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Caribbean Life, April 21-27, 2022
CARIBBEAN ROUNDUP
BARBADOS
Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley
said it was essential for the Caribbean to
remain a zone of peace.
She challenged countries attending the
Caribbean Nations Security Conference
(Cansec), to collaborate to strengthen the
region.
At the recent opening ceremony of
the conference, Mottley said the region
was a theatre of war for
many years.
She noted that the Caribbean,
for too much of
our existence in the last
five centuries, has been a zone of conflict,
not a zone of peace and that is why “we
insist on becoming a zone of peace”.
“It is against that backdrop that we
come to work together to ensure we can
remove those clear and patent threats,
whether those threats are related to the
climate crisis, counter-narcotics, or illegal
weapons,” she said.
Cansec was co-hosted by the US Southern
Command and the Barbados Defence
Force.
Some of the topics discussed during the
conference included challenges such as
stronger hurricanes and rising sea levels
caused by rising sea levels caused by climate
change, trans- national crime organizations,
the need for International finance
for funding key development projects,
cyber attacks, disaster relief and regional
security challenges, among others.
HAITI
Several civil society groups have sent a
petition to Prime Minister Dr. Ariel Henry
urging him to declare a state of emergency
in the French-speaking Caribbean country
to deal with a spate of criminal activities,
including kidnapping.
In their petition, the
groups outlined a “road
map” with recommendations
for dealing with the
situation, urging Henry
to declare war on armed gangs who are
causing widespread hurt in the country,
as well as to crackdown on Customs fraud
to prevent the diversion of revenues and
impose control measures to eliminate the
trafficking of arms and ammunition.
“We strongly protest against the taking
of hostage of the entire population by criminal
organizations and the inaction or even
tolerance of the authorities who are failing
in their primary obligation to ensure the
safety of citizens,” the groups said.
The petition notes that cases of murder,
kidnapping for ransom, rape, armed robbery
and organized looting are countless
and that businesses are forced to close with
families living in terror for their turn.
The petitioners said that while the state
of emergency, the mobilization of public
resources to fight organized crime and
austerity measures should have been in
force, as required by the standards of good
governance and transparency, there is also
need to fully equip the law enforcement
agencies.
GUYANA
The Guyana government will commence
the first trial of 20 wheat varieties before
the end of May, in an effort to further
diversity the country’s food sector, Minister
of Agriculture Zulfikar Mustapha
announced.
Cultivation for the initial
trial is expected to
begin at the Burma Rice
Research Station, Region
Five and the project will be led by scientist
Dr. Mahendra Persaud.
President Dr. Irfaan Ali recently
announced the government’s plan to
explore the possibility of sourcing a variety
of wheat for local production.
He said the government is unwavering
in its quest to build a Guyana that is resilient
and not only its national responsibility
but plays an important role in its global
responsibility.
Minister Mustapha explained that the
rice research station will be used as a testing
location since it has adequate land
space. The climatic condition has also to be
taken into account.
He said the ministry is also examining
the possibility of establishing nurseries at
locations across the country to test for better
growing results.
The minister said the approach to introducing
the new wheat varieties shows
government’s determination to ensure the
nation becomes self-sufficient.
GRENADA
Grenada, which is responsible for more
than 20 percent of the world’s nutmeg production,
second only to Indonesia, said it
is pleased that trade with
Argentina is developing
to the pre-coronavirus
COVID-19 pandemic
level.
Chairman of the Grenada Cooperative
Nutmeg Association (GCNA), Leo Cato
said “like most markets, we too were also
affected by the slowdown of the world’s
economy by COVID-19, but as the world
recover we too are recovering and once
again, the Argentina market is almost back
to normal.”
Cato said that several 40-foot containers
comprising different grades of the island’s
nutmeg are now being sent to Argentina.
GCNA executive board member Byron
Campbell has described the South American
market as of tremendous significance
to the association.
He said, “It’s a market we never thought
of before. They are into a lot of food production
and food processing.”
He suggested that Grenada, and by
extension the region, needs to identify new
markets for both importing and exporting
of goods.
Besides Argentina, GCNA has also sold
nutmeg to India, Dubai and most recently
Israel.
TH E N EWS FROM BACK HOME
Updated daily at www.caribbeanlife.com
Demonstrators stand on top of a plane belonging to U.S. missionary group Agape Flights during protests demanding that the government of
Prime Minister Ariel Henry do more to address gang violence including constant kidnappings, in Les Cayes, Haiti March 29, 2022. REUTERS/
Ralph Simon
Continued on Page 12
Haitians protest gang violence
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