CARICOM – CANADA POLICY FORUM 2022 – 25 May 2022 : 11:00am – 12:30pm EST – Virtual Event

FLYER – CARICOM – CANADA POLICY FORUM 2022 – 25 May 2022 11 am

We wish to inform you that the CARICOM Heads of Diplomatic Missions in Ottawa in collaboration with the Canada-Caribbean Institute and the Latin America and Caribbean Study Group of the Canadian International Council will be hosting a Policy Forum on Wednesday, May 25, 2022, from 11:00am – 12:30pm (EST) via zoom platform under the theme “Shaping a New Partnership for Recovery and Resilience.” 

The Event Flyer is attached above for ease of reference.

Please note that there is no limitation on participation in this event. Participants can register using the following link:

https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/canada-caricom-shaping-a-new-partnership-for-recovery-and-resilience-tickets-331539442397

U.S.A — Florida’s Home Insurance – homeowners lose insurance battle – By Mohamed Hamaludin

U.S.A. — As Florida governor, Legislature wage culture war, homeowners lose insurance battle

By MOHAMED HAMALUDIN

It sometimes starts simply. Someone knocks on a homeowner’s door, offers to inspect the roof and often follows up with the paperwork to file a claim. In some cases, the roof is not even checked but the homeowner is told a replacement is necessary. All that remains is to sign an “assignment of benefits” or ABS form, handing over the project to the contractor. If the insurance company rejects the claim, a lawsuit is threatened or filed, even without the homeowner’s consent. Faced with the possibility of hefty legal costs, the insurance company pays up.

Welcome to the Florida property insurance crisis. This is how bad it is, based on information which Gov. Ron DeSantis’s office and several news outlets have provided:           

Guyanese Diaspora Digest Publications -13th Edition 2022

Download: Guyanese-Diaspora-Digest-13th-Edition

GUYANA: OIL: ‘We can’t eat a new road’: Guyanese voice fears over true cost of Exxon’s oil bonanza- Opinion

Over time, the Guyanese environmentalist Arnette Arjoon grew to suspect Exxon was indifferent to the dangers of an oil spill to the coast and rivers of one of the best preserved parts of the Amazon biome. Composite: Fidal Bassier/Guardian/Reuters

Multibillion-dollar deal promising to lift country out of poverty may be false dawn with dire impact on climate, warn campaigners

Chris McGreal – The Guardian – Thu 12 May 2022 12.04 BST

Annette Arjoon is not anti-oil. The marine conservationist calls the vast new oilfields off Guyana’s coast a “blessing” that will earn billions of dollars for one of the poorest countries in the Caribbean, even as she recognises that pulling yet more fossil fuel from the ground will deepen the climate crisis.

But Arjoon does have a problem with who is drilling the oil. She has seen firsthand what happens when the US’s largest petroleum company descends on a small country bearing the promise of riches.                 

GUYANA: Government makes first withdrawal of US$200M from Natural Resource Oil fund

OIL & GAS– By Editor – newsroom.gy – May 10, 2022

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The Government of Guyana has withdrawn US$200 million (or GY $41.7 billion) from the country’s Natural Resource Fund (NRF).

This is the first withdrawal that has been made from Guyana’s oil wealth fund.

The withdrawal was announced on Tuesday night via a press release from the Ministry of Finance, which indicated that this sum has been transferred to the Consolidated Fund to finance national development priorities.

According to the release, the withdrawal was done in accordance with the Natural Resource Fund Act of 2021.         

GUYANA: Construction to start in June on 150-room Marriott Hotel at Ogle

BUSINESS –-400 jobs to be created during construction

TRINUYANA Investments Inc. has signed the contract for the construction of a US$50 million Marriott AC, a four-star, 150- room hotel.

Under the contract, a five-storey full-service hotel will be built near the Eugene F. Correia International Airport, in Ogle, East Coast Demerara.

Signing with China Harbor . L to R – Andron Alphonso, Richard Smith, Mr. John Aboud, of Trinuyana and Mr. Sammy Chen and Zoey Yang of CHEC
TRINUYANA Investments Inc. is a conglomerate of Guyanese and Trinidadian investors.

CARIBBEAN | The destabilising impact of a distant conflict – By David Jessop

— David Jessop – May 1, 2022

Earlier this month at a conference on Caribbean security, Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Motley spoke about the consequences of the war in Ukraine and the now unavoidable impact it will have on the cost of food, energy, fertiliser and transport.

The region’s leaders, she said, must explain to their citizens the need to prepare for what may lie ahead. Warning that over time a “culture of contentment” had beset the Caribbean people, PM Mottley said the region’s citizens must now be “better prepared for the present” and that the countries of the Caribbean must brace for the impact the conflict will have on prices and access to commodities.

Behind her carefully chosen words is the awareness that a seemingly distant war may have a socially destabilising dimension.         

VENEZUELA: VIDEO: Special Report: Inside Venezuela – Bloomberg Markets and Finance

Special Report: Inside Venezuela

– Bloomberg Markets and Finance – August 20, 2021.

Venezuela is in default; the country has suffered one of the greatest economic and humanitarian crises in modern history. Now, after four years of crippling U.S. sanctions, President Nicolas Maduro is making a public plea aimed directly at President Joe Biden– it’s time for a deal. Bloomberg’s Erik Schatzker travels inside Venezuela and sits down with Maduro to discuss the country’s future.

RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR: German energy firm Uniper ready to meet Russian pay demand … in roubles

By Daniel Thomas – Business reporter, BBC News

Russia imports nearly half of its gas from Russia

One of Germany’s biggest energy firms has said it is preparing to buy Russian gas using a payment system that critics say will undermine EU sanctions.

Uniper says it will pay in euros which will be converted into roubles, meeting a Kremlin demand for all transactions to be made in the Russian currency.

Other European energy firms are reportedly preparing to do the same amid concerns about supply cuts.

Uniper said it had no choice but said it was still abiding by EU sanctions.

“We consider a payment conversion compliant with sanctions law and the Russian decree to be possible,” a spokesman told the BBC.

“For our company and for Germany as a whole, it is not possible to do without Russian gas in the short term; this would have dramatic consequences for our economy.”

GUYANA promotes agriculture; fends off protectionism charge in oil diversification — By Mohamed Hamaludin

By MOHAMED HAMALUDIN

“Oil “don’t spoil,” the late Dr. Eric Williams, prime minister of petroleum-rich Trinidad and Tobago, was reported to have once said. To which the late Forbes Burnham, then prime minister of agriculture-oriented Guyana, retorted, “But you can’t eat it.”

What happens when you have both oil and food? Lots of headache.

Tension between the two Caribbean Community (CARICOM) nations has existed for decades, even though Trinidad and Tobago once wrote off a US$400 million debt Guyana owed for petroleum products, according to former Guyana Parliament Speaker Ralph Ramkarran.

Many Guyanese traveled to other CARICOM countries to live and work in the 1970s and 1980s, “creating monumental chaos” during transit at Trinidad’s Piarco International Airport “with huge bundles packed with goods being brought back to Guyana for trading,” Ramkarran wrote in a Guyanese Online column.“ No single Guyanese passing through Trinidad during this era, and even much later, has not experienced surly, enhanced scrutiny and less than accommodating reception at Trinidad’s Immigration and Customs desks.”