BASSETERRE, St. Kitts — St. Kitts and Nevis participated in the January 19 virtual session of the Third Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the 37th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), based in Geneva.

Ms. Kaye Bass, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, head of the delegation, introduced St. Kitts and Nevis’ National Report and highlighted, inter alia, St Kitts and Nevis’ response to Covid19.

In her intervention during the interactive dialogue, Ms. Bass highlighted human rights-related initiatives the government has undertaken within the last four-and-a-half-years on social protection, gender empowerment, education, health, and its fulfilment to obligations under Human Rights Instruments which it has ratified.

At the end of the review, St. Kitts and Nevis received recommendations from 63 UN Member states which will be considered.

“The timely submission and content of our current National Report and our participation in this important review, reiterate St Kitts and Nevis’ commitment not only to this process but to human rights in general,” said Mrs. Bass.

“This is evidenced by St. Kitts and Nevis’s diligent efforts and subsequent success in implementing more than half of the recommendations of its previous review,” she said. “This is a significant achievement for the smallest country in the Western Hemisphere and considering the ongoing exogenous and economic challenges it continues to face.”

This unique UPR process involves a periodic review of the human rights records of all 193 UN Member States. It began in April 2008 to 2011 (First Cycle) followed by another from 2011-2016 (2nd Cycle). At each successive cycle, states are expected to highlight the steps they have taken to implement recommendations supported during their previous reviews, as well as to highlight recent human rights developments in the country.

Other members of the delegation included: Ms. Janelle Lewis, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Community Development, Gender Affairs and Social Services; Ms. Asha DeSuza, Second Secretary at the Permanent Mission of St. Kitts and Nevis to the UN; Mr. Sheldon Henry, and Mrs. Natasha Burt, Foreign Service Officers.

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Adam Stewart, the son of late Jamaican tourism pioneer and businessman Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart, has succeeded his father as executive chairman of Sandals Resorts International.

He assumes the role after working alongside his father for more than two decades, during which time he served as chief executive officer and most recently deputy chairman.

Stewart, who becomes just the second chairman in the company’s 40-year history, said he was committed to honouring his father’s legacy of innovation.

“Some people are dreamers, and some are doers; my dad was the magical combination of both. He was fiercely passionate about offering a product that would exceed expectations, and we are incredibly honoured to continue his pursuit of innovation, raising the bar, and creating landmark moments for our valued guests,” said Stewart.

Sandals Resorts International has plans to extend throughout the Caribbean, including the recent announcement of two new island resort destinations – the future Sandals Curaçao and Beaches Resorts in St. Vincent.

Stewart also assumes Executive Chairmanship of the Jamaica-based ATL Group, one of the largest private-sector groups in the Caribbean.

“My father’s shoes are impossible to fill, but we will follow in his ground-breaking footsteps to continue the important work we all set out to do together. As a company and as a team, we are poised for the future. We are already leading the industry in recovering from the greatest setback in the history of travel. We will continue to lead not just by saying, but by doing. And at the heart of it all, we are solely focused on what we do best: delighting our guests,” he concluded.

Stewart will also continue to serve as President of the Sandals Foundation which he launched in 2009, with a mission to lift communities through education, healthcare, and environmental protection.

He has been recognized by several organizations for his leadership in the travel industry and his substantial contributions to the destinations where Sandals Resorts International operates. In 2016, he was bestowed the national honour of the Order of Distinction, Commander Class by the Government of Jamaica for outstanding contribution to tourism.

CMC

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Cuba is aiming to vaccinate its population this year with its own vaccine, which would be the first developed in Latin America.

The country claims it can make 100 million doses of Soberana 2, its most advanced vaccine candidate, in 2021.

“If all goes well, this year the entire Cuban population will be vaccinated,” said Dr Vicente Vérez, director of the Finlay Vaccination Institute.

Cuba has got off relatively lightly compared to many of its neighbours so far in the pandemic, with 19,122 cases and 180 deaths confirmed by the government.

This week Soberana 2 moved onto phase two testing, involving 900 volunteers, and if successful will move onto phase III with 150,000 volunteers in March.

Dr Vérez said the aim was to launch a vaccination campaign in the first half of the year, and it could also be offered as an “option” to tourists.

Cuba “was the first candidate in Latin America and the Caribbean to have a vaccine in the clinical phase,” said José Moya, local representative of the World Health Organization (WHO), who is “optimistic”.

The reason for his optimism is that “Cuba has more than 30 years’ experience in producing its own vaccines and almost 80% of the vaccines in the national immunisation programme are produced in the country.

Under a US embargo since 1962, Cuba has often had to find its own remedies.

As early as the 1980s, it relied on biotechnologies, discovering in particular the first vaccine against meningococcus B,” says Nils Graber, a researcher in health anthropology at the University of Lausanne.

“The aim was both to improve the national health system and to be exported,” he added, citing the shipment of Cuban treatments to Latin America, Asia and Africa.

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(CNN) Local and federal officials in Brazil were warned of looming oxygen shortages nearly a week before crisis struck in the city of Manaus, the country’s Solicitor General has revealed.

In a country already hard-hit by the coronavirus, oxygen shortages and soaring Covid-19 cases have pushed Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state, into a healthcare crisis. Nurses in the city have been quoted in local news reports as saying patients have died of asphyxiation in the city’s hospitals because there is no oxygen to give them. Some relief has come from Venezuela.

SAO PAULO (AP) — Five trucks carrying oxygen from Venezuela arrived at Manaus, a city of 2 million people in the Brazilian rainforest where the local health system has collapsed amid a devastating second wave of COVID-19 and a severe shortage of oxygen for breathless patients.

Venezuela’s consul in Manaus, Patricia Silva, said the trucks delivered 132,000 liters of oxygen late Tuesday. They came from the state of Bolivar in southern Venezuela and travelled more than 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) to Manaus, the capital of Brazil’s Amazonas state.

“We, as the Bolivarian government, defend our principles of cooperation and solidarity. Solidarity among peoples will save us, especially in this terrible pandemic,” Silva told journalists in Manaus.

The Brazilian government has come under sharp criticism over its handling of the crisis. Last week, Supreme Court judge Ricardo Lewandowski ordered the government to present a response plan to solve the oxygen shortage, citing the Jair Bolsonaro administration’s “omissive behavior” in addressing the emergency.

On Sunday, Bolsonaro’s Solicitor General José Levi do Amaral sent a 16-page report defending the government’s response to the court. The report discloses that the federal health ministry knew about the crisis six days before the situation became critical on January 14.

It also stresses that the local government in Amazonas did not inform federal authorities about the looming oxygen shortage. “The Health Ministry…became aware on (January) 8th through an e-mail sent by the product manufacturer,” the report states. The provider, named in the report as White Martins, first notified the Amazonas State government, and then federal authorities, the report says.

It is not clear why notifying the federal government of oxygen shortages was allegedly left to a private contractor. According to the Solicitor General’s report, the Manaus health department had been aware that the city’s health system was on the verge of collapse since early January.

Manaus City officials did not respond to a request for comment from CNN.

An Amazonas’ state government spokesperson told CNN they would provide “clarifications” to the Prosecutor General’s office, and added that the state continues to work to mitigate the crisis, including, “the transport of oxygen from other states to Manaus, the installation of mini oxygen in hospitals, the transfer of patients for assistance in other states and the requisition of all production from local oxygen suppliers.”

Brazil’s General Prosecutor Augusto Aras has ordered the Health Ministry to open a probe into the collapse of Manaus’ health system, in addition to a separate investigation examining potential negligence by state and city officials.

But the Solicitor General’s report raises questions about why the federal Health Ministry was not able to help prevent the collapse of Manaus’ healthcare system, after it received advance notice. Officials from the Ministry traveled to Manaus in the beginning of January, and Pazuello personally visited the city from January 11 to January 13.

Disaster struck the city’s hospitals the next day. On January 14, Amazonas state officials announced that Manaus hospitals and emergency rooms faced crippling shortages of oxygen, amid soaring Covid-19 cases. “We are facing a lot of difficulty in getting medical supplies. And as everyone is following, our main difficulty now has been getting oxygen,” Governor Wilson Lima told reporters.

Though the Brazilian air force responded by delivering emergency supplies of liquid and gaseous oxygen, shortages continue. Logistical problems have compounded the crisis, as Manaus’ supplies mainly enter the city via the Amazon River. There is only highway out of the city, which connects it to the neighboring state of Amapá.

Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello has defended his agency’s response. “We took action immediately,” he said at a press briefing in Brasilia on Monday. “There was no indication of lack of oxygen from our meetings in early January. The rise of the cases was very fast,” he said.

“When we [visited Manaus] on [January] 4, the problem was not oxygen. The problem was bed structure, the number of Covid-19 patients, the queues,” Pazuello also said.

Bolsonaro’s appointment of Pazuello, a former military commander, to lead the Health Ministry, have been heavily criticized by opponent as Brazil’s Covid-19 death toll remains second highest in the world, behind only that of the United States.

Bolsonaro himself rejected any responsibility for the city’s lethal crisis. “There is a problem in Manaus … We mourn the deaths from asphyxiation, from lack of oxygen, and people blame the government. We have allocated billions to the states, but those responsible for the lack of medication are the state and municipal health secretaries,” he told supporters on Monday.

His statement followed Vice President Hamilton Mourão’s claim last week that no one could have foreseen the city’s health system collapse.

“You cannot predict what would happen with this (virus) strain that is occurring in Manaus. Totally different from what had happened in the first half,” Mourão said

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The Government of Jamaica has signalled an intention to deepen its ties with the United States following the inauguration of a new Administration yesterday.

In extending congratulations to the 46th President of the United States Joseph R Biden Jr and Vice-President Kamala Harris on their formal assumption of duties , Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Kamina Johnson Smith said: “The Government and people of Jamaica look forward to the further deepening of this strong and active partnership, under the Biden-Harris Administration.

Today’s (yesterday) inauguration reaffirms the strong democratic foundation on which the United States of America is built and for which it has had a long and distinguished tradition. The occasion is special and historic,” said Johnson Smith in a release.

“Even as we renew engagement with President Biden, previously a vice-president, we also look forward to building new relations with the vice-president. Indeed, it is of special significance to Jamaica that Vice-President Harris is the first female vice-president of the United States of America, a woman of colour and the child of Jamaican and Indian immigrants.

“We, therefore, join in acknowledging this important milestone and note with pride her own inspiring assertion that while she is the first, she expects that many more will follow her,” added Johnson Smith.

She said Jamaica values its close friendship with the US which is a key ally and a major development partner.

“It is a relationship that has been shaped by mutually beneficial cooperation, deep historical and cultural ties, mutual respect for the rule of law and human rights, as well as the large Jamaican Diaspora in the United States.

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