By Steven McIntosh
Entertainment reporter

BBC= Netflix’s royal drama The Crown and Apple TV comedy Ted Lasso were the big winners at Sunday’s Emmy Awards.

The Crown’s prizes included best drama series and four acting wins – for Gillian Anderson, Olivia Colman, Josh O’Connor and Tobias Menzies.

“What a lovely end to the most extraordinary journey with this lovely family,” Colman said of her final series playing Queen Elizabeth II.

“I loved every second of it and I can’t wait to see what happens next.”

Becoming emotional, she added: “I wish my dad was here to see this. I lost my daddy during Covid, and he would’ve loved all of this.”

The Crown’s victory in the best drama series category is not the first time a streaming service has won the top prize at the Emmys, but it does mark the first victory for Netflix.

Anderson won for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher, Menzies for the Duke of Edinburgh, and O’Connor for Prince Charles.

Many of this year’s nominated actors from The Crown left the show after its most recent series, including Emerald Fennell, who played the Duchess of Cornwall, and Colman, who will be replaced as the Queen in the forthcoming fifth season by Imelda Staunton.

• In pictures: The Emmy Awards red carpet
• Emmy Awards 2021: The winners and nominees
• What’s the big deal about Ted Lasso?

The 73rd Primetime Emmy Awards took place in Los Angeles on Sunday and saw most nominees attend in person, although many British nominees appeared from a separate hub in London.

UK winners included Michaela Coel, who won outstanding writing for a limited series for her consent drama I May Destroy You. “I dedicate this story to every single survivor of sexual assault,” she said as she collected her award.

image source, Reuters

Coel also used her speech to address aspiring writers, telling them: “Write the tale that scares you, that makes you feel uncertain, that isn’t comfortable, I dare you.”

She said staying away from social media could help them to create their best work. “Do not be afraid to disappear, from it, from us, for a while, and see what comes to you in the silence,” she said.

#EmmysSoWhite

The British writer and actress was one of the few non-white stars to score a win at the awards, which was criticised online for its lack of diversity.

While many black actors were nominated, when it came to the ceremony itself, white performers took home all 12 acting awards across the comedy, drama and limited series categories.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.View original tweet on Twitter

In contrast, three black stars were among the four winning guest actors at last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmys, a prelude to this Sunday’s main event – namely Saturday Night Live hosts Dave Chappelle and Maya Rudolph, and Lovecraft Country’s Courtney B Vance.

The host of RuPaul’s Drag Race, RuPaul Charles, however, did manage to become the most-awarded black artist in Emmy history on Sunday, bagging his 11th award for the outstanding competition programme.

If MJ Rodriguez from drag ball drama Pose had beaten Colman to the lead actress award, she would have become the first transgender performer to win in a lead acting category.

Kate Winslet and Ewan McGregor were named best limited series actress and actor for Mare of Easttown and Halston respectively.

Winslet said: “I want to acknowledge my fellow nominees in this decade that has to be about women having each other’s backs. I support you, I salute you, I am proud of all of you.

The HBO crime drama saw the actress play a police detective who is investigating the murder of a girl in a working-class community in Pennsylvania.

“Mare of Easttown was this cultural moment, and it brought people together and gave people something to talk about other than a pandemic, and I want to thank everybody for watching our show,” Winslet said.

Paying tribute to writer and creator Brad Ingelsby, she added: “You created a middle-aged, imperfect, flawed mother, and you made us all feel validated.”

Her Mare of Easttown co-stars Evan Peters and Julianne Nicholson also both won supporting actor and actress for their performances in the show.

Jason Sudeikis was named best lead comedy actor for his performance in Ted Lasso, while his British co-stars Hannah Waddingham and Brett Goldstein won best supporting actress and actor.

“This show is about family, it’s about mentors and teachers, it’s about team-mates,” Sudeikis said. “And I wouldn’t be here without those three things in my life.”

His co-star Waddingham, a successful theatre actress, called for more stage stars to be given TV roles during her acceptance speech.

“West End musical performers need to be on screen more,” she told the audience. “Please give us a chance because we won’t let you down.”

She paid tribute to co-star and fellow nominee Juno Temple, saying she wished she could share the prize with her.

Goldstein won outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series for his portrayal of cantankerous club captain Roy Kent. The 41-year-old said starring in the show had been “one of the greatest honours” of his life.

Ted Lasso, which first aired on Apple TV last year, tells the story of a US football coach who moves to the UK to coach a fictional Premiership team.

Emmy Awards 2021: The biggest winners

Jean Smart was named best lead actress in a comedy series for her performance in Hacks.

As well as taking the top drama prize of the night, The Crown’s Peter Morgan and Jessica Hobbs also won for writing and directing respectively.

Collecting the writing prize, Morgan said: “I’m very proud, I’m very grateful, we’re going to party. Goodnight.”

Hobbs thanked other female directors and her mother, who she said is still directing at the age of 77. Menzies was not present to collect his award.

The final award of the night, outstanding limited or anthology series, went to Netflix’s chess drama The Queen’s Gambit.

In a highly competitive category, it won ahead of I May Destroy You, Mare Of Easttown, The Underground Railroad and WandaVision.

Netflix’s combined total of 44 wins this year meant it towered above its nearest competitor – HBO and its HBO Max streaming service with 19.

That makes this year the first time Netflix had won more Emmys than HBO, which has dominated the ceremony for years. Disney+ was third on 14, while Apple TV won 10.

This year’s In Memoriam section included tributes to stars including Larry King, Michael Apted, Alex Trebek, Helen McCrory, Jessica Walter, Cicely Tyson and Michael K Williams.

The ceremony, hosted by US comedian Cedric the Entertainer, was held after a year of increased TV viewing prompted by lockdown restrictions around the world.

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A volcanic eruption on the Spanish island of La Palma caused local authorities to evacuate thousands, but no injuries were reported, according to The New York Times.

The island, one of Spain’s Canary Islands located off the coast of Africa, has about 85,000 residents. It was the island’s first volcanic eruption in in 50 years.

Authorities planned to evacuate 5,000 to 10,000 people living in villages on the edge of La Cumbre Vieja national park because ash and lava from the eruption posed a threat to their safety.

Videos posted to social media showed homes surrounded by lava, and plumes of thick smoke billowing into the sky.

 

house reached by the lava of the volcano of La Palma in the Canary Islands @lapalma #lapalma pic.twitter.com/e1qihc69T0

— @ezequieleg968 (@ezequieleg968) September 19, 2021

 

 

Report of volcano erupting in Canary Islands: https://t.co/1ocxlUevw3

— Matthew Bennett (@matthewbennett) September 19, 20   The island was on alert prior to the eruption, as several earthquakes had occurred in the area in the days prior, with the largest registering as a 4.2 on the Richter Scale, according to CNN.

Island residents who would need assistance with evacuating, including those with disabilities, were preemptively moved from the area prior to the eruption. Hiking trails surrounding the volcano had also been closed as a precaution.

“We call on people to exercise extreme caution and to stay away from the eruption area in order to avoid unnecessary risks,” the local government tweeted on Sunday, noted CNN. “Likewise, it is very important to keep roads clear so that they can be used by our land operatives.”

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez reportedly postponed his trip to New York for the United Nations general assembly meeting, instead opting to visit La Palma in the wake of the eruption.

“I am at the moment heading to the Canary Islands because of the seismic evolution, to see first-hand the situation in La Palma, the coordination of the means and the protocols that have been activated,” Sánchez tweeted Sunday.

 

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CIUDAD ACUNA, Mexico, Sept 18 (Reuters) – U.S. authorities moved some 2,000 people to other immigration processing stations on Friday from a Texas border town that has been overwhelmed by an influx of Haitian and other migrants, the Department of Homeland Security said on Saturday.

Such transfers will continue “in order to ensure that irregular migrants are swiftly taken into custody, processed, and removed from the United States consistent with our laws and policy,” DHS said in a statement.

While some migrants seeking jobs and safety have been making their way to the United States for weeks or months, it is only in recent days that the number converging on Del Rio, Texas, has drawn widespread attention, posing a humanitarian and political challenge for the Biden administration.

DHS said that in response to the migrants sheltering in increasingly poor conditions under the Del Rio International Bridge that connects the Texas city with Ciudad Acuna in Mexico, it was accelerating flights to Haiti and other destinations within the next 72 hours.

DHS added it was working with nations where the migrants began their journeys – for many of the Haitians, countries such as Brazil and Chile – to accept returned migrants. Officials on both sides of the border said most of the migrants were Haitians.

Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry expressed solidarity with the mass of migrants at the border in a series of posts on social media late on Saturday, saying “arrangements have already been made” to warmly receive those who return to the Caribbean nation.

“I share their suffering and say to them welcome home,” he wrote.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection was sending 400 additional agents to the Del Rio sector in the coming days, DHS said, after the border agency said on Friday that due to the influx it was temporarily closing Del Rio’s port of entry and re-routing traffic to Eagle Pass, 57 miles (92 km) east.

“We have reiterated that our borders are not open, and people should not make the dangerous journey,” a DHS spokesperson told Reuters.

Del Rio’s mayor, Bruno Lozano, said in a video on Saturday night that there were now just over 14,000 migrants under the bridge.

(GRAPHIC: Border Apprehensions: https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-IMMIGRATION/BORDER/xklpyoalapg/)

As it became clear U.S. authorities were sending migrants back to their homelands, Mexican police officers began asking migrants who were buying food in Ciudad Acuna to return to the American side of the river on Saturday morning, according to Reuters witnesses. The migrants argued they needed supplies, and police eventually relented.

POOR CONDITIONS

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On the Texas side, Haitians have been joined by Cubans, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans under the Del Rio bridge, where migrants say conditions are deteriorating.

“There is urine, feces and we are sleeping next to garbage,” said Venezuelan migrant Michael Vargas, 30, who has been at the camp with his wife and two children for three days.

Vargas said they had been given ticket number 16,000 and authorities were currently processing number 9,800. He said people were being separated into three groups: single men, single women and families.

Jeff Jeune, a 27-year-old Haitian, was among several migrants who said it was taking longer to process families than single adults, leaving young children sleeping on the ground in clobbering 99 degree Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius) heat. Jeune said his two sons, ages 1 and 10, had fallen ill with fever and cold-like symptoms.

In two photos sent to Reuters by a migrant at the camp, dozens of adults and children are shown squeezed together under the bridge, some sitting on cardboard or thin blankets spread on the packed dirt. Belongings were stacked in neat piles. There appear to be tents made of reeds and wooden sticks in the background.

Typically, migrants who arrive at the border and turn themselves in to officials can claim asylum if they fear being returned to their home country, triggering a long court process. The Trump administration whittled away at protections, arguing many asylum claims were false.

A sweeping U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention public health order known as Title 42, issued under the Trump administration at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, allows most migrants to be quickly expelled without a chance of claiming asylum. President Joe Biden has kept that rule in place though he exempted unaccompanied minors and his administration has not been expelling most families.

A judge ruled Thursday the policy could not be applied to families, but the ruling does not go into effect for two weeks and the Biden administration is appealing it in court.

A mass expulsion of Haitians at Del Rio is sure to anger immigration advocates who say such returns are inhumane considering the conditions in Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. In July, Haiti’s president was assassinated, and in August a major earthquake and powerful storm hit the country.

The Biden administration extended temporary deportation relief to around 150,000 Haitians in the United States earlier this year. That relief does not apply to new arrivals. Deportation and expulsion differ technically – expulsion is much quicker.

U.S. officials briefly halted removals to Haiti following an Aug. 14 earthquake.

The number of Haitian migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border has been steadily rising this year along with an overall increase in migrants, according to CBP data.

Many of the Haitians interviewed by Reuters said they used to live in South America and were headed north now because they could not attain legal status or struggled to secure decent jobs. Several told Reuters they followed routes shared on WhatsApp to reach Del Rio.

More than a dozen Haitians in southern Mexico’s Tapachula, near the border with Guatemala, told Reuters on Friday that messages in WhatsApp groups spread lies about the ease of crossing the border.

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BASSETERRE, ST. KITTS, September 19, 2021 (MMS-SKN) — As more persons seek property ownership, the Team Unity Administration will endeavour to support young contractors to take local control and ownership of entrepreneurship in the country which will be a good thing for the development of St. Kitts and Nevis.

“We have determined that in the grand march to property ownership in the country, the government itself should never attempt to do all of it,” said Prime Minister Dr the Hon Timothy Harris. “There is scope for private parties to come on board and to deliver housing solutions to a broad cross-section of the people in St. Kitts and Nevis.”

The Honourable Prime Minister made the remarks on Friday September 17, at a ceremony held to hand over 24 apartments on Wellington Road in East Basseterre that were built by the National Housing Corporation with funding from the Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

The ceremony, which was presided by the National Housing Corporation (NHC) was attended by Deputy Prime Minister the Hon Shawn Richards, Minister of Human Settlement with responsibility for NHC the Hon Eugene Hamilton, Minister of Education et al the Hon Jonel Powell, Attorney General the Hon Vincent Byron Jr., and Charge d’Affaires Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela Mr Marco Antonio Guzman Adrian.

Also present were members of the National Housing Corporation Board, led by Chairperson Mrs Malvie James, and the immediate past Chairman Mr Valentine Lindsay. Former East Basseterre Area Parliamentary Representative, Ambassador His Excellence Ian ‘Patches’ Liburd, was hailed by both Prime Minister Harris and Minister of Human Settlement the Hon Eugene Hamilton for his engagement with the Government of Venezuela.

According to Prime Minister Harris, the government would have had successful strategic partnerships with organisations like TDC who are now offering housing projects in Dewar’s in West Basseterre. He added that it is open to other ideas from other developers, pointing out that in the next couple of months there will be a ground breaking ceremony to signify the launch of a middle income housing project in the Cayon community.

“And from there we have identified, with the perspective developers, some four other locations around the country,” he said. “Now we are interested, not just with working with big people in the private sector as we would say, such as the TDC, which is one of the largest public/private sector entities that is in the country.”

The Team Unity Administration, the Prime Minister said, is hoping that some of the country’s contractors who would normally go to the National Housing Corporation looking for jobs to build, that they themselves having saved can approach the government for one acre of land, two acres of land, or even three acres of land, and become developers of housing projects in St. Kitts and Nevis, which will be taking it to the higher level as that is what the government is about.

He explained that is why the charter of people’s empowerment must be improved as to how it takes a person from stage one to a higher level of engagement, and also how it ensures that the future will be stronger and safer for all the people.

“What then we will be having would be local control and ownership of entrepreneurship in our country, and that will be a good thing for the development of St. Kitts and Nevis,” observed Dr Harris. “So we will actively promote that, and we will pursue arrangements with the Development Bank of St. Kitts and Nevis and with other financial institutions that will make it easier for the ordinary people to go higher, to entrench themselves as significant investors in their own country.”

The Team Unity Administration, the Honourable Prime Minister pointed out, does not want everyone to be looking to the National Housing Corporation when it comes to the noble task of providing housing solutions in the country.

“Indeed even now in the mix, what we have done we have put about $30-plus million over time into the Development Bank of St. Kitts and Nevis, and we created a special niche for government employees to have been able to go to the bank and secure loans at just about five percent,” he said. “Development Bank has become the most significant supplier of mortgage financing in this country, accounting for more than a third of all mortgages in St. Kitts and Nevis.”

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By Sir Ronald Sanders  

(The writer is Antigua and Barbuda’s Ambassador to the United States and the Organization of American States.   He is also a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London and Massey College in the University of Toronto.  The views expressed are entirely his own)  

The public health and economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has rightly focused the attention and resources of governments around the world on suppressing and containing it.

The cause has been made more costly and more prolonged by those who resist inoculating themselves against a disease that has officially infected 227 million  people worldwide, killing 4.7 million of them.  Estimates of underreporting in many regions put the death rate, more realistically, at 7 million.

While governments – particularly those in small countries with scarce human and financial resources – have been concentrating on getting out of the trap of the COVID-19 pandemic, the persistent and pervasive threat of Climate Change has been growing alarmingly.

The entire world is now faced with the troubling prospects of long periods of extreme heat; prolonged periods of drought followed by devastating floods and overflowing rivers; severely reduced agricultural production, leading to food shortages; increase in vector-borne diseases such as dengue fever; grave water shortages; and hugely increased costs of energy.

All this will impact businesses of all kinds, causing closures, unemployment, poverty expansion and greater hordes of refugees and migration than we have seen so far.

A new study, conducted by the prestigious, Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA) in London, paints a grim picture of the prospects for the next 30 years, unless greenhouse gas (CO2) emissions are significantly reduced by the world’s biggest polluters.   These include the United States, China, India, the European Union and Canada.

The figures, produced by authoritative research. reveal that global efforts to reduce CO2 emissions are dangerously off track.

One of the troubling observations is that, while in 2019, a potential 300 billion working hours were lost due to temperature increases globally, 52 per cent more than in 2000, COVID-19 resulted in around 580 billion lost working hours in 2020.  Therefore, “temperature increases are already resulting in the equivalent of over 50 per cent of COVID-19-induced lost working hours”.

Worryingly, the report concludes that if emissions follow the trajectory set by the reduction commitments made by countries, there is less than 1 per cent chance of reaching the 1.5°C Paris Agreement target.

Caribbean islands and continental countries, such as Belize and Guyana, with low-lying coasts would feel the full brunt of this pending disaster.   Here are some of the findings in the report.

Death by heat waves  

Globally, heat-related mortality has increased by nearly 54 per cent in persons over-65 in the past two decades, reaching 296,000 deaths in 2018.  If emissions do not come down drastically before 2030, then by 2040, 3.9 billion people are likely to experience major heatwaves.

Insecurity by Food depletion  

In recent years, regional drought and heatwaves have caused 20 to 50 per cent crop harvest losses.  The global food crisis of 2007–08, led to a doubling of global food prices, export bans, food insecurity for importers, social unrest, and mass protests in many countries.

Death and destruction by Floods  

By 2040, almost 700 million people each year will likely be exposed to prolonged severe droughts of at least six months’ duration. One billion people now occupy land less than 10 metres above current high tide lines.  In 2020 there were 23 per cent more floods than the annual average of 163 events in 2000–19, and 18 per cent more flood deaths than the annual average of 5,233 deaths.

Vector diseases increase  

Experts are concerned that climate change is likely to increase the prevalence of emerging infectious diseases and vector-borne diseases.

They argue that Climate Change disrupts ecosystems and increases the risk of diseases jumping to new hosts.  Scientists have been warning for many years of the probability of pandemics increasing as a result of climate change.

In 2008, a study published in the journal, Nature, found that over the previous decade nearly one-third of emerging infectious diseases were vector-borne, with the jumps to humans corresponding to changes in the climate. For instance, insects such as infection-bearing mosquitoes follow changing geographic temperature patterns. Nine of the 10 most suitable years for the transmission of dengue fever have occurred since 2000.

Interconnected crises  

According to the RIIA report, interconnections between shifting weather patterns, resulting in changes to ecosystems, and the rise of pests and diseases, combined with heatwaves and drought, will likely drive unprecedented crop failure, food insecurity and migration of people.

All this, the report argues, could result in the potential breakdown of governance and political systems as societies become increasingly unstable due to lack of income as well as competition over limited food supplies.

The report says that Experts are concerned that such situations could lead to a rise of extremist groups, paramilitary intervention, organized violence, and conflict between people and states.

Vulnerable States must stand united  

Caribbean governments have to remain focused on the clear and present danger of the COVID-19 pandemic that is strangling their countries, but no resident of the region should take their eye off the pendulum that is swinging the dangerous Climate Change wrecking ball.

At the COP 26 UN Climate Change Conference, in Glasgow at the end of October, representatives of vulnerable countries – in Africa, Asia, the Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean – must make it clear to the governments of highly emitting countries that their profligacy must not continue.  If – and only if – these vulnerable countries have the courage to stand together, using their collective leverage, do they have a chance of causing the urgent change necessary to the policies and practices of the big polluters.

The alarm bell has been rung in the RIIA’s expert report, and it sounds a death knell for small states. It should be heeded.

Responses and previous commentaries: www.sirronaldsanders.com  

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By Everson W. Hull, Ph. D.
Writing in the Saturday September 4, 2021, edition of The Gleaner, the very distinguished and prolific author David Jessop offered a severe indictment of regional leaders in his provocative article titled, “The Caribbean’s Big-Fish Small-Fish Problem”. He suggested that in order to overcome the differences in the weight, size and performance of Anglophone Caribbean nations, CARICOM’s members needed to have greater political will in the pursuit of a viable CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME).
Upon reflection, a plausible case can be made for the pursuit of a viable CSME without invoking the pejorative fish label that has been wrongly applied to these enormously proud sovereign states, which frequently find themselves punching well above their weight class in several spheres of human endeavor. THINGS ARE NOT ALWAYS WHAT THEY SEEM.

A careful review of the data tells quite a different story. It offers a more reliable basis for assessing which countries rightly hold the claim to being members of the BIG FISH class and which do not. The published data offers a universally accepted performance scorecard that would be instructive in determining the size of one’s fish.

To illustrate, Singapore is small in size. Its land mass, at 281.3 square miles, is smaller than that of Dominica (289.6 Sq. Mi.), and only slightly larger than that of St. Lucia (238.2 Sq. Mi.). Despite its relatively small size, Singapore is a BIG-BIG FISH. The World Bank reports a per capita income for Singapore of US $98,526 (PPP) for 2020. By contrast, there are no BIG FISH in the CARICOM region and none in the several vast landscapes of LATIN America. With a per capita income of less than US $25,000 per year, few families can afford to pay the first year’s academic tuition for a loved one going off to college in the USA or Canada.

The vast majority of the mis-labeled BIG-FISH are suffering under the heavy weight of debt loads that stand in the way of their development, leaving them fully incapable of fending off any of the massive obstacles that are strewn in their path. All, but a very small number of the so-called SMALL FISH, have been forced to knock on the IMF’s door seeking assistance in fending off the COVID-19 pandemic.

Many among the so-called BIG FISH who are not able to pay their rent on time and not able to provide for the welfare of their families, are invariably left with no choice, but to flee. With few income-earning alternatives available for meeting their needs, they head for the exits screaming, “LET ME OUTTA HERE.” Large proportions of our labor force fled in the 1950s and 1960s. Although net migration rates have fallen sharply, in part because of severe constraints on immigration requirements, many are still fleeing today. The World Bank reports that 93,000 fled from one member state in 2017.

It would be helpful to pause for a momentary interval and take a careful look at those who are fleeing today, from the lands that they love dearly, and those who are not. The World Bank data reveals that the massive exodus is often fully unrelated to the size of one’s fish. The dominant factor that affects our retention rates is nearly always driven by the level of the household’s income. Hard cash remains among the few liquid assets that are universally recognized by the neighborhood grocer. We are not going very far without access to hard cash or several of its “near-money” derivatives.

Setting aside the defamatory BIG-FISH small fish label, it would be helpful to invest some time in trying to dis-entangle the key determinants of those factors that have a harmful effect on growth and prosperity. These may be contrasted with those policy actions that trigger the massive human capital flight underway in a few so-called BIG-FISH member states; leaving each with a sub-par inefficient labor force.

The continuing loss of human capital, often our best and brightest, has a devastating effect on our growth and prosperity that traps the CARICOM and Latin American regions far short of achieving their full productive potential.

The approach to addressing issues of in-efficiency and low rates of productivity is not new. It would also be instructive to investigate how many organizations and countries have confronted the problem of lethargic “INDIVIDUAL” rates of productivity that are harmful to their growth and prosperity. Mitigating the damaging effects of these causal factors are of paramount importance to thrusting our member states closer to their production possibilities frontier.

On balance the BIG-FISH SMALL-FISH characterization is fatally flawed. It could have the perverse effect of ignoring the key determinants of enhanced “INDIVIDUAL” rates of productivity and efficiency that are critically important to the development and full embrace of the Caribbean Single Market Economy. “INDIVIDUALS” matter and matter a great deal. They are the single most important resource that drives the performance of organizations and, in turn, member states.

If the CARICOM region is to escape the problem of insufficient income that has trapped our member states at lethargic income levels that have stunted our growth and prosperity; perhaps the time has come for invoking an Incentive-Based-Compensation Plan that recognizes and rewards the optimal performance of the INDIVIDUAL with performance payouts that are commensurate with levels of productivity.

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She added: “I’m the first and it feels amazing – people are looking up to me and I never thought I’d be in that position.”

Despite receiving a “lot of bullying and racism online” since her momentous win, Uba says people have “mostly been supportive,” adding that “they’re so happy to see us being represented and so proud to be Irish.”

Uba was just seven years old when she moved with her mum and three siblings to the Republic of Ireland, seeking asylum from Johannesburg where they had lived up to that point. The pageant star has been openly critical about the difficulties of Ireland’s tough immigration policies telling the Irish Times that, “I was in it for 10 years, not knowing what was happening or when my life could start.”

Uba has therefore deemed her crown as a “significant” moment for minorities in Ireland. “This crown is not only mine, it’s for me and for the Irish people”, she said to Sky News. “The people in Ireland that feel they never belonged, it’s for them as well. It’s for all the little girls and boys that relate to me and my story.”

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