BASSETERRE, St. Kitts — Three plaques were presented to James ‘barman’ Hanley MH of Hamonites Hitters basketball fame, and a community organizer; Michael ‘Mick’ Stokes Heylingr MH, an outstanding musical composer and performer; and Everton ‘Jabou’ Dolphin of Jabou’s Hideaway.
The special ceremony took place on February 26 at Upper Market Street, with many area residents present. Everyone enjoyed the Department of Culture presentations.
The three awardees were honoured with plaques presented by His Excellency Governor General Sir S.W. Tapley Seaton, GCMG, CVO, QC, JP, LL.D, a resident of Market Street.
Other officials at the presentation were, Dr. Rt. Excellent and Rt. Honourable Sir Kennedy Simmonds, National Hero, First Prime Minister and former Representative of Central Basseterre, Constituency No. 2 (which includes Market Street, Soho, Dorset and its environs); and the Hon. Jonel Powell, JP, the Minister of Education and Culture, and present Central Basseterre Constituency Represenative. Also in attendance were the 2003 IAAF World Champion and Spring Icon Kim Collins and her family.
Everyone expressed appreciation with a riveting impromptu performance by Mick Stokes of one of his many calypsos. Another cultural presentation included dancers, poetry extolling the memory of Samuel’s Big Drum of Market Street and drumming by Royd Phipps MH, Drumming Specialist of the Department of Culture and Sylvester’s Masquerades.
Miami Herald- The Biden administration is seeking ways to increase international pressure on Venezuelan leaderNicolás Maduro in order to secure a peaceful, democratic transition of power, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told opposition leader Juan Guaidó in a phone call on Tuesday.
Blinken “stressed the importance of a return to democracy in Venezuela through free and fair elections” in their first conversation since Blinken became secretary, according to State Department spokesperson Ned Price.
“Secretary Blinken described our efforts to work with like-minded allies, including the European Union, Lima Group, Organization of American States, and International Contact Group, to increase multilateral pressure and press for a peaceful, democratic transition,” Price added.
The call comes at a time when Maduro appears to be solidifying his grip on Venezuela, despite U.S. sanctions and diplomatic pressure from the European Union and a number of Latin American countries. Meanwhile, the opposition has struggled to regain its momentum, with Guaidó sliding in popularity and unable to draw large crowds as he did in years before.
Though Biden is expected to make some adjustments to the Trump administration’s approach to Venezuela, Price said the State Department continues to recognize the 2015 National Assembly as the last remaining democratic institution in Venezuela, and Guaidó as its interim president.
In a press release issued later Tuesday, Guaidó’s team said Blinken reiterated U.S. commitment to working with allies to put an end to the suffering of the Venezuelan population, including by increasing humanitarian aid, and vowed to work together to establish free and fair elections.
“Venezuela can solve its own problems, but only when its people can establish a legitimate government through free and just elections that employ international standards of transparency, pluralism and auto determination,” Guaidó said, according to the press release.
Guaidó proclaimed himself Venezuela’s legitimate president in January 2019, a position quickly accepted by the United Sates and eventually more than 50 other countries.
His term in Congress, the basis for his claim as Venezuela’s transitional leader, ended in January after the opposition boycotted a legislative election widely considered a sham. He and other lawmakers have continued holding sessions virtually, but some international actors have scaled back their support, referring to him as an important opposition figure rather than interim head of state.
Maduro has begun trying to curb the opposition’s influence inside the country as a new National Assembly made up in more than 95 percent by his followers initiates investigations. The government also recently barred Guaidó and two dozen other lawmakers from holding public office for 15 years.
The international community is now watching the Biden administration closely to see if the new president will maintain Donald Trump’s policy of increasing economic pressure or push for a new round of talks with Maduro that could lead to relaxing the sanctions already in place.
Most proponents of relaxing the sanctions argue that they have so far failed to oust Maduro while increasing the hardships of a population already facing a humanitarian crisis.
Blinken and Guaidó also discussed the “urgent humanitarian needs” created by the Venezuelan crisis, which has forced nearly 5.5 million Venezuelans to flee the country.
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Elouise Edwards MBE sadly passed away on Saturday 22nd January 2021
Tributes have been paid to a much loved ‘icon’ in the Manchester UK Afro-Caribbean community.
Elouise Edwards MBE was a community activist and lifelong campaigner for racial equality and justice, involved in over 35 organisations in Greater Manchester.
Lovingly known as ‘Mama Edwards’, she was at the forefront of the push for equality in Manchester for new Windrush arrivals and their children.
She sadly passed away on Saturday 22nd January 2021 aged 88.
Elouise Chandler, the youngest of ten children, was born in Guyana, South America, in 1932.
Her father was a civil engineer who extracted gold from the goldfields of Guyana and her mother was a housewife.
In 1955, she married Beresford Edwards at St George’s Cathedral, Georgetown, Guyana.
Beresford came to England in 1960, and Elouise followed in 1961 with her three year old son.
Elouise grew up and studied in Guyana before moving to England in 1961
They settled in Moss Side and became part of the growing West Indian community that was developing in the area.
Known for her kindness, knowledge and empathy, Elouise was a major influence in the tight knit community forming in Moss Side.
Her family home became a place where black people could meet and talk about the troubles they faced in England such as exclusion and racism, while seeking advice and support.
The same home became the birthplace of the West Indian Organisations Coordinating Committee (WIOCC) which is still active today.
Concerned with the lack of educational resources, jobs and the social well-being of people in their community, Elouise and Beresford made it their mission to improve the lives of their neighbours.
Elouise managed to juggle being a devoted wife, loving mother, grandmother and great-grandmother throughout her long and impactful career.
She worked as a neighbourhood social worker, community development officer and in 1994 received an MBE for her incredible work in the community.
Elouise and her husband Beresford Edwards who sadly passed away in 2003
She was also awarded an honorary degree of the Masters of Arts by The University of Manchester, as well as the title of Honorary Chieftain by the Nigerian Community of Manchester for her work with the African community.
Instrumental in celebrating black culture, battling racism and developing integral community services, her influence touches many corners of Greater Manchester.
During her time she was the co-founder of Manchester Sickle Cell & Thalassaemia centre, Awarak Walton Housing Association, Cariocca Enterprises Manchester Limited, NIA Cultural centre, Culture Week, Roots Oral History Project, Roots Festival and much more .
In September 2017 she retired to Guyana and with the help of her family, where she fulfilled her dream of passing away peacefully in her homeland.
Anthony Brown was the director of WIOCC in 1997 and 2004, working directly with Elouise and Beresford.
Elouise receiving her MBE from Prince Charles
He told the Manchester Evening News: “ I learned a lot about how to look after my own children from her.
“She raised the aspirations of people and gave insights to how the younger generation could be developed to reach their full potential.
“A number of people still speak fondly of her as a matriarch of the community, she could come anywhere and talk to anyone about what should be done and what shouldn’t be done.
“She had a presence about her and was held in great esteem by the community, people looked up to her.”
A celebration of life ceremony will take place for Elouise Edwards MBE on Friday 5 March 2021.
As part of the ceremony, her cortege will pause at various places that Elouise took an active role in or helped develop.
The service will start at 11:15 at Manchester Cathedral and can be livestreamed on her website.
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Scientists have unearthed fossils of what may be the oldest-known member of the dinosaur group known as titanosaurs that includes the largest land animals in Earth’s history.
Researchers said on Monday the fossils represent a dinosaur species named Ninjatitan zapatai that lived 140 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period. They identified Ninjatitan as a titanosaur, a group of long-necked plant-eating dinosaurs that walked on four pillar-like legs.
The dinosaur’s incomplete skeletal remains were discovered in Argentina’s Patagonian wilderness, south of the city of Neuquen. The researchers said Ninjatitan demonstrated that the titanosaurs as a group first appeared longer ago than previously known.
“It is the oldest record known, not only from Argentina but worldwide,” study lead author Pablo Gallina, a researcher at the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research of Argentina (CONICET), told Reuters.
“Titanosaurs are recorded on various sides of the world, but the oldest-known records were more modern than this find.”
At a length of about 65 feet (20 meters), Ninjatitan was a large dinosaur, but much smaller than later titanosaurs such as Argentinosaurus that reached a length of around 115 feet (35 meters). The researchers also said the presence of such an early titanosaur in Patagonia supports the idea that titanosaurs originated in the Southern Hemisphere.
The findings were published in the scientific journal Ameghiniana.
Titanosaurs are part of a larger dinosaur group called sauropods that includes others with similar body designs such as Brontosaurus and Diplodocus that lived in North America during the Jurassic Period, which preceded the Cretaceous Period.
A number of the titanosaurs that inhabited Patagonia achieved gigantic proportions such as Argentinosaurus, Patagotitan and Dreadnoughtus.
José Luis Carbadillo, another CONICET researcher, told a local university publication that the age of Ninjatitan’s remains could have led people to assume that the bones belonged to a dinosaur group that pre-dated titanosaurs.
“In Patagonia, titanosaurs are only known about from less than 120 million years ago,” he said.
President Biden said that the United States will have enough vaccine supply to vaccinate all American adults for the coronavirus by the end of May, crediting a “stepped-up process” under his administration.
Biden made the announcement while outlining a partnership between Merck and Johnson & Johnson to produce the latter’s single-dose coronavirus vaccine.
“We’re now on track to have enough vaccine supply for every adult in America by the end of May,” Biden said in remarks Tuesday afternoon at the White House. “When we came into office, the prior administration had contracted for not nearly enough vaccine to cover adults in America. We rectified that.”
The new timeline is more condensed than Biden’s previous prediction that the U.S. would have enough vaccines for all American adults — 600 million doses — by the end of July.
Biden stressed that Tuesday’s developments marked a significant milestone in the fight against the virus, but he cautioned that more work needs to be done in order to distribute the vaccine and inoculate much of the U.S. population.
He highlighted his administration’s efforts to boost the number of vaccinators and locations where Americans can receive doses.
“That is progress, important progress,” Biden said. “But it’s not enough to have the vaccine supply.”
It could take much longer for the country to vaccinate the adult population, given the logistical hurdles of distributing and administering vaccines. Americans in states and cities, including Washington, D.C., have encountered challenges in signing up for appointments online. The Biden administration is also trying to address vaccine hesitancy by communicating that the vaccines are safe and effective in order to ensure that as much of the population as possible gets vaccinated.
He also reiterated calls for Congress to swiftly pass his $1.9 trillion relief proposal.
To increase the number of vaccinations in circulation, Biden detailed Merck’s collaboration to expand production of the Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine approved by the Food and Drug Administration over the weekend. Biden said he has invoked the Defense Production Act to equip Merck facilities to safely manufacture the vaccine, and Johnson & Johnson plans to operate its facilities 24 hours a day, seven days a week in order to increase supply.
The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is the third to be authorized for emergency use in the U.S.; vaccines produced by Pfizer and BioNTech and by Moderna were approved during the Trump administration. Biden and other officials have repeatedly accused the Trump administration of not having a sufficient plan for distributing vaccines across the country.
The announcement Tuesday of the new timeline is a bright spot in the country’s yearlong fight against the virus. While cases and deaths remain high, they have come down from their peaks following the 2020 holiday season.
Last week, Biden marked the milestone of the 50 millionth dose of coronavirus vaccine being administered. The White House said earlier Tuesday that the weekly supply of doses to states would increase to 18 million this week.
Still, new variants of the coronavirus remain a cause for concern, and more than 500,000 people in the U.S. have died from the virus.
Biden urged Americans to remain vigilant by continuing to wash their hands, keep their distance from others and wear masks. His remarks came as governors in Texas and Mississippi lifted mask mandates and other restrictions, allowing businesses to fully reopen. Biden did not mention those states on Tuesday but emphasized his call for Americans to wear masks for the first 100 days of his presidency.
“Things may get worse again as new variants spread and as we face setbacks like recent winter storms in the Midwest and South. But our administration will never take this public health threat lightly,” Biden said. “Now is not the time to let our guard down. People’s lives are at stake.”
Asked at the conclusion of the event when the U.S. would get back to normal, Biden told reporters he had been cautioned not to give an answer due to uncertainty but said he hoped it would be within a year.
“My hope is by this time next year we are going to be back to normal or before that,” Biden said.
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Biden: He called on all states to vaccinate teachers by the end of March
President Biden said he is calling on all states to prioritize teachers for COVID-19 vaccinations so that all teachers and school staff will have received at least one dose by the end of March.
“My challenge to all states, territories, and the District of Columbia is this: We want every educator, school staff member, child care worker to receive at least one shot by the end of the month of March,” Biden said.
He noted that more than 30 states have already prioritized teachers for vaccinations, but said he is using the “full authority of the federal government” in “directing every state to do the same.”
The politics: Biden has been under intense criticism from Republicans for not doing enough to urge schools to reopen, given evidence that they can do so safely with precautions like mask-wearing and distancing.
In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in guidance last month that teacher vaccinations “should not be considered a condition” for reopening schools.
Biden acknowledged this, but pointed to “anxieties” among teachers and parents.
Brazil on Tuesday registered the highest daily number of Covid deaths since the pandemic started.
The health ministry said 1,641 people had died with Covid in the previous 24 hours.
The record was reached as scientists said that a new variant first found in Brazil appears more contagious.
Brazil, where more than a quarter of a million people have died with Covid, has the second highest coronavirus death toll after the United States.
What’s the situation in Brazil?
Across the country, there have been more than 10.5 million confirmed cases of coronavirus. Only the US and India have registered more.
The pandemic spread quickly after first arriving in Brazil and reached a first peak at the end of July, when daily new cases were above 70,000 and daily deaths above 1,500.
Cases and deaths across Brazil fell until early November before a second wave saw cases rise again, a rise which appears to have further accelerated since January.
It was expected that the people infected in the first wave would have acquired some degree of protection or immunity. And yet, the city has seen a second wave of infections.
The researchers think this may be because a new variant has emerged which may be evading immunity provided by past infections.
What’s known about the new variant?
The new variant, named P.1, was first detected in people who had travelled from Manaus to Japan in January.
The researchers studying it think it first emerged in Manaus in early November and has been spreading there quickly since.
They say that that genomic sequencing found that this second wave in Manaus “was associated with the emergence and rapid spread” of the P.1 variant.
Their data – which is still preliminary – suggests that the P.1 variant could be up to twice as transmittable as the original version of the virus.
It also suggests that the new variant could evade immunity built up by having had the original version of Covid.
They put the chance of reinfection at between 25% and 60%.
What about vaccines?
Brazil, the worst-affected country by Covid in Latin America, has lagged behind in its roll-out of Covid vaccines.
A nurse in São Paulo became the first person to be vaccinated on 17 January, three weeks after Chile, Mexico and Costa Rica had already started their vaccination campaigns.
Vaccinating its population of 211 million living across a huge territory was always going to be a challenge, but delays in the delivery of the vaccine and the lack of a co-ordinated nationwide approach produced further slowdowns.
image copyrightReuters
image captionThe vaccine rollout started later than in other countries in the region
Frustrated state governors announced on Tuesday that they would join forces to buy vaccines directly from manufacturers rather than wait for the federal government to deliver them.
They have criticised President Jair Bolsonaro, who has belittled the risks posed by the virus from the start of the pandemic, for not securing adequate vaccine supplies.
The governor of São Paulo state, João Doria, has been particularly scathing of President Bolsonaro’s handling of the pandemic.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The Caribbean is hunting for visitors and vaccines to jump-start the stalled economy in one of the world’s most tourism-dependent regions.
Clear waters and warm sand attracted a record 31.5 million tourists to the Caribbean in 2019, but visits plummeted by an estimated 60% to 80% as the pandemic hit last year. That’s devastating for a region whose countries depend heavily on visitors for income.
“Many countries prefer hurricanes compared to what has happened with the pandemic,” said Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace, a former Bahamian tourism minister who also led the Caribbean Tourism Organization.
Tens of thousands of tourism-related jobs were lost, including those held by Nadia Kidd and her mother in Jamaica. Kidd, 31, was a waitress at a resort and her mother worked at a guest house. Kidd, like many other workers, has yet to receive her severance pay and now runs a tiny grocery store out of her home to support her mother and daughter.
“Everything is all on me,” said Kidd, who worked at the Meliá Braco Village resort in Trelawny. “I have loans to pay, light bill and internet (that I) have to pay because my daughter has to go to school online.”
The Caribbean saw COVID-19 levels rising in November, along with variants feared to be more contagious. More than 522,000 cases and more than 7,500 deaths have been reported in 35 of the region’s countries and territories.
“The rate of increase has been alarming,” said Dr. Joy St. John, executive director of the Trinidad-based Caribbean Public Health Agency.
The small nations adopted a variety of anti-virus measures, nearly all requiring visitors at a minimum to show recent negative tests upon arrival.
Cuba — the largest Caribbean nation and the only one working on its own vaccines — choked off arrivals after seeing infections surge. It requires visitors to stay in designated hotels and to take new tests upon landing.
International travelers to St. Kitts and Nevis must stay at certain hotels, and St. Eustatius requires visitors to register their reason for traveling before giving approval.
KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — Bunny Wailer, a reggae luminary who was the last surviving founding member of the legendary group The Wailers, died on Tuesday in his native Jamaica. He was 73.
Wailer, a baritone singer whose birth name is Neville Livingston, formed The Wailers in 1963 with late superstars Bob Marley and Peter Tosh when they lived in a slum in the capital of Kingston. They catapulted to international fame with the album, “Catch a Fire” and also helped popularize Rastafarian culture among better-off Jamaicans starting in the 1970s.
“Jah-B was a vanguard, always pushing the boundaries of expression, whether in song, in style or in spoken word,” said Brian Paul Welsh, a local reggae musician known as Blvk H3ro. “There was and can only ever be one Neville Livingston.”
Wailer died at Andrews Memorial Hospital in the Jamaican parish of St. Andrew of complications from a stroke in July, manager Maxine Stowe told The Associated Press.
His death was mourned worldwide as people shared music, memories and pictures of the renowned artist.
“The passing of Bunny Wailer, the last of the original Wailers, brings to a close the most vibrant period of Jamaica’s musical experience,” wrote Jamaica politician Peter Phillips in a Facebook post. “Bunny was a good, conscious Jamaican brethren.”
Jamaica’s Prime Minister, Andrew Holness, also paid tribute to Wailer, calling him “a respected elder statesman of the Jamaican music scene,” in a series of tweets.
“This is a great loss for Jamaica and for Reggae, undoubtedly Bunny Wailer will always be remembered for his sterling contribution to the music industry and Jamaica’s culture,” he wrote.
While Wailer toured the world, he was more at home in Jamaica’s mountains and he enjoyed farming while writing and recording songs on his label, Solomonic.
″I think I love the country actually a little bit more than the city,″ Wailer told The Associated Press in 1989. ″It has more to do with life, health and strength. The city takes that away sometimes. The country is good for meditation. It has fresh food and fresh atmosphere – that keeps you going.″
A year before, in 1988, he had chartered a jet and flew to Jamaica with food to help those affected by Hurricane Gilbert.
″Sometimes people pay less attention to those things (food), but they turn out to be the most important things. I am a farmer,″ he told the AP.
He was the third and last original Wailer. Marley died in 1981 of a brain tumor at 36 years old and Tosh was fatally shot in Jamaica in 1987 at 42 years old.
AP writer Dánica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico contributed.
MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) — Nicaraguan authorities said Tuesday the bodies of six people, apparently migrants, have been found in a small boat drifting off the Caribbean coast.
The Interior Ministry said a Republic of Guinea passport belonging to a 31-year-old man was found on one of the bodies. The passport had no Nicaraguan entry stamp in it.
The boat was found drifting about a mile (1 1/2 kilometers) out to sea Monday near Cayo Las Palomas.
The corpses were all too badly decomposed for immediate identification. The ministry said an initial examination indicates all those aboard apparently died of dehydration or heatstroke, and that they probably died about a month ago.
Migrants seeking to reach the United States have been trapped at Nicaragua’s southern border with Costa Rica, because the Nicaraguan government won’t allow them to cross Nicaragua. That led some to choose more dangerous water routes.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said Tuesday that officials have classified the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by former President Trump‘s supporters as domestic terrorism.
“That attack, that siege, was criminal behavior, plain and simple, and it’s behavior that we, the FBI, view as domestic terrorism,” Wray told lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Wray said the FBI has received more than 270,000 tips from Americans that have helped the bureau identify the numerous people who allegedly participated in the attack.
“Citizens from around the country have sent us more than 270,000 digital media tips. Some have even taken the painful step of turning in their friends or their family members,” he said.
But under questioning from lawmakers, Wray resisted pinning the Capitol breach on a single extremist ideology, saying the group of attackers “included a variety of backgrounds.”
“The attackers on Jan. 6 included a number — and the number keeps growing as we build out our investigations — of what we would call militia violent extremism. And we have had some already arrested who we would put in the category of racially motivated violent extremism, white as well. Those would be the categories so far that we’re seeing as far as Jan. 6.”
The FBI has arrested at least 280 people allegedly involved in the Capitol attack and have charged more than 300.
Wray also said the number of domestic terrorism cases investigated by the FBI has doubled during his tenure as FBI director, from about 1,000 cases in 2017 to 2,000 by the end of 2020.
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