Stories about Saint Lucia from May, 2006
St. Lucia: privatisation of utilities
Should the St. Lucian water company be privatised? Should the mass transit system remain in private hands? Matthew Hunte weighs in. “We end up in a funny situation where (quite a few of) the same people who oppose private water are quite content to leave our transport system in the...
Caribbean: What blogging is for
“Blogging … challenges the elitism that pervades the Caribbean and is a great experiment in the democratization of data,” says Geoffrey Philp in a thoughtful essay on the potential role of blogging in the region. “Blogging provides the kind of freedom that is anathema to many gatekeepers who want to...
West Indies: Cricket victory over India
Today Trinidad and Tobago hosted the fourth match in the current West Indies vs India One Day International cricket series. Francomenz didn't make it to the Queen's Park Oval in Port of Spain to watch the match, but she followed it on the radio. “Too exciting!!!” she wrote when West...
Caribbean: WI cricket resurrection?
He's afraid of blighting them with his positive words, but Jeremy Taylor at the Caribbean Beat Blog has been more than pleased to see the West Indies cricket team show some of their old mettle in their recent encounters with India: “. . . in the last week some real...
West Indies: Cricketer Ramnaresh Sarwan comes of age
Today the West Indies cricket team won its third One Day International match in the current series against India, in which Guyanese batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan scored 115 runs not out. “He’s coming of age before our eyes,” says the West Indies Cricket Blog. Ri at Revolution Island reminds us that...
Montserrat volcano watch and West Indies cricket
A woman looks at the rear window of her car, broken by a flying rock from the nearby Soufriere Hills Volcano, Montserrat, on Saturday. Photo from the Trinidad Express website Nearly eleven years ago, Montserrat’s long-dormant Soufriere Hills Volcano began erupting for the first time in the island's recorded history....
Caribbean: Hurricane outlook
Over at the West Indies Cricket blog, Ryan Naraine cites the NOAA’s 2006 Atlantic hurricane season outlook, which says there is “an 80% chance of an above-normal hurricane season, a 15% chance of a near-normal season, and only a 5% chance of a below-normal season.”
Caribbean: A West Indian anthem?
Kyk-Over-Al links to a column in Guyana's Stabroek News criticising the new West Indian anthem adopted recently by CARICOM (the Caribbean Community), and the Caribbean Beat blog asks its readers how Caribbean leaders should have gone about choosing an anthem. “Via a competition, soliciting entries from the region's best composers...
St. Lucia, Grenada: Kweyol lesson and photos
Georgia Popplewell at Caribbean Free Radio is travelling in the Eastern Caribbean this week; she's struck by “conservative” St. Lucians’ frankness about condoms, and gets an impromptu Kweyol lesson from two women in Castries. She also posts some photos taken in St. Lucia yesterday, and some from Grenada the day...
West Indies: Brian Lara's appointment “commercial”?
Sir Viv Richards, West Indies cricket legend, says star batsman Brian Lara was recently appointed captain of the team for “commercial reasons”. “A tad ungracious of the great man,” says Jeremy Taylor at the Caribbean Beat blog.
Caribbean: The meaning of “excellent service”
Jamaican Francis Wade at Chronicles from a Caribbean Cubicle thinks about customer service in the Caribbean. “There is not a single island I have visited in which there is a local company giving excellent service to local people.” He tries to understand why, and congratulates the Sandals resort chain for...
Trinidad and Tobago, St. Lucia: Network neutrality
Caribbean bloggers are making noise about the Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Efficiency Act of 2006, currently before the US Congress, which would permit “broadband discrimination” by ISPs. “It seems odd that the rest of the world has such little influence on this decision when so much of the world will...
France & Francophonia Commemorate Slavery Amidst Curriculum Controversy
Image courtesy of oliviermr2 A Day of Remembrance France commemorated slavery for the first time on May 10, reports Haiti's Alterpresse: Le président francais qualifie d’infamie, la traite négrière et invite les Français à « regarder tout notre passé en face », « sans concession ». Abdou Diouf, Secrétaire général...
Caribbean: New West Indies anthem
At the Trinidad & Tobago World Cup blog Stacy-Marie Ishmael parses some of the mixed reactions to the new West Indies anthem, which was sung for the first time at yesterday's Trinidad & Tobago v. Peru football match in Trinidad.
St. Lucia: The state of things
“Our economy was never prepared for the changes which I’m certain somebody must have seen coming,” says Matthew Hunte in his all-encompassing rant against the state of things in St. Lucia,
Caribbean: Regional Telecom Penetrates French DOMs
“For 155 million dollars, Denis O'Brien's Digicel Group just acquired Bouygues Telecom Caribbean, the second wireless network in the French Caribbean DOMs i.e. about 160,000 subscribers and 80 employees,” says (FR) Internetrapide.com. Digicel is now present in 20 Caribbean countries, explains the blogger.
