Oct 29
Vote on Resolution 187 in Favour to 3 Against, with 2 Abstentions
Even though many delegates expressed a newfound optimism that United States-Cuba relations could improve with the change of Administration in Washington, the United Nations General Assembly today once again adopted a stern resolution calling on the United States to end a trade embargo, which had created human suffering and wrecked havoc with the economy of the island nation…
Related:
Oct 28
Among the conventional wisdom that we hear every day in the business press is that developing countries should bend over backwards to create a friendly climate for foreign corporations, follow orthodox (neo-liberal) macro-economic policy advice, strive to achieve an investment-grade sovereign credit rating so as to attract more foreign capital.
Guess what country is expected to have the fastest economic growth in the Americas this year? Bolivia….
Oct 27
Anyone with a modicum of genuine interest in the welfare of the masses of Barbadian and Caribbean people would recognise that with a massive global economic crisis threatening unprecedented destruction, the Caribbean needs, now more than ever, to come together in brotherhood and solidarity under the banner of our “Caribbean Community” (CARICOM)!…
Of relevance: How Small Nations Were Cut Adrift (by the Global Economic Crisis), by Gideon Rachman, Financial Times
In the aftermath of the Great Recession, the economic and political tide has turned against small nations.
Oct 26
From Stabroek News, 26/10/09.Yarimar Bonilla teaches anthropology at the University of Virginia. She has also written on the mass strike in Guadeloupe earlier this year (https://nacla.org/node/5668 [1]).
In January and October of this year two massive demonstrations took place in the Caribbean, both of which have received little if any media coverage in the Anglophone Caribbean. The first was in Guadeloupe; the second, the subject of this article, took place last week in Puerto Rico…
Oct 23
[Abridged version of The Caribbean EPA Affair: Lesons for for the Progressive Movement]
The CARIFORUM-EU EPA, which was initialled in December 2007 and signed in October 2008, precipitated one of the most intense public debates in the recent history of the Caribbean Community (Caricom). At the core of the controversy lay differing views amongst Caribbean elites on development strategy, trade policy, regional integration, and the manner of engaging with globalisation. This paper suggests some ‘lessons learnt’ from the negotiation process itself and from the efforts of civil society to secure review and renegotiation of the initialled text. It employs a political economy approach that considers issues of ideology, power, governance and politics…
Oct 21
Whether she knew it or not, Nadia Bishop’s call to the Grenadian people for unconditional forgiveness and reconciliation appealed to deeply-entrenched values in at least two of our ancestral cultures. Traditional, and to some extent modern, societies in Africa and India accord(ed) great importance to such values, which are regarded as absolutely essential for maintaining social harmony and promoting solidarity in their multicultural societies. We in the Caribbean arguably still retain such values in our cultural genes, values that can be resuscitated when the need arises, as it apparently has in present-day Grenada…
Oct 20
From Walter Lippmann of Cuba News
This commentary is being widely discussed and reproduced on the Internet. It’s been reposted
by supporters as well as opponents of the Cuban Revolution around the world.
HAVANA TIMES, Oct. 19 - Cuban journalist Jose Alejandro Rodriguez gave a critique last Friday on the status of information and reporting made available to the public by the Cuban media. Rodriguez, who strongly supports the Cuban revolution, writes commentaries for Juventud Rebelde newspaper and also has a popular section where people write in their complaints usually involving state institutions. His commentary that follows appeared on the website of the newspaper but was not published in the print edition. It has since been taken off the web archives.
Oct 20
On January 1, 2008, Nadia Bishop, daughter of slain Prime Minister Maurice Bishop of the Grenada People’s Revolutionary Government, broadcast this appeal for forgiveness and reconciliation to the people of Grenada.
In it, Ms. Bishop tells of an emotional meeting the previous day with Bernard Coard and others imprisoned for the murder of her father and thirteen of his colleagues, and of the ”joy” she felt at having “mutally freed each other from the bond of negativity that has existed between us these past 24 years”.
Ms. Bishop also apologises to, and asks the forgiveness of, those harmed by the People’s Revolutionary Government headed by her father.
We believe that Ms. Bishop’s statement is of great relevance, wisdom and humanity in view of the debate over the tragic events in Grenada in October 1983 re-ignited by the recent release of Bernard Coard and the remainder of those convicted for the Bishop murders.
Fellow Grenadians, Happy New Year. Most of you know me. My name is Nadia Bishop. I am the daughter of Angela Bishop, and Maurice Bishop, the late Prime Minister of Grenada. I am here today on this first day of a new year to invite you to join me in forgiveness and reconciliation. I invite you to join me in creating a new beginning, as we start this New Year. ..
Oct 19
From “In The Diaspora”, Stabroek News, October 19, 2009
Melanie Newton is a Barbadian and Associate Professor of History at the University of Toronto
In 2004 two events sent shock waves across the Caribbean Sea, presenting us with two radically different blueprints for future hemispheric relations. In February a combined force of American, Canadian and French troops slipped into Haiti in the dead of night, “convinced” President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to resign, and spirited him out of the country into exile. Over the past five years the United Nations has occupied Haiti, ostensibly helping to build democracy, but, in reality, crushing democratic opposition movements. In a historic turn of events, Brazil, which has emerged in recent years as a regional superpower, has led UN forces in Haiti since 2005.
Meanwhile, in December 2004, the governments of Venezuela and Cuba spearheaded the Bolivarian People’s Alternative (now the Bolivarian Alliance, or ALBA). ALBA has sought a new kind of relationship between independent Caribbean and Latin American states…
Oct 18
The 7th ALBA Summit (16-17 October 09) has concluded in Bolivia with the adoption of a 30-point Final Declaration containing a 36-point Plan of Action for economic, social, political and defence cooperation…
Related
News Items from 8th ALBA Summit, Havana, 13-14 December 2009
Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda highlights importance of ALBA at 8th Summit
