(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)
Almost 80 years ago, Jamaica’s Norman Manley asked a question that has been echoing throughout the 12 independent English-Speaking Caribbean countries that form the Caribbean Community(CARICOM).
He asked: “are we satisfied to be obscure nonentities in a world where only larger groupings have the chance of survival and success?”.That question has haunted the minds of West Indians ever since. For, in answer to it, the West Indies chose not the path to a “West Indian nation standing shoulder to shoulder with all other nations of the world”, which he advocated, but the road to small, weak countries in a world where to be small is to be unimportant and to be weak is to be ignored.
The present 14 independent countries of CARICOM proclaim that they are collectively a ‘Community of Sovereign States’.More often than not in their relations with each other, and in their hemispheric and global affairs, it is their sovereignty that they exercise, not their community.Consequently, each of them has remained small, weak and inconsequential in global affairs.
This weakness has caused them to compromise the very ‘sovereignty’ to which they cling against each other, by entering client relationships with richer and more powerful countries.These relations are always subject specific and serve the convenience of the powerful countries.They produce no changes in the structural environment that entraps CARICOM countries. Such benefits, as are proffered, give little and do much to increase their dependency.
This situation was already a problem in the 12 English-speaking countries before CARICOM decided to widen its membership, rather than deepen economic and political integration among themselves.
Influential leaders in Jamaica had long answered Noman Manley’s question by deciding that the country’s future did not lie with CARICOM, except as a market for Jamaican goods and services, and, these days, for some of its migrants.Of all its leaders since Norman Manley, P J Patterson, emerged as the greatest CARICOM disciple and advocate, though not without ambivalence in his own party and fierce resistance from traditional thought-leaders in the Jamaica Labour Party.Jamaica’s unsureness about CARICOM served to slow, rather than to accelerate its cohesion, including on foreign policy issues.
The Bahamas chose to join the ‘Community’ but not the ‘Common Market’, opting to participate only in limited areas of functional cooperation but not in the free movement of goods, services and people, and not obliging itself to take shared foreign policy positions.
Closer to Miami than it is to any CARICOM country, and with the greatest portion of its trade in goods and services with the US, the Bahamas position is understandable.However, its equivocation on standing with the majority of CARICOM states, when it considers its own interests dictate other alliances, has deprived CARICOM of the decisiveness that it should display.If the Bahamas were an ‘Associated State’ of CARICOM, its current position would be more correctly represented, giving it opportunities for benefits from functional cooperation, without restraining foreign policy decision-making.
Haiti and Suriname were brought into the CARICOM fold, even as these uncertainties were evident.
Suriname, despite the language barrier and different legal system, has become an enthusiastic member of CARICOM, recognizing the benefits of collaboration with its closest neighbours.
In Haiti’s case, it never became wholly a member of CARICOM.Many of the rules of the organisation do not apply to Haiti, whose governments have tended to regard membership of the organization as a necessary convenience while keeping their eyes firmly fixed on France – the original colonial power – the United States and Canada which are the destinations for their migrants, legal and illegal, and the sources of aid.In its foreign policy decision-making, Haiti finds it difficult to pursue different paths from Canada, France and the US.
Haiti’s position is also understandable.Its endemic economic problems cannot be solved by CARICOM whose principal role can only be to advocate for Haiti’s interests internationally.However, given these circumstances, Haiti’s necessary alignments can restrain CARICOM from making decisions that are based on unanimity.
It might have been better for Haiti also to be an ‘Associate State’ in CARICOM where it could benefit from the functional aspects of the organisation, without being constrained by, or constraining, other member states.
Adherents to the purist theology of an integrated Caribbean, despite the obvious impediments that patently exist, and which delay the deepening of the CARICOM arrangements, will regard this commentary as heresy.But, in a world, where experience, shows the impracticalities of pursuing the ambitions of the CARICOM Treaty, in the present irresolution, rethinking is necessary.
Recognition of a weak CARICOM, brought about by reluctant participation of some members, was evident in the report of the CARICOM Commission on the Economy which proposed “a mechanism of ‘enhanced cooperation’ where a group of no less than five member states can move ahead with closer integration on a CARICOM Single Market and Economy matter, as long as the others do not object and are free to join at any point later. We believe that in the area of greater economic integration an ‘enhanced cooperation mechanism’ will overcome paralysis, where progress may be blocked by just one country or a small group of countries”.But, not even on that recommendation has CARICOM been able to move forward.
It is time to re-think the integration project, based on practical realities.The answers the region has been given to Norman Manley’s question require us to move ahead to reform and strengthen CARICOM so that its committed member states might try collectively “to stand shoulder to shoulder with all other nations of the world”.
Maybe if a smaller group could achieve success in greater cohesion and coherence, the others will recognize value and act to be a convinced part of it. But pretense that all is well helps none.
Responses and previous commentaries: www.sirronaldsanders.com
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SANTO DOMINGO, Aug 5 (Reuters) – Haiti’s government has requested help from the United Nations to conduct an international investigation into the killing last month of President Jovenel Moise, the country’s embassy in the Dominican Republic said on Thursday.
Haiti requested the aid in a letter dated Aug. 3 addressed to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the embassy in the neighboring country said in a statement. Specifically, Haiti called for an “international commission of inquiry” to be formed, along with a special court to prosecute the suspects.
The letter, signed by foreign minister Claude Joseph, said that Haiti considered the attack on Moise in his residence an international crime due to the alleged role of foreigners in planning, financing and carrying it out.
Haitian authorities have detained former Colombian soldiers allegedly hired by a Miami-based security firm on suspicion of carrying out the assassination of Moise. read more
Haiti also said the U.N. support should follow the model of its inquiry into a 2005 terrorist attack in Lebanon, which killed 22 people, including the prime minister.
Reporting by Ezequiel Abiu Lopez, writing by Daina Beth Solomon, editing by Richard Pullin
WASHINGTON, Aug 5 (Reuters) – The United States on Thursday began flying Central American and Mexican families to southern Mexico in an effort to deter migration by bolstering a COVID-era expulsion policy at the U.S.-Mexico border, a person familiar with the matter said.
Nearly 200 Mexican and Central American family members were expelled deep into Mexico on Thursday in what are expected to be regular flights, the person said. The flights, which will include adults, aim to disrupt a pattern of repeat crossings under a U.S. border policy known as Title 42.
U.S. President Joe Biden has reversed many of the restrictive immigration policies of his Republican predecessor, former President Donald Trump, but has left Title 42 in place amid 20-year highs in border arrests.
Although health experts, pro-migrant advocates and some Democrats say the policy cuts off access to asylum without a clear health rationale, Biden officials argue it is necessary to keep U.S. detention centers from becoming overwhelmed during the pandemic.
Under Trump, some Mexican migrants caught at the U.S.-Mexico border were flown to southern Mexico. But the use of the strategy under Biden – and under the Title 42 order – is new, according to the person familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity to discuss government operations.
The United States will work with non-governmental organizations and shelters in southern Mexico to ensure that migrants can safely return to their home countries, the person said.
Mexico’s migration institute and foreign ministry did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Biden administration also announced last week that it would subject migrant families to a fast-track deportation process known as “expedited removal” to their home countries from U.S. detention centers. read more
The expulsion flights to southern Mexico will be faster than that process, the person familiar with the situation said.
Pro-migrant groups on Monday restarted litigation that aims to stop the Biden administration from expelling families under Title 42, which the administration renewed that day. read more
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), one of the groups challenging Title 42, has argued the policy denies migrants a legal right to claim asylum and returns them to situations of grave danger in Mexico.
Lee Gelernt, the lead ACLU lawyer in the case, said the flights to southern Mexico could also inflict harm.
“The Biden administration is apparently looking for new ways to expel people and in the process subject these desperate migrants to additional trauma,” he said.
Reporting by Ted Hesson in Washington, Additional reporting by Daina Beth Solomon; Editing by Mica Rosenberg and Gerry Doyle
The prime minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines has been hospitalised after being injured at a protest against a proposed vaccine mandate.
Ralph Gonsalves was walking through a crowd outside parliament when he was reportedly hit in the head by a stone.
Images show the prime minister bleeding as he was rushed away from the scene.
The finance minister said he had been transferred to Barbados for an MRI scan on the advice of medical staff, Reuters news agency reports.
Protesters had gathered on Thursday to demonstrate against plans to require most frontline health workers to be vaccinated against Covid-19.
Stones and water bottles were thrown at the protest, according to reports.
His office told Reuters the 74-year-old was hit by a “projectile”. Local media suggest it was a stone.
St Vincent and the Grenadines, which lies in the south Caribbean, is made up of more than 32 islands.
The country has recorded 2,298 coronavirus cases and 12 deaths since the pandemic began, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University. Almost 9% of the population has been fully vaccinated, the university says.
Its tourism industry has been badly impacted by the pandemic, and thousands of people were forced to leave their homes following a volcanic eruption in April.
Booster debate heating up: Moderna says booster likely needed before winter
Moderna said Thursday that its COVID-19 vaccine maintained 93 percent efficacy six months after the second dose but added that a booster shot will likely still be needed before the winter.
The efficacy rate was announced by the company ahead of an earnings call on Thursday, and is higher than the 84 percent efficacy rate of the Pfizer vaccine after the same amount of time.
Still, Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said on CNBC Thursday that the data was collected before the delta variant became prevalent in the United States, meaning the equation could change now that the delta variant is widespread.
While there is strong data for six months, the company said in a presentation that it believes antibody levels will “continue to wane and eventually impact vaccine efficacy.”
It added that the combination of delta, fatigue with wearing masks and people moving indoors as the weather gets colder will cause an “increase of breakthrough infections in vaccinated individuals.”
“Given this intersection, we believe dose 3 booster will likely be necessary prior to the winter season,” the company said.
And one group in particular could need booster especially soon: the immunocompromised
The Biden administration is working to get immunocompromised people booster shots of the COVID-19 vaccine “as quickly as possible,” Anthony Fauci said Thursday, calling the group “vulnerable.”
Administration health officials have said that booster shots overall are not needed at this time, but Thursday’s comments from President Biden‘s chief medical adviser signal a new urgency for additional shots to those with compromised immune systems.
That group includes people who have received organ transplants, are undergoing chemotherapy or are taking medications that suppress their immune system. Slides presented at a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advisory committee meeting last month estimated the group accounts for 2.7 percent of all U.S. adults.
“Immunocompromised individuals are vulnerable,” Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, said at a White House press briefing on Thursday.
With some exceptions, he said, they “do not make an adequate response [to the COVID-19 vaccine] that we feel would be adequately protective.”
“It is extremely important for us to move to get those individuals their boosters, and we are now working on that and will make that be implemented as quickly as possible, because for us and for the individuals involved it is a very high priority,” Fauci said
But Mississippi is already recommending boosters for vulnerable people
Mississippi is encouraging COVID-19 booster shots for certain high-risk groups, as one of the least-vaccinated states in the country faces an onslaught from the delta variant of the coronavirus.
According to a memo from the state department of health, physicians should consider giving a booster dose of a COVID-19 vaccine to anyone who is immunocompromised, including organ transplant recipients, people taking immunosuppressive drugs, and people with underlying medical conditions such as chronic kidney disease.
While the overwhelming majority of cases, hospitalizations and deaths in Mississippi are among unvaccinated individuals, the number of deaths among fully vaccinated people has been increasing.
Paul Byers, a physician with the state Department of Health, said in the memo that since April 1, more than 35 vaccine breakthrough deaths have been confirmed. For the deaths where the person’s medical history was known, 58 percent had either a known immunocompromising condition or history of kidney disease.
Guidance: The memo recommends waiting at least four weeks after the final dose of the original vaccination series before administering a booster. It also recommends physicians perform spike protein antibody testing to determine the presence, or absence, of detectable antibodies prior to booster dosing.
If a patient was originally given an mRNA vaccine, either Pfizer or Moderna, the recommendation is to consider using the same manufacturer for the booster dose. If the original vaccine was Johnson & Johnson, the recommendation is to consider using the Pfizer mRNA vaccine.
White House says no decision yet on foreign traveler vaccination rule
The White House on Thursday said that the U.S. is strongly considering requiring foreign visitors to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, but that there has not been a final decision on whether such a requirement will be adopted.
“That is certainly under strong consideration, but it is under a policy process review right now that I won’t get ahead of myself,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters at a briefing.
White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients on Thursday also said no decision has been made about how to reopen international travel and suggested other options were being considered beyond requiring foreign travelers to have vaccinations.
“That’s one of the paths that’s being looked at and considered, but there are alternative paths being looked at, at the same time,” Zients told reporters during a coronavirus briefing.
Shift in guidance: The comments represented a shift from guidance that a White House official provided a day prior. The official told The Hill that interagency working groups are working to develop a plan “for a consistent and safe international travel policy, in order to have a new system ready for when we can reopen travel.”
“This includes a phased approach that over time will mean, with limited exceptions, that foreign nationals traveling to the United States (from all countries) need to be fully vaccinated,” the official said.
Reuters first reported that the Biden administration is developing a plan to require foreign visitors to have COVID-19 vaccinations. There was not an indication on Wednesday that requiring vaccinations was among a handful of options being considered, or that the ultimate goal was not definitively to require vaccinations.
Biden administration sees ‘significant’ rise in vaccinations as cases surge
Top White House officials highlighted a significant rise in vaccination rates on Thursday as the U.S. endures surging COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths, especially in Florida and Texas.
The national vaccination rate reached its highest level since early last month with 864,000 doses administered, White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients told reporters. About 585,000 of those doses were the patients’ first shots, suggesting more unvaccinated people are getting the jab.
Zients stated that the vaccination rates in Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Alabama, Oklahoma and Mississippi have hit levels not seen since April.
“Importantly, we’re seeing the most significant increases in the states with the highest case rates,” Zients said.
But: The rise in vaccinations comes as the country struggles with COVID-19 — almost 83 percent of counties have “substantial” or “high” viral transmission.
Seven states with some of the lowest vaccination rates account for about half of new cases and hospitalizations this week, even though they make up less than a quarter of the population, Zients said.
Florida and Texas make up one-third of the U.S.’s new cases and more than one-third of the country’s new hospitalizations over the past week. A
Climate scientists have detected warning signs of the collapse of the Gulf Stream, one of the planet’s main potential tipping points.
The research found “an almost complete loss of stability over the last century” of the currents that researchers call the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC). The currents are already at their slowest point in at least 1,600 years, but the new analysis shows they may be nearing a shutdown.
Such an event would have catastrophic consequences around the world, severely disrupting the rains that billions of people depend on for food in India, South America and West Africa; increasing storms and lowering temperatures in Europe; and pushing up the sea level off eastern North America. It would also further endanger the Amazon rainforest and Antarctic ice sheets.
The complexity of the AMOC system and uncertainty over levels of future global heating make it impossible to forecast the date of any collapse for now. It could be within a decade or two, or several centuries away. But the colossal impact it would have means it must never be allowed to happen, the scientists said.
“The signs of destabilisation being visible already is something that I wouldn’t have expected and that I find scary,” said Niklas Boers, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, who did the research. “It’s something you just can’t [allow to] happen.”
It is not known what level of CO2 would trigger an AMOC collapse, he said. “So the only thing to do is keep emissions as low as possible. The likelihood of this extremely high-impact event happening increases with every gram of CO2 that we put into the atmosphere”.
Scientists are increasingly concerned about tipping points – large, fast and irreversible changes to the climate. Boers and his colleagues reported in May that a significant part of the Greenland ice sheet is on the brink, threatening a big rise in global sea level. Others have shown recently that the Amazon rainforest is now emitting more CO2 than it absorbs, and that the 2020 Siberian heatwave led to worrying releases of methane.
Amazon rainforest now emitting more CO2 than it absorbs
The world may already have crossed a series of tipping points, according to a 2019 analysis, resulting in “an existential threat to civilisation”. A major report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, due on Monday, is expected to set out the worsening state of the climate crisis.
Boer’s research, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, is titled “Observation-based early-warning signals for a collapse of the AMOC”. Ice-core and other data from the last 100,000 years show the AMOC has two states: a fast, strong one, as seen over recent millennia, and a slow, weak one. The data shows rising temperatures can make the AMOC switch abruptly between states over one to five decades.
The AMOC is driven by dense, salty seawater sinking into the Arctic ocean, but the melting of freshwater from Greenland’s ice sheet is slowing the process down earlier than climate models suggested.
Boers used the analogy of a chair to explain how changes in ocean temperature and salinity can reveal the AMOC’s instability. Pushing a chair alters its position, but does not affect its stability if all four legs remain on the floor. Tilting the chair changes both its position and stability.
Eight independently measured datasets of temperature and salinity going back as far as 150 years enabled Boers to show that global heating is indeed increasing the instability of the currents, not just changing their flow pattern.
The analysis concluded: “This decline [of the AMOC in recent decades] may be associated with an almost complete loss of stability over the course of the last century, and the AMOC could be close to a critical transition to its weak circulation mode.”
Levke Caesar, at Maynooth University in Ireland, who was not involved in the research, said: “The study method cannot give us an exact timing of a possible collapse, but the analysis presents evidence that the AMOC has already lost stability, which I take as a warning that we might be closer to an AMOC tipping than we think.”
David Thornalley, at University College London in the UK, whose work showed the AMOC is at its weakest point in 1,600 years, said: “These signs of decreasing stability are concerning. But we still don’t know if a collapse will occur, or how close we might be to it.”
Move comes despite Home Office ‘agreement’ not to remove those who arrived in Britain under age of 12
Movement for Justice protesters outside the Jamaican embassy in 2020. A spokesperson for the group said there are several people due to be deported on a flight next week who came to the UK as children. Photograph: Guy Smallman/Getty Images
Preparations are being made for the deportation of a number of Jamaican nationals who came to the UK as children, in an apparent reversal of an earlier agreement not to deport people who arrived in this country as minors. Those being targeted have gained criminal records.
A charter flight to Jamaica is scheduled for 11 August, returning several dozen people whose criminal convictions have triggered deportation orders. However, campaigners have protested that it is unreasonable to remove people who have spent a lifetime in the UK to a country where they have no ties.
Last November the Home Office made an agreement with Jamaican officials not to remove people who came to the UK under the age of 12, according to Jamaican high commissioner Seth Ramocan. “They have consented to having an age limit. It’s a request that has been granted,” he told the Guardian last year. It is not clear whether this concession was granted only for the last Jamaica deportation charter in December, amid strong public pressure against the flight, with support from Bernardine Evaristo, model Naomi Campbell and historian David Olusoga.
One of those booked on next week’s flight arrived as a two-year-old child, and now, aged 23, is being deported for a drugs offence. “It feels unfair to send me back to a country I don’t know,” he said by telephone from Colnbrook immigration removal centre, asking to remain anonymous. “I did nursery, reception, primary school, and secondary school in England. I haven’t been in an aeroplane or left here since I was two.”
He acknowledged that he had committed the drugs offence, but said he had completed his two-year sentence, and felt that the deportation represented a double punishment. “I’m not really a foreign criminal because I’ve spent all my life here. Everything I learned, I learned in England,” he said. He will leave a two-year-old son and an unwell mother in England.
In 2018 a Home Office-commissioned report from the former prisons and probation ombudsman Stephen Shaw called for a new approach to the policy of detaining and removing people who had committed crimes but lived most of their lives in Britain; the Home Office has not implemented the recommendation.
Karen Doyle, of Movement for Justice, an immigrant rights campaign organisation, has spoken to 19 people due to be deported next week, six of whom came to the UK under the age of 12 and five of whom spent some of their childhood in the British care system. She said at least three of those who arrived in the UK as minors, one of whom arrived as a three-month-old baby, had had tickets on the deportation flight cancelled in the past 48 hours, but several others who came to Britain as children are still scheduled to be removed.
“There is very little public support for deporting people who were raised in the UK, in British schools and in our care system, to countries they don’t even remember,” she said.
Bella Sankey, director of the charity Detention Action, noted that many of the men and women scheduled to leave on the flight “were brought to the UK as children and are as British as the union jack. The Jamaican government should insist the UK upholds its agreement to stop deporting this group. There is no valid reason for this inhumane practice.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “People who come to this country and commit crimes should be expected to be removed. That is why we regularly operate charter flights to different countries – to remove foreign offenders, and those who have no right to be in the country but refused or failed to leave voluntarily.”
The Jamaican high commission has been approached for comment.
NIA CHARLESTOWN NEVIS (August 05, 2021) —Seven primary school students on Nevis are the beneficiaries of the first Naomi Daniel-Browne Scholarship, an initiative of the Nevisian Association of Washington DC (NEV-DC).
Nathalia Nanton of the Joycelyn Primary School; Khylinn Prentice of the Elizabeth Pemberton Primary School, Seriah Laurent of the Ivor Walters Primary School; Kuwan Wilkin of the Charlestown Primary School; Kailar Isaac of the St. Thomas’ Primary School, D’Mari Myers of the Violet O. Jeffers-Nicholls Primary School; and T’shanzi Taylor of the St. James’ Primary School received the awards for Most Improved Students, at a ceremony at the Social Security Conference Room, on July 28, 2021.
Ms. Lauren Rivers, representative of the US-based Nevisian organisation said the scholarship programme is one way of giving back to the young people of Nevis in line with the organisation’s pledge to assist in the area of education, and in remembrance of their fallen colleague who was a stalwart educator.
“Naomi Daniel-Browne was an active member of NEV-DC. She was passionate about education. Naomi collaborated on a number of education initiatives in NEV-DC… Naomi also taught in the United States but Naomi started her love for teaching right here on the island of Nevis and she taught in 1980 at the Joycelyn Liburd Primary School. Her goal as a teacher was to never leave any child behind. Naomi sadly passed away in June of 2019. To keep Naomi’s torch lit, and to ensure no child is left behind, NEV-DC established the Naomi Daniel-Browne Scholarship,” she said.
Ms. Rivers explained that the scholarship financially rewards the most improved student at the Joycelyn Liburd Primary School who is being promoted from Grade 6 to high school in the amount of US$500. It also financially rewards the most improved student being promoted from Grade 5 to Grade 6 at all of the other public primary schools on Nevis in the amount of US$200.
She expressed hope that the programme would encourage students to do their best to achieve their goals.
The NEV-DC representative also thanked the Daniel family for allowing the organisation to attach Naomi’s name to the programme, and the Ministry and Department of Education for their support in launching he scholarship.
Meantime Ms. Uta Trish Taylor thanked the Nevisian Association of Washington DC on behalf of the family of Naomi Daniel-Browne for honouring the legacy of her aunt.
“We are indeed grateful and we know Naomi is looking down and smiling, as through her legacy she can still impact the lives of students.
Ms. Taylor, herself a teacher, described her aunt as a teacher extraordinaire who loved teaching and students, which propelled her to go over and beyond to help them.
“She was like Jerome Bruno and believed that every child at every level could earn once content was appropriately organised. She was a teacher who actively reached out to parents to ensure they were involved in their child’s development. She brought students who needed individual attention to her home and conducted what we would call micro teaching sessions to help them.
“Naomi epitomised the role of a teacher. She was talented, enthusiastic, assiduous, caring, helpful, empathic, and resourceful,” she said.
Ms. Taylor added that as a young teacher, having followed in Naomi’s footsteps, was happy to have commenced her teaching career prior to her aunt’s passing since she was able to benefit from her words of wisdom and encouragement.
She congratulated the recipients of the award and urged them to continue to do well.
“I would like to encourage you all to stay focused, work hard and believe in yourselves. If ever there is a moment you feel like giving up, remember this award and let it be a motivation to encourage you to push forward,” she said
Former Education Officer Mrs. Adina Taylor, sister of the late Naomi Daniel-Browne, presented the scholarships awards to the students.
Among those present at the ceremony were Mr. Kevin Barrett, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education, and Ms. Zahnela Claxton, Principal Education Officer in the Department of Education.
The Associated Press
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