PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - However it goes on THA election day January 21, the people of Tobago have already scored a victory with the agreement by the contesting political parties to participate in tonight's debate.
To have secured the leaders of the three contending parties to agree to enter the sober, rational environment of the forum organised by the Debates Commission is no mean achievement. Commission chairman Andrew Sabga and his team deserve our deepest appreciation for their commitment on working this breakthrough initiative to this point of success.

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - The year 2012 was a challenging year for equity investors in Caricom. Despite solid gains on manufacturing, conglomerate and banking stocks, returns were depressed by declines on tourism, real estate, insurance, investments and retail stocks.

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados - LIAT has apologized to customers travelling to and from Dominica and St. Vincent who have been experiencing an increase in cancelled flights and delayed baggage.
In a release today from the regional airline, it was stated_ “Over the past two weeks customers travelling to/from Dominica have faced an unusual number of cancellations, especially at nights; while customers travelling to/from St Vincent have experienced delays in receiving their baggage”.

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - Seven Government Ministers, including National Security Minister and UNC chairman Jack Warner, were in Tobago yesterday for a meeting with political leader of the Tobago Organisation of the People (TOP), Ashworth Jack.
The meeting took place at the Coco Reef Resort in Crown Point under a high degree of secrecy, and included Ministers Warner, Suruj Rambachan, Dr Roodal Moonilal, Vasant Barath, Ganga Singh, Kevin Ramnarine and Dr Delmon Baker. Caribbean Airlines chairman, Rabindra Moonan, also attended.

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados - A national strike, which could see thousands of workers on the streets, is now looming following LIME’s decision not to withdraw dismissal letters to 97 employees.
A last-ditch effort mediated by Minister of Labour Esther Byer-Suckoo at the Ministry of Labour’s offices in Warrens, St Michael, failed last night to bring a resolution between the telecommunications company and the island’s largest trade union, the Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU).

GEORGETOWN, Guyana, CMC – Western countries Wednesday pressured Guyana to ensure that Local Government elections last held here in 1994 take place during the coming months.
In a joint statement issued by the United States Ambassador D. Brent Hardt, the United Kingdom High Commissioner Andrew Ayre, his Canadian counterpart David Devine and Robert Kopecky, the European Union diplomat here, the Western countries recalled that during the 2011 national elections “one issue on which all political parties were in full agreement was the need to hold locl government elections.’

GEORGETOWN, Guyana, CMC – Guyana is sending a delegation to the fifth session of the Inter-Governmental Negotiation Committee in Geneva later this month where an international ban on mercury will be discussed.
The meeting is scheduled for January 13-18 and local stakeholders, including officials from the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment, the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC), and the Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association (GGDMA) met here on Tuesday to finalise the country’s participation at the talks.

KINGSTON, Jamaica - PRIVATE Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) President Christopher Zacca says Jamaica will be diving deep into an economic crisis if the country continues to be without an International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreement.
What's more, Zacca figures that the longer it takes to seal a deal, the closer the country will get to falling over its own fiscal cliff.

KINGSTON, Jamaica - MR Delano Franklyn may well be right. Perhaps the Chicago Tribune was unfair in its adverse characterisation of the Jamaican economy, using Greece as a sort of measuring stick.
What is not in question, though, is that our economy is in an awful state — badly in need of restructuring. This, as a result of a downward spiral of goods production, in per capita terms, matched by an insatiable appetite for a lifestyle well above our means, over many, many years.

KINGSTON, Jamaica - There will be temptation among skittish members of the Government, we fear, to slink behind the recent acknowledgement by the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) Chief Economist Olivier Blanchard that the Fund underestimated the potentially deflationary impact of its policies in Greece to escape having to make the hard choices on adjustment in Jamaica.