Barbados-based Internet provider, Sunbeach Ltd, has committed itself to providing Internet services to the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) and regional airline LIAT has also thrown in its support for the trouble-plagued corporation.

And former chairman of the West Indian Commission (WIC), Sir Shridath Ramphal, said that the prospect of the disappearance of CMC must not be allowed to happen.

Sunbeach has had a longstanding relationship with CMC. The company has confirmed to the CMC four-person restructuring team that it would have service from Sunbeach during this difficult period, a CMC press release said.

News from CMC traditionally appeared on the Sun-beach website before the temporary closure of the corporation.

Meanwhile, the release said LIAT's Director of Marketing, David Stuart, pledged the airline's assistance to CMC in any area it could.

Stuart told the CMC staff that he was looking forward to the organisation's return to the media landscape to serve the Caribbean people as best as it could.

In a press release issued by Antigua and Barbuda's Ambassador to the UK, Sir Ronald Saunders, Sir Shridath was quoted as saying it was a time for action now to save CMC.

Sir Shridath recalled that ten years ago the WIC had stated: "Community is about communication. Without effective communication between the people and the countries of CARICOM, the reality of community cannot be sustained."

Sir Shridath said the WIC specifically identified the regional mass media as an in-tegrative factor in the region, and singled out CANA and CBU-later brought together in the CMC-as deserving of special regional support.

The WIC had said: "...we have to speak directly and more constantly with each other. We have to do that consciously and, taking account of our smallness, promote that communication as a matter of policy."

Antigua and Barbuda's Prime Minister Lester Bird had issued a call earlier this week for a CARICOM meeting on the closure of the CMC and offered his country as the venue for the caucus.

And Prime Minister of Grenada Dr Keith Mitchell expressed surprise at the sudden suspension of CMC's operations and wants to "do anything I can to help with getting it back in operation."

CMC announced the temporary suspension of its operations for restructuring Friday, last week. Fifty of the 54 members of staff of the organisation were laid off.

CMC is a merger of the Caribbean News Agency (CANA) and the Caribbean Broadcasting Union (CBU), which for the past 17 months, has been the region's only multi-media entity (print, radio, television and internet).