The statement was issued shortly after Bolsonaro issued a presidential decree. The funds will come from an extraordinary line of credit and show the government’s commitment to tackling the health and economic crises sparked by the pandemic, the statement said.
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The UK-based Privy Council has rejected an application from Cayman’s Cruise Port Referendum (CPR) for leave to challenge the Cayman Islands Court of Appeal’s decision on people-initiated referendums.
The case surrounds an appeal made by local activist Shirley Roulstone’s in connection with a legal case relating to the Cruise Port Referendum campaign, in which she challenged the constitutionality of the previous government’s decision to set a referendum on the cruise berthing project before it had passed general legislation relating to people-initiated polls.
With this decision, the government does not need to pass a general law on referendums and if it chooses can legislate for each individual ballot, leaving the rules that provide or this constitutional right open to the political fancy of whichever administration is in office.
Roulstone had appealed to the British high court after the Cayman Islands Court of Appeal overturned the Grand Court March 2020 ruling last summer. Acting Judge Tim Owen had ruled that section 70 of the Constitution, which paves the way for people-initiated referendums (PIRs), needed a general referendum law for such ballots to set the parameters.
However, the government embarked on a successful appeal, which led Roulstone and the CPR campaign to take the case to London.
Based on the ruling handed down by the Privy Council on April 28, the Parliament in this British Overseas territory must enact separate pieces of legislation for each referendum.
Attorney General Sam Bulgin has welcomed what he said was “helpful clarification of the Constitutional position, given the understandable public interest surrounding this issue”.
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The Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) will hold a regular virtual meeting on Wednesday, May 12 at 10:00 EDT (14:00 GMT) to analyze “The situation in Nicaragua” and the “Establishment of the OAS mission to the Republic of Haiti,” among other topics.
Please consult the agenda of the meeting here. Note that changes to the agenda may yet be made before the meeting.
The meeting will be broadcast live – with interpretation in Spanish, English, French and Portuguese- on the OAS Website, Facebook and YouTube
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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a 48-page elections bill Thursday that creates many significant changes in the state’s election laws. Republicans say it’s to safeguard against fraud and vote harvesting, while Democrats and voting rights advocates said it’s an attempt to make it more difficult for some people to vote. Here are some of the changes:
—Prohibits people who would help others drop off vote-by-mail ballots from possessing more than two vote-by-mail ballots other than their own, unless they belong to immediate family members. This would apply at sites that include voting stations at assisted living facilities and nursing homes.
—Requires elections supervisors to assign an employee to monitor ballot drop boxes and creates a $25,000 penalty if they fail to do so. Only allows drop boxes to be accessible at the same time as early voting hours, meaning voters can’t use drop boxes after hours.
— Requires a driver license number, state ID number or last four digits of a Social Security number to request a vote by mail ballots.— Requires voters provide, in addition to their date of birth which was previous practice, the last four digits of their Social Security number or their driver license or state ID card number to make an address change
— Only allows a request for a vote-by-mail ballot to be good for the next general election rather than two general election cycles.
— Asks people registering to vote affirm to the following language: “I affirm that I am not a convicted felon or, if I am, my right to vote has been restored.”
— Requires third-party voter registration groups to inform people they can also register online and sets tighter deadlines for when registration cards must be turned in.
— Requires any candidate running with no party affiliation to affirm they have not been registered with a political party in the previous 365 days.
— Requires elections officials to make sure their online voter registration system can handle a large influx of traffic immediately before registration deadlines, and also requires that they take proper security precautions to prevent hacking.
— Requires the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles to help the Department of State in identifying changes in residence address on a driver license or identification card. The Department of State must report each such to the appropriate supervisor of elections.
— Requires local election officials to provide live Election Day turnout data to the state Division of Elections at least every hour, and requires the division to post the data on its website.
— Increases from 100 feet to 150 the area around a polling place in which people can approach voters to influence their decision.
— Gives observers the right to watch the duplication of a damaged ballot and to challenge the duplication.
— Grants candidates, political parties, political committees or their designees the right to view voting materials such as vote by mail envelopes before votes are tabulated.
— Places prohibitions on government officials settling lawsuits that challenge the result of an election.
— Bans state and local elections officials from soliciting, accepting or using donation in the form of money, grants, property or personal services from an individual or a nongovernmental entity for the paying for election expenses or voter education, voter outreach or registration programs.
The law is being challenged in court by civil rights groups as being undemocratic.
The post Does Florida Voting Law Seek to Prevent Voting? appeared first on The St Kitts Nevis Observer.
(CNN) A joint US Navy and Coast Guard team seized thousands of illicit weapons last week after stopping a small ship in the North Arabian Sea, the Navy said in a statement.
The post Enormous Illicit Weapons Haul by US Navy in Arabian Sea appeared first on The St Kitts Nevis Observer.
The teaching of regional integration and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Single Market and Economy (CSME) will start immediately in regional classrooms as part of a new initiative by the CARICOM Secretariat.
The new initiative will be taught virtually by Eletha Stewart-Johnson – a teacher in Social Studies and History at Queen’s College here – to students at the Ladyville Technical High School in Belize.
The lesson begins at 10.30 (local time) Belize and will focus on an introduction to CARICOM.
The students in Belize will participate with their lecturer, Abdiel Medina who is a teacher in Social Studies.
Students from both classes in Guyana and Belize will also engage each other throughout the lesson which will be taught online.
Medina will then teach Stewart-Johnson’s class on May 17 via the online platform and complete the topic of an introduction to CARICOM.
According to the Secretariat, a total of four teachers, two from Guyana and two from Belize are paired to teach each other’s classes during the month of May.
The other pair of teachers are Stefphoney Grinage of Sacred Heart College in Belize and Albert Inshanally of Queen’s College in Guyana who will teach lessons from another CARICOM topic later this month.
The Ministries responsible for Education and Trade and the participating schools in Belize and Guyana have been supportive of the novel project.
“This online pilot is a precursor to a proposed activity for teacher exchanges, where they would travel and be attached to classrooms across CARICOM to observe and share experiences in the host Member State,” said the Secretariat in a statement.
The original plan to be facilitated with assistance from the European Union was placed on hold because of the Covid 19 pandemic. The activities are part of the CARICOM Secretariat’s ongoing initiatives of public education on the CSME.
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May 10, 2021
AP Morning Wire
Also this morning:
VANESSA GERA
The Associated Press
Warsaw, Poland
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The Rundown
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli police clashed with Palestinian protesters inside a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site on Monday. Officers fired tear gas and stun grenades and protesters hurled stones and other objects at police……Read More
BARGNY, Senegal (AP) — Since her birth on Senegal’s coast, the ocean has always given Ndeye Yacine Dieng life. Her grandfather was a fisherman, and her grandmother and mother processed fish. Like generations of women, sh…Read More
BAGRAM, Afghanistan (AP) — The twisted remains of several all-terrain vehicles leaned precariously inside Baba Mir’s sprawling scrapyard, alongside smashed shards that were once generators, tank tracks that have been dis…Read More
PHOENIX (AP) — Joshua Matthew Black said in a YouTube video that he was protecting the officer at the U.S. Capitol who had been pepper sprayed and fallen to the ground as the crowd rushed the building entrance on Jan… …Read More
WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal government is working with the Georgia-based company that shut down a major pipeline transporting fuel across the East Coast after a ransomware attack, the White House says… …Read More
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OTHER TOP STORIES
BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s powerful Catholic progressives are openly defying a recent Holy See pronouncement that priests cannot bless same-sex unions by offering such blessings …Read More
PHOENIX (AP) — On the floor of Veterans Memorial Coliseum, where Sir Charles Barkley once dunked basketballs and Hulk Hogan wrestled King Kong Bundy, 46 tables are arrayed in …Read More
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — A gunman opened fire at a birthday party in Colorado, slaying six adults before killing himself Sunday, police said. The shooting happened just…Read More
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Churchill Downs suspended trainer Bob Baffert from entering horses at the track and suggested that it would invalidate Medina Spirit’s Kentucky Derby vi…Read More
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“There are only two forces that can carry light to all the corners of the
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Reuters- A red pickup truck pulls up next to a migrant tent encampment in the Mexican city of Tijuana, its bed filled with loaves of bread and clothes. Men, women and children run to meet it.
“A line! Form a line!” someone yells. A woman in a long skirt climbs into the truckbed and begins to preach into a microphone: “You all are hoping to cross into the United States!” she says. “You all are hoping to be blessed! Well, take God’s hand!”
Migrants raise their hands in prayer. Food can be scarce in the encampment, and the line stretches back down the road, past dozens of tents and dirty portable restrooms.
Right up against the popular pedestrian crossing from Mexico to the United States at El Chaparral, a refugee camp has mushroomed in recent months, filled with asylum seekers desperate to cross the still-closed U.S.-Mexico border.
Migrant activists say the camp, which started growing in February and now numbers some 2,000 migrants by one count, sprang up in part as an unintended consequence of U.S. President Joe Biden’s mixed approach to undoing the hardline immigration policies of his predecessor, Donald Trump.
The camp is growing increasingly dangerous, migrants and activists told Reuters, with unsanitary conditions, drug use, and gangs entering the area. Governmental organizations are largely absent, and humanitarian presence is only intermittent. Rumors fuel hope among migrants that they will soon be able to enter the United States.
Reuters spent four days speaking with more than two dozen migrants in the camp, which consists of tents and tarps sprawled out in different directions in a concrete plaza and under an overpass.
Hundreds of children, including infants, live in the camp. Most of the migrants are Mexican and Central American.
Talk of kidnapping attempts is rampant, and many migrants avoid leaving their tents for fear of their safety and the safety of their children. The only consistent state security are Tijuana municipal police cars parked at the camp’s edge. But migrants say that is not enough to make them feel safe.
“I don’t sleep at night,” said Rosy, a migrant from the Mexican state of Guerrero who is terrified that her three children, aged 5, 3, and 5 months, will be kidnapped.
The camp has no running water other than a diverted pipe used for cooking and bathing. Activists say its portable toilets are cleaned too infrequently to be hygienic. There is no governing structure within the camp, which relies on donations from churches, nonprofits and individuals for basic sustenance.
MIXED POLICIES
In February, the Biden administration announced it would begin phasing out Trump’s Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program, which had forced thousands of asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their asylum cases to be heard. People with active MPP cases would be allowed into the United States. By March, the notorious Matamoros refugee camp just across the border from Texas – where many in the MPP program had waited for their turn to be processed – was closed.
Activists told Reuters that the announcement directly influenced the start of the new camp in Tijuana, opposite San Diego and some 2,500 miles (4,000 km) away from Matamoros. Migrants began to camp on Feb. 18, the night before processing began for the MPP migrants, amid confusion about who exactly would be admitted to the country.
The U.S. border remains closed to the vast majority of asylum seekers under a Trump-era COVID-19 health-related order which Biden has not revoked.
But the confusion remains. Many migrants Reuters spoke to said they had believed they would soon be able to claim asylum in the United States once they got to the camp, based on rumors and news items that the situation at the border had changed under Biden, who took office in January.
Honduran migrant Kevin, wearing a U.S. flag, holds his daughter Keiry, during a multicultural activity at a makeshift camp at the El Chaparral border port of entry with the U.S., in Tijuana, Mexico April 22, 2021. REUTERS/Toya Sarno Jordan
Biden is trying to balance a more humane immigration policy with a desire not to encourage further migration from Mexico and Central America. He is already contending with growing criticism from opposition Republicans and even Democrats over a rise in the number of people crossing the southern border illegally.
The White House said in a statement it would take time to rebuild the country’s immigration system after the Trump administration. It did not address questions from Reuters about the wind-down of MPP influencing the start of the Tijuana camp, referring further queries to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
“The Biden administration has made it clear that our borders are not open, people should not make the dangerous journey, and individuals and families are subject to border restrictions, including expulsion,” a DHS spokesperson said in a separate statement. “Physical presence at a port of entry or an encampment” does not provide access to the phased system for entry into the United States, the spokesperson said.
The Mexican foreign ministry said in a statement that government representatives had tried to encourage migrants to go to shelters.
Tijuana’s director of migrant affairs, José Luis Pérez Canchola, said officials were trying to find a safe space for the migrants, but there was no concrete plan yet.
Migrants said they feared that if they moved away from the encampment they might lose their place in a line that does not really exist, or that conditions in shelters would be worse than in the camp. Some were afraid to leave their tents for safety.
Some had lived elsewhere in Tijuana for months, while others had arrived only recently. Others said they had crossed into Texas and been expelled into Tijuana, and came to the camp because they did not know where else to go.
GROWING DANGERS
New families arrive every day at the Tijuana camp, entering what activists and camp dwellers say is an increasingly dangerous situation, with reports of gang members walking through the camp, selling drugs or checking for members of rival gangs.
The Matamoros encampment was widely seen as a result of Trump’s hardline policies, but some activists say that in many ways the situation in Tijuana is even worse.
While Matamoros was dangerous and squalid, there was eventually a strong NGO presence, and it was demarcated by barriers. Migrants there were also on a path to potential entry to the United States.
“The migrants in the Tijuana camp are definitely worse off,” said Erika Pinheiro, legal and policy director for Al Otro Lado, a nonprofit which initially went in person in the encampment but has stopped, due in part to a lack of in-person volunteers and security concerns.
“There is less infrastructure, more security concerns, and migrants aren’t connected to any functioning asylum process,” she said. The organization is serving migrants, including some from the camp, through a remote screening process.
Dulce Garcia, executive director of Border Angels, a nonprofit that has been working in the camp, said she regularly gets messages from terrified camp dwellers at night. They have reported beatings and kidnapping attempts. She no longer goes to the encampment alone, she said, because she fears for her safety, and is hoping that more volunteers will start working in the camp to make it safer.
“You stay quiet, but you live in fear,” said Ana, a 21-year-old from Guatemala who is desperate to enter the United States to rejoin her father. “I was kidnapped and bad things have happened to me, and I live with the fear that it’s going to happen again.”
In recent days, the migrants have begun marching to the San Ysidro port of entry with protest signs that read things like “BIDEN SOLUTION,” “WE WANT TO BE HEARD,” and “WE NEED POLITICAL ASYLUM.” There is talk in the camp of a hunger strike.
“The only thing we want is an answer from the president,” said Claudia Melendez, a Honduran asylum seeker who came to the camp a month ago. “He hasn’t said a thing.”
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Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil rose by 43% in April compared to the same month last year, government data has shown.
A total of 1,157 sq km (446 sq miles) of rainforest were destroyed in the first four months of 2021. This was down 4% from a year earlier.
The Amazon is a vital carbon store that slows down the pace of global warming.
Scientists say the loss of forest has accelerated since Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro took office in 2019.
The president has encouraged agricultural and mining activities in the world’s largest rainforest, and rolled back environmental legislation.
Conservationists are fearing the worst ahead of this year’s dry season, when deforestation usually peaks from May to October.
In November last year the country’s space agency (Inpe) reported that deforestation of the Amazon had surged to its highest level since 2008.
In recent months, the international community – led by the US administration of President Joe Biden – has put greater pressure on Brazil to scale back deforestation of the Amazon.
At a US-led climate summit last month, President Bolsonaro promised to double the money reserved for environmental enforcement and to end illegal deforestation by 2030.
But critics have questioned his commitment to those pledges.
They have pointed to a recent cut to the environment ministry’s budget as an example of President Bolsonaro reneging on his promises.
image copyrightGetty ImagesThey have also condemned proposed legislation that could legalise the private occupation of public land.
Next week, Brazil’s upper house of parliament – the Senate – is expected to vote on a bill, which critics say could accelerate deforestation in the Amazon.
A group of food businesses in the UK have threatened to stop sourcing products from Brazil if the bill is passed.
“The Amazon has become an open bar for land grabbers, illegal loggers and miners,” says Marcio Astrini, executive secretary of Observatorio do Clima, a campaign group.
“And several attempts are being made by the government and Congress to eliminate legal protection of forests, such as the amnesty for land grabbing and now the licensing bill.”
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