Antiviral drugs donated
The US has announced it will provide 420,000 courses of the anti-viral medication Tamiflu to fight swine flu in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Health and Human Services Department said treating and preventing the virus helps the security of the region, as well as that of the United States.
St Vincent is the latest Caribbean nation to report a case of the virus.
The United Nations’ top health official has said the worldwide spread of swine flu is now unstoppable.
Margaret Chan, the head of the World Health Organisation, was speaking at a global forum in Mexico, where the virus first took hold.
Chan stressed that most cases of the H1N1 virus were mild.
St Vincent signs
nuclear treaty
St Vincent and the Grenadines is the latest country to sign the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, according to the global nuclear watchdog.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said the signing ceremony took place on Thursday at United Nations Headquarters.
Thirty of the 33 States in Latin America and the Caribbean are now signatories to the treaty.
The three non-signatories are Dominica, Trinidad and Tobago and Cuba.
A standstill has been reached in the agency’s investigation of Iran, a new diplomatic ally of St Vincent.
Caricom fund looking for more money
Barbados Prime Minister David Thompson has said the Regional Development Fund is searching for more money and is fine-tuning disbursement rules.
The fund was established to help disadvantaged sectors and countries of the Caricom Single Market.
Thompson, whose country chairs the committee that’s looking for money, said that so far the RDF’s kitty has US$70 million.
It needs at least another $180 million.
He said rules for accessing the fund are being finalised as some countries need money immediately.
Nationality rule
change for MPs
Candidates seeking nomination to the St Kitts and Nevis parliament will have to take oaths stating that they do not hold dual citizenship.
That’s under a bill introduced in the National Assembly yesterday.
Penalties include fines and imprisonment.
The issue of dual nationality has become a controversial issue in the run-up to federal elections.
This week two opposition politicians announced they had given up their US citizenship.
Nationality blues
for Jamaica-Briton
A nursing home caretaker who has lived in Britain for 46 years has described how he was forced from his job and on to benefits after being told he did not have valid paperwork.
Uriah Smith, 56, was born in Jamaica when the island was still a British colony and moved to the UK in 1963 at the age of 10.
His parents both have British passports, he has paid tax and national insurance since leaving school in this country and, as far as he is concerned, he is British.
But the father of eight said he has now been told he can claim benefits but not earn a living because he does not possess a British passport or nationalisation documents.
He said he has never applied for nationalisation because it costs too much money.
