G20 may blacklist Caribbean regulatory havens

ISTANBUL, Turkey (Reuters) -- The Group of 20 major nations may blacklist countries that have lax financial regulation and impose sanctions on them, mirroring its crackdown on tax havens, Chancellor Alistair Darling was quoted as saying.

"Just as we want to go after tax havens, we want to go after regulatory havens as well," Darling told Emerging Markets magazine in an interview published on Saturday.

"It is not good for financial stability that some companies can operate out of a Caribbean island, and shelter behind a veil of secrecy, and we don't know what they are up to."

Darling's remarks, some of the strongest yet on the issue by a senior G20 official, suggested the group was determined to impose financial reforms comprehensively around the globe to reduce the risk of another credit crisis.

The G20, which groups the United States and other rich countries along with developing nations such as China and India, is pushing for wide-ranging changes in financial regulation -- from bank capital standards and bankers' pay to corporate accounting rules and supervision of financial institutions.

Emerging Markets magazine said the Financial Stability Board, which coordinates the G20's regulatory initiatives, would prepare a "provisional blacklist" of regulatory havens by a meeting of G20 finance ministers in November, as well as a grey list of countries that also should tighten standards.

The FSB will suggest the use of positive sanctions, such as help with improving a country's regulatory capacity, as well as negative sanctions, such as raising the cost of doing business with banks in a blacklisted area, the magazine reported.

Darling, visiting Istanbul for a meeting of finance officials from the Group of Seven rich nations and the International Monetary Fund's semiannual meeting, was quoted as saying big institutions which triggered the credit crisis had traded in every corner of the globe.

"We have an interest in making sure that the regulatory regime is robust, so that you don't end up with banks falling between stools," he said.

"I am concerned about countries that don't have such robust regimes. As it becomes less and less clear what exactly their arrangements are, that could have quite a destabilising effect on other countries."

The G20's crackdown on tax havens has had considerable success. G20 leaders agreed in April to name and shame the world's tax havens with a public list, and threatened sanctions for countries not falling into line.

Since then, some European countries, such as Switzerland, have made concessions on bank secrecy laws in an effort to get off the list. On Thursday, the government of France said French banks had promised to close all their branches in jurisdictions considered to be tax havens from March 2010 onwards.

October 5, 2009

caribbeannetnews

Bahamas Caribbean Blog International

U.S. Congress Urged to End Ban on Cuba Travel

By Maria Peña:

WASHINGTON – Activists lobbied on Capitol Hill Wednesday for a bill that would remove restrictions on travel to Cuba for all Americans, arguing it would be in keeping with President Barack Obama’s pledge to change U.S. policy toward the communist-ruled island.

During a meeting at the House of Representatives’ Rayburn House Office Building, several congressional leaders and more than 70 activists from a dozen states said the travel ban violates Americans’ basic rights.

Supporters of the Freedom to Travel to Cuba Act, including Democratic Reps. Charles Rangel and Bill Delahunt and Republican Congressman Jeff Flake, say Washington has tried for more than four decades to isolate Cuba economically and diplomatically without achieving the desired result.

They added that now is the time to try something different and that the bill has enough support in the House and Senate to be approved before year’s end.

The measure, submitted in March, would allow all Americans to travel to the island, not only Cuban-Americans with family members living there. Only in the event of war or imminent danger to Americans could travel to Cuba be disallowed.

While hearings on the legislation could begin next month, the proposal faces opposition from Republicans and Cuban exiles, who denounce the continued violation of human rights on the island.

In April, Obama lifted restrictions of Cuban-Americans’ travel and remittances that had been imposed by the Bush administration and allowed U.S. telecommunications companies to apply for licenses to operate in Cuba.

In an exception to the economic embargo imposed in 1962, Washington for several years has allowed the sale of U.S. farm products to Cuba. The value of those transactions averages around $500 million a year.

Some experts who took part in Wednesday’s meeting told Efe that the measures Obama has adopted thus far are limited and insufficient.

“It disappoints me that more things aren’t being done more quickly, because most Americans support a relaxation of the embargo. We have nothing to show for the embargo, which has been in place for decades,” said John Block, agriculture secretary under the Ronald Reagan administration.

“We travel to and do business with China and Vietnam. Aren’t we being hypocritical with this? We should open up trade with Cuba because this embargo is only providing the regime in Havana with an excuse” for the island’s economic woes, Block said.

For his part, Wayne Smith, who served from 1979-1982 as chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, said that Obama “hasn’t done anything” and that, as a step toward change, “we should start a dialogue and lift the travel restrictions.”

“It’s disgraceful for a handful of lawmakers to block legislation when most Americans and the new generation of Cuban-Americans want relations with Cuba to improve,” Smith said.

Obama has said he will not consider lifting the embargo – imposed three years after Fidel Castro took power – unless Cuba frees political prisoners and undertakes democratic reforms.

Wednesday’s lobbying effort, described by organizers as an “education day for lawmakers,” comes amid a possible thaw in relations between the United States and Cuba, which have resumed talks on immigration, suspended in 2004, and are mulling the possible resumption of postal service after 46 years.

Bisa Williams, deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs, met recently in Havana with high-ranking Cuban officials to discuss a range of issues. She visited an agricultural facility and areas affected by the three hurricanes that battered the island last year, the State Department said Tuesday.

She was the highest-ranking State Department official to visit Havana since 2002.

Leaders of Cuba’s dissident movement said Wednesday that they met with Williams during her stay on the island.

The chairman of the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, Elizardo Sanchez, told Efe that encounter took place over lunch at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.

Miriam Leyva, founder of the Ladies in White, a group comprising relatives of political prisoners, said Williams encouraged them to express their opinions and “showed solidarity at all times.”

Among the issues discussed, Leyva said, was the plight of Cuba’s 208 political prisoners, the government’s repression of the opposition and the situation in general on the island.

Also present for the lunch were prominent dissidents Vladimiro Roca, Oscar Espinosa Chepe, Laura Pollan and Marta Beatriz Roque. EFE


laht.com

Bahamas Caribbean Blog International

Dark days of revolution and coup

Analysis by Rickey Singh:



MANY DISTURBING questions remain about the destruction of Grenada's "revolution" and the related United States military invasion of 1983 that occurred some seven years prior to the aborted Muslimeen coup in Trinidad and Tobago.

There continues to be, for instance, disagreements over the precise number of those killed and buried in unmarked graves 26 years ago on that bloody day of October 19, when Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, symbol of "the revo" was executed along with leading cabinet colleagues.

Likewise, there continues to be serious questioning of the "legality" of the US military invasion one week later, as was hatched in Washington and carried out by the then Ronald Reagan administration in the face of a sharply divided Caribbean Community.

Among the lead objecting governments were those of Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana and The Bahamas while Barbados, Jamaica and St Lucia were in the category of primary collaborators.

There have been court trials and sentencing of those convicted for the murders committed in Grenada, with the leading players, like Bernard Coard, now finally freed.

Here, in Trinidad and Tobago, there remains unfinished legal battles and political squabbles about the roles of the Jamaat-al-Muslimeen and its leader Yassin Abu Bakr.

For all the passionate debates about the abortive Muslimeen coup and the collapse of the 'revolutionary' experiment in Grenada, no government in either Port-of-Spain or St George's has shown the slightest interest to date in the establishment of an international commission of inquiry, with clearly defined mandates, so that the public could benefit from the lessons of the respective tragedies of 1983 and 1990.

In the absence of such lessons to be learnt, some may well recall the maxim of the philosopher George Santayana, that "those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it".

Now, as fresh debates surface over the implications of the Muslimeen's failed coup and the US invasion of Grenada , concerns are being expressed over some claims involving the executioners of Bishop and others.

One example I have chosen to focus on pertains to the tales told by a retired Barbadian police officer who has been "recollecting" his "discoveries" as an "investigator" into the circumstances of the killings that took place at Fort Rupert on October 19, 1983.

'Heartless killers", he claimed in an interview published by the Barbados Daily Nation on September 14. It subsequently appeared, in part, in other regional newspapers, including the Trinidad Express.

The "heartless killers" headline was taken from a statement attributed to the retired crime investigator, Jasper Watson, in reference to the release, a few days earlier, of Bernard Coard and others who, he feels, "should have been hanged" for the murder of Bishop and others.

Having previously written much about the killing spree of October 19, 1983; the primary executioners and their victims; the death of the "People's Revolutionary Government; as well as the US invasion, my primary interest at this time is to secure, if possible, some answers to a few of the claims of the former Barbadian "lead investigator" during that those dark days in Grenada.

Watson is entitled to his views that Coard and fellow condemned 'comrades' should have been hanged. Personally, I do not favour the death penalty for murder. My interest in his "heartless-killers" contention relates specifically to two observations:

* First, his claim-offered without any supporting information- that he had "discovered a plot to poison the Barbadian police investigators" by immediate relatives and friends of Coard and other then held as prisoners for the slaughter of October 19.

* Secondly, his "recollection" about a three-year-old girl being thrown into a truck and placed among dead bodies..." knocked down with a gun butt by a soldier and carried away while crying 'mummy', 'mummy', and later "buried with the dead at Camp Feddon..."

Is there any way this former lead "investigator" could help, in the interest of public information, to share some relevant details, at least about the little girl who was "buried" (alive?) at Camp Feddon, even if reluctant to offer more than his claimed "poison plot discovery"- useful as this also would be?

Journalists and others with whom I have spoken (including in Grenada, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago) to seek help on Watson's astonishing claims, have admitted to "no recollections" of either the "poison plot", or the more traumatic incident told about the three-year old child.

Hence, the following questions:

* Did any of those claims/allegations surface at the trials of the accused condemned for the murder of Bishop and others?

*Is there any police record, known to Watson, about this child among "missing persons" during that dark period in Grenada's history?

Since, as Watson said, the tragedy of the little girl "will remain with me for eternity", he should enlighten us about his own efforts to trace her family connection as well as indicate whether he had engaged the Grenada Police Force, then or subsequently, about either the "poison plot" claim, or the "burial" of the unknown little girl?

I anxiously await Mr Watson co-operation in the interest of facts and justice.


October 4th 2009

trinidadexpress

Bahamas Blog Bahamas

Honduras: UN officials sound alarm over crackdown on freedoms

2 October 2009 – The head of the United Nations agency tasked with upholding the freedom of expression today led a chorus of UN voices expressing concern over the suppression of civil liberties in Honduras following a coup d’état in the Central American country in June.

Since the return of ousted President José Manuel Zelaya to Honduras on 21 September, authorities have declared a state of emergency, suspending freedom of opinion and expression, movement and association.

“I am deeply concerned about the situation in Honduras,” said UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura.

“Freedom of expression is a particularly important human right that must be preserved if a durable solution, acceptable to all, is to be found to the crisis,” stressed Mr. Matsuura.

The authorities who took power in June have issued a decree sanctioning the suspension of any media outlet that “attacks peace or public order,” or that broadcasts messages that “offend human dignity, officials, threatens the law or government resolutions” after Mr. Zelaya returned to Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, and sought shelter in the Brazilian embassy.

“It is important that political tensions in the country be resolved in a manner that is mindful of the rights of citizens to engage in informed debate,” said Mr. Matsuura in a message calling on authorities to reconsider their position in the light of democratic principles.

A group of independent UN human rights experts noted that the decree also allows the police to repress all non-authorized public meetings or demonstrations, and had resulted in the deaths of five people in the last few rallies, including an 18-year-old youth.

“It is worrying that police and military officers are resorting to the use of excessive force, including beatings and shootings, in order to dissolve street protests,” the group of four experts said in a joint news release.

“The result of these interventions has been large-scale detentions, in some cases in non-authorized detention facilities, where those arrested run the risk of being subjected to torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment,” the experts added.

The group of experts, who report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva on an unpaid basis, consisted of El Hadji Malick Sow, Chairperson-Rapporteur of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention; Margaret Sekaggya, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders; Frank La Rue, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and Manfred Nowak, Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

UN News

Bahamas Blog Bahamas

Unemployment rate inches higher in Latin America and Caribbean, UN reports

2 October 2009 – The urban unemployment rate in Latin America and the Caribbean has climbed slightly to 8.5 per cent in the second quarter of 2009, with the United Nations forecasting that rate will stay constant through the end of the year.

This marks a 1 per cent rise in unemployment from last year, which means that 2.5 million more people have joined the 18.4 million people out of work in the region, according to a bulletin published by the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the International Labour Organization (ILO).

The second quarter saw exports contract in response to sluggish demand on global markets, while remittances and foreign direct investment also plummeted due to the global financial turmoil, it said yesterday.

“Since the end of 2008, the countries of the region had started to implement countercyclical policies – albeit with significant differences – in an effort to use public spending to counter flagging investment and consumer-spending levels and boost aggregate demand,” according to the bulletin, the second joint effort by the two UN agencies.

Gross domestic product (GDP) has contracted nearly 2 per cent in the region so far this year,

Labour-market trends observed in the first half-year, together with the forecast for a 1.9 per cent decline in regional GDP in 2009, suggest that the average annual rate of urban unemployment in the region will be close to 8.5 per cent.

“Youth have paid a high cost for the crisis or economic slowdown, given that unemployment among youths has increased significantly,” the bulletin said.

But it said that there are signs that the worst of the economic crisis has already been seen in mid-2009, with signs of recovery, including an end to production declines.

“Public investment can undoubtedly be a powerful tool for creating jobs and boosting the economy in times of crisis,” ECLAC and ILO said, also calling for emergency employment programmes.

Boosting public investment to spur job growth entails a lag, they said, underscoring the need for speeding up projects and execution of existing resources in the short term.


UN News

Bahamas Blog Bahamas

Human Rights Council deplores violations in Honduras following coup

1 October 2009 – Strongly condemning the coup d’état in Honduras in June, the Human Rights Council today called for the restoration of democracy and the rule of law in the Central American country and an immediate end to all violations of human rights. Council members, meeting in Geneva, adopted a resolution in which they expressed concern about the ongoing situation in Honduras, particularly in the wake of the return of President José Manuel Zelaya to the country on 21 September.

Mr. Zelaya sought shelter in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, after he returned, and since then the authorities who took power in June have curtailed media outlets and restricted the supply of food, water and electricity to the embassy.

The resolution, which was adopted without a vote, calls for “unconditional respect” for all human rights and fundamental freedoms in Honduras and stresses the need for all sides to refrain from violence and to respect the rule of law.

The text also voices support for regional efforts to restore the democratic order in Honduras and asks UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay to present a comprehensive report on the situation since the coup occurred.

The resolution on Honduras was one of 15 adopted by the Council today, along with two decisions, on issues ranging from the elimination of discrimination against people affected by leprosy to the independence and impartiality of the judiciary.



UN News

Bahamas Blog Bahamas

News Tracker: past stories on this issue

Recent coup oppresses Honduran people, ousted leader tells General Assembly>>>

CARICOM seeks voice in G20

GEORGETOWN, Guyana -- The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) would like a voice in the Group of 20 (G20). This was one of the issues raised by the Community’s Foreign Ministers during a meeting with United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in New York, USA last Friday 25 September.

Assistant Secretary-General at the CARICOM Secretariat for Foreign and Community Relations Ambassador Colin Granderson said that Secretary Clinton was informed of the concern by CARICOM countries of not having a presence in the Group of 20 (G20) global policy arena where many of the issues on the global economy are discussed and decided. He added that the concern of the Region was ‘taken on board”.

“It is believed that the views of vulnerable states with peculiarities such as ours need to be heard,” Granderson emphasised.

The latest meeting provided yet another opportunity for follow-up discussions arising from the meeting between CARICOM Heads of Government and United States President Barack Obama at the 5th Summit of the Americas in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago in April 2009 and a previous meeting between the Ministers and Secretary Clinton in Honduras in June during the Organisation of American States General Assembly.

Granderson revealed that discussions were dominated by the continuing global financial crisis and trade. With regards to the global financial crisis, the Region expressed continued concerns about accessing funds that developed countries had made available for developing countries to assist in offsetting some of the fall out from the financial crisis.

The Assistant Secretary-General said that it was stressed that the graduation of some CARICOM Member States to the level of middle income countries had made it quite challenging for them to access these much needed funds.

On the trade front, Granderson said the Region pressed home the point that it is anxious to meet with the US Trade Representative as there are several issues in this arena to be ironed out and on which the Region needed clarity.

The CARICOM Assistant Secretary-General also informed that developments on a planned Caribbean-US Regional Security Framework was also discussed. He informed that a Joint Working Group which was established earlier this year had already met and planned a second meeting in the coming weeks.

The Dominican Republic also participated in last week’s discussions.

October 1, 2009

caribbeannetnews

Bahamas Caribbean Blog International