Jamaica Prime Minister, Bruce Golding says the Jamaican government may re-evaluate its position on the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ)

KINGSTON, Jamaica (JIS) -- Prime Minister, Bruce Golding, indicated on Tuesday night that the Jamaican government may be contemplating re-evaluating its position on the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).

Golding told Tuesday night's Town Hall Meeting in the assembly hall of the University of the West Indies(UWI), Mona, that a number of changes had been made to the Court, since his Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and other regional groups raised concerns.

"I think we are in a position now, where we can do a revaluation of that now. I put it no stronger than that. But, I think we are now in a position where that proposal can be re-evaluated," he said.

He explained that the JLP had reservations about the original concept of the Court, including having CARICOM political leaders appoint the judges, as well as the possibility of the Court becoming hostage because of lack of finances. He said that the JLP also needed to see the court function, in order to evaluate its jurisprudential quality.

Golding said that the Government was satisfied with the appointment of a judicial commission to appoint the judges, as well as the setting up of a trust fund to finance the Court and felt that, in terms of the performance of the court, a re-evaluation was possible.

October 8, 2009

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Bahamas Caribbean Blog International

HONDURAS: The inestimable value of the Resistance

HONDURAS

Nidia Diaz

ONE hundred days of heroic resistance against the coup regime’s repressive apparatus have been sufficient for the local fascists and their extreme right-wing U.S. sponsors to finally realize that the Honduran people are resolved to keep fighting until President José Manuel Zelaya is restored, as the first step in their strategic course to convene a national constituent assembly, for which they will have to sit down and find a negotiated solution to the conflict backed by the empire.

Neither the advisement of Israeli officials who arrived in Tegucigalpa to destabilize the struggle through psycho-technological means, nor the secret support of the Pentagon, nor the brutal repression in complicity with curfews, nor the declaration of a state of siege, nor the lies in favor of the fascists flooding the media, have been able to make the Honduran people and the international community — with a few, abominable exceptions — accept the de facto government or forget about the unconstitutionally deposed president or that Central American people’s present and future aspirations for a Honduras for all and for the good of all.

The National Resistance against the Coup is now a political movement to be reckoned with in these presumably final moments, in which the OAS is to attempt to get the national capo, Roberto Micheletti, to sign the San José Agreement. Despite his smiles and apparent tranquility, Micheletti knows that his days are counted.

To accompany him at this time with the aim of supporting him to obtain a solution loaded with concessions, representatives of extreme right-wing U.S. Republicans turned up in Tegucigalpa. The howls of lead hyena (Ileana Ros Lehtinen) and her followers, the Díaz- Balart hyenas (Lincoln and Mario) are aimed at giving succor and protection to the empire’s chosen ones, Roberto Micheletti and General Romeo Vázques. The latter two have run out of arguments for keeping up their farce, given that the former publicly stated that Zelaya was deposed for being "a leftist, for aligning himself with Venezuela, Cuba and Ecuador," and not, as he had previously reiterated, for committing unconstitutional acts.

President Obama handed over the Honduras issue to his hawk, Hillary Clinton, and she, in the end, was also left hanging, on losing the initiative to the establishment’s more conservative and reactionary elements. It proved worthless to contract Oscar Arias, Washington’s ever-faithful servant, as messenger for the so-called mediated agreement of San José to restore President Zelaya without any powers. The coup regime ignored her and laughed at Obama.

That is the visceral quality of the hatred toward representatives of governments who are not docile as regards the empire, and with the abovementioned agreement, the deposed president would have to pay for daring to join the PETROCARIBE and ALBA blocs.

The yanki Department of State did not count on the people — imperial logic never does — becoming, from the first day of the coup, the liberation army for their president, the only one in recent Honduran history to take them into account and work honestly and transparently on their behalf during his mandate. He was the only one who took it upon himself to begin paving the road to the country’s second and definitive independence, even in the midst of heavy pressure from the local oligarchy, the same one that paid for his exile and continues to pay for the siege set up around the Brazilian embassy.

The U.S. secretary of state believed from the start that the battle within the Democratic Administration was solely against its African-American president. She also fell into the trap of the reaction, and the coup — as we said from the beginning — was likewise against the current administration.

It is evident to everyone that the de facto Honduran government could not have remained in power for more than 100 days as it has done, flagrantly violating human rights and even international law, without the support of the U.S. extreme right.

If that is not the case, why did José Miguel Insulza, the OAS secretary general, secretly meet with coup leader Micheletti at the yanki military base in Palmerola, and not in the U.S. embassy in Tegucigalpa?

What is the explanation for Ros Lehtinen’s demand for recognition of the de facto government, because not doing so would be to endanger U.S. "national security"? Of course, these howls are nothing but an expression of defeat in face of the courage, political maturity and unity of the Honduran resistance, which is the element that is actually forcing the coup regime to the negotiating table.

In an interview given a few days ago to the international media, President Zelaya referred to the limits of the San José Agreement:

"The person who is going to sign the Arias Plan is me, as the elected representative of the Honduran people. The Plan has two components: my restoration, in order to say ‘No!’ to coups d’état – which is what the presidents of Latin America are interested in, so that they can be assured of respect for popular sovereignty and that the will of the people is not going to be replaced by a military, economic and political elite; and the second component, which consists of social processes and reforms, and they are a question of time.

"I have promised that, before the elections, I will not take any initiative in that context, but that does not mean that the processes are going to come to a halt. I never proposed that the Constituent [Assembly] should take place during my government, but during the next one, when I will no longer be president…

"The Arias Plan is an emergency plan to solve the crisis of a de facto state, which at the same time is not going to paralyze social processes, far less deter what the determination of a sovereign people signifies."

Finally, President Zelaya reiterated: "No effort will be in vain if we obtain the desired result, and the awakening of the Honduran people now has an inestimable value as part of our history. The people have removed the veil from their eyes, and the economic elite has removed its mask. That is why we can now sit down at the table to talk about reality with all of those involved, in order to reach conciliation and come to agreements."

An heir does not steal, according to the popular refrain, and the Honduran people, heir to Morazán, have risen to the occasion of this historic moment. Once the agreements have been reached, we are convinced that in Honduras, the blood that has been shed and the sacrifice of its sons and daughters will never be past history, because nobody and nothing will be forgotten here.

Translated by Granma International

granma.cu

Bahamas Blog Bahamas

Bahamas: Successful HIV/AIDS treatment makes disease rate appear higher

By ALISON LOWE:

Tribune Staff Reporter -

alowe@tribunemedia.net:

IN AN ironic twist in the fight against HIV/AIDS, success in treating people living with the virus has seen the Bahamas appear to have a higher HIV/AIDS rate than resource-poor countries like Haiti.

According to Perry Gomez, director of the National Aids Programme, the fact that there are now fewer people dying from AIDS in the Bahamas thanks to wider access to medication and awareness has meant there are more people alive to be recorded in the statistics which are shared internationally.

Currently, the Bahamas is documented by the Joint United Nations AIDS Programme (UNAIDS) as having an HIV/AIDS rate among people aged 15 to 49 of three per cent. The same grouping in Haiti has a rate of 2.2 per cent, Cuba, a 0.1 per cent rate, Jamaica, 1.6, Trinidad and Tobago, 1.5, and Barbados, 1.2.

"The fact is we have done such a good job of keeping people alive has added to the figures. The fewer people who die, the more you have with AIDS alive. And so when one looks at country data, and this is important for us. You might wonder why our prevalence remains being reported relatively high, higher than some countries that might surprise you."

Dr Gomez said it is "important to understand the nuances of statistics."

"As someone once said, 'There are lies, damn lies and statistics'," joked the official.

Over the last three years the number of cases where HIV progressed to AIDS has diminished significantly.

By the end of 2008, 185 new cases of AIDS - the final stage of HIV infection, which sees the body's immune system weakened to the point that it has serious difficulty fighting infections - had been recorded in the Bahamas, compared with 221 in 2007 and 329 in 2006.

The highest ever number of cases in one year of HIV progressing to AIDS - a progression which is more rapid if HIV positive individuals do not take anti-retroviral drugs - was 382 in 1997, and the rate has decreased year on year ever since.

Of the 185 AIDS cases in 2008, 65 people died and 120 remained alive at the end of the year.

Dr Gomez noted that this ensured that there were fewer people who died of AIDS last year than who lost their lives as victims of murder.

This success in keeping sufferers alive is in contrast to struggling countries like Haiti, where fewer people who contract the virus seek or receive treatment and therefore often die, removing them from data that is documented by international organisations which monitor the pandemic.

On top of the impact of this success on the rate, Dr Gomez claimed to "totally believe" that international organisations have exaggerated the Bahamas' rate, pegged at around three per cent.

The rate would also be increased by the success of a Know Your Status Campaign which continues to encourage people to get tested for HIV/AIDS.

Mr Gomez revealed that last year the National AIDS programme had been able to get "significant testing done" in the "men who have sex with men" community (MSM) in the Bahamas, a group which is known to be more likely than most not to seek testing or treatment for fear of discrimination.

The introduction of a new "rapid testing" technique, now available at all public clinics in New Providence and about to be launched across Grand Bahama, is expected to make a further impact in this regard, adding to the numbers of people who know their status by making the experience less time consuming.

The testing technique, which is as accurate as traditional methods, enables people to get tested and receive their results in less than half an hour - much quicker than the days in which people would have to wait to get blood test results back from a laboratory.

October 07, 2009

tribune242.com

Bahamas Caribbean Blog International

Bahamas: New HIV cases set to increase

By ALISON LOWE:

Tribune Staff Reporter -

alowe@tribunemedia.net:


THE number of new HIV cases in The Bahamas is set to increase, health experts have revealed.

If trends recorded in the early part of this year hold until its end, this year will see a worrying rise, said Dr Perry Gomez, director of the National AIDS Programme.

From January to April 2009 Mr Gomez said 57 more people -- 29 men and 28 women -- were added to the list of people infected with the virus in The Bahamas.

Meanwhile, during the same period, 42 people with HIV saw their disease progress to the critical AIDS stage of the illness, resulting in 22 deaths during those four months.

"If we multiply 57 times four, we get 228. That would be more than we had last year. We'll have to see how things pan out," said Dr Gomez.

This potential rise in new HIV cases comes even as the National AIDS Programme has had impressive success in minimising the number of cases which are progressing to the critical AIDS stage of the disease, suggesting that while access to treatment and education in this regard has had an impact, people are still not getting the message about HIV prevention.

Dr Gomez disclosed the latest figures as he, with President of the AIDS Foundation Camille Barnett, and organisers of this year's Red Ribbon Ball appealed to the public to continue to support the annual fundraising gala despite hard economic times.

Tickets are $200 each for the November 21 event, which has over the past 16 years raised $700,000 for the AIDS Foundation -- a non-governmental organisation that assists in providing education, counselling, housing, medication and other basic necessities to people "infected and affected" by the virus.

Sandra Knowles, a director at major sponsor Colina Imperial Insurance Ltd and co-chair of the organising committee for the ball, reminded the public that "need knows no season" and now is not the time to give up on supporting the HIV/AIDS fight.

"We are hoping to raise at least $50,000...but if we could maintain what we got last year, that would be a miracle and God's blessing," said Mrs Knowles.

Mrs Barnett noted that within the next couple of months the AIDS foundation is embarking on a new outreach initiative which will cost a significant amount of money.

The programme, aimed at providing support to adolescents suffering from HIV/AIDS, is expected to see trained professionals connect with the young people, who often struggled to cope with their healthcare regimes, on a weekly basis.

"The foundations wants to assist these young people to achieve their right to health and right to life. We would like to empower these youths to truly believe they are accepted, safe and well," said Mrs Barnett.

In this regard, Dr Gomez commented on the case of a 20-year-old man born with HIV as a result of his mother being infected who died in the last six weeks, "in short, because of neglect."

"He had no support, he lived alone, aged 20, parents deceased, no help," said Dr Gomez.

Despite advances made by the National AIDS programme and the AIDS foundation, the NAP director said the fight against HIV/AIDS still has a long way to go in The Bahamas and therefore still needs the support of members of the public and corporate donors.

Highlighting this, he noted that although The Bahamas has been described as a model of best practice for reducing mother-to-child HIV transmission, last year saw four babies born with HIV to HIV positive mothers.

"Stigma and discrimination remains a huge problem that keeps people away from care. In the mother-to-child programme we went for a few years with almost no transmission at all from mother to child in people who came for care.

"We normally have one or two (babies born with HIV each year). Last year we had four women who had no ante-natal care, so we had four children born with HIV last year.

"That's the most we've had in ages and so there's still a lot to do with maintaining the programme of awareness and care and making sure that people get in for care," said Dr Gomez, who also noted that The Bahamas' standout reputation for good ante-natal care for HIV/AIDS infected mothers has seen numerous women travel here in recent years from across the region seeking care in the country's public clinics.

Providing a cumulative overview of the impact of HIV/AIDS in the Bahamas since it was first detected in this country, Dr Gomez said that up to the end of 2008 a total of 6,103 people in The Bahamas have contracted AIDS -- 3,626 men and 2,477 women. Of these, "4,000 plus" have died already, or 66 per cent, while 2,078 are "alive and living well with AIDS."

Meanwhile, up to the end of 2008 there was also a cumulative total of 5,387 people infected with HIV, 2,678 men and 2,726 women.

That means that there are around 7,400 people living in The Bahamas at the moment who are known to be infected with HIV/AIDS, with a current "one to one" male to female ratio -- a change from the historically greater prevalence of HIV/AIDS in men than women.

Dr Gomez noted that there are also "certainly people who have HIV/AIDS and do not know because they have never been tested", meaning that the actual rate may be much higher.

October 07, 2009

tribune242

Bahamas Blog Bahamas

A victory for the Third World

Reflections of Fidel

(Taken from CubaDebate)

MIGHTY economic powers competed for the venue of the 2016 Olympics, including the two most industrialized on the planet: the United States and Japan. Nevertheless, the winner was Rio de Janeiro, a Brazilian city.

Let them not say now that it was the generosity of the rich nations toward Brazil, a Third World country.

The triumph of that Brazilian city is proof of the growing influence of countries that are struggling to develop. It is a sure thing that in the countries of Latin America, Africa and Asia, the choice of Rio de Janeiro will be received with pleasure in the midst of the economic crisis and the current uncertainty with climate change.

While popular sports like baseball are being eliminated from the competitions to make way for the entertainments of the bourgeois and the rich, the peoples of the Third World are sharing the joy of the Brazilian people, and will support Rio de Janeiro as organizer of the 2016 Olympic Games.

It is a duty to appear in Copenhagen with the same unity, and to fight to prevent climate change and wars of conquest from prevailing over the desire for peace, development and the survival of all the world’s peoples.



Fidel Castro Ruz
October 2, 2009
2:55 p.m.

Translated by Granma International

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Bahamas Caribbean Blog International

The G7 passes the buck to the G20

• Impossible to certify the end of capitalism’s global crisis

Joaquín Rivery Tur

THEY may be the 20 countries with the most economic weight in the world, but they are not wizards, nor are their computers fortune-tellers. Nobody on the planet can sign the death certificate of capitalism’s global crisis. What just took place in Pittsburgh, in the United States, is best described as buck passing.

The Group of Eight (G8: United States, Canada, Japan, Germany, Britain, France and Italy plus Russia) was unable to deal with the global crisis, much less with controlling the tangled neoliberal financial web of the capitalist system, and had no choice but to pass it on to the Group of 20, possibly to dilute the responsibility of the world’s most developed countries for the economic turmoil into which the planet has sunk, and to look to another 12 nations to share the blame.

In reality, the Pittsburgh Summit represents the total failure of the richest nations in their desire to rule and exploit a world that is totally ungovernable for two reasons; one, the social movements are increasingly up in arms over the generalized injustice and, two; the large financial corporations have rooted their power within the highest layers of officials, so as to have free reign for their profit ambitions and, therefore, they cannot be controlled. Governments have always been accomplices.

According to the news agencies, the leaders of the G20 — within which the seven richest nations have greater ability to exert pressure, more influence and the power to coerce — agreed that the new group is to be transformed into "a principal forum for international economic cooperation."

That is an ambiguous sentence. It assumes that the fundamental purpose of the meeting was to collectively attain greater control over financial corporations in order to avert – as far as possible – the risks of a crisis as profound as the one humanity is currently experiencing. In fact, in order to do so, the seven richest countries demonstrated their will to increase by at least 5% the voting power of emerging countries — such as China, India, Brazil and others — within the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as if that could actually change the relationship of forces, and above all, as if the move signifies a major change in the international financial architecture, which the underdeveloped countries have been demanding.

The summit called for stricter regulations on banking activities and limiting bonuses paid to banking/financing executives, who had the power to raise their own bonuses by millions, even in cases where their companies were showing losses that resulted in bankruptcy.

The problem is that a 5% increase in voting power for emerging countries does not mean, for example, that the United States will lose its veto power in the IMF or the World Bank. Instead, it retains a strong lever of pressure, mostly on the Third World, which desperately needs help and investments to pull it out of underdevelopment, but without those nations becoming part of the crazy model of U.S. consumption, which is leading the world to environmental destruction due to climate change and the depredation of nature.

The measures approved in Pittsburgh are an attempt to avoid the phenomena that led to the formation of financial bubbles with a tremendous capacity for explosion and the creation of new crises, but the most serious problem will be how to really control the financial giants, and how to dictate mandatory regulations to govern their fraudulent operations. Is that possible in unbridled capitalism?

It is very difficult not to hold the IMF responsible in good part for what is happening internationally, because its experts should have realized that the financial bubble was about to burst.

On top of the repeated affirmations about how everybody is supposedly emerging from the crisis, in a contradictory fashion, the G20 agreed not to withdraw government aid packages to the major corporations because of a risk of another downturn. Even Chinese President Hu Jintao stated that the alleged recovery "is not as yet solid," and he wasn’t exactly referring to his own country, where not even the crisis has been able to deter its booming economic growth.

Apparently, nobody has learned anything. The G8 (which still exists) has incorporated another group of countries into its vicissitudes, but even that is not a solution, because it is a question of agreements within capitalist globalization, whose neoliberal character is incompatible with government controls. Nevertheless, protectionism is still growing.

The big banks want deregulation, absolute freedom to cheat and take risks in order to satisfy the adrenaline needs produced by financial speculators’ ambition for profits.

With respect to the famous bail-out, in early September, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in Washington revealed that in the second quarter, banks with capitalization and bad loan problems (impossible to collect) totaled 416; in other words, 111 more than in the previous period. A very befogged atmosphere.

The IMF put the frosting on the cake of the crisis a few days ago, when it announced that the planet-wide financial hurricane will affect economic growth for at least seven years, and suggested — now! — the implementation of structural reforms. The result of the crisis forecast by everybody is less employment, less growth, less investment and less productivity. The problem is not one of phenomenon, but of essence. It is called capitalism, no matter how many times you spin the wheel.

granma.cu

Bahamas Blog Bahamas

Cuba slashes tobacco acreage amid flagging demand

By Marc Frank:

HAVANA, Cuba (Reuters) -- Cash-short Cuba is slashing the amount of land devoted to growing its famous tobacco by more than 30 percent as the global recession and worldwide spread of smoking bans bite into sales of the country's prized cigars.

Demand for Cuba's cigars fell 3 percent in 2008 and earlier was reported down 15 percent in 2009 because of the recession and the smoking bans adopted in a growing number of places as a public health measure.

Cuba's National Statistics Office, in a report posted on its web page (www.one.cu), said land to be planted with tobacco for next year's crop had dropped to 49,000 acres, down from 70,000 acres, which was in turn less than 2008.

It said the coming crop was expected to be 22,500 tons, down from a planned 26,800 tons. The office blamed the drop on "financial restrictions that made it impossible to count on the necessary resources."

Cuba's prized cigar brands, including Cohiba, Montecristo, Trinidad and Partagas, dominate the world's premium market with 70 percent of sales.

That jealously guarded market share excludes the United States, however, where Cuba's cigars are banned under the 47-year-old US trade embargo against the communist-led island.

A representative of the exclusive distributor of Cuban cigars, Habanos S.A., a joint venture between Cuba and British tobacco giant Imperial Tobacco Group Plc, said the company had no comment on the statistics office report.

Some 200,000 private farmers and their families depend on growing and curing the precious leaf under contract with the government, and tens of thousands of workers earn their living hand rolling the crop into the famous "Habanos" or "Puros" for export.

Tobacco seedlings are currently being readied for planting from November through January, with harvesting of the quick growing leaf beginning 45 days later. After that a year-long process of drying and curing begins.

Cuba's dozens of cigar rolling factories have operated at well below capacity this year.

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Bahamas Caribbean Blog International