David Jessop

Recent developments in Europe and North America, involving Barclays Bank and others in the manipulation of Libor rates, are truly shocking.

There is a paradox at the heart of European policy towards the Caribbean.

Much of the talk at the Caribbean Tourism Summit that has just ended in Montego Bay in Jamaica was about tax and tourism.

Almost everyone reading this will have grown up with a map of the world that places Europe at its centre, with the Americas to its west and Russia to its east.

In March 1980 David Renwick, the Trinidadian journalist, and I wrote an extended feature for the Caribbean Chronicle about the future outlook for the Caribbean as an oil producing region.

One of the oddities of the region is that it is often easier to read in the media about what is happening in North America or Europe than it is to discover what is happening in neighbouring nations that speak another language.

As a percentage of its resident population, the anglophone Caribbean has one of the world’s largest diasporas.

Last week the people of Greece and France voted against austerity.

A few days ago the Caricom Secretary General, Irwin LaRoque, revealed in Washington that Cariforum nations had begun a process which if unresolved will lead to a full complaint at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) against the US Government in relation to rum.

Is the value of the 2008 EU Cariforum Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with Europe attenuating or can it still be made to work to the region’s advantage?

It was scarcely surprising to hear that when Caribbean foreign ministers met in January with their British counterpart the most divisive issue was the UK’s discriminatory tax on travel, Air Passenger Duty.

In two years time significantly larger ships will be able to pass via an enlarged Panama Canal between the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea.

Most Caribbean Governments and companies have yet to take seriously the threat posed by cyber attack.

What exactly did Caricom Heads of Government agree to in respect of the Caricom Secretariat when they met in Paramaribo?

In the last few days it has been widely reported that Europe hopes to resume discussions with Iran on its controversial nuclear programme.

In a matter of days Caricom heads of government will meet in Suriname.

Up to now Europe has promoted the idea that the trading of permits to emit carbon is the best way to cap greenhouse gas emissions by aircraft and maritime transport.

When in the 1980s it became apparent that Europe’s preferential regimes for bananas and sugar were coming to an end, an impassioned debate began about a transition to other forms of economic activity. 

Last March, Cuba’s  Sixth  Party Congress took what its leadership described as an irrevocable decision: to adopt a large number of economic guidelines that will gradually reform, decentralise and liberalise aspects of the Cuban state.

Two weeks ago four British ministers including William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, plus a large number of senior officials and representatives of UK companies met with Caribbean foreign ministers, officials and others in Grenada.