Chinese Entering Belize

By David North , October 13, 2010
If you think American entities sometimes have trouble enforcing the immigration law, you should hear about how some other countries handle the challenge.

This week's prime example features the small Central American nation of Belize, with China, Cuba, and Haiti all playing supporting roles.

If other countries' migration-management agencies did their jobs carefully, it could be quite helpful to us, because a lot of the people violating the immigration law in Belize, for example, don't want to be in Belize at all, they want to be on their way to the U.S. There are always, as the Border Patrol puts it, OTMs being captured trying to enter the U.S. from south of the border, (OTM = other than Mexican).

Belize (the former British Honduras) and the United States have some things in common, such as the English language, African American heads of government with U.S. law degrees, and a border with Mexico. Their Prime Minister is Dean Barrow, our President is Barack Obama.

Belize, with a population of about a quarter of a million, is probably the only nation on the Western Hemisphere mainland without a daily newspaper. But it does have two fiercely competitive television news programs, Channels Five and Seven, from which I have extracted the following immigration law enforcement story.


Read full article here.

The Warmth of Other Suns

Go to Democracy Now to read more about Isabel Wilkerson's book which looks at the emigration of Southern Blacks in the USA to the North of that country. Isabel is in converstaion with Democracy Now's Amy Goodman.

http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2010/9/29/part_iithe_warmth_of_other_suns_the_epic_story_of_americas_great_migration_isabel_wilkerson_tracks_exodus_of_blacks_from_us_south

Dutch Curacao, St. Maarten now independent

Sun, October 10, 2010 - 4:55 PM

Sunday, Oct 10, AMSTERDAM, CMC – Two Dutch Caribbean islands became independent countries early Sunday morning after the Netherlands Antilles was dissolved, five years after legal proceedings began.

With the end of the Netherlands Antilles, the islands of Curacao (population 142 000) and St. Maarten (population 37 000) will continue as independent countries but remain in the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Three other islands that were also part of the Netherlands Antilles – Bonaire (population 13 000), St Eustatius (2 900 inhabitants) and Saba (population 1 700) – will continue as special municipalities within the Netherlands.

They will be subject to Dutch law but can take a different standpoint on controversial issues such as abortion, euthanasia and gay marriage.

In Willemstad, the capital of Curacao, celebrations broke out after the flag of the Netherlands Antilles was taken down and replaced with the flag of Curacao.

A similar ceremony took place in St Maarten and was followed by a fireworks display.

With the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles, Curacao and St Maarten will have more independence in terms of law making and government.

The Netherlands, however, will still play a role in their new government, as it remains partly responsible for their finances, defense and foreign policy. Aruba has had this status since 1986.

On the issue of currency, Bonaire, St Eustatius and Saba will switch to US dollars to replace the guilder. Curacao and St. Maarten are expected to introduce a new currency that is linked to the US dollar.

At least for the next few years, the islands will remain as overseas countries and territories (OCT) within the European Union (EU) through their connection with the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

After that, the EU may decide to give them another legal status within the union.

Imagining Homelands

Sorry things have been so quite here on the blog, folks, I had been hospitalised with a bout of hemorrhagic dengue and it has slowed me down. For today, I thought I would share a quote from Salman Rushdie's Imaginary Homelands which I saw referenced in Andrea Herrera's anthology called 'Idea/Nation Dsiplaced', in an essay by Eliana Rivero.

"The effect of mass migrations has been the creation of radically new types of human beings: people who root themselves in ideas rather than places, in memories as much as in material things; people who have been obliged to define themselves - because they are so defined by others - by their otherness; people in whose deepest selves strange fusions occur, unprecedented unions between what they were and where they find themsleves."