Category: CANA News

Prime Minister John Briceño has defended the cabinet re-shuffle on Tuesday, saying these adjustments will as a whole strengthen his executive team while bringing a fresh approach to several difficult spheres of governance.

‘For example, despite the massive deployments of human and financial resources and the adoption of cutting-edge strategies, both education and citizen security remain areas of keen concern by the public,’ Briceño said in a statement hours after the announcement of the cabinet re-shuffle was made public. The announcement from the Office of the Prime Minister did not give any reasons for the cabinet changes, noting only that they will become effective from Monday, November 17.

The 65-year-old Briceño was re-elected as prime minister in March this year after he led his ruling People’s United Party (PUP) to a convincing victory, winning 26 of the 31 seats with the remainder going to the main opposition United Democratic Party (UDP).

As a result of the cabinet re-shuffle, five senior government ministers have seen a complete shift in their portfolios with one of the biggest changes being that of Kareem Musa, who is no longer the Minister of Home Affairs, a post he’s held since his appointment back in 2020. He will now be responsible for Immigration, Governance and Labour

Prime Minister Briceño said cabinet and the ministries are more resolved than ever to build on the successes of the past five years.

‘We are on the third by the transnational influences that render advancements, sporadic or incremental. One other executive change I will put in place immediately is a special cabinet committee to address cost of living issues.’

Prime Minister Briceño said he will chair this team working alongside Ministers Requena. Fonseca, Mai, Bernard, Mahler, and Garcia Ramirez, along with their chief executive officers.

‘Aside from coordinating organic initiatives to adjust affordability, this special committee will specifically examine the impacts of major government policies across government. So as a protective purchasing power of the working and middle classes,’ he added.

Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, Wednesday dismissed as ‘political rant’ statements made by a junior Trinidad and Tobago government minister that his wife and children had been given preferential treatment in obtaining government-subsidised housing in the twin-island republic.

‘Everybody knows that he is carrying a can for the opposition here in St. Vincent. That’s the reason for his broadcast, his podcast or whatever you may call it,’ Gonsalves said, noting that the allegation made by the minister in the Ministry of Housing in Trinidad, Anil Roberts, is that his wife and two children ‘had benefitted from a kind of insider trading.in purchasing apartments in a development in Trinidad.

‘He made several mis-representations and falsehoods and he drew certain conclusions and presented many innuendoes which touch and concern on the issue of damaging people’s character and defamation generally,’ Gonsalves said during 30 minute segment on his weekly radio programme in which he dealt with the issue and referring to his wife and children ‘as three citizens of Trinidad and Tobago’.

On Tuesday, Roberts acknowledged in his broadcast that Eloise Gonsalves and her children, Storm and Soleil Gonsalves, had been allocated the apartments even as over 200,000 residents of the twin island republic are on a waiting list.

John Campbell is set to play his first One Day International for the West Indies in over six years after being named in a 15-member squad to face New Zealand in a three-match series.

Campbell has been named in place of opener Brandon King, who has lost his place in the team following a run of poor form. The two teams will play the first ODI on Saturday in Christchurch, with the second match two days later and the final game on November 21.

The 32-year-old Campbell returns to the 50-over set up following his recent Test success in India where he scored his maiden century and strong performances in last year’s CG United Super50 Cup.

Despite a healthy average of 49.60 in six ODIs, Campbell last played an ODI in May 2019 against Ireland.

Meanwhile, pacer Johann Layne and versatile all-rounder Shamar Springer are among some of the biggest additions to the squad, which is still missing several key bowlers due to injury.

The duo has been included as cover with fast bowlers Alzarri Joseph, Shamar Joseph, Ramon Simmonds and Jediah Blades all ruled out due to injuries.

Matthew Forde has also been included in the squad following his recent recovery from injury.

West Indies ODI Squad Against New Zealand: Shai Hope (captain), Alick Athanaze, Ackeem Auguste, John Campbell, Keacy Carty, Roston Chase, Matthew Forde, Justin Greaves, Amir Jangoo, Johann Layne, Khary Pierre, Sherfane Rutherford, Jayden Seales, Romario Shepherd, Shamar Springer.

Well Services Petroleum Company Ltd (WSPCL) Wednesday said it has hired a US-based contractor to salvage its Rig 110 platform and recover the remains of its employee Pete Phillip who went missing, and is presumed dead, when it suffered a partial collapse last December.

The Rig 110 was conducting drilling at a site at the Heritage Offshore East Field when part of the deck collapsed with 75 people aboard at the time. The rig was evacuated after the collapse.

However, Phillip, 45, has remained missing and despite several searches, his body has not been found. In its statement, WSPCL, an offshore service firm here, said the US contractor has started salvage and recovery efforts, initiating phase one, which focuses on risk mitigation and site stabilisation to ensure safety of personnel, protection of the marine environment, and the integrity of surrounding assets.

It said regulatory approval for the works has been granted through the issuance of a Certificate of Environmental Clearance (CEC) by the Environmental Management Authority (EMA). and that in addition, ‘Letters of No Objection’ have been received from the relevant stakeholders, inc;uding the Ministry of Energy and the Occupational Safety and Health Agency.

The oil company said that the second phase will follow upon completion of the stabilisation work and will focus on the recovery of Phillip’s remains, lifting, and removal of the rig structure.

‘Mr Phillip’s family has been duly informed of the initiation of Phase 1, including the scope of activities. WSPCL remains committed to a safe, transparent, and environmentally responsible salvage and recovery process, and continues to coordinate closely with regulators and stakeholders throughout the operation.’

Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, Wednesday dismissed as ‘political rant’ statements made by a junior Trinidad and Tobago government minister that his wife and children had been given preferential treatment in obtaining government-subsidised house in the twin-island republic.

GEORGETOWN – Four of the seven individuals charged with involvement in the deadly explosion at a gas station last month, appeared in court here on Wednesday, but the matter was adjourned to December 3 this year.

CASTRIES -The Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) has launched a student census that it says will provide the opportunity to directly influence the future of education in the sub-regional grouping.

BELMOPAN – The Senate has referred the motion regarding the highly controversial safe third country agreement to the Constitution and Foreign Affairs Committee after legislators Tuesday debated the matter.

WASHINGTON – The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) have called on counries, including those in the Caribbean, to strengthen surveillance, laboratory diagnosis, outbreak response, and vaccination campaigns amid concerns that the Region of the Americas has lost its verification as free from endemic measles transmission.

SPORTS:

DUNEDIN – With the chance to tie the series on the line, West Indies white-ball captain Shai Hope wants his troops to deliver an all-around performance when they take on New Zealand in the fifth and final T20I here on Thursday.

DUBAI – Plans for a two-tier World Test Championship (WTC) have been abandoned following a recent meeting of directors of the International Cricket Council (ICC).

Prime Minister Dr. Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves has promised that the issue of candidates being elected to Parliament while having dual citizenship will be taken to court as the campaign continues here for the November 27 general election.

Addressing supporters of the ruling Unity Labour Party (ULP) on Tuesday night, Gonsalves, who is seeking an unprecedented sixth consecutive term as head of government, confirmed that the ULP had attempted to prevent the leader of the main opposition New Democratic Party (NDP), Dr. Godwin Friday and the party’s East Kingstown candidate, Fitz Bramble, from being nominated as candidates for the elections because of their Canadian citizenship.

Friday, who is also the Opposition Leader, is seeking election to a sixth consecutive term as the parliamentary representative for the Northern Grenadines, which he has been representing since 2001. Bramble is seeking a second five-year term in office. Both Bramble and Friday were born in St. Vincent and the Grenadines but obtained Canadian citizenship as adults.

Speaking on his weekly radio programme here on Wednesday, Gonsalves, told radio listeners that the two opposition legislators ‘have a huge problem’ he defended the decision of ‘registered electors’ to make the objection to their nomination.

He said section 26 of the Constitution states that you are disqualified if you are ‘by your own voluntary act, under the acknowledgement of allegiance or adherence to a foreign power or state, that foreign power being Canada.

‘That is repeated word for word in the Representation of the People’s Act at section 35,’ Gonsalves said, adding that this provision along with another one about a Commonwealth citizen had been considered in a case involving for the former St. Kitts-Nevis prime minister Dr Denzil Douglas, who had been granted a diplomat passport by Dominica a few years ago.

‘The court held that the mere possession of the passport, all be it a diplomatic one, pointed clearly to an act, voluntarily by Denzil Douglas to be under acknowledgement of allegiance.obedience or adherence of a foreign power or state,’ Gonsalves said.

Gonsalves, an attorney, said prior to the Douglas case there were varied legal opinions in the Caribbean, but ‘in our jurisdiction in 2020, the Court of Appeal determined that the mere holding of the passport, not even citizenship indicated this.

‘So the law has now been made crystal clear.but you would have to have evidence,’ Gonsalves said, noting that by his own statement made in Parliament recently, Dr. Friday has admitted to having the Canadian passport proudly in his front pocket’.

Gonsalves said in the case of Bramble, while he did not make a similar statement in Parliament ‘there are witnesses that we have that Bramble told people he is a Canadian citizen and he has a Canadian passport’.

Gonsalves said he has also been informed that when Bramble was interviewed by the Returning Officer during Monday’s Nomination Day, ‘he admitted that he is a citizen of Canada’.

On Monday, unsigned documents began circulating on social media, addressed to the returning officers in the Northern Grenadians and East Kingstown, claiming that the nomination of the two opposition candidates had been challenged.

Friday later appeared in a video on social media saying that his nomination was successful.

‘Of course, my opponents . tried some dirty tricks. They wanted to knock me off the ballot. They wanted to try and get me out of the way before you had a chance to vote. But it didn’t succeed,’ he said.

Friday, a lawyer, said he and his legal team pushed back against the efforts to block his nomination.

‘The nomination process is complete. We proceed to the elections on the 27th. If you want to beat me, come on the 27th, that is the day that you can come and try to knock me out, and you ain’t going to succeed, because that is the day of reckoning, and we shall overcome, and the people of this constituency and the country will have a change that we so desperately need,’ he said.

Friday, speaking at an NDP rally earlier this week, said he had thought that the ‘old story’ about his citizenship was something of the past and had ‘gone to bed’.

‘I wasn’t born in America, like some of them, and I chose to come and represent the people of my constituency. For me, it’s not a sacrifice. It is a duty. It’s an obligation, because I got everything I have from my constituency, from growing up in Bequia,’ he told party supporters.

Friday said he called Bramble, who told him that his nomination was also challenged.

Gonsalves speaking at the ULP event on Tuesday night said, ‘we did something which frightened the NDP.

‘There are objectors to Friday and Bramble because they are Canadian citizens, and they can’t get away from the law and the Constitution,’ said Gonsalves, adding that the Returning Officer had registered the two opposition candidates, saying they would leave the matter for the court to decide.

‘But there’s a reckoning, and a reckoning will come in the law courts,’ Gonsalves said, urging voters in East Kingstown and the Northern Grenadines not to waste their vote.

‘Do not waste your vote. Because you’re voting for people who when the case is brought against them, because they are Canadians, by their own act, they are having an acknowledgement of allegiance and adherence to a foreign power, a state known as Canada,’

he added.

Guyana and Suriname are among seven Amazon countries that have launched a new initiative aimed mobilizing more than one billion US dollars to accelerate investments in water security, clean energy, and resilient urban infrastructure, with a multisectoral and territorial approach.

Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru are the other countries involved in the Amazonia Forever Facility for Cities and Resilient Infrastructure alliance that was launched here on Tuesday. The Inter-American Development Bank Group (IDB) said that the initiative, led by the Amazonia Network of Ministers of Finance and Planning, was formalized through a joint declaration signed by member states.

It is supported by the (IDB Group), within the framework of its flagship Amazonia Forever programme, and is backed by multilateral climate funds, bilateral donors, and local leaders.

The new facility will leverage innovative financial mechanisms, including blended financing, performance-based concessionality schemes, mechanisms for mitigating exchange-rate risk, and credit-substitution guarantees, while providing technical assistance for infrastructure projects in urban and peri-urban areas.

Brazil’s Planning and Budget Minister Simone Tebet formalsed the launch at COP30 in her capacity as chair of the Amazonia Network of Ministers of Finance and Planning.

‘This important tool will enable us to take action not only on forest and water resources, but also on urban challenges, since cities are home to the vast majority of the Amazonian population. In this way, we are strategically complementing efforts on these two fronts of the region’s environmental challenges,’ she said.

‘This facility is a practical example of what Amazonia Forever is all about; providing people with livelihoods and jobs in the region’s cities is the best way to preserve the forest,’ said IDB Group President Ilan Goldfajn. ‘And building resilient infrastructure helps protect around 60 million people who call the Amazon home.’

More than 70 per cent of the population of the Amazon region, or Amazonia, lives in cities and peri-urban areas, which face gaps in water, sanitation, adequate solid-waste management, energy, mobility, and risk management for extreme events.

Addressing these challenges is essential not only for improving people’s quality of life, but also to protect forests, according to a recent IDB study prepared by more than 60 experts.

The Amazonia Forever Facility comes with new support from international partners to promote climate-resilient infrastructure, clean energy, connectivity, and sustainable urbanization in the Amazon region. Among them:

Denmark, Norway, and Sweden committed to work toward signing a guarantee which will enable the IDB to increase its lending capacity for clean-energy projects within the Amazonia Forever and América en el Centro programmes by US$800 million.

The IDB’s Water Security and Climate Resilience Program in Amazonia, in partnership with the Green Climate Fund (GCF), will deploy US$162 million in concessional financing, technical assistance, and pre-investment resources for resilient infrastructure projects in drinking water, sanitation, drainage, and solid-waste management, as well as improvements to early-warning systems and strengthened cross-border cooperation.

The Clean Energy Access Accelerator in the Amazon, supported by the Climate Investment Funds (CIF), will provide US$215 million in concessional resources and grants to expand universal access to clean energy and clean cooking solutions, and promote the adoption of emerging technologies.

The Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) contributed six million euros to the IDB’s Spanish Cooperation Fund for Water and Sanitation in Latin America and the Caribbean, with a focus on the Amazon.

The Central Bank of Barbados (CBB) Wednesday said it has become aware of a fraudulent website that is falsely using a logo similar to that of the financial institution and is requesting payments from individuals.

‘This website, bimpayer.pro, is a deliberate attempt to mislead the public and engage in fraudulent activity. We strongly urge individuals not to visit or make any payments through this site, and to refrain from sharing any personal or financial information,’ The CBB said in a brief statement. The Central Bank says it does not request money or payments from members of the public, reminding them ‘that the official website for the national instant payment system is www.bimpay.bb, which can also be accessed through the Bank’s main website, www.centralbank.org.bb.

‘Any other website claiming affiliation with the Central Bank or BiMPay should be treated with extreme caution. Members of the public who have already made payments or provided information through bimpayer.pro are encouraged to report the matter immediately to the Barbados Police Service and to contact the Central Bank’s Corporate Communications Unit for guidance.’

The Human Rights Service (HRS) of the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH),says more than 1, 2000 people have been killed in Haiti during the three month period, July to September this year.

According to the ‘Quarterly Report on the Human Rights Situation in Haiti, July-September 2025’, at least 1,247 people were killed and 710 injured as a result of violence perpetrated by gangs, self-defense groups and unorganized members of the population. The report said that people were also killed during security force operations and that men accounted for 83 per cent of the victims, women 14 per cent, and children three per cent.

The report noted that while the criminal gangs were not able to gain further ground within the capital and were even pushed back from certain neighbourhoods such as Delmas 19 and Route de l’Aéroport (Delmas), as well as downtown Port-au-Prince, the ‘expansion of gang violence toward the peripheral and rural areas of the capital and toward the Artibonite and Centre departments continued’.

It said that sexual violence and child trafficking, including recruitment and exploitation, continue to be used by gangs to subjugate residents living in areas under their control.

The report noted that 39 members of the population were killed or injured by explosive drone strikes, there were also 79 summary or arbitrary extrajudicial executions believed to have been committed by police officers and by the Government Commissioner of MiragoSne.

The HRS report noted that eight security force personnel were killed and 17 others injured during security operations and that at least 1,400,000 people were displaced in Haiti as of September 30.

It said that 10 public prosecutors were recruited for the specialized judicial units to combat mass crimes, including sexual violence, as well as financial crimes.

But the report is recommending to the authorities in Haiti to ensure the operationalisation of specialised judicial units to combat mass crimes, including sexual violence, as well as financial crimes.

It said with the support of the international community, the government should accelerate the effective implementation of the police vetting process and conduct judicial investigations of officers accused of involvement in serious human rights violations.

It said also that the government with the support of the international community, ‘strengthen and accelerate the establishment of a prevention, disengagement and rehabilitation programme for minors involved in gangs, and reestablish a national entity leading and coordinating disarmament, dismantlement, reintegration and community violence reduction efforts.

‘Strengthen the coherence and effectiveness of the national security forces in their fight against armed gangs,’ the report urges, noting also that with the support of the international community, including humanitarian actors, the government should strengthen the protection of populations at risk.

The HRS is urging the international community to keep Haiti on the international agenda and provide adequate financial and human support to guarantee the full deployment of the Gang Suppression Force (GSF) as authorised by Security Council Resolution on September 30, this year.

The report is also urging the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) region to strengthen and increase cargo inspections destined for Haiti within their territory, including in seaports and airports, in accordance with UN Security Council Resolutions, which impose an arms embargo.

The Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) says it has partnered with RevUP Caribbean to launch the RevUP Founders Growth and Community Support Network, regarded as a dynamic digital ecosystem designed to provide lifelong support to Caribbean entrepreneurs.

The region’s premier financial institution said that backed by a recent US$250,000 technical assistance grant from CDB, this initiative marks a new chapter in regional entrepreneurship.

The CDB said that the newly launched RevUP Community is a comprehensive, tiered membership platform designed to support Caribbean entrepreneurs through curated resources, mentorship, investor access, and regional collaboration. It offers four levels of engagement providing access to a vetted digital network, business resources, and expert-led events, business coaching, governance sessions, pitch coaching, investor access via FirstAngels Caribbean and speaker opportunities for advanced entrepreneurs.

The platform is powered by Zoho and designed to connect founders with mentors, board members, investors, and service providers across the Caribbean, Europe, and Latin America.

‘For four years, we’ve been a virtual incubator. Starting tonight, we become something more: a lifelong ecosystem,’ said Sandra Glasgow, the managing director of RevUP Caribbean.

‘This dynamic, digital community will be your permanent access point to the resources you need to scale. It is designed by you, inspired by your journey, and dedicated to your future growth,’ she added.

CDB’s Division Chief, Private Sector, Lisa Harding, highlighted the importance of strategic collaborators to support business growth

‘Development banks, accelerators, investors and policymakers, each have a role to play. But when we work together, align our goals, and pool our strengths, we create real momentum for change. CDB remains deeply committed to the mission of homegrown entrepreneurs not just as a financier, but as a partner, supporting our entrepreneurs to grow, innovate, and compete globally.’

The RevUP Community builds on the success of RevUP’s incubator programme, which has supported 145 founders, generated over USD 1 million in additional revenue, and created 131 new jobs with women-led businesses leading the way.

CDB is financing Phase II. According to CDB’s Division Chief, the bank is repositioning to focus on entrepreneurship, innovation, and investment-readiness as the foundation for long-term growth.

By supporting innovation at multiple stages of business growth, CDB said it is ensuring that the Caribbean remains competitive, adaptive, and resilient in a rapidly changing global economy.