CHICAGO, CMC – A leading United States newspaper Tuesday said that Jamaica’s debt crisis is in a worse financial shape than Greece and suggested that the Portia Simpson Miller administration consider a bailout plan with significant debt relief.
The Chicago Tribune in an editorial said that Jamaica has more debt in relation to the size of its economy than any other country and warned against the Caribbean island becoming what it labelled “The Greece of the Western Hemisphere”.

CASTRIES, St. Lucia, CMC – Trade union officials were keeping mum on Tuesday, one day after Prime Minister Dr. Kenny Anthony indicated that while his government is anxious to bring closure to the wage and salary negotiations involving public servants it is not going to endorse salaries that would force the island into the clutches of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Anthony met with the members of the Trade Union Federation (TUF) after the trade unionists met in an emergency session on Monday.

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados - Barbados’ largest telecommunications company, LIME, has taken the Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU) to task for threatening to call a national strike over job redundancies at that company.
The union on Monday called on LIME to withdraw the 97 letters of termination issued to workers by today or face industrial action. On January 2 LIME announced the laying off of 97 workers.

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – The Barbados Workers Union (BWU) is threatening a nationwide strike if the telecommunications company, Cable and Wireless (Barbados) Limited, does not retract dismissal letters sent to nearly 100 workers last week.
The BWU has also given the telecommunication company until Wednesday to rescind the letters.
Last week, Cable and Wireless (Barbados) Limited, which operates here under the brand, LIME, blaming substantial losses, said that it would be outsourcing its retail operations in a bid to improve its financial position.

KINGSTON, Jamaica - INTERNATIONAL trade is vital to the survival and economic growth of small vulnerable developing economies (SVDEs). The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is the international agency charged with negotiation of the rules which constitute the multilateral trading system. The implementation and the adjudication of disputes in the interpretation and application of the rules also fall within its purview.

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - Devant Maharaj, Minister of Food Production, told the T&T Guardian that a draft Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is being prepared to bolster relations between Guyana and T&T with respect to food security. He was speaking at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the opening of the car park for the Norris Deonarine Wholesale Market, Macoya.

BELMOPAN, Belize, CMC – Prime Minister Dean Barrow has confirmed holding talks with the leaders of a notorious criminal gang here after four men were found murdered in an apartment building on Tuesday.
Barrow told reporters that he led a delegation that included National Security Minister John Saldivar for talks with the leaders of the George Street Gang and said that an arrangement had been reached for them to leave the area and not seek to retaliate against people they believe committed the murders.

ST JOHN’S, Antigua – The Caracas initiative, which provides cheap fuel to Antigua & Barbuda will continue – Venezuelan ambassador Carlos Perez Silva has confirmed – even as speculation persists over the health of the Venezuelan leader.
The St John’s based diplomat in an exclusive interview with OBSERVER Media, firmly rejected that the PetroCaribe will end and brushed aside rumours of a Hugo Chavez that is not making progress.

PORT-AU-PRINCE -- The narrow corridor home deep inside the mountain was supposed to be a new beginning, a place where Alexandra Simin could have a fresh shot at life after nearly two years of sleeping on a dirt floor in a fetid tent city.
But 14 months after trading in her small tent for the one-room cinder block shack in the hillside slum called “Jalousie” or Jealousy, the mother of two and survivor of Haiti’s catastrophic Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake was again without a home.

MONTREAL, Canada, CMC – Haiti’s Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe has a message for Canada in the wake of a decision by Ottawa to put a temporarily halt on aid to the French-speaking Caribbean Community (CARICOM) country.
He wants Canada to give Port-au-Prince a greater say in how aid from the North American country is spent.
Last week, International Co-operation Minister Julian Fantino announced that Ottawa would not fund any new programme in Haiti until it finds a better way of assisting the country help itself.