The International Monetary Fund has put out a video that sells its new $1.25 billion agreement with Jamaica in a positive light. Past agreements in the 1970s and 80s resulted in severe hardships on wage earners, as public sector jobs were cut, social services reduced or eliminated and public assets sold.

The International Monetary Fund has approved a US$1.25 billion loan to support Jamaica’s economic reforms and help the country cope with the consequences of the global financial crisis, Trevor Alleyne, the IMF’s mission chief to the island announced in Washington, Thursday.
Alleyne said the executive board approved the loan Thursday and the period to be [...]

David Comissiong, president of the People’s Empowerment Party (of Barbados) argues that the island and other Caribbean countries are becoming puppets of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and marginalising their vulnerable populations.

His is another of the stories of country come to town; the boy who left his dirt poor rural community for the brighter lights of his country’s tourist city of Montego Bay for his secondary schooling, who ended up an Oxford Rhodes scholar and then becoming head of the Caribbean’s premier institution of higher learning, [...]

The USA’s bubble has burst (or is at best losing air fast). To further compound this, the USA continues to prosecute wars it can ill afford. Main Street is convinced that President Obama has access to some economic and other leavers which, in less than a year, should have been effectively manipulated to reinstate the old status and magically decrease unemployment. But think again

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has painted a more optimistic view of the global economy in its latest World Economic Outlook (WEO) and its Global Financial Stability Reports but officials say Latin America and Caribbean growth is still at pre-crisis levels.

“In 2010, world output is expected to rise by 4 percent,” the WEO report said, [...]

Two days after the catastrophic earthquake that devastated the Haitian capital, Cuba’s former president, Dr Fidel Castro, wrote the following observations on the event that has shaken the world and has fast become a circus of “me first”.

Caribbean Community leaders, denied permission to land in Haiti last Thursday to asses the region’s contribution to the post earthquake recovery effort, were meeting Monday in neighbouring Dominican Republic with European Union, US State Department and United Nations officials to discuss a medium and long-term plan for Haiti’s reconstruction.
Since Haiti handed over control of its [...]

Bishop Delford Davis must be commended for his prayer initiative aptly entitled ‘Heal The Family, Heal The Nation’. The event is now in its fifth year and is endorsed by the six umbrella church groups in Jamaica. The event succeeded in getting the participation of the Prime Minister and the Governor General. It was a [...]

Canada’s Governor General, Michaëlle Jean, broke down in tears Wednesday as she appealed from Ottawa for assistance to Haiti, following Tuesday afternoon’s devastating earthquake that has killed and injured hundreds of thousands of people and caused billions of dollars in damage.
The world had already begun to show that it had a heart before the Haiti-born [...]