PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago, Guardian - Richard J Doumeng, president, Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA), and Beverly Nicholson-Doty, chairman, Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) Council of Ministers and Commissioners of Tourism, are supporting a recent study by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) which shows that the abolition of the UK’s Air Passenger Duty (APD) could bring a lasting boost to the UK economy, generating a net tax gain for the Treasury and creating almost 60,000 new jobs.
News
MCALLEN, Texas, (Reuters) – U.S. authorities seized $2.2 million from a bank account they said was controlled by a former Mexican official-turned-fugitive who is accused of stealing public funds in a scheme that involved hundreds of millions of dollars in fraudulent bank loans, according to court papers released yesterday. Federal authorities seized the money from the Bermuda bank account believed to have been controlled by Hector Javier Villarreal Hernandez, a former finance secretary in Mexico’s Coahuila state on the border with Texas.
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago, Guardian - United States marine corps general John Kelly, commander of US southern command, who visited Port-of-Spain yesterday, said he was delighted to have met with the Government and defence leaders on his Caribbean visit. Kelly met with prime minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, national security Minister Jack Warner, foreign affairs minister Winston Dookeran and members of the T&T Defence Force led by chief of defence staff, Maj Gen Kenrick Maharaj.
OSLO, (Reuters) - The Amazon rainforest is less vulnerable to die off because of global warming than widely believed because the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide also acts as an airborne fertiliser, a study showed yesterday. The boost to growth from CO2, the main gas from burning fossil fuels blamed for causing climate change, was likely to exceed damaging effects of rising temperatures this century such as drought, it said.
KINGSTON, Jamaica, Gleaner - THREE OF the country's leading private-sector groups have given Energy Minister Phillip Paulwell and the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) 30 days to lay out a clear road map to secure massive reductions in electricity rates. The Government was banking on the introduction of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to reduce the cost of electricity by up to 40 per cent. However, the fate of the LNG project hangs in the balance following the withdrawal of the Government from the process.
KINGSTON, Jamaica, CMC – Jamaica says it will continue to promote technical and economic co-operation with developing countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as with traditional partners Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan and the European Union.
ST. JOHN’S, Antigua, Observer - With a month to go before the second meeting of the OECS Assembly in Antigua, concerns are being raised about its format, in light of previous controversy. During the inaugural meeting here in August, the authorities removed the mace, Queen’s image, national flags and laws of Antigua & Barbuda from the building. The event was attended by legislators from the nine-member sub-regional grouping.
KINGSTON, Jamaica, Gleaner - Long admired for world-class academics moulding young minds, the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, could be depleted of such individuals in the next few years. Professor Hubert Devonish has estimated that some 300 academics are due to retire in the next five years, and replacements are hard to find because of comparatively low salaries. Devonish noted that UWI brought salaries down to regional levels decades ago, but the continuing slide of the Jamaican dollar has had a negative impact.
GEORGETOWN, Guyana, Stabroek News - Jamaica has been given the green light to train aviation professionals for the global markets, which will need 350,000 pilots and 480,000 mechanics by 2026. The country officially received its ‘Trainair Plus’ full membership from the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) during a joint Jamaica Civil Aviation Authority (JCCA) regional symposium at the Hilton Rose Hall, Montego Bay, on Monday. The ICAO is a United Nations specialised agency and the only global aviation standards setting body in the world.
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Advocate - Whichever of the two main parties is eventually successful in forming the next governing administration on February 22, after the current ostensibly garish and noisy electoral campaign, will have a legacy of economic troubles left on its agenda for immediate treatment. One of these, we submit, is the substantial debt currently owed to the University of the West Indies (UWI) by the state. The conundrum, of course, is that “free” tertiary education has, by now, become one of the sacred cows of the national political dispensation.