U.S.: From the front page of Al Muhajiroun

How the Islamists envision the White House. Explore the page and discover this little treat in store for you.

"AQD UL AMAAN: THE COVENANT OF SECURITY
The Muslims living in the west are living under a covenant of security, it is not allowed for them to fight anyone with whom they have a covenant of security, abiding by the covenant of security is an important obligation upon all Muslims. However for those Muslims living abroad, they are not under any covenant with the kuffar in the west, so it is acceptable for them to attack the non-muslims in the west whether in retaliation for constant bombing and murder taking place all over the Muslim world at the hands of the non-muslims, or if it an offensive attack in order to release the Muslims from the captivity of the kuffar. For them, attacks such as the September 11th Hijackings is a viable option in Jihad, even though for the Muslims living in America who are under covenant, it is not allowed to do operations similar to those done by the magnificent 19 on the 9/11. This article speaks about the covenant and what the scholars have said regarding Al Aqd Al Amaan - the covenant of security."

Go check out both sites to discover the glories that await the conquered.

Thanks be to Allah for the link.

U.S.: Bush to terror masters, "Dismantle the nukes or else."

Dag, I love this cowboy!

NewsMax has learned from a senior State Dept. official that President Bush has, Alamo-style, drawn a line in the sand with Iran and its nuclear weapons programs.

Bush warning: either they dismantle their nuclear weapons program or else.

Read the rest of the story yourself.

U.S.: Al Qaeda's lays out the terms for Spain's surrender

Fox News has just reported on an Al Qaeda tape which claims that the bombing was retaliation for Spain's support of the U.S. in the war on terror.

If the report of the Al Qaeda tape affects the outcome of Spain's election tomorrow, the voters will be signalling to Islamofascists that Spaniards are pacifistic cowards who can be manipulated with a few well placed bombs. Such a blatant act of submission will not cause the terrorists to leave Spain alone. Instead, it will pave the way for the second step, the further bombing of Spain to bring it under Islam.

A declaration of war cannot be met with pleas for peace. Peace can only be declared when victory is won and the enemy knows, accepts, and declares that he has been defeated. When those who are attacked cry "peace," they signal their unwillingness to fight and, thus, their weakness.

Today, millions of Spaniards sent a loud and clear signal to the Islamofascists that Spain is unwilling to fight. In response, Al Qaeda, which is the tip of the Islamic sword against the West, demanded a further sign of submission — the elections must not go to Jose Maria Aznar's party.

Tomorrow will teach us if Spain will turn its grief into strongest armor against which the Islamic sword will break, or whether Spain will surrender and so let loose the Islamofascist dogs to wreak havoc on the rest of Europe.

In this war there is no neutral ground. That is something the Europeans seem unwilling to learn. The Islamofascists recognize no boundaries, no rights of national sovereignty, no rights of the attacked to defend themselves. All they recognize is their own sense of the rightness of their cause; their own ideology-driven right to impose Islam on the rest of the world and so return it to 7th century barbarism.

For those of us who do not wish to live under a barbarous and alien ideology, there can be no surrender, no other path but war. They started it; we will end it.

U.S.: Surrender cannot be an option

Let's hope that all those peace and Aznar's to blame signs, that I've just seen on Fox News, belong only to a minority. If it is not, then Spain has surrendered and will certify that surrender at the polls tomorrow.

The Dutch have already folded without a bomb being exploded on their soil. It seems that the Dutch desire dhimmitude more than freedom.

The war against Islamic terrorism is not for the faint of heart. The Islamists are seeking to impose their vile ideology on the entire world, and they will do so via the modern version of the Islamic sword, which is bombs and terror. Whether or not a nation joins the war against terror will not insulate it against attack by Islamists. These nations who will not fight are only buying for themselves a brief delay in their murders. For, surely, the day will come when citizens of Europe, whose people include the Netherlands and Spain, if its people fold now, will be forced to make a choice under the threat of a bomb in the hand of some Islamist nut. That choice will be the same as Islamists historically have confronted nations with: convert, accept dhimmitude and pay jizyah, or die.

What Spain does at the polls tomorrow determines whether its citizens will ever be presented with that choice.

Breaking news. Via Instapundit, Spain announces five arrests which includes three Moroccans and two Indians.

Hti: Marines taking care of business

U.S. Marines said on Saturday they killed two more gunmen after coming under fire in Haiti, bringing to six the number of people killed by U.S. forces struggling to restore order in the Caribbean nation after a revolt ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Marine Staff Sgt. Tim Edwards said Marines patrolling on foot and in armored vehicles near the National Palace in downtown Port-au-Prince were fired upon by several gunmen Friday night.

"The Marines returned fire and two gunmen were killed. There were no Marine casualties," Edwards said.

Read the rest for yourself.

Hti: Duped, not kidnapped

PM Patterson, Caricom, are you guys listening?

As Jean-Bertrand Aristide prepared to depart this destitute African capital for exile in Jamaica on Sunday, he charged in an interview that the United States had effectively duped him into leaving Haiti and his presidency on his final night in office last month.

The accusation of deception added a new layer to his longstanding complaint, lodged on his arrival here 13 days ago, that he had been the victim of an American-led "political kidnapping."

But it did little to clear up the question of whether Mr. Aristide willingly fled Haiti that morning, as the United States insists, or whether he was forced into exile against his will, as he implied.

Michael Wines, the author of the piece, is wrong that this statement of Aristide does not clear up whether he left willinglly or was kidnapped. If someone tells you something — truth or lie — and you act on it, you cannot blame your action on the party who told you the thing. After all, you have choice. Aristide could have chosen to stay when the U.S. spoke with him; he did not. The issue now is whether the U.S. lied to Aristide when they told him that they'd not protect him and his paid bodyguards. If Aristide left because he would be without protection, then he wasn't even duped. He was told the truth and made the best choice based on the truth he was given. If Aristide was lied to (duped) and decided to leave based on the lie, then he is still responsible for the choice he made because lying to or duping a person is not synonymous with kidnapping him. Either way, Caricom should withdraw its absurd U.N. request for an inquiry.

Aristide, Randall Robinson, the CBC have suckered you guys in the Caribbean who are dazzled by the blackness of these politicians. When a man's own friends leave him because they can't trust him, that should send a clear signal that he's radioactive. Aristide himself has begun to unravel his own kidnap lie. What's the next stage? Only Aristide knows.

I'm holding to my theory that Bangui asked Aristide to find someplace else to go because they were tired of his anti-U.S. lies. Jamaica, it's your turn. Here's hoping you can live with it.

Spain: Never surrender, never give up!

Spain is angry, too. That's a good thing.

More than 8,000,000 people marched in protest against terrorism in Spain.

Pictures compliments of Power Line and Tim Blair.

Go check out either blog for more images.

Ja: Aristide's security chief arrested in Canada

Canadian authorities have arrested Oriel Jean, the security chief to ousted Haitian leader Jean Bertrand Aristide, after he flew in from the Dominican Republic, an immigration official said yesterday.
...
The Sun said that Jean was in a holding cell after being detained while travelling with his wife, carrying 17,000 dollars in cash and a cheque for about 300,000 dollars.

Since when did Canada begin interdicting war criminals? Amazing how a security chief of a seriously poor country has all this money, eh? I wonder if it was in a condition comparable to the stash found in Aristide's house?

Ja: Patterson's seeing the thing in broad daylight

So why does he want to wait to light candle in the night? Yet, that is precisely what PM Patterson is about. He knows that Aristide will cause problems, yet that will not cause Patterson to withdraw his invite to Aristide. Patterson seems to be depending on the goodwill that Aristide lacks. I suspect that the government of Bangui must have politely asked Aristide to leave because he would not shut up. Thus, because of his wild accusations of being kidnapped by the U.S. and his indifference to the political concerns of his host, he proved to be an embarrassment to Bangui.

Jamaica has warned ousted Haitian president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, that he won't be allowed to use Jamaica as a "launching pad" to regain power in his country.

But the government's decision to host Aristide for up to 10 weeks has raised concerns in Port-au-Prince and appeared yesterday to place in the balance a visit to Kingston by Haiti's interim prime minister, Gerard Latortue, to lobby for his government's recognition by the Caribbean Community (Caricom).
...
Aristide would be able to communicate freely, Knight said, "so long as this is not an attempt to use Jamaica as a launching pad for his desired reinstatement".
...
At the same time, Patterson signalled Jamaica's and Caricom's acceptance of the changed situation on the ground in Haiti, referring to Aristide as the former president, acknowledging that a new president had been sworn-in and that Latortue was a man who commanded respect.

Caricom's insistence on taking Aristide's absurd claims to the UN will prove to be their undoing because Aristide will milk them for all they're worth. However, there are signs that Caricom will jettison the unstable Aristide for Latortue, the new Haitian prime minister.

Bhms: The loss of the vision thing

"I believe that in the beginning, [Aristide] did have the interest of the Haitian people and he was certainly sincere, but he lost his vision, he became corrupted by the system and then he lost contact with the base," he said.

It's a good article. Read the rest of it.

Dca: Productive squatters

Marpin TV reported that farmers who are squatting on land in Woodford Hill and who have been issued with eviction notices, have produced 180 tons of bananas, bringing in around EC$600,000. It was reported that the land is a possible tourism development. Source: Marpin TV News

Does this mean that the farmers will now have squatters' rights?

PR: Brrrrrrrr!! The island's freezing!

Nine days short of the end of the winter season the National Weather Service’s San Juan Director, Israel Matos, said they have recorded temperatures as low as 44 degrees fahrenheit.

Who knew Puerto Rico got this cold?!

St. Kts: Shooting spree sparks call for PM's resignation

The Prime Minister must understand that he has an obligation to the nation to ensure that its citizens live in an environment that is safe and void of fear.  The Prime Minister is supposed to provide the strong leadership that is required in times of crisis situations.  Instead we have a Prime Minister who is totally unconcerned about the increasing crime and its effects on our society.  It is no surprise that the Prime Minister cannot remove the monster that he created in 1993.  Therefore, with no solution in sight from the labour government, the Prime Minister must resign.

Douglas and the labour party sowed the seeds of violence in 1993.  The murder of Billy Herbert and his friends, the assassination of Jude Mathew, the murder of Seiko Morris and his girlfriend, the burning of canfields and the mashing up of businesses in downtown Basseterre were all orchestrated by the labour party.  It is this same labour party that recognized the criminals at one of their party functions when they called them ‘freedom fighters’ and gave them a standing ovation for their criminal acts against a lawfully elected government. 

Gya: Had to be

A report into a remigrant concession scam has concluded that a ring of officials at the Ministries of Finance and Foreign Affairs clearly colluded to defraud the government of revenue.

The report is said to recommend that criminal charges should be considered against one individual at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and three officials at Finance. All the applicants should also be charged for falsely declaring they were remigrants and importing about fifty vehicles without paying duty. They will also be required to pay all outstanding duties.

T&T: Must've been a Pepsi lover

Cocaine valued at $9 million yesterday washed ashore in Tobago, one day after 30 kilos estimated at $13 million of the illegal narcotic was seized on the island.

The Express understands that it was shortly after midday that 22.5 kilos of cocaine washed ashore on a beach located off Belmont Road, near Charlotteville.

One man is said to have made the find and immediately contacted the Charlotteville police.

Coke might be it, but this is ridiculous. 52.5 kilos in two days?! The upside is that some punk drug runner is diggin' the blues somewhere.

What do cops do with coke seizures of this volume?

T&T: Not the way to go

WHILE urinating in some bushes off the Solomon Hochoy Highway, a 61-year-old man was killed by a car which spun out of control after blowing a tyre.

The driver of the blue Chevy Monza, Gerard Pegus, also died on the spot after his car overturned several times.

Vzla: The journey to serfdom

The Constitutional Chamber of the Venezuelan Supreme Court ordered the Electoral Chamber this afternoon NOT to make any ruling on matters related to the National Electoral Council, (CNE) and the recall referendum. The decision was made by three justices, which violated the court’s norms requiring at least four justices to make valid rulings.

It is the first time in Venezuela's judiciary history that a chamber prohibits another chamber from ruling on the matters that it oversees.

USVI: Some things just don't make sense at all

Things like this:

Opponents of the delegate's proposal to create a chief financial officer and financial management system for the territory have said that it would represent a return to colonialism. Such fears have generated a resolution of condemnation from the V.I. Legislature and a resolution of non-support from the Territorial Committee of the Democratic Party.

The writer of this piece takes the time to present and explore

... three reasons why creating a CFO and instituting a transparent financial management system does not represent a return to colonialism:

Go here for the reasons.

U.S.: In The Gayelle

Today, I was doing some of the job hunt dance. Job hunting is the vicious price you pay for withdrawing, even temporarily, from a grad program. Anyway, whilst I was making myself some soup, some of that Ramen noodle stuff, it popped into my head that I should set myself up in business via the web, of course, doing what I'm really good at.

So, my new working blog In The Gayelle was born. Please God let it succeed! I hope it does succeed, cuz it means I can enjoy work. Anyway, I've got some info on there about In The Gayelle, a very brief bio. Go take a look. If you need the service, gimme a hail. If not, well, pass the word on to someone who does.

Gya: Caricom's deadly games with Haitian lives

There were conflicting reports as to whether Aristide wanted to be temporarily in Trinidad and Tobago or in Jamaica, the latter country which, like The Bahamas, is often the choice of Haitian refugees fleeing their homeland with the US as their preferred ultimate destination.

But yesterday, as lawyers for Aristide in France and the USA were moving to mount legal challenges to the circumstances of his removal from office amid widespread violence and chaos, Prime Minister Patterson was ready for a public statement.
...
"Mr. Aristide has expressed a wish to return to the Caribbean with his wife and to be reunited with their two young children who are currently in the United States.

"At his (Aristide's) request", the statement added, "arrangements are being made for his travel and accommodation in Jamaica. He is expected to arrive here early next week.

"We have communicated our decision to our CARICOM colleagues and to the Governments who were originally involved in working together to seek a solution to the Haitian crisis".
...
Prime Minister Patterson, having communicated to CARICOM, and other involved governments, his administration's decision to "host" Aristide and his family for the requested period, said:

"I wish to emphasize that Mr. Aristide is not seeking asylum in Jamaica. His stay in Jamaica is not expected to be in excess of eight to ten weeks. He is engaged in finalizing arrangements for permanent residence outside of the region."
...
Aristide himself has, however, stated from Banqui, capital of the Central African Republic, that should he eventually move to South Africa, it would be "a stop on my way back to Haiti, where I rightly belong...I am still the lawful President of Haiti".

Prime Minister Patterson said that CARICOM remained "committed to the goal of restoring and nurturing democracy in its newest member state as well as to social and economic development of the people of Haiti".

There are four significant points. The first is that the possibility of Aristide's return to Haiti will stir more violence as his supporters agitate and kill. Naturally enough, the rebels and their supporters will retaliate. The result is that Haiti will once more descend into chaos, and Haitians will head out to sea in rickety boats. The U.S. will not take the refugees; so one can only hope that the Bahamas and Jamaica will have the resources so to do, especially in light of PM Patterson's irresponsible meddling.

The second point is Aristide's claim that he is not seeking asylum in Jamaica. If not Jamaica, then Haiti is Aristide's goal, and his intent to return is a contradiction of his soi-disant concern to halt bloodshed in Haiti. The rebels will not accept Aristide's return with equanimity, and the U.S. will not allow its Marines to be a buffer between Aristide and the rebels. Then, one must ask, from where will Aristide's support come? Are his supporters in Port-au-Prince so well armed as to stave off a rebel attack? Does the sale of 300K rounds of ammunition to some unknown party in the DR have anything to Aristide's determination to return to Haiti? Is Aristide's alleged Colombian drug and, by extension, terrorist connections in the Muslim Triangle (the nextus of Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina) the reason for his confidence that he will be able to return to Haiti without getting a rebel bullet in the head? It is possible that Aristide is just interested in martyrdom, which will have a drastically negative public relations impact for the U.S. which refuses to support him. This is an election year, and many factors, apart from campaigning by the candidates, may be in play. Will Aristide be willing to give up his life after running from Haiti like a girl? It is possible, pride and ego are wonderful things, and he may be seeking to cover his shame over having fled. Hence his claim that he was kidnapped at gunpoint; his declaration that his resignation was unofficial; his lawsuit filed against the U.S.; and his assertion that he will return to Haiti because he is "still the lawful President of Haiti."

The third point is the contradictory claims of PM Patterson's and of Aristide. Either Aristide is seeking permanent residence outside of the Caribbean or he is not. The issue of where Aristide will be is not a matter of both-and, unless Patterson's choice of "permanent" is significant. Which is to say, PM Patterson might be signaling that Aristide will be frequently enough in the Caribbean. If this is so, then Aristide's ongoing presence is enough to maintain turbulence and instability in Haiti, which is not good for Caricom. Instability in one island can spread to another only too quickly. The slave masters of an earlier age knew that, so the governments of this age had better learn it quick, fast, and in a hurry.

Finally, Patterson assertion that "CARICOM remained 'committed to the goal of restoring and nurturing democracy in its newest member state as well as to social and economic development of the people of Haiti'" is highly questionable and open to interpretation. Does Caricom mean that it will act to restore Aristide to power in Haiti? If Caricom does, then each country had better lay in a healthy supply of body bags because their soldiers will be going up against the Marines, the most feared and seasoned fighting force in the world. Caricom's principal objection to Aristide's demittal was that because the U.S. had pulled a coup in Haiti, the constitutional process and rule of law had been set aside and democracy harmed. Therefore, it must follow that Caricom's "goal of restoring and nurturing democracy" has to do with the re-installation of Aristide as president of Haiti.

Words mean things, and the heads of Caricom, clever men all, know this for Caribbean people are logophiles. They are very attuned to the subtleties and nuances of language because, historically, attentiveness to such was the difference between life and death. Therefore, it is particularly distressing not only to learn PM Patterson's welcome to Jamaica, but also of his commitment to the "goal of restoring ... democracy" especially when that goal may be interpreted to mean civil war in Haiti for the sake of Aristide. Blind adherence to constitutional process and to rule of law will only serve to create greater harm for Haiti. Aristide, quite frankly, is not worth the loss of one more Haitian life.

DR: Requiem for CAFTA

Federico Cuello, a professor at the PUCMM School of Economics of the PUCMM and the DR's former trade negotiator and ambassador before the World Trade Organization, writes today in El Caribe newspaper that a majority of legislators of two Central American countries will reject the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Likewise, he speculates that the US Congress has said it would be difficult to authorize in an electoral year. Furthermore, he points out that US negotiators said in Central America the deal would not go into effect before 2006. Cuello states that from now until then, the US should move ahead with the passage of the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA). "Thus, no advantage will have been obtained, and lots given up for having reached FTAA and having given it all in CAFTA," he concludes.

In his opinion, the deal would only serve to open regional markets to US exports. "The barriers that impede us from exporting are still there. The apparel manufacturers will still have to solely purchase US materials, losing out to China. The pharmaceutical companies will not be able to compete and will disappear. Farmers will be flooded by subsidized US products. Dominican suppliers will have to compete with Canada, Central America, US and Mexicans for any contract of more than US$58,500. Builders will have to compete for contracts more than US$6.7 million."

The rush to sign the agreement this week is strange, he reports, especially when he says it would have made more sense to wait for the negotiations surrounding the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, which is due to be ratified on approximately same timeline. Cuello explains that the DR had nothing to lose because the Caribbean Basin Initiative preferences continue to be in effect until 2008.

Cuba: Freedom is contagious

The parents of imprisoned dissident Librado Linares García, who traveled from Havana to see their son for the first time in six months, were denied permission to do so on the grounds he was rejecting re-education efforts.

The Movimiento Cuba Reflexión, of which Linares is the general secretary, said he was refusing to attend all prison activities, salute the guards, stand up during the daily head count or wear prison garb.

How dare he!

Cay: Cayman signs on to EU tax directive

Britain said on Tuesday it had tidied up loose ends with its overseas dependencies to leave the focus squarely on Switzerland to agree a new regime with the EU to clamp down on offshore tax fraud.

The Cayman Islands has now agreed to fall into line with the European Union's demands, a British diplomat said at a meeting of EU finance ministers.
...
"The focus is now entirely on Switzerland," the diplomat said. "The EU's pretty determined about this. It's up to the Swiss."
...
The new EU rules, aimed at closing down hideaways for savings out of reach of the taxman, were agreed last June. But they can only be implemented if an accord on similar rules is reached with third countries including Switzerland.

Bmda: Kerry-electioneering-watch

Presidential hopeful, Senator John Kerry, has resumed his Bermuda bashing in a speech from Chicago on Wednesday night.

The anti-Bermuda rhetoric has served the Democratic candidate well, gaining applause when he attacks companies that leave the US to avoid taxes and has said that Government money will not be allowed to go to these companies.
...
“We will create new incentives to help companies create and keep new jobs here at home,” said Kerry on Wednesday night. “If I’m President our government won’t provide a single reward for sending our jobs overseas, or exploiting the tax code to go to Bermuda to avoid paying taxes while sticking the American people with the bill.”

Kerry has been loudly denouncing US companies moving offshore to save on their taxes calling them “Benedict Arnold” firms – after the notorious American traitor.

But he appeared to have softened his Bermuda-bashing stance after his overwhelming victory on “Super Tuesday”, according to Bermuda International Business Association last week.

Whatever Deborah Middleton of BIBA was smoking, it must have been high-grade stuff because here's another excerpt from the report.

He dropped any mention of Bermuda from his victory speech on Tuesday night – the first time he had not had a go at Bermuda in weeks.

But he was back again on Wednesday night after taking a short holiday from Bermuda-bashing.

The most recent speech containing anti-Bermuda rhetoric was two weeks ago in Toledo, Ohio. He said: “Right after September 11th, a major accounting firm put on a seminar to show how companies could move their official address to Bermuda and avoid paying taxes here at home.
...
“But if I’m President our government won’t provide a single reward for shipping our jobs overseas, or exploiting the

I guess since Bermuda is not France, Kerry doesn't care if he alienates this particular ally.

Bmda: The friend of my enemy is my enemy

United States Consul General Denis Coleman yesterday accused Government of fostering economic relations with Cuba and warned it could lead to a deterioration of relations between Bermuda and his country.

Mr. Coleman accused Government in a television interview of breaking a promise last year that its relations with Cuba would only cultural when it agreed to allow a regular charter flight to the Communist Caribbean island.

But Community Affairs Minister Dale Butler maintained last night that Government's dealings with Cuba were strictly cultural and there was nothing Government could do - short of an outright ban - that would stop individual citizens engaging in business with the Caribbean nation.

Bdos: Is a cricket war, yes, m' bredders

Devon Smith scored his maiden Test century and Ryan Hinds hit 84 but England edged it on the opening day of the first Test against West Indies.

Smith hit 108 as England reduced West Indies to 311-9 as bad light ended play early at Sabina Park in Jamaica.

Simon Jones picked up two wickets, his first since November 2002, dismissing Brian Lara and Ridley Jacobs. Swing bowler Matthew Hoggard, spinner Ashley Giles and Steve Harmison also took two wickets each.

The West Indies were seriously on the ropes after they slumped to 101-4 shortly after lunch but they recovered well. Smith and Hinds put on 122 for the fifth wicket before Giles finally got rid of Smith for 108 off 188 balls when the left-hander attempted a sweep shot and was stumped by wicket-keeper Chris Read.

Atg: The 'net as an election tool

Thousands of people overseas and in Antigua & Barbuda are making full use of Cable & Wireless' new and informative elections website.

Cable & Wireless officials report that interest is also coming from the candidates, the political parties and the electoral commission, who are readily providing updated information to keep the site current.

The site Antigua Elections was launched recently to act as a source of information for Antiguans & Barbudans and others who have an interest in the 2004 poll.

Atg: Adding insult to injury

A 16-year-old youth, DeShawn Carr of All Saints, was reportedly flogged by a corporal of police this week.

The alleged incident occurred on Wednesday at All Saints when the officer reportedly returned to his home and discovered a piggybank with an undetermined sum of money in coins missing.

According to sources close to the boy's family, the corporal took matters into his own hands and rounded up the youth and rained blows on him that caused bruises to his left hand and a suspected fracture.

Added to that, the officer fingerprinted the youngster.

Hti: Aristide's supporters attack Marines

U.S. Marines fought new gunbattles in Haiti as consternation spread on Friday in the poor, strife-torn nation over plans by ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to return to the Caribbean.
...
The Marines, leading a 2,550-strong force of French, Canadian and Chilean troops, have fought at least a half dozen battles since they landed just under two weeks ago.

The gunmen are suspected of being Aristide supporters, enraged at the loss of Haiti's first democratically elected leader in what many of them fervently believe was a U.S. coup.

Also, this:

Hundreds of protesters marched Thursday through the downtown Belair neighborhood yelling, "Aristide has to come back! We don't want Bush as president!"

Shots were fired, some protesters pulled out pistols, police fired tear gas and a shootout between protesters and police ensued, witnesses said.

Two young men were killed and seven others were being treated for shotgun wounds, according to hospital officials.

In Port-au-Prince, opposition politician Paul Denis said Jamaica was making matters worse in Haiti. "If Aristide intends to come back to Haiti, we'll be glad to receive him so we can arrest him," he said.

The opposition wants Aristide to stand trial, accusing him of corruption and the killings of opponents by armed gangs.

Two points. One, the Marines are not the Army, and they don't make war or keep the peace the way the Army does. To give an idea about what Aristide's supporters are foolishly setting themselves up against, here's an excerpt from Return of the Marines by W. Thomas Smith, Jr.

Despite less armor than other American ground forces, the Marines were among the first to fight their way into Baghdad. And when intelligence indicated that foreign troops were coming to the aid of Iraqi diehards, Marine Brig. Gen. John Kelly stated, "we want all Jihad fighters to come here. That way we can kill them all before they get bus tickets to New York City."
...
The reputation of Marines stems from a variety of factors: The Marine Corps is the smallest, most unique branch of the U.S. armed forces. Though it is organized as a separate armed service, it is officially a Naval infantry/combined-arms force overseen by the secretary of the Navy. The Corps' philosophical approach to training and combat differs from other branches. Marine boot camp — more of a rite-of-passage than a training program — is the longest and toughest recruit indoctrination program of any of the military services. Men and women train separately. All Marines from private to Commandant are considered to be first-and-foremost riflemen. And special-operations units in the Marines are not accorded the same respect as they are in other branches. The Marines view special operations as simply another realm of warfighting. Marines are Marines, and no individual Marine or Marine unit is considered more elite than the other.

Consequently, newly minted Marines believe themselves to be superior to other soldiers, spawning understandable resentment from other branches.
...
As late as 1997, Assistant Secretary of the Army Sara Lister took aim at the Marines. "I think the Army is much more connected to society than the Marines are." Lister said before an audience at Harvard University. "Marines are extremists. Wherever you have extremists, you've got some risks of total disconnection with society. And that's a little dangerous."

Of course, the Commandant of the Marine Corps demanded an apology. Lister was fired. And Marines secretly said among themselves, "Yes we are extremists. We are dangerous. That's why we win wars and are feared throughout the world."

Thus, it is significant that the fighting force sent to Haiti is the Marines.

The second point is that the Marines' presence may well signal the Bush Administration's utter determination to get Haiti quieted, disarmed, and on the road to stability. Therefore, any civil strife fomented by Aristide and his supporters will be put down for the sake of a changed Haiti. That's why it is folly for Caricom to even entertain Aristide or to give him a forum. If Caricom is interested in Haiti as a viable and contributing entity in regional partnership, then they ought to do what is best for Haiti and not help Aristide foment violence that they will not send their own troops to quell.

Let us help bind up the broken hearted and give comfort to Spain as she mourns

Send flowers and condolences to the Spanish Consulate in your region.

Thanks to Baldilocks, A Small Victory and Instapundit.

U.S.: The war to get GWB out of the White House

By restricting OPEC output since the end of hostilities in Iraq, the Saudis have forced oil prices up over the past several months. The American economic recovery is being slowly, almost imperceptibly, throttled. From a low of $23.61 per barrel in May, 2003, average crude oil prices have risen rather steadily, to $31.03 last month, up nearly one-third in eight months. If this rate of increase continues over the next eight months, the economic consequences for America will be grim.

Jobs are not being created at the expected rate, and increasing voter dissatisfaction with the President is shown in public opinion polling, with jobs and the economy heading the list of concerns. Additionally, the Saudis may have been reducing their holdings of petrodollars and converting them into non-dollar denominated assets. This has hurt the value of the dollar. Money flows are difficult to follow, and currency manipulation may have unintended consequences, but a proxy for the Saudi desire to hurt America may be seen in the increasing number of oil field contracts going to non-US companies.

The other factor which may hurt Bush's chances for reelection is the situation in Iraq. Terrorists have been streaming in from Saudi Arabia, to wreak havoc and fund terror groups, despite protestations to the contrary by Saudi spinmeisters. Although attacks have been trending downward, an increase over the next several months would trigger renewed cries of "quagmire!"

As I've said before, terrorists will come from the Muslim Triangle via Mexico below, Canada above, and Venezuela and Cuba (Haiti is no longer an option) via an exodus of boat people. They'll be well funded by the Saudis, of course. That's the human resource angle.

The economic angle we're seeing that in play already via OPEC, the Saudis, in particular, and Venezuela. Russia cannot be trusted to provide oil. Britain, yes. Trinidad will, but T&T has to keep an eye out for another attempted coup before November 6, 2004. Remember Enyahooma-El and the extradition charges to the U.S.? They include Mac-10s with silencers. For what? Anyway, Chavez is going to ramp up the rhetoric as a pretext for cutting off oil supplies to the U.S. So look for OPEC to freeze imports to the U.S. in order to bring the U.S. economy to a grinding halt. Add to the mix Al Qaeda ramping up terrorist attacks, not threats. Attacks. Look also for attacks on the Iraqi oil fields, disruption of the lines heading to Turkey. The confluence of all these events is supposed to be catastrophic. The Democrats? They're not even on the radar.

The short term goal is to bury the U.S. economy and George W. Bush's presidency. The long term goal is to ruin the world economy so the Islamists can move in, flush with oil.

What we in the Caribbean have to figure out is this: do we want to live under the Islamic star and crescent? If the U.S. — which is in the frontlines of the war on terror — falls, then have your ladies buy their burqas. Whose side will the Caribbean be on? Current rhetoric suggests not on the U.S.'s.

Newsflash: The Islamo- and other fascists will fail!

Hti: France steps aside to let the real warriors take charge

The United States will take charge next week of an interim multinational force in Haiti that is charged with restoring order to the Caribbean nation, an official at French military headquarters said Thursday.

U.S., French and Chilean troops are already coordinating operations in Haiti, but as of next week they will be officially organized under U.S. command, with different contingents taking charge of different sectors of the country, press officer Catherine Bellis said.

Hti: Patterson heeds Randall Robinson's plea for Aristide

Next week, Aristide and his wife will head to Jamaica. It's astonishing that PM Patterson is going to allow Aristide into Jamaica to stay for at least 10 weeks. Does PM Patterson wish to help Aristide foster civil war in Haiti? One suspects that Aristide seeks to return to the Caribbean because his hosts in Bangui will no longer abide by his lies. His Caricom brethren are much more reckless and anti-American than the government of Bangui, and, in their much expressed reverence for constitutional process and the rule of law, are willing to entertain a failed dictator. If Aristide says he left Haiti to avoid bloodshed, what does he intend to achieve by returning? How is Haiti's best interests to be served by Aristide's return?

Since Caricom members are such pro-Aristide advocates, will they send their troops into Haiti with Aristide in order to protect him from his own countrymen? This is highly unlikely, especially since Caricom was so loath to put troops on the ground until after the civil strife had ended. Aristide's return to Haiti is guaranteed to bring about a renewal of the open warfar. This means that many Haitians will die so that Aristide's vanity might be assuaged. The sad thing is that Caricom, in a fit of pique over the U.S.'s failure to contact Caricom to talk when the crisis became worse, will attempt to stick mud in the U.S.'s eye just to get its own back. It's an absurd and dangerous game that Caricom is playing. The only one who will pay the price is the unfortunate Haitians themselves.

Spain: Who did the bombing?

At first it was thought that it was the Basque separatist group, the ETA. Now Al Qaeda is taking credit. They say they are 90% ready for an attack on the U.S.:

"We bring the good news to Muslims of the world that the expected 'Winds of Black Death' strike against America is now in its final stage...90 percent (ready) and God willing near."

Spain's 9/11: 200+ dead and 1200+ injured.

The first response is prayer. Having laid our troubles before the mercy-seat, we arise in full faith and confidence that Jesus lives, the victory's won. If it is Al Qaeda and Islamic terrorism, we already know how the fight will end, and the Islamofascists are not the victors. Thus, we consider events unfolding from a position of certainty, from the stance of the victor. For, we know that we are looking at the last gasp of a desperate and futile ideology.

The Cross before, my second response is to unearth the fighting words of poets and warriors. For, we may not stand above the fray, but are in the midst and thick of it. This, therefore, demands a human response for we must screw our courage to the sticking point to do that which must be done. Thus, I look to the words of Claude McKay, written in an earlier time, under different circumstance, but still applicable to today.

If We Must Die
If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen! We must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one death blow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!
Source: Claude McKay, "If We Must Die,” in Harlem Shadows: The Poems of Claude McKay (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1922).

Furthermore, I look to the words of the warrior Winston Churchill whose June 4, 1940, "We Never Surrender" speech was a powerful rallying cry to a nation at war and close to defeat. Churchill said:

I have myself full confidence that if all do their duty,
If nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made,
As they are being made,
We shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our island home,
To ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny,
If necessary for years - if necessary alone.

At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do.
That is the resolve of His Majesty's Government - every man of them.
That is the will of Parliament and the nation.
The British Empire and the French Republic,
Linked together in their cause and in their need,
Will defend to the death their native soil,
Aiding each other like good comrades
To the utmost of their strength.

Even though large tracts of Europe
And many old and famous States
Have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo
And all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule,
We shall not flag or fail.

We shall go on to the end.
We shall fight in France,
We shall fight on the seas and oceans,
We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air,
We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be,
We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds,
We shall fight in the fields, and in the streets,
We shall fight in the hills;
We shall never surrender,

And even if, which I do not for a moment believe,
This island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving,
Then our Empire beyond the seas,
Armed and guarded by the British Fleet,
Would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time,
The new world, with all its power and might,
Steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

Also, Winston Churchill, before the House of Commons, reiterated, "Never Give In"

"We shall fight on the beaches. We shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight in the fields, and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender!" (House of Commons, June 4, 1940)

At Harrow School, Churchill declared emphatically,

"Never give in — never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy." (Harrow School, October 29, 1941)

Finally, from the warrior-king Henry V to the Bishop of Canterbury:

Therefore take heed how you impawn our person,
How you awake our sleeping sword of war:
We charge you, in the name of God, take heed;

Whoever did it, may God have mercy on your soul, for, God before, we will come after you.

Vzla: Busted!

A man President Hugo Chavez claimed was dead begs to differ with the Venezuelan leader. "I'm not dead. I'm alive and kicking," 61-year-old Emiliano Chavez Rosales said in comments published Monday by El Universal newspaper.

Chavez Rosales said he signed a petition for a vote to recall the president, who alleged the signature was bogus during a speech to foreign ambassadors on Friday.

"I'm sure Emiliano Chavez doesn't exist," the president said, holding up a copy of the petition form. He pointed to an identification number accompanying the signature, No. 2,550,083, and claimed it belonged to a dead woman.

In local interviews, Chavez Rosales insisted the number was his. A search of the country's voter database turned up Chavez Rosales' name and the same number.

There was no immediate comment from the government. The form was one of several Chavez offered as evidence of fraud. Others, he said, bore the names of foreigners and minors.

Spain: Pray for Spain

Inside Europe: Iberian Notes is blogging on today's terrorist strikes in Spain. The death toll is 173 and rising with at least 600 injured. Spaniards are angry, and justifiably so.

Lord, I pray for those who have been killed and ask your mercy on their souls; may you grant eternal rest unto them and let your perpetual light shine upon them. For their families, that you may comfort them in their hour of need and bind up their broken hearts. For those who have been injured, Lord, have mercy on them and grant them healing; be with them that they may have the faith and strength to endure the horror that has come upon them. Remember families and friends, far and near; remember Spain in mercy. Concerning the ones who did this terrible deed, Lord, in your wrath remember mercy even as you bring them swiftly to justice. In no other name but in Jesus Christ Almighty Name. Amen.

Atg: Taiwan buying allies?

Leader of the United Progressive Party (UPP) Baldwin Spencer has denied allegations by Prime Minister Lester Bird that the UPP received money from the Taiwanese government during the 1999 elections.

During the launch of the Antigua Labour Party (ALP) manifesto on Monday, Mr. Bird said, "During the last election, Baldwin Spencer and the UPP took $1 million from Taiwan to run the election and I call upon him to deny it.

"Therefore if they are elected what are they going to do? Are they going to turn around and move from the People's Republic of China and go to Taiwan and get us involved in international problems between the two countries? I say from a foreign affairs standpoint that will be a disaster," he said.

This sounds like what China did with Johnny Chung and Charlie Trie during the Clinton Administration, no?

Atg: Dominicans hide out in Antigua

The police and immigration officials are searching for four nationals of the Dominican Republic, who reportedly eluded immigration and failed to return to the cruise liner Aida.

Nine other nationals of the Dominican Republic, who left the vessel after it docked at Heritage Quay, were picked up yesterday morning at a house in George Street, Villa and have since been detained by the police.

When Aida docked at Heritage Quay on Monday, 13 of its passengers left the cruise liner and never returned.
...
A check of their rooms on board the cruise ship revealed that they left behind all their possessions including their passports.

This is sheer desperation that is driving Dominicanos from their homeland. All thanks to the IMF. Where's the CBC or the Hispanic Caucus on this?

Atg: Soothing Caricom's hurt feelings

Prime Minister PJ Patterson and the US Ambassador Sue Cobb met for more than one hour on Monday for talks on the ongoing political crisis in Haiti, according to a statement from Jamaica House.

"The Prime Minister outlined the process which Caricom (Caribbean Community) had followed in order to resolve the crisis which Haiti was facing and the steps taken by Caricom to promote their plan to the International community - the US, Canada, the OAS," the statement said.

According to the statement, Patterson, who is the current Caricom chairman had informed the US Ambassador that the Caricom plan had been accepted as a hemispheric response to the Haitian problem and was designed to preserve the island's fragile democracy.

The prime minister also expressed his "disappointment" that the plan had been discarded without reference to Caricom, the statement said, noting that he had also re-stated the position adopted by Caribbean leaders to the sudden departure of Aristide and the implications for constitutional government in the region.

Okay, enough already. How many Haitian lives were saved because Aristide's lousy neck was saved when he ran like a girl? So, Caricom, kill the talk and act ... for once!

Atg: Election violence

Police Commissioner Elton Martin is concerned about the frequent incidents of violence perpetrated by supporters of the two main political parties in the country, during the run-up to the general elections.

Martin yesterday, called into his office representatives from the Antigua Labour Party (ALP) and the United Progressive Party (UPP), in an effort to stem the violence.

Commissioner Martin cautioned both sides, informing them that there should not be any furtherclashes.

All the commissioner has to do is jail the politicians; bet they'd then ask their supporters to stand down.

Bdos: Trinidad-Venezuela agreement no secret to Barbados

Speaking on the Barbados/Trinidad situation and its implications for both countries and the Caribbean, former High Commissioner for Barbados to Trinidad and Tobago Frank da Silva told a media conference that the Trinidad/Venezuela agreement would have been known by a wide cross-section of the society.

He added that the High Commission’s monthly report to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Barbados some fourteen years ago, which was the responsibility of the Senior Foreign Service Officer on Post, would have contained reference to that agreement.

Da Silva, who was High Commissioner at that time, said that there was no record of any instructions from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for any follow up action on the issue.

Da Silva charged that because the matter was done in a transparent manner by Barbados’ closest Caribbean neighbour, “it would be inconceivable for anyone in Barbados to suggest that the Government of Trinidad and Tobago would have been involved in any underhand behaviour”.

Cay: Parmalat accounting is a fine fairy tale

Parmalat's operating units made a pre-tax loss of at least $435 million during the first nine months of last year, in contrast to the pre-tax profit of $375 million previously reported by management, the Financial Times reports. 

The difference between the pre-tax profit-and-loss figures appear to be fictitious financial transactions claimed by Bonlat, a Cayman Islands-based financial subsidiary.

The loss, detailed in a preliminary review by accounting firm PwC, could rise if investigators discover that Parmalat executives further padded sales and failed to account for numerous expenses and losses.

Read the rest.

Cay: C'mon, guys, they were just commissions

The Leader of Government Business, the Hon McKeeva Bush, said on Radio Cayman on Monday that payments received by him from The Ritz-Carlton project, as recently reported in the KYC News newsletter Offshore Alert, were commissions for his real estate company.

The 29 February 2004 issue of Offshore Alert claimed that according to recent court filings, Mr Bush had received over $345,000 in payments from the Ritz between 9 June, 1999 and 17 July, 2000.

A copy of the Ritz's 73-page handwritten accounts journal that covers the period when the payments were allegedly received was filed as an exhibit in litigation proceedings between the Ritz developer Michael Ryan, the Ryan Group and Richard Friend, who says he was the project development company's Senior Vice President from 1998 to 2000.

All together, Mr Bush, whose statement on Monday indicated acknowledgement that he had in fact received at least some of the alleged payments, supposedly received eleven payments ranging from $5,000 to $192,000.
...
Speaking specifically about the reason for payments from the Ritz, Mr Bush said: "Any inference that payments to those companies were related to anything other than real estate sales is false and is only a tactic in this election year to smear me as Leader of Government? Anyone who has any documentation that I was paid for anything other than commission and expenses relating to Cambridge Realty and Windsor Development, I beg them to bring them forward and make it public."

Somebody ought to take him at his word and start digging. I want to see an itemization of those real estate sales accompanied by all legal documentation and time-sheets.

Cuba: Another foreign exchange stunt?

Reports are increasing of hair being cut from women's heads to supply a clandestine market in human hair.

One of the latest victims didn't realize her hair had been cut while traveling on a crowded bus until she got home where her mother asked what she had done to her hair.

Women with long hair are being advised to wear it in styles not readily accessible to scissors or to cover it.

Rumors circulating in Havana tell of a student whose throat was cut before her hair was removed.

The hair is said to be sold for used to make wigs and hair pieces.

Caught up in the throes of a dying regime, anything is possible. I mean, Chavez can only prop up his mentor Castro for so long.

Cuba: State security tattlers

Ooooh! Tell-tell! They're going to tell his gwamma on him!

State security agents last week picked up for questioning Lizan Viñas Estrada, president of Young People for Liberty, a dissident organization formed in December.

Viñas Estrada said an agent named Frank told him during questioning at the Calabazar police station in Havana that he could be sentenced to 20 years in prison for "manipulating young people and encouraging them to be counterrevolutionaries." He also said that during 2 ½ hours of questioning the agent threatened to tell his ailing grandmother about what he was doing.

Chavez, hopefully, is taking note. Nothing like fear and trembling backed up with good old fashioned emotional blackmail to stifle the desire for freedom.

Cuba: The finest health care system in the world

Cuba is said to be planning to send doctors to Paraguay as a means of earning foreign currency.

Reportedly 25 doctors from the municipality of Plaza of the Revolution have been assigned to work in Paraguay. Their absence will be covered by sixth year medical students.

In actual fact, Cuba's doctors are foreign exchange wage slaves farmed out to other countries, as this story also indicates.

Over the last 41 years, the Cuban government has sent tens of thousands of doctors to dozens of nations as part of its vaunted doctor diplomacy program. Some say it's evidence of the Castro government's unselfish commitment to health care. But others charge that doctor diplomacy is simply a way for Cuba to bring in desperately needed hard currency. The bulk of the money paid by the nations goes to the government, not the doctors, they say.

"These doctors are in essence slave labor. They're sold on the international market to fill a need in the Third World. But the net beneficiary is the Cuban regime," said Joe García, head of the Cuban American National Foundation, an influential anti-Castro group in Miami.
...
Cuban officials estimate that their doctors have saved nearly 86,000 lives and forced a drop in Haiti's infant mortality rate.

Critics contend that Cuba exaggerates the success of doctor diplomacy.

They add that the program is unfair because the physicians earn only a small share of the millions of dollars that foreign governments pay Cuba for the medical services. Even so, many doctors are eager to take part.
...
"Cuban life in general is so miserable that only Cuban professionals would think that it is a step up to practice medicine in Haiti, Zaire, Mozambique and other impoverished Third World nations," Mr. García said.

Sometimes doctors sent abroad seize the opportunity to defect. In one case in 2000, two Cuban doctors in Zimbabwe headed to a U.N. office in that country only to disappear and wind up in jail.

The doctors said local authorities had tried to force them onto a Havana-bound plane. They slipped a note to an Air France crew member, and the airline refused to board them. They spent a month in jail before the United Nations pressed for their release, allowing them to travel to the United States.

In the meantime, back in the communist paradise so beloved of Hollywood and media types, Cubans make do with medical students.

Dca: A politician who hates tax collection!

UWP leader commented that the PM is dispicable, using his position to gain cheap pol advantage and in the process undermining the institutions which he heads. This after statments by the PM to retrieve taxes from a particular Dr in the amt. of $700 000.

Is this doctor the pol's brother, or something? Yes, indeed, he is. The doctor is a fellow UWP-er, as this next snippet reveals.

Legal action is being considered after PM Skerrit suggested he was calling in overdue taxes from a UWP candidate. Dr Kervin Fereira said he was in consultation with his lawyers esp. after a group of people massed outside his house and demanded he come out Source: Marpin TV News

Well, if Fereira's going to run for office and be in a position to dip his hands in other people's pockets, shouldn't he cough up his own money first? It seems only reasonable.

Gya: Wrestling with globalization

Read the editorial.

Addressing members of the American Chamber of Trinidad and Tobago in April 1997, West Indian scholar Wendell Motley described globalisation as having the potential of becoming the most seriously destabilising force in the Caribbean as well as the world. He predicted the emergence of a new global elite, who, through knowledge, skills and the access to information, “will stand as toll-keepers at several access points to the fantastic new wealth machine that is the global economy”. The Yale economics graduate then painted the obverse picture. “In contrast, there is the other aspect, the masses of humanity numbering in the billions and including millions in the so-called developed world, who, because of their lack of education, training and socialisation, have been rendered not just unemployed, but irrelevant by those technological processes that are super-productive, increasingly knowledge-driven and capital-intensive.”

Wendell Mottley's views on globalization should have provided the impetus for change in the attitudes towards graduates of foreign universities in T&T. Regrettably, that has not been the case. Globalization can be other than a destabilizing force to Caribbean economies, but only if the countries refuse to remain static and defensive, and adapt, prepare, and educate. The countries have to be forward looking and elect rulers with the vision thing and who can look beyond narrow political interests to scan the changes occurring around the globe and help his country ride their waves. The trend to globalization means that the wasteful actions of Labour in St. Kitts are a luxury the country can ill afford. Caribbean countries have to position themselves to take advantage of globalization rather than, like King Canute, try vainly to stem the tide. The Chronicle's editorialist is partly right when he states:

In order to enjoy the benefits of this doctrine, countries like Guyana will have to develop quality goods and services at the highest levels of competencies and then employ aggressive strategies in offering these goods and services at the international marketplace.

What he needs to realize is that the country's greatest resource, its educated populace, must be flexible enough to adjust to rapid changes in technologies so that they can meet the demands of the global market.

Hti: That vision thing

A former Haitian foreign minister and popular South Florida television talk-show host was selected Tuesday to become Haiti's next prime minister.

Gerard Latortue, a critic of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was chosen after two days of painstaking deliberations by a U.S.-backed ''council of sages'' to fill the power vacuum created Feb. 29 when Aristide resigned. Latortue will lead a transitional government that will pave the way for presidential elections early next year.
...
Latortue, 69, was one of three finalists for prime minister nominated by a council charged with replacing the government of the exiled Aristide. The council grilled Latortue by telephone for 2 ½ hours Monday afternoon as he sat in his Boca Raton home.

''I can facilitate the national reconciliation,'' Latortue said. "It is the most important thing today in Haiti after all the divisions we had in Aristide.''

Council members announced their decision at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday. No one notified Latortue directly that the job was his.

''The interview is really what brought most [of the council members] to his side,'' said Claude Mancuso, a close friend, "because he was able to give them a vision of what was to be done.''
...
The decision-making confounded the seven members on the council, who had to decide whether Haiti needed someone with a business or military background, or someone who represented a new beginning.

He can talk, but can he govern? Govern as opposed to rule, that is. One would imagine that, given Haiti's pathologies, the choice of prime minister would have been a no-brainer. Let's see what Latoture does.

Hti: Clinging to illusions

Pierre Esperance, director of the National Coalition for Human Rights, says aid groups should focus less on political reforms and more on building local institutions that can help tackle poverty. "We need structures to be put in place," he says. "We don't need any more saviors like Aristide."

Foreign aid groups have to be careful not to instill a "culture of dependence" as has happened in the past, Smith says.

Many Haitians say their society's deep divisions can be repaired only by their own hands. But the international community can help, they say, by sticking to the reform projects it starts - such as training and staffing a national police force, one of the goals after Aristide's return to power in 1994.

If Haitians had been able to repair their divisions, they would have done it. Instead, they've demonstrated an inability to develop a thriving society which functions according to imperfect democracy.

Contrary to Pierre Esperance's contention, Haiti does not only need institutions to tackle poverty, it needs political reforms and instruction in the praxis of democracy. These are the changes that may well ensure that Haitians do not elect another Aristide. With infrastructural and political issues held in equilibrium, Haiti might be able to look past the idea of the head of state as godlike-ruler who is the best and only hope. Then, perhaps, the disillusionment that comes, when the god is revealed to have feet of clay, may not lead to change via machete, gun, and blood.

Ja: Moko disease threatens the livelihood of many

THE BANANA industry is much more than a lifeline for thousands of Jamaicans and scores of mainly rural communities. More than 85,000 farmers grow bananas on almost 10,000 hectares of land in several parishes. The industry earned for the country last year more than £15 million and is a constant cash flow for thousands in barely marginal existence.

It is for these reasons that the discovery of the deadly Moko disease in St. James is sending shivers through banana country. Moko is a devastating disease of banana and plantain. It also affects red ginger, heliconia, tomato, dasheen and coco.

Ja: Magic man

THE finance minister, Omar Davies, says that Jamaica would maintain its record of meeting its debt payments, despite struggling with a large public sector deficit and a debt-servicing bill that eats up over 60 per cent of the government's annual budget.

"No government of Jamaica has ever reneged on debt payments and we intend to maintain this proud record," Davies said Tuesday evening during a meeting of Parliament's Standing Finance Committee.

Davies was at the time defending his economic management in the face of a $17.4 billion addition to the $261.4 billion budget for the fiscal year that ends on March 31, as well as a fiscal deficit that will be near seven per cent of gross domestic product, a full percentage point higher than initially projected.

Increased government spending has come from higher-than-projected interest rates on the country's near $700 billion debt, which is about 150 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP).

Ja: Soooeeeeeee!!!

Let politicians loose around the people's resources and they become the proverbial hogs before the trough.

Should you think otherwise, you need only consider the behaviour of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) members of parliament on Tuesday. They squealed loudly over the administration's decision to cut, by $143 million or about 32 per cent, the Social and Economic Support Programme - the notorious SESP.

That the outcry came from the Opposition side of the aisle does not mean that ruling People's National Party MPs are on the moral high ground on this issue. They too would have had a good old angry roll in the mud for being deprived of another go at the trough, were it not for the political embarrassment it would cause the government.

I would like politicians everywhere to pass a law that no tax increases may be effected without the consent of three-fifths of the governed. I fear that figure might be too low, though because, based on what I've seen on tv news, there's always some idiot who doesn't mind paying higher fees and taxes for a thing. Moreover, many politicians have a wonderful way with words, and they can make the worser seem the better; thus, by sweet and guileful words, they lead unsuspecting taxpayers down the garden path to the paradox of obtaining something free for more money. Confronted with these modern-day Socrates, it is not outside the realm of possibility, therefore, that enough idiots would vote to take their own hard-earned money out of their own pockets so that politicians may play Monopoly with it.

Since it's 2:22AM and I'm awake and fantasizing, I'd also like politicians to pass another law requiring the merging of all social programs which have a common function, and this must be followed by a fifty percent reduction in funding for the new entity. The 50% is a totally arbitrary number; however, inasmuch as there is usually much duplication of services in government agencies, I estimate that it is likely that five agencies may be found all having the same function. For each such agency, a 10% reduction in funding. That 10% is supposed to be the amount that is just right (I've forgotten the reason why); so, when five become one, 50% of the funding can be subtracted from the whole or the gross of the new entity. Nevertheless, that may not necessarily prevent the hogs from feeding at the trough because, as I've said, politicians are wonderful at making the worser seem the better (the accusation leveled against Socrates, I believe). In the view of many of the elected elites, our money is theirs, and theirs is theirs, too. So, you silly taxpayer you, bend over and take it like a man.

Bhms: Who got his cut?

An allegation that officers of HMBS Inagua were offered a $200,000 bribe by the captain of the drug vessel Lorequin in exchange for his release came as a surprise to Lt. Commander Franklyn Clarke, who continued his testimony Tuesday morning.

Mr Clarke, who was the commander of HMBS Inagua at the time of the 1992 arrest of the Lorequin, told the Commission of Inquiry yesterday that was the first time he was hearing about the money offer made by captain Victor Alberto Hart.

"You have never heard it said that Victor Alberto Hart offered a bribe of $200,00 to members of your crew in exchange for their releasing him at some point during the journey from Nassau Harbour to the Royal Bahamas Defence Force Base, Coral Harbour"? Commission lead counsel Dennis Moore asked.

"No, sir, this is the first time I am hearing this," Lt. Commander Clarke said.

Interesting case. Worth reading about.

Pnma: Freedom of the press under attack

...Attorney General José Antonio Sossa has accused Fundacion Libertad president and former La Prensa publisher I. Roberto Eisenmann Jr. of orchestrating a “systematic and incisive” smear campaign against himself and the Public Ministry. Calling himself a “firm supporter of freedom of expression,” Sossa — who is currently pressing criminal defamation charges against Eisenmann because the latter noted that the attorney general has “protected delinquents” while prosecuting journalists — alleged a long campaign of harassment against himself by La Prensa.

In fact Sossa, both as a complainant in his own right and by putting the resources of the Public Ministry behind others, has seen to it that more than one-third of all Panamanian journalists are facing or have faced criminal defamation charges, many of them brought by public officials or former public officials. In fact Sossa has made a public declaration accusing a substantial portion of the Panamanian press of being a “criminal element.” In fact Sossa has blocked virtually all investigations of major cases of political corruption during his tenure. In fact Sossa has steadfastly refused to act on complaints by victims of foreign operations such as The Harris Organization and the Millennium Fund using Panama as a base for international swindling operations. In fact Sossa deputized foreign bounty hunters hired by one Marc Harris — now awaiting sentencing on money laundering and other charges in a Miami federal lockup — to make arrests in Panama. Although there will doubtless be legal wrangling about what gets into any court file, Sossa’s actions are unambiguous and a part of the public record.

It seems that corruption in government and suppression of the press go hand in hand.

PR: Hail the returning heroes

Fifty-eight Puerto Rican soldiers will arrive on the island after spending 10 months in Iraq, said Puerto Rico National Guard Adjutant General Francisco Marquez.

The 58 soldiers of the 296 Infantry’s First Battalion Alpha Company are expected to arrive at Luis Muñoz Marin International Airport at around 4 p.m.

PR: 183 illegal Dominicanos detained and repatriated

The Dominican Republic's Navy detained 125 Dominicans packed aboard a rickety boat trying to reach Puerto Rico on Wednesday, bringing the total to more than 4,500 migrants detained since October, officials said.

In the past two days, authorities have detained 183 Dominican boat migrants, the U.S. Coast Guard said.

A Coast Guard helicopter spotted a 40-foot (12-meter) boat carrying the 125 migrants about 55 miles (90 kilometers) from the northwest town of Aguadilla, spokesman Ensign Eric Willis said.
...
There has been a record rise in the number of migrants caught trying to reach the island illegally, as the Dominican Republic faces a worsening economic crisis marked by a severe drop in the peso's value and 42 percent inflation.

In only four months, authorities surpassed the previous record of 3,477 migrants detained in fiscal year 2003. Authorities have detained 4,535 migrants since fiscal year 2004 began Oct. 1, U.S. Border Patrol spokesman Victor Colon said.

Most are Dominicans caught on dangerous sea voyages aboard overcrowded and rickety boats in attempts to reach better economic opportunities on U.S. soil.

The Dominicanos are treated just like the Haitians — interdicted at sea and returned home. They are being treated just like the Cubans who are being subjected to the wet-foot-dry-foot policy. Does nobody care or notice? The economic measures the IMF has insisted Santo Domingo implement are most surely worsening the country's economic situation. Economic distress and poverty seem to be a standard feature of life in any country that's crazy enough to go to the IMF. Go to the IMF with a slight headache, and they'll give you a concussion.

Back in 1989, I had cause to pass through Santo Domingo in transit from the Turks & Caicos to T&T. Santo Domingo back then was a place of astonishing poverty; I'd never seen the like of it in T&T and Barbados.

PR: A candidate for that special place reserved in hell

A physical education teacher at the Jesus de Nazaret children’s home in Mayagüez was charged with 93 counts of sexual abuse against minors, police officials said.

Jose Torres Roberti, 38, was charged with 93 counts which include lascivious acts, rape, abuse, sodomy, and the use of an illegal weapon.

Torres Roberti was admitted to Las Cucharas Prison in Ponce after he was unable to pay bail.

The astonishing thing is that the courts even levied a bail amount for this bastard. 93 little ones he abuses and the court can still see fit to set a finite bail figure for him! Even worse is that the little ones were residents at a children's home. This pervert preyed on those who were particularly defenceless. Please don't let the law in Puerto Rico be as lax as the law on the mainland can be.

St. Kts: Quacks and invalids ruin the sugar industry

Listening to the Minister of Agriculture, the Hon. Mr. Cedric Liburd on WINN FM news on the 2nd March 2004, explaining the late start of the 2004 harvesting of the sugar crop, we can deduce from his obvious incompetence why this industry is on the verge of collapse. This man apparently is indifferent to the continuing adverse effect the industry has on the Federation’s finances as it continues to lose millions each year. What is striking and vexing is that inspite of the warning flags, the mismanagement continues at the SSMC.

Over the years under Labour, the SSMC was a resting place for rejects and shady characters who allegedly did the dirty bidding for the Labour party. Many questioned the appointment of Mr. Oriel Hector as Human Resource manager at a reported salary of $6000.00 per month. We must not forget the history of this man and that he is the Supervisor of Elections. His recruitment apparently did not add any value to the SSMC. One can speculate that his costly appointment might have been compensation for another mission he completed for labour. Other characters forced on the SSMC, can afford to buy high end luxury jeeps while earning an income of approximately $2,500.00 per month. How a man working at SSMC at that salary could purchase a vehicle cash, for $300,000.00 and this job is his only source of income. We submit that commodities purchased by SSMC were not procured at the best possible prices. Kick backs might have been the order of the day, passed under the table and might have been going on for years supposedly with  the blessing of the labour party government.

How can we forget that an old locomotive was sent to England to be refurbished and on its return there was a ceremony to re-commission this old engine which was renamed after Halva Hendrickson’s wife. The champagne drank at that event, plus the refurbishing saddled tax payers with a bill well over $1 miilion dollars.

Today the Industry is serious trouble.
...
The government has announced very sheepishly that the SSMC will produce approximately 13.8 thousand tons of sugar and this will yield approximately $16 million dollars in revenue, but expenses to produce this crop are a whopping $51 million dollars. Taxpayers will be called upon to pick up the tab for labour’s incompetence once more. This situation is ample testimony that the present bunch of labour ministers who cannot  run a simple bar shop or supermarket, cannot be expected to run a country effectively and efficiently.  The purchasing of state of the art air conditioned Land Rovers for top personnel to joy ride in was not in the best interest of the industry. Some labour activists can still be seen joy riding night and day in the Corporation’s vehicles, chalking up expenses unnecessarily. They shout all8 so they have become untouchables.

Some of these elected officials treat the taxpayers' money as though the taxpayers don't work hard for it, as though the Treasury were the officials' own little piggy-bank. The purpose of government, for some, is to enrich the elected and to make life difficult for the poor schmucks who put the elected swine in power. Thank God for the voting booth. Vote them to hell out, investigate their affairs, and jail their arses.

Gya: Endless skulls working in Guyana's government

This seems to be the latest example of corruption in the Guyanese government. First the allegations about the Minister of Home Affairs Ronald Gajraj and death squads, now forgery involving Treasury and the ministry of Foreign Affairs. Quacks and invalids, oui, quacks and invalids.

Secretary to the Treasury, Neermal Rekha, yesterday distanced himself from a widening scandal over a remigrants scam saying he couldn't be expected to verify whether the Foreign Minister's signature had been forged on documents sent to the Finance Ministry.

In a statement issued less than a minute before one from the government announcing a further probe of the scam, Rekha said it was customary that documents signed by government ministers be checked and verified by the issuing ministry - in this case the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He said he merely upheld the status granted when he signed documents from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which might have been forged. A key part of the scam appears to be the forging of the signature of the Minister of Foreign Affairs on documents sent to the Ministry of Finance for approval.
...
He said also that the issue of authenticity of signature on the documents is "indeed alarming" but that his office is not technically or otherwise equipped to pronounce on the validity of the signature.

The point is not just whether the signature is forged, but whether the government of Guyana has a mechanism in place for assuring the validity of official documents. Apparently, it does not. So, government officials are going to pass the buck like crazy.

Hti: When will the order come to disarm warring factions?

One problem is none of the armed groups plan to disarm until the others disarm. Another problem: Police and the foreign troops have not received orders to disarm illegally armed groups.

Ja: Mi jus love nursing

A 31-YEAR-old woman who tried to pass herself off as a practical nurse at the Spanish Town Hospital yesterday was held by hospital authorities and police.

Janet Bennett, a mother of three, went to the Spanish Town Hospital at about 3:45 p.m. dressed in the pink and white uniform that is worn by practical nurses who work at the hospital.

She reportedly attempted to go into the Casualty Department area when a practical nurse at the hospital spotted her and called security. She was held and the police were summoned.

T&T: Utilitarianism is alive and well

John Spence advocates scrapping Cambridge A' Levels for the Scottish Hgher Examination in order to prepare students for both higher study and work. What is an essentially very thoughtful essay veers off, briefly, into educational utilitarianism when Spence writes:

In addition some of the top scholarship winners are allowed to study at Universities abroad. Trinidad and Tobago must be the only country in the world that ensures that the best brains in the country do not go to our own University (UWI) but study abroad and that at tax-payers expense! Since some of these do not return this must also be the only country in the world that supports a brain-drain financially!

All scholarship winners should be required to study at UWI (or at University of Trinidad and Tobago) and only be allowed to go elsewhere if the course of study s not available at UWI and then only if the programme of study is in the national interest.

What T&T needs to do is provide incentives for graduates to return home and facilitate their entry into the workplace. Instead, graduates who can contribute to the growth and development of T&T are treated with disdain, shunted aside, and have so many obstacles put in the way of finding work in their field that many of T&T's best and brightest return to enrich foreign lands, intellectually and financially. The answer is not educational utilitarianism but development of an infrastructure to facilitate the entry of the graduate into the workplace, or to assist those whose degrees may be in areas in which T&T does not yet envision having an interest. T&T can be on the cutting edge of change if only it would be more welcoming to those educated outside.

T&T: Victorious pannist needs liver transplant

Sixteen-year-old Shiron Cooper achieved a tremendous feat on Tuesday night by winning the pan solo category at the 26th Biennial Music Festival at Queen’s Hall, St Ann’s.

Cooper who suffers from primary sclerosing cholangitis, a disease that can cause liver failure, needs a liver transplant.
...
Cooper, a student of Woodbrook Government Secondary who has been playing for eight years, won with a composition by Leon Foster Thomas entitled “Call of the Amerindians.”
...
“I was a little frightened while playing onstage so I pretended to be practising at home, and I had practised all day yesterday,” she said.
...
Cooper, who is raising funds for her surgery, which will cost over $1 million, said the drive was almost at a standstill because people hardly put money into the account.

But she’s hoping she would get help so she can have the liver transplant as soon as possible.

You can help Shiron Cooper obtain a liver transplant by donating online to

Shiron Cooper Fund, Account # 400053
Scotiabank
56-58 Richmond Street
Port-of-Spain
Trinidad, West Indies
Telephone: 868-625-3566
Fax: 868-627-5278
Scotiabank email

If you enjoy reading this blog, please do hit the tip jar for Shiron. The exchange rate is $1 USD = $6.60 TT. One dollar goes a long way. Thanks.

T&T: Petrotrin protests escalates

SCORES of contractors were prevented from entering Petrotrin’s Pointe-a-Pierre refinery compound yesterday after hundreds of temporary and casual workers blocked the main gate as protests over wages and working conditions continued. Accompanied by members of the Oilfields Workers Trade Union (OWTU), the workers vowed to intensify protest action until the company agrees to meet with union officials to discuss regularisation of their employment status. OWTU Pointe-a-Pierre branch president Hollis Alexander, said company officials refused to discuss workers’ status and instead opted to bring in contractors to perform maintenance work at the refinery.

The issue is one of fair wages that are compatible with what equally skilled workers in the United States earn. In looking at the wage comparison of T&T and the U.S., I can't help thinking that a part of the problem is the $6 TT = $1 USD exchange rate. However, if the exchange rates become more equitable, T&T stands to lose a lot of money from exports to other countries, especially those in the Caribbean whose exchange rate is closer to the USD than T&T's. Apart from this, workers do have legitimate safety and work related issues that need to be addressed.

Hti: Too many Djangos

No one knows just how many weapons there are in Haiti. It's just one of many statistics that has fallen victim to the lawlessness, chaos and political mayhem here.

Most of the guns now being carried by armed militias here came from the Haitian army.
...
In the 1990s, Colombian drug lords brought their own unique brand of corruption and violence to Haiti.

At one point, nearly a fifth of the cocaine consumed in the United States was coming through Haiti.

Many say the culture of narcotics smuggling helped violence spread outward from the elite in Port-au-Prince to ordinary people.

I'm a strong advocate of the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms; however, Haitians need to be temporarily disarmed until the country stabilizes and develops. Haiti needs to be temporarily disarmed so that Haitians can stop killing each other. Eventually, when Haitians have made some progress towards a more civil society, the citizenry may learn how to use arms properly to defend themselves and their property. Right now, the senseless killing must stop.

Vzla: JEffinK = JFK

Chavez thinks John Effin Kerry's discourse is akin to that of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Somebody, tell John Effin Kerry that really quick. The pompous windsucker has achieved the dream of a lifetime — somebody thinks he's like JFK!

I don't know what Chavez is smoking or sniffing, but it must be something really pure.

Vzla: When will the media stop killing people?

State news agency VENPRES reports Communication & Information (MINCI) Minister Jesse Chacon as saying that an anti-government campaign conducted incessantly by Venezuela's private media is encouraging violence and hatred ... and it has violated the human rights of those people who were injured, killed or kidnapped at their homes during the riots that took place last week.

Chacon accuses the private print & broadcast media of launching two different kinds of campaigns. One that encourages hatred and one that defends human rights by accusing the government of violating them.

However, he says that no matter how much the media distorts information, the facts remain that 9 people died, 30 were arrested and all of the cases are currently in the hands of the Venezuelan courts.

“The government is doing everything possible to ensure the safety of those people who were arrested ... everyone who was arrested is charged with committing a crime under the penal code (COPP) ... anyone who says that Carlos Melo is a political prisoner is wrong, he was arrested and charged with the illegal possession of two automatic rifles.”

If Chavez doesn't suppress the free media who knows how many will be injured, killed, or kidnapped in Venezuela! Who knows what they might reveal about government human rights abuses! Who knows what kind of reporting they might do about the numbers taken political prisoners! Before the people of Venezuela can realize they're being injured, killed, kidnapped, and oppressed, Chavez ought to erode the freedom of the press. Ooops! That's happening already. My bad.

Vzla: I'm going to tell on you!

The government of President Hugo Chavez said Wednesday it will file a complaint with the Organization of American States, accusing the United States of meddling in Venezuela's domestic affairs.

Venezuela's ambassador to the OAS, Jorge Valero, said he plans to present proof that Washington has given financial and logistical support to opposition groups pushing for Chavez's ouster.

"Democratic rules must be respected. It can't be permitted that a foreign government is breaking them and supporting groups that try to destabilize the democratic institutions in Venezuela," Valero said.

Citing documents obtained under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, Chavez has accused the National Endowment for Democracy, an American nonprofit agency, of interfering in Venezuelan affairs by funding opposition groups. The endowment receives U.S. government money.

How can Chavez be expected to effect a thorough gutting of Venezuela's constitution if U.S. organizations don't respect democratic rules? Huh? Huh? How? How can he complete the oppression and enslavement of Venezuelans if outside forces won't leave him alone? The only help Chavez needs is from Castro, his mentor in democratic rule and praxis. Who needs the stinkin' ol' National Endowment for Democracy? Huh? Huh? Not Chavez.

Vzla: EU wants Chavez to spoil a perfectly good repression

The European Union (EU) on Wednesday urged Venezuela's government and the opposition to negotiate in a "constructive way" to seek a fair resolution to the present conflict.
...
The negotiation must aim to "reach a feasible, fair and transparent formula to establish an appealing procedure that respects the constitutional rights, the sovereign will and the good faith of the Venezuelans," it added.

The EU "will spare no effort in allowing Venezuela to find a constitutional, democratic, peaceful and electoral resolution to the crisis," the statement said.

What's up with the EU and this? Chavez has his boys wearing the red shirts; citizens are already deprived of their right to bear arms; some have been beaten up and tortured; some have been killed; and, enough recall signatures have been invalidated so that Chavez isn't recalled. Now the EU wants to step in and roll back all this progress? What's wrong with these people?! Can't a dictator just be allowed to oppress in peace anymore? Sheesh!

Vzla: Risky place for investment

Nigeria's hope of attracting foreign investment suffered yet another setback with the ranking of Nigeria atop countries presenting high risk characteristics among 50 nations in the world profiled by United States- based Aon. The ranking contrasts slightly with 2003 reports which ranked Bangladesh ahead of Nigeria in economic/political risks

The report which was based on 2003 political and economic events in the 50 countries surveyed classified Nigeria and Venezuela among countries where "geo-political risks; such as general strikes in Nigeria and political insurgency in Venezuela" have re-emerged and thus, decreasing the risk tolerance of investors, exporters and bankers.

Nigeria's got Islamofascists who are being aided and abetted by the Obasanjo government. Venezuela has Chavez. Both are repressive.

Hti: Aristide's lies bear fruit

US Marines fought several gunbattles overnight in the Haitian capital, including one outside the prime minister's residence, suspected to have left two dead, a US military spokesman said.

US members of the international security force in Haiti thought they saw two dead on the ground after one clash but when they returned to the scene found no bodies, Major Richard Crusan, a US military spokesman, told AFP.

"There were three incidents last night where gunmen fired at Marines who in all three cases returned fire," Crusan said.

Distance and safety eliminated Aristide's fears of a bullet to the head and left him free to recant his resignation and stir trouble. Only thing is, he's not the one who will die for his words.

Vzla: Squeeze not cut

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will consider cutting its production by another 1 million barrels per day, Venezuela's oil minister said Tuesday.

A production cut, coming after one announced last month, could push U.S. gas prices higher. The national average is now about $1.73 a gallon.

Separately, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez assured oil company executives on Tuesday that economic ties with the United States would remain strong despite political differences between his government and the Bush administration.

Vzla: Chavez remembers the key to his brain

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Tuesday he wanted to keep stable oil ties with the United States, backing away from his recent threats that crude shipments could be hurt by what he condemns as U.S. attempts to topple him.

"We don't have even the slightest intention of damaging those relations," Chavez told foreign oil executives and government officials at a natural gas contract ceremony.

"In the last five years we have enough proof, not just words, but proof, that we have supplied oil to the United States in a constant and secure manner," he said.
...
He spoke at the signing of a contract with U.S. firm ChevronTexaco to develop Block 3 of the country's Deltana offshore gas project.

As I'd said two days ago, Chavez needs the U.S.'s money as much as the U.S. needs Venezuelan oil.

T&T: Haiti, we're ashamed

Here's Ira Mathura's an excerpt from opinion piece, and she's mostly right on the issue, too.

Haiti, I'm sorry. Caricom failed you. We remained the duds we always were. Once again we've turned our backs, on you. We know that more than 260,000 people could be dying of hunger, and yet we sit smug, pointing fingers. Haiti, I'm sorry.

Caricom leaders are pompous, passing judgment, instead of food and supplies. Haiti, I'm ashamed, now you're dependent on French, Canadian and US troops to restore order, while our soldiers sit around eating fried chicken. Haiti, I'm sorry, we knew all along that you're convulsed with poverty, wiped out with Aids, yet instead of helping, we slam the US.

Haiti, I'm sorry, instead of embracing you in your time of need, we are thinking of throwing you out of Caricom councils. Haiti, I'm sorry, just a month or so back, we treated your people like criminals before sending them back. Haiti, I'm sorry we know you're our neighbours, but all you'll get from us is a statement. Haiti, I'm sorry, your 15-member family, the Caricom can't help you since we are defunct, impotent and invisible to the world.

Call it US arrogance if you like. But it sounds like pragmatism to me. Caricom has never been anything beyond an annual statement by leaders who lime for two days a year. No wonder the world has appropriated our territory, our neighbour as their responsibility.

T&T: They 'fraid Karl

The State has collected more than one million documents in support of its case against eight people and two companies accused of defrauding the Airports Authority of $19 million during construction of the Piarco Airport terminal.

The statement was made yesterday by Karl Hudson-Phillips QC as the preliminary inquiry into allegations of corruption against the defendants entered its second day.

The accused are former Government Ministers Brian Kuei Tung and Russell Huggins; Maritime executives John Smith, Steve Ferguson and Barbara Gomes; Northern Construction Limited executives Ishwar Galbaransingh and Amrith Maharaj; businesswoman Renee Pierre; NCL, Maritime and Fidelity Finance and Leasing Co.

T&T: Storm clouds on the labor front

THERE is a industrial relations crisis at hand in Trinidad and Tobago and if Government refuses to change its attitude towards workers, the situation could explode and possibly lead to a virtual shut down of the country, Robert Giuseppi, president of Natuc, has warned.

T&T: Strike done, back to work

TUG BOAT operators last night agreed to return to work today to allow tankers to be loaded with liquefied natural gas at the Atlantic LNG filling stations.

Last Friday, some 50 workers, including captains and crew members, reportedly joined construction workers employed by sub-contractors building the Train IV project clamouring for higher wages and better working conditions.

The decision to return to work was arrived at last night as lawyers representing PLIPWIJS, a joint venture company involving State-owned corporation Plipdeco and Dutch company Svitzer-Wijsmuller International Towage, moved to get a court injunction to force the tug operators back to work.

Gya: Teacher breaks pupil's arm in beating with broken chair part

It has been more than three months since eight-year-old Joel Punch's arm was broken after being beaten by a teacher with a part from a broken chair. But his family is yet to hear any word from the Ministry of Education even though it had said an investigation was underway.

The child's grandmother, Doreen McPherson, is also lamenting what she termed as the callous treatment she received from an official at the School's Welfare Depart-ment.

Punch, who attends the New Comenius Primary School, had his arm broken last November reportedly by his class teacher after he had chased one of his schoolmates around the schoolyard for taking his pencil.

Children ought to be disciplined in school, but not like this. This is plain and simply child abuse. The teacher ought to be fired and prosecuted, but nothing seems to be happening. Instead, education ministry officials are treating the child's grandmother with disdain.

St. Maart: Where'd the coke come from?

410 kilos of cocaine, with a street value of $53M U.S.D., was smuggled into St. Maarten recently. Officials in St. Maarten are wondering who brought it in from Colombia.

St. Maart: Clamping down on bootleggers

Commissioner of Economic Affairs Theo Heyliger stressed in a press release that the "jig is up" for bootleggers who illegally copy and distribute music, videocassettes and DVDs in St. Maarten.

In keeping with worldwide actions and laws, and those of the Netherlands Antilles, Heyliger announced that government had been preparing for the last few weeks to crack down on and, if need be, close down any establishment and/or individual found to be illegally distributing music, videos and DVDs.

PR: Puerto Rican soldiers wounded in Iraq

Fort Buchanan Spokesman Jose Pagan said Tuesday that two Puerto Rican soldiers stationed in Iraq were wounded during an explosion Monday.

Pagan identified the wounded men as Sgts. Second Class Angel Rivera Delgado and Reinaldo Pagan Peña, who were assigned to transportation unit 432 of the Puerto Rico Reserve.

"Rivera received minor injuries to his left arm. Pagan is in a delicate state with multiple wounds to his hands and face,” he said.

Prayers for their swift recovery and for their families.

Bhms: Lethal yellowing killing coconut trees

An epidemic of lethal yellowing that is killing out coconut trees in the Bahamas may have come from trees imported from Florida.

Ja: French trade

Interest in French products and services has continued to grow and France has become one of Jamaica's important suppliers in certain categories such as aircraft, automobiles, wines and spirits, cosmetics and perfumes, industrial equipment and electronic material, said Karlene Lemaire, assistant to the French Trade Commissioner.

The role of the Trade Commission is to promote business and commercial activities between France and Jamaica by acting as facilitator in setting up the necessary links between the buyers and suppliers of both countries, she said.

France exported US$90 million worth of goods and services to Jamaica while importing US$66 million worth of goods from the island in 2003.

One can only hope that Jamaicans don't learn to surrender with French ease. Who knows, maybe those tough rude bwoys in Jamaica might put some spine in the French. Jamaica ought to watch that $24M trade imbalance that favors the French. Most of the French imports was bauxite related.

Ja: AT&T Wireless investing $1B

WIRELESS GIANT AT&T acquired its 16th licence in the Caribbean yesterday when it officially signed an agreement with the Jamaican Government to acquire a licence to provide a wireless service in Jamaica.

"This licence was awarded in consideration for the sum of $360 million and will involve an investment of $1 billion in the first 12 months of operations," said Minister of Commerce, Science and Technology Phillip Paulwell. He was speaking at the official signing ceremony at the Knutsford Court Hotel, New Kingston yesterday.

Ja: Sad song of the banana man

Banana farmers have been told to be on the alert for a new disease called 'Moko' that has been found to be deadly to the fruit. Here Freddy Chambers, a backyard farmer, checks on the banana trees he grows at his home on Monroe Road, Liguanea, St. Andrew. His trees have not been affected. - Rudolph Brown/Staff Photographer

AGRICULTURE MINISTER Roger Clarke yesterday outlined several initiatives, aimed at containing the deadly Moko disease detected on five banana farms in St. James.
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The disease affects bananas and plantains, and already 20 acres of bananas are slated to be destroyed

Hti: Young Haitian Professional ask CBC to have some sense

Dear distinguished representatives of the congressional black caucus,
 
This letter is to express a feeling of deep disappointment among Haitians and Haitian-Americans concerning the actions of certain Democratic congressional members who are using the plight of  the Haitian people for their own political agendas.

At this point in our history, where we are presented with a real chance of building a true democratic country, we find the accusations of certain members of the Black Caucus counterproductive and even inhibitive to the Haitian national unity initiative.
 
Kidnapping and “coup d’état” charges emanating from lobbyists and democrats looking to use this issue as a “ticket item” against the Bush administration in this electoral year is perceived within the Haitian-American community as unimaginative and conniving.
 
The fact of the matter is that Jean-Bertrand Aristide was unwilling and incapable of creating a political environment conducive to negotiations after years of irresponsible governance. This created a hostile and corrupt government that became ungovernable and endangered the lives of thousands. It was in his best interest as well as in the best interest of the nation for him to resign.
 
The current turns of events in Haiti are certainly unfortunate. Many have died, countless material damage has been inflicted, and there is flair of political uncertainty in the air. However, one thing that cannot be ignored is the fact that for the first time in years, one can notice a glimmer of hope in the eyes of the rejoicing mass who have been parading in the streets yelling: “LIBERTY”. This is the Hope for a new Haiti on its way to political stability, economic recovery and most importantly, social renaissance. I only ask for all concerned parties to please be responsible in their actions so that they don’t extinguish our glimmer, but rather help us in this rebuilding process, as Haiti, the first Black republic in the world, needs the help of all willing.

Let's see if the CBC will heed YHP or if they'll still demagogue the issue to score points against the Bush Administration.

Gda: Now Grenada gets into the act

Two local lawyers, Anslem Clouden and Dr. Francis Alexis have called for the immediate establishment by government of an Oil and Gas Commission to manage Grenada's natural resources.

Clouden is a specialist on maritime law while Dr. Alexis who heads the People's Labour Movement (PLM) is a leading constitutional expert. The lawyers held a press conference and suggested the setting up of the commission that can also be charged with the responsibility of considering applications on for licenses to explore and exploit those resources in Grenadian waters.

The calls were made against the backdrop of problems between neighbouring Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago on maritime boundaries in light of natural gas in the disputed territories.

Who knew that Grenada had oil and gas?!

DR: Child trafficking

Migration authorities are investigating three Puerto Rican women, who were detained after attempting to pass Dominican children off as their own. Migration Director Miguel Vasquez Escoto said that Luz Garcia and Luz Torres Rodriguez were arrested at Las Americas International Airport (Santo Domingo), and Mariely Negron Molina was arrested at the Cibao International Airport (Santiago). The three are suspected to be part of a ring of child traffickers. Vasquez says that migration inspectors have been following the trail of the women for months now, which led to the airport arrests as they attempted to take the children abroad. The news story in the Listin Diario does not clarify the motive for the suspicious transporting of the children, for which speculation ranges from the parents of the minors sending for them from abroad to the macabre organ trafficking conjecture, which is unlikely, as the source of the organs needs to be proven in the US health system.

Say it ain't so! It's bad enough that poor children can be trafficked for the sexual use of perverts, but to use them as farm stock for organ harvesting? That's unconscionable!

Bmda: Lower U.S. corporate taxes make offshore banking less attractive

Congress is expected this month to debate bills that will lower the corporate tax rate in the US – making it less attractive for companies to move offshore to places like Bermuda to lower their tax bills.

Bermuda has been under fire from the US for its low tax regime for years – but the debate has heated up over the past few months with Democratic Presidential front-runner John Kerry slamming companies that move to Bermuda in most of his electioneering speeches.
The impetus behind the debate is a decision by the European Union to impose taxes on a range of US products in retaliation for a tax break for US exporters which could amount to more than $4 billion.

Read the rest.

Bmda: JetBlue brings low cost flights

Bermudians can look forward to low cost flights from the United States with news yesterday that JetBlue has applied to fly to the Island next year.
Transport Minister Dr. Ewart Brown has been wooing the budget airline for some time and said yesterday he was delighted the company had decided to fly to the Island.
“This is excellent news. This represents a significant step forward for the travelling public’s desire to achieve low cost fares to Bermuda,” said Dr. Brown.

Blz: Aircraft found, owner unknown

Corozal police are tonight trying to find out who landed this aircraft and left it abandoned on a dirt road in that northern district. Acting on a tip, on Sunday authorities visited the location in the Santa Cruz area and found the twin engine Beechcraft King Air. Although there was no one in the area, the authorities did find on the side of the road six twelve-gallon and two fifteen-gallon plastic containers, each filled with aviation fuel. They also discovered seven empty fifteen-gallon containers. While it is assumed that the plane was involved in the drug transhipment trade, no evidence of narcotics was found.

Atg: Election codes of conduct

Somebody in Antigua wants politics to be other than a knock down, drag out, bare-knuckled mud fight.

Within the past three weeks political candidates have signed two different codes of conduct, one by the Antigua Labour Party (ALP) candidates of their own making and the other by the Antigua Christian Council (ACC) called a Code of Ethics, which has been signed by both United Progressive Party (UPP) and ALP candidates.
...
Both codes of conduct prescribe the behaviour of candidates leading up to Election Day along with the types of advertising campaigns that should take place.

Paramount in both codes is the understanding that there should be no incitement to violence, no name calling, no character assassinations, no actual violence either by candidates or supporters and a general understanding that despite the heated campaigning for party support, it would be done in an orderly and peaceful way.

The question has to be asked, though, how come within days of both parties signing these codes there has been an outbreak of campaign violence and vandalism and why have leaders of both parties not been able to bring the same under control.

What are the chances of John Kerry signing such a code? Not much.

Bdos: Who are you calling upon?

Representatives of the Christian, Jewish, Baha’i, Buddhist, and Hindu Faiths all joined together at St. Mary’s Church in prayer for love, freedom and understanding among human relationships.

The special joint service was part of a Multi-Faith Observation for Commonwealth Day.

Most noteworthy is that there was no sermon but a "Meditation" by Reverend Dr. Wilfred Wood who was properly disapproving of the U.S. ventures in Iraq and Haiti (though he did not explicitly state that); that wealthy nations [code for the U.S.] were said to be "engaged in the seven deadly sins afflicting advanced societies as described by Mahatma Ghandi"; and that the people and leaders of these rich but sinful nations engaged in

According to Ghandi,... “politics without principle, wealth without worth, commerce without morality, education without commitment, pleasure without conscience, science without humanity and worship sacrifice."

Forget the politics of it. I intend to focus on the "theology" of an inter-faith service.

We live in an age when mealy-mouthed pieties have replaced the dogmatic assertions that are the hallmark of a firm and clear religious faith. In this age, ecumenicism, with its bland, one-size-fits-all god, has replaced the YHWH of the OT [who is the NT God who is masked in the Son] who thunders in Isaiah:

I am YHWH, and there is none else; besides me there is no God.... For thus saith YHWH that created the heavens, the God that formed the earth and made it, that established it and created it not a waste, that formed it to be inhabited: I am YHWH; and there is none else.... Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else. By myself have I sworn, the word is gone forth from my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, that unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.... (Is 45:7, 18, 22-23)

And, "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." (John 14:6)

How is this YHWH God — who so clearly asserts His identity, who rejects the notion that He is one of many or the chief amongst many, and who declares that the only way to Him is through His Son — to be understood and reconciled with that creature to whom words are offered up in an inter-faith gathering? What compromises have to be made regarding the identity, nature, and essence of God, for these groups — Christian, Jewish, Baha'i Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu — to be able to pray together? I contend that such a reconciliation is not possible, and that those who engage in ecumenical services must either lie to themselves concerning what they believe, or they must reject God as he presents Himself in order to worship a god of their own imaginings. Alternatively, one may argue that the individuals from these diverse groups may find common ground and move forward from there. However, upon closer inspection, the common ground is reduced to no more than the idea of a god. For, even Judaism and Christianity, the two closest faiths, differ with regard to their theology and doctrine of the essence of God — Jews are monotheists, and Christians are Trinitarian monotheists. The differences between the others are even wider.

For such diverse groups to pray together, each must convince himself that the theological differences are insignificant. The Christian, for this is this writer's faith and confession, has to wilfully ignore John 14:6, amongst other texts, in order to join in prayer with other religious bodies. One may not ignore or dismiss John 14:6 et al and remain a Christian; for, Christianity is a faith of sharp and clear absolutes, of either-or rather than both-and. Either one believes in Christ or one does not. Either salvation comes through Jesus Christ alone or it does not. Either Jesus is the only way to God or He is not. Such an absolutist faith does not permit the accommodation of ecumenicism. Thus, one may conclude that the mere fact of ecumenicism amounts to a denial of the particularity of Christ and of Christianity itself.

If God is taken as He presents Himself to us in His Word, then ecumenicism amounts to heresy. He is not Buddha or Bahau'la or anybody else. He is YHWH God, and He has named and defined Himself for us; moreover, His reputation and promises are bound to the name by which He has identified Himself to us. He made us; we didn't make Him. Therefore, either we accept His presentation of Himself, or we reject it. If we accept Him as He says He is, then we must reject ecumenicism. For, it is, in essence, a rejection of God's depiction of Himself because it implies that He may be other than and different from who He says He is. Thus, in the ecumenical world view, there is not any truth, either in God Himself or in His presentation of Himself to us. In the absence of a God of truth, each man is free to create his own god based on his idea of what a god ought to be.

Confronted with an absolutist God, Christians can only charitably extend polite tolerance to adherents of belief other systems, unaccompanied by any possibility of joint worship or prayer. In fact, although we may pray for others of different beliefs, we may not pray with them. After all, what has YHWH God to do with Dagon? Nothing. For, Christianity and its scandal of particularity permits no middle course designed to appease the sensibilities of those who believe differently. Say what you want about Him, YHWH God is not politically correct. He stakes out His gound — He is the creator of the heavens and earth — and asserts His absolute supremacy. He is God, and He alone; beside Him there is none other.

So, then, what recourse does an ecumenicist have? He has no choice but to reject God's presentation of Himself and advance his own notions of the Godhead. For, it is his own idea of god which facilitates "prayer" with others of different beliefs. Therefore, even though each might pray to his own god, such prayer makes the Christian God one of many rather than God alone, which is what He says of Himself.

So, while Christians may and do interact with those of different beliefs, prayer and worship is not an acceptable option. For, the question that YHWH God may rightly ask is, who are you calling upon? If what God says of Himself is dismissed, then the only answer is "not You."

Hti: Refugees fly to Cuba

At least 30 Haitians fleeing violence in their homeland have sought refuge in Cuba, authorities said, adding that they don't expect a mass exodus from the nearby country.

"I can confirm the presence of 30 Haitian immigrants in Maisi," a town on Cuba's east coast, the Foreign Ministry said late Monday in response to queries from The Associated Press.
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Cuba's Foreign Ministry said it doesn't expect a flood of refugees despite political unrest after last month's ouster of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

The Haitians must've got lost at sea.

Hti: New prime minister and Aristide's rabble rousers

Haiti's U.S.-backed advisory council picked a former foreign minister as the new prime minister on Tuesday, a step toward forming a transitional government in this troubled nation.

Gerard Latortue's appointment came as U.S. Marines said they would help Haitian police disarm the general population....

Efforts to bring calm to this troubled Caribbean nation followed a bloody insurgency that ousted Aristide on Feb. 29, put rebels in control of half the country and sparked a frenzy of looting and violence. At least 130 people were killed in the rebellion; reprisal killings since Aristide's ouster have left at least 300 dead.

Unrest hit the capital again Tuesday as Aristide loyalists set up flaming barricades and stoned cars. There were no immediate reports of serious injury.

U.S.: No Kerry, you'll not be the "second" black president of the U.S.

I still can't get over Toni Morrison's, Bill Clinton's, and John Kerry's chutzpah (pronounced khootz-pah)! Somebody, apart from CaribPundit, has finally spoken up, a week late. I guess, they needed time to think about whether Kerry, the rich white boy and Boston brahmin-wannabe, could be the "second" black president of America. That blacks in this country have accepted Clinton as the "first" black president means that they've no ground on which to claim that America has never had a black president. Yup. In this rounds, you gotta be careful what basket you take.

The head of a civil rights and legal services advocacy group wants Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry to apologize for saying he wouldn't be upset if he could be known as the second black president.

"John Kerry is not a black man, [how long did it take her to figure that one out?] he is a privileged white man who has no idea what it is in this country to be a poor white in this country, let alone a black man, [and this one, too]" said Paula Diane Harris, founder of the Andrew Young National Center for Social Change.

The reaction would have been instantaneous had GWB been crass enough to make such a statement. The remarkable thing is, Kerry thinks Bush is stupid! As to the protest and call for an apology, better late than never, I guess.

Ja: Wanted for Jamaica: a University of Woodford Square

Should we be afraid of repercussions from the Caricom statement on Haiti? Hopefully not. Rather, we should be encouraged that our leaders met, discussed the crisis leading to the sudden departure of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide last weekend, and asked for an international probe.

As we keep eyes and minds wide open, we acknowledge that Prime Minister Patterson's statement on behalf of the Caribbean community was balanced and circumspect. We know that Caricom is 5.5 million people in 17 small states, and the powers that be could very well be chuckling into their cocktails over what little upstarts we are. But, as Tennyson wrote, "Right is right, and to follow right were wisdom in the scorn of consequence." (Well taught, Mrs Golding!)

However, we should be careful that we don't launch into the old "those Americans" diatribe since "they" include supportive friends, as well as thousands of our relatives who have no desire to live the edgy life of today's Jamaica. We had better realise that while we can feel comfortable arguing in public about our preference of US political candidates, we would not dare do the same when it comes to our leaders. Those of us who have been threatened or victimised in this country know that a heavy price can be exacted for free speech.

Et tu, Jamaica? Jean Lowrie-Chin's article is a refreshing breath of air blowing into a fog of anti-U.S. editorials and columns. Nevertheless, it is astonishing to discover that Jamaicans don't possess the same freedom of speech rights that citizens of southerly island T&T possess. Therefore, I advocate that Jamaicans should establish for themselves a University of Woodford Square in order to familiarize politicians with the right of the citizen to speak freely within the parameters of the law, and to toughen the thin skin of politicians when they hear themselves being reviled by the populace.

In T&T, Woodford Square in Port of Spain has long held the sobriquet of "university" because any man may stand there and say whatever he wishes. Because of Woodford Square's importance to political discourse in a nation that was striving for independence, no prime minister of T&T has the power to prevent the nations' citizens anywhere from speaking out against the government. [This is not to discount the role played by calypso in asserting and securing the free speech rights of T&T citizens.] When deceased PM Eric Williams did not like what critics had to say, his recourse was to turn off his hearing aid. That free speech, be it political or whatever, is protected by law, and no-one, either in the interests of political correctness or some misguided sense of respect for the dignity of politicians, may tell a Trini that he can't talk freely. Perhaps Jamaica needs some of that.

Ja: Central Bank government's Santa

The Bank of Jamaica has become a kind of Santa Claus for government, bailing it out of a tight financial situation. The central bank had to lend government what is referred to as "printed money", near Christmas last year to enable it to meet the wage bill of public sector workers and interest on debts.

"Printed money" - a technical term - represents advances made by the central bank. Another view is that "printed money" is generating more money into the system than should be there which invariably leads to high inflation, the rate of increase in prices. Under the law, the central bank is allowed to advance to government up to a maximum of 30 per cent of the country's estimated revenue and also acquire government securities up to 40 per cent of the estimated expenditure in the same year. Based on the estimated expenditure of $278 billion and estimated revenue of $122 billion for 2003-2004, the government by law could be accommodated with a total of more than $100 million of "printed money" by the central bank.

The present law places the central bank in an untenable position. Therefore, the time has come for the government to put its fiscal house in order. It should balance its budget and leave the central bank to concentrate on its core function of implementing monetary policy, including the critical areas of reducing inflation and interest rates and ensuring foreign exchange rate stability. At present, the work of the central bank is being hampered by its intervention in matters relating to fiscal deficit.

Ja: Haitians gotta get their act together

The circumstances surrounding the demise of Jean-Bertrand Aristide and the current wave of instability in Haiti are regrettable. While one cannot overlook the seriousness inherent in the "Sunday Morning Diplomacy", or the dangerous precedent it could set for emerging democracies, one has to be careful not to sidestep the real issues affecting the vast majority of Haitians. It must begin to resonate among the Haitian people that there is very little to be gained from these frequent coup d'états. They must understand also that with each coup comes 10 years of regression and that it is the poor who suffer most during these uprisings. Those who espouse the view that change is best effected through overthrows had better revisit the history of such in Haiti. There are deep-seated social origins to the current political crisis that must be exposed in an honest and sensitive manner.

Fundamentally, a huge part of what is taking place in Haiti is influenced by misguided passions. Simply put, there is too little passion for the democratisation of the political system, and too much passion for, and expectations of, the leader. If Haiti continues on this path, then its future as a free and thriving society is uncertain. It is regrettable that the Haitian people have allowed thugs to rob them of a unique opportunity, which could enable them to begin to enjoy a stable and democratic society. The onus is now on Haitians to pull together, to work hard to strengthen and to build a free and prosperous society, based on democratic values.
....
The socio-economic and political realities in Haiti are frightening and efforts must be made, led by the Haitian people themselves, to bring about significant amelioration.

Read the rest.

Ja: Windies in a no-spin zone

The West Indies yesterday cut left-arm wrist spinner, Dave Mohammed, from their squad of 13 for the opening cricket Test against England, starting at Sabina Park on Thursday, making it clear they will be depending on a four-pronged pace attack.

T&T: Racial politics and the attempt to rewrite T&T history

In the Express of February 5, Dr Kumar Mahabir made a very illogical and absurd claim about the "undoubted influence of the Hosay Tassa drum in the making of the steel drum" and continued with an addendum by "scholars versed in the phenomenon of cultural cross fertilisation" hinting at some homologies.

If Dr Mahabir's reference to JD Elder's support for his claims are correct, then Dr Elder's error is due to the fact that growing up in Tobago, he would not have had first hand experience of the birth of steelpan like I had, growing up opposite Tamarind Square, in east Port of Spain.

The epicentre of the steelband development is Duke and Nelson Streets in east Port of Spain. ... Not in central or south Trinidad! Whereas some measure of cultural and other miscegenation is inevitable as seen in chutney and soca, it was not part of the process of the invention of the steelpan in the 40s and 50s.

In 1946, there was a small family steelband on Nelson Street, opposite Christopher's Recording Studio and next door to Swanee River Steel Orchestra (later to become St Joseph Road Fascinators) made up of Madras Indians who tried to play East Indian music on Western-tuned steelpans, borrowed from Swanee River. Sadly, they failed. The crossover that they attempted to pioneer was to happen much later, as seen today in the performances of East Indian melodies by the Samaroos, Skiffle Bunch and others.

While African Creoles, urbanised in Port of Spain barrackyards, were still recovering from their recent painful, dehumanising history, East Indians by and large were still "ruralised" and isolated in the countryside. What happened was self pollination, not cultural cross-fertilisation.

Phillips asks "[w]hy is Mahabir trying to take away steelband from the Afro-Trinis?". The answer may be simply that Kumar Mahabir, like many others in the West and elsewhere, is a proponent of the theory that nothing good can come out of Africa unless another and better people and culture shows Africa the way; thus, any accomplishment of Africa's children in the the New World is subject to question and examination for its other-cultural roots. According to this theory of the inherent inferiority of Africans and those of African descent, a radically new and innovative instrument like pan cannot have been created by Afro-Trinis without external influence by another wiser and better culture. For Kumar Mahabir, this wiser and better culture is Indian because, as a then-minister of government, an Indian woman, once said, all Indians white, and that must make Indians better. Therefore, Mahabir, in claiming an Indian influence in the development of pan, is actually staking out ground claiming the superiority of Indo- over Afro-T&T people and culture. Since Mahabir has made these same claims previously, his ridiculous theory ought to be vigorously attacked with the facts of the history of pan to prevent his absurd claims from being received as truth. Unless Afro-Trinidadians are willing to do the research and the writing, then history will record Kumar Mahabir's absurdities as factual, for he will support them by reference to the flawed historical record of a well-respected Afro-T&T scholar, J.D. Elder.

Phillips continues:

Hill Sixty, Destination Tokyo, Crusaders of the East, Swanee River, Casablanca, Cross of Lorraine, Syncopators, Rising Sun, Invaders, Crossfire, Sputnik, Kintups, Dem Boys, Dem Fortunate, Rising Sun, Merry Makers, Funland, Sunland-all of these bands could not match the music of a south band-Southern All Stars playing "Anna" (1950)-the theme song of an Italian film.

At that time, who had time for tassa drums in greater Port of Spain and Laventille? Pan was already in its earliest stages, attempting the European classics, learning its structure and expanding its scope. Tassa although it has its place, is by and large simpler and too monotonous. African drumming is more energetic, more exciting, more dynamic, is contrapuntal -filled with call and response passages.

Dr Mahabir is misguided and mischievous in his statements about the relationship of the tassa drums to steelband development. This is not the first time he has alluded to such a theory and maybe not the last. Afro-creoles seem to consider this claim to be so ludicrous and preposterous that they just do not take him on. However, clearly there is the need to nip such errant statements in the bud.
...
Many of the early innovators who have not passed on, went away and now reside far afield in Australia, Switzerland, Sweden, London, California, New York, Toronto and have lost the kind of contact to reply to Dr Kumar Mahabir's insults

What can he gain by making this claim when there is so much evidence which can clearly refute it? Is he trying to rewrite the history of Africans here or belittle the contributions of Africans in Trinidad? It is past time for him to stop making this claim.

Here Phillips hits the nail dead on. This is precisely what Kumar Mahabir may well be attempting to do. A lie, once told often enough, is often received as "truth."

T&T: Hinduization of T&T?

Indian High Commissioner Virendra Gupta said yesterday there was a need for people in this country, Africans and Indians alike, to learn more and develop an understanding of the Hindi language.

Understanding Hindi, which is the medium of expression of Indian culture, Gupta said, was the key to helping people understand more and appreciate such festivals as Phagwa, which was celebrated by the Hindu community at the weekend.

Why do T&Tians need to understand Hindi in order to appreciate Phagwa? T&T is not predominantly Hindu; it is, though, predominantly Christian. Will Indian High Commissioner Gupta recommend that T&Tians learn Biblical Hebrew and Koine Greek in order to appreciate Christmas and Easter? Or will he recommnend that Yoruba be taught so that Carnival can be fully appreciated by everyone? This bid by the Indian High Commissioner sounds like Hindu proselytization in disguise. Thank you, but no thanks, High Commissioner Gupta.

T&T: Muslim watch

THREE Muslim fundamentalist groups in this country are kept under constant surveillance, the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force yesterday informed high-ranking military officials from over a dozen countries.

The officials were told to be aware of them, and if approached by any members of the groups, to make a report.

The groups named were the Jamaat-al-Muslimeen, the Waajihatul Islaamiyyah, based in Princes Town, and the Jamaat al Murabiteen, which, the Express was informed, operates from a Central location.

The Princes Town group allegedly had stored arms in the mosque in preparation for their participation in the attempted coup of 1990. It was common knowledge at the time because many spoke of it in the Princes Town market.

T&T: Now Petrotrin may join ALNG workers

Petrotrin's temporary/casual staff joined, yesterday, the spate of protest action which has been rocking the energy sector the past month.

Approximately 300 workers, armed with placards, marched around the Petrotrin administration building at the Pointe-a-Pierre Roundabout, demanding that they be made permanent.

This follows about a month of protest action by Atlantic LNG employees, who are demanding improved wages and safety facilities.

When disgruntled casual workers arrived at the Petrotrin refinery yesterday, the gate leading to the area which houses people awaiting selection for temporary employment was locked.

They had to dismantle the gate to gain access to the facility.

President of OWTU Petrotrin, Pointe-a-Pierre branch, Hollis Alexander, said the decision to protest came after one month of failed negotiations with the company's human resource department.

Any strike in T&T's energy sector is going to be bad business for both T&T and the U.S. Here's an article assessing T&T's dominance over Venezuela in natural gas development. This article here indicates that the strike in T&T may not have much of an impact here in the U.S. because heating demand is tapering off as spring weather approaches. Somebody ought to tell Georgia and the Carolinas that.

T&T: ALNG workers strike against sub-minimum wages

Gimmi captain Antonio Ali said only four workers, comprising the captain, deckhand, engineer and cook, are sent to sea. The engineer earns $10.25 per hour, while the cook and deckhand earn $6, Ali said, adding workers are forced to work 24 hours per day.

"The captain has to do the work of a sailor, the cook is a janitor and there are safety risks on board for which we are not compensated," Ali said.

OWTU second vice-president Carlton Gibson said it was contemptible that ALNG was being sold for US$12 million a shipment and workers were being paid under the minimum wage.

The tug workers are employed with Plipwijs Contractors, which is a joint-venture partnership between Plipdeco and Danish firm Svitzer.

Plipwijs manager Andre Vera declined to comment on the matter and referred questions to Plipdeco.

Roget said while workers did not want to shutdown ALNG, they were unwilling to go back to work under the same conditions.

The OWTU is now requesting an immediate meeting with Plipwijs.

$12M U.S. per shipment of natural gas and that's all they're paying workers? Here's how much is being lost because of the strike:

A consignment of LNG, worth US$12 million, is shipped every 48 hours. Four ALNG tankers remain empty off the Point Fortin Jetty, resulting in a potential loss of US$48 million.

USVI: Supporting Kerry by sliming others

The Vietnam War was a real test of character. It was a moment of truth in which people revealed who they really were. Hard choices were made. Resisters to the draft faced jail time or a self-imposed exile in Canada. Those who fought found themselves engaged in a brutal, frustrating and unwinnable war. Crimes were committed that have never been fully acknowledged. Almost 60,000 Americans died, in addition to millions of Vietnamese. Many veterans returned home both physically and psychologically damaged.

There were easier ways out that those of lesser conscience or character could take. National Guard or Reserve duty was one. Another was securing student deferments (as did our current vice-president, Dick Cheney). They could avoid the hard choices made by both those who served and those who resisted.

We as a nation have still not acknowledged the fact that the War in Vietnam was a disgrace to American ideals. The full responsibility rests on those leaders who initiated it and continued it even after they knew it could not be won, who placed men like John Kerry in a moral and political quagmire.

Those who spoke out against the war should be honored. Those who used - and continue to use - the flag and patriotism to discredit them should be ashamed of themselves.

The editorialist, Paul Leary, is professor emeritus in political science at the Univ. of the Virgin Islands. It seems that that the good professor has forgotten how to do research. If he had done his research, he'd have known better than to repeat tired old lies and tired old mantras; he'd have known better than to repeat the collopswaddle written in John Effin Kerry's book. What is interesting about Leary's editorial is how it turns the world upside down. Draft dodgers and war protesters have more character and integrity than those who served in the National Guard or secured a deferment. How one speaks about Viet Nam is as revelatory of character as what one did during that era.

T&T: Hinduism the solution for Iraq

Delivering a special lecture on India's image in the West" at the Avinashilingam University, Dr Elst said, "In future, we are going to have one universal civilisation in which the most valuable elements of every culture will have a place. Most of these will be traceable to India." Given this divergence of views on Hindu it is interesting to note the views of a Hindu leader on the crisis in Iraq. About the American attack on Iraq, the RSS Sarsanghchalak, Shri K S Sudarshan said America is caught in a web in Iraq and it wants to drag India also into it (Organiser 23/2/04). He appreciated the Government of India's stand on the issue by not getting involved in it. India has rightly told America that it would start any reconstruction work in Iraq only under the supervision of UNO and not under the American supervision, he said.

"At the time of growing conflict among civilisations especially between Islam and Christianity world over, only the Hindu way of life, which ensures peace and brotherhood through its centuries-old concept of unity in diversity, can restore peace," he added. There are strong possibilities of using sophisticated weapons of mass destruction in the conflict as has been witnessed in Iraq and Afghanistan recently. If it happens the whole world will be destroyed within a matter of seconds. Need of the hour is to bring forth the Hindu concept of unity in diversity before the world to save it from destruction.
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The Sarsanghchalak urged the leaders of Islam and Christianity not to insist on their so-called "religious exclusiveness" and accept the Hindu Indian view of unity in diversity. He pointed out that the process of thinking in this regard has already begun in some of the Islamic and Christian countries. They have now started realising that both the religions need to be moderate and reforms oriented.

I wonder what he had to say about this, and this? This is delusional thinking at its best.

Vzla: Reclaiming the nice guy eccentric demagogue image

The Government has begun its attempt to cover up the violence of the last ten days. Today we heard retired general Lucas Rincon, who told the world on April 11th. that Chavez had resigned (thus we know he is a liar, whether it was true or not) say that all of what happened in the last ten days is an attempt to lower the prestige of the Government. Curiously Lucas Rincon reported "only" 111 injured, none missing, versus the opposition numbers of 10 missing and 1450 injured.

Then, there was the investigative pole saying that Jose Vila who you saw running away from the National Guard and the Military Police was killed by his own friends of Gente del Petróleo with a marble used as bullet in a homemade gun. Moreover, the investigative police said that Vilas himself was firing.

Well, there are a few interesting things about these statements. First of all, in the pictures you see Vilas running, no guns in his hand. Then you see him dead, his backpack still on. Second, between him and the National Guard there is nobody, the street is empty, just empty space between him and the Guards/police.

Vzla: Propaganda machine churning

The Chavez propaganda machine rolls inexorably, or so it seems. I already pointed out that Aporrea had access to picture taking not available to us bloggers. But apparently Aporrea has also access to pictures of autopsies, just like the TV series CSI. I wonder if that is legal, incidentally, though aware that some people in Venezuela are more legal than others.

Well, Aporrea has a story where one of the victims of the repression was actually shot with a marble. Supposedly the marble would have been shot THROUGH his body by a home made gun. And by an opponent. OK, so what is wrong with this story? And I will spare you the gruesome pics and the link, you can find Aporrea in my table next if you feel like vomiting. What is wrong is that it strains belief that a marble can go through the body of a chubby man, It strains belief that the opposition, accused by Chavez of hoarding who knows what, cannot buy real guns in a country where all is up for sale.

Read the rest in which Daniel Duquenal takes on pro-Chavez reporters from the UK's Guardian and the New York Times. So much for all the news that's fit to print.

Hti: Don't speed up to military checkpoints

U.S. Marines shot and killed the driver of a vehicle speeding up to a military checkpoint, spokesman Sgt. Timothy Edwards told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
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"When you see a vehicle approaching at high speed it is seen as a threat, so the Marines opened fire," Edwards said in a telephone interview. "The driver was killed. ... A second man was injured and turned over to the Haitian police."

The great pity of this is that the driver liked to speed.

Cay: Halliburton in the cross-hairs

Halliburton, the company that for decades has gone to war with the US Army, is under sharp attack at home. In particular, the US Treasury has reopened an investigation into whether Halliburton violated US sanctions against Iran and Libya by doing business with the countries through a Cayman Islands subsidiary.
...
Harried Halliburton executives are having to defend the company against charges on everything including price gouging in Iraq, sanctions busting in Libya and Iran and bribe-paying in Nigeria.

The probes will end if GWB jettisons Cheney as his VP.

Cuba: Sign of the end of times

Third- to sixth-grade students in Cuba will soon start taking English in schools, according to a government announcement. This will be the first time in many years that English is widely taught in the island's schools.

During the 30 years that Cuba had close links to the Soviet block countries, Russian became de rigueur in schools, and English was relegated to secondary status.

Cuba: No right to protest

Six activists and two independent journalists are still in prison awaiting trial two years after staging a public, peaceful protest to protest the beating of another journalist.

The eight are all accused of public disorder, disobedience, and resistance, and the prosecutor in the case, Iliana Fajardo, is asking for prison terms of between two and seven years for the men.

Cuba: What Castro wants

The No. 1 policy objective of the Cuban dictatorship is obtaining U.S. mass tourism and the billions of dollars it would generate for the dictatorship.

The only way Americans can legally travel to Cuba now is for humanitarian, educational or journalistic reasons -- and they must have a license. But mass U.S. tourism is the main goal of the dictatorship.

John Effin Kerry is quite willing to give it to him. The revenue mass U.S. tourism would generate would infuse Castro's rotting dictatorship with new life. GWB's recent curb on travel to Cuba will hasten the end of this old oppressor of his people.

Hti: Safety changes Aristide's perspective on resignation

The White House on Monday scolded ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrande Aristide for insisting he was still the president of his Caribbean country and warned him not to stir up divisions there.

"Mr. Aristide has resigned his office and has left the country. And now the Haitian people are involved with grasping democracy and moving forward on an interim government," White House spokesman Trent Duffy told reporters traveling with President Bush here.

"And that's where the focus should be right now. And any comments that would stir up more division are not helpful, as the Haitian people move toward a greater democracy," he added.

Aristide earlier repeated his accusations -- which the United States denies -- that he was abducted by U.S. forces when he left the country a week ago.

Speaking at a news conference in the Central African Republic where he is in exile, Aristide suggested there should be a peaceful resistance in his country to what he called the U.S. "occupation" of Haiti.

"I am the elected president and I remain the elected president," Aristide said. "I am pleading for the restoration of democracy."

The Bush administration says it helped Aristide depart Haiti but the decision to go was his own.

Hti: Marines kill chimere attacker

U.S. Marines shot and killed a gunman during an outbreak of shooting at a weekend demonstration by Haitians celebrating the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a spokesman said Monday.

The gunfire occurred during an anti-Aristide march Sunday, prompting the Marines to return fire in the first armed action of their week-old mission to stabilize Haiti.

At least six people were killed and more than 30 injured in the worst bloodshed since Aristide fled Haiti on Feb. 29 and U.S. and French peacekeepers arrived.

Furthermore the march had been peaceful.

The BBC's Daniel Lak in Port-au-Prince says there had been a festive atmosphere before the trouble broke out.

Crowds packed into the city's central square were dancing to the music of a disc jockey banned under President Aristide when shots rang out and panic struck, he says.

Witnesses said pro-Aristide gunmen known as Chimeres had come out of the slums around the square and opened fire from buildings or the top of a hill.

A Spanish television journalist, Ricardo Ortega, was among those killed.

At least 20 people were also said to be injured - among them other foreign reporters.

There's always an optimist who thinks the U.S. military is omniscient and omnipotent.

Witnesses criticised US-led troops for failing to prevent the violence.

"The peacekeepers were nowhere near where the shooting was," an injured man told the Associated Press news agency.

One man speaking over a truck loudspeaker told US marines: "People are dying every day in this country. You have to do something about it."

Simply priceless is this response from Col. Gurganus.

Col. Charles Gurganus told a news conference that the gunman was trying to attack Marines when he was killed Sunday.
...
Gurganus said the shooting occurred near one corner of the presidential National Palace when a Marine platoon observed two gunmen. One was killed, while the troops did not know what happened to the other, he said.

Asked how he knew the man killed was a gunman, Gurganus said: "He had a gun, and he was shooting at Marines. That's what I call a gunman."

Bhms: First Bahamiann gold medal

Sprinter Dominic Demeritte made history on Sunday. He is the first Bahamian male to capture a gold medal at the International Association of Athletics Federations World Indoor Championships in Athletics.

He will also go down in the history annals as the final man to capture a 200 metres world indoor title, as this was the final year, the 200's will be contested at the championships

Demeritte ran 20.66 seconds inside the newly-built Sportarena, Budapest, Hungary, to post the fastest time ever by a Bahamian male indoors over 200 metres to top the medal podium at the 10th IAAF World Indoor Championships.

Pnma: Holler Johnny O'!

The economy of Panama is services-based and heavily weighted toward maritime transportation, commerce, banking, and financial services. Tourism is taking a prominent role as Panama's cruise industry gains stature internationally. Despite significant progress to strengthen Panama's anti-money laundering regime since October 2000, money laundering remains a serious problem in Panama and is a potential threat to the stability of the country's legitimate financial institutions. Panama's proximity to major drug-producing countries, its sophisticated international banking sector, US dollar-based economy, and the Colon Free Zone's (CFZ) role as an originating or transshipment point for goods purchased with narcotics dollars through the Colombian Black Market Peso Exchange make the country particularly vulnerable to money laundering. Panama's financial institutions engage in currency transactions involving international narcotics trafficking proceeds that include significant amounts of US currency or currency derived from illegal drug sales in the United States.

Pnma: Blame Bush for Haiti and Venezuela

Wilfully blind editorial.

PR: Low female profile in politics

In Puerto Rico Women continue to achieve multiple accomplishments but still fall behind in the world of politics, despite having elected the first female governor.

PR: So what is Puerto Rico really?

Popular Democratic Party (PDP) candidate for resident commissioner Roberto Prats denied Puerto Rico is a U.S. colony. However, he acknowledged that the issue concerning the island’s political status has yet to be resolved.

Prats said he belongs to a generation that doesn’t believe the status issue has been resolved.

St. Kitts: Vote them out

The Douglas Regime was given their chance to prove to the public that their promises, their ideas, their team would carry the country beyond the progress that was so obvious during the 15 years of the Simmonds Regime.

Over the last nine years, it has become clear to the public that they have not been able to live up to their promises. They have shown a total lack of fresh ideas in relation to crime, the sugar industry and in stimulating the economy.

The rate of growth of our economy has sunk to a dismal 0.8% from over 5 %. Our national debt is out of all proportion to our GDP. The promises of pay increases given to industrial workers, civil servants, teachers and sugar workers have not been kept and it is blatantly obvious that while they, the politicians and those closest to them are becoming rich landlords, the bulk of the electorate has become impoverished and even poverty stricken.  One has only to see the crowds having to attend Debtors’ Court each week. 

Above all, the lack of transparency and accountability being practiced even after strong allegations have been made of millions gone missing, and their failure to come to the aid of the displaced hotel workers, taxi operators in the face of foreign competition on our shores is evidence of  arrogance, disdain and a ‘crab in the barrel’ type of mentality.

Why would anyone want to perpetuate this dismal performance and treatment?

USVI: HIV/AIDS wrecking Caribbean economies

The HIV-AIDS epidemic raging in the Caribbean is a time bomb with the potential to wreak havoc on economies throughout the region, researchers told those gathered for a weekend HIV-AIDS conference here.

"This is not just a health problem. It is a development problem," Karl Theodore, a professor of economics at the University of the West Indies and coordinator of the Health Economics Unit there, said in an interview with The Daily News. "If HIV is simultaneously weakening the labor force and reducing our savings, it's actually weakening the whole economy."

The university's Health Economics Unit has researched the economic impact of HIV-AIDS on a number of countries throughout the region, including Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica, and it is conducting research in others, including the Bahamas and Haiti, Theodore said.

USVI: AIDS test before marriage

Pastor Arnoldo Gonzalez of St. Croix, a member of the international planning committee for a regional HIV/AIDS conference held here this weekend, is calling on the V.I. government to enact a law mandating HIV testing before marriage.

"It's a way that the government has to prevent the furthering of different kinds of diseases," Gonzalez said.

With an HIV/AIDS rate that's second only to Africa's, this sounds a very necessary step. High time that Caribbean peoples learn that a deputy is not essential.

Vzla: Chavez blows his nice guy eccentric demagogue image

Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chávez made a major tactical mistake last week, which may prove more damaging to him than having recently called President Bush an ''illegitimate president:'' he allowed himself to be seen by the world as a violator of human rights.
...
...[L]ast week ... Chávez's National Guard engaged in torture, beatings and possibly several killings in clashes with tens of thousands of oppositionists who were protesting the government's refusal to recognize a key portion of the 3.4 million signatures on petitions to recall him.

Amnesty International condemned ''excessive use of force'' in the government's crackdown. At least nine people were killed and more than 50 were injured by Chávez's security forces in the clashes, according to Human Rights Watch.

Chávez has long gotten away with dubious interpretations of the laws, but it's harder for him to hide pictures of blood-drenched oppositionists, or testimonies such as were detailed in The Herald's report of cellist Carlos Izcaray's 20-hour beatings, mock executions and torture with electric-shock sticks.

Now, will Caricom agree that something is rotten in Venezuela? Will the Caribbean press finally view Chavez as the thug he is?

U.S.: Kim Jong Il endorses Kerry

...[O]ne recent endorsement we think deserves more attention is that of Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry by North Korea’s Kim Jong-il. It’s not that one of the world’s last Stalinists called a press conference and made an announcement. But the dictator’s preference for Kerry over President Bush is evident, according to a report in The Financial Times, by the fawning treatment Kerry is getting on North Korea’s state-run media.

While the North Korean media relentlessly excoriates Bush, it plays up polls showing Kerry could defeat the president, spotlights Kerry’s claims that Bush deceived the world on Iraqi weapons programs, broadcasts Kerry speeches and replays the senator’s pledge to adopt a "sincere attitude" toward North Korea if elected — all music to the regime’s ears.

The Times speculates this is because the North Koreans believe a President Kerry — an avowed internationalist not known as a hard-liner on national security — would be easier to deal with on nuclear proliferation and other issues than the more hawkish Bush Administration. Kerry, moreover, has expressed a willingness to negotiate directly with the North Koreans on the arms empasse, while Bush has rightly insisted on multi-lateral talks involving regional powers.

This endorsement, along with that of Ali Khameini, means that heads of two of the axis of evil nations are in Kerry's corner. I wonder why? What can going-nuclear Iran and North Korea gain from it?

Bmda: Kerry not the brightest bulb in the chandelier

But back to Mr. Kerry and his campaign against the businesses that he says are traitors to the US cause. What he may not realise – I must say he doesn't sound like the brightest bulb in the chandelier – is that the United States is itself a low-tax jurisdiction, engaging in classic tax haven behaviour. It imposes no tax on capital gains made by foreigners investing in the US, but it does tax its own citizens on such gains. It has been that way since the 1980s, and it was a smart move for the US to make, in that it has since attracted over US $1 trillion to US capital markets.

Mr. Kerry's charge against some American businesses, and the way he has made it, gives the impression that he is tackling some underhand business practice as low on the ethical scale as laundering drug money. But in fact, it is perfectly legal and above board for a company to move its headquarters offshore. A company's first duty is to make money for its shareholders, and if it can legally lower its costs, in this age of globalisation, by setting up in Bermuda, then it doesn't simply have a choice, it has an obligation to do so.
If that reality offends Mr Kerry, he should direct his efforts towards making the US tax system more competitive. Isn't that what the American business system is all about?

Bmda: WTO bound in self-defense

Bermuda is considering joining the World Trade Organisation to fend off unfair trading practices by certain US states.

And Government is to spend $200,000 on lobbying Washington but Finance Minister Paula Cox played down the threat from Presidential hopeful John Kerry.

Ms Cox said: "Bermuda must be ever vigilant in defending its national economic interests. Over the course of the last two years, individual US states have engaged in unfair and discriminatory trade practices that posed some risks to Bermuda's international business sector.

Man, I hope this $200K is not going to be paid to the usual powerless suspects.

There is also this which demonstrates Kerry's forked tongue

[Finance Minister Cox] added: "Government fully appreciates the dynamics and nuances that have characterised the US presidential campaign. Bermuda's fine name has been mentioned on a number of occasions and typically not in a flattering context. (Kerry's been bandying it around)
...
She pointed out that the US administration was not gung-ho on corporate inversions. "Very recently, in testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee, Treasury Secretary John Snow said that while the administration is concerned about corporate inversions 'it is not the administration's view that every time a company moves offshore that that's an abusive tax shelter'.

"He continued by saying: 'Clearly that is not the case, sometimes companies go offshore because of the effects of our own tax code on them, vis-a-vis the tax regime our competitors have."

Corporate tax inversions were a matter for the US authorities to deal with said Ms Cox. Even if Senator Kerry became President a major shift in US policy was not predicted, said the Minister.

"In the Senate, Senator Kerry has voted for every piece of free trade legislation and therefore has the perspective of an internationalist in the realm of global economics."

Atg: Foreign affairs economist shrugs

The US has announced that Antigua & Barbuda and Barbados will lose their designations as a beneficiary developing country for the purposes of the generalised system of trade preferences (GSP).
...
Senior Economist in the International Trade Division in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Elliot Paige, in a release said this change in designation by the US would have little effect on Antigua & Barbuda.

"The loss of this particular trade preference will unlikely have a tremendous impact on exports, because the benefits have been minimal," he said.

Atg: U.S. in ICC Champions Trophy cricket final

Former Guyana captain and West Indies opening batsman Clayton Lambert clubbed a half-century to help the United States clinch the final spot in September's ICC Champions Trophy in Britain.

The 42-year-old Lambert, who played five Tests and 11 One-day Internationals for West Indies, hit five fours and two sixes in 60 from 49 balls as the American side overhauled Scotland's 206 to win by five wickets in the 48th over.

Holland, Scotland and the United States all tallied six points from three victories out of five matches.

The Americans, however, squeaked through with a superior net run rate.

That's the beauty of being a nation of immigrants; in no sport are we unrepresented. Yah, mon!

U.S.: Foreign leaders encourage Kerry to beat Bush

Without naming anybody, Kerry said he had received words of encouragement from leaders abroad who were eager to see him defeat Bush on Nov. 2.

"I've met foreign leaders who can't go out and say this publicly, but boy they look at you and say, 'You've got to win this, you've got to beat this guy, we need a new policy,' things like that," he said.

I don't doubt him not one bit. Here's who's hoping that Kerry will be elected.



Drooling at the prospect is Ayatollah Ali Khameini. See here also, and here. Should Kerry be elected, it will be bombs away, allahu akbar.

Vzla: Sliding towards civil war

Read the rest of this NRO article.

Venezuela once prospered from its state oil industry. But over the past 25 years, it has evaded market reforms and suffered steady economic decline. In 1998, voters elected Chavez, a former coup-plotter and cashiered Lieutenant Colonel, because he promised — like Aristide in Haiti — to end corruption and lift up the poor.

Instead, Chavez had the constitution rewritten to insure his stay in power and bribed corrupt military officers to insure loyalty. Venezuela now rivals Haiti in poverty and underemployment. While the country's former middle class does not want to revisit past failures, few want to see Venezuela turned into a Haitian slum or a Cuban-style workers' paradise. But that seems to be the president's intent.

Like Fidel Castro, Chavez has made the armed forces the lead agency in Venezuela's government, isolating civilians as well as municipal and departmental (state) officials. While local police live in barrios and may be unwilling to harm their neighbors, the army and national guard are protected by barracks and isolation from civilian contact.

Cuban intelligence and security specialists now reportedly march alongside soldiers, wearing Venezuelan uniforms and tattling on dissenters. They have also helped train so-called "Bolivarian Circles" partisan gangs that spy in neighborhoods, intimidate opponents and enforce political loyalty.

Outside Caracas, his military units allow Colombian FARC guerrillas to camp out and resupply in Venezuelan territory. And he reportedly provides Bolivia's leftist coca union leader Evo Morales with money and advice. Morales was partly responsible for the ouster of President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada in October 2003.
...
Failing to challenge Chavez could hasten a conflict between troops and civilians fed up with his tricks and ruses. Or it could embolden him to cut oil exports to the United States and its Caribbean allies as well as destabilize other countries in the region.

U.S.: Haitian-Americans vs the CBC

Leaders of South Florida's Haitian community met behind closed doors over the weekend and denounced some members of the Congressional Black Caucus for their ties to departed Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

    "We have to wonder if some of the Congressional Black Caucus may have profited from their relationship with Aristide," said Carlo Jean-Joseph, an immigration lawyer from Lauderhill in neighboring Broward County.

    "One of the questions we are asking is whether there should be an investigation into Aristide's removal at all," said Mr. Jean-Joseph, one of about 18 people who attended the meeting. "We are not sure that it is merited, given the cozy relationship between some caucus members and Aristide."

Wonder no more. The Haitian government blew $7.3M paying quacks and invalids to lobby the U.S. government. Here's the story.

I'm curious. How can a person be an "American-born Haitian"?

Here's another part of the story.

Those who attended the meeting said that Miss Roberson, a Democrat, emphasized that Haitians in the United States "must take our case into our own hands."

    "She asked that members of the community call Maxine Waters and tell her what we want," said one person in attendance who asked not to be named. "If we can do that, she said, we can be a powerhouse. Otherwise, they are free to say what they want, which isn't fair."

Those at the meeting said that Miss Roberson, who took to shouting several times, was peeved at the perception that black politicians in Washington appeared to be speaking for Haitians in the United States.

    "We need to mobilize every black caucus in every state [legislature] because we really control the black vote," Miss Roberson was quoted by attendees as saying.
...
Records show no financial ties between caucus members and the Aristide administration. (Looks like I was wrong on this.)

Vzla: Heil Chavez!

In the last few days I have been in Maracaibo, Valencia and in several smaller towns of Central Venezuela. I have traveled by road some 1,500 kilometers and have encountered many road blocks manned by fierce looking National Guards (GN), they have always waved me on smilingly. The reason is simple: I wore a red shirt that serves as the chavista uniform and a cap given to me years ago, when the army was friendly, by an army General. With these two garment pieces I have never been stopped, as I have seen many other travelers stopped, to show their identity papers and to be asked all kinds of questions, in spite of the fact that our Constitution guarantees free and unencumbered travel for citizens throughout the country. Everywhere I went, I found a Venezuelan population showing their indignation to the fraud of the National Electoral Council (CNE), which pretends to rob one million Venezuelans of their legitimate right to request a presidential referendum. In all restaurants and public places where I stopped, I heard the same comments from the people. In every city and every village there is civil disobedience in action. The civic protest started peacefully after the absurd decision by the dishonest members of the CNE but, as the neanderthalic troops of the GN charged against defenseless citizens, the protest has been turning violent. There is very little the unarmed citizens can do against the sadistic Venezuelan National Guard. The Minister of Defense has just anounced that he will personally decorate Glenda Nieto, the heavily armed GN soldier who beat a flag-carrying woman to the ground during the march of Friday February 28th. This decoration is clear proof of the perverted values that exist within this government and within segments of the Venezuelan armed forces. The indignation of the people is also fueled by the feeling of impotence Venezuelans feel when faced with extreme brute force.

Chavez seems to have learned much from his heroes Hitler and Castro. An unarmed citizenry is a citizenry that can be enslaved. Chavez is proving it in Venezuela. Long live the U.S.'s 2nd Amendment!

Vzla: Assault on the press

The media professionals' NGO, Los Del Medio, condemns the aggressions against at least 25 journalists, photographers and cameramen and their assistants as they performed their jobs between Friday 27 of February and Wednesday March the 3rd, 2004. The number of attacks in this short period of just six days approaches that tallied by this organization over 18 months: 34 formal complaints between November 2002 and May 2003.

This time around, workers have not merely been attacked due to being present in the line of fire. The majority of the victims have been subjected to abuse from the forces of public order, especially the National Guard, and others have been assaulted by sympathizers of the government and the opposition. Similarly, three journalists have been arrested without due process guarantees.

Another part of the creeping constitutional coup. Will Caricom notice?

Vzla: Musician torture the straw that broke the ambassador's back

Cellist Carlos Eduardo Izcaray should have been directing the Venezuelan Symphony Orchestra yesterday in a performance of works by Sibelius and Dvorak's 8th symphony. Instead, he was recovering in a Caracas clinic after being brutally tortured and threatened with death by the national guard.

Izcaray's crime was to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. His testimony, and that of dozens of other victims in recent days, highlights the ethical dilemma that helped bring about the resignation Thursday of his country's ambassador to the UN, Milos Alcalay, who - as it happens - is a friend of Carlos Eduardo's father, Felipe Izcaray.

T&T: Pity Caricom wasn't so determined to help Haiti

The Caribbean Community will shortly formally request United Nations (UN) Secretary General Kofi Annan to launch a probe into the circumstances surrounding the departure of Jean Bertrand Aristide as President of Haiti.

Caricom's chairman, Prime Minister PJ Patterson of Jamaica, told the Sunday Express yesterday that he could not properly discuss at this time the proposal to approach the UN, but said regional and international legal experts were advising Caricom on the matter, which remains of "grave importance".

The Sunday Express understands that Caricom is determined to pursue the matter of the probe as "a priority issue".

Gya: Eschewing the kool-aid

This one is a must-read! Somebody in the Caribbean finally gets it right about Aristide! Whoda thunk it!? This editorial writer needs to pound some sense into the heads of the Caricom leaders. I've omitted some, but the entire editorial absolutely must be read.

This time the Americans stumbled into Haiti. In an election year they clearly did not want to be there at all, bogged down as they are in Afghanistan and Iraq. But events overtook them, and they were then faced with the unpalatable prospect of either going in with all the risks attendant on that, or standing by while a country 600 miles from the coast of Florida descended into anarchy and flooded the US with refugees.

One of the questions which has been asked in this region, including by the PPP, is why the US insisted on President Aristide's departure before they would send in the marines, and why they would not support a man who was a 'democratically elected' leader. After all, they had restored him to office in 1994 following his removal in a 1991 coup d'etat, and not to bolster him now is to open themselves to accusations of coup-mongering. It is a not unreasonable question, and the first thing which has to be said is that Mr Aristide's impeccable democratic credentials did not survive his restoration to office.

During the period when the accommodating Mr Preval kept the presidential seat warm for him, the electoral council was filled with Aristide supporters, a council which subsequently organized the 2000 legislative elections. International observers deemed these elections seriously flawed, and over opposition objections presidential elections were held that same year which Mr Aristide won with more than 90% of the vote. The opposition boycotted the poll, however, which produced a turnout variously estimated at between 10 and 40 per cent.

There are still more serious charges to be laid at Mr Aristide's door. One of these is that over the period of a decade, he has made himself a millionaire, Professor Anselme Remy of Haiti's State University writing in the T&T Review of March 1 that he had joined the ranks of the very bourgeoisie which he had claimed to be fighting against. Some of the same corrupt business people, said Remy, who still controlled the country's resources, were his close associates.

The Professor went on to say that the Haitian President had used welfare funds as part of a patronage system to buy rising corrupt politicians and contenders, and had utilized taxes and money from international donors in a similar fashion. Forty per cent of the national budget was assigned to the presidency, and any "significant disbursal" of funds required Mr Aristide's personal approval. The San Francisco Chronicle has reported that for its part, the United States estimated that 70% of all foreign aid - of which it was providing the larger portion - was being pocketed by corrupt officials.
...
The international press and human rights groups over the years have given various details about Mr Aristide's armed gangs, who terrorized, beat and sometimes murdered political opponents, kidnapped wealthy citizens, and at one time or another held sway over whole wards in urban areas like Port-au-Prince through the use of violence. In other words, in the vacuum created by the non-functioning of state institutions, President Aristide fell back in the end on the time-honoured methods of his autocratic predecessors.

In company with some of the murderous rebels, senior members of Mr Aristide's government, including the judiciary and the police force, were involved in the narcotics trade. Last year, for example, the US revoked the visas of several senior officials including the Minister of the Interior on those grounds. The San Francisco Chronicle has quoted three unnamed diplomatic sources as saying that in the interview with the Haitian President prior to his departure, testimony from a Haitian drug baron sentenced to 27 years in a Miami court was used as leverage to push the head of state into resigning.
...
The US, constrained to intervene in a country where it didn't want to be, and where there was no effective state, adopted an approach which would put its soldiers at least risk. Any solution depended on disarming not just Aristide's gangs, but also the rebel warlords, whom the Americans were hoping to coax into laying down their weapons if the head of state resigned. They feared that if he didn't go they might have to confront them, in addition to which the rebels might go into Port-au-Prince and cause a bloodbath before any foreign troops landed. Whether in actual fact the US will be able to successfully stabilize the situation will not yet be known for some time.

Mr Aristide has accused the US of "kidnapping" him; that seems unlikely, although they clearly leaned heavily on him to go. Given the circumstances, the regional criticism of American actions in this particular instance is probably unfair, although that does not mean to say that the US is above criticism in other respects. Far from it. They have behaved reprehensibly towards Haiti, including during the period when Mr Aristide was in office and their trade policies spiced with a dash of malice destroyed the country's rice industry. While there was hope in 1994 that their record might be reversed, they did not stay long enough to redeem themselves by building the institutions which could create a viable democratic state, not even providing the new police force with the kind of funding which was necessary for it to operate.

Despite its glorious revolution, in its two centuries of independence, Haiti has become a victim of its rulers, of entrenched political violence, and of the malevolence of other states - in particular France and the US. After Mr Aristide left, Colin Powell was reported as saying that Haiti has been "a sad story for almost 200 years now." He added wearily, "We'll try again this time." Well this time, if they really do succeed in establishing some sort of framework of security by disarming the various warlords, they had better hang in there long enough to get it right.

The amazing thing is that so much of the Caribbean press and government leadership act as though Aristide's hands were clean. If Caricom leaders know that Aristide is a thug and continue to support him, it is of a piece with their siding with France against the U.S. on Iraq. Which is to say, the objection is not one of principle, of regard for constitutional process and rule of law; rather, like France, it is one of anti-U.S. bias and fear of American hyper-power. Iraq apparently was as instructive for Caricom as it was for Moammar Ghaddaffi; additionally, Haiti brought the Iraq lesson a little too close to home. No matter what one thinks of U.S. intervention in the affairs of a sovereign nation, if Iraq and Haiti encourage Caricom leaders to toe the line with their populations, perhaps that is a good thing. Given this scenario, it is no wonder that Chavez is hollering fit to bust a gut in Venezuela.

Gya: $37M woman robbed

The millionaire winner of a recent lotto jackpot was made to scale a fence Saturday evening as she desperately tried to escape four armed bandits who stormed her house and escaped with over $200,000 in cash and jewellery.

Cheryl Skeete of Eastville Housing Scheme, East Coast Demerara recently won a $37M Guyana Lottery Company jackpot and was presented with her winning cheque two weeks ago.

Skeete, a fish vendor of the Stabroek Market, told Stabroek News yesterday that following her win the lottery company carried her photograph in an advertisement which appeared in the newspapers and also on the television.

Skeete said she was particularly displeased with the advertisement given the current crime situation in the country. The fish vendor said that she had approached the lottery company beforehand requesting that her photograph and other details not be published but this was not heeded and on February 25 one of the advertisements appeared in this newspaper.
...
Stabroek News was told that despite an alarm being raised neighbours hardly showed up. However a call was made to the Vigilance Police Station and a mobile patrol responded within minutes. Skeete said the police took a statement from them and promised to go after the bandits.

Quite frankly, she ought to sue the lottery company. For, because of them, she's got a mile-wide and high bulls-eye on her back with a sign saying rob me, in a country in which banditry and death squads seem to carry the day. Besides that, what was she doing with $200K+ in the house? Madness is really gladness, oui.

Ja: High fines deterrent to tax dodging

MASSIVE INCREASES to income tax and customs penalties have been approved in the House of Representatives as Government seeks to create more realistic deterrents to taxdodging and customs offences.

Among the increases to fines related to offences under the Income Tax Act is a $200 to $10,000 jump for failure to deliver a declaration of estimated income tax. Under the Customs Act, there is a $5,000 to $100,000 increase in penalties related to the failure of 'the master of any aircraft or ship' to file a proper report on the goods aboard.

The amendment Bills will now go to the Senate for approval.

This means that people will just become more creative in their tax dodging and customs avoidance.

Ja: Got judge?

THE REGIONAL Judicial and Legal Services Commission which is based in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, and which is responsible for recruiting judges for the Caribbean Court of Justice, is now accepting applications for judgeships.
...
The CCJ, which is set to begin sitting in June 2004, will be composed of the president and six judges.
..
The post of president of the CCJ carries a tax-free salary of US$144,000 annually. The other six judges will each be paid a tax-free salary of US$120,000 and, like the president, they will each get a rent-free, fully-furnished 'super grade' residence or an allowance of US$30,000 per annum in lieu of housing. They will be provided with an official motor vehicle, fully maintained by the CCJ, and each will be assigned a chauffeur. A judge and his or her spouse will receive a travel grant of US$8,500 every two years.

Skubalon! I know I should've read law!

Ja: More Haitian refugees land in Jamaica

TWENTY-FOUR HAITIAN boat people, men, women, and a six-month-old girl, hungry and dehydrated, landed in eastern Portland, yesterday.

Four more Haitians were rescued by fishermen near the Flamegos Bank, Manchioneal, yesterday, the police said.

Describing their homeland as a crime-ravaged battleground, the group of Haitians, which included an eight-year-old boy and a pregnant woman, said they left Haiti for Jamaica in the dead of night on Friday, after family members and friends were slain.

Ja: Construction's a mob racket

EXTORTION IS still at an "unacceptably high" level within the construction industry, says Donald Mullings, president of the Incorporated Masterbuilders Association of Jamaica.
...
He said that while there had been positive results from the anti-extortion initiatives proposed by the association last year, a true assessment was not possible, given that many construction projects, the majority of which were government-funded, had been discontinued because of non-payment of the extortion money demanded.

"One of our problems was that of political appointment (of persons working on construction) sites but there has been some improvement," Mr. Mullings said.

U.S.: Black America on Bush

It's all ABB, or Anybody But Bush.

No poultry farmer ever went to market with all his eggs in one basket.

Gya: Legislating against AIDS fears

Guyana is among seven Caribbean countries that may soon pass laws to protect people with HIV and AIDS against stigma and discrimination.

The proposals are being formulated by the Pan Caribbean Partnership Against HIV/AIDS (PANCAP).

The other countries are Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, Dominica and Barbados.

Delegates at a recent three-day conference in the Dominican Republic said a major obstacle to fighting the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, continued to be a factor in the discrimination of infected persons by communities and employers.

The new recommendations by PANCAP propose draft legislation to protect people from being fired from their job

I would think that a major obstacle in fighting HIV is fear. People need to know that they can hug HIV sufferers without fear of contracting HIV from a simple embrace. So many people who have HIV need to be touched with love and compassion. It doesn't matter how the person contracted HIV, the very human need for contact is part of the AIDS experience.

The AIDS sufferer of today is as the leper of Biblical times. The Gospel of Mark relates:

And there came a leper to him, beseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean. (Mark 1:40-41)

Here, Jesus does the unthinkable. He does what no other person would have done, both because of fear of contracting the disease and not wanting to be ritually unclean. Jesus touches the leper. When was the last time the leper had been touched? Nobody knows. All we do know is that Jesus touched him. Apart from the healing result of it, that touch must have been as water to parched ground. To be touched by this man, Jesus, when nobody else would touch a leper!

That is how many an HIV sufferer feels. People, through ignorance and fear concerning the transmission of HIV, enclose the afflicted in a sterile bubble and deprive him of human contact. While this touch cannot be legislated, governments can and should pass laws to prevent discrimination against people wth HIV/AIDS. It is the just and right thing to do. As for the touching, that is something that we must do voluntarily out of the simple recognition that it needs to be done.

Cay: Black's times are tight

The British Barclay brothers abandoned on Tuesday their offer to buy Conrad Black's Canadian holding company, Hollinger Inc, which owns a 40 percent interest in Cayman Free Press. 

This leaves Hollinger Inc. in a severe cash crisis and the company failed to make an interest payment due on Monday on a $120 million bond issue, but maintained that it was not yet in default.

The Barclays' deal with Black was to include buying Hollinger Inc.'s bond debts. They would have put up the cash for the interest payment, but the burden has now fallen on Black and companies he controls.

Hollinger Inc. has a 30-day grace period before the debt is technically in default. 

If that happens, the bondholders could take control.

Bdos: Bah! humbug! virtue in abandonment

I am glad that CARICOM has turned its full attention to Haiti over this past week. It took a while, but at least the Heads of State came to a united position that no CARICOM country was going to assist peacekeeping efforts in Haiti. That’s good to hear, to me anyway. Had CARICOM decided otherwise it would be in a sense supporting the US‚ taking over the initial responsibility of restoring order in that country, and with ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide claiming that the Americans forced him out of the country, it is not a situation that any country should want to jump into too hastily.

Of course, no matter what happens, Caricom must never be seen as supporting the U.S. ... except, of course, when the U.S. forks over taxpayer dollars to provide funds for fighting crime, or something like that.

Bdos: Black Belly Sheep rocks

I've heard of big belly horse in rainy season, now here comes Barbados with Balck Belly Sheep products.

Barbados Black Belly Sheep products are of such a high quality that stakeholders in agriculture and tourism will be making a determined effort to promote them not only in Barbados, but also further afield, and a logo has now been approved will be used to market the product worldwide.

Speaking at the launch of the Barbados Black Belly Sheep logo at the Pavilion Hotel, Chief Agricultural Officer Barton Clarke stated that a meat expert from Lincoln University in the United States said the quality of meat from the local sheep was comparable to venison.

In fact, the expert suggested they find a different name for it since it was way too good to be called “lamb”.

This I've got to taste. Any Bajans want to send some? My birthday's coming up soon.

Bdos: Don't expel Haiti from Caricom

Skubalon! That Caricom would even consider jettisoning Haiti is unconscionable, especially in light of the hissy fit they threw over Aristide's resignation.

Caricom governments are being called upon to reject out of hand any suggestion that Haiti be expelled or suspended from Caricom.

To suspend or expel Haiti from Caricom at this critical time would amount to a colossal betrayal of the legitimate, constitutional government of Haiti.

This is the contention of the Clement Payne Movement and the Pan Caribbean Congress at a media briefing recently at the Clement Payne Centre.

Vzla: Here's why the U.S. will drill in ANWR

Chavez said that

"U.S. citizens could forget about ever getting Venezuelan oil" if the United States ever tried to invade.

Venezuela provides about 15 percent of U.S. oil imports, but relations between the two countries are rocky over Chavez's friendship with Cuban President Fidel Castro, his criticism of U.S.-led negotiations for a free trade zone in the Americas and his opposition to the war in Iraq.

Were it not for Democrats and environmentalist wacko nuts, the U.S. would not have to rely on oil from Venezuela. As it stands, in this age of environment friendly drilling procedures (see here also), it is folly to have the U.S. dependent on foes for energy resources.

Here's another reason for ANWR.

New York's benchmark crude oil contract broke above US$37 a barrel Friday for the first time since the Iraq war, kicked higher by tensions in major producer Venezuela.

Light sweet crude for delivery in April leapt US$0.62 to US$37.26 a barrel at the close. Brent North Sea crude for April rose US$0.46 to finish at US$33.35.

Traders feared a repeat of last year's interruption to supplies from violence-torn Venezuela, where at least eight people have been killed and dozens injured in recent days in unrest over an official refusal to hold a referendum to recall President Hugo Chavez.

"People remember very well what happened when Venezuela went on strike," said Refco analyst Jim Still. "They are very nervous."

Vzla: How many terrorist buddies does Chavez have?

President Hugo Chavez on Sunday vowed to freeze oil exports to the United States and wage a "100-year war" if Washington ever tried to invade Venezuela.

The United States has repeatedly denied ever trying to overthrow Chavez, but the leftist leader has accused Washington of being behind a failed 2002 coup and of funding opposition groups now seeking a recall referendum on his presidency.

Chavez accused the United States of ousting former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and warned Washington not to "even think about trying something similar in Venezuela."

Venezuela "has enough allies on this continent to start a 100-year war," Chavez said during his weekly television show.

What makes Chavez think that if the U.S. invaded Venezuela he'd be live long enough to start any kind of war? One MOABs up his arse and, when the dust clears, no Chavez, no allies.

Hti: Chimeres shoot anti-Aristide demonstrators

An anti-Aristide demonstration ended with at least four people killed Sunday when gunshots were fired from near the presidential palace.

Two policemen, a civilian and a Spanish journalist were shot to death, witnesses said.

One hospital reported that it was treating 11 people for gunshot wounds. At least three journalists were among the wounded.

It was not clear how many victims may have been taken to other hospitals.

This, too,

Thousands of Mr. Aristide's opponents were gathered near the palace gates when the shooting started. Witnesses said the gunmen were chimères, the toughs Mr. Aristide had used to enforce his authority.

"The chimères just started shooting at us out of nowhere," said Sacha Baker, an opposition protester. "The cops started shooting back, and a lot of people were hit. The marines were nowhere to be seen."

Three marines returned fire from inside the palace gates, said Maj. Richard Crusan, a Marines spokesman in Port-au-Prince. He said a first volley came from outside the gates at 2:40 p.m. and a second from outside the gates eight minutes later.

Also, it looks like the government in Bangui is suppressing Aristide and his wife's right to free speech. Aristide's wife, Mildred Trouillot was supposed to speak at a news conference.

When Trouillot arrived with two bodyguards, Minister of Foreign Affairs Herve Charles WenezouiÝwaved her to the back of the room. Despite protests by the journalists, she was not allowed to speak.

Instead, Wenezoui read a one-page handwritten note from Aristide that he said Trouillot had brought.

"We thank the people of the government of the Central African Republic for its hospitality in taking us in and making us feel at home. We are happy here and extend our thanks to all the people of this country," Wenezoui said the note read.

Wenezoui refused to allow journalists to inspect the note.

In the same report, this:

Minister of Information Parfait M'Bay said last week that Aristide would be granted asylum, but only if he asked for it.

Regarding the restrictions on Aristide's communication with the outside world, M'Bay said, "We made Mr. Aristide understand that in no case could he use the territory of Central Africa, the hospitality of Central Africa, to create problems for his country by calling on the people to revolt, for example, or by making regrettable statements."

U.S.: Why, oh why?

Why do black churches in America permit any politician to stand in the pulpit and make political statements? The Church is not a mosque! That sort of nonsense is not supposed to happen. The pulpit of the Church is for the preaching of the Word, not for political speeches. Then Democrats have the nerve to blather on about separation of Church and state?!?! How is abusing the pulpit for political purpose not a violation of their much loved not-expressed-in-the-Constitution separation? Yet, black churches allow the abuse, and it is wrong, wrong, wrong! If a politician wishes to make a speech to the congregation, let him hire a hall. Keep politicians out of the pulpit.

Bdos: Players for Windies selection policy bizarre

...Until now, followers of West Indies cricket had been officially led to believe that players representing this region were chosen on performance or solid evidence of such extraordinary potential as would make their exclusion an act of unpardonable folly.
...
We do not believe mainstream Caribbean citizens would have a difficulty with selectors passing over cricketers on the basis of serious attitudinal flaws. What we question, however, is the omission of persons whose behaviour is not called into question and whose performances in regional competitions easily eclipse those of the majority of other possible contenders for places in Test match and One-Day International (ODI) squads.

A case in point is Mr. Pedro Collins’s exclusion. His record in this year’s Carib Beer Championship is compelling: 37 wickets and a dangerous in-swinger that is new only to those who failed to follow his impressive career.

No tearaway fast bowler, Collins is blessed with an action so consistently troublesome that he remains a menace to all opposing teams....
...
[H]is chance of getting a place in the international squad depends on how selectors spread the goodies among various umbrella bodies affiliated to the WICB.

Bdos: No business trips to T&T!

Private Sector leader Senator Allan Fields has washed his hands of a controversial private sector mission to Trinidad and Tobago planned for Tuesday to try to cool tensions between Bridgetown and Port-of-Spain.
...
Fields admitted that Prime Minister Owen Arthur had “hauled over the coals” the island’s top businessmen who had contemplated going to the twin-island republic when he met with them yesterday at Government Headquarters.

Blz: Guarding the guards

A police constable has been arrested and faces charges of committing an "unnatural act." According to a police press release, a woman reported that her fifteen year old son told her he had sexual intercourse with the constable numerous times beginning in October.

Bmda: Huge sea microbe discovery off Bermuda

Pioneering research off Bermuda has led to the discovery of 1,800 new species - and perhaps as many as 53,000 - and forced scientists to change some of their fundamental ideas about ocean biology. Genome pioneer Craig Venter teamed up with Bermuda Biological Station for Research (BBSR) to analyse small samples of ocean from the Sargasso Sea and then sequenced the genetic code. The astonishing diversity found in the 1.2 million new genes discovered in waters off the Island, considered to be an oceanic desert, has led scientists to believe that more than 99 percent of species remain to be discovered.

Vzla: Things fall apart

Even those who suspected this could happen don’t want to believe it is actually happening. But it is and it was written on the walls the very day Venezuelans elected Hugo Chavez, an ex-military putschist, albeit believing that he would put an end to political corruption and trim crime rate down. Throughout the last five years, President Chavez’ national socialist government has been spreading its roots and sharpening its claws. Today, the entire legalistic, electoral and constitutional thoroughfares appear blocked. To oppose Chavez through institutional and peaceful means in Venezuela today seems as futile as it was opposing Hitler in Germany in 1937. Venezuela has a Cuban-style unicameral Assembly instead of the traditional bicameral Congress. There isn’t a single public institution left in Venezuela that hasn’t been infiltrated, destabilized, purged and reconditioned. The state-owned oil industry after an unfruitful and costly strike was brutally purged of 18,000 of its workforce. The greatest prey of Chavez’ Stalin-like methods are the Armed Forces. Professional Officers all the way down to the ranks have been thoroughly scrutinized. Anyone who ever voiced dissatisfaction of any kind with the regime has been purged.

Vzla: Goodbye to all that

Many people have died in the last six days and judging the behaviour of Hugo Chavez and his minions many more will. The country has been thrown on a rollercoaster, no one knowing what the ruthless and whimsical president will do next. A string of stupid acts of government's officials have demonstrated that the system prevailing in Venezuela, as it stands today, is not one that could be defined as democratic. When one sees the top judge of a country dismissing others, for the annoying reason of enforcing the law, one realizes that something is terribly wrong.
...
A positive outlook has come out of the tragedy; Hugo Chavez can no longer fool anyone, lest of course the brainwashed leftists for whom Chavez’ make believe stories are so thrilling. His democratic mascara has been washed with Venezuelan blood.

Aleksandr Boyd needs to read the Caribbean press which seems to be quite supportive of Chavez. Something about lawfully elected president, constitutional process, and rule of law.

DR: Who's importing ammunition in Santo Domingo?

Ana Mitila Lora writes today in her Listin Diario column on the significant imports of ammunition into the Dominican Republic, tracing them back to announcements made by American Ammunition Inc. She points to a December 2003 report from the company that stated it had exported a shipment of 225,000 rounds to its distributor in the DR after receiving authorization from the US Department of State. The report indicates that this was part of an export order of 500,000 rounds, from which she quotes, "In the past 30 days AAI has exported more than 3 million rounds:" Lora wonders about the destiny of such an arsenal.

A 3 March Internet press release from AAI indicates that the manufacturer has received two additional export orders from its DR and Curacao distributors, totaling an additional 300,000 rounds. This figure is in addition to the 500,000-round export order placed by its Dominican distributor in March 2003, according to the AAI web site.

To whom are these sales of ammunition being made? Why is the U.S. State Department authorizing ammunitions sales of this magnitude if there is an increased demand for ammunition for warfare in Afghanistan and Iraq, for training, and the military is forced to look overseas to purchase more? Where are these arms going? What do the DR and Curacao purchasers of this amount of ammunition intend to do with it?

DR: Dominican military denies arming Haitian rebels

Armed Forces Minister Jose Miguel Soto Jimenez denied the Dominican military had purchased weapons from the United States and intervened in the affairs of a foreign country. He was replying to a statement by US Representative Donald Payne (D-NJ) on the alleged purchase of 3,500 weapons made by the DR in the United States. Soto Jimenez says these weapons were purchased by private companies, and did not include war weapons. He denied the Dominican armed forces has supported any rebel groups or governments. Haitian rebel leader Louis Jodel Chamblain told the international press that his troops had received training in the Dominican Republic. US press sources have said that weapons used by these paramilitary forces were similar to those given to the Dominican military by the US.

So, which Dominican private company purchased the weapons? Who trained the rebels in Santo Domingo? How could rebel groups be training in Santo Domingo without the knowledge of the Dominican government? What does the DR stand to gain if Aristide is out of power? If U.S. Rep. Payne claims the Dominican government purchased 3,500 weapons, whose signature was on the arms requisition invoice? Did the DR play a role in the rebellion in Haiti, or did the U.S., as some claim?

Gya: UK-Caricom participation

FINALLY, THE Caribbean Community-United Kingdom Forum is emerging as a mechanism by which practical forms of cooperation can be pursued, especially in demanding areas like crime and security.

Latest indication of this emerged last week in Kingston, Jamaica, where an agreement was signed between the UK and CARICOM at the conclusion of the Community's Ministerial Sub-Committee for Resource Mobilisation for Crime and Security.

What had initially started a few years ago as a consultative process involving ministers and technocrats when Robin Cooke was Britain's Foreign Minister, has been incrementally evolving as the alternative to summit meetings between CARICOM and Canada, CARICOM and the USA.

Hti: Not much hope held out for change in Haiti

It's a lengthy and good article. Here's an excerpt:

As U.S. Marines and French troops began trying to quell the chaos that has once again engulfed Haiti, political factions in Haiti as well as leaders around the world acknowledged what has become a historic reality: It won't be easy to force democracy upon the hemisphere's poorest nation.

The low expectations were evident even as Bush administration officials pledged U.S. help. "It's been a sad story for almost 200 years now," Secretary of State Colin Powell said on CNN of the former slave colony, which has seen more than 30 armed coups since it won independence in 1804. "We'll try again this time."

Haiti Democracy Project is of the opinion that for genuine change and progress to occur in Haiti, Haitians will have to do it. Well, 30 coups seems to indicate that Haitians need instruction in how to build a society in which they can thrive and progress. That means that Haitians should not be allowed to do it at the outset, but gradually as residents of a governerate.

Hti: Ketant interview on ABC World News Tonight

Jacques Ketant is the man who has accused Jean-Bertrand Aristide of turning Haiti into a narco state. The interview will be Sunday, 7 March, 2004, 6:00 PM EST.

Hti: Investigate CBC's ties with Aristide

Go, Jesse Lee!

A conservative black pastor says the White House and the
State Department should investigate the Congressional Black Caucus's
relationship with exiled Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
 
What do Congressional Black Caucus members have to gain by keeping
Aristide in power? asked the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson. Do CBC members, their
family, or friends have business interests in Haiti, he wondered.
 
"These questions must be answered. We need to get to the truth about what
has been going on," said Peterson, who heads a group called Brotherhood
Organization of a New Destiny. (Peterson, who supports various
conservative causes, is out with a new book called SCAM: How the Black Leadership
Exploits Black America.)
 
Peterson said he finds it "disturbing" that the Congressional Black
Caucus is backing "a corrupt and brutal man like Aristide."

If Rev. Peterson follows the money, he'll have the answer to his question.

St. Lca: Protecting rape victims

The St.Lucia Crisis Center has addressed a resolution to the Attorney General and Minister for Justice Petrus Compton.
...
According to the president of the St. Lucia Crisis Center Mrs. Rufina Paul, victims of such crimes need to given some sort of option and security against their attackers.
...
According to Mrs. Paul the center believes that some kind of definitive action needs to be taken to address issues such as witness protection and crime scene management. She says this will help bring some level of redress and comfort to persons who become victims of Gender based crimes

Ja: Common sense on the U.N.

Many persons are now of the view that the way the UN Secretary General and the UN community in general responded to the Iraq crisis has seriously undermined and eroded the credibility of the UN. That body, then, should not be expected in this dispensation to rise to the heights of moral and ethical rectitude.

We live in an unreal world if we imagine that the UN operates with impartiality and neutrality. By attempting to perpetuate these false notions, the UN peacekeeping forces have overseen disasters in Somalia (1993), Rwanda (1994), and Bosnia (1992-95), where they refused to take the sides of the victims.

But how could (they) take the sides of victims when the UN peacekeeping forces are under the tutelage of U.S. foreign policy?

CARICOM must wake up and realise that the UN is no longer, if ever, a superior moral authority to national governments. It responds to the interests of the member nations, with the interest of the most powerful in military and economic terms of both, having the day.

He's wrong on some other points, but he's essentially right on this.

Ja: Randall Robinson wants Caricom asylum for Aristide

RANDALL ROBINSON, former president of TransAfrica ­ an African-American lobby group for Africa and the Caribbean ­ and a close family friend of Jean-Bertrand Aristide said yesterday that the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) should assist in providing a home for the deposed Haitian president somewhere in the region.

In an interview with The Sunday Gleaner from his home in St. Kitts, Mr. Robinson, an American citizen and author of a recently released book "Quitting America" also charged that Mr. Aristide had been the victim of a grand conspiracy, which he insisted was aided and funded under the watchful eyes of the United States of America.

"He is a CARICOM head of state and a son of the Caribbean," Mr. Robinson said. "He should be here at home ­ if not in Haiti then somewhere in the region. He should not be in the Central African Republic where he didn't ask to go. Somebody in CARICOM should have offered to make a home available to him ­ it shouldn't be left to Mr. Aristide to make such a request. He shouldn't have to do that."

U.S. Ambassador to Jamaica Sue Cobb said last week that it was surprising that "Aristide's presumed friends would not offer asylum".

Hmmm. Is somebody trying to earn that lobbying money after all? Couldn't be, right? That lobbying money was paid to influence U.S. policy towards Haiti, not to find a Caribbean home for Aristide. I can practically hear Caricom heads laughing and pointing fingers at each other. Who me? Take Aristide? You must be joking! It is clear that Randall Robinson, married to a Kittsian though he may be, does not know or understand the Caribbean.

Ja: Alcoa expands Jamalco

Alcoa yesterday announced a J$41.4-billion (US$690 million) expansion for its alumina refinery at Halse Hall, in an agreement that will see the Jamaica Government dilute its half stake in the Clarendon facility by 30 per cent.

"This is something that we have been looking at for some time," said Dr Carlton Davis, the chairman of Clarendon Alumina Production (CAP), the company that holds Jamaica's stake in the refinery.

"The expansion will put the plant in a more competitive posture," Davis said. Claren