Black Immigrant Daily News

Rishi Sunak is the United Kingdom’s new prime minister following Liz Truss’s resignation last week after she held the office for just 45 days.

The leadership change, however, is not expected to affect plans for the UK’s overseas territories minister to visit the Virgin Islands today, Premier Dr. Natalio “Sowande” Wheatley said Tuesday, adding that he is ready to work with the new administration on economic resilience, Commission of Inquiry reforms, and other areas of mutual interest.

Mr. Sunak delivered his first statement as PM on Tuesday, promising to place economic stability “at the heart” of his government while fixing “mistakes” made by his predecessor.

The 42-year-old served as chief secretary to the Treasury from 2019 to 2020 and is a member of Parliament for Richmond. Born to parents of Punjabi Indian descent, Mr. Sunak is the first person of colour to serve as the PM of the UK.

Ms. Truss resigned on Oct. 19 after a tumultuous 45 days in office. During her tenure — the shortest in UK history — she announced plans to limit energy costs for households and implement $50 billion worth of unfunded tax cuts.

The announcements sent markets reeling, and she quickly scrapped both plans and replaced her finance minister after facing backlash from critics including the International Monetary Fund and members of her
own Conservative Party.

But her reversal wasn’t enough to assuage her opponents, and Ms. Truss resigned after admitting that she wasn’t able to deliver the “low-tax, high-growth economy” she had promised.

OT minister

Despite the leadership change, UK OT Minister Jesse Norman — who was appointed the day after Ms. Truss became PM on Sept. 6 — has retained his position.

He will also stick to his plan to visit the territory today and tomorrow to discuss the progress of the Commission of Inquiry reforms with the premier and other political leaders, according to Dr. Wheatley.

During a House of Assembly sitting on Tuesday, the premier made a brief statement about Mr. Sunak’s appointment and the next steps the territory will take in its relationship with the UK.

“I congratulate Prime Minister Sunak on his appointment and wish him every success in office,” Dr. Wheatley said. “He and his new Cabinet have many pressing issues to address including gaining the confidence of the British people and the financial markets and addressing the UK’s cost-of-living crisis and energy crisis. I’m confident the UK will find its way out of its current circumstances in due course.”

The premier added that he had a “good working relationship” with former OT Minister Amanda Milling and that he looks forward to a similar relationship with Mr. Norman.

“Last month I had the opportunity to informally meet Minister Norman. Our exchange was warm and friendly. I look forward to engaging with him … when he visits this territory,” Dr. Wheatley said. “Among other things, we will discuss the progress of reform and strengthening the economic resilience of the territory.”

He added that he also plans to discuss the order in council in reserve that allows the UK to suspend the territory’s Constitution, arguing that it doesn’t support a modern partnership or the aspirations of the Virgin Islands.

“Both sides must act in good faith and be true to democracy,” he said.

JMC meeting

Dr. Wheatley also announced that next month he will travel to London to attend the Joint Ministerial Council meetings between OT political leaders and UK ministers.

“We will discuss issues such as constitutional development, sanctions, economic management, climate change and other environmental matters,” he said.

Health and Social Development Minister Marlon Penn will accompany him, he added.

“A key diplomatic objective of the Government of National Unity is to build a modern partnership with the UK that supports the aspirations of the people of the Virgin Islands. While there are many areas that the VI can benefit from closer cooperation with the UK, we will not agree with everything,” he said. “The key is the achieve the right balance of interests be- tween the UK and the Virgin Islands as we work together. In this regard, it is very important that both sides pursue their interests in a constructive and diplomatic manner and make their best efforts to achieve mutually acceptable outcomes.”

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The Civil Registry and Passport Office closed Tuesday to mourn the death of Stephanie Benn, who served as registrar general for more than 15 years, but it is scheduled to reopen today, government announced.

In a joint statement issued on Tuesday, leaders expressed condolences.

“She was a first-class colleague much valued across the BVI public service,” said Governor John Rankin, adding that he was “shocked and saddened” by the death. “She was also highly regarded by her counterparts in the other over- seas territories and the Home Office in the United Kingdom for her work on nationality and other civil registry matters.”

In the same statement, Premier Dr. Natalio “Sowande” Wheatley called the registrar “sure-footed, confident, and comfortable in her knowledge of government business.”

‘Driver of innovation’

He added that she was committed to regularly keeping up with advances in her field, such as automation services.

“She did not hesitate to introduce this to her department to provide quicker and more professional services for the people of the Virgin Islands,”

Dr. Wheatley said. “She was committed to what she believed in and was a key driver of innovation.”

Deputy Governor David Archer also commented, saying Ms. Benn was a “fine, devoted, exceptional public officer and department head.”

“In the same vein, I express my deepest sympathies to her work family, especially those within her department whom she worked with daily and shared her pain, joy and successes as they strive to improve the services the office delivered,” he said.

Assistance

Noting that several public officers have lost loved ones recently, the statement encouraged them to utilise the counselling services provided through the government’s Employee Assistance Programme.

“We ask that members of the public and public officers respect this period of bereavement for the public service, particu- larly for the staff at the Civil Registry and Passport Office,” the statement added.

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Elon Musk has taken control of Twitter after a protracted legal battle and months of uncertainty. The question now is what the billionaire Tesla CEO will actually do with the social media platform.

Musk ousted three top Twitter executives on Thursday, according to two people familiar with the deal who said he was in charge. Such a shakeup was widely expected, but Musk has otherwise made contradictory statements about his vision for the company — and shared few concrete plans for how he will run it.

The people wouldn’t say if all the paperwork for the deal, originally valued at US$44 billion, had been signed or if the deal had closed. A Delaware judge had ordered that the deal be finalised by Friday.

Late Thursday, Musk tweeted, “the bird has been freed,” a reference to Twitter’s logo.

Twitter’s users, advertisers and employees are parsing Musk’s every move in an effort to guess where he might take the company — but the mercurial tech executive has not made the job easy.

He has criticised Twitter’s dependence on advertisers, but made a statement Thursday that seemed aimed at soothing their fears. He has complained about restrictions on speech on the platform — but then vowed he wouldn’t let it become a “hellscape”. And for months it wasn’t even clear if he wanted to control the company at all.

After Musk signed a deal to acquire Twitter in April, he tried to back out of it, leading the company to sue him to force him to go through with the acquisition.

Friday’s deadline to close the deal was ordered by the Delaware Chancery Court in early October. The New York Stock Exchange notified investors that it will suspend trading in shares of Twitter before the opening bell Friday in anticipation of the company going private under Musk.

Musk has been signaling more recently that the deal is going through. He strolled into the company’s San Francisco headquarters Wednesday carrying a porcelain sink, changed his Twitter profile to “Chief Twit,” and tweeted “Entering Twitter HQ — let that sink in!”

The people familiar with the deal said Musk has fired CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal and Chief Legal Counsel Vijaya Gadde. Both people insisted on anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the deal.

Musk privately clashed with Agrawal in April, immediately before deciding to make a bid for the company, according to text messages later revealed in court filings.

Around the same time, he publicly criticised Gadde, the company’s top lawyer, in a series of tweets. A wave of harassment of Gadde from other Twitter accounts followed, including racist and misogynistic attacks, in addition to calls for Musk to get rid of her. After she was fired, the harassment on the platform began again.

In his first big move earlier on Thursday, Musk said that he is buying the platform to help humanity and doesn’t want it to become a “free-for-all hellscape”.

The message appeared to be aimed at addressing concerns among advertisers — Twitter’s chief source of revenue — that Musk’s plans to promote free speech by cutting back on moderating content will open the floodgates to more online toxicity and drive away users.

“The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important to the future of civilisation to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence,” Musk wrote in an uncharacteristically long message for the Tesla CEO, who typically projects his thoughts in one-line tweets.

He continued: “There is currently great danger that social media will splinter into far right wing and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society.”

Musk has previously expressed distaste for advertising and Twitter’s dependence on it, suggesting more emphasis on other business models such as paid subscriptions that won’t allow big corporations to dictate policy on how social media operates. But on Thursday, he assured advertisers he wants Twitter to be “the most respected advertising platform in the world.”

The note is a shift from Musk’s position that Twitter is unfairly infringing on free speech rights by blocking misinformation or graphic content, said Pinar Yildirim, associate professor of marketing at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

But it’s also a realisation that having no content moderation is bad for business, putting Twitter at risk of losing advertisers and subscribers, she said.

“You do not want a place where consumers just simply are bombarded with things they do not want to hear about, and the platform takes no responsibility,” Yildirim said.

As concerns rise about the direction of Twitter’s content moderation, European Union Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton tweeted to Musk on Friday that “In Europe, the bird will fly by our rules.”

Breton and Musk met in May and appeared in a video together in which Musk said he agreed with the 27-nation bloc’s strict new online regulations. Its Digital Services Act threatens big tech companies with billions in fines if they don’t police their platforms more strictly for illegal or harmful content such as hate speech and disinformation.

Musk is expected to speak to Twitter employees directly Friday if the deal is finalised, according to an internal memo cited in several media outlets. There is internal confusion and low morale tied to fears of layoffs or a dismantling of the company’s culture and operations.

The Washington Post reported last week that Musk told prospective investors that he plans to cut three quarters of Twitter’s 7,500 workers when he becomes owner of the company. The newspaper cited documents and unnamed sources familiar with the deliberation.

Musk has spent months deriding Twitter’s “spam bots” and making sometimes conflicting pronouncements about Twitter’s problems and how to fix them.

Thursday’s note to advertisers shows a newfound emphasis on advertising revenue, especially a need for Twitter to provide more “relevant ads” — which typically means targeted ads that rely on collecting and analyzing users’ personal information.

Yildirim said that, unlike Facebook, Twitter has not been good at targeting advertising to what users want to see. Musk’s message suggests he wants to fix that, she said.

By BARBARA ORTUTAY, TOM KRISHER and MATT O’BRIEN

AP Business Writers

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Barbadians will soon be able to switch telephone service providers for mobile and landline/fixed services without having to change their phone numbers.

The process, called Local Number Portability or Number Porting, is free to consumers and will remove the hassle and inconvenience of having to inform contacts such as family, friends, colleagues, customers and clients that telephone numbers have been changed. The only cost persons are likely to incur is a small fee to unlock their handset for it to work on the new network.

Previously, switching to a new service provider also meant having to get a new telephone number. It is expected that the new system will benefit customers by promoting competition, as providers compete to offer services with better prices and the quality of service they believe to be most attractive to consumers.

All telecommunications service providers are on board with the new system. Digital Infrastructure, formerly the Barbados Telecommunications Unit which falls under the Ministry of Industry, Innovation, Science and Technology (MIST), is the regulatory body responsible for providing recommendations and advice on telecommunications matters to Government.

Minister of Industry, Innovation, Science and Technology, Davidson Ishmael, explained that the initiative will be supported by legislation which Government is putting in place. The legislation and regulations mandating the introduction and launch of the Local Number Portability service are ingrained within the national telecommunications legislation of Barbados.

Ishmael further noted that Government is making it easier for new companies to join the telecommunications market.

“We have put measures in place to ensure that these new firms can connect to existing networks at a fair price, so that they can offer competitive services to you, the consumer, giving you more choice and more power when it comes to the choice of your phone company. We eagerly look forward to making local number portability a reality here in our country,” he stated.

For further information, members of the public may visit the website: gov.bb/keepyournumber or email: keepyournumber@barbados.gov.bb.

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COTABATO, Philippines (AP) — Flash floods and landslides set off by torrential rains swamped a southern Philippine province, killing at least 31 people, leaving nine others missing and trapping some residents on their roofs, officials said Friday.

Most of the victims were swept away by rampaging floodwaters and drowned or were hit by debris-filled mudslides in three towns in hard-hit Maguindanao province, said Naguib Sinarimbo, the interior minister for a five-province Muslim autonomous region run by former guerrillas.

“The amount of rainwater that came down overnight was unusually (heavy) and flowed down mountainsides and swelled rivers,” Sinarimbo told The Associated Press by telephone.

“I hope the casualty numbers won’t rise further but there are still a few communities we haven’t reached,” Sinarimbo said, adding the rains had eased since Friday morning, causing floods to start to recede in several towns.

Sinarimbo said based on reports from mayors, governors and disaster-response officials, 26 died mostly by drowning in the neighboring coastal towns of Datu Odin Sinsuat and Datu Blah Sinsuat and five others died in Upi town, all in Maguindanao.

Five people were missing in Datu Blah Sinsuat, according to the town’s mayor, Marshall Sinsuat, and Sinarimbo said four others were reported missing elsewhere.

A rescue team was deployed to Kusiong, a tribal village at the foot of a mountain in Datu Odin Sinsuat, to check on reports that floods and landslides also hit houses in the community, Sinarimbo said. There were no immediate reports of casualties, he said.

The unusually intense rains that flooded several towns in Maguindanao and outlying provinces in a mountainous region with marshy plains were caused by Tropical Storm Nalgae, which was expected to slam into the country’s eastern coast from the Pacific Ocean on Saturday, according to forecasters.

Floodwaters rapidly rose in many low-lying villages, forcing some residents to climb onto their roofs, where they were rescued by army troops, police and volunteers, Sinarimbo said. He said many of the swamped areas had not been flooded for years, including Cotabato city where he lives.

“In one area in Upi only the attic of a school can be seen above the floodwater,” disaster-response officer Nasrullah Imam said, referring to a flood-engulfed town in Maguindanao.

The wide rain bands of Nalgae, the 16th storm to hit the Philippine archipelago this year, enabled it to dump rainfall in the country’s south although the storm was blowing farther north, government forecaster Sam Duran said.

Late Friday afternoon, the storm was about 180 kilometers (110 miles) east of Catarman town in Northern Samar province with sustained winds of up to 85 kilometers (53 miles) per hour and was moving northwestward.

Dozens of provinces and cities were under storm alerts, including the capital, Manila. Fishing and cargo boats and inter-island ferries were barred from venturing out to sea, stranding thousands of passengers, the coast guard said.

About 5,000 people were protectively evacuated away from the path of the storm, which was not expected to strengthen into a typhoon as it approached land, government forecasters and other officials said.

About 20 typhoons and storms batter the Philippine archipelago each year. It is located on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” a region along most of the Pacific Ocean rim where many volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur, making the nation one of the world’s most disaster-prone.

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