OECS discuss economic union

Leaders from the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) are this week furthering talks on plans to establish an economic union, at their meeting in Anguilla.

OECS Director General Len Ishmael said the challenges posed to the sub-region from the global financial crisis is further indication of the need for such an initiative.

“If ever confirmation was required of the need for Small Island Developing States such as these to put in place mechanisms to deploy regional responses to tough situations … the travails of the recent past certainly have provided much by the way of witness,” Ishmael said.

She also noted that the OECS is ahead of its neighbours in the wider Caricom grouping in responding to such difficulties.

Grenada postpones petrol price increase

Grenada’s ministry of finance has waived a scheduled increase in petrol prices.

Rates are adjusted on the 18th of every month in St George’s, to reflect changes in the global market.

But the ministry says it will retain the current prices until next month, as a sign of goodwill to motorists affected by damage to one of the island’s main roads.

The decision follows calls for government assistance, by commuters who now pay higher fares to travel to and from the capital, as a result of the road damage.

Venezuela not doing enough, says US

A US law enforcement official has said that Venezuela has shown little interest in curbing the number of illegal flights transporting cocaine to the United States and Europe.

The head of the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, David Johnson, says there is not a whole lot of evidence of strong measures being taken by the Venezuelans to deal with the problem.

Colombian traffickers have long been known to use neighbouring Venezuela as a transit route to run drugs through the Caribbean, Africa and Central America to the United States and Europe.

But Johnson said the problem had worsened, five years after the hugo Chavez government ended cooperation with the US Drug Enforcement Agency.