CARIBBEAN ROUNDUP
Barbados
The Barbados-based Caribbean Tourism
Organization (CTO) announced it
is closing the organization’s offices in
the United Kingdom and the United
States as part of its efforts to “play a
stronger role in the new era of tourism
development.”
This was revealed
by CTO chairman
Dominic Feede, who is
also Minister of Tourism
in St. Lucia. He
said that in addition to the closure of
the New York Office in December and
the United Kingdom by Jan. 31 next
year, there will also be a “comprehensive
audit of the Barbados office.”
Feede said that some of the most
discussed aspirations range from marketing
the Caribbean as a single brand,
more in depth research, and a greater
uniformed approach to policy formulation
and product development.
The CTO chairman said that the
restructuring exercise is expected to
significantly reduce the operational
expenditures of the CTO, giving it more
capacity to undertake its key functions
of regional marketing, statistics and
research and product development.
Bahamas
The Bahamas government has
defended its decision to clear shanty
towns in Abaco and compulsory
acquire lands that had been reduced
to debris by Hurricane Dorian when
it swept through the tiny island on
Sept. 1, 2019, killing at least 60 people
and causing widespread destruction in
Abaco and Grand Bahama.
Attorney General
Carl Bethel said that
the decision to remove
the debris does not in
any way, shape or form
constitute any violation of the injunction.
He was responding to a letter sent to
the Attorney General’s Office by human
rights attorney Fred Smith.
Smith, a Queen’s Counsel, had
claimed that the move by the government
was in violation of an injunction
handed down by a judge last year
blocking the demolition of shanty town
structures while a court matter in relation
to those communities remains
outstanding.
But Bethel insisted that there were
provisions under both the Environmental
Health Services Act and the
Buildings Regulations Act to accomplish
the government’s new initiative.
He said the law gives the minister
with responsibility for works “special
emergency powers” to demolish and
remove structures irreparably dangerous
due to the occurrence of “flood,
fire, hurricane or any other disaster,”
Updated daily at www.caribbeanlifenews.com
Haitian migrants displaced from their home destroyed by Hurricane Dorian rest on a picnic table at a church shelter in Abaco, Bahamas,
Saturday, Sept. 28, 2019. DA preliminary report estimates Dorian caused some $7 billion in damage, but the government has
subject only to preserving valuable
contents for the owner of such premises
to the extent such salvage is possible
without endangering safety of anyone.
Smith also objected to a statement
made by Prime Minister Hubert Minnis
in Parliament earlier this month that
the government intends to acquire the
shanty town land in Abaco.
The government has also issued an
order prohibiting any rebuilding on the
properties for at least six months.
Caribbean
Parliamentarians
from Barbados, Grenada,
Jamaica, St.
Lucia, St. Vincent and
the Grenadines, Suriname
and Trinidad and Tobago came to
together recently at the Hyatt Regency,
Trinidad to identify how female parliamentarians
can rise up to their
engagement in tackling the illegal gun
trade in the region.
A statement from the Parliamentarians
for Global Action (PGA) said nearly
60 percent of all homicides in the
region were gun-related and over 1.6
million illegal guns are in circulation,
despite the fact there is no local manufacture
base in the Caribbean.
The workshop was organized by PGA
and was funded by the United Nations
Trust Facility on Cooperation in Arms
Regulation (UNSCAR).
It was tasked with highlighting how
Caribbean L 4 ife, OCTOBER 25-31, 2019 BQ
female decision-makers including parliamentarians
are increasingly being
looked to by the international community,
to get involved, especially since
the situation has deteriorated considerable
in several CARICOM member
States.
At the workshop, participants recognized
that reckless, unchecked arms
export by certain countries outside
the region were a major cause of the
problem.
Grenada
The Grenada government is moving
to ban smoking in public places as well
as restricting the use and sale of electronic
cigarettes on the island.
Minister of Legal
Affairs, Kindra
Matur ine-Stewa r t
told reporters that the
Keith Mitchel administration
had taken the decision to table
legislation banning the use and sale of
vaping and e-cigarettes in Grenada.
He said that the data and statistics
coming from within the world and data
from the Caribbean shows a very worrying
trend in respect to the prevalence
and use of e-cigarettes and vaping.
She said legislation will be presented
at the next sitting of Parliament.
The minister noted that as of now,
e-cigarettes are available in Grenada
and there is no legislation that prohibits,
restricts the importation of the sale
and use of e-cigarettes in Grenada.
Grenada has already in place a policy
banning smoking in government buildings
as well as schools and hospitals.
Jamaica
Jamaica Minister of Tourism,
Edmund Bartlett said the island will
see an increase in flights out of South
America starting in December.
Speaking at a news
conference, Bartlett
said that LatAm Airlines
will have three
weekly flights from
Chile and other South American countries
to Montego Bay.
This is in addition to 11 flights now
offered by Copa Airlines out of Panama,
to bring the total weekly flights
between South American and Jamaica
to 14.
The minister said that will go a long
way in helping “us to further build
out the South American market which
right now, is the fastest growing for
Jamaica, as some 23 percent at this
time.”
He also said that Jamaica is expanding
its source markets, with Japan and
India being targeted.
Bartlett noted that these marketing
engagements are critical in fortifying
the resilience of the island’s tourism
industry against any fallout that could
result from shocks such as a global
not yet offered any fi gures. Associated Press / Ramon Espinosa
Continued on Page 38
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Haitian migrants in The Bahamas
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