EUROPE’S economic problems are growing steadily worse, with unemployment in parts of the Continent now above the level reached in the United States during the Great Depression.
Meanwhile, policy makers dither over solutions. Last week, the European Central Bank cut interest rates by a meager quarter of a percentage point, akin to giving two aspirin to a patient with pneumonia. Meanwhile, pressure is growing to ease the emphasis on austerity and to allow larger budget deficits.
If it were only that simple.
Accredited Third States
WASHINGTON, CMC - The United States Congress has started formal consideration of a sweeping immigration reform bill that creates a “path to citizenship” for an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants, including Caribbean nationals.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to finish work on the bill this week adopting Republican amendments aimed at stronger border security.
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados - The news that our offshore sector was recently severely criticized in the Canadian parliament is one more inconvenient truth that the Barbados economic policymakers will have to face.
In a report earlier this month, the Standing Committee on Finance of that country’s parliament made recommendations to its government on a number of proposals to come down hard on Canadian companies and individuals using this country and other low-tax jurisdictions.
? KINGSTON, Jamaica - The World Trade Organisation (WTO) is now set to appoint a new director general. He is Roberto Carvalho de AzevĂŞdo, Brazil's long-serving ambassador to the organisation. His appointment is good news for developing countries insofar as Carvalho de AzevĂŞdo is from a leading developing country that has shown itself not to be averse to taking on the countries that have dominated the WTO. Those countries are the United States and the collective 27-nation European Union.
The Organisation of Amercan States (OAS) Secretariat through the Caribbean Sustainable Energy Program (CSEP) and the Energy Efficiency Working Group of the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas (ECPA), hosted a workshop on energy efficiency designs for office and public buildings in tropical climates. The event took place at the Bay Gardens Inn in Rodney Bay from February 28th through March 1st, 2013. The CARICOM Secretariat is a Partner of the CSEP Project.
The overall objectives of the Workshop were to garner feedback and finalize the Study being done to establish Regional sustainable energy targets, as well as, to build awareness about the process going forward to fully establish the C-SERMS. Approximately Sixty persons were in attendance including Senior Energy Officials, members of the diplomatic corps, representatives from the public and private sectors of CARICOM Member States, regional Universities and technical experts.
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his Argentine counterpart and ally, Cristina Fernandez, announced new energy and food agreements yesterday, then Maduro cheered supporters of Argentina's president with a rousing speech at a football-stadium rally.
Maduro said their two countries are more closely aligned than ever despite the deaths of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and of Nestor Kirchner, Fernandez's husband who preceded her in the presidency.
WASHINGTON, CMC - The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says Antigua and Barbuda has made “excellent progress” towards achieving its goal of restoring debt sustainability and macroeconomic stability.
An IMF mission headed by Geoffrey Bannister has recently completed a review of the 2010 multi-million dollar Stand-By Arrangement (SBA) to the island.
“On the fiscal side, the fiscal outturn for March 2013 was well above programme targets, surpassing the performance criterion on the overall fiscal balance and the indicative target for the primary balance by a wide margin.
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – United States Vice President Joe Biden is due here at the end of May, the US Embassy has confirmed.
It gave no details on the proposed visit, but one local television station quoted Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Dookeran as saying that the visit is aimed at improving relations and cooperation with Trinidad and Tobago and Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders.
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar shrugged off reports that relations between Washington and Port of Spain had deteriorated telling a public meeting of her United National Congress
NEW YORK, CMC – A United States-based human rights group has given the United Nations 60 days to reach a compensation deal or face a legal lawsuit from victims of Haiti's cholera epidemic.
The United Nations has already indicated it is legally immune from legal action over the epidemic that afflicted some half a million people.
But the Boston-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti said it is ready to open legal proceedings in New York with claims totalling billions of dollars unless the United Nations adhered to the deadline.