The Cuban government has announced plans to lay off at least half a million state workers by the middle of 2011 and to reduce restrictions on private enterprise to help them find new jobs, in one of the most dramatic steps yet to reform communist island’s economy. Raul Castro, the Cuban president who replaced his ailing brother Fidel, suggested in a nationally televised speech on Monday that nearly one million Cuban workers, about one in five, may be redundant. The lay-offs will start immediately. Al Jazeera’s Juan Jacomino, reporting from…
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Trinidad senator wants CLICO and CL Financial perpetrators jailed
Trinidad and Tobago’s largest insurer, and its parent CL Financial, perpetrated an elaborate “Ponzi scheme” on thousands of unsuspecting investors and the people responsible for it should be jailed, government senator Patrick Watson has said. At the same time, he acknowledged that more than ten thousand CLICO investors will not get back 100 percent of the principal amounts of money they invested in financial instruments offered by the collapsed insurance giant. Instead, they will receive about 65 percent of their original investments back over a period of 20 years. Watson…
Read MoreCourt of Appeal dismisses contempt charges against former St Kitts attorney general
St Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister, Denzil Douglas, on Monday welcomed a ruling by the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Supreme Court in dismissing a contempt of court charge brought against his former attorney general, Dennis Merchant. A Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) report stated that the Prime Minister said, “I am pleased that justice has been served,” and Senior Counsel Anthony Astaphan called for an immediate public apology from the leadership of the main opposition People’s Action Movement (PAM). “The judges were very clear that there was no basis…
Read MoreRegional governments worry over CCJ
Newspaper report stirs debate Prime Minister of Belize, Dean Barrow, says he has held talks with the President of the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), Michael de la Bastide, amidst mounting concerns over threats to the court’s existence. The CCJ was established in 2001 to replace the London-based Privy Council as the region’s final court. Caricom countries have signed on to the original jurisdiction of the court, which serves as an international tribunal to interpret the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas that governs the Community. However, only Barbados, Guyana, and…
Read More‘Dudus’ doubles defence
Alleged crime lord Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke has added two more attorneys to his legal team, as he prepares to fight charges which could land him in prison for life. Coke, who appeared in a New York courtroom yesterday, has hired Frank Doddato and Steve Rosen, who join attorneys Steve Zissou and Elizabeth Macedonio in a four-pronged legal attack. Doddato and Rosen formed part of a trio of lawyers who earlier on were planning to represent Coke, if he could provide proof that the money he would pay them was clean.…
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