Caribbean Report 18-02-1993

Abstract

After an overcrowded ferry (the Neptune) with over 1000 people sank in a rainstorm off the western peninsular of Haiti - correspondent David Adams reports. A man hijacked a missionary shuttle plane in Haiti demanding to be flown to Florida. The Federal aviation administration spokesperson said the flight had refueled in Turks and Caicos and was on its way to Miami. (T&T government has gotten a two weeks grace period during the Carnival weekend from the protest of the country’s increasingly restless trade union movement and thousands of public servants. However, Errol Mc Cloud President of the National Trade Union centre in an interview with correspondent Debbie Ransome said that the union did not rule out national industrial action in the very near future. A consultative committee has been set up in Suriname into look at ways to halting the country’s inflation situation and rapid economic malaise and averting industrial unrest as workers are becoming increasingly agitated -correspondent Sandra Baptiste in an interview with Fr. Sebastian Mulder reports. Jamaica’s two main political parties and its representatives Prime Minister PJ Patterson and Opposition Leader Edward Philip George Seaga are moving towards a first in the region by staging a political debate whenever general elections are called as part of a move towards change in the political culture in Jamaica – correspondent Gary Allen reports. Popular footballer John Barnes came under much criticism and booing of an English crowd of over 50,000 at a Liverpool and England football match at Wembley – correspondent Debbi Ransome reports from an interview with sports writer Henry Winter of British newspaper - the Independent.