BDS$93.73 In Taxes

Submitted by Adrian Loveridge

Book a month in advance and the taxes on a ONE-WAY ticket with LIAT to St. Lucia from Barbados amount to BDS$93.73 alone, and that doesn’t include the US$16.75 fuel and insurance surcharge.

Why is it that the Government is calling on the private sector tourism industry to protect employment and safeguard jobs and yet they appear to be deaf to the overwhelming calls to reduce taxes on intra regional travel?

Despite the Caribbean currently being the third largest source of long stay visitors to Barbados, and this could well change due to restricted air travel caused by the Swine Flu epidemic, it still is treated as the ‘Cinderella’ of our major markets.

With ongoing subsidies of up to US$300 per passenger, plus all the extra costs associated with the Best of Barbados programme in the United States, the least per capita BTA marketing spend is on the Caribbean, despite it producing the highest return on investment.

Swine Flu Pandemic A Concern

Barbadians from all walks of life have been expressing concern at the Swine Flu pandemic sweeping neighbouring countries. Too close for comfort many are thinking! If the reports in the international press are to be believed the virus originated in Mexico. The 23 month old who died in Texas, USA within the last 24 hours was a Mexican child who had sought treatment in the USA.

The medical authorities in the USA are being very negative in their forecast on how this pandemic will spread. This is not good news for the Barbados authorities, North America is a top three tourist market for Barbados. The positive spin is that Barbados has always enjoyed a diversified tourist product unlike Bahamas and others.

A Case Of The Fatted Calf Being Slaughtered?

Bloggers around the world are being asked  to take action to combat the poverty and hunger affecting more than 500 million people worldwide and responsible for the deaths of over 15 million children each year through a campaign Blogger Unite For Hunger and Hope. BU although concerned about people everywhere the campaign (blogging)  has served to bring to the fore again the little regard Barbadians have for agriculture and by extension food security.

BU commenter Nostradamus reminded us recently that there is an application in Town Planning to change 136 acres of agricultural land, representing 30% of Staple Grove Plantation, from agricultural to residential… there will be a Consultation at the Meeting Hall of St. David’s Anglican Church on Monday April 27, 2009 at 6:00pm. The meeting will allow for comment and discussion on the proposed plans for the subdivision of lands at St. David’s Village, Ch. Ch and Staple grove Ch. Ch. Into lots for residential purposes.

The government led by Minister Michael Lashley has been on a quest to generate housing solutions to deliver on a Democratic Labour Party campaign promise. The government led by Minister Haynesley Benn has also been on a quest to move agriculture back to the centre of our economy. The two Ministers maybe on a collision course given all that has happened during the previous government when there were many accusations levelled that prime agricultural land was being sub-divided willy-nilly for residential and other purposes.

In light of the above BU’s interest was peeked when commenter Nostradamus made his intervention.  Luckily we were able to persuade a BU family member to attend the Consultation on the sub-division of lands at Staple Grove, St. Davids for residential purposes and report back her findings.

LIME Continues To Squeeze

Richard Dodd, CEO of LIME

It is company with a long history of association with the Caribbean which reaches to the period when the islands were colonies of the then British Empire. Having operated under the name Cable & Wireless and in recent times the LIME brand, a negative impression if ever there was one when seen in a cultural context, what do we have?

LIME has extracted enormous profits from a region which is still developing and some might say that it is a region which lacks the resources to be ever world class in the global definition of things. At the top of the list of Caribbean countries contributing to the bottom-line of C&W, now LIME, has been Barbados.

It is no secret that successive Barbados governments have placed a heavy importance on developing an efficient telecommunications infrastructure, and relative to our Caribbean neighbours we have to agree we have done so with some success. Perhaps it explains the generosity of the Public Utilities Board now morphed to the Fair Trading Commission to C&W over the years.

We don’t pretend to know how the complicated system of price-cap works but we understand from the experts that given LIME’s continuing monopoly status the results of such a system is skewed in favour of the monopoly. Despite some of our best brains operating as Intervenors the monopoly has been able to make its London-based shareholders smile perennially.

Are Barbados Radio Listeners On Talk Programmes Being Marginalized?

Submitted by Yardbroom

Allegations seem rife that an insidious creep is taking place on some Barbados Radio call in programmes, this has manifest itself in decent citizens being talked down to, inference that they have no intellect and the views they hold are due to a lack of analytical rigour.  It is even believed that an agenda which is at odds with the majority Christian views held by  Barbadians is being held in contempt.

No one would expect free licence be given to malicious, slanderous or vindictive comments  without challenge on a major programme, but when opinions sincerely held are treated with contempt and callers are made to feel that they are being patronised, this is not only bad manners but calls into question the impartiality which should be exercised by a competent chairman.

The general public does not want to know the views of the chairman he is there to “facilitate” a sensible discussion over a range of subjects…all of which he cannot be an expert.  He is there to ensure balance to what is being discussed thus allowing listeners to be better informed on completion of the programme, he is not there to be “victorious.”

The Bible And The Qur’an, Brothers Kept Apart

Fellow blogger Weighed in the Balance has undertaken the ambitious and highly risky task of writing a book which as he terms it “is a comparative analysis of the Bible and the Qur’an, and it assumes that both books are correct.  If God is the principal author of each book, as Christians and Muslims claim, then a comparative analysis should reveal harmony between the principal teachings of both.  This is what I have found.  Hence, Christians and Muslims have been kept apart by their religious leaders who have taught their adherents that God has rejected the other group.” The topic matter was thought to be so contentious that he originally penned his book using a pseudonym.

Phillip’s book is titled Brothers Kept Apart and can be purchased on Amazon.com at a reasonable price. Some members of the BU family have already demonstrated that they are students of the religions. Brother Phillips advises that the book represents 30 years of research and 7 years of critical review and he stands ready to defend his thesis.

Stimulus Money: Things we could do

Submitted by Looking Glass

Locally made soft beverages (sweet-drinks) are no more. Today almost all soft drinks and concentrates like mauby and ginger beer come from abroad. Is it that small domestic industry is beyond the ability or inclination of the Bajan? Imagine Canadian brand bottled water on our supermarket shelves. We have some of the softest, purest, natural water any where on planet earth, much of which goes to watering golf courses. An 18 hole golf course requires about 3000 gallons of water a day. This helps to lower the water table and increase the cost to the people. Wouldn’t it be better to bottle and sell our own water? At least it would generate some jobs and revenue.

Then there is JU-See, one of the best soft drinks around. The company was uniquely positioned to more or less monopolize the market. Production cost notwithstanding, the loss of market share and declining profit margins was more or less inevitable. In an age of flavourings, essences—from strawberries and grapes to pineapple and guava— and packaging, little was done to diversify and bring new products to the market. One is hard-pressed to find a country where soft drinks and water-based tropical fruit drinks are not profitable. It seems that foreign control is needed to render our business profitable.

Flying fish has long been a staple. There is a mob-o’-ton of fish of all sorts, especially off the East and South coasts. Shortly after SHRIMP was discovered at our doorstep, Dipper brought in a small fishing fleet capable of fishing where our little fishing boats couldn’t go. Before long the ships ended up tied to the wharf. Why need not detain us here, but it wasn’t due to the lack of fish. One person got one of the ships met the Japanese trawlers, took what they didn’t want and made a tidy living. Nothing wrong with that. The four vessels the Canadians gave us for inter-regional transport also had a very short life.

No Word From PM Or AG About 5200 Signatures In Support Of l’Akobi Maloney

ARMED MEMBERS of the police Task Force were on hand to control the crowd at the Coroner's Court after yesterday's verdict into I'Akobi Maloney's death last year.

Only days before the coroner returns her verdict into the unnatural death of 23 year old Chemical Engineer I’Akobi Maloney, representatives of the Justice Committee are questioning the lack of attention given to a petition that was submitted to the Hon Prime Minister David Thompson and the Attorney General Fruendel Stuart.

The petition, submitted prior to the start of the actual inquest in November of 2008, was signed by 5200 Barbadians and called for a private and independent team of investigators to fully examine all of the evidence in the untimely death of the Barbados Exhibition winner. It was hoped that a team or approach in that manner would have the appropriate transparency necessary to adequately rule out any foul play.

From the many calls, letters to the media, and general public conversations it is very clear that there have been a number of questions consistently raised about the case, including some about the status and subsequent impact of the petition.

Read full article on AfriKa CRY BLOOD blog

Are Homosexuals Guilty Of Intolerance?

Submitted by BU family member Rock Solid

Looking at American cable and network news this morning I was shocked to discover that this week in the Miss USA beauty pageant Ms California was denied the crown because she stood up for her beliefs.

It appears that Hilton Perez a homosexual blogger and gossip columnist who was one of the judges of Ms USA Pageant, asked Ms California how would she define marriage? Ms California who is a practising Christian said she acknowledges that people will make their individual choices but respectfully she thinks that marriage is between a man and a woman.

Well who tell she to say that?

This homosexual judge was demonstrably offended and marked her down so low that she ended up the first runner up instead of Miss USA. He sees nothing wrong with that action and has been on all the network and cable channels defending why he thinks she should be ‘more tolerant’.

Now for the gay activists and so called politically correct crowd who will try like Peter Wickham does to throw in red herrings to distract the argument – this is not about whether we should be having beauty pageants,or whether the women are exploited or whether pageants are merely there to excite men etc etc. The elephant in the room really is:

THE INTOLERANCE OF MEMBERS OF THE GAY COMMUNITY.

Re-Discover The Caribbean

The business of tourism has been affected by the global recession precipitated by skyrocketing energy cost and the inevitable meltdown in world economies. Air travel has now become a very expensive undertaking. A Google will return any number of hits on the losses projected for the airline industry in 2009.

All the major tourist markets on which Barbados depend have shown decline. One market which has historically been given any significant highlight is intra-regional. Over the years the leading Caribbean islands have shown impotence when managing the regional network of airlines.The irony for Barbados and many of the islands has been the decision to build state of the art airports which have business models that require high taxes to ensure a good return on investment.