Archive for 2011

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez sang, danced and said he intends to stay in power for two more decades as he celebrated his 57th birthday looking ahead to months of cancer treatment.

Chavez rallied a crowd of cheering supporters from the balcony of the presidential palace yesterday, waving a large Venezuelan flag and briefly wrapping himself in it. He said he expects to lose his hair soon as a result of chemotherapy and that a long ...

“We have stepped up our joint efforts to crack down on corruption, illegal weapons, narcotics traffickers and to create economic opportunities for young people,” Clinton said.

She was speaking at a press conference at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel here in Rose Hall following a meeting with Caribbean foreign ministers last night.

Clinton told reporters that the US$77 million allocated for the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative for fiscal year 2011/12 represents a 70 per cent increase over the previous year. “This support ...

He had grand plans on how to rebuild his broken land, but Haitian President Michel Martelly can’t even get over the first hurdle: forming a government.

Haiti’s parliament rejected Tuesday the new president’s pick for prime minister, Daniel Rouzier, sending Martelly back to the drawing board. Meanwhile, it has been more than six months since Haitians first went to the polls to vote for new leadership after last year’s devastating earthquake.

Martelly, a former pop star, nominated Rouzier, an entrepreneur who also ...

ROME, ITALY ­ — High and volatile agricultural commodity prices are likely to prevail for the rest of this year and into 2012 according to the latest analysis published June 7 in FAO’s biannual Food Outlook.

The report cites a sharp rundown on inventories and only modest overall production increases for the majority of crops as reasons for continuing strong prices.

The next few months will be critical in determining how the major crops will fare this year, the report noted. Although ...

Minister of Business Development & Tourism of Bermuda, Patrice Kimberly Minors, is among a stellar panel set to address the inaugural Invest Caribbean Power Forum in New York City today, Thursday, June 9th.

Minister Minors will join panelists Martin Mohabeer, the Guyana-born Managing Director of Spackman Group and CEO of Spackman Capital; W. Dave Dowrich, Vice President at Goldman Sachs, and David Brillembourg, CEO of the Brilla Group at the investment event being co-presented by digital media company Hard Beat Communications ...

Jamaica’s tourism competitiveness has dropped to number 65, eight less than it ranked in 2008, and five less than 2009, says findings by the World Economic Forum. The organisation ranked Jamaica 57th in 2008 in its travel and tourism competitiveness, and by 2009, the country dropped to 60th.

In a letter objecting to a proposed US$10 tax increase in the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF), the International Air and Transport Association (IATA) assistant director, Cyriel Kronenburg, said, “Jamaica already has a problem ...

AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Mon. June 6, 2011: The cholera epidemic in Haiti is far from over, with a sharp increase in cases seen in the capital, Port-au-Prince, and outbreaks reported elsewhere in the country.

That’s the word from te international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
The organization says while the cholera epidemic in Haiti began to decline in February, it has not yet ended and since mid-May, medical teams in Port-au-Prince have witnessed an increase.

By the end of ...

News Americas, WASHINGTON, D.C., Weds. June 1, 2011: Less than one million people moved into tent cities after the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti and not the 1.5 million originally estimated.

That’s according to a leaked new United States government report. The report, not yet made public, suggests the number was more 895,000 than the 1.5 million estimated by the International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental organization.

And the U.S.A.I.D., which hired a Washington research group to prepare the report, also claimed ...

News Americas, LONDON, England, Weds. June 1, 2011: For the last year Europe and the Caribbean have been working on what in effect is a political partnership agreement.

This far reaching treaty, which is relatively unknown in the Caribbean and in Europe, is intended to provide a framework for a long term political relationship between The EU and the nations of Cariforum, including the Overseas Territories of Britain and the Netherlands, the French Département d’outre-mer (the DOM) and, some suggest, Cuba.

The ...

ZURICH – Mohamed bin Hammam is facing an ethics investigation just days before his attempt to unseat Sepp Blatter as FIFA president after a report alleging possible bribery rocked the election campaign yesterday.

Bin Hammam, the Qatari head of the Asian Football Confederation and the only man running against Blatter in the June 1 vote, was one of four officials summoned by FIFA to appear before its ethics committee on Sunday following a report from fellow executive committee member Chuck Blazer.

FIFA ...