IMF won’t do much, says Bird
Antigua’s opposition leader Lester Bird has said that the country should not expect much help from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The governing United Progressive Party (UPP) has announced plans to approach the IMF for help in dealing with the fallout from the international financial downturn.
But in his weekly radio broadcast on Sunday night, Bird described the IMF’s proposed package of assistance as a mere ‘drop in the ocean of needs’ of the country.
“It will be inadequate to pay wages and salaries in the public service; it will be insufficient to re-build the roads that have deteriorated under the UPP,” Bird said.
Public spending cuts
Barbados’ Prime Minister David Thompson has announced that his government will soon be moving to cut public spending.
Thompson said that while he has already advised his cabinet ministers to adjust their budgets, there are certain critical policies that must be continued.
His announcement comes against the backdrop of a recent IMF assessment which recommended a number of measures that the government could implement in order to survive the global economic decline.
The recommendations include lowering the public sector wage bill, selling government assets and raising existing taxes.
New swine flu cases in St Vincent
St Vincent and the Grenadines has reported ten new confirmed cases of swine flu.
Eight of those cases were from the St Mary’s Roman Catholic School in the capital Kingstown.
This brings to 13, the number of confirmed cases in the country. The ministry of health’s national surveillance committee has said that normal classes will continue at all schools, with the exception of St Mary’s, which will reopen on Wednesday.
Police search for Haitian man
Police in Florida are searching for a Haitian man whose wife and five children were found dead at their Florida home on Saturday.
The bodies of Guerline Damas, 32, and five children between 11 months and nine years old, were found late Saturday by deputies in their home, after a relative filed a missing persons report.
Authorities say that Mesac Damas, who has family in Haiti, left Miami International Airport on Friday.
The Sheriff’s officials said they are not calling Damas a suspect, but rather a person of interest.
Belafonte disappointed
American singer Harry Belafonte has said he is disappointed that President Barack Obama has not done more to improve relations with Cuba.
Eighty-two-year-old Belafonte said Obama “prompted great expectations when he hit on the theme of change, without being specific as to what he meant by change.”
Earlier this year Mr Obama eased travel and financial restrictions on Cuban-Americans.
However last week he extended the 47-year trade embargo on the island despite calls for an end to the sanctions.
Belafonte said he is prepared to give the president the benefit of the doubt that the best is yet to come.
