Across Europe, many governments are in financial difficulty. From Greece to Ireland, Portugal and Spain, public expenditure cuts, austerity and retrenchment coupled with low levels of growth and rising inflation are creating significant political problems.
Ever so slowly the Turks and Caicos Islands are on their way back to having an elected government and a full constitution.
Sometimes it seems as if officials are engaged in a game that involves having those they are most meant to help, guess about their intentions.
In the middle of next month Jamaica will hold its annual diaspora conference.
On April 29, the so called Doha Development Round of the World Trade Organisation all but died.
For much of the last week the world’s media have focussed on the outcome of Cuba’s Sixth Communist Party Congress which took place in Havana from April 16 to 19.
Almost unnoticed, a development has occurred in Africa’s negotiations for their Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) with Europe that could result in increased levels of foreign investment in the Caribbean and Overseas Territories.
Could a moment come when the Caribbean’s partners in Europe and North America reconsider the way they relate to the region?
The year 2012 will be an important one for the Carib-bean.
On March 24, Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, made a long awaited announcement about the future of Britain’s controversial Air Passenger Duty (APD), the discriminatory tax that charges those travelling out of the UK more to fly to the Caribbean than to the west coast of the United States.
How well does the Caribbean relate to the European Union? A region that still sees Europe as the source of development assistance, has not fully erased a belief in special arrangements for commodities and is dubious about the value of the Economic Partnership Agreement, there seems little awareness of the ways in which Europe is changing.
A soil and food prices continue to rise and further levies are introduced on travel, could the Caribbean be priced out of the low to middle end of the European tourism market?
Few people in the English speaking Caribbean will know the name of Felipe Vicini, the Executive President of Grupo Vicini, the Dominican Republic conglomerate that is engaged in everything from energy to agriculture.
As this is being written the United Kingdom Government is preparing to launch a national tourism policy.
A decade or more ago it would have been hard to find much that was tangible to write about China and the Caribbean.
Caribbean governments were, they suggested, looking at significantly cutting the regional secretariat’s budget and this would mean the loss of key staff.
On January 25 the BBC World Service announced that as part of a new funding arrangement with the British Government it will be cutting the broadcaster’s budget by 16 per cent or by around US$73 (£46M) per annum.
Although the Caribbean is making headway in arguing its case for a change in the level at which the UK’s Air Passenger Duty (APD) is charged, the issue still has some way to go politically.
Trying to understand what is happening to the billions of dollars donated by private individuals and governments for post earthquake relief in Haiti is far from easy.
Some time this year, Caribbean heads of government will appoint a new Caricom Secretary General.
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