Whaling split
The votes of Caribbean nations will be closely watched at the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Morocco.
Whaling countries and their opponents are discussing a compromise proposal that would permit controlled commercial whaling. Some nations however insist that all whaling should be banned. Caribbean member nations have tended to be in the pro-whaling camp. The meeting is being chaired by Anthony Liverpool of Antigua and Barbuda because of the absence through illness of the Chilean chairman.
Region braced for travel tax
A revised levy on air travel is expected to be one of a number of taxes to be imposed in an emergency budget to be presented in Britain on Tuesday.
The new coalition government plans to impose a per-plane tax rather than the distance-based air passenger duty, which Caribbean countries have criticised as being as unfair on their region. Jamaica’s Tourism Minister Ed Bartlett would have preferred a re-banding of the passenger tax but he told BBC Caribbean he expects that the alternative would be fairly applied.
The already scheduled UK passenger duty rise is expected to go ahead in November in a move that critics say could add around £100 ($148) to a family’s travel to the Caribbean.
ACP, EU nations to sign revised deal
Government ministers from African, Caribbean and Pacific countries have been arriving in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, ahead of the signing on Tuesday of a revised agreement with the European Union.
Revisions of the so-called Cotonou agreement agreed in March, emphasise the need for aid to be more effective.
They also pledge more action on the millennium development goals, climate change, agriculture, infrastructure, HIV/AIDS, and economic partnership agreements.
The negotiators failed to reach agreement on controls to migration.
