic Court on Friday. “There have been many stories appearing about immigration officers in the press recently,” the magistrate said.
“But I can speak for these immigration officers in court. These immigration officers have taken people to the bank, allowed them to close out their accounts, and allowed them to pack their bags,” the magistrate said.
Guyanese reporter caught up in St Maarten immigration raid
A Guyanese reporter, who was reportedly working illegally in St. Maarten, was among two, who were “targeted” by that country’s immigration service. The Saint Martin News Network reported that immigration officers raided the Today Newspaper on Friday after they were tipped off by a disgruntled employee that the management of Today had at least two persons working illegally for the company. SMN News reported that a well-known local reporter had been having problems with the management of Today who suspended her.
August 30, 2009
Ramphal rejects claims
FORMER Commonwealth Secretary General Sir Shridath Ramphal has rejected claims that he linked Barbados' immigration policy to 'ethnic cleansing'.
"I very much regret the misleading information that has wrongly attributed remarks to me about 'ethnic cleansing' in Barbados," he said in a statement issued yesterday.
"I make it absolutely clear that I never made even an insinuation about this in relation to Barbados, or any other country in the Caribbean." Read full article here
August 26th, 2009
August 18, 2009
The exodus of professionals
THE disclosure that large batches of foreign doctors and nurses will soon be arriving in Trinidad and Tobago to work in the medical sector underscores the challenge facing most, if not all, Caricom countries-a serious shortage of such urgently needed professionals.
Ironically, it is small and poor Cuba, still suffering from the enormous consequences of almost half a century of the US economic blockade, that continues to maintain a high profile in assistance with medical personnel and facilities to the region. Read full article here
August 12th, 09
Take it back!
by Tony Best
CHARLIE SKEETE, a former Barbados Ambassador in Washington, has taken issue with the term "ethnic cleansing" by Sir Shridath Ramphal, a former Commonwealth secretary, in reference to Barbados' new immigration policy.
"Coming from somebody like [Sir] Shridath Ramphal, who has had a prominent Caribbean position, I would have thought that there would have been a lot more care and thought before a statement like that would cross his lips," said Skeete. "He knows better." Read full article
August 16th, 09
NEW YORK NEW YORK Obama move welcome
by Tony Best, August 14th, 09
TO ANY BAJAN either living illegally in the United States or hoping to be joined by a close relative, President Barack Obama's words were like sweet music to the ears.
"I think the American people want fairness. And we can create a system in which you have strong border security and an orderly process for people to come in," was the way Obama put it at a news conference attended by the leaders of Mexico, Felipe Calderon, and the Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper.
"But we're also giving an opportunity for those who are already in the United Sates to be able to achieve a pathway to citizenship so they don't have to live in the shadows," he added. Read full article
August 10, 2009
The West Indies Death Wish
Fragmentation of the once mighty West Indian Cricket Team mirrors the disintegration of the West Indian nation
by Mike James
The Editor of the Prestigious Wisden Cricketers Almanac Scyld Berry, in an article in Wednesday’s UK Daily Telegraph writes:"West Indian cricket seems to have a death wish, to judge by the inability of its administrators and players to pull together. Not even the ultimate humiliation of being beaten at home by Bangladesh has sparked any common sense, purpose or sanity."
In the article, which unsurprisingly headlined the sports pages of regional newspapers such as the Trinidad Express and Guyana’s Stabroek News, Berry said that while he felt that the West Indies might assemble “decent” teams for World Cups and Twenty20 tournaments, their incompetence at Test level “is now a sorry fact.” Read full article here
EDITORIAL - CARICOM's lack of clarity on global crisis
Reprinted from the Jamaica Gleaner
A week ago, Prime Minister Bruce Golding hosted two of his fellow Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders, Trinidad and Tobago's Patrick Manning, and Guyana's Bharrat Jagdeo, to discuss a regional response to the global economic crisis.
Messrs Golding, Manning and Jagdeo may still be polishing up ideas, or have presented to the community a full menu of strategies for jointly tackling the recession. But in so far as the public is aware, the leaders emerged from last Monday's summit without a single proposal. Read full article
August 9th, 2009
Unjust Ramphal bashing on 'ethnic cleansing' talk
TALK OF "ethnic cleansing" and "genocide", used occasionally by reckless or frustrated political elements in our Caribbean Community, belong to the lexicon of a diseased political culture that have had horrible manifestations in what was once Yugoslavia and in a few African states.
In our region, we are accustomed to learning, or worse, experiencing, cases of discrimination based on ethnicity and, to a lesser extent, nationality. However strong the claims of such discrimination, the familiar refrain from officialdom has been "not true". Read full article
Criminal Deportees To Caribbean Tops 50 Thousand Mark In Decade
CaribWorldNews, WASHINGTON, D.C., Fri. July 17, 2009: Over 50,000 convicted Caribbean-born criminals, who have called the U.S. home for many years, have been shipped back to the Caribbean in the past decade under tough U.S. immigration laws, a CaribWorldNews analysis of new Department of Homeland Security data reveals. Read full article
August 7, 2009
Crucial innings for Windies cricket
Astute diplomat that he is, Sir Shridath Ramphal must know that he is doing more than brokering a deal in the dispute between the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) and the West Indies Players Association (WIPA) which has crippled the regional team and left their top-tier players in the wilderness.
Sir Shridath's appointment as mediator seemingly brought to an end the stand-off between WIPA and the WICB which saw the first choice Windies players refusing to play in the Bangladesh series, citing pay and contract issues as their main grievances. Read full article here
Dominican Republic to host joint workshop with CARICOM in Sept
August 6th, 09
John King and Caribbean Integration
Put simply, John King has helped Barbadians to... Read full article
August 4th, 09
CARICOM proposes new measures for debt relief, loan refinancing
Daraine Luton, Senior Staff Reporter
The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) has announced that it intends to approach multilateral lending agencies with proposals for debt relief and loan refinancing.
At the same time, the regional body has signalled its intent to press Venezuela to at least delay proposed changes to the PetroCaribe arrangement.
Guyana's President, Bharrat Jagdeo, head of the CARICOM prime ministerial task force charged with devising a recovery plan for the region in light of the turbulent world economic recession, has said Caribbean development may stagnate if the proposals are not taken on-board.
August 5th,2009
Region must save Haiti- Andaiye
The plight of Haiti has continued for too long and the region will regret not intervening, Red Thread International Coordinator, Andaiye, has said.
She made the remarks during the final session of the Kwame Ture Memorial Lecture Series at Queen’s Hall, St Ann’s, on Sunday where she spoke before a number of Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs) on her experiences with the troubled Caribbean neighbour. Read full article
August 5th, 09
August 4, 2009
Dominican ordered deported from Antigua, Jamaican chooses to leave
By Stabroek staff | July 10, 2009 in Regional News
(Antigua Sun) A 50-year-old Commonwealth of Dominica national who pleaded guilty to remaining in Antigua after the expiration of a permit is to be removed from the state, while a 24-year-old Jamaican has opted to leave voluntarily instead of being deported.
The Dominican, Elias Baron, appeared in the St John’s Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday where it was revealed that... Read full articleCourt separates Jamaican woman from children
By Stabroek staff| July 2, 2009 in Regional News
(Antigua Sun) – A Jamaican woman was recently severely reprimanded before being ordered deported when she appeared in the St John’s Magistrates’ Court.
Samantha Tanya Peart pleaded guilty to remaining in Antigua and Barbuda after the expiration of a permit legally issued to her by the Immigration Department. She appeared before Magistrate Joan Fung. Read full article
NEW YORK, NEW YORK: Sir Shridath should take back words
Reprinted from the Nation News
by TONY BEST
"I THINK Sir Shridath Ramphal should consider withdrawing his words."
Sir Courtney Blackman, the first Governor of Barbados' Central Bank and a former ambassador in Washington, was referring to Sir Shridath's use of the term "ethnic cleansing" to describe the effects of Barbados' immigration policy, meaning the deportation of scores of illegal immigrants from the country, especially of Indo-Guyanese descent. Read full article
July 31st, 09
OUR CARIBBEAN: Lamming's inspiring Conversations
Reprinted from the Nation News
by RICKEY SINGH
THIS WEEKEND, when the climax of the Crop-Over Festival coincides with Emancipation Day celebratory activities, and at a period of discussions on issues of race and nationality, I consider it relevant to draw readers' attention to the recently released and latest in a trilogy of publications on Conversations by the iconic novelist and thinker George Lamming.
Perhaps the most quotable of West Indian writers on the political history, culture, race, class and nationality of the English-speaking Caribbean, Lamming was last month honoured by....continue reading
July 31st, 09
July 30, 2009
Shipwrecked Haitians tell of ordeal as search ends
Reprinted from the Jamaica Observer
PROVIDENCIALES, Turks and Caicos — The young man was weak and alone when searchers found him on an uninhabited island shortly before authorities ended the hunt for victims of the sinking of a rickety sailboat crowded with people fleeing Haiti's poverty.
Fifteen migrants were confirmed dead, 118 were rescued and about 70 others remained missing when the United States Coast Guard and local officials called a halt to search efforts late yesterday afternoon after a 52-hour operation that covered more than 1,500 square miles (3,800 square kilometers) of ocean.
In the hours before the search came to an end, a Haitian man in his 20s was discovered on an uninhabited island of West Caicos and was flown to Providenciales for medical treatment, a police spokesman, Sergeant Calvin Chase, said.
No details were available on his ordeal, but other migrants began to give a fuller picture of the disaster.
There was no warning when the overcrowded sailboat plowed into a coral reef and began to break apart near the Turks and Caicos Islands. In the darkness, some 200 migrants were plunged into the water, grabbing desperately at anything that might keep them afloat.
Joanel Pierre, a skinny 18-year-old, lifted his gray t-shirt yesterday to display the scratches clawed into his body by drowning shipmates.
"The ones who knew how to swim, swam," he told The Associated Press, speaking quietly and averting his eyes.
"The ones who didn't, died."
Thursday July 30th, 09
No sign of missing Haitian migrants
Reprinted from the Jamaica Observer
PROVIDENCIALES, Turks and Caicos Islands (AFP) - Hopes dimmed yesterday for finding some 70 Haitian migrants still missing on the third day of search and rescue operations after their boat capsized in open waters off the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Rescuers continued to scour the area at dawn, but said they were not hopeful they would find more survivors among those who left the Americas' poorest country.
Local police, who are being assisted by the US Coast Guard, discovered overnight another body floating in the shark-infested waters, bringing the death toll to 16 passengers. Read full article
Thursday July 30th, 09
July 29, 2009
MARKET VENDOR: Guyana should declare war on US
RECENTLY, I Market Vendor was struck by the amount of hostility we all have as Caribbean people for one another and wonder whether we will ever be as one.
And while a lot of hostility has been directed at Bubbadus for the perception that Guyanese were being being targeted for deportation and mistreatment, I have to ask a few pertinent questions about Guyana.
Explain to me how a country with such vast resources, gold and other minerals, apparently oil, water, wild hog, wild duck (and other kinds of wild meat) all kinds of seafood and fresh water food, rivers and mountains, savannahs with thousands of head of cattle, majestic waterfalls, rivers and rapids, unihabited islands bigger than Bubbadus, every type of wood known to man and womankind, good woods that last long and never break, good squash players, great cricketers and poor footballers, real bright people (Bubbadus benefit from plenty of them - Massey, Nicolson, Defreitas, Allsop, Ramphal, Drayton (the late) da Silva, Choy, Foster, Mcdonald, Leacock, Rodney and many more - how come this country that got all that is in such a poor state? Continue reading
July 29th, 09
85 Haitians missing after boat capsizes
Reprinted from the Nation News
PROVIDENCIALES, Turks and Caicos - An overloaded sailboat carrying Haitian migrants sank off the Turks and Caicos Islands, and as many as 85 people were missing, the United States Coast Guard said yesterday.
An estimated 200 people were aboard the boat when it capsized Monday afternoon, said Petty Officer 1st Class Jennifer Johnson, a Coast Guard spokeswoman in Miami. One survivor said the boat struck a reef as it tried to elude police.
The Coast Guard was optimistic daylight would help it find more survivors.
"We're really hoping we can find as many people as possible," Johnson said.
Rescuers found 113 survivors stranded on two reefs...Read full article hereJuly 29th, 09
6 000 seeking status
Reprinted from the Nation News
THERE IS A BACKLOG OF UP TO 6 000 Caribbean nationals seeking immigrant status in Barbados.
And to clear up the backlog, up to five review panels will have to be established.
This was revealed last night by Prime Minister David Thompson during a nationally televised Press conference from his official residence, Ilaro Court.
According to Thompson, the backlog was largely the fault of the previous Owen Arthur Administration which had failed to take decisive measures to address the issue. Read full article here
July 29th, 09
PM showers Patterson with praise for role in CARICOM
Reprinted from the Jamaica Gleaner
Political leaders buried their differences on Monday to pay tribute to former Prime Minister P.J. Patterson who was recently conferred with the Order of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).
Leading the way was Prime Minister Bruce Golding and Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller.
Golding said Patterson's commitment to Caribbean regionalism was unquestionable.
"No one can question the contribution he has made to Caribbean development. No one can question the quality of leadership he has offered to the Caribbean Community. Read full article here
July 29th, 09
July 24, 2009
Guyana: 'Evidence in hand'
Reprinted from Stabroek News
GEORGETOWN - Authorities in Barbados are now in possession of documented allegations of ill-treatment of Guyanese deported from the island.
Guyana's Minister of Foreign Affairs Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett told the Stabroek News on Wednesday that the complaints gathered at the ministry and the consulate in Barbados, were forwarded to Bridgetown for attention and she was awaiting word from the authorities in Barbados.
July 24th, 09
OUR CARIBBEAN: Caricom’s thinking on migration
THE PRESIDENT of Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo, said in Georgetown earlier this week that free intra-regional movement of Caribbean Community nationals was an “essential element” of CARICOM’s Single Market and Economy (CSME).
And so it is. This much emerged as a consensus of Heads of Government at their recent summit in Guyana that received information on a mandated audit on readiness-arrangements for the CSME. That consideration coincided with cross-border controversies over reported hostile treatment meted out to claimed CARICOM illegal immigrants. Read full article here
July 24th, 09
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