Could I adopt a Haitian child?

By Amelia Duarte de la Rosa - Special correspondent - Granma.cu

ONE can see this question repeated throughout the web.  A rapid Internet search on the situation of children in Haiti throws up disturbing results.  Millions of websites, blogs and pages note how to adopt these minors, as if the solution to the problem were to uproot them from their land.

The question increased after the earthquake when international humanitarian aid descended on the Caribbean nation.  In the midst of the chaos, many provided selfless assistance, but others took advantage of this cover to enrich themselves.

Prior to the quake, there were an estimated 380,000 orphans in the country.  According to UNICEF figures, 3.8 million infants were in a situation of extreme vulnerability in 2009 and, after January of 2010, one million children swelled the ranks of those without family care.

The disaster exacerbated their lack of protection and opened the gates to illegal adoption and human trafficking.

Even though international legislation prevents adoption proceedings in the case of military conflict or natural disaster, and adoptions in Haiti were suspended in 2007 due to the lack of legal guarantees, many governments gave the green light and facilitated those in progress.

The United States, France, Holland and Luxembourg headed the list of countries receiving dozens of young children.  The Barack Obama administration, for example, allowed emergency travel visas for Haitian children being processed for adoption, even when they lacked documents, and they were able to immigrate on humanitarian grounds.  The first group of Haitian orphans arrived in the United States just 10 days after the earthquake.

The speeding up of adoptions in the midst of disaster and without meeting international requisites endangered children’s rights, in addition to facilitating illegal acts.  There were incidents of the theft and kidnapping of minors, as well as abandonment once they had been transferred to other countries.  Trafficking networks existed previously in Haiti and increased with the situation.

By the end of January 2010, UNICEF had already denounced the theft of 15 children from Port-au-Prince hospitals.  None of them were orphans.  The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and non-governmental organizations like Save the Children expressed concern over the thousands of children separated from their families.

This organization demanded effective measures to protect children from all forms of violence and exploitation, including sexual violence and kidnapping under the cover of adoption; at the same time it froze international adoption and instigated alarm mechanisms.

Priority was given to tracing families and the reintegration of children with their parents, extended families, or family friends prepared to look after them.  On the other hand, international adoption or children being taken in by foreigners requires an international agreement between the participating governments.

In relation to the current fate of infants, Haitian President Michel Martelly is promoting education at all levels.  Last October, four million began the school year – according to authorities – including 712,000 children beginning to benefit from free education.  The government also launched a program against extreme poverty, which seeks to guarantee the education of children with very few resources and to alleviate the burden of families living in vulnerable areas.

Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe and First Lady Sofía Martelly set in motion the Ti manman cheri program, the principal objectives of which are to improve school attendance and performance and promote women’s autonomy.  The program, benefiting children in 200 elementary schools, is financed by the Venezuelan government’s Petrocaribe regional solidarity project.

The question forming the title of this article has a response which does not appear on any website: the support needed by Haiti is not the adoption of its minors.  Poor children are not a merchandise needing adoption.  It is the task of the state and their families to shelter and protect them so that they can develop normally in their own environment. The country needs aid which respects its autonomy.

THE STORY OF A SMILE

It all began with a smile.  I was sitting on a stair landing and without me initially noticing her, a little girl was standing in front of me, staring fixedly.  I gave her a timid smile and that was enough for her to come closer. . "Bèl cheve," she said and immediately began to play with my hair.  She wasn’t even four years of age but looked like a simplified version of a young woman with bare feet.

I deduced that she didn’t live very far away and effectively, almost immediately three more children arrived in search of their playmate.  Within seconds, I was surrounded by young girls who smiled, sang, and played with my hair.  They decorated it with colored ribbons, showed me their dolls, assaulted me with questions and, from the little I could understand, I tried to answer them.  I resigned myself to showing them the camera and taking photos of them.

Not more than five minutes had passed when the reclaiming cry of a mother broke the spell.  The girls ran off happily toward her open arms.  They looked back once and said goodbye with a smile.

I couldn’t begin to imagine those small children with a mother in another country and speaking another language.  The future is uncertain for everyone, but there is nothing like returning to one’s mother, I thought.

July 12, 2012

Granma.cu

Reparations from Britain for colonialism? ...nothing, not even a good education and a competent civil service, can possibly justify the dominion British colonialists exercised over native people from India to the Caribbean ...Especially since British mercantilism meant raping and pillaging local resources for the benefit of Mother England

Reparations from Britain for colonialism?



By Anthony L Hall



To listen to some critics of British colonialism you’d think it was utterly devoid of any redeeming value. But we in the Caribbean can readily attest that this is not so.

What’s more, all one has to do is juxtapose the way education and civil service have floundered in post-colonial countries in Africa with the way they thrived in those countries during colonialism to counter unqualified criticism in this respect.

Having said that, let me hasten to assert that nothing, not even a good education and a competent civil service, can possibly justify the dominion British colonialists exercised over native people from India to the Caribbean. Especially since British mercantilism meant raping and pillaging local resources for the benefit of Mother England.

Not to mention the practice of racial segregation (i.e. de facto apartheid), which reinforced the dehumanizing nature of colonialism.

More to the point, as British journalist and historian Richard Gott notes in Britain’s Empire: Resistance, Repression and Revolt (2011), no less a person than British PM David Lloyd George telegraphed how colonial officers intended to deal with natives who resisted this dominion when he proudly recalled how, at the 1932 World Disarmament Conference, he:

[D]emanded the right to bomb for police purposes in outlying places [and] insisted on the right to bomb niggers.

Which brings me to the cruel and unusual punishment colonial officers meted out to natives whose natural pride and human dignity compelled them to resist. Nowhere was this demonstrated in more poignant and persistent fashion than in Kenya during the Mau Mau rebellion throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

For according to the Kenya Human Rights Commission 90,000 Kenyans were executed, tortured, or maimed. In addition, 160,000 were detained in conditions that rivaled those their forefathers were subjected to as captured slaves during the “Middle Passage.”

But where seeking reparations for slavery that ended 150 years ago has always been fraught with obvious (legal) problems, seeking reparations for colonialism that ended just 50 years ago is much less so.

This is why the British government finds itself in the untenable position of having to defend against claims by Kenyans who say they themselves suffered all manner of human rights abuses while being held in detention camps by the British colonial administration during the Mau Mau rebellion.

Lawyers for several victims filed what they clearly hope will be a class-action suit on behalf of all victims demanding an official apology and compensation for pain and suffering.

The claimants’ lawyers allege that Mr Nzili was castrated, Mr Nyingi severely beaten and Mrs Mara subjected to appalling sexual abuse in detention camps during the rebellion…

In his statement Mr Nyingi, 84, a father of 16 who still works as a casual labourer, said he was arrested on Christmas Eve 1952 and held for some nine years. During his detention, in 1959, he says he was beaten unconscious during an incident at Hola camp in which 11 other prisoners were clubbed to death. He says he has scars from leg manacles, whipping and caning. (BBC, July 17, 2012)

It is noteworthy that the British government admitted this week -- for the first time and in a court of law no less -- that Kenyans were tortured and ill-treated as alleged. Never mind that it was obliged to do so because the High Court ordered the release of 300 boxes of secret documents recently that not only chronicle the systematic torture and ill-treatment colonial officers meted out, but also expose a conspiracy among British officials to cover up these human rights abuses.

Yet, despite all this, the government is attempting to avoid compensating the direct victims of the Mau Mau rebellion by using the same argument governments have used to avoid compensating the descendants of the victims of slavery; namely, that:

…too much time has passed for a fair trial to be conducted. (BBC, July 17, 2012)

To be sure, lawyers can raise all kinds of issues as to why, ironically enough, the British government cannot get a fair trial: not least among them is the likelihood of assigning collective guilt to all colonial officers because victims, many of whom are now in their 70s and 80s, would be hard-pressed to identify the offending one(s) in each case; they may even question whether detention during the Mau Mau rebellion was in fact the proximate cause of their injuries.

All the same, if the British government has any regard for what little redeeming value its legacy of colonialism retains, it would consider it a moral imperative to move post-haste to negotiate a victims’ fund with the Kenyan government from which all victims can seek relatively fair compensation … in Kenya.

Incidentally, this would (and should) not absolve the government of the categorical imperative to pursue and prosecute every British official implicated in these human rights abuses: from the Secretary of State in London to the camp guard in Kenya, and not just those who executed them but those who participated in the conspiracy to cover-up these abuses for so many years as well. Indeed, these British officials should be pursued and prosecuted with the same dogged zeal with which officials who collaborated with the Nazis in the torture and ill-treatment of the Jews are still being pursed and prosecuted to this day.

Of course, colonial rebellions were not nearly as persistent and were not put down with nearly as much brutality in other colonies as was the case in Kenya (the American rebellion excepted). But if the High Court were to establish the precedent that victims of colonial-era abuses could seek damages in British courts, I have no doubt that thousands of claimants would show up in London to seek redress from every place on earth that was subjected to British dominion.

In which case the British government would be well-advised to initiate government-to-government settlements of all such cases instead of allowing any of them to proceed to trial -- especially with all of the opening of old wounds (on both sides) that would entail.

Mind you, even if the High Court were to rule that victims of colonial abuse have no recourse in British courts, the reputational damage to Britain of such a ruling would far outweigh any amount the Kenyan and other post-colonial governments could reasonably demand be placed in compensation funds for colonial abuses.

Accordingly, I fully expect Britain, at long last, to do the right thing: apologize and pay, pursue and prosecute!
July 20, 2012

Caribbeannewsnow

Bahamas Blog International

Venezuela: A Threat to Washington?

By Eva Golinger - Postcards from the Revolution:


From the first time Hugo Chavez was elected President of Venezuela in 1998, Washington and its allies have been trying to undermine his government. When Chavez was just a presidential candidate, the US State Department denied his visa to participate in television interviews in Miami. Later, when he won the presidential elections, Ambassador John Maisto called him personally to congratulate him and offer him a visa. The following months were filled with attempts to “buy” the newly elected President of Venezuela. Businessmen, politicians and heads of state from Washington and Spain pressured him to submit to their agendas. “Come with us”, urged Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, trying to seduce him with offers of wealth and luxury in turn for obeying orders.

When Chavez refused to be bought, he was ousted in a coup d’etat April 11, 2002, funded and planned by Washington. When the coup failed and Chavez’s supporters rescued their democracy and president in less than 48 hours, attempts to destabilize his government continued. “We must make it difficult for him to govern”, said former US State Department chief Lawrence Eagleberger.

Soon, Venezuela was overrun with economic sabotage, oil industry strikes, chaos in the streets and a brutal media war that distorted the reality of the country on a national and international level. A plan to assassinate Chavez with Colombian paramilitaries in May 2004 was impeded by state security forces. Months later, the US-backed opposition tried to revoke his mandate in a recall referendum, but again, the people saved him in a 60-40 landslide victory.

The more popular Chavez became, the more millions of dollars flowed from US agencies to anti-Chavez groups to destabilize, descredit, delegitimize, overthrow, assassinate or remove him from power by any means possible. In December 2006, Chavez was reelected president with 64% of the vote. His approval rating grew in Venezuela and throughout Latin America. New governments in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Uruguay and several Caribbean nations joined regional initiatives of integration, cooperation, sovereignty and unity, encouraged by Caracas. Washington began to lose its influence and control over its former “backyard”.

The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our Americas (ALBA), the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), PetroCaribe, PetroSur, TeleSUR, Bank of ALBA, Bank of the South and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) were created. Washington isn’t included in any of these organizations, nor is the elite that previously dominated the region.

In January 2005, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Chavez was a “negative force” in the region. In March, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) placed Venezuela on their list of “Top 5 Hot Spots”. A few months later, Reverend Pat Robertson publicly called for the assassination of Chavez, claiming it would cost less than “a $2 billion war”. That same year, when Venezuela suspended cooperation with the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) because it was found committing acts of espionage and sabotage, Washington classified Venezuela as a nation “not cooperating with counter-narcotics” efforts. No evidence was presented to show alleged Venezuelan government ties to drug trafficking.

In February 2006, Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte referred to Venezuela as a “dangerous threat” to the US. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfled compared Chavez to Hitler. That same year, Washington created a special intelligence mission dedicated to Venezuela and Cuba, increasing resources for operations against them. In June 2006, the White House placed Venezuela on a list of countries “not cooperating sufficiently with the war on terror”. The classification included a sanction prohibiting the sale of military and defense equipment from the US and US companies or those using US technology to Venezuela. No evidence was ever shown to back such serious claims.

In 2008, the Pentagon reactivated its Fourth Fleet, the regional command in charge of Latin America and the Caribbean. It had been deactivated in 1950 and hadn’t functioned since then, until Washington decided it was necessary to increase its presence and “force” in the region. In 2010, the US established an agreement with Colombia to set up 7 military bases in its territory. An official US Air Force document justified the budget increase for these bases in order to counter the “threat from anti-American governments in the region”.

International media call Chavez a dictator, tyrant, authoritarian, narco, anti-American, terrorist, but they never present proof for such dangerous titles. They have converted the image of Venezuela into violence, insecurity, crime, corruption and chaos, failing to mention the incredible achievements and social advances during the last decade, or the causes of the social inequalities left behind from previous governments.

For years, a group of US congress members - democrats and republicans - have tried to place Venezuela on their list of “state sponors of terrorism”. They claim the relationships between Venezuela and Iran, Venezuela and Cuba, and even Venezuela and China evidence the “grave threat” represented by the South American nation to Washington.

They say again and again that Venezuela and Chavez are threats to the US. “He must be stopped”, they say, before he “launches Iranian bombs against us”.

In an interview a few days ago, President Barack Obama said Chavez was not a threat to US security. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said he was. The ire of the Miami Cuban-Venezuelan community came down upon Obama. But they shouldn’t worry, because Obama increased funding to anti-Chavez groups this year. More than $20 million in US taxpayer dollars have been channelled from US agencies to help fund the opposition’s campaign in Venezuela.

Is Venezuela a threat to Washington? In Venezuela, the only “terrorists” are the groups trying to destabilize the country, the majority with political and financial support from the US. The drug traffickers are in Colombia, where the production and transit of drugs has increased during the US invasion disguised as Plan Colombia. Relations with Iran, Cuba, China, Russia and the rest of the world are normal bilateral – and multilateral – ties between countries. There are no bombs, no attack plans, no sinister secrets.

No, Venezuela is not that kind of threat to Washington.

Poverty has been reduced by more than 50% since Chavez came to power in 1998. The inclusionary policies of his government have created a society with mass participation in economic, political and social decisions. His social programs – called missions – have guaranteed free medical care and education, from basic to advanced levels, and provided basic food items at affordable costs, along with tools to create and maintain cooperatives, small and medium businesses, community organizations and communes. Venezuelan culture has been rescued and treasured, recovering national pride and identity, and creating a sentiment of dignity instead of inferiority. Communication media have proliferated during the last decade, assuring spaces for the expression of all.

The oil industry, nationalized in 1976 but operating as a private company, has been recuperated for the benefit of the country, and not for multinationals and the elite. Over 60% of the annual budget is dedicated to social programs in the country, with the principal focus on eradicating poverty.

Caracas, the capital, has been beautified. Parks and plazas have turned into spaces for gatherings, enjoyment and safety for visitors. There’s music in the streets, art on the walls and a rich debate of ideas amongst inhabitants. The new communal police works with neighborhoods to battle crime and violence, addressing problems from the root cause.

The awakening in Venezuela has expanded throughout the continent and northward into the Caribbean. The sensation of sovereignty, independence and union in the region has buried the shadow of subdevelopment and subordination imposed by colonial powers during centuries past.

No, Venezuela is not a threat to US security. Venezuela is an example of how a rising people, facing the most difficult obstacles and the brutal force of empire, can build a model where social justice reigns, and human prosperity is cherished above economic wealth. Venezuela is a country where millions once invisible are today, visible. Today they have a voice and the power to decide the future of their country, without being strangled by foreign hands. Today, thanks to the revolution led by President Chavez, Venezuela is one of the happiest countries in the world.

That is the threat Chavez and Venezuela represent to Washington: The threat of a good example.

 

Source: Postcards from the Revolution

 

July 21, 2012

 

Venezuelanalysis 

 

Bahamas Blog International

...We are looking to amend laws to make harbouring illegal migrants a serious offence with serious penalties... says Bahamas Minister of Foreign Affairs and Immigration Fred Mitchell

Laws May Be Brought In To Stop Harbouring Of Immigrants

By DANA SMITH
Tribune Staff Reporter
dsmith@tribunemedia.net

Nassau, The Bahamas

IN AN effort to curb illegal migration, members of Parliament will be looking at amending laws concerning the harbouring of illegal immigrants, possibly as early as next week, according to Minister of Foreign Affairs and Immigration Fred Mitchell.

Mr Mitchell said he met with Haitian officials to discuss how to stem illegal migration, and that they also discussed trade potential between the two countries.

He said: “We are looking to amend laws to make harbouring illegal migrants a serious offence with serious penalties. That should be coming perhaps as early as next week when the House resumes. Debate will take place on the floor because we want some public discussion about the matter.”

The Bahamas is also hoping to engage the Haitian government in discussions on allowing “intelligence officers” to operate in Haiti in an effort to combat human trafficking, he said.

“They’ve expressed an interest in pursuing it,” Mr Mitchell said. “We would like to do so because we believe that if we are allowed to have intelligence officers in Haiti, we can probably stop the smuggling or put a big dent in it from the north.”

However, the minister said Haitian officials are more interested in talking about trade between the two countries.

Mr Mitchell said Haiti wants current protocols which prevent agricultural goods from being imported from Haiti to the Bahamas, to be changed.

They argued it would help spur their economy and thus potentially reduce illegal migration.

Mr Mitchell said the two governments have been trying resolved the protocol issue “for a long time”.

“In fact, a memorandum of understanding was signed between the two countries I believe back in 2007,” he said.

“The last minister of agriculture had announced that he was dedicated to removing it. There was even an announcement that customs officers would be stationed in Haiti to help with the inspection of the goods.

“Because Haiti now exports mangos to the United States, we can only get them by getting them through the States and it’s believed that if we get them directly, it’ll be cheaper.

“Their argument is that would help them in trying to improve the economy of the north of Haiti and that’s the area from which migrants come to this country illegally. We repatriated 200 of them this week – 100 went out this morning (and) 100 went out the day before yesterday. So this is a really serious problem for us. We are committed to seeing how we can get that resolved.”

July 19, 2012

Tribune242

Venezuela is not Syria, Venezuela is not Libya

By James Petras

Axis of logic note: The following excerpt from a discussion about the 2012 elections in Venezuela was taken from an interview of James Petras at CX36 Radio Centenario based in Montevideo, Uruguay. Translated from Spanish by Axis of Logic.

"The Syrian people perhaps have [legitimate] criticisms of Assad and perhaps want changes, but not from imperialist intervention. They want to decide for themselves their democratic, peaceful and independent future. They do not want to pass from the government of Assad to one controlled by foreign imperialists. That much is very clear and we should respect it and put a lot of distance between ourselves and the trotskyist bands that have supported this imperialist intervention, calling it a democratic revolution. Again we have an example of this failure of the Trotskyists who confuse their illusions with the realities in the world"

ChI: Continuing in the region, how do you see the Venezuelan electoral campaign?

James Petras: The U.S. politics in this are very clear: when the candidates of their choosing win elections, the elections are free and honest. If United States or their candidates lose the elections, then those elections are corrupt, illegitimate. They do not want to accept a rout. This is the case in Venezuela and also in other cases where there are popular candidates and nationalists with socialist tendencies. In the case of Venezuela we have received information that United States continues channeling money toward NGO's –non-governmental organizations - that are always a facade for the opposition that exists in Venezuela. They are full agents, organized, directed by the United States toward several tactics. And it is the political arm of the opposition that is directed to campaign where the right does not have force, that is to say in the popular neighborhoods, the lower middle class and other sectors where their may be some dissidence.

Now, their practice is not to present an alternative because they do not have alternatives with popular resonance. Their tactic is to take advantage of some negative conditions that exist, for example, in some places the trash is not collected, or a mayor does not fulfill a promise or the problem of the delinquency; that is to say that they enter and exploit that situation, any theme of a popular complaint, without offering any solution, beyond the same old clichés of the right. Now, this work from below is complemented by some mass communication media campaigns, where the right continues controlling the main electronic media and particularly the television. In addition, there are groups that are more secret, the aggressive groups, those who are going to promote some disorder if they lose the elections which is more probable than ever. So there are functions of U.S. politics on three levels: One is that of the NGO's; the second is the mass communication media and third are the hard line aggressive groups, which I have already mentioned in other contexts.

Currently and up to the final weeks prior to the elections, we are going to see groups one and two operating, the media and the politics of agitation to promote conflicts. But those in the third group exist and are expanding their networks, maintaining their threat to the democracy, even beyond the elections - seeking to introduce a similar situation to that which they created in Syria and in Libya. The key problem [in Venezuela] is that they do not have a critical mass that could rise up. In this sense the democracy under the government of Hugo Chávez and the massive influence that it has in all sectors of the country and above all in the popular sectors, makes it very difficult to repeat in Venezuela what they mounted in Syria and other places, i.e. one based on giving armed support to dissident groups to cause violent conflicts. In that sense, I believe that Mrs. Hillary Clinton, Mr. Barak Obama and their minister of Defense, Leon Panetta, have calculated badly: Venezuela is not Syria, Venezuela is not Libya; Venezuela is a democratic country with an extensive popular base organized freely and they are willing to face any violent challenge from below.

Therefore, Venezuela has a democratic vaccine that neutralizes those efforts. But that does not mean that there may be not adventurers in that violent sector of the opposition. They can think – and this must be noted - that they can cause a detonation with a small specific and violent group; a conflict, a confrontation, in which there are injured or dead, using that small motor to start a greater motor. A type of 'foquistas' of the right. But they are wrong because that type of pyrotechnics will fail like a dud.

 

Source: Axis of Logic

 

July 15, 2012

 

Venezuelanalysis

 

Bahamas Blog International

 

More brilliant moves for the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB)

By Dr Isaac Newton

Since its inception in July 5, 1983, the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) has used its resources impressively. It has met its obligation in monitoring monetary policy and assisted governments in managing risks.

Without exhausting its possibilities, the ECCB displayed acumen in raising consciousness about fiscal efficiency. By providing qualitative and qualitative tools to facilitate economic forecasting, the Bank’s yearly review of the economic performance of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) has nudged citizens to think about various approaches to socio-economic development of the sub-region.

Today, the Bank continues to help finance ministers manage debt. It still provides tools for governments to navigate capital markets. And it pilots helpful public education and awareness programs.

In fact, the effectiveness of its community outreach initiatives is credible. Above all, the Bank has protected the international value and kept confidence in the EC Dollar pegged to the US dollar at a parity of EC 2.70.

Despite the ECCB’s direct and indirect investments in the social success of the sub-region, some view it as a refuge that conceals political underdevelopment. Whereas the Bank has advocated for productive investments behind closed doors, one has not yet heard its voice condemning unproductive investments by regional governments with short-term bread and butter needs.

Perhaps it is because the OECS has a high tolerance for quick solutions. What’s even more worrisome is that we haven’t moved beyond our addiction to a culture of dependency, which constitutes the very foundation of our inability to advance ourselves.

At the 72nd meeting of Monetary Council held in February, leaders committed to fresh insights and new pragmatics. These are likely to unlock the financial bowels of our people to produce balanced growth.

As the Bank seeks to help the leaders overcome the shattering changes confronting the union, here are five critical things it can do in these recession times:

• Provide immediate short-term financialhelp to various priority sectors—agriculture, export, and small business to help them circumvent the crisis. The Bank presence should be flexible to the economic growth and political stability of the union.

• Reach out to the talent pool of the diasporas via long-distance or in person consultancies, and invite our brightest and best minds to become more engaged in regional advancement through sweat equity and exchange of intellectual capital.

• Devise a comprehensive model for finding synergy with transnational corporations. Assist governments to see beyond jobs creation to value proposal. Help public official and entrepreneurs exploit sustained industries that can be linked to tourism, research, green energy, and financial services in order to harness national resources, and increase revenue generation along the way.

• Inspire thought leaders and grassroots intelligentsias to delve into the potency of our resources (brilliant people, food feeding land, unexplored medically induced plant life, sun, sea, and natural beauty) to make long-term investments that can create capital.

• Design internships for finance ministers to tease out the best macroeconomic approach to sustainable development of the union, and provide operational frameworks of accountability, transparency and inclusiveness to identify the best talent required to achieve fiscal flexibility and economic goals.

The only way to create new momentum is for the ECCB to take governments and people on a development action plan. This requires a specific process that will induce political will and collective energies, and it will take personal meditation and institutional boldness to lead us to brighter days.

Perhaps the answer to the logic of politics is in harnessing the logic of economics. According to Winston Dookeran, former finance minister of Trinidad and Tobago, power, politics and performance in the Caribbean is about leaders finding durable solutions.

Dookeran argues that Small Island States can take advantage of a knowledge based world, by drawing on effective regionalism, financial structures and inspirational leadership.

I could see the ECCB focusing more on optimal development, on building safer regional alignment, and on executing follow-though success in the twenty-first century. Perhaps this undertaking will instill in each one of us a mind-set to achieve greater things.

July 12, 2012

Caribbeannewsnow

Maurice Smith, the fringe political party - Democratic National Alliance (DNA) spokesman for the Ministry of Financial Services says: ...he agrees with The Bahamas government’s stance to explore the implementation of value added taxes as an alternative means of revenue

DNA: Gov’t Should Implement VATs

By Kendea Smith
The Bahama Journal

Nassau, The Bahamas

Democratic National Alliance (DNA) spokesman for the Ministry of Financial Services Maurice Smith said he agrees with the government’s stance to explore the implementation of value added taxes as an alternative means of revenue.

Recently, Prime Minister Perry Christie said he was preparing to share several recommendations with cabinet on how valued added taxes should be implemented.

Mr. Smith, who spoke to the Journal recently, said this is something that should have been done years ago.

“I think this country needs to go in a different direction in terms of taxes and the value added tax has been tossed about for quite a bit and one of the things I think needs to be done first is [people need to be educated],” he said.

“I think that it would be a good thing for The Bahamas and it has to be regulated properly and it is has to be implemented with the intention that everyone knows what it means and how it is going to affect The Bahamas. I think that is one of the goals of the financial services providers in this country.”

Mr. Smith said he will also look into helping the government disseminate information on value added taxes.

“To the average Bahamian, they know nothing of it and that is why it is up to us to make sure that they do. Too often we have been introducing these aspects to the Bahamian people but not making information easily accessible,” he said.

Prime Minister Christie also recently told reporters that The Bahamas is one of the very few countries that don’t have some form of value added taxes.

“When we look at the revenue of our country, we realise that we are running out of sources for additional revenue and so we are at the maximum of what I think we can get from the Customs duties,” Prime Minister Christie said.

“What we have not been able to do is have an effective collection of real property tax and so we have had some consultants help us determine a pathway to be more effective with collecting real property taxes.”
      
Mr. Christie recently explained that the government would have more revenue to assist the poor if the country implemented value added taxes.

“I indicated that we will have a white paper in short order. I have the basis of the white paper in my hands now. I will present it to my government in short order to look at and then it will be published publically for public comment and for the public to weigh in on the way forward. It is a major shift and if it were to happen, I would want it to happen quickly,” he said.

“A lot of training will be needed in order to implement any kind of change of that kind.”

July 12, 2012

Jones Bahamas

...we examine the experience of Barbados in its transition to value added tax (VAT) ...and look at how we can apply those lessons to The Bahamas ...Finally, we present an argument for why the tax discussion should ultimately be extended to include modest corporate taxes

Value added tax, part 2

CFAL Economic View

Nassau, The Bahamas

Last week we examined the need for a new tax system in The Bahamas and gave an example of how value added tax, or VAT, would be calculated in practice. In this article we examine the experience of Barbados in its transition to VAT and look at how we can apply those lessons to The Bahamas. Finally, we present an argument for why the tax discussion should ultimately be extended to include modest corporate taxes.

In an excellent article recently published in The Tribune titled “Barbados’s Lessons for The Bahamas over VAT”, Dr. Nikolaos Karagiannis of Winston-Salem State University presented a detailed overview of the process that took our southern Caribbean neighbor to its new tax system.

VAT was introduced in Barbados at the beginning of 1997 at a standard rate of 15 percent (it has since been raised to 17.5 percent). Among the reasons cited for its choosing to implement VAT was to reduce the complexity of the country’s indirect tax system and to reduce the high level of duties and taxes on imported goods.

Serious discussions on tax reform began in earnest when Barbados underwent stabilization and structural adjustment under the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1991. In order to coordinate the extensive work of implementing a VAT, Barbados established a VAT Implementation Unit (VIU) in 1993. In January 1994, it entered a technical cooperation agreement with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Under the agreement, loans were allocated for the design of the VAT system and to bolster the Customs and Excise Department.

When the Owen Arthur administration came to office in 1994, the implementation of VAT was postponed to mid-1996 while research continued on estimating the impact of the tax on revenues, prices and the productive sectors.

The VIU started public relations outreach programs in May 1995, including the release of pamphlets and booklets, targeting four main target audiences: the private sector (retailers, manufacturers, importers and managers); the government sector agencies involved in the administration of the system; members of the general public (consumers) and finally the school system. The VIU presented at workshops, seminars, as well as via television and radio to further educate the public and business community. The major features of the new act were passed by the Barbados House of Assembly in September 1996 with effect on January 1, 1997.

The Bahamian context

Will Bahamians comply with a new and seemingly complicated tax? Many are skeptical that we can effectively get companies and individuals to forward the correct amount of tax to the government when we struggle to collect existing property taxes. As reported numerous times before, our government is owed some $400 million in past due property taxes according to the auditor general; much of that amount will probably never be recovered.

However, the reality may prove to be less problematic: only persons/businesses of the size and capability to adhere to good record-keeping (as measured by annual gross sales) will be included in the VAT system. Around the Caribbean region, this minimum threshold is TT$200,000 in Trinidad and Tobago (approx. US$30,000), JM$144,000 in Jamaica (approx. US$2,000) and BD$80,000 in Barbados (US$40,000). Given the higher average per capital GDP of The Bahamas, one can reasonably anticipate that our exemption threshold will be much higher than the rest of the Caribbean.

The Barbadian government was equally concerned with tax avoidance and evasion. Only those traders who were registered, and who displayed a certificate of registration, were legally authorized to charge VAT on the taxable goods and services they were selling. On the other hand, those traders who were not registered were paying VAT on the goods they were buying, but were not legally authorized to charge VAT on the goods they were selling, thereby squeezing their profits.

No doubt Bahamian business culture will need to be transformed. Compared to Barbados, which already had a strong tax framework and a history of paying taxes, this nation is starting from the opposite spectrum in terms of tax familiarity and compliance. The principle challenge for the business community will be record keeping; many companies will need to hire book-keepers or accountants while upgrading their point of sales or POS systems. Ultimately we will need to force compliance by tying it to the renewal of business licenses, alongside rigorous and impartial execution of the law by the newly created tax authority.

The move forward

As the Bahamian economy is a predominantly services-driven one, the real challenge for our policymakers is to introduce a VAT system that can achieve economic, fiscal, social and developmental objectives, while avoiding any adverse effects on tourism and financial services. As one example, VAT in Barbados was applied at a concessionary rate of 7.5 percent (now 8.75 percent) on accommodation in hotels, inns and guest houses. The government will need to decide very carefully which goods and services would be zero-rated and therefore exempted to make sure that VAT is neither regressive, nor penalizing those who are at the lowest levels of income.

Beyond VAT, how do we get the greatest mileage out of the many tax information exchange agreements, or TIEAs, that our jurisdiction has signed? One of the stated goals of the Bahamian financial services industry is to see companies locate their head and subsidiary offices within our shores.

Would that be an easier sell if we had a tax regime that allowed foreign companies to offset taxes paid in our jurisdiction when repatriating income? For example, Barbados has a number of double taxation agreements, or DTAs, that are extremely favorable for certain types of investors. These agreements promote cross border trade, avoid double taxation and prevent tax evasion.

As a result of its 2000 DTA treaty with China, Barbados has emerged as the leading jurisdiction for offshore wholly foreign owned enterprise (WFOE) holding companies in China. Under existing law, payments of dividends by a WFOE to its foreign owners are free of Chinese withholding tax. Payments of interest to foreign lenders are subject to withholding at 20 percent, typically reduced to 10 percent under applicable tax treaties. However, where a taxpayer qualifies for benefits under the Barbados-China treaty, the tax rates are reduced to five percent for dividends and 10 percent for interest.

The Bahamas should be able to compete in this space with the proper tax structure. The current tax debate is an ideal time to examine the merits of corporate tax as a boost to our competitive advantage in an era where being a zero-tax country is now a liability. This would allow the Bahamas to obtain tax income from foreign companies operating here at modest rates of 1.5 percent to 2.5 percent without increasing their overall tax burden since, by the DTA, the tax would be shared by our treasury and that of the home country.

Even as we move to a new tax system, we stress that the government will still need to be vigilant in controlling its spending and getting its fiscal house in order. This is one reason why the so-called Tea Party in the United States is so adamantly against any form of tax increases, including any overhaul of the tax code which increases efficiency and as a consequence increases collection. Instead, it feels the need to “starve the beast”, as governments’ natural inclination is to spend more than whatever revenue it takes in.

Referring to Barbados one last time, that country has a 17.5 percent VAT, 20 percent to 35 percent personal income taxes, 12.5 percent withholding on income and dividends, 15 percent to 25 percent local corporate taxes and import taxes on vehicles, spirits, tobacco and petroleum products. Nevertheless, they still had a 2010/2011 central government deficit of 8.5 percent of GDP and total government debt over 110 percent of GDP. Clearly, getting the tax policy right is still only one side of the government’s fiscal equation.

CFAL is a sister company of The Nassau Guardian under the AF Holdings Ltd. umbrella. CFAL provides investment management, research, brokerage and pension services. For comments, please contact CFAL at: column@cfal.com

Jul 11, 2012

Value added tax, part 1

thenassauguardian

Bahamas Blog International

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to Hugo Chavez: "Your Victory Will be our Victory"

Lula to Chavez: "Your Victory Will be our Victory"


By AVN:

Below is the complete message that Brazilian leader, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, sent to the Sao Paulo Forum in Caracas.

Comrades,

In 1990, when we created the Sao Paulo Forum, none of us thought that in just two decades we would get to be where we are now.  At that time, the Left was governing only in Cuba.  Today, we govern a large number of countries and even where we are in opposition, parties belonging the Forum are gaining an increasing influence in political and social life.

Progressive governments are changing the face of Latin America.  Thanks to them, our continent is developing rapidly, with economic growth, job creation, distribution of wealth and social inclusion.   Today, we are an international reference point for a successful alternative to neoliberalism.

Of course, we still have more work to do.  Events which have taken place, in Honduras and Paraguay for instance, show why we have to keep struggling, so that democracy prevails in our region.  The existence of colonies in our continent, as in the case of the Malvinas, which evidently belong to Argentina, remind us how much we have to fight to maintain national and regional sovereignty and for that we require more Latin American and Caribbean integration.

Our countries are still marked by poverty and inequality.  We require more economic growth, social policies and structural reforms to build the developed, fair and fraternal society we long for.  In everything that we have done up until now, which is a lot, the Forum and parties of the Forum have played a significant role, which could be even more important if we maintain our main characteristic: unity in the face of adversity.

I would like to say good bye adding that I would really like to be there.  Not only to be part of the delegation, the Workers' Party delegation, but also to give a warm embrace to comrade Hugo Chavez.  With Chavez's leadership, the venezuelan people has made extraordinary gains.  The popular classes have never ever been treated with such respect, love and dignity.  Those conquests must be preserved and strengthened.

Chavez, count on me, count on the PT (Brazilian Workers' Party), count on the solidarity and support of each left-wing militant, each democrat and each Latin American.  Your victory will be ours.  A strong embrace, a fraternal embrace and thanks comrade for everything you have done for Latin America.

Source: AVN

July 09, 2012

Venezuelanalysis

Sam Haven - a senior Bahamian banker has questioned whether complying with the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) could breach The Bahamas' financial services laws ...and expressed concerns that institutions could be “caught between a rock and a hard place”

Senior Banker Queries If Fatca 'Breaches The Law'

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A senior Bahamian banker has questioned whether complying with the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) could breach this nation’s financial services laws, and expressed concerns that institutions could be “caught between a rock and a hard place”.

Sam Haven, a private banker for more than 40 years, suggested that the Government and financial services regulators needed to become more involved in determining how best The Bahamas meet FATCA’s demands, and whether any changes to this nation’s laws were necessary.

Emphasising that he was not speaking for his employer, Scotiabank (Bahamas), and that his personal views were not those of the bank, Mr Haven said FATCA was set to impose “lots of duress” on jurisdictions such as the Bahamas.

Outlining his main concern, he told Tribune Business that the US legislation, which seeks to make Bahamian financial services institutions and providers ‘tax agents’ of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), seemed to require them to breach client confidentiality provisions enshrined in laws such as the Banks and Trust Companies Regulation Act.

“Would complying with the provisions of FATCA put us in breach of confidentiality laws as set out in the Banks and Trust Companies Regulation Act,” Mr Haven questioned.

“I think we’re missing the boat on a number of things here.   There are views I personally have on this, and that is that the regulators need to give comments and instructions to financial services companies.

“At present, under the requirements of this Act, anyone complying with it would be in breach of the laws of the Bahamas.”

Mr Haven said that while Bahamian law did permit the disclosure of client information in 
“certain circumstances”, usually via the court process, FATCA required the “automatic” provision of such details to the IRS.

Given the implications for Bahamian financial services providers, Mr Haven said both the Attorney General’s Office and regulators, such as the Central Bank of the Bahamas, needed to become more involved in determining how this nation responded.

“What FATCA attempts to do is make all financial institutions reporting agents of the IRS,” Mr Haven told Tribune Business.

“The important thing for us is to have the regulators and government enter into the negotiations to decide how best to implement this, and make sure changes are made to our laws to accommodate this if we decide this is the way we want to go......

“Certainly, the Government and legislators now need to step forward.  The Central Banks needs to propose some guidelines for the Government was to whether we change the laws to facilitate this, otherwise institutions will be caught between a rock and a hard place.

“I’m not sure what the solution is at this point, but there are persons in position to steer it and give guidance on how it should be done.

“The fact is we’re getting a lot closer, and nothing seems to be happening. FATCA is saying you automatically release the information, which creates issues for institutions, as they are potentially breaching the Banks and Trust Companies Regulation Act and client confidentiality.”

Bahamian and other global financial services providers are required to reach Foreign Financial Institution (FFI) agreements with the IRS by July 1, 2013, next year for the purpose of supplying them with details on all their US clients. Otherwise, these clients will be subject to a 30 per cent withholding penalty on all US-sourced income.

Mr Haven said several Bahamian financial services firms had been talking about the action/systems they were implementing to meet FATCA’s requirements, but this was all based on what the IRS was demanding.

He warned that should the Government enter the process and make changes, these firms might “need to start over again”, with all the time and extra expense that would incur.

“The Bahamas, for a long time, has held its head high as a major player, not only in financial services but in implementing and enforcing standards around the world, such as Know Your Customer (KYC),” Mr Haven said.

FATCA, though, went further than any previous international or extra-territorial initiatives, and “creates a situation involving a lot of duress for jurisdictions like ourselves.

“The cost of implementing what they’re proposing is going to be exorbitant and enormous,” Mr Haven added.

FATCA seeks information on anyone who has even the slightest US nexus, connection, and holds bank accounts outside the US.  This means that Bahamians who hold dual US citizenship or are green card holders will have to be reported to the IRS.

This is one of the major challenges for Bahamas-based financial institutions, especially the commercial banks.  They will now have to drill down into all existing clients and investment structures to determine whether there is any US ownership that needs to be reported.  And the information sought from new clients on account opening forms will also have to be changed to determine any US connection.

Mr Haven told Tribune Business that the US “power and might” would be virtually impossible to resist, especially given the need for all banks to access the US financial and capital markets systems.

Then there were the correspondent banking relationships that have to be maintained with US institutions, especially for dealing in US dollars, along with associated clearing and settlement.

Mr Haven said it was unclear how correspondent banking relationships would be impacted if FFI agreements were not reached by the IRS deadline.

While FATCA potentially placed “a very serious burden” on the Bahamian financial services industry, he added that it was “not necessarily as onerous as you think”, given that the sector had already done much work on KYC and due diligence when it came to new accounts.

July 09, 2012

Tribune242

Life Without God: Non-Believers in Post-Soviet Russia

By Alexey Eremenko, RIA Novosti:

A bus full of people, covered in inscriptions in Russian such as “You don’t believe in God?  You’re not alone!” romps across Moscow streets.

The bus is a shabby flash animation on the Web site Atheists.org.ru.   It is the only Russian incarnation of the international Atheist Bus Campaign, launched in Britain in 2009 in response to a similar campaign promoting faith.

All attempts to stage a similar offline drive in Russia have fallen through, said Artem Jouravsky, the head of the atheism and secularism Good Sense Foundation lobby group.

“We wanted to do our street billboards saying, ‘There is no God,’ in response to billboards with religious propaganda in Russia in 2009, but it turned out to be impossible,” he said.   “This prompted us to create our foundation.”

Atheists are sorely underrepresented in Russian public space, despite comprising about 13 percent of the population, or a solid 18 million people, the latest polls show.

Atheism spokespeople blame their lack of media exposure on the dominance of the Orthodox Christian Church, one of the biggest national institutions whose many hierarchs are putting every effort into turning its teachings into the country's dominant ideology, a role fulfilled by atheism in the Soviet times.

“It’s plain scary to be an atheist now.   I know cases where people were sacked for this from police and the army by former Communist Party bosses, no less,” said atheism champion Alexander Nevzorov.

But religion analysts say the situation is rather due to Orthodox Christianity becoming a staple of the post-Soviet Russian national identity, if only for a lack of alternatives.

“Something needs to unite the people and society into a nation,” said Sergei Filatov, an expert on religion with the Institute of Oriental Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences.   “For us, it is currently World War II and Orthodox Christianity.   We have no other big ideas to be supported by the populace at large.”

However, atheists comprise a significant part of the Russian society, and the church’s increasing involvement in political and societal affairs is creating a backlash that will only give them more adherents and public representation, experts and non-believers say.

“We’re just late in deploying our forces for the battle, like the Soviet Union in 1941,” said Jouravsky. “Give us another year or two.”

The Invisible People

There are at least a dozen atheist rights groups in Russia such as the Good Sense Foundation, which is a member of the Atheist Alliance International, Jouravsky said.

He avoided saying how many members his own group has, noting only that it limits its activity to Moscow and the surrounding region.   The foundation’s Facebook page has earned a modest 800 “likes.”

Most atheist groups are unknown to the general public, while their most renowned spokesman, Alexander Nevzorov, is a controversial star of perestroika-era shock journalism who has not had his own TV show since 1999.   Church spokespeople, such as the heads of the Moscow Patriarchate departments Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin and Vladimir Legoida, make headlines on a weekly basis.

This is a distinct imbalance between population and representation, given that the most recent survey of Russians’ relations with the divine, by pollster Sreda in the spring of 2011, showed that 13 percent of the populace did not believe in God.

Another five percent were undecided, possibly – but not necessarily – marking them as agnostics, according to the poll, which covered 1,500 respondents and had a margin of error of 3.6 percentage points.

The poll showed the number Orthodox Christian Church followers as 42 percent, with the rest divided between various other traditional religions and a belief in some divine being without following a particular faith.

“Atheism is now invisible, like Christianity used to be in Soviet times,” said religion expert Filatov.

Swinging Back and Forth

When Russian Navy Officer Alexander Voznitsyn abandoned Orthodox Christianity for Judaism in 1738, the Senate ordered him burned at the stake along with the Jew who converted him.

Christianity was the dominant religion in Russia for almost a millennium, with its status protected by criminal legislation in tsarist times, when apostasy was a felony and being irreligious was forbidden.

But when the old order was brought down by the Bolsheviks in 1917, the church went down with it.

“The poor peasants and the working class brought down the crosses in the 1920s,” said Sergei Solovyov, editor in chief of the Scepsis, a self-described online “magazine of science and social criticism” that promotes anti-clericalism.

The church was too firmly associated with the tsarist state, which was too obsolete and retrograde, hampering social progress with its old ways inherited from feudal times, some historians say.   The Bolsheviks, for whom religion was an ideological enemy, did their best to foment widespread negative sentiment toward the church, both through promises of a new, better, godless society and relentless repressions of the clergy.

Next came the time of militant atheism. Though religious worship was not banned outright in Soviet Russia in the 1920s and 1930s, believers became pariahs in the eyes of both society and the state, which had arguably the world’s fiercest repression machine at its disposal and was not afraid to use it against priests and their flock, thousands of whom were jailed or executed.

It took the greatest war in history to turn things around. In 1943, when the Nazi Wehrmacht and the Red Army were still locked in a deadly fight and thousands of churches were opened by the Germans on occupied territories to the population’s liking, Josef Stalin allowed reopening the churches for service, spelling the end of active anti-church repression.

After another crackdown under Nikita Khrushchev in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the surviving churches were allowed to operate under strict government control, but being an open believer would ruin one’s career as surely as dissident thinking would.

The unexpected consequence was that religion itself became associated with protesting against the oppressive and increasingly rotten Soviet bureaucratic machine.   It came into vogue for the intelligentsia to keep Orthodox icons at home, and some of the dissidents, such as Gleb Yakunin, were priests.

The next turning point came during perestroika.   When the Soviet state actively promoted the celebration of the millennium anniversary of the baptism of Russia in 1988, it was a clear sign that things have changed again, and the pendulum was swinging back toward the religious quarters.

In 1991, 24 percent of Russians identified themselves as believers; in 2005, the figure stood at 53 percent, with a further 24 percent registering as “not sure,” according to in-depth research into new Russian religiosity by Kimmo Kaariainen of the University of Helsinki and Dmitry Furman of the Institute of Europe at the Russian Academy of Sciences, published in 2007.

Corporation Church

There is an old building on Leningradsky Prospekt in northern Moscow, an almshouse in Tsarist times and part of a state hospital under the Bolsheviks, which is now being leased to various commercial establishments, including a plastic surgery clinic.

The building belongs to the church, which won it back in 2002 as property unlawfully confiscated after the Revolution, said Solovyov of Scepsis magazine.

Creeping clericalism is the main complaint of the Russian atheists, who say the state relies on the church for ideological support and lavishly rewards it with money and assets to the delight of many priests, who are more concerned with earthly riches than with heavenly salvation.

“The Russian Orthodox Church is part of the state’s ideological apparatus,” Solovyov said. “No wonder the authorities dislike criticism of the church.”

The alliance of the church and the state has indeed been a hot topic in recent years.   Both President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev stress their religiousness, attending important church services in front of the cameras.   There is hardly a single atheist politician on the political scene, including Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov.

The list of atheists’ grievances includes the introduction of taxpayer-funded chaplains in the army, the city-backed program to build 200 (previously 600) churches in Moscow’s suburban districts and a new subject that would allow teaching religion basics in schools, though only at the student’s discretion.

In 2010, the Kremlin authorized a sweeping restitution program that has seen the government return real estate confiscated by the Bolsheviks to various confessions, even though the buildings now often house secular establishments, including hospitals and museums, such as the one on Leningradsky Prospekt.   Commercial real estate once owned by the church is not part of the program.

The current church is among the country’s richest non-governmental organizations, with assets in real estate, banks, factories, publishing companies and funeral services firms, according to research by the Openspace.ru online magazine, which estimated total church assets at above $1 billion in 2011.   The church itself is notoriously opaque about its business activities, and while it often denies allegations of financial misconduct, it rarely provides credible information on its economic record.

The Kremlin’s benevolence was not for nothing.   During the presidential election this year, the church leader, Patriarch Kirill, endorsed Vladimir Putin’s candidacy while urging the flock against attending the anti-Putin rallies that swept across Moscow.

Atheists also complain of a media ban. “In federal media, criticizing the church was taboo until recently,” said Solovyov.   “They were either not interested or afraid of being accused of insulting believers’ feelings.”

Nevzorov said some atheists have lost their jobs over their convictions, but refused to name anyone, saying this could land the allegedly aggrieved in more trouble.

However, the situation may not be as straightforward as church critics describe it.   Nevzorov himself admitted in a recent interview to the Russian edition of Rolling Stone magazine that he was asked to spearhead the atheist effort by a lobby group in the Kremlin, campaigning for secularism on ideological grounds.

He revealed no names and said that the group is being overpowered for the time being by its opponents, who see religion as a useful tool for population control, but that the balance of power could shift in the unspecified but near future.

“I was asked to spend some time in this foxhole with the promise that the Red Army is on the way,” Nevzorov said about his championing of atheism in a separate interview in March. But, as he told Rolling Stone in June, “[the Red Army] will probably not come.”

In Soviet Russia, God Doesn’t Believe in You

“Real atheists are so rare, I’ve been saying for a long time that they should be put on the list of endangered species,” said Archdeacon Andrei Kurayev, a popular Orthodox Christian media figure.

“At the same time, atheism does not necessarily imply fighting God. I have deep respect for some forms of atheism, such as Sartre’s or Camus’s,” said Kurayev, a prominent Christian missionary whose first academic degree is in “scientific atheism.”

He dismissed atheists’ claims of persecution, saying they were just a means of attracting slipping public attention.

“Atheism has no state or media backing – and neither does the church,” Kurayev said.

This position is echoed by religion expert Roman Lunkin, who, however, conceded that some issues do exist.

“There is no direct censorship of atheists, but we can speak of certain ideological pressure, especially on state-owned television channels,” said Lunkin, who works at the Institute of Europe at the Russian Academy of Sciences.

“Federal television is turning Orthodox Christianity into some sort of a sacral symbol,” he said.

But Kurayev said this is not the reason for the lack of atheist presence in media.   “Some topics just lose immediacy and go away,” Kurayev said.   “Arguing with atheism is not relevant anymore. Such people have nothing to say beside criticism.”

He admitted the modern church is riddled with problems, but said believers are better equipped to expose them and actively fight them.

“I can criticize church life too. I’m inside it, and I see more shit than anyone on the outside looking in,” Kurayev said without elaborating.

Expecting a Backlash

On February 21, 2012, churchgoers and tourists in Christ the Savior Cathedral were treated to a sight they hardly expected in one of the country's prime Christian temples: five apparent females in tacky dresses, leggings and balaclavas shouted a song in the altar zone, asking the Mother of God to banish Putin.

Dumbfounded guards were too shocked to detain any of the young women, who scattered away after 41 seconds by the altar, police established later.

However, three of the performers are now in jail, awaiting a trial that threatens to land them behind bars for up to seven years.

This was the first in a series of scandals that rocked the church this year and damaged its reputation, especially among the educated urban population.   In the case of Pussy Riot, the name of the female group, it was not the event itself – but rather the church's endorsement of the jail term for the performers – that many critics deem harsh to the point of being repressive.

In March, the media reported about a relative of Patriarch Kirill living in his posh penthouse outside the Kremlin, trying to take over the neighboring apartment of a former federal minister-turned-priest in a lawsuit.   The story of a church hierarch owning a downtown penthouse generated a storm in the blogosphere, as did the lawsuit's questioned pretexts.

Kirill was also spotted wearing an expensive wristwatch, which was clumsily edited out of a photograph of him on the Moscow Patriarchate’s Web site.

Most analysts saw the string of scandals as the well-off, liberal-minded urbanites’ reaction to the church’s increased presence in social life and support for the government.

Before the elections, even non-believers saw the church as a moral authority standing above everyday political squabbles, but throwing its weight behind Putin has robbed it of its image of infallibility in the eyes of the opposition-minded public, Lunkin said.

The church was the most trusted institution in the country in 2011, with a support rating of 60 percent, beating the army with 58 percent and the government with 46 percent, according to a study by the GfK Verein pollster.

But between 30 and 38 percent of people who attended mass anti-Putin rallies in Moscow in February and March were non-believers, according to a Sreda poll.

The number of protesters associating themselves with the Orthodox Christian Church fell from 28 to 19 percent over the same period, after Patriarch Kirill said that believers should not go to political rallies, the Sreda poll said.

The negative feelings part of the populace has toward the church over its marred image and loyalty to the Kremlin have yet to be reflected in future polls, said Lunkin.

They Will Return

Atheism never was a free choice for the Russian populace, as it was imposed as part of Marxist-Leninist ideology, said religion expert Filatov.

But neither was Christianity, which was also imposed by the country’s rulers and upheld by draconian laws, said atheism defender Nevzorov.

“This is Russia’s tragedy: for a thousand years, the people never had freedom of conscience,” Nevzorov said.

As the church mounts its ideological pressure on society, criticism will mount and more people will embrace atheism as the main available alternative to religion, said Lunkin, who also works for the Sreda pollster.

“They think they came to stay,” said Solovyov of Scepsis magazine.   “They’re repeating all of their mistakes, imposing their ideology.    People will grow disgusted of it, and it will be another cycle [of destruction], same as during the revolution,” he said.

But some predict a milder outcome.   “In modern Italy the two main ideologies are Catholicism and atheism, and they coexist peacefully,” analyst Filatov pointed out.

For this, however, Russia needs to drift closer to Europe, embracing secularity voluntarily and without being coerced into it by the government, like in the Soviet times, he said.

“When our recent past – say, 20 years or so – will look like Europe’s, we’ll have a secular conscience coexisting with a religious one,” Filatov said.

21:00 26/06/2012

Rian.ru

The Food and Drug Administration's approval of the OraQuick In-Home HIV Test carries the hope that it can help identify some of the nearly quarter-million Americans infected by HIV who don't know it... ...These unknowingly infected people are one reason there are something like 50,000 new HIV infections a year in the USA

New Home Test For HIV May Cut Down New Infections

By Richard Knox:

No infectious disease has ever been detectable by a test that consumers can buy over the counter and get quick results at home.   But HIV isn't just any infection.   It's a stubborn pandemic virus that's still making people sick and killing them 31 years after it first appeared – even though infection is easily prevented and effectively treated.

The Food and Drug Administration's approval of the OraQuick In-Home HIV Test carries the hope that it can help identify some of the nearly quarter-million Americans infected by HIV who don't know it.

These unknowingly infected people are one reason there are something like 50,000 new HIV infections a year in this country.   HIV testing centers haven't been able to make a dent in this persistent problem, because many of those at risk of HIV infection don't seek out testing.

That might be true of home test kits too, of course. But U.S. health officials hope that privacy, convenience and easy access might induce many people to test themselves at home.

There's already an approved home HIV test kit, but it requires consumers to stick a finger to collect a few drops of blood and then send the sample in to a laboratory and wait for results.

Taking the newly approved test will be simple. Consumers are directed to swab their gums, upper and lower, and put the swab into a vial. Twenty to 40 minutes later, if a single horizontal line appears on the front of the vial, the result is negative. Two lines mean the user may have HIV.

But not necessarily. Interpretion of the test gets a little tricky.

One negative out of 12 is actually a false result – the person may actually be infected by HIV but the test didn't pick it up. A positive result is much less likely to be wrong: Only 1 in 5,000 positives are false. But a positive still requires the user to go to a professional lab for re-testing before jumping to the conclusion that he or she actually has HIV.

And then there's the "window" problem. For the first three to six months after becoming infected with HIV, a person hasn't made enough antibodies to be picked up by the test during that window.   So people who get a negative result will be advised to take another test a few months later if they have reason to believe they've been exposed to the virus.

Clearly, consumers who buy the OraQuick test kits may have questions – about the test, about what they should do about a result.   So the FDA is requiring OraSure, which makes the test, to set up a 24/7/365 hotline staffed by live humans who can answer questions and refer consumers to health professionals in their zip codes for followup care.

These complications explain the muted enthusiasm among some HIV experts toward the new home test.

Dr. Judith Aberg, chair of the HIV Medicine Association, says in a statement that the test "holds great promise as a self-directed tool for people to learn their HIV status."

But she goes on to say that there needs to be more research and education about how the test is used – especially among low-income and minority populations that are disproportionately affected by HIV.   For both those who test positive and those who test negative, proper followup is crucial, she says.

Douglas Michels, president and CEO of OraSure, told Shots that the company takes seriously the need for consumer guidance. And he predicts that the new test will make a difference in slowing the epidemic.

"For every million people who take the test," Michels says, "we'll identify an additional 5,000 new HIV infections.   And through that identification, we will be avoiding more than 700 future transmissions of HIV infection."

Michels says the test will be available around October at most pharmacies, retailers such as WalMart and Kroger, and online.

He declined to say how much test kits will cost.   But he said it would be in excess of the $17.50 list price of the version currently used in hospitals, clinics and doctors' offices. That's because of more elaborate packaging, education and customer support.

July 03, 2012

NPR.org

Coups 2.0 in the Americas

By Gonzalo Fernández - ALAI:

Everybody is familiar with the complexity of understanding the alternative processes that are taking place in the Americas, where multiple topics and agendas intersect, in the common will to break with the history of domination and exclusion of the subcontinent.  On the one hand, the 21^st century has been accompanied by the arrival of anti-neoliberal governments in various countries, with an unequal record of transformation, but which are the response to the popular majorities being fed up with their reality of poverty, inequality and external dependence. On the other hand, precisely taking advantage of this favorable context, many social movements - and many societies in movement - have raised the need for progress in the implementation of emancipative political agendas, that once and for all get beyond the colonizing and subordination logic to which the region and the population have historically been subjected.

 

So, after a few starts in which institutional and social actors walked hand in hand, tensions between governments and movements have emerged, as well as strained relations between old and new social movements: how slowly or quickly processes of change is taking place; the short life of governments or the long life of emancipation; developmentalism or a determined transition towards good living; the urgent need to overcome the patterns of dependency or the impossibility to do so in such a short period (in historical terms).  These are precisely the debates that baffle and enrich the reality of Latin America.  The answers to these situations are not simple, nor are they categorical, and deepening reflection on them is one of the great challenges of all the Left, including the European left.

 

However, something that cannot be denied, regardless of where we are positioned, is that all these processes initiated with the new century have torn open gaps, have allowed for spaces of accumulation of forces, spaces for the interconnection of struggles, spaces for the exercise of citizenship rights by large majorities.  And nobody can capitalize that, it is part of the action path taken by both governments and movements.  The Right knows it well: it attempts to put an end to this new exciting stage by any means.  Thus, attacks of the oligarchies and their media - hegemonically aligned with them - do not cease in their effort of discrediting governments and social struggles, with the aim of destabilizing the region and returning to the previous situation of absolute control of the subcontinent.  To do so, they are willing to do anything, including coups d'état.

 

This is the key to understanding the coup d'état in Venezuela in 2002 and the coup d'état in Mexico in 2006 - via electoral fraud -.  But it is also useful for understanding the coups d’état 2.0 in Honduras (2009) and Ecuador (2010), where new formulas of coup are being tested, seeking for the international community and the population not to assimilate them as such (but with identical results).  In this way, instead of the pure and simple military coup, new ways are emerging, ranging from social destabilization generated by the police to the fraudulent use of judicial and even constitutional resources.

 

This new coup scheme 2.0 is still very present in America today.  Last week, the President of Paraguay was dismissed on the basis of a political trial, a legal figure of the Constitution which makes it possible to remove a President from office based on a manifest disability to perform his duties.  In this sense, a legal staging was orchestrated for an illegitimate and anti-democratic event, where a President elected by popular vote was fulminated in a summary trial in which he only had two hours to exercise his defense, unable to prepare it properly, and against a very serious accusation. The ultimate goal of the coup: that one of the most retrograde oligarchies of the continent could put a stop to the timid processes of change engendered in recent years, and prevent the Left from accumulating enough forces to face the presidential elections in 2013.

 

On the other hand, since the past weekend, all the media of the world echoed the turmoil generated by the police strike in Bolivia - illegal in many countries - and which is perhaps a prelude of further attempts of destabilization in the Andean country.  Finally, we'll see what happens in the Mexican elections, where a broad student movement has gained significant momentum against the possibility that the PRI returns to power (with the full support of the Right and large media conglomerates.)

 

We must remain very much on the alert for these new realities, and denounce without palliatives, both here and there, the abuses perpetrated against democracy in the Americas.  Regardless of the views we hold about one government or the other, or their greater or lesser commitment to the emancipation of the continent, we must be clear about one thing: we cannot allow what has been achieved in the last decade to be reverted, and we must join forces to prevent anti-democratic regressions, not only because of international solidarity, but also given the importance of the region as a source of inspiration to raise proposals that allow us to envision other paths to overcome this crisis of civilization that affects us all.  Our paths are deeply intertwined, their democracy is also ours. 

(Translation FEDAEPS).

 

 

- Gonzalo Fernández is a member of the Internationalist Working Group of Alternatiba, Basque Country.

 

Source: ALAI

 

July 04, 2012

 

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