Black Immigrant Daily News

The OAS is broke and broken

By Sir Ronald Sanders

(In replacement of his weekly commentary, Sir Ronald Sanders has provided the following statement made at the OAS General Assembly in Peru on 6 October) 

As we meet at this 52nd Regular Session of the General Assembly of the Organisation of American States, the OAS is financially broke.

We are trying to run an Organization that costs $118 million on an unrealistic Budget of $81 million.

The result is that the Secretariat of the Organization is unable to carry out a mountain of mandates from a hill of meagre financial resources.

Sadly, because of this, the staff of the Organization live in uncertainty.

Many are seeking better security elsewhere, and there is an exodus of talent, as skilled people flee to seek refuge in destinations with better prospects.

It is little wonder that the peoples of our countries do not see the benefits of the OAS and, therefore, place little or no value in it.

Member states with the financial capacity to pay, withhold their due contributions, and others seek incentives to pay on time what they agreed to pay, and have an obligation to meet.

The Organization is still booking as receivable income, contributions from countries that have severed their ties from it, in fictional transactions that claim these monies, running into tens of millions of dollars, are somehow payable.

If the OAS was a public company, its auditors would have declared it bankrupt.

The Organization is also structurally broken

The OAS is hardly known by the peoples of our states.

And, collectively, we do not seem to know if we are an organisation of 35 states or of 34.

The OAS has a Charter and rules of procedure that were produced in the days before cellular phones and the internet, before the world became a neighbourhood, and before interconnectivity between nations occurs in the fraction of a section.

Yet its ancient Charter and rules of procedure have remained the guide of an Organization, operating in the modern world with unprecedented challenges.

The result is that the Organization moves at the slow crawl of a turtle when it should be moving at the pace of Jamaica’s Usain Bolt, responsive to needs of people at every level.

That is why a General Assembly can impose a violation of the Charter by 19 votes including a disputed representative but cannot change it by 19 votes of fully qualified and accredited representatives as happened this morning,

The Organization has an obligation to respond to the needs of its peoples because its member governments have promised to do so.

That is the compact between governments and people which this Organization was established to fulfil.

But there is a gap between what governments promised and what is being delivered.

And, let it be clear that the failure to bridge that gap is not the fault of the Secretariat and its largely capable staff.

It is the fault of Governments that do not provide the resources; it is the fault of an antiquated Charter; and it the fault of anachronistic rules which urgently need reform.

Therefore, Governments must resolve to address these problems, and commit to provide the resources to give the OAS the vibrance, relevance and importance that it should have.

Not for the first time, Antigua and Barbuda urges the establishment of a group of Eminent persons from across our hemisphere to produce a report and recommendations on what must happen to recreate the OAS to serve the needs of our Hemisphere, and the needs of our Hemisphere in the World.

Mr Chairman, there are critical issues that confront all our nations collectively.

They are issues that none of us can fully satisfy individually, but we can all meet collectively.

Those issues include:

The impact of Climate Change from which none of our nations can escape.

The maintenance and preservation of the international legal order which is the basis for peace and prosperity across the world.

In this regard, we all have an obligation to stand up against any nation that violates the global legal order, as Russia has done in Ukraine, creating world economic turmoil and instability that looks set to worsen.

That is why Antigua and Barbuda contributed actively to the resolutions and declarations that sought to tell President Putin that this war must end, and end now.

The innocent and smallest of our nations have been burdened the most, trapped in an international financial system that ignores our needs,

Health issues also confront us all.

COVID-19 is not the last pandemic the world will endure.

This hemisphere needs to be ready for the next one.

And ready – not with nationalistic protectionism but in multi-nation collaboration.

There should never again be vaccine hoarding by the rich and deprivation for the poor,

The mantra of none is safe, until all are safe will continue to be true in the future as it was as we all trembled in fear at COVID-19.

Addressing economic inequalities is also a common challenge for which there can only be a common solution.

Development and economic advancement must be a goal for all in our hemisphere, for which all in our hemisphere should work diligently in our collective interest.

Human rights and human freedom must also remain a fundamental objective of this OAS, but we must devise early warning mechanisms, with implementation machinery, to address violations before they become so persistent and pervasive, that there are empty chairs and lowered flags at our meetings.

In this regard, my delegation makes it clear that Haiti cannot be left by itself to deal with rampaging, armed gangs who kidnap, terrorize and enrich themselves, defying all laws and tearing down institutions.

The gangs in Haiti must be brought under control without any further delay.

The countries, in this Assembly, with the resources to help should do so, and the Haitian authorities must provide them with the guarantees, including stomping our corruption, that are necessary to help.

The alternative is the creation of a criminal state in our midst, and a base for criminal activity in our neighbourhood.

The Haitian people do not want this.

They are the victims.

This OAS has an obligation to help and help now.

Mr Chairman, the OAS can be a force for good, an instrument of peace and prosperity and an influence for democracy and development, but only if we reform it, respect it and resource it.

CLICK HERE TO JOIN OUR WHATSAPP GROUP

NewsAmericasNow.com

Black Immigrant Daily News

By  CARIBBEAN LIFE

If all goes well in the coming months a new, Antigua-based island hopper — LIAT 2022 instead of problem-plagued LIAT 1974 — will fly to regional destinations, bringing relief to several Eastern Caribbean island nations, which depend largely on air transport for tourism and basic purposes.

Gaston Browne, prime minister of Antigua, which has the largest employee and asset base of the old LIAT 1974 limited, is anxious to get a rebranded LIAT back in the skies across the region from Guyana in the south to islands in the central and Eastern Caribbean.

In the past week, the Antiguan government and CFA Global, a private Chinese company signed a memorandum of understanding with the firm taking an undisclosed amount of minority shares in the new company.

The plan is to re-fleet the company, possibly with Airbus 330s and 320s in addition to the newer French-made ATR turboprops, which had been a staple aircraft for LIAT 1974 before its spectacular collapse two years ago.

Browne told listeners on a weekend call-in program that the idea is to get planes back in the air flying to former destinations as far south as Trinidad and Guyana. It is unclear whether neighboring Suriname, a fellow CARICOM member nation, is also in the plans of those in charge.

Beset by debt, high salaries and being forced to fly to non-profitable routes among other issues simply to service shareholding member nations, the carrier collapsed under the weight of mounting debt, perennial squabbling by shareholding Caribbean governments and pressure from labor unions to meet compensation packages for hundreds of employees.

The situation, of course, was not helped by the COVID-19 pandemic, which had shuttered airports around the world and had severely restricted air travel.

“We still have at least two entities that are negotiating with the administrator to become shareholders within the LIAT company.

It may have to be a new company because when you look at what is happening presently, the threats that are made, the demands that are made by past staff, members of staff and the union, I am not even sure now that LIAT 1974 Limited will be viable so there may have to be a LIAT 2020, recapitalised and start as a new entity,” PM Browne said.

Because of its base in Antigua, its large employee base and other forms of vested interests, Antigua has been leading regional efforts to ensure there is a viable island hopper available to the Eastern Caribbean in particular even as Barbados and St. Vincent have virtually given up on the airline because of its slew of problems.

Others like Dominica and Grenada have pledged to invest cash in any new entity that takes to the skies. LIAT 1974 limited has been carrying debts at close to $100 million.

The collapse of the carrier has meant that air captains, flight attendants, engineers and other staff have yet to receive their full amount of severance pay.

The airline pilots association has repeatedly stated that some of its members are destitute, have lost homes, endured the stress of broken marriages, while others are engaged in menial jobs just to survive while leaders and others haggle over severance packages.

CLICK HERE TO JOIN OUR WHATSAPP GROUP

NewsAmericasNow.com

Black Immigrant Daily News

Dancehall music got a major boost this week when female deejays Pamputtae, Spice, Dovey Magnum, and Lisa Mercedes joined an all-star cast of soca artistes Destra Garcia and Patrice Roberts, plus Bronx rapper London Hill and British rapper Lady Leshurr on a new remix of ‘Likkle Miss’ by Nicki Minaj.

The all-star team, all women, contributed to the new Nicki Minaj project, dubbed the ‘Fine Nine’ remix, which was released on Wednesday, October 5.

On September 19, Dovey Magnum had disclosed that the megastar Nicki Minaj had sent her a DM (direct message) on social media.

“Mi nearly drop down,” the enigmatic ‘Bawl Out’ artiste told Loop News.

The DM asked: “Hi mama. I wanted to know if you’d want to put a verse on this remix I’m doing. It would [need] to be done in the next 2-3 days. If you can’t do it, it’s ok. No pressure.”

“I said I am on my way to the studio. No pressure? Wah do Nicki man? Mi can get a DM from you and say ‘no pressure’…wah happen to you? If me did have to sell mi f—-t fi get money fi studio time, mi ah go a studio,” she joked.

Dovey Magnum said she did the verses that same night and sent it to the ‘Pills and Potions’ megastar rapper.

“Nicki said, ‘You bodied that verse just like how I thought you would’, then she come back again and go so boom, and she ask for my number and mi give her my number and she called me and she just a gwaan wid herself,” Dovey Magnum said.

“She love me, and she say mi bad, ray ray ray, and she do research and see how they fought me and she told me they fight her and do her the same thing, but don’t give up, let the talent speak,” recounted Dovey Magnum. “She is so nice; it come in like me and her a friend long time.”

Since that time, Nicki Minaj has been singing Dovey Magnum’s verse on the song, including on Instagram Live, as she drummed up promotion when the track released on October 5.

“I just have to say big up to her for choosing me and all the fantastic talented women of the Caribbean and from Britain on this remix. It’s a true pleasure to be one of the Fine Nine,” Dovey Magnum told Loop Entertainment.

The ‘Fine Nine’

Nicki Minaj has had a long history of bigging up her Caribbean roots. In August, she hailed the Caribbean and the people of Jamaica during her acceptance speech for the Video Vanguard Award at the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs), giving special mention to Beenie Man and Skeng.

“All my Caribbean people, Beenie Man, thank you for everything and all of Jamaica,” said Minaj.

“Skeng, wha a gwaan?” said the rapper, hailing dancehall artiste Skeng with whom she recently collaborated with on the remix of his ‘Likkle Miss’ single.

Born Onika Miraj in Port of Spain, Trinidad, and raised in Jamaica, Queens (NYC), Nicki Minaj has always paid homage to her West Indian heritage with pride.

The ‘Super Freaky Girl’ also showed love to Jamaica when she teamed up with Gyptian (Hold Yuh [Remix]) and later with Sean Kingston (Letting Go” [Dutty Love]) in 2010.

She interpolated the Filthy Riddim for 2019’s MEGATRON, did a Beenie Man collaboration (Gunshot) on Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded in 2012. She hooked up with Lunch Money Lewis on The Pinkprint with Trini Dem Girls in 2014.

More recently, Nicki Minaj scorched radio with her remix of Skillibeng’s ‘Crocodile Teeth’, which appears on the digital release of her Beam Me Up Scotty mixtape. Also, who can forget the’ Touch Down’ remix with Stylo G and Vybz Kartel? Dancehall aficionados will also recall the ‘Give It All To Me’ collab with Mavado.

Nicki Minaj has always said that she is a true “island gyal”.

NewsAmericasNow.com

Black Immigrant Daily News

‘Jair y e buriconan’ y ‘Gosa den naturalesa’

ORANJESTAD (AAN): ‘Jair y e buriconan’ y ‘Gosa den naturalesa’ ta titulonan di e buki cu Biblioteca Nacional Aruba ta presenta na muchanan di Aruba. E buki ta contene 2 storia. Ta pesey tin 2 titulo. Un edicion special pa e di 30 edicion di Festival di Buki pa Mucha. Cu orguyo biblioteca ta publica e buki pa mucha cu ta skirbi pa James Ocalia (Aruba) y ilustra pa Wouter Goudswaard (Hulanda) ‘Jair y e buriconan’. E otro banda di e buki ta ‘Gosa den naturalesa’ skirbi pa Evelien van Dort y ilustra pa Paul Wong (Aruba).

   E buki aki ta un regalo pa e muchanan di Aruba. Manera tu aña e ta den 2 idioma, Papiamento y Hulandes. Desde apertura oficial di e Festival di Buki pa Mucha 2022 por haya e buki gratuitamente na tur libreria ora cumpra un buki pa mucha, tanten cu tin.

   Traduccion ta di Lilian Semeleer y redaccion ta haci pa Sophiene Maduro-Verhaegh, Lilian Semeleer y editor Jeroen Hoogerwerf di cas editorial Levendig. E buki a keda publica pa Levendig Uitgever na 2022. ISBN 978 90 83222 233

   Tema di e Festival di Buki pa Mucha 2022 ta ‘Biba Natura-Lesa’ y e autornan di e buki pa mucha aki a laga e tema guia nan den skirbimento di nan storia. Despues cu James Ocalia y Evelien van Dort a skirbi nan storia nan a entrega esaki na dos ilustrador, Wouter Goudswaard y Paul Wong. Wouter y Paul a laga e storia inspira nan, pa nan por a ilustra esaki. Asina e storianan a keda completa cu ilustracion masha bunita. ‘Jair y e buriconan’ ta un stripverhaal colorido unda e caracter principal, Jair, ta stimula mucha pa planta mata y fruta y cuida bestia. E di dos parti di e buki ta di e autor Evelien van Dort y ta contene 10 storia cortico, tur tin di haber cu amor pa naturalesa.

   Biblioteca Nacional Aruba hunto cu sponsornan ta finansia produccion di e buki cu sosten di sponsors; Arugas, Plaza Bookshop, Kiwanis, Dwit&VanDorp Stores, SETAR, Quota, Stichting Zonnige jeugd, Ars Donandi Pauluc fonds, Aruba Investment bank y Mr. August Fentener van Vlissingenfonds, Stichting Madurodam.

NewsAmericasNow.com