#3415: Various and sundry news from CANA on refugees, political violence, global warming ... (fwd)

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From: Max Blanchet <MaxBlanchet@worldnet.att.net>

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The Caribbean News Agency (CANA) is the premier
provider of news and information from the English
Caribbean

Bahamas sending Haitians home

Nassau, Bahamas, CANA - The authorities in the Bahamas
are apparently starting May with another round of
repatriations of illegal Haitian immigrants. Press reports
here said that out of the 586 Haitians kept at
the government's detention centre, 318 were returned to
their homeland April 27. For the year, more than 1,500
Haitian immigrants were reportedly deported. And Acting
Director of Immigration, Vernon Burrows, said "other efforts
are being made to get the (illegal) immigrants out
of Inagua".

Action on climate change monitoring programme

Kingstown, St Vincent, CANA - Regional scientists and
technicians are forming alliances with groups such as the
media to help spread the message about climate change
and the implications for the Caribbean. Of particular
interest is that strip of invaluable coastal area surrounding
every Caribbean territory where major infrastructure is
housed and whose natural life sustains economic activity
for thousands of citizens. It could be a thing of the past
- under water permanently - if worst case predictions about
the impact of global changes to the world's climate
hold true. And Caribbean governments, recognising the
enormity of such a scenario, have pooled resources with
external help to plan and execute a programme of
adaptation to global climate change.

Haitian party official killed as election looms

Port-au-Prince, CANA - Assailants hacked to death
a Haitian political party official less than a month before
the long-delayed national election in the Caribbean nation.
Ducertain Armand, 70, was killed late Tuesday by a
unknown group of people who broke into his home in
Thomazeau, a town northeast of the capital. "This was
a political assassination," Marie-France Claude, the
Port-au-Prince mayoral candidate for the Haitian
Christian Democratic Party said yesterday.

Knocks for CARICOM and its diplomacy

Bridgetown, Barbados, CANA - The quality of the region's
foreign service as well as the current operations of the
Caribbean Community (CARICOM) have been strongly
criticised by respected Jamaican economist and diplomat,
Richard Bernal.

Bernal, Jamaica's ambassador to the USA and
Organisation of American States (OAS) who has also
been in the service of the region as a technocrat for some
years, feels that it is time "to close down" what he considers
a mid-twentieth century foreign service to
avoid replicating problems in the 21st century. Further, he
wants the region's governments to pursue "a rigorous, critical
re-evaluation" of the operations of CARICOM, now in its
26th year, and planning to be transformed into a single
market and economy in 2001.