Former prime minister of Jamaica, PJ Patterson, has ignited the call for Jamaica to ditch the Queen as head of state and operate under a republican system of government by 2022.
This comes less than 48 hours after Barbados severed ties with the chief occupant of Buckingham Palace as their ceremonial head of state. Next year will be Jamaica’s 60th year of independence from Britain and Mr Patterson feels that the move will be “a truly historic landmark” for the country’s Diamond Jubilee.
In a three-page letter obtained by Caribbean National Weeklyto both Prime Minister Andrew Holness and Leader of the Opposition Mr. Bruce Golding, Jamaica’s longest-serving prime minister urged both gentlemen to sit down and iron out the “single outstanding issue” that could present a challenge to Jamaica becoming a republican state. The issue he said is “whether the incumbent [head of state] should be chosen by a two-third membership of both houses sitting separately or jointly.” Mr. Patterson advised both gentlemen that “one early Vale Royal meeting” between them could easily settle the issue.
Jamaica’s inclination to be a republic since 2002
Jamaica has shown an inclination to become a republic from as far back as 2002 according to Mr. Patterson. “For some time before we entered our fortieth year of independence, our country has been actively engaged in extensive discussions and consultations on moving towards a Republican system,” he reminded them. Continuing, he said: “The political parties you both lead have repeatedly accepted the institution of our own indigenous President as head of State. This has been reflected in the election manifestos of both the JLP and PNP since 2002.”
He said successive prime ministers have reiterated that firm intention at their inaugural installations and reaffirmed their policy positions in numerous throne speeches from the dawn of the millennium.
In 2012 then prime minister, Portia Simpson-Miller placed the item on the agenda in her inauguration speech to the country. Since then, the subject has gained traction. Both parties have talked about having a Jamaican head of state and even promised a referendum on the matter. Mark Golding stated earlier this year in the Independent that “This is fundamental to our identity and our nationhood,” referring to the removal of the queen.
Portia Simpson-MillerBruce Golding
Former Prime Minister Bruce Golding stated in his 2011-2012 budget debate that “he wanted Jamaica to make its 50th year of Independence free of its colonial ties to the British monarchy.” In his presentation, Golding told his fellow law makers that “I have long believed that if I am to have a queen, it must be a Jamaican queen.”
Current Prime Minister Andrew Holness and his JLP government have also voiced similar sentiments on Jamaica attaining republican status. When he took office after the 2016 elections, his government declared at the time that they would amend the constitution to replace the queen with a non-executive president as head of state.
In July 2020, fifty-five percent of Jamaicans said the queen should go, while thirty percent wants her to remain, according to a Bill Johnson poll in the Jamaica Observer. And according the Gleaner, a constitution commission in 1995 recommended that Jamaica should no longer have the monarchy as head of state. But in spite of all the political talk and aspirations, no Jamaican government has taken the bold steps necessary to install a Jamaican as head of state.
The constitutional requirement
In satisfying the constitutional requirements to amend the “deeply entrenched provisions,” Mr. Patterson said that section 49 allows: “A period of three months between the introduction of the bill and the commencement of the first debate on the whole text of the bill in the house, and a further period of three months between the conclusion of that debate and its passage.” According to section 49(ii) he said, “the bill has to be submitted not less than two months nor more than six months after its passage through both houses to the electorate.” This according to him “means a referendum.”
Of the eight referendums held to decide the fate of the queen, only three have been successful: Ghana, South Africa and Gambia (second one). St. Vincent and the Grenadines was part of the losing set when their referendum was defeated by 12 percent in 2009. Trinidad and Tobago went through parliament with a new constitution in 1976 and Guyana did the same with a constitutional amendment 1970.
Barbados started out with the intention of going the route of a referendum, but it was postponed twice; in 2003 and 2007. But with a super-majority in parliament, Prime Minister Mottley flexed her political capital and bypassed the Barbadian population.
Mr. Patterson feels that a referendum would be a “spectacular contribution” to building Jamaica’s parliamentary democracy; “permitting both parties to share a single platform in a campaign to secure national approval and allow one of our own image to become head of state.” He said that it “would inspire the fullest confidence” in the Jamaican people.
At the end of last month, Prime Minister Andrew Holness told the Jamaican people that there will be a comprehensive review of the Jamaican constitution in 2022.
In addition to the goals outlined by the prime minister for the review, some are speculating whether it is a precursor to handing Queen Elizabeth II her goodbye papers.
Jamaica’s entanglement and reparation desires
Interestingly, Buckingham Palace gave the prime minister a post-nominal title in May of this year, making him a member of the UK Privy Council. At the time, many persons wondered if he would be able to serve the queen and Jamaica effectively, especially when many Jamaicans and his government are pushing for “reparatory Justice.”
Earlier this year Jamaica’s Culture minister, Olivia Grange said she “wants to petition Her Majesty for compensation for all the nation’s citizens.” She further stated that, “We are hoping for reparatory justice in all forms that one would expect if they were to really ensure that we get justice from injustices to repair the damages that our ancestors experience.”
Former Prime Minister Patterson has more than reparations on his mind at this time, however. In closing his letter to the two political leaders, he said that: “It would be repulsive to contemplate a Diamond Jubilee where our constitution rests on an order in council dated the 23rd July, 1962 and a head of state who does not reflect our own image and enables every Jamaican to aspire in reaching the highest position within our native land.”
Jamaica now joins St Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines where top political leaders are touting movement to republican status.
RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 5 (Reuters) – The Manguinhos neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, a slum where addicts once smoked crack and residents dumped trash, has been transformed into a community vegetable garden that now feeds some 800 families struggling with rampant food inflation.
The urban garden covers the area of four soccer fields, according to Rio de Janeiro’s “Hortas Cariocas” program coordinators, making it one of the largest of its kind in Latin America.
“This particular area was used as a ‘cracolândia’,” said Julio Cesar Barros, an agronomist employed by the city. “If you arrived here on a Wednesday at 10 in the morning, you could find two or three thousand people smoking crack in this area.”
Barros said he helped create the “Hortas Cariocas” project in 2006 to plant vegetables in various parts of the city and supply organic products to lower-income residents. He said urban gardens also helped prevent irregular occupation of dangerous areas prone to flooding or landslides.
“While I am planting [seeds] I am thinking that in a few days I will be harvesting this and taking it home to eat it,” said Diane Silva, an urban farm worker. “I know I am planting to harvest tomorrow … it gives a lot of pleasure to work in a garden, it is a job that we enjoy, I love this.”
The project has now expanded to 49 vegetable gardens across Rio, according to Barros.
Ezequiel Dias, a Manguinhos resident who helps to coordinate the project, said the initiative has transformed his community.
“It changed the face of Manguinhos… our communities need exactly this: peace, happiness and a better life.”
Reporting by Sebastian Rocandio Writing by Ana Mano; editing by Diane Craft
BBC- A dissident former leader of Colombia’s Farc rebels has been killed in an ambush in Venezuela, local media reported on Sunday.
Hernán Darío Velásquez, nicknamed El Paisa, was reportedly shot dead in Venezuela’s Apure state.
His death has not been officially confirmed and the Colombian army said it had no knowledge of the killing.
Local media have speculated that mercenaries may have killed Velásquez, seeking rewards for his capture.
Colombian authorities told El Tiempo newspaper that they would not confirm his death until officials had seen his body. A spokesperson for Colombian President Iván Duque told Reuters news agency that his office was seeking more information.
The Farc rebels were a Marxist group that waged a bitter war against the Colombian government for over 50 years, before eventually calling a ceasefire in 2016.
A commander of one of the Farc’s most feared units, Velásquez became notorious for the severity of his attacks.
He was behind a car bombing on a social club in the Colombian capital, Bogotá, that killed 36 people and wounded nearly 200 more in 2003.
He also played a key role in the 1998 attack on a joint army and police base in Miraflores in which 16 members of the security forces were killed.
More than 100 soldiers and police officers were kidnapped as part of the attack. Most of those kidnapped were freed in 2001 in exchange for the release of jailed Farc members, but two officers were held for more than 12 years by the rebel group.
El Paisa’s reputation for being one of the most brutal Farc commanders was such that when he joined peace talks in Havana in 2016, many saw it as a sign that the guerrillas were truly committed to laying down their arms.
But in 2018 he broke with the truce and reappeared a year later alongside former Farc leaders Iván Márquez and Jesús Santrich to announce the formation of a new rebel group called Segunda Marquetalia, and declared that he was taking up arms once more.
If his death is confirmed it will be the second major loss for the group this year. Santrich, once a key figure in the peace process, was killed in a shoot-out in Venezuela in May by what the dissident group claimed were Colombian army commandoes.
Some 13,000 Farc guerrillas have laid down their arms since the 2016 ceasefire and the group has since transitioned into a minor political party, holding 10 seats in the Colombia’s congress.
Nonetheless, violence continues in some regions of Colombia where an estimated 5,000 dissidents continue to fight against government forces.
The Colombian government has repeatedly accused Venezuelan leaders of harbouring Farc dissidents and has claimed that an attack on a helicopter carrying President Duque in June was planned from the neighbouring state.
The latest challenge to Joe Biden’s presidency: the Omicron variant
Analysis: after he promised to crush the coronavirus, the rise of a new strain could be a blow to perceptions of his competency
Joe Biden declared in July that Americans could soon declare independence from the coronavirus. Photograph: Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters
Joe Biden looked out at an audience of government scientists last week and recognized a mask-wearing Anthony Fauci, his top adviser on the coronavirus. “I’ve seen more of Dr Fauci than my wife,” he joked. “Who’s president? Fauci!”
The US president was visiting the frontline of the Covid-19 struggle, the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, where he unveiled a winter plan that includes a drive for vaccine boosters, free at-home testing and fresh requirements for international travelers.
Easy access to tests could play a key role in fighting the Omicron variant
But even as Biden preached to the converted on Thursday, he faced a new political threat. The Omicron variant was spreading rapidly from state to state, trailing uncertainty in its wake. “We’re going to fight this variant with science and speed, not chaos and confusion,” he promised, “just like we beat back Covid-19 in the spring and more powerful Delta variant in the summer and fall.”
Yet the Delta variant itself is far from beaten, underlining the perils of what may prove the defining issue of Biden’s presidency and the measure of its success or failure. He came into office promising to crush the coronavirus but, after at least one false dawn, that goal remains frustratingly elusive – and now Omicron could deliver another hammer blow.
Indeed, Biden’s aura of competence took a hit over the summer, partly because of the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, partly because the Delta variant appeared to catch him by surprise. Its persistence has made a mockery of his July declaration that Americans could soon declare independence from the virus.
Laurie Garrett, an award-winning science writer, said: “I don’t think that anybody in the spring in the United States was operating with the correct level of alarm about the Delta variant.
“I would forgive many leaders for having an inability to read the situation adequately and recognise how dangerous it was but, once it was clear that the Delta variant was far more contagious, everybody should have gone into high gear and I do think there was a slowness in response.”
Travelers at Denver international airport on 30 November wear face masks as concern grows over the Omicron variant. Photograph: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images
Biden’s swift travel bans on southern African countries in response to Omicron suggested a resolve to learn lessons from Delta; to some it looked like overcorrection. But the challenge this time is compounded by new extremes in the Republican party and rightwing media’s politicization of the pandemic.
On Thursday, the president acknowledged: “It’s become a political issue, which is a sad, sad commentary. It shouldn’t be, but it has been.”
His stated hope that the nation could now come together around his new plan will have struck some as optimistic to the point of naivety. Democrats accuse Biden’s opponents of weaponizing the virus and its variants against him with the long-term objective of denying him a second term.
Eric Schultz, a communications strategist who worked in the Obama administration, told the Associated Press: “It’s clear that Republicans have decided that the fate of the Biden presidency is tied to Covid. And Republicans have chosen to be on the side of the virus.”
Some Republicans have all but entrenched an anti-vaccination culture. Senators this week briefly threatened a government shutdown over mandates. Florida, Iowa, Kansas and Tennessee have extended benefits to workers who are fired or resigned over their employers’ vaccine requirements.
Leslie Dach, chair of Protect Our Care, a healthcare pressure group, said: “They’re literally sacrificing the lives of their own voters on the altar of their personal politics. That’s just incontrovertibly true when you know that the death rate is 15 times higher and you see who is choosing not to be vaccinated in America. They’re basically meting out a death sentence for people.”
Nasa workers in Pasadena, California, protest a government mandate requiring all federal employees to receive a Covid vaccine. Photograph: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images
It seems to be getting worse. A day after news broke about the Omicron variant, Ronny Jackson, a Republican congressman from Texas and former doctor to Donald Trump, floated a groundless conspiracy theory. He tweeted: “Here comes the MEV – the Midterm Election Variant. They NEED a reason to push unsolicited nationwide mail-in ballots. Democrats will do anything to CHEAT during an election – but we’re not going to let them!”
Meanwhile, Lara Logan, a Fox News personality , compared Fauci to the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, known as the Angel of Death for the experiments he carried out on prisoners at the Auschwitz death camp. Michael Bornstein, a survivor of Auschwitz, described the comments as “disgusting”.
But Logan was not sanctioned by Fox News and, with Holocaust comparisons proliferating on rightwing social media, including even in merchandise, there are fears that America’s hyperpartisan atmosphere may have passed a point of no return, paralysing its Omicron response.
Garrett, author of The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance, warned: “There is no possibility of working together. If you were going to write a scenario that was perfect for a virus to spread rampantly, having the humans at the edge of civil war every five minutes would be a perfect scenario.”
Despite these forces, the White House points to dramatic progress over the past year. Last Christmas less than 1% of adults were fully vaccinated; this Christmas that share will be 72%, including more than 86% of elderly people. More than 20 million children have been vaccinated – though under-fives still await approval – and 99% of schools are open.
A parent and child walk into a Covid vaccine clinic in Wheeling, Illinois, last month. Photograph: Nam Y Huh/AP
But the pandemic has proved a tenacious foe with renewed surges in Michigan and other midwestern states threatening to overwhelm hospitals. About 40 million adults refuse to get vaccinated. Take-up of boosters – more essential than ever due to Omicron – has been sluggish: more than 100 million eligible people have not yet received the shot. Masks, empty offices and unpredictability persist.
The conflicting picture has left the president to juggle duelling messages, one encouraging a return to life as normal, the other urging continued precautions. There seems little prospect of a definitive ending or declaration of victory. Roughly 47% of Americans approve of Biden’s handling of the pandemic while 49% disapprove, according to a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll.
Biden announces plan to get booster shots to 100m Americans amid Omicron arrival in US
Michael Steele, former chairman of the RNC, said he would award the president about five marks out of 10 so far. “Given the success they had early on in getting the vaccine programme put in place, shots in arms and all that, when the [Delta] variant hit it caught them flat-footed and took them by surprise.
“The administration lost a lot of the gains it had made coming in the door because it shattered people’s confidence in their ability to not only handle what was going on but to actually know what was going on.”
Steele, a longtime critic of Trump, noted that calculated attacks and obstruction from the right present a further obstacle to the nation’s recovery from the pandemic. “Biden doesn’t want to further politicize Covid and yet you have Republicans and that’s all they know how to do.”
The situation, he added, is reminiscent of Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law, the Affordable Care Act, which Republicans spent years trying to repeal without offering a replacement.
Bill Galston, a senior fellow at former policy adviser to Bill Clinton, awards Biden a more generous eight of out of 10 for his coronavirus approach to date. “The reason that’s two clicks short of 10 is that I think the White House really went astray in early July when it did everything but hang a mission accomplished banner over the subject.
“As I recall, the president announced a summer of freedom. One of the things they have surely learned is that they’re at the mercy of events that they can neither foresee nor control in advance and so creating hopes that are then extinguished by events is really counterproductive.”
More than 780,000 Americans have now died from Covid-19. This week, at a White House press briefing, the Fox News reporter Peter Doocy asked: “Whatever happened to President Biden’s promise to shut down the virus?”
The press secretary, Jen Psaki, replied: “We’re working on it.”
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What you need to know about the coronavirus right now
People pull shopping carts as they walk past an information board, amid the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Bolton, Britain, June 16, 2021. REUTERS/Phil Noble
Dec 6 (Reuters) – Here’s what you need to know about the coronavirus right now:
Japan’s tougher virus border controls boost support for PM
Voter support for Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida ticked up after his government enforced tighter border controls against the Omicron variant of coronavirus, the Yomiuri Shimbun daily said on Monday. Japan took some of the world’s strictest steps on Nov. 29 by closing its borders to new foreign entrants for about a month. A day later, it discovered its first Omicron infection in a Namibian diplomat who had arrived on Nov. 28.
Support for Kishida’s government was 62%, up from 56% a month ago, the Yomiuri poll showed, with 89% of respondents taking a positive view of the measures. read more
Omicron variant found in nearly one-third of U.S. states
The Omicron variant of the coronavirus has spread to about one-third of U.S. states, but the Delta version remains the majority of COVID-19 infections as cases rise nationwide, U.S. health officials said on Sunday. Dr Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. infectious disease official and U.S. President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, said he hoped the United States would lift its ban on travelers from southern African countries in a “reasonable period of time.”
Many of the cases were among fully vaccinated individuals with mild symptoms, although the booster shot status of some patients was not reported. Governors of two states with reported Omicron cases – Connecticut and Colorado – said they hoped their higher-than-average vaccination rates would blunt the impact. “We want to see how well the vaccinations hold up,” Colorado’s Jared Polis told ABC. read more
Canadian employers accommodate the unvaccinated
Canada’s tight labor market is forcing many companies to offer regular COVID-19 testing over vaccine mandates, while others are reversing previously announced inoculation requirements even as Omicron variant cases rise.
There are pitfalls to employing the unvaccinated. Companies run a higher risk of COVID-19 outbreaks and many vaccinated employees are uncomfortable working with those who have not had the shot, said industry groups and marketing experts. In the hard-hit manufacturing sector, where 77% of firms say their top concern is attracting and retaining workers, vaccine mandates are more rare. read more
Fetus brain appears unharmed by mild-to-moderate COVID-19
Non-severe COVID-19 during pregnancy has no visible effect on the baby’s brain, according to a small study presented on Tuesday at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America. Researchers led by Dr Sophia Stoecklein of Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich used fetal MRI to study 33 pregnant women with mild or moderate COVID-19. The MRI scans showed “normal age-appropriate brain development” in all cases, Stoecklein said in a statement. “There were no findings indicative of infection of the fetal brain.”
Only mothers who did not require hospital admission were included in the study. “Since the impact of severe infection on brain development in the fetus has not been conclusively determined, active protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection during pregnancy remains important,” Stoecklein said. read more
Jordan court jails health officials over oxygen deaths
A Jordanian court sentenced five senior health officials to three years in jail on Sunday for causing the death of 10 COVID-19 patients following an oxygen outage in a major state hospital, state media said. Health Minister Nathir Obeidat resigned hours after the incident and in a public apology, Prime Minister Bisher al Khasawneh said his government bore full responsibility for the incident.
The court found the former director of the state hospital in Salt, a city west of the capital, and four of his senior aides responsible for the deaths, media said. The patients, who were being treated in the hospital, died in March when staff failed to act after oxygen ran out in a COVID-19 ward for nearly an hour. read more
BASSETERRE, ST. KITTS, December 5, 2021 (MMS-SKN) — Area Parliamentary Representative for St. Christopher Seven and Prime Minister of the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis, Dr the Hon Timothy Harris, on Saturday December 4 at the Edgar T. Morris Primary School in Tabernacle Village, concluded marathon one-on-one consultations that formed part of celebrations to mark the 28th anniversary of his election as a parliamentarian.
Prime Minister Harris who is also the National Political Leader of the Peoples Labour Party (PLP), one of the three parties in the ruling Team Unity Administration, was first elected as the Member of Parliament for Constituency Number Seven (Bellevue to Otley’s) on November 29, 1993.
One-on-one consultations that formed part of the anniversary celebration activities that were commemorated under the theme ‘Touching Hearts, Transforming Communities since 1993’, were held on Saturday November 27.
There was, however, an extraordinarily high turnout so much so that the Honourable Prime Minister could not see of all them. He promised that a day would be set aside for him to see all persons whose names had been listed to meet him but who did not get the opportunity.
The promise was fulfilled as the Constituency Secretariat contacted all who were not able to see the Prime Minister and requested them to return to the Edgar T. Morris Primary School, location of the earlier one-on-one consultations, on Saturday December 4. They all showed up, including a handful who got wind that there would the continuation of the one-on-one consultations with the Prime Minister.
“Overall, for me, reflecting on the 28th anniversary, I would say it has been a good one by the Grace of God, and I give Him thanks for the support that the people have had, and for their constructive criticism, and for their guidance,” said Prime Minister Harris. “I pledge always to the extent that I have the energy, to the extent that I still have the passion within me that I will be the champion of the people of Number Seven.”
Dr Harris thanked the persons who dutifully returned for the one-on-one consultations after having not gotten a chance to meet with him on the previous Saturday. He noted that he was aware that they too have other errands to attend to in their daily nation-building activities but found the time to meet with their Prime Minister.
“I will fight their just calls,” assured the Honourable Prime Minister. “I will pursue justice on their behalf, and I will ensure that the Government which I now have the honour to lead, thanks to their choosing me as their elected representative, because the Prime Minister has to be an elected member, so they made it possible by their vote. I always feel a sense of gratitude when I am dealing with my constituents and always, I wish that I could more.”
Prime Minister Harris, who will be celebrating his birthday on Monday December 6, also thanked members is his Constituency Executive who with support of the Peoples Labour Party (PLP) led by National Secretary Ms Myrtilla Williams organised the month-long celebratory activities to mark the 28th anniversary of his election as a parliamentarian.
“There were a lot of new young persons who came on board for the first time,” noted Dr Harris. “I want to thank them for coming, for sharing in an exercise in democracy and for being so very supportive.”
Future pandemics could be more lethal than the current Covid crisis, one of the creators of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has warned.
Prof Dame Sarah Gilbert, delivering the 44th Richard Dimbleby Lecture, said there needed to be more funding for pandemic preparedness to prevent the advances made from being lost.
She also warned vaccines could be less effective against the Omicron variant.
Dame Sarah added that people should be cautious until more was known about it.
She said: “This will not be the last time a virus threatens our lives and our livelihoods. The truth is, the next one could be worse. It could be more contagious, or more lethal, or both.
“We cannot allow a situation where we have gone through all we have gone through, and then find that the enormous economic losses we have sustained mean that there is still no funding for pandemic preparedness,” she added.
“The advances we have made, and the knowledge we have gained, must not be lost.”
Speaking about the Omicron variant, she said its spike protein contained mutations known to increase the transmissibility of the virus.
“But there are additional changes that may mean antibodies induced by the vaccines, or by infection with other variants, may be less effective at preventing infection with Omicron.
“Until we know more, we should be cautious, and take steps to slow down the spread of this new variant.”
However, Dame Sarah said reduced protection against infection and mild disease would not necessarily mean reduced protection against severe illness and death.
She also called for the rapid progress seen in delivering vaccines and medicines during the pandemic to become the norm.
There was no reason why a universal flu jab could not be developed in order to wipe out the threat from influenza, she said.
On Saturday, the government announced that travellers heading to the UK will now have to take a Covid test before their departure in an effort to limit spread of the Omicron.
From 04:00 GMT on Tuesday travellers aged 12 and over will be required to show proof of a negative PCR or lateral flow test taken no earlier than 48 hours before departure.
And Nigeria has now been added to the travel red list after a growing number of Omicron cases were linked to the country.
But a scientist advising the government said the travel rule changes were “a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted”.
Prof Mark Woolhouse said the new rules had come too late to make a “material difference” to a potential wave of the Omicron variant in the UK.
Prof Woolhouse, a member of the government’s Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (Spi-M), told the BBC’s Andrew Marr show that Omicron was “spreading pretty rapidly” in the UK, and if current trends here and in South Africa continued in the coming weeks and months, it could replace Delta as the world’s dominant strain.
The UK recorded 86 new cases of the Omicron variant on Sunday, taking the total so far to 246. In total, 43,992 cases and 54 deaths within 28 days of a positive coronavirus test were recorded on Sunday.
(CNN) Brazil’s Supreme Court has ordered an investigation into President Jair Bolsonaro’s false claim that people who have been vaccinated against Covid-19 may have a higher risk of contracting AIDS.
Bolsonaro made the untruthful claims in a live video broadcast on multiple social media platforms in October. He was temporarily suspended from both Facebook and YouTube following the comments.
Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes launched the inquiry in response to a request by the country’s parliamentary commission which has been investigating Bolsonaro’s government’s response to the devastating Covid-19 pandemic, according to a statement posted from the court’s official Twitter account Friday.
Bolsonaro has been widely criticized at home and abroad for playing down the severity of the virus, including discouraging people to get vaccinated, despite Brazil battling one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in the world.
The parliamentary commission has had access to documents that show the government ignored at least 81 vaccine offers from Pfizer in 2020.
According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS, Covid-19 vaccines approved by health regulators are safe for most people, including those living with HIV, the virus that causes the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome known as AIDS.
Bolsonaro is the only G20 President who claims not to have been vaccinated. Despite that, and Brazil’s delay in starting a vaccination program, 60% of the country’s population has been completely vaccinated, according to Brazil’s Ministry of Health.
Brazil registered 221 Covid-19 related deaths on Friday, according to the Ministry of Health. The country has recorded 615,400 Covid deaths since the start of the pandemic.
Now that the Elimination process is over, the stage has been cleared for what undoubtedly will be one of the most competitive Soca Monarch Competitions ever to be staged for the Sugar Mas carnival in St. Kitts & Nevis.
Given the high quality of music being offered by the artistes, many fans are already predicting that the Soca Monarch bacchanal will be one for the record books.
The final rosters, for the Groovy and Power categories, include some of the country’s top guns who have reserved their places in the grand final show, scheduled for Carnival Village on Thursday, 23rd December.
Former Groovy Soca Monarch, Nicha B, delivered a credible performance to close off the night on 295 points, taking an early lead, with his song, We Inna That.
Joining Nicha B in the Groovy Finals will be Ny Ny, (Big Batty Party-290 points); Jazbo & Tobap, (Want Back De Sugar-289 pts); KO, (Home Drum-284 pts); Blade, (Night & Day-271 pts); Mr. Hype, (Marry You-270 pts); Dejour, (Miss De Fete-260 pts).
The reigning Monarch is Rucas H.E.
The battle for supremacy in the Power Category will also see the clash of these top names. However, due to a tie for seventh place at the Eliminations, the Carnival Committee has decided to include both artistes. This means that the Power segment will have nine (9) finalists.
These include Tbone who picked up the most points on Saturday night, (296), to take bragging rights in the category, heading into the finals. His song was titled Task Force.
The finalists are:
Tbone, (Task Force-296 pts)
Hype, (Bubble-293 pts)
Takeover & Infamus, (Golden Memories-289 pts)
Pino & Blade, (Freedom Jungle-283 pts)
KO (Mash Up-277 pts)
Dejour (Alpha-265 pts)
Barry C (Pushing On-261 pts)
Stadics (Touch Down-261)
Nicha B (254-Pts)
The reigning Power Soca King, Mr. Bagnal, who is currently overseas, will not be competing this year.
CMC – The worldwide initiative aimed at equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines has ordered St. Vincent and the Grenadines to pay US$70,000 for COVID-19 vaccines that it donated to Trinidad and Tobago in May
Kingstown donated 5,000 doses of AstraZeneca to Port of Spain amidst a spike in cases there and the vaccines were at risk of expiring because of low uptake here.
However, Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves said on NBC Radio on Wednesday, that the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) said his government should have returned the vaccines instead of giving them away.
“COVAX said to us what we gave to Trinidad, we should not have done so, we should have given them back and they would give whoever they want. I think they had somewhere else they wanted to give them – not in the Caribbean. We gave them to Trinidad so we will have to pay for those. It’s about US$70,000,” he disclosed.
Gonsalves said that when his Trinidad counterpart, Dr Keith Rowley, heard about the development, the government offered to pay for the vaccines.
“I said, ‘No. No. No. No. No. We gave you.’ So we have to organise — I believe the payment has been made already, the US$70,000 to COVAX because if we are getting now through the US, I don’t want to have any indebtedness to COVAX…,” Gonsalves said.
“We are a people of solidarity; that’s how we function. Social solidarity, regionally, globally and nationally. Love thy neighbour as you love yourself. Trinidad has been very generous to us in many, many ways. I can’t give you that and ask you to pay for it. Absolutely not. That ain’t how we stop. We nah stop so,” the Prime Minister insisted.
(The writer is Antigua and Barbuda’s Ambassador to the U.S. and the OAS. He is also a senior fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London and at Massey College in the University of Toronto. The view expressed are entirely his own)
A television interviewer asked me if I thought Caribbean countries, and other developing territories, would benefit from the ‘war for influence’ that the European Union (EU) has launched against the People’s Republic of China.
He was referring to the announcement by the EU Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, that the EU will launch “Global Gateway”, a scheme to compete with China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) that has been in place since the end of 2013.
The Commission President did not try to hide that the EU’s Global Gateway is aimed at trying to stop China’s spread around the world, and its growing influence as the major creditor to more than 60 developing countries on every continent.
“We want to create links and not dependence”, she said – an allusion to the claim by the G7 countries (the rich nations of the West), that China is indebting developing countries so as to control them.
What is striking about this new rivalry to lend money to developing countries is that it has arisen not in response to the needs of these countries for economic advancement and social improvement, but from big power rivalry for influence in their own interest.
Nonetheless, should the contest, between richer countries, result in the availability of more money to fund growth and prosperity in developing nations, it should be welcomed. Not only would it produce a larger global pot of money, but it will allow developing nations to accept loans from the rival providers that offer the best terms.
The EU has started late in this race, and the sums that it is suggesting are less than half of the $1.2 trillion that China has already put on the table for 13,000 projects in 63 countries. The EU Commission said it will “seek” to mobilize $340 billion by 2027 (six years from now) and from a combination of public investment and, as yet unsecured, private investment. What the EU appears to be sure of is $40 billion in export guarantees to European private investors and around $18 billion in grants.
The EU has pointed out that it has been providing “grants” while China has been providing “loans”. But in truth the repayment terms of the Chinese loans are concessionary and affordable. Further, they are used mostly for infrastructure projects that developing countries need, whereas EU grants are highly conditional and take very long to disburse.
Added to all this, while the EU’s “Global Gateway” was launched with much fanfare, its draft plan does not contain a list of projects it will undertake immediately. Nor does it say to which countries.
Significantly, absent also, is any indication of if the EU will drop its criterion of low per capita income as a qualifier for access to the “Global Gateway”. So-called middle-income and high-income countries have long been disqualified for access to grants and concessionary loans from the EU, except in disastrous situations. The development of many Caribbean countries is measured by this flawed criterion.
Perhaps at some point that EU will actually have a serious discussion with regional groups of developing countries about their real needs and how best the EU can help – particularly as several of its members have a sad legacy of underdevelopment across every continent. Among the EU members are France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium and Germany. The UK is omitted from this list since “Global Gateway” is a EU project and the UK is no longer a EU member.
The bottom line is that, if this EU-China rivalry, coupled with the G7’s “Build Back Better World” – also an effort to compete with China and halt what is seen as its global influence – produces more money for developing nations, including the Caribbean, it would signal the start of a new world. That would be especially so, if developing countries can choose the options best suited to them, and not to the lenders. In this way, they could retain their autonomy from all lenders, spreading their exposure and seeking the best terms possible.
However, right now – especially as the global financial institutions such as the IMF and World Bank – still reflect the policies of G7 countries, China remains the lender of choice.
The G7 and leading members of the EU who built their economies on the backs of developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean should wake up and smell the Chow Mein. It is everywhere.
