SAN JUAN — Governor Wanda Vázquez announced on Saturday that she will hold a nonbinding referendum in November to decide whether Puerto Rico should become a U.S. state, a move that comes amid growing disillusion with the island’s U.S. territorial status. For the first time in the island’s history, the

BUENOS AIRES — Latin America and the Caribbean has now recorded more than half a million coronavirus infections, according to an Agence France-Press tally based on official reports.  Almost half have been recorded in Brazil – the country worst-hit by the pandemic in the region – which also has more than 15,000

PORT OF SPAIN — An Iranian news agency close to the elite Revolutionary Guards said today that there would be repercussions if the United States acted “just like pirates” against an Iranian fuel shipment to Venezuela. A senior official in President Donald Trump’s administration told Reuters on Thursday the United

HAVANA — As countries begin to ease lockdown measures in order to kickstart their economies, all eyes are on how international borders will reopen, thereby enabling business and tourism to resume. Some nations have already agreed on, or mooted the possibility of, establishing “travel bubbles” whereby groups of countries who

SANTIAGO, Chile — The implementation of the 2030 Agenda is at stake and decades of progress in human development are at risk of being reversed if more attention is not given to supporting Caribbean countries in their pursuit of sustainable development, Alicia Bárcena, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for

SANTO DOMINGO — While a large number of Caribbean countries seem to have halted the COVID-19 curve, in seven nations yesterday, the number of coronavirus cases continued a steady uptick. Here are the seven: 1: The Dominican Republic’s cases showed no slow down as the country surpassed 10,000 cases yesterday, adding

BRIDGETOWN — For Caribbean nations such as Suriname, Belize and Barbados, the pandemic hasn’t just shut down local economies. It’s also led some investors to worry about how they’ll repay their bonds. Unlike eight regional nations including Haiti, Honduras and Nicaragua that may qualify for a global debt relief initiative

NASSAU — We are all in the same COVID-19 storm, but not all countries are in the same boat. Here in the Bahamas, 70 percent of our GDP is generated from tourism. Tourist-based economies like ours throughout the Caribbean region have limited social safety nets. This means our people, economy

MIAMI — The family of a cruise crew member who died after testing positive for COVID-19 filed a lawsuit against Royal Caribbean Cruises on Tuesday saying the company failed to protect its employees as the pandemic ravaged sailings around the world. The wrongful death case filed in circuit court in

SANTO DOMINGO — There are now at least 8,000 confirmed coronavirus cases in a single Caribbean country, which saw a whopping 281 new cases today. The Dominican Republic reached 8,235 cases yesterday as its death toll climbed by another 13 to 346. According to the local representative of the Pan