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GEORGETOWN, Guyana: Haiti is expected to participate in at least one component of the Caribbean Single Market and Economy, (CSME) by the first quarter of 2009.
The fundamental components of the CSME are free movement of goods and services, free movement of people and skills, and the right of establishment of business entities within the Community. Haiti’s participation in the CSME will increase the size of CARICOM’s market under the CSME to an unprecedented 15 million people.
Ambassador Earl Stephen Huntley, Director of the CARICOM Representation Office in Haiti told the opening ceremony of the Third Meeting of the CARICOM Commission on Youth Development (CCYD) on Monday morning that Haiti was now in the process of revising and developing legislative frameworks to facilitate its participation in Free Trade in Goods under the CSME. He noted that by January 2009 bureau of standards would be established in Haiti as the country prepared to participate in its first segment of the CSME.
Approximately 40 delegates including Commissioners, consultants and representatives of the University of the West Indies, development agencies, Departments of youth affairs, and the CARICOM Youth Ambassador Corps are meeting at the Hotel Montana in Port au Prince, to discuss preliminary research findings and develop a plan of action to complete the Commission’s Report. The recommendations contained in the Final Report, will be discussed by the special Meeting of the Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD) in April 2009, prior to its submission to the CARICOM Conference of Heads of Government in July 2009.
By WILL WEISSERT
SANTIAGO, Cuba – President Raul Castro said Sunday that Cuba has battled Washington’s trade embargo for nearly 50 years and is prepared to do so for another 50 if need be.
His comments appeared to be a small swipe at Washington at a time when President-elect Barack Obama has raised expectations that warmer U.S.-Cuba relations could be on the way. He spoke as leaders from the 14 member nations of the Caribbean Community trade bloc, or Caricom, gathered in the eastern city of Santiago to discuss ways to strengthen tourism in the region despite the global economic crisis.
Castro and Antigua Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer, whose country is occupying the rotating post as head of Caricom, led a visit by summit leaders to the tomb of 19th-century Cuban independence leader Jose Marti, where each leader laid a flower in front of the hexagonal mausoleum.
Later, during an event at Santiago’s Plaza of the Revolution, Castro said of the U.S. economic sanctions that “we have learned to resist for half a century, and we are prepared to fight for another half century.”
BY JACQUELINE CHARLES
Small and medium-sized businesses in the Caribbean looking for help on how to better manage their enterprises can now get some free advice courtesy of Scotiabank and the Inter-American Investment Corporation, a multilateral financial institution.
The program was announced Tuesday morning at a press conference during the 32nd Miami Conference on the Caribbean and Central America at the Inter-Continental Hotel in downtown Miami.
Beginning in March, businesses in the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago will be able to get a free analysis of their weaknesses and strength, as well as training and technical assistance. All of it will be free, and delivered by business students and professors at the University of West Indies, the College of the Bahamas and a network of professors in Belize.
Pat Minicucci, Caribbean region head for Scotiabank, said the Canada-based bank believes that in challenging economic times it is important to support businesses in the region. The bank employs more than 1,200 people in more than 600 offices throughout the Caribbean region.
By Rebecca Harrison
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa’s drive to give black investors stakes in white-run blue-chips may fall victim to the global financial crisis, forcing a major rethink of a core policy meant to redress apartheid’s economic ills.
Under black economic empowerment (BEE), which has stirred controversy but is now broadly accepted by corporate South Africa, firms in Africa’s biggest economy must meet quotas on black ownership, employment and procurement.
That means bringing black investors on board and giving them an equity stake usually via complex deals funded by the company, banks and existing shareholders through the issue of new shares.
Black investors usually repay the loans with dividends and sometimes cashflow, and the shares themselves act as collateral.
In a bull market, the newly-rich black investors see their assets grow and comfortably use healthy dividends and cashflow to meet monthly payments, even using stock to back more loans.
By TAMAR LEWIN
Edinburg University looks for good grade-point averages and SAT scores from Americans. As for the rest: “The fluff is irrelevant,” a recruiter says,
ST. ANDREWS, Scotland — Isobel Oliphant felt she was making an offbeat choice when she graduated from Fox Lane High School in Bedford, N.Y., and enrolled at the ancient university in this quiet coastal town of stone ruins and verdant golf courses.
Global Classrooms Abroad for a Bachelor’s
This series examines the globalization of higher education.
“I thought I was being original,” said Ms. Oliphant, now in her third year at the University of St. Andrews. “But my high school class president came here, too. And when I got here, it was all ‘Hi, I’m from Massachusetts,’ ‘Hi, I’m from New York.’ ”
St. Andrews has 1,230 Americans among its 7,200 students this year, compared with fewer than 200 a decade ago.
The large American enrollment is no accident. St. Andrews has 10 recruiters making the rounds of American high schools, visiting hundreds of private schools and a smattering of public ones.
David Nott volunteers for a month a year with the medical charity
A British doctor volunteering in DR Congo used text message instructions from a colleague to perform a life-saving amputation on a boy.
Vascular surgeon David Nott helped the 16-year-old while working 24-hour shifts with medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) in Rutshuru.
The boy’s left arm had been ripped off and was badly infected and gangrenous.
Mr Nott, 52, from London, had never performed the operation but followed instructions from a colleague who had.
The surgeon, who is based at Charing Cross Hospital in west London, said: “He was dying. He had about two or three days to live when I saw him.”
Careful instructions
It is not clear how the boy was injured. It was suggested that he had been bitten by a hippopotamus while fishing, but Mr Nott also heard that he had been caught in crossfire between government and rebel forces.
Muhammad Yunus
LONDON (AFP) — The global financial crisis is distracting attention from other pressing issues such as high food and energy prices, and environmental damage, Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus told AFP Wednesday.
The Bangladeshi economist warned that not addressing those other issues would lead to a “much bigger crisis ahead” that would have political and financial implications.
“What we see as a financial crisis is a part of many more crises, which are going on simultaneously in 2008,” Yunus said in an interview while attending a summit of business leaders in London.
“You remember the food crisis? It’s still on, it didn’t disappear. Simply, this (financial crisis) became much more pressing and everybody is paying attention.”
He continued: “Then we have the energy crisis, it’s still there… And then the environmental crisis, we have not solved anything about the environmental crisis.”
Yunus, who along with his Grameen Bank won the Nobel peace award in 2006 for efforts to lift people out of extreme poverty by giving them small loans, said that any solution had to “address simultaneously all these four” crises.
Caribbean nations are feeling the sting of the U.S. recession but so far are weathering the storm, according to officials gathered in Miami for a regional conference.
BY JOSEPH A. MANN, JR. AND JACQUELINE CHARLES
The U.S. financial meltdown is starting to affect Caribbean nations, but the effects so far appear to be manageable, government and business officials attending a regional conference in Miami said Tuesday.
Still, much of the discussion at the Miami Conference on the Caribbean and Central America centered on ways to confront the global financial crisis that has started to ripple through the region.
Caribbean nations that rely heavily on tourism are already seeing sharp declines in bookings, while exporters in Central America are facing less demand for their products, said Anton Edmunds, executive director and chief executive of Caribbean-Central American Action, a private sector group that organized the annual conference, which is now in its 32nd year and attracted more than 370 participants.
WASHINGTON, (UPI) — A ceremony for the opening of an AIDS memorial will take place next year in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, the Global Health Council said Monday.
The international health group said in a news release that the opening ceremony of the International AIDS Candlelight Memorial will take place in Haiti in May 2009 as part of the ongoing effort to limit the disease’s spread in the country and the rest of the world.
Council head Dr. Nils Daulaire said during a World AIDS Day 20th anniversary commemoration event in Washington that the 2009 ceremony would also be supported by the non-governmental group, Promoteurs Objectif Zero Sida.
The May 17 event is intended to bring increased attention to the plight of AIDS sufferers and the need for enhanced efforts to contain the spread of the potentially deadly disease.
“The worldwide effort to stop HIV/AIDS depends now, more than ever, on making sure that community leaders understand the disease, stop the stigma and work together with all the other stakeholders in their countries to ensure the best possible delivery of prevention, treatment and care programs,” he said.
Source: TimesOfTheInternet
The Bahamas and Haiti signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the waiver of visas for holders of diplomatic and official passports, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Goodman’s Bay Corporate Centre. Pictured at the signing are Ambassador Louis Harold Joseph, Republic of Haiti and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Brent Symonette. Looking on is Terry Archer, Protocol Division, and Ministry of Foreign Affairs. (BIS Photo/Raymond A. Bethel)
NASSAU, Bahamas (BIS): The Bahamas and Haiti signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the waiver of visas for holders of diplomatic and official passports on Wednesday.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Brent Symonette signed on behalf of the Bahamas and Ambassador Louis Harold Joseph on behalf of Haiti.
“This Memorandum of Understanding is a reciprocal agreement providing for the waiver of visa requirement for diplomats and officials from both countries,” said the Minister of Foreign Affairs. “This waiver will also facilitate the closer collaboration between our two countries, as both Haitian and Bahamian diplomats and officials can travel to the respective country without a visa.
“This ease of travel by our diplomats and officials is a sign of the deepening of our relationship and a further strengthening of the bonds that have shaped the social and historical development of the two countries.”
Symonette thanked the Haitian Ambassador for his work in assisting the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in fostering relations between both countries, which he considered to be “working as smoothly as possible and we look forward to 2009 being a very productive year.”
