KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent – Vincentians will this year begin paying 15 per cent more in property taxes while duties on beverages, tobacco, and vehicles will see “moderate increases”, Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves said yesterday while presenting his EC$793,911,053 budget for 2012. Gonsalves, in his five-and-a-half-hour speech announced a number of concessions as he said that the fiscal strategy in 2012 continues form last year: “focusing... 

Supporters of Jamaica’s first woman prime minister are celebrating after she staged a dramatic comeback with a landslide victory in the general election yesterday. Portia Simpson Miller, leader of the centre-left People’s National Party, tapped in on voter-disillusionment, especially among Jamaica’s poorest people, during an energetic election campaign. PNP party members and their supporters shimmied and shouted in the capital,... 

KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent – One opposition lawmaker thinks that Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves is “too expensive to mind”, a statement which Gonsalves has described as “awful”. Member of Parliament for Central Kingstown St. Clair Leacock made his feelings known during the debates on the estimates on Tuesday. Some EC$1,540,000 of the estimates for the EC$793.9 million budget in 2012 that Parliament approved Tuesday night are for services... 

KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent – This country’s consul general in New York this week asked Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves to reassure Vincentians in that North American state that his government has a handle on the crime situation here. The request by former government minister under Gonsalves’ Unity Labour Party administration, Selmon Walters came two days after dental technician Ewart “Ells” King was killed by an intruder into his Pembroke... 

KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent – Vincentians making bogus claims for asylum in Canada are being encouraged to stop doing so. “It is not a good thing that we are going there and exaggerating this problem, which we are having,” Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves said on radio yesterday. He was referring to Vincentians who tell Canadian authorities that they are not safe here because of domestic and other forms of abuse. Click link to read more on the... 

Jamaica’s governing party announced Sunday that Prime Minister Bruce Golding will step down as leader in the coming weeks, possibly averting a rebellion from ruling party members that could have led to his ouster. Golding would resign once a new leader of the Jamaica Labor Party is elected, expected at an annual general conference in November. The party’s leader automatically becomes the prime minister. Golding’s career has been in jeopardy...