Jan 31
Presented at a Conference on ALBA and the Future of Regional Integration held at London Metropolitan University, January 29, 2011; the presentation explores issues arising out of the simultaneous membership of three Caribbean countries in ALBA, the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) and the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union; and assesses ALBA’s claims to represent a superior alternative to neoliberal integration schemes that is based on solidarity and cooperation. Issues raised include the compatibility of simultaneous membership in schemes that are so different from one another; whether ALBA represents an alternative to the other two; ideological vs. financial motivation; and ‘asymmterical’ vs. ‘non-reciopocated’ solidarity.
Conference Programme and Abstracts
London Metropolitan University Hosts First ALBA-PTA Conference Report on VHeadline.com
Jan 25
Melanie Newton, a native of Barbados, is Associate Professor of History at the University of Toronto, Canada. From In the Diaspora, Stabroek News
A week ago, Haitians the world over were stunned when former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier returned to Haiti after 25 years of comfortable political asylum in France. This after a year of distress and humiliation, beginning with the January 2010 earthquake and ending with fraudulent elections that could leave Haiti without a government.For many, this latest slap in the face for a traumatized people was too much - just when hell couldn’t get any hotter, the devil himself showed up to stoke the flames…
Jan 21
Jamaica has continued to struggle with a narrow production structure and vulnerability to external climatic and economic shocks…The recent global economic slowdown severely impacted the Jamaican economy, resulting in declines of real GDP of 1.7% in fiscal year 2008/09 and 2.5% during 2009/10 as well as marked decreases in earnings from the export of goods and services and from remittances…
Jan 20
On December 18, 2010, Cuban President Raúl Castro warned Cubans: the nation faced a crisis. The disastrous condition of Cuba’s economy no longer allowed the state any maneuvering room to walk the dangerous “precipice” of inefficiency, low productivity and corruption. Without reforms, Cuba would sink — and with it the effort of every generation seeking a free Cuba since the first native revolt against Spanish colonial rule…
Jan 20
A Haitian scholar-activist’s analysis of the intricate maneuvering of the domestic elites and foreign powers which have traditonally manipulated Haitian politics that lies behind the unexpected return of the former dictator to Haiti.
Jan 18
In the three and a quarter centuries between 1492 and about 1820, four enslaved Africans left the Old World for every European. During those years, Africans comprised the largest forced oceanic migration in the history of the world. Who were they? Who organised the slaving voyages? Which parts of Africa did they come from? How did they reach the Americas? And where exactly did they go?…A new Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade draws on five decades of research in archives around the north and south Atlantic to provide 189 detailed and sumptuously drawn maps that answer many questions…
Jan 18
Air France flew Jean Claude Duvalier back into Haiti today. A coup for France who saw its influence diminishing as the US took over with the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission and the UN occupation..
Jan 11
Camille Chalmers, a Haitian economist is Executive Director of the Hatian Pllatform for Development Alternatives in Port Au Prince. In this interview he analyses the factors leading up to the present situation in Haiti.
The problems of Haiti go back to well before the earthquake. The extent of losses caused by the earthquake and other disasters, culminating in the outbreak of cholera, are in fact the result of a triple failure: that of the State, of social policy and of an economic model…
Jan 11
Alex Dupuy
Alex Dupuy, a native of Haiti, is a professor of sociology at Wesleyan University and the author most recently of “The Prophet and Power: Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the Inter-national Community, and Haiti.” From the Stabroek News, January 10, 2011 (A shorter version first appeared in the Washington Post on Friday, January 7, 2011.)
The international community responded immediately and massively to the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12, 2010…The Haitian population welcomed and was grateful for the humanitarian response and gesture of international solidarity. By contrast, today Haitians are increasingly impatient, discontented, and saying “they’ve had enough” with the United Nations, the international community, and the Haitian government for the lack of progress in rebuilding the economy and the lives shattered by the earthquake…
Jan 08
The Clement Payne Movement in Barbados has launched a call for Union of (CARICOM) Caribbean States that points to the current challenges facing the region and invokes the dreams, aspirations and struggles of the Caribbean Labour Movement and the other visionaries of Caribbean unity. A resolution has been drafted for submission to national parliaments leading to a Constitutional Convention in 2016. The idea comes as commentators, editorials, businessspeople, academics, and other civil society voices are bemoaning the state of CARICOM and calling for its revitalisation.
As unlikely as the idea might appear to be in the current political climate, we urge readers to give it serious consideration, and provide feedback by entering your comments in the box below.
