The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has concluded the first review of Jamaica’s economic performance under a Stand-By Arrangement (SBA), enabling the immediate disbursement about US$94 million), bringing total disbursements under the arrangement to about US$705, it was announced Wednesday (June 23). Jamaica has performed very well under the program. All quantitative [...]

Against the background of the global economic crisis, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has approved a $117.8 million loan to support the Antigua and Barbuda’s plan to recover from mounting government debt, weak economic growth, and the effects of the economic crisis. The global lender announced June 8 that the money will help Antigua and [...]

“If ever there was genocide – this is it!” declares Flavia Cherry, a St Lucian activist in Haiti representing Caribbean Feminist Network for Research and Action. “People who are very sick are being left in camps, (consisting) only of bed sheets hung up by flimsy sticks, where no help is available,” she wrote in a [...]

The governments of Jamaica and China have signed agreements valued more than US$500 million, a release from the office of the island’s prime minister said Thursday. The agreements cover the construction of affordable housing, road repair and rehabilitation as well as shoreline protection and rehabilitation on the Palisadoes roadway which links the island’s main airport [...]

As the world turns from grief to bickering over the response to the devastation of Haiti by the magnitude 7.3 earthquake January 12, Jamaica’s prime minister, Bruce Golding on Tuesday briefed his parliamentary colleagues on the island’s and the Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM) roles in alleviating the suffering people of their neighbour.

Following is the full text of his presentation:

A small party in Barbados is taking regional governments and political parties to task over their response to the impact of the global economic crisis on the Caribbean. The People’s Empowerment Party (PEP), headed by David Comissiong fingers the political leadership in Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago for their lethargic response  to a PEP [...]

The existence of Caricom (the Caribbean Community), the only organisation dedicated to the economic interests of the Caribbean countries, is at risk, Jamaica’s Prime Minister Bruce Golding has cautioned. “There are a number of things that are happening now that are destabilising and threatening the existence of Caricom,” he declared at the launch of Export [...]

Prime Minister Bruce Golding says Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean need to be liberated from the nostalgia of an era of protective market when they could punish their consumers as they chose, by shutting their borders so that foreign goods could not easily come in and consumers were condemned to substandard products. ‘We [...]

Raw, real, melodic. These are all words that describe the sound that comes out of Ruth Osman’s mouth. Osman, a Guyanese jazz singer and flautist, has been performing since she was a child. She started to take music lessons at age eight, beginning with the recorder and eventually moving on to voice and flute. Her [...]

The impact of the global recession on the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) region has been severe and wide-ranging, but the region is now better positioned to weather the current downturn and is expected to emerge from the financial crisis earlier than the advanced economies, according to the latest Regional Economic Outlook: Western Hemisphere report [...]