US Senator Mitch McConnell (L) and new Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer

The leaders in the Senate are switching places amid questions over whether their tepid relationship will change as Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) becomes majority leader and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) becomes minority leader.

The two have as icy a relationship as there is in Washington, and few observers would predict a warming trend. Asked about the relationship, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said Wednesday it has nowhere to go but up.

“It will go up,” he quipped.

Other senators are expressing hope that the Senate will become more functional under President Biden, who served 36 years in the upper chamber before becoming Barack Obama’s vice president.

“Everything is possible. You know, we have, we have administrations come and go, sometimes every four years, sometimes every eight years, and we can work with Democratic administrations and vice versa,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), a key centrist, said Wednesday.

McConnell regularly shut Schumer out of planning the Senate agenda in recent years. Most notably, he declined to negotiate a bipartisan organizing resolution for former President Trump’s first impeachment trial in the first months of 2020, a striking difference from the bipartisan resolution that passed unanimously before President Clinton’s 1999 impeachment trial.

For months last year, McConnell refused to meet with Schumer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), when Democrats were pushing for a multitrillion-dollar COVID-19 relief bill.

Broadly speaking, both men are villains for one of the  political parties. Democrats are angry at McConnell for blocking Obama’s final nominee to the Supreme Court in 2016 for months, only to quickly confirm President Trump’s nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death in the fall.

McConnell and Schumer have served in the Senate together since 1999, when Schumer came to the upper chamber from the House.

A low point in their relationship came in 2008 when Schumer, who was then the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), used McConnell’s support for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which critics dubbed a Wall Street bailout, against him in his 2008 reelection race.

McConnell felt Schumer, who represents New York’s financial services industry, acted in bad faith by asking for Republican support to keep banks solvent and then allowing the DSCC to blast McConnell for his vote.

The first order of business for Schumer and McConnell is to negotiate an organizing resolution to set the ratio of seats on Senate committees and divide committee resources, something likely to be difficult given the relationship between the two men.

Schumer can’t add new Democratic members to committees without such an agreement, and on some panels Republicans would continue to have more members than Democrats.

For example, there are 12 Republicans and only nine Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee after Kamala Harris was sworn in as vice president on Wednesday. Those numbers were set by the organizing resolution of the last Congress.

Durbin, the incoming chairman of the Judiciary panel, said Wednesday it’s not clear if he could advance Merrick Garland, Biden’s nominee for attorney general, without a new resolution. Garland is also the man Obama nominated to the Supreme Court who was blocked by McConnell and the Senate GOP.

A Republican aide said nominees can be moved through committee right now by obtaining unanimous consent from a panel’s entire membership. But that higher bar could slow the processing of Biden’s picks significantly.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a potential candidate for the White House in 2024, announced Tuesday he would put a hold on Alejandro Mayorkas, Biden’s choice to head the Homeland Security Department.

McConnell this week raised the stakes of the organizing resolution by telling GOP colleagues that he would insist it include a deal to protect the legislative filibuster, which some Democrats want to eliminate to make it easier to pass Biden’s agenda.

“I believe we need to also address the threats to the legislative filibuster,” McConnell wrote in a note to GOP senators.

“Having an equally divided Senate means that we have to work together to get anything done and the spirit of true bipartisan compromise is possible only when each side realizes they must come to the table together,” he wrote.

That demand will likely delay a deal on the organizing resolution until next week, according to Senate aides.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), another key centrist, said Wednesday she supports McConnell’s effort to settle questions about keeping the legislative filibuster as part of the organizing resolution.

She noted that 61 senators, including Harris, signed a letter in April 2017 pledging support for preserving “the ability of members to engage in extended debate when bills are on the Senate floor.”

Schumer and McConnell also need to negotiate an agreement laying out the schedule and procedures for Trump’s second impeachment trial. Democrats hope to conduct the trial swiftly so that it doesn’t hold up Biden’s agenda and nominees. But limiting the amount of floor time sucked up by a trial will depend on GOP cooperation.

Republicans would need to agree unanimously to allow nominees to receive votes before the trial convenes each day at noon.

Schumer could try to pass a partisan impeachment resolution solely with 50 Democratic votes and Harris casting the tie-breaker — but he criticized McConnell harshly last year for passing an organizing resolution for Trump’s first trial without Democratic support.

He slammed McConnell’s resolution as “completely partisan” and complained “it was kept secret until the very eve of the trial” because it was “designed by President Trump for President Trump” and asked “the Senate to rush through as fast as possible

Schumer acknowledged Tuesday he will need substantial cooperation from McConnell and other GOP senators to get through a mountain of work in the next few weeks.

“Rarely — rarely — has so much piled up for the Senate as during this particular transition,” he said.

A new ingredient in the relationship is McConnell’s signals that he might vote to convict Trump in an impeachment trial. The GOP leader hasn’t ruled out a vote to convict, and if he did so it would carry heavy weight with his conference.

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BASSETERRE, St. Kitts — St. Kitts and Nevis’ Chief Medical Officer Dr. Hazel Laws has called on residents to be vigilant in eliminating any possible sources of water that can facilitate mosquito breeding.

“The call is made even more urgent at this time,” said Dr. Laws. “Several neighbouring islands have reported rising cases of dengue fever among the population. Some have recorded multiple fatalities from the tropical disease.

“We have a very robust vector control programme,” said Dr. Laws during the January 20 National Emergency Operations Centre COVID-19 Briefing. “We have done well in staving off a dengue outbreak last year. When a number of neighbouring islands had outbreaks, we were free of dengue, even at present. Our borders have been opened since October 31, 2020, and we have not had any dengue cases.”

Dr. Laws said vector control officers employed by the government will remain active in communities throughout the Federation. They continue to ensure that potential breeding areas are identified and eliminated.

“The responsibility is on each and every one of us,” Dr. Laws added. “It’s not the Ministry of Health alone. We all have a responsibility to walk around our houses on the inside, our verandas, porches, our space. Make sure there aren’t any containers with water breeding mosquitoes. You need to empty all of those containers. Make sure that they are clean and that action alone will prevent an outbreak here in the Federation.”

Mosquitoes lay their eggs directly into stagnant water or near bodies of water. Common items around the household and workplace that can facilitate mosquito breeding include plastic containers, vases, flowerpot plates, buckets, uncovered garbage bins, drums/barrels, and car tyres.

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CHARLESTOWN, Nevis — Hotels, restaurants and supermarkets are being urged by Hon. Mark Brantley, Premier of Nevis, to purchase food from local farmers and producers.

During his address at the Nevis Ministry of Agriculture’s annual planning symposium, Agenda 2021, Hon. Brantley recognized Hotelier Richard Lupinacci, proprietor of The Hermitage Inn in Nevis as a friend of local agriculture, commending his business for utilizing local products on their menu. The Premier called on other businesses to emulate this practice.

“We need a renaissance in terms of our thinking, and our approach to ensure that our people support our local farmers,” said Brantley. “This will ensure that farmers do not have the problem that they have complained about of producing and then having their food rot because they have no market.

“My government is very serious about talking to our hotels, restaurants, and supermarkets and saying to them that if product is available locally, that must get first preference.

“I think it’s a very simple thing that the big hotels must follow the example of The Hermitage Inn,” he said. “People coming to visit us and vacation with us would like to taste what we have available on the island – local product; because it is superior in quality.”

Brantley stressed the need for these businesses and the general public to buy local food to support local growers and producers and help keep the economy afloat.

“Our farming community and our farmers are looking to farming as a livelihood,” said Brantley. “They need to feed their families and send their children to school. The only way they can do that is if we as a people buy their produce, and it irks me, I confess, when I see substandard produce in supermarkets being sold ahead of our locally produced fruits and vegetables.”

Brantley said he hopes that in his lifetime the people of Nevis get to a point where they would substitute most of the food items being imported and start buying and eating local produce.

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BASSETERRE, St. Kitts — Health authorities in St. Kitts and Nevis are noting a gradual increase in persons exhibiting flu-like symptoms. Chief Medical Officer Dr. Hazel Laws said that this is common as the country is in the midst of the influenza season that typically runs from October to April.

“We want to reassure the public there is no need to get fearful or be alarmed that they have COVID,” explained Dr. Laws, during the January 20 National Emergency Operations Centre COVID-19 Briefing. “Remember that we are in the middle of the influenza season and so my recommendation to you is if you are experiencing the symptoms of the flu, make contact with your regular physician.”
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CHARLESTOWN, Nevis — A programme of efficiency to ensure timeliness in its assessment approval process will be implemented in 2021 according to Deora Pemberton, Director of the Department of Physical Planning and Environment in the Nevis Island Administration.

“The Department of Physical Planning and Environment plays a critical role in our national development,” said Pemberton, who was appointed to head the department in September 2020. “We are engaged in an efficiency programme to guide sustainable physical development. This is a key factor to sustainable economic and financial prosperity for Nevis and all Nevisians. We aim to undertake our duties diligently and professionally to ensure timeliness in our assessment approval process.”

Pemberton outlined key areas in which the Department hopes to make headway during the year, including legislation for governing protected areas on Nevis.

“This legislation aims to sustainably manage the natural resources and rich biodiversity by protecting its forest, inland waters, coastal and marine areas,” said Pemberton. “Under this legislation, any building development above the 1,000 feet contour is prohibited, expectation applies for existing communities.

“Other development activities such as agriculture, animal husbandry and recreation are stringently managed for sensitive areas of the Camps River watershed, Boggs and other environmentally sensitive areas,” said Pemberton.

He also spoke of plans to revise and obtain Cabinet’s approval for the Nevis Physical Development Plan.

“This important planning document provides a vision for the future of Nevis, the foundation for sustainable development and land use policies for the next 25 years and beyond,” said Pemberton. “Pressing environmental concerns, economic opportunities, the need to improve quality of life and, both current and future challenges are all matters to be addressed.

“The policies set out in this development plan aim to provide for economic growth, but not at the expense of our environment and culture,” he said. “It is imperative to note that the future decisions though important, may be difficult but having a strong land use policy document will greatly assist in the decision-making process.”

The department will also conduct training sessions with various sectors including service providers, architects, plumbers and contractors.

They will also increase public awareness of planning laws, regulations and procedures,” concluded Pemberton. “Their proper implementation will benefit the public and private sectors in their development activities. To this end, the department hopes to see an increase in compliance and collaboration.”

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BASSETERRE, St. Kitts — St. Kitts and Nevis participated in the January 19 virtual session of the Third Universal Periodic Review (UPR) at the 37th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), based in Geneva.

Ms. Kaye Bass, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, head of the delegation, introduced St. Kitts and Nevis’ National Report and highlighted, inter alia, St Kitts and Nevis’ response to Covid19.

In her intervention during the interactive dialogue, Ms. Bass highlighted human rights-related initiatives the government has undertaken within the last four-and-a-half-years on social protection, gender empowerment, education, health, and its fulfilment to obligations under Human Rights Instruments which it has ratified.

At the end of the review, St. Kitts and Nevis received recommendations from 63 UN Member states which will be considered.

“The timely submission and content of our current National Report and our participation in this important review, reiterate St Kitts and Nevis’ commitment not only to this process but to human rights in general,” said Mrs. Bass.

“This is evidenced by St. Kitts and Nevis’s diligent efforts and subsequent success in implementing more than half of the recommendations of its previous review,” she said. “This is a significant achievement for the smallest country in the Western Hemisphere and considering the ongoing exogenous and economic challenges it continues to face.”

This unique UPR process involves a periodic review of the human rights records of all 193 UN Member States. It began in April 2008 to 2011 (First Cycle) followed by another from 2011-2016 (2nd Cycle). At each successive cycle, states are expected to highlight the steps they have taken to implement recommendations supported during their previous reviews, as well as to highlight recent human rights developments in the country.

Other members of the delegation included: Ms. Janelle Lewis, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Community Development, Gender Affairs and Social Services; Ms. Asha DeSuza, Second Secretary at the Permanent Mission of St. Kitts and Nevis to the UN; Mr. Sheldon Henry, and Mrs. Natasha Burt, Foreign Service Officers.

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Adam Stewart, the son of late Jamaican tourism pioneer and businessman Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart, has succeeded his father as executive chairman of Sandals Resorts International.

He assumes the role after working alongside his father for more than two decades, during which time he served as chief executive officer and most recently deputy chairman.

Stewart, who becomes just the second chairman in the company’s 40-year history, said he was committed to honouring his father’s legacy of innovation.

“Some people are dreamers, and some are doers; my dad was the magical combination of both. He was fiercely passionate about offering a product that would exceed expectations, and we are incredibly honoured to continue his pursuit of innovation, raising the bar, and creating landmark moments for our valued guests,” said Stewart.

Sandals Resorts International has plans to extend throughout the Caribbean, including the recent announcement of two new island resort destinations – the future Sandals Curaçao and Beaches Resorts in St. Vincent.

Stewart also assumes Executive Chairmanship of the Jamaica-based ATL Group, one of the largest private-sector groups in the Caribbean.

“My father’s shoes are impossible to fill, but we will follow in his ground-breaking footsteps to continue the important work we all set out to do together. As a company and as a team, we are poised for the future. We are already leading the industry in recovering from the greatest setback in the history of travel. We will continue to lead not just by saying, but by doing. And at the heart of it all, we are solely focused on what we do best: delighting our guests,” he concluded.

Stewart will also continue to serve as President of the Sandals Foundation which he launched in 2009, with a mission to lift communities through education, healthcare, and environmental protection.

He has been recognized by several organizations for his leadership in the travel industry and his substantial contributions to the destinations where Sandals Resorts International operates. In 2016, he was bestowed the national honour of the Order of Distinction, Commander Class by the Government of Jamaica for outstanding contribution to tourism.

CMC

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Cuba is aiming to vaccinate its population this year with its own vaccine, which would be the first developed in Latin America.

The country claims it can make 100 million doses of Soberana 2, its most advanced vaccine candidate, in 2021.

“If all goes well, this year the entire Cuban population will be vaccinated,” said Dr Vicente Vérez, director of the Finlay Vaccination Institute.

Cuba has got off relatively lightly compared to many of its neighbours so far in the pandemic, with 19,122 cases and 180 deaths confirmed by the government.

This week Soberana 2 moved onto phase two testing, involving 900 volunteers, and if successful will move onto phase III with 150,000 volunteers in March.

Dr Vérez said the aim was to launch a vaccination campaign in the first half of the year, and it could also be offered as an “option” to tourists.

Cuba “was the first candidate in Latin America and the Caribbean to have a vaccine in the clinical phase,” said José Moya, local representative of the World Health Organization (WHO), who is “optimistic”.

The reason for his optimism is that “Cuba has more than 30 years’ experience in producing its own vaccines and almost 80% of the vaccines in the national immunisation programme are produced in the country.

Under a US embargo since 1962, Cuba has often had to find its own remedies.

As early as the 1980s, it relied on biotechnologies, discovering in particular the first vaccine against meningococcus B,” says Nils Graber, a researcher in health anthropology at the University of Lausanne.

“The aim was both to improve the national health system and to be exported,” he added, citing the shipment of Cuban treatments to Latin America, Asia and Africa.

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(CNN) Local and federal officials in Brazil were warned of looming oxygen shortages nearly a week before crisis struck in the city of Manaus, the country’s Solicitor General has revealed.

In a country already hard-hit by the coronavirus, oxygen shortages and soaring Covid-19 cases have pushed Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state, into a healthcare crisis. Nurses in the city have been quoted in local news reports as saying patients have died of asphyxiation in the city’s hospitals because there is no oxygen to give them. Some relief has come from Venezuela.

SAO PAULO (AP) — Five trucks carrying oxygen from Venezuela arrived at Manaus, a city of 2 million people in the Brazilian rainforest where the local health system has collapsed amid a devastating second wave of COVID-19 and a severe shortage of oxygen for breathless patients.

Venezuela’s consul in Manaus, Patricia Silva, said the trucks delivered 132,000 liters of oxygen late Tuesday. They came from the state of Bolivar in southern Venezuela and travelled more than 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) to Manaus, the capital of Brazil’s Amazonas state.

“We, as the Bolivarian government, defend our principles of cooperation and solidarity. Solidarity among peoples will save us, especially in this terrible pandemic,” Silva told journalists in Manaus.

The Brazilian government has come under sharp criticism over its handling of the crisis. Last week, Supreme Court judge Ricardo Lewandowski ordered the government to present a response plan to solve the oxygen shortage, citing the Jair Bolsonaro administration’s “omissive behavior” in addressing the emergency.

On Sunday, Bolsonaro’s Solicitor General José Levi do Amaral sent a 16-page report defending the government’s response to the court. The report discloses that the federal health ministry knew about the crisis six days before the situation became critical on January 14.

It also stresses that the local government in Amazonas did not inform federal authorities about the looming oxygen shortage. “The Health Ministry…became aware on (January) 8th through an e-mail sent by the product manufacturer,” the report states. The provider, named in the report as White Martins, first notified the Amazonas State government, and then federal authorities, the report says.

It is not clear why notifying the federal government of oxygen shortages was allegedly left to a private contractor. According to the Solicitor General’s report, the Manaus health department had been aware that the city’s health system was on the verge of collapse since early January.

Manaus City officials did not respond to a request for comment from CNN.

An Amazonas’ state government spokesperson told CNN they would provide “clarifications” to the Prosecutor General’s office, and added that the state continues to work to mitigate the crisis, including, “the transport of oxygen from other states to Manaus, the installation of mini oxygen in hospitals, the transfer of patients for assistance in other states and the requisition of all production from local oxygen suppliers.”

Brazil’s General Prosecutor Augusto Aras has ordered the Health Ministry to open a probe into the collapse of Manaus’ health system, in addition to a separate investigation examining potential negligence by state and city officials.

But the Solicitor General’s report raises questions about why the federal Health Ministry was not able to help prevent the collapse of Manaus’ healthcare system, after it received advance notice. Officials from the Ministry traveled to Manaus in the beginning of January, and Pazuello personally visited the city from January 11 to January 13.

Disaster struck the city’s hospitals the next day. On January 14, Amazonas state officials announced that Manaus hospitals and emergency rooms faced crippling shortages of oxygen, amid soaring Covid-19 cases. “We are facing a lot of difficulty in getting medical supplies. And as everyone is following, our main difficulty now has been getting oxygen,” Governor Wilson Lima told reporters.

Though the Brazilian air force responded by delivering emergency supplies of liquid and gaseous oxygen, shortages continue. Logistical problems have compounded the crisis, as Manaus’ supplies mainly enter the city via the Amazon River. There is only highway out of the city, which connects it to the neighboring state of Amapá.

Health Minister Eduardo Pazuello has defended his agency’s response. “We took action immediately,” he said at a press briefing in Brasilia on Monday. “There was no indication of lack of oxygen from our meetings in early January. The rise of the cases was very fast,” he said.

“When we [visited Manaus] on [January] 4, the problem was not oxygen. The problem was bed structure, the number of Covid-19 patients, the queues,” Pazuello also said.

Bolsonaro’s appointment of Pazuello, a former military commander, to lead the Health Ministry, have been heavily criticized by opponent as Brazil’s Covid-19 death toll remains second highest in the world, behind only that of the United States.

Bolsonaro himself rejected any responsibility for the city’s lethal crisis. “There is a problem in Manaus … We mourn the deaths from asphyxiation, from lack of oxygen, and people blame the government. We have allocated billions to the states, but those responsible for the lack of medication are the state and municipal health secretaries,” he told supporters on Monday.

His statement followed Vice President Hamilton Mourão’s claim last week that no one could have foreseen the city’s health system collapse.

“You cannot predict what would happen with this (virus) strain that is occurring in Manaus. Totally different from what had happened in the first half,” Mourão said

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