News stories by Peter Richards, page 13

Caribbean leaders emerged from a one-day special summit on Wednesday night to announce new mechanisms to deal with some of the problems plaguing the region's financial sectors, occasioned not only by the ongoing global crisis, but by several homegrown scandals as well.

It's the latest dance craze here and many artists have hopped on the bandwagon. But when the latest 'daggering' song hit the airwaves, government, broadcast regulators, civil society and others in Jamaica said enough is enough.

When it opened its doors to the public in 1936, the Colonial Life Insurance Company (CLICO) adopted the motto: 'Give a man value, give a man service, and he will support you.'

The figures are staggering. About half a billion small arms are in use around the world and nearly half a million people are killed by them annually.

Even as Caribbean countries hope to present a more united front to confront the region's growing economic woes, the current global recession has made this complex transition much harder, experts warn ahead of a special summit here at month-end.

As it stands now, the office of the president of Trinidad and Tobago is largely ceremonial. But if the draft document on a new constitution released by the Patrick Manning government last week is anything to go by, that could change dramatically.

When 15-year-old Devika Lalman left her home a few days before Christmas to buy school supplies for the new academic term, her parents had taken all the necessary precautions to ensure her safety.

Maria Harvey of St. Lucia was looking forward to a bonus this Christmas, but when her employers presented her with an envelope on Monday, it left her shattered.

It has formed part of the communiqué issued at the end of the annual summits of Caribbean Community leaders for more than a decade.