BREAKING NEWS: Barbados mentioned in 261 WikiLeaks US Embassy cables

UPDATED: December 3, 2010 12:33pm

The WikiLeaks website is under attack and is rotating between different servers around the world. We’ll put the current link to the Embassy Cables at the bottom of the article, but if our readers find it has changed, please issue an update in the comments.

Are the FBI files mentioned?

Unless you’ve been living in an information vacuum for the past few days, you are aware Wikileaks is in the process of publishing 251,287 stolen United States embassy cables. But if you think that those cables couldn’t possibly impact little old Barbados, you are in for a surprise.

Today, Barbados Free Press learned that our country is mentioned in 261 of those still to be released cables.

What will they say? The cables go back to 1966, and like you, we can probably guess at some of the subjects. Here’s what we think, what we’ve learned and how you can examine the documents yourself…

With unemployment so high, is Barbados importing Chinese workers?

Hi BFP,

Just wondered if anyone can explain the presence of these Chinese who seem to be workers … here in Barbados? Were they brought in for some project? (With unemployment so high it makes me wonder.)

I took these photos on December 1, 2010 at about 4:30pm.

All the best to you!

.(click for large. License plate removed by BFP editor)

BLP divorcees remember the happy days of new love!

How could love go so bad?

by Nevermind Kurt

It all started when her father introduced the young maiden to his business colleague, the CEO of “BLP Solutions Inc.”  It wasn’t love at first sight, but soon the couple began to appreciate each others’ strengths and weaknesses as they worked together on small projects.

She wasn’t the prettiest thing he’d ever seen, but she was smart and inspired loyalty in customers, employees and management. At times she could be argumentative, even aggressive – but it was only because she was younger and needed experience. The CEO knew that given time and the humility born of a few failures, she would be a superb senior executive.

He tended to drink more at lunch than she was comfortable with. Some mornings he came to work disheveled and stinking of different perfumes – but everybody in the company loved him anyway and so did she. The CEO might be a rogue and occasionally an embarrassment when he got caught using the company funds for personal expenses, but no one could question his drive or the success that he achieved and shared freely with everyone around him.

Yes, the CEO was a crook who raided shareholder equity regularly, but no one could say he was a selfish crook.

CL Financial bailout: “Amazing scenes were witnessed”

“A glaring example of the kind of wanton wrongdoing at the heart of this mess…  Clico Investment Bank fails to file its Corporation Tax returns for three years, yet keep their banking licence and arrange for the taxpayer to bail them out when it all goes sour.”

Where are the two-years past due audited accounts for CL Financial?

by Afra Raymond

The new situation is charged with peril and one is reminded of Naipaul’s father, the intrepid journalist from ‘A House for Mr. Biswas’ whose favourite tagline was ‘…amazing scenes were witnessed…’.

Trinidad & Tobago Finance Minister, Winston Dookeran, addressed Parliament on the Finance Bill (No. 2) 2010 on Wednesday 24^th November.  It was a lengthy and detailed statement, which put things into a necessary perspective.  For me, it was important that Dookeran gave priority to the claims of the contractors and of course, the last item being the claims being made by the various groups representing Clico policyholders.

The Finance Minister held his position as set out in the 2011 budget, which was no surprise when one considers his statement that the various submissions received from the policyholders’ groups did not withstand scrutiny.  I only had two significant concerns in terms of outstanding items which require proper attention.