On November 10, 2026, Belize’s leading umbrella labor organization, the National Trade Union Congress of Belize (NTUCB), has formally submitted a formal policy request to Prime Minister and Minister of Finance John Briceno, calling for the complete elimination of the 25 percent income tax currently levied on workers’ severance payouts, NTUCB president Ella Waight confirmed in an interview with local outlet News 5. Waight emphasized that the existing tax framework for severance pay is inherently inequitable, as a subset of private and public sector entities already hold special exemptions that shield their departing employees from the 25 percent deduction, while rank-and-file workers across most other industries are subject to the full levy. The union is demanding that this preferential tax-exempt status be extended universally to all workers who exit employment due to permanent disability, company-led retrenchment, or formal retirement, rather than remaining a privileged carve-out limited to a small group. Waight outlined that the tax deduction lands at an exceptionally financially vulnerable juncture for departing workers: after decades of full-time employment, retirees typically transition abruptly from a steady monthly salary to relying on a combination of their one-time severance payout and modest Social Security pension, with many low-income workers only eligible for a minimal Social Security grant that barely covers basic living costs. “Our core objective is to make this system fair for everyone, no exceptions, so that no worker who has dedicated years to the national workforce is forced to sacrifice a quarter of their hard-earned severance right when they need those funds most to transition to post-work life,” Waight stated, adding that dignified post-employment living standards for aging and displaced workers are a core priority for the union. The NTUCB is now formally calling on the Ministry of Finance to launch an immediate review of its existing severance tax policy, and to revise the regulation to extend full tax exemption on all severance payouts to eligible workers nationwide.
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Cancer awareness unveiling ceremony at Spiceland Mall
The Grenada Food and Nutrition Council (GFNC) has announced plans to host a dedicated cancer awareness unveiling ceremony on Friday, November 13, 2026, running from 10:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. at Spiceland Mall in Morne Rouge, St. George. This community-focused public health initiative is designed to elevate widespread public understanding of cancer prevention and support resources, while creating a collective space for local residents to demonstrate compassion, offer encouragement, and stand in solidarity with all individuals and households navigating the challenges of a cancer diagnosis. During the 30-minute public event, all in-person attendees will be invited to add their signature to a custom-designed awareness standee immediately following its official unveiling. The interactive display will remain on public exhibition at Spiceland Mall for an extended period after the ceremony, giving all mall visitors the chance to add their own signature and show their support for local cancer communities. GFNC leadership notes that every signature on the standee will act as a tangible, visible reminder to people undergoing cancer treatment and their loved ones that they do not have to face their health journey in isolation. The organization is calling on all local community members to participate in the initiative to expand public cancer awareness, foster collective strength for affected groups, and reinforce the message that no one navigating a cancer diagnosis is alone. This announcement is distributed on behalf of GFNC by NOW Grenada, which notes it bears no responsibility for the statements and content presented by contributing organizations, with a public reporting channel available for any cases of content misuse.
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Van woord naar daad: president Simons geeft richting aan Kenki a Systeem
On November 10, local political and policy analysts outlined the far-reaching implications of a landmark executive order issued by Surinamese President Jennifer Geerlings-Simons, which mandates an immediate halt to all imports of Jin Chan, a chemical agent widely used in informal and artisanal gold mining operations across the country’s interior. The directive, formally communicated to Minister of Economic Affairs, Entrepreneurship and Technological Innovation Andrew Baasaron on November 2, 2026, was triggered by verified public reports of suspected water contamination in the remote Godo Olo community, where unregulated use of the gold processing compound has sparked widespread alarm among local residents. Notably, the president opted to roll out the preventive restriction without waiting for full final results of ongoing environmental impact assessments, a deliberate policy choice prioritizing community safety over bureaucratic delay. The impetus for the action traces back to a community consultation, locally known as a liba krutu, held in Dritabiki on November 1, where representatives of the Aucaanse Maroon community explicitly shared their fears over potential harm to local water sources and fragile forest ecosystems with a visiting presidential delegation. This marks a rare and explicit integration of Indigenous and traditional community feedback into top-level national executive decision-making, moving beyond longstanding token gestures of stakeholder engagement to embed rural voices directly in regulatory action. The policy framework behind the ban aligns closely with the administration’s flagship Kenki a Systeem governance reform agenda, which aims to translate rhetorical commitments to accountable, proactive public leadership into tangible, actionable policies. While formal legal drafting for the import restriction, protocols for managing existing stockpiles of Jin Chan, and follow-up regulatory guidelines for the gold mining sector are still being finalized, the directive has already assigned clear, line-of-sight accountability to the economic affairs ministry for full implementation. For Suriname’s gold sector, a cornerstone of national GDP and livelihood for tens of thousands of artisanal miners, the measure does not represent a blanket clampdown on extractive activity, but rather a deliberate effort to reconcile economic development priorities with non-negotiable ecological protection for interior communities whose daily subsistence is directly tied to intact river systems and forest habitats. Ongoing sample collection and analysis led by the national Environmental Crime Unit and National Environment Agency will generate evidence to inform follow-up policies, creating a formal, structured bridge between empirical scientific research, regulatory enforcement, and high-level political decision-making. Administration officials have framed the Jin Chan ban as a pilot model for cross-ministerial collaboration, breaking down longstanding silos between economic planning, environmental protection, and public safety agencies to deliver coordinated governance outcomes. If followed through with clear, enforceable rules for sustainable gold extraction, robust independent monitoring, and sustained investment in interior ecosystem protection, the intervention could establish a lasting new precedent for Suriname’s national environmental governance, embedding the core principle that preventive action to safeguard public and ecological health takes priority over waiting for irreversible harm to occur.
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Another Union Leader Backs Senator Dennison’s One-Man Protest
In a landmark show of cross-union solidarity, the leadership of Belize’s Public Service Union (PSU) has formally pledged unreserved support for Senator Glenfield Dennison’s sustained solo public demonstrations, now entering their second week across high-traffic zones in Belize City. Dubbed by Dennison himself as a grassroots “education campaign” rather than a conventional protest, the daily street actions are already resonating deeply with ordinary residents, according to PSU President Dean Flowers.
“From where we stand, this campaign is driving tangible impact,” Flowers stated in a recent public address. “Senator Dennison is prompting everyday Belizeans to hit pause on their busy routines, stop, and critically engage with the core concerns he is amplifying to the public.” Flowers clarified that while Dennison is a longstanding PSU member, his ongoing street outreach is being conducted primarily in his official capacity as an elected senator. He also issued a firm commitment that union members will turn out in full force to join Dennison the moment his demonstrations extend to the national capital of Belmopan.
This latest endorsement follows closely on the heels of a formal statement of support from National Trade Union Congress of Belize (NTUCB) President Ella Waight, who last week emphasized that peaceful protest is a constitutionally enshrined right for every Belizean. Waight went on to encourage all residents with unaddressed grievances related to public services, cost of living, or administrative oversight to exercise that legal right to make their voices heard. “There is no barrier for any Belizean to pick up a sign and say clearly, ‘My water bill is exorbitant, and the government needs to take action’,” Waight noted. Building on the momentum of Dennison’s solo campaign, the NTUCB has now formally announced a coordinated mass public protest scheduled to take place this coming Friday in Belmopan, inviting all concerned citizens to participate.
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Gov’t explains how it will pay for students’ 2027 CXC subjects
In a formal circular dispatched to all secondary school and technical institute principals across the jurisdiction, the national Ministry of Education has rolled out a structured mandate requiring all educational institutions to submit a verified roster of students slated to sit the 2027 Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) suite of qualifications — including CSEC, CTEC, and CVQ programmes — to central government for full state coverage of their associated exam fees. This initiative fulfills a key campaign pledge the ruling New Democratic Party (NDP) unveiled ahead of the November 2025 general election, where the party promised to eliminate end-of-secondary-school examination costs for eligible students if re-elected to office. Under the official policy framework, the government will cover all standard CXC entry administrative fees and per-subject charges for every approved candidate, processed in full coordination with the local CXC Registrar’s office. A hard aggregate cap of nine funded subjects per student has been established, with the rule clarifying that this nine-subject limit functions as a maximum ceiling rather than a mandatory target. Education officials emphasized that schools must only register students for subjects for which they have received full targeted instruction, with eligibility confirmed via internal assessment performance data, completed school-based coursework, and verified progress on all practical SBA requirements. No educational institution is permitted to collect any fees from parents or legal guardians for exam entries that fall within this government-funded scope. Students who wish to register for additional subjects beyond the nine-subject threshold may do so, but all associated costs for these extra qualifications must be paid directly to the national treasury via the CXC Local Registrar, with these supplementary entries required to be clearly flagged in a separate section of the submission cover letter to avoid processing confusion. The policy explicitly excludes several categories of costs and candidates from state coverage: fees for CCSLC qualifications fall entirely to the student and their family, and all late entry surcharges or penalty fees stemming from delayed submissions or incorrect application details will not be reimbursed by public funds. Eligibility for the fully funded scheme is restricted exclusively to students who are actively enrolled and in regular attendance at a registered secondary school or technical institute at the time of official CXC registration. Candidates retaking a previously attempted subject, as well as all private, non-enrolled exam candidates, are not eligible for the government fee subsidy. Every submitted student entry roster will be cross-referenced and validated against the official institutional student attendance register, and the principal or institutional head is required to sign and date all submission documentation, issuing a formal legal certification that every listed candidate meets attendance requirements, their registered subjects align with their completed coursework and instructional progress, and no subsidized student has been assigned more than the nine allowed funded exam entries.
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Ministry of Education Investigating Confrontation Involving Secondary School Students
A formal probe has been launched by the national Education Ministry following a reported physical and verbal confrontation between student groups from Jennings Secondary School and Princess Margaret Secondary School, according to official preliminary notices released Tuesday. At this early stage of the inquiry, investigators have not yet been able to verify the full sequence of events that sparked the altercation, nor have they confirmed reports of any student sustaining physical injuries during the incident. The unplanned clash has sparked widespread alarm among local school administrators, parent associations, and community stakeholders, who are flagging two key pressing concerns: first, the adequacy of existing student safety and campus discipline frameworks to prevent inter-group conflict, and second, the unique hazard presented by the steep, uneven public terrain that sits between the two school campuses, which could lead to far more serious accidental harm if future confrontations spill outside supervised school grounds. As of the latest update, no formal disciplinary measures have been issued against any students identified as participants in the incident, as ministry officials state they will base all consequent actions on verified evidence collected throughout the fact-finding process. Education department spokespersons have confirmed that additional public updates will be released in the coming days as the investigation progresses to full completion.
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Post-retirement extensions can narrow job openings for young people – minister
During a recent appearance on the New Times broadcast, Kaschaka Cupid — the newly elected Member of Parliament for West St. George and joint minister of youth, sports, culture, and creative industries — laid out a targeted policy critique of longstanding public service employment practices in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, warning that routine post-retirement work extensions for veteran civil servants are creating systemic bottlenecks that lock young, qualified Vincentians out of formal public sector roles. A 20-plus year veteran of the public service himself before winning office in the November 2025 general election, Cupid noted his frontline experience navigating government administrative structures gave him intimate insight into long-unaddressed staffing gaps that have pushed youth unemployment to the top of his policy priority list. He shared a recent, on-the-ground interaction from his constituency that underscored the urgency of the issue: just hours before the interview, a group of unemployed young residents had visited his office to detail their ongoing struggles to secure stable, meaningful formal work, a frustration he says is amplified by practices that retain aging civil servants past the official retirement age, often for one or two year contract extensions. Cupid acknowledged that existing public service regulations formally allow for these post-retirement extensions, and conceded that specialized, technical roles — such as senior information technology positions that rely on rare, niche institutional expertise — do require consistent operational continuity to avoid service disruptions. But he pushed back against the default, unplanned practice of extending veteran staff contracts as a last-minute fix for unfilled vacancies, arguing that this ad-hoc approach eliminates entry points for young job seekers who have been waiting to advance into public service roles. As a solution, he proposed a formal, proactive cross-agency succession planning framework that requires government departments to identify and train junior successor candidates years before senior specialized staff reach retirement age, allowing incoming employees to shadow and learn directly from veteran colleagues while the latter are still on full active duty. This structured handover, he explained, would eliminate the last-minute scrambling to fill critical posts that currently leads many departments to fall back on post-retirement extensions, while creating clear, predictable promotion pipelines for young, unemployed Vincentians. Cupid framed the gap in formal succession planning as a legacy of the former Unity Labour Party administration, which held power for nearly 25 years before being voted out of office in November 2025, and noted that this staffing inefficiency is just one of multiple structural challenges the year-old New Democratic Party government is working to resolve. He also observed that public service operational norms differ drastically from private sector workforce practices, meaning targeted restructuring of outdated civil service protocols will be required to roll out the new succession framework, with meaningful changes expected to be rolled out incrementally over time.
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Ah feel shame!
During a candid Independence Day drive across St. Vincent and the Grenadines’ main island, a local resident shared a visceral moment of national embarrassment, noting that the unkempt, overgrown grass verges, tangled vines, and drooping tree canopies lining major roadways on both sides of the territory were in the worst condition he had ever witnessed. The sight prompted him to question if core public bodies including the Forestry Department, state utility VINLEC, and Local Government Department were still operational, though he intentionally held back direct criticism of central authorities — the very entity legally tasked with sustaining a functional, decentralized local governance framework.
The author, veteran public servant Donald De Riggs, outlines that central government’s core mandates extend far beyond basic infrastructure upkeep: it is responsible for securing stable, fair market access for local agricultural and tourism goods, unlocking economic opportunities that benefit the broad majority of Vincentians rather than a narrow, privileged elite, facilitating cross-sector dialogue to expand formal employment and accessible education pathways, and advancing the long-discussed plan to establish a domestic national university. Such a tertiary institution would allow local students to pursue higher education without relocating abroad, eliminating the heartbreak of family separation for households forced to send children overseas to study.
Road maintenance, the piece argues, is far more comprehensive than patching potholes and resurfacing worn asphalt — services the public already pre-pays for via mandatory vehicle registration and driving license fees. To counter the territory’s frequent heavy rainfall that makes grass regrow within days of trimming, verges, roadside shrubs, overhanging vines, and drainage networks along main and feeder routes require scheduled upkeep no fewer than six times per year, rather than the current inconsistent pattern of only two annual cleanup drives timed exclusively for the back-to-school season and Christmas holidays.
A properly resourced, fully operational local government structure, De Riggs insists, would restore the country’s road network to a source of collective national pride, matching the neat, vibrant, well-maintained thoroughfares seen in neighboring sister islands Grenada and St. Lucia, where decentralized governance ensures hyper-local needs are addressed quickly.
He recounts a first-hand anecdote from his tenure at the Government Information Service (later renamed API under a previous administration), when he repeatedly asked every sitting cabinet minister — including the late iconic leader Sir James — why successive political parties had included a local government rollout in their election manifestos, yet never followed through on the promise. During one such meeting with then Minister of Communications and Works Glenford Stewart, the pair’s conversation was interrupted by an incoming phone call. After hanging up, Stewart shook his head and confirmed the call was about a request to arrange a replacement toilet seat for a primary school on the remote island of Canouan.
De Riggs pointed out to the minister that central government’s logjam of trivial, neighborhood-level requests was entirely self-inflicted: if formal local government bodies were established in every parliamentary constituency, small, site-specific needs like school bathroom repairs would never need to be escalated all the way to a national cabinet minister. Stewart openly agreed with that assessment. The opinion piece issues a stark warning to the current administration: if it fails to deliver on a formal local government policy and fully implemented decentralized governance structure, its time in power will be cut drastically short.
Shifting to another long-stalled critical public priority, De Riggs reminds readers that the opposition New Democratic Party first tabled a National Health Insurance (NHI) bill in Parliament back in 2001, shortly after losing the general election to the Unity Labour Party. If the ULP administration had acted on that forward-thinking, progressive proposal, the NHI scheme would have reached full maturity in 2026, acting as a robust safety net to guarantee low-income and vulnerable Vincentians access to high-quality, affordable medical care. The author emphasizes that it is not too late to revive that widely popular policy, which would lift crippling medical cost burdens for generations of local residents to come.
Currently, countless Vincentians face public fundraising campaigns every week to cover costly diagnostic tests, complex surgeries, and specialized treatments that are not available domestically, forcing many to travel to Trinidad, Barbados, or further afield for care and leaving families at constant risk of financial ruin due to unexpected medical crises. A fully funded NHI scheme would also incentivize local medical practitioners to invest in state-of-the-art diagnostic and surgical equipment, as they would have guaranteed coverage for those services via the contributions the working population has paid into the national scheme over decades. De Riggs closes with a direct, urgent appeal to the current government, noting that the draft NHI bill already exists and the ruling party holds a comfortable majority in the House of Assembly, so there is no valid excuse for further delay: legislators must pass the bill in the next parliamentary sitting to deliver the relief that Vincentians at home and in the diaspora have long demanded and fully support. This opinion piece reflects the personal views of author Donald De Riggs, and does not necessarily align with the editorial position of iWitness News. -
UK Privy Council strikes down Trinidad and Tobago’s buggery laws in landmark ruling
LONDON – November 10, 2026: In a historic, unanimous judgment that reshapes the landscape of LGBTQ human rights across the Caribbean region, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council – Trinidad and Tobago’s highest appellate court – has ruled that two sections of the country’s 1986 Sexual Offences Act criminalizing consensual adult same-sex intimacy violate core constitutional guarantees of personal dignity and privacy. The five-judge panel, led by Lord Sales and Lord Burrows with concurrences from Lord Reed, Lord Briggs, and Lady Rose, delivered the watershed decision in the long-running case *The Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago and others v. Jason Jones*, upholding the core 2018 High Court ruling that favored plaintiff Jason Jones while overturning a prior partial reversal from the Trinidad and Tobago Court of Appeal. Jones, a gay Trinidadian national, first launched his legal challenge after enduring years of targeted harassment, employment discrimination, and physical violence tied to his sexual orientation, testifying that the lingering threat of arrest, prosecution, and criminal penalty under the colonial-derived statutes had left him in a constant state of debilitating anxiety and fear for his personal safety. The contested provisions, Sections 13 and 16 of the 1986 Sexual Offences Act, criminalized acts of buggery and “serious indecency” between consenting same-sex adults, penalties that trace their origins to British colonial governance in the Caribbean. During proceedings, the Office of the Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago had mounted a two-pronged defense of the laws: first, that the statutes were shielded from constitutional review under 1976 constitutional “savings clauses” designed to preserve pre-independence legislation, and second, that the laws reflected deeply rooted local cultural traditions and should only be assessed against the social context that prevailed at the time of the 1986 Act’s passage. The Privy Council panel rejected both arguments outright. The judges emphasized that the 1986 legislation represented a full, deliberate revision of the country’s entire sexual offenses legal framework, rather than a passive carryover of leftover colonial rules, and thus did not qualify for the pre-1976 law immunity the government had claimed. The court further ruled that constitutional rights assessments cannot be frozen in time to 1986, and must instead be evaluated against the contemporary social context in which an individual’s fundamental rights are alleged to have been violated. The panel found that the state had presented no credible evidence to demonstrate that the criminalization of private, consensual same-sex intimacy served any legitimate public purpose aligned with modern Caribbean societal values, and that the severe infringement on Jones’ right to form intimate, consensual relationships – a core component of constitutionally protected private and family life – could never be deemed reasonable or justifiable in a democratic society committed to upholding individual human freedoms. While the core constitutional questions have now been fully resolved in Jones’ favor, the Privy Council has not yet released its formal final remedial order. The court will accept additional written submissions from all involved parties – including intervening stakeholders ranging from Trinidad and Tobago’s Equal Opportunity Commission and the Trinidad and Tobago Council of Evangelical Churches, to regional LGBTQ advocacy groups Colours Caribbean, the Silver Lining Foundation, OutBermuda, the United Belize Advocacy Movement, and global network ILGA-NAC – before drafting the precise legislative amendments needed to bring the Sexual Offences Act into full compliance with constitutional human rights safeguards. The court noted its provisional position that the original remedial order issued by the High Court should be largely upheld. Cited officially as 2026 UKPC 38, the ruling adds to a rapidly growing body of progressive regional jurisprudence rolling back colonial-era anti-LGBTQ legislation across the Caribbean, and sets a powerful binding precedent for other nations across the region that still retain similar criminalization statutes, clarifying that no longstanding colonial-era law can be insulated from constitutional challenge when it directly violates fundamental, universally recognized human rights.
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Government to announce 82 higher education scholarships
The Ministry of Higher Education of St. Vincent and the Grenadines is preparing to formally recognize outstanding academic performers across the nation by awarding a total of 82 merit-based scholarships tied to 2026 results from the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examinations (CAPE) and accredited associate degree programmes. As confirmed by the state-run Agency for Public Information in a Tuesday official statement, the highly anticipated 2026 National Scholarship Programme awards ceremony, paired with an official cocktail reception, is scheduled to take place this Thursday, with full live streaming access provided via all local state media platforms to allow families, educators and community members across the archipelago to follow the proceedings in real time. The 2026 scholarship portfolio covers a tiered suite of recognition packages: 8 prestigious national scholarships, 18 exhibition scholarships, 1 one-off special academic award, and 55 targeted bursaries, marking a deliberate restructuring of the 2025 programme, which distributed 19 national scholarships, 18 exhibition scholarships and 43 bursaries for the same total of 82 awardees. The high-profile event will feature keynote addresses from two senior government leaders: Prime Minister Godwin Friday, who will deliver special opening remarks and personally present the coveted Prime Minister’s Gold Medal, and Minister of Higher Education Terrance Ollivierre, who will outline the administration’s long-term strategy to expand accessible tertiary education for Vincentian youth. The Prime Minister’s Gold Medal, the programme’s highest honor, is reserved for the student who delivers the strongest overall academic performance across all eligible assessments; the top performer will not only receive a full national scholarship, but also a one-time cash prize of $20,000 alongside the commemorative gold medal. The second-highest-ranked students will receive a $10,000 cash bonus on top of their standard national scholarship benefits. Structured to cover varying lengths of tertiary study, national scholarship recipients are granted full funding equivalent to five years of tuition and associated fees at the University of the West Indies, while exhibition scholars receive coverage for up to three years of study at the regional institution. Notably, the 2026 bursary scheme has received a significant financial boost: annual support for bursary recipients has been raised by EC$5,000 to reach EC$30,000 per academic year, available for a maximum of three years of study, a meaningful upgrade from the 2025 bursary value of EC$25,000 per year. The government’s investment in the expanded scholarship framework underscores its ongoing commitment to reducing financial barriers to higher education and nurturing local talent to drive national development.