Golding has been meeting with key aides to discuss the financial crisis

The Jamaica government has set up a Crisis Committee to monitor and advise on the worsening global financial crisis.

The Bruce Golding administration came under a wave of criticisms from its political adversaries, after officials confidently stated that Jamaica can withstand the effects of the economic turmoil.

But with news of a domino effect in key financial markets, Mr. Golding met with key fiscal policy aides to determine the immediate implications for the Jamaican economy.

Minister speaks on electoral reform

One government minister in Dominica has told opposition parties to take their calls for electoral reform to the island's electoral commission.

The main opposition United Workers Party and the minority Dominica Freedom Party have repeatedly called on the Roosevelt Skerrit administration to clean up the voters list and embrace electoral reform before the next poll, constitutionally due in 2010.

But the economic development minister Julius Timothy told BBC Caribbean that reform rests with the commission, and not with the government.

Electricity consumers protest

A number of demonstrators, organised by the St Vincent National Consumers Association on Friday picketed the offices of the St Vincent Electricity Company, Vinlec.

They are angry about the cost of electricity and power outages.

Junior Bacchus, president of the consumer association, said the average electricity bill has more than doubled in the last eight months.

Vinlec's chief executive officer Thornley Myers told BBC Caribbean electricity rates have not changed since 1989, and the increased bills are due to the cost of fuel.

Mr Myers also said that routine maintenance was the cause of power outages.

Cuba looking to restore tourism industry

Cuba, still struggling to overcome the destruction left last month by hurricanes Ike and Gustav, says it is working hard to ensure that the two main tourism draws - tobacco and eco-tourism - are back on line for the upcoming peak season.

The tobacco industry earned the country over $200 million last year, while tourism overall brings in over $2 billion each year.

Officials are optimistic that while some crops may take a while to recover, Cuba's tourism industry in the main will be back on track in time for the start of the peak winter season on November 1.

However, international tourism industry experts caution that the global financial crisis could very well dampen that rosy outlook.

Drug-related crime biggest threat to public safety

The head of the United Nations drug agency has said the Caribbean and Central America are trapped in what he called "the crossfire of drugs and arms trade".

Antonio Acosta, secretary general of UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said drug-related crime constitutes the biggest threat to public safety in the region.

Mr Acosta, who was speaking at a regional security meeting in Mexico, said the biggest threat to public safety came drug trafficking and the violence perpetrated by organised crime.

Preval warns of implications of drugs trade

The Haitian President Rene Preval has warned that the drug trade has the potential of exposing Haiti to terrorist groups.

He was at the time criticising recent reports by the US State Department and Transparency International, which rank Haiti among the main transit territories for international drug trafficking - and being one of the four most corrupt countries in the world.

President Preval, expressed concern that Haiti might turn into an operating base for terrorist groups, while also being a transit state for drug trafficking.

He also said the drug market constitutes a chain that can be broken only by eradicating the demand in consumer countries such as the United States and the Western Europe.