CARIBBEAN ROUNDUP
Antigua
Pilots of regional airline, LIAT has
agreed to a less than 10 percent cut
in salary in a bid to keep the airline in
the air.
President of the Leeward Islands
Pilots Association (LIAPA), Carl Burke,
who did not disclose the exact amount
that was agreed to, said the pilots recently
voted on the salary cut, which has
since been communicated to Barbados
Prime Minister, Mia Mottley.
The shareholder governments of
the airline are Antigua and Barbuda,
Barbados, Dominica and St. Vincent
and the Grenadines
have been seeking to
get other Caribbean
countries to contribute
a total of US$5.4
million in emergency
funding needed to keep the airline flying.
Meanwhile, Trinidad and Tobago
Minister of Finance, Colm Imbert said
if LIAT drops Trinidad and Tobago from
its schedule, state-owned Caribbean
Airlines Ltd. (CAL) will take up the
slack.
Imbert was responding to a warning
by St. Vincent and the Grenadines
Prime Minister, Dr. Ralph Gonsalves
that LIAT could discontinue its service
to Trinidad and Tobago.
Barbados
The Barbados government has
announced a gun amnesty in a bid to
curb the rise in gun-related murders in
the country.
Attorney General, Dale Marshall told
Parliament last week that the oneweek
amnesty, which started last Saturday
(April 6, 2019) that the Mia Mottley
Administration
was intent on dealing
severely with the
crime situation.
”If you have ammunition
or guns and you know you have
no lawful reason to have, take them to
the police station day or night, no questions
asked,” he said during the debate
on the amendment to the Bail Act.
“You have a week, one week, because
the criminal elements in this society
have to understand that we mean business,”
he added.
So far for this year, 20 people have
been murdered in Barbados and Prime
Minister, Mottley in her contribution to
the debate urged persons to put down
the guns, saying that may people were
simply giving in to pure pressure.
She said there seems to be little
respect and regard for human life and
that once that trigger is pulled there is
no turning back.
Caribbean
Chairman of the 15-member Caribbean
Updated daily at www.caribbeanlifenews.com
LIAT, The Caribbean Airline continues to fl y across the region despite economic woes. www.liat.com
Community (CARICOM), Prime
Minister, Dr. Timothy Harris recently
visited Ecuador to hold talks with the
International Contact Group on Venezuela.
The International Contact Group,
established by the European Union
(EU), (which comprises 11 countries),
is seeking to have a peaceful and democratic
solution to the current crisis
where opposition leader Juan Guaido,
backed by the United States and its
allies, is seeking to remove President
Nicholas Maduro from office.
Guaido has since declared himself
as the interim leader
of the South American
country.
Harris was accompanied
to the talks
by CARICOM Secretary
General, Edwin La Rocque and a
technical team from the Guyana-based
CARICOM Secretariat.
CARICOM has adopted a united position
on the Venezuelan matter and last
month regional leaders at their intersessional
summit in St. Kitts-Nevis reiterated
their position of non-interference
in the internal affairs of Venezuela and
said they were prepared to mediate in
the process to bring about a peaceful
solution to the crisis.
During the meeting, the CARICOM
leaders agreed for Harris “to meet with
interested parties in pursuit of an inclusive
approach to attaining a peaceful
Caribbean L 4 ife, April 12–18, 2019 BQ
resolution of the Venezuelan crisis.”
Grenada
The Grenada government says the
annual flow of sargassum into the Caribbean
Sea presents a major problem
resulting in millions of dollars in cleanup
exercises throughout the region.
Minister of the Environment, Simon
Stiell said the influx this year has started
much earlier than
in previous years and
has become a chronic
issue not just for Grenada,
but throughout
the Caribbean, even as far north as
Florida.
He said last year alone the government
spent more than EC$1 million in
cleaning key areas where there was a
buildup of sargassum, which is causing
health issues, issues for fishermen and
for communities.
Stiell said that the government has
since put together an action plan to deal
with the sargassum problem, which has
the greatest impact on the tourism and
fishing sectors.
Guyana
The United States has described Guyana
as a transit country for South
American cocaine destined for Europe,
West Africa, the United States, Canada
and the Caribbean.
It said cocaine is concealed in legitimate
commodities and smuggled via
commercial maritime vessels, air transport,
human couriers or the postal
services.
Washington said Guyana’s National
Risk Assessment 2017 found that it has
medium-to-high money laundering.
The US State department
noted that Guyana
has made significant
progress on the
anti-money laundering
front, but more investigations and
successful prosecutions are needed.
It said, historically, the primary
sources of laundered funds are narcotics
trafficking and real estate fraud.
However, other illicit activities, including
human trafficking, gold smuggling,
contraband, and tax evasion are also
sources.
Washington, in its 2019 International
Narcotics Control Strategy Report,
said that the licensing policies and
procedures of Guyana’s unsophisticated
banking and financial institutions
increase the risk of drug money laundering.
Jamaica
Fly Jamaica Airways has suspended
all its operations and
has made all of its staff
redundant as of last
week, saying the lack
of planes to carry out
operations has left it without any other
Continued on Page 12
ti
THE NEWS FROM BACK HOME
LIAT contines to fly
/www.caribbeanlifenews.com
/www.liat.com
/www.caribbeanlifenews.com
/www.liat.com