Click here for ‘Exploiting Disaster’ (PDF file)

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CUBA-NORWAY AGREEMENT TO HELP HAITI SIGNED IN HAVANA

Norway will pay for the purchase and transport of Cuban medical supplies to Haiti, where 855 Cuban physicians are providing services.

The Renaissance of Haiti: A Template for Caribbean Integration P.J. Patterson. Twelfth Annual Eric Williams Memorial Lecture, FIU, October 15 2010

Recent news on the stalemate in the EPA negotiations in Southern Africa raises fresh questions about the wisdom of Cariforum countries in rushing to sign on to a ‘Full’ EPA with Europe in October 2008…

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Haiti was the first Cuba–actually, Cuba is the second Haiti. “Haiti was isolated at birth - ostracised and denied access to world trade, finance, and institutional development” (Beckles). Thus was Haiti punished by France, with the support of other Western, slave-owning nations. The French lifted their embargo after 21 years, extorting a massive ‘Independence debt’ for the loss of their ‘property’-which included members of the Haitian Cabinet. The US withheld recognition from Haiti for 58 years. Cuba has gone 48 years under the US embargo..

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Report to the General Assembly on the Cuban Embargo

Federation of Independent Trade Unions and NGOs of Trinidad and Tobago (FITUN) Solidarity Statement on Cuba

Cuba, Brazil, Unite for Africa’s Health Patricia Grogg, IPS

As off October 10th, 2010 the country Netherlands Antilles ceased to exist and the countries Curaçao and St. Maarten came into being. At the same moment the three other islands that used to form the Netherlands Antilles along with Curaçao and St. Maarten, i.e. Bonaire, Saba, St. Eustatius became a municipality of the Netherlands.

The question pops up is there any reason to celebrate the so called new countries? Are these countries new? The colonial ties with the Kingdom of the Netherlands will not only remain, but will furthermore be controlled by the Netherlands through the consensus laws the last government of the Antilles passed…

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Mixed Emotions at Very Last Antillean Parliament Meeting Suzanne Koelega

New Constitutional Structure of the Netherlands: Information Note Government of the Kingdom

The Thought of New World, edited by Brian Meeks and Norman Girvan, was launched on October 1st and 14th 2010 at the UWI Mona and St Augustine.We publish here the reviews and remarks by by Michael Witter,  Annita Montoute and Norman Girvan at the two launchings;  and an open letter to the co-editors from James Millette with the responses from Brian and Norman.

Click here for Long Live Independent Thought! Reflections by Norman Girvan

Haga click aquí para ¡Viva el pensamiento independiente! (versión en español)

Cliquez ici pour  Vive la pensée indépendante ! (la version française)

Click here for Towards a New Ferment, review by Michael Witter

Click here for  Reflections by Annita Montoute

Click here for Open Letter from James Millette and exchanges with Brian and Norman

Public Procurement links the issues of good governance and of economic development.The current preoccupation with eliminating corruption and securing best value for taxpayers’ money should not be allowed to obscure the equally important role of public procurement in fostering new industries and development of technological capabilities…

Click here for Pioneering Procurement

Click here for Public Procurement: The Development Dimension and The EPA (slide presentation)

On the 34th Anniversary of the bombing of a Cubana airlines plane off the coast of Barbados by a Miami-based terrorist group, killing 73 innocent people, several Caribbean citizens have joined their voices to the outcry over the unjustified incarceration of the ‘Cuban Five’ by the United States, in a letter to U.S. President Barack Obama. Supporters of this appeal may add their voices by submitting a message in the Comments box below.

Norman Girvan, Professor, University of the West Indies
Joan French, Development Expert and Gender SpecialistSenator David Abdulah, President, Federation of Independent Trade Unions and NGOs (FITUN)
Ancel Roget, President General, Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union
Joseph Remy, President, Communications Workers’ Union
Shridath Ramphal, Chancellor Emeritus, University of the West Indies
Alissa Trotz, Associate Professor, University of Toronto
Havelock Brewster, Hon. Professor, University of the West Indies.
Richard Crawford, Jamaicans United for Sustainable Development
Mervyn Claxton, retired international civil servant
Raffique Shah, journalist, Trinidad & Tobago.
Russell Bell, Russell Bell, Kingston, Jamaica, Educator,Editor of YESCuba, Author of the book “The Story of the Five Cuban Heroes”
Camille Chalmers, Haiti, Chairman, Haitian Platform for Development Alternatives
Reginald Dumas, Former Ambassador of Trinidad and Tobago to the USA and Former Permanent Representative to the OAS

READ CARIBBEAN CITIZENS’ LETTER TO BARACK OBAMA

Amnesty International Seeks Review of Case of the ‘Cuban Five’

New pleas for US to free the ‘Cuban Five‘ Rickey Singh

More Caribbean Citizens Demand Release of Cuban Five

Open Letter from the Cuban-Barbadian Friendship Association to President Barack Obama on the Cuban Five

Information on the case of the Cuban Five

Report of the United Nations Human Rights Commission on the Cuban Five,

Nobel Laureates call for release of Cuban Five

Resolution of the National Lawyers Guild of the United State on the Cuban Five

Members of the European Parliament and several national parliaments call for release of Cuban five

Danny Glover, Ed Asner and other prominent American actors and writers appeal to President Obama on the case of the Cuban Five

Peasant organisations in Haiti are angry at the Haitian authorities for allowing multinational donors and corporations to take advantage of the post-earthquake reconstruction programme to deepen the country’s reliance on the outside world. They are calling instead for a radical programme of agricultural reconstruction, to rebuild the country’s ravaged peasantry and bring about food sovereignty…

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In June of last year, when the Honduran military overthrew the social democratic government of Manuel Zelaya, President Rafael Correa of Ecuador took it personally. “We have intelligence reports that say that after Zelaya, I’m next,” said Correa…

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Foreword to Essays in the Theory of Plantation Economy, by Lloyd Best and Kari Polanyi Levit; University of the West Indies Press, 2010 

The theory of Plantation Economy asserted the specificity of the Caribbean experience. It was one the earliest attempts to understand the Caribbean economy within its own terms, rather than within the framework of a pre-ordained paradigm of Metropolitan provenance. It is heterodox rather than orthodox, eclectic rather than ideological, and Caribbean-centred rather than Eurocentric. And it provides an historical perspective on the relationship of Caribbean countries to globalisation, that is highly relevant to the present. ..

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