KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, CMC – Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves is calling on Caribbean countries to establish a regional reparations committee, pledging to spend the rest of his life seeking compensation from the British for land, genocide against the Garifuna, and slavery. Prime Minister Gonsalves said Cabinet will soon name its reparations committee “But we want to see not only a reparations committee for St. Vincent but we want to see a Caribbean wide reparations committee involving other Caribbean countries.
St. Vincent and the Grenadines
KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, CMC -- Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves has admitted that an investor whose company is the focus of a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) investigative programme visited his official residence twice, contrary to what he told the media in February. The admission in a March 7 letter to Matthew Chapman, producer of a BBC programme being made about Harlequin Property, owners of Buccament Bay Resort here, also contradicts Gonsalves statements that he has never met Ames in the absence of his lawyer, Samuel E. Commissiong.
KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, CMC - Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves is proposing that a facility in St. Vincent and the Grenadines be named in honour of former Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, who died of cancer last week.
“I believe that it would be fitting for us, at some time, to have a facility, whether it be a school or some other public building or facility, named after President Chavez,” Gonsalves told Parliament.
KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, CMC – Teenage pregnancy continues to be a major concern for the Ministry of Health with eight girls between the ages of 11 and 14 years giving birth in 2012, Health Minister Clayton Burgin has told Parliament.
He said that teenage pregnancy remains high even as the nation recorded a constant decrease in the number of babies dying before birth -- prenatal mortality.
KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, CMC -As the Fourth Regional Workshop on Negotiations for the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty opened on Wednesday, Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves used the case of a Vincentian woman paralysed by a bullet to highlight the impact of years of unregulated trade in weapons.
“With that single bullet, this young lady went from being a star athlete at her school to a wheelchair-bound symbol of the creeping scourge of arms and ammunition into the most remote corners of our Caribbean civilization,” Gonsalves said.
KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, CMC - Opposition Leader Arnhim Eustace says his lawyers have written to Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves demanding an apology and compensation for statements he made about him on a recent radio programme.
“I want to confirm that by letter dated Wednesday, February 27th, Dr. Gonsalves was informed by my lawyers of my intention to pursue legal action against him, if certain conditions are not met.
KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, CMC – Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves Wednesday joined his Caribbean Community (CARICOM) colleagues in acknowledging that the death of Venezuela’s president Hugo Chavez has left a void and many of his tasks unfinished.
KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, CMC – The founder of the main opposition New Democratic Party (NDP) and former prime minister Sir James Mitchell has again called on Arnhim Eustace, the man he handpicked to succeed him as leader of the party, to step down.
“My party needs to re-evaluate itself. It needs to understand in all honestly where they are,” Sir James, who retired from politics in 2000, said of the NDP, which he founded in 1975.
KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, CMC – Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, insisting that he has no intention of closing down a radio station widely regarded as supportive of the opposition New Democratic Party (NDP), has nonetheless instructed his lawyer “to pursue the fruits of my judgement” in two defamation cases. Nice Radio Monday paid EC$206,000 (One EC dollar = US$0.37 cents) to Gonsalves representing the full payment for a defamation judgement he won following statements made by a radio host almost 10 years ago.
KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, CMC - The chair of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Trust says he will ensure that a complaint made by Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves about two BBC journalists “is properly pursued through the BBC complaints process.” Gonsalves wrote to Lord Chris Patten on Friday to complain about the “rude” and “unprofessional” approach of journalists Matthew Hill and Paul Kenyon when they questioned him aboard an airplane in Barbados on February 17 about an allegation.