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By Dean Moses

Sharon Harrison is unable to walk long distances, so having a vaccination site crop up around the corner from her East New York apartment on Saturday was essential.

COVID-19 infection rates have remained high in various zip codes in East New York and Canarsie, with many still in state-designated red and orange zones. In an attempt to serve those communities, makeshift vaccine hubs were erected for one week only starting March 4.

The community spaces have accommodated approximately 4,000 patients per day across the 12 sites, operated by the state’s COVID-19 Vaccine Equity Task Force.

On March 6 and 7, residents in Spring Creek Towers — formerly known as Starrett City — and others who live in the 11239 and 11207 zip codes, were invited to receive their vaccination at a pop-up hub at the Brooklyn Sports Club on Van Siclen Avenue. Within a two-day period, over 1,000 people were treated in the Spring Creek Towers site alone.

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Virus Cases Increase in Italy

Italy is seeing a steady rise in coronavirus infections but a national vaccination campaign and tougher restrictions mean numbers should start improving in late spring, the country’s health minister has said.

Infections in Italy, the first western country hit hard by the pandemic, rose by 10% last week compared with the week before, and officials have warned that the situation is deteriorating as highly contagious variants gain ground.

“The application of more rigorous measures and the progressive rise in the number of vaccinated people make us think that already in the second half of spring (contagion) numbers will be improving,” health minister Roberto Speranza told the daily la Repubblica in an interview.

He added that the coming weeks “would not be at all easy”.
The UK variant represented 54% of cases in the latest study by Italy’s Superior Health Institute, ISS, but the percentage was expected to be higher now, the minister added.

On Friday, the government imposed a nationwide lockdown over the Easter holidays and placed curbs on business and movement on most of Italy.

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US Over 100M Doses of Vaccine Administered

Dr. Fauci Warns of Possible New Virus Surge, Urges Trump Voters to Get Vaccinated

 

America’s top infectious disease expert warned that a new wave of COVID-19 infections could be on the way while urging former President Trump to tell his supporters to be vaccinated.

Speaking with Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday,” Anthony Fauci pointed to surges across the European Union and warned that Europe’s case trends tend to be a few weeks ahead of similar trends in the U.S.

Europe “always seem to be a few weeks ahead of us,” Fauci said, adding that it was “absolutely no time to declare victory” over the virus.

“They thought they were home free, and they weren’t, and now they are seeing cases going up,” he said of European health officials.

Asked by Wallace what could be done to combat vaccine skepticism in the U.S., particularly among Republicans, Fauci urged Trump to tell his supporters to get vaccinated.

“It would be very helpful for the effort for that to happen. I’m very surprised by the number of Republicans who say they won’t get vaccinated,” he said.

“I think it would make all the difference in the world” if Trump were to express support for vaccines, Fauci said. “He’s a widely popular person among Republicans.”

“I just don’t get it, Chris, why they don’t want to get vaccinated,” he added.

During a separate appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Fauci said it’s “disturbing” that Trump voters are choosing to not get vaccinated.

“We’ve got to dissociate political persuasion from commonsense, no-brainer public health things,” he said.

“[Vaccines have] rescued us from smallpox, from polio, from measles,” he added. “What is the problem here?”

His remarks come just days after a PBS poll found that nearly half of all Republican-aligned men said they would not get the COVID-19 vaccine, a result that has vexed health officials around the country seeking to drive down case rates.

More than 101 million doses of the vaccine have been administered in the U.S. so far, and in a national address last week, President Biden pledged that all American adults would be eligible to receive the vaccine by May 1.

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(CNN) — Anna was born with the right to dual citizenship, because she has a Japanese mother and American father. She spent her life traveling between both countries, and says she felt deeply connected to the two cultures.

But Japan requires those with multiple passports to pick one by the age of 22 — an impossible choice for Anna, who requested a pseudonym for privacy reasons.

“I’m mixed race, I’ve lived both in Japan and the US, I speak both languages, I am completely split down the middle in terms of my identity,” she said. “It’s like asking someone whether they love their mother or father more. It’s such a cruel question.”

The past few decades have seen people travel and live abroad more, with the number of international migrants — people who changed their country of residence for at least a year — tripling from 1970 to 2015, according to the International Organization for Migration.

At the same time, tolerance to dual citizenship has generally increased. In 1960, less than one-third of countries allowed citizens to acquire a second nationality, compared to three-quarters today, according to a 2019 paper by Maartin Vink, professor of political sociology of Maastricht University in the Netherlands.

Passports for purchase: Open citizenship doors around the world

Asia is an exception to that trend. It is the world’s most restrictive region in terms of dual citizenship, with only 65% of countries and territories permitting it, according to the Maastricht Center for Citizenship, Migration and Development. To put that in perspective, 91% do in the Americas, which rank as the most liberal.

And some Asian countries are tightening their immigration laws. Japan reinforced its strict stance in January when a court upheld the country’s ban against dual citizenship, rejecting a lawsuit filed by Japanese citizens living in Europe. Hong Kong took a harder line in February, barring dual citizens from receiving consular protection — a step never before taken in the Chinese city, where dual citizenship is not legally allowed but had been tolerated.

“Dual nationality is not recognized in the Chinese Nationality Law,” said Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam in February. “That is very clear. We are strictly enforcing or implementing that particular policy.”

There are a number of reasons why the region is so resistant toward dual citizenship, including histories of conflict and colonialism. But in some countries, critics say the ban on dual citizenship also reflects a tilt toward nationalism — and the desire to maintain a monoethnic, monocultural identity.

Loyalty and nationalism

In Asia Pacific, only a few places accept dual citizenship with no caveats, including Cambodia, East Timor, Australia, New Zealand and Fiji.

Most countries are against it, although some choose not to strictly enforce their policies, allowing people to keep multiple passports by simply not declaring them. Others allow dual citizenship in restricted forms: the Philippines permits it for those who were born Filipino citizens, but not for naturalized Filipinos. South Korea allows children born to its nationals abroad to hold the passport of both their birth country and their parents.

One reason why many Asian countries oppose dual nationality is a belief that it can create divided loyalties among citizens, said Jelena Dzankic, co-director of the Global Citizenship Observatory (GLOBALCIT), an international citizenship research network. “The reason why, historically and traditionally, countries have not been permissive of dual nationality is because, whom are you going to defend if the two of our countries go to war?” she said.

Japan drafted its current nationality laws shortly after World War II, when many Japanese Americans were put in internment camps in the US; other dual citizens renounced their loyalty to the Japanese Emperor for their own safety, said Atsushi Kondo, a law professor at Japan’s Meijo University.

In one famous case, a US-born Japanese-American dual citizen worked in Japan for a company that oversaw American prisoners of war. Upon his return to the US after the war, he was sentenced to death on treason charges. He was eventually pardoned and deported to Japan — but for decades afterward, Japanese lawmakers pointed to this case as an example of the conflicting obligations that came with dual nationality.

“In wartime, double citizenship showed disadvantage,” Kondo said. “But in peacetime, dual citizens have many advantages” – Including visa-free travel to more countries, greater international employment opportunities, potentially cheaper university education, and more. There are modern downsides, too — for instance, US dual citizens have to pay double taxation, but that’s not the case for most countries.

The international context has now changed, and Japan’s “beliefs are a little outdated,” he added — yet the government is reluctant to open up immigration laws and risk upsetting conservative voters.

China’s ban on dual nationality is also to ensure that its nationals are “only giving undivided loyalty to the government,” said Low Choo Chin, a history lecturer at the Universiti Sains Malaysia.

During the Cold War era, China’s efforts to normalize relations with neighboring countries and end international isolation were hampered because “overseas Chinese were associated with revolutionary activities” and Communist uprisings, Low wrote in a 2016 paper. So, the Communist government formulated the current nationality law in 1980 to resolve “diplomatic frictions” and to “end divided loyalty among the overseas Chinese.”

Under Chinese President Xi Jinping, the government has cracked down on dual citizens, encouraging the public to report people secretly holding two passports. Those caught can find their access to public services curtailed.

The crackdown is part of the government’s anti-corruption efforts against “dual nationals taking advantage of the grey areas in the law, and trying to evade legal sanctions with (their) foreign nationality status … fleeing abroad, transferring their assets,” said Low, pointing to estimates by the Chinese central bank that 18,000 corrupt officials may have fled the country with 800 billion yuan ($122 billion) between the mid-1990s and 2008.

The matter of citizenship was thrust to the fore during the Covid-19 pandemic. In the midst of a crisis that transcended national boundaries, governments were suddenly faced with questions like: Which citizens do we claim as our own? For whom are we responsible? Who do we protect?

Because China doesn’t recognize dual citizenship, many Chinese nationals were forbidden from evacuating back to their country of second citizenship — even if that was their place of birth or primary residency.

There were cases of families split apart; one British woman was told she could not evacuate with her 3-year-old son because he has a Chinese passport, even though he is also a British citizen with a British passport. In the face of international pressure, the government eventually relented.

Ethnicity and blood

The idea of loyalty to a single country and culture, particularly in East Asia, may also “imply the desire to maintain a cohesive ethnocultural identity,” said Dzankic, of GLOBALCIT. Several of the countries that don’t allow dual citizenship are also highly homogenous — for instance, 92% of China is Han Chinese, according to the CIA’s World Factbook.

And one of the easiest ways for a country to control its ethnic makeup is through the type of citizenship it chooses to recognize.

There are multiple ways of obtaining a first, or second, citizenship, including through marriage, adoption and naturalization. But the most common ways are birthright citizenship (jus soli) — meaning babies automatically gain citizenship of the country they are born in — and through parental descent (jus sanguinis), which sees children automatically gain the citizenship of their parents.

The world’s most powerful passports in the age of coronavirus

In Asia, the vast majority of countries today don’t recognize birthright citizenship, one of the quickest ways for ethnically foreign or minority populations to grow in a country.

Or if they do, it is so with certain conditions, according to GLOBALCIT. South Korea, for instance, only applies birthright citizenship for children whose parents are unknown or have no nationality — so if a child born on Korean soil has been abandoned, or its parents are stateless, it will receive Korean citizenship.

“A shift from jus soli to jus sanguinis has been witnessed in Asia in the course of the twentieth century,” wrote Olivier Vonk at the Maastricht Centre in a 2017 paper. Bangladesh, Indonesia, and India are among the countries that have transitioned to primarily recognizing citizenship by descent.

The type of citizenship recognized, and the rigidity of a country’s restrictions, influence how diverse or homogenous its population can be, said Kondo.

“South Korea was also a monoethnic country in the old days,” he said. “But they changed the policies, so they are more relaxed to double citizens now … And now they are considered multi-ethnic, or a multicultural country,” Kondo added.

South Korea liberalized its nationality law with sweeping amendments in 2010, which allowed permanent dual citizenship for its nationals for the first time (albeit under specific circumstances); dual citizens who fall outside those circumstances were given longer to choose; and a special naturalization path was created for talented individuals.

Birthright citizenship: Trump claims only the US grants it, he’s wrong

Japan remains strict in its nationality laws and is ethnically homogenous, said Kondo, though the government’s statistics don’t include an ethnic breakdown.

“Maybe ordinary Japanese (consider) ethnicity and citizenship as equal … Such a traditional feeling is strong in common Japanese,” he said. Even some current politicians believe Japan “should be a monoethnic country,” he said.

Even the term jus sanguinis, citizenship by descent, implies ethnicity, said Anna, who is now based in the UK and declined to disclose her current citizenship status. The Latin translation means “right of blood,” and Japanese citizenship is built on this idea — so “the idea of blood is very strong in their understanding of citizenship.”

If a naturalized Japanese citizen who isn’t ethnically Japanese gives birth, that child would automatically become a Japanese citizen — but social attitudes and norms continue to draw lines around ethnicity, she said. There continues to be bullying in schools and a sense of social exclusion for biracial or mixed-race Japanese.

“It is this thought of blood purity … which is why even though I have Japanese citizenship, I’m not accepted as Japanese citizen in most cases because I’m not ‘purely’ Japanese as they would say … because I don’t look like them,” she said. “A lot of it is xenophobia. A lot of it is racism.”

Looking forward

The recent moves in China, Japan and Hong Kong suggest parts of Asia are moving further away from dual citizenship even as other parts of the world embrace it. Malawi, which had previously banned dual citizenship, amended its laws to allow it in 2019. Russia and Norway followed suit in 2020.

In Hong Kong, the future of dual citizenship is unclear. Though the government has insisted that it is taking a harder line in enforcement, it hasn’t provided information on what measures will be taken or how the city’s thousands of dual citizens will be affected.

Naomi Osaka to choose Japan nationality for Tokyo Olympics

“Maybe 70% of my friends have another passport,” said Janice Tam, a Hong Konger who also holds a British passport. She isn’t particularly worried about the government’s recent rhetoric — but “it depends on whether they force you to select one,” she said. “What is the consequence of that? If you’ve chosen your foreign passport, what do you still get if you stay in Hong Kong?”

Ella Wong, who holds Canadian and Hong Kong passports, is also “optimistic” that dual citizens might not be affected in their daily life. Her only concern is if Hong Kong continues to change its immigration laws to be similar to mainland China — or adopt mainland laws altogether.

“With the Hong Kong passport, you don’t know what it’s going to evolve into,” she said. “Could it become a Chinese passport, and then what does that mean in terms of travel and work and living?”

More broadly across Asia, most countries are unlikely to liberalize their laws anytime soon, said Low. The West “prioritizes liberalism, individual rights to (dual) nationality,” she said. “(But) in many Asian constitutions, access to citizenship is very tough for migrant communities because governments believe that the right to nationality is a privilege, not a right. In this context, it’s quite difficult to imagine that Asian governments would allow dual citizenship.”

Yet, experts and dual citizens remain hopeful that change will inevitably come as global migration grows. It takes time, said Vink, the Maastricht University professor.

And though they remain a minority, a few Asian countries have introduced new rules allowing for more flexible citizenship arrangements. India, for instance, created a new category of permanent residency in 2005 that allowed people of Indian descent to live and work in the country.

It’s still not dual citizenship — but it marked “a way of acknowledging the realities of a globalizing world and adapting to them step by step,” Dzankic said. “Even though countries are generally restrictive of dual citizenship, one could wonder whether those intermediate statuses could be a step or a move towards a more permissive policy.”

“I hope that the world will change,” she added. “What I think is essential or what will be important is a move towards dual nationality, not as a mechanism of being related to the state, but also as a mechanism for protecting individuals — for granting them greater life opportunities in the future.”

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CHARLESTOWN, Nevis — The Ministry of Tourism, in its continued efforts to enhance the tourism product on Nevis, will host a Night Market at the Artisan Village on Saturday April 24 from 6 p.m. as part of its month of activities.

Artisan vendors are invited to register with the Ministry of Tourism to take part in this event. Registration deadline is April 19, registration is free.

For further information, contact the Ministry of Tourism at 469-5521 ext. 6448/ 6449/6442.

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BASSETERRE, St. Kitts — Notice has been given for a sitting of the National Assembly to be held at the National Assembly Chambers, Government Headquarters, Basseterre, on Thursday, March 18, at 10:00 a.m. The Order Paper and other papers will be disseminated later.

The National Assembly will be broadcast live on ZIZ Radio (96 FM) and participating radio stations. It can also be viewed live on TV Channel 5 in St. Kitts and Channel 98 in Nevis. It will also be streamed live at www.zizonline.com.

Copies of Bills can be found on the website, www.sknis.gov.kn of St. Kitts and Nevis Information Service under the section: Bills.

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It has been one year since the first cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) began popping up in the Caribbean. Since then, more than 554,542 infections were record and at least 7,905 people have died.

Close to 200,000 infections are active.

Most countries were economies all but collapsed, as their main income earner tourism was no longer available. These countries were also recovering from the impact of hurricanes from previous years and had to weather an overactive season in 2020.

Now there’s a fight on to get life saving vaccines. To this end the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has announced a first-of-its kind initiative that would help Latin American and Caribbean countries better compete to obtain COVID-19 vaccines.

In a statement it says the instrument would help both countries and vaccine makers resolve indemnity obligations, thereby removing a key obstacle to vaccine contract negotiations.

The initiative also aims to help design and implement regulatory reforms that facilitate the acquisition and distribution of vaccines. The IDB is the first multilateral development bank to offer such an instrument to its clients.

Until now, governments in many countries have found it challenging to purchase vaccines while simultaneously figuring out how to satisfy pharmaceutical company concerns about the potential cost of liabilities related to the widespread use of new COVID-19 vaccines.

Today’s announcement is an attempt to empower developing nations in their vaccine discussions and provide them with a unique guarantee instrument aimed at improving the terms and conditions on which vaccines are delivered.

The IDB will complement these efforts with the private sector and seek to collaborate through the work of IDB Invest and IDB Lab.

“Make no mistake about it, the ability to receive and distribute vaccines is a race that will largely determine the economic and social future of countries around the world. Countries in Latin America and the Caribbean must receive the support needed to obtain vaccines that are critical to kickstarting economies in the Americas,” said IDB president Mauricio Claver-Carone.

Concerns over how to reduce the potential cost of liabilities have been a stumbling block for too long for countries desperate to obtain vaccines, end the pandemic and reverse the brutal unemployment and poverty setbacks caused by COVID-19.

This new initiative has the potential to change the reality of many countries and improve access to vaccines, accelerate a recovery for the region, and mitigate risks for pharmaceutical companies that want to do business in Latin America and the Caribbean.

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