On The Map

Antigua minister calls for crackdown on illegal aliens

2012-01-12T05:53:00.001-08:00

ST JOHN’S — Minister of National Security Labour Dr Errol Cort has called for a clamp down on illegal aliens working in various sectors of the economy.

Cort said the Labour Department must play its role in ensuring that residents with the legal right to work on island are not disadvantaged by immigrants who skirt the law.

He pinpointed the construction sector as a particular area of concern in this regard.

“I continue to receive complaints in respect of persons working illegally, primarily at various construction sites. These are issues that the Labour Department will have to be very aggressive to ensure that persons who are working out there, especially in those critical sectors, are persons who are lawfully entitled to work,” Cort said.

The minister of labour said the department needs to ensure that persons have the requisite documentation to allow them to be legally involved in gainful employment.

“Where it is found where those individuals are not lawfully authorised to engage in employment, the appropriate action needs to be taken in that regard,” Dr Cort said. (Antigua Observer)

(Source - http://news.barbadostoday.bb/barticlenew.php?ptitle=Antigua%20minister%20calls%20for%20crackdown%20on%20illegal%20aliens&article=13415)

Caribbean islands crack down on illegal immigrants

2012-01-12T05:49:00.000-08:00

Thursday January 12 2012 Boston Sun

TOA BAJA, Puerto Rico – First, riot police raided the slum with batons and pepper spray. Then authorities shut off the water and electricity. With an eviction order pending in the courts, police stand sentry outside the shacks belonging mostly to Dominican migrants.

The Puerto Rican government says it's trying to clear a dangerous flood zone in Villas del Sol, a shantytown just west of the capital of San Juan. But residents say the show of force targets foreign laborers as Puerto Rico's unemployment rate tops 16 percent.

As jobs vanish in the global financial crisis, Caribbean governments are cracking down on undocumented migrants seeking work. The increased enforcement highlights deep economic divisions in a region where poor Dominicans, Haitians and Jamaicans seek better lives on more affluent islands such as the Bahamas, Antigua and Barbados.

And it's causing rifts among island governments, with some accusing others of violating the cooperation the region is trying to build.

"They want to scare us away," said Bianely Gonzalez, 32, a Dominican who came to Puerto Rico a decade ago on a homemade wooden boat and lives in a one-room, cinderblock home.

In the U.S. Caribbean territories and Florida, which are the biggest immigrant draw, deportations have nearly doubled from 7,176 in fiscal year 2006 to 13,622 last year.

The jump comes from a nationwide U.S. campaign to deport illegal immigrants with outstanding criminal warrants, said Ivan Ortiz, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Juan.

He agreed that enforcement is partly due to the softening American economy, but wouldn't elaborate.

Other islands couldn't provide similar deportation numbers. But the financial crisis has pummeled the islands' tourism-dependent economies, forcing hotels to close or cut back on staff. Tourist visits this year are down 9 percent in Barbados, 13 percent in the twin-island nation of Antigua and Barbuda and 15 percent in the Bahamas, according to statistics from the Caribbean Tourism Organization.

Read full article here.

Shanique Myrie sues Barbadian Government

2012-01-11T06:04:00.000-08:00

Posted on 07 January 2012 by Bajan Sun Online
THE JAMAICAN woman who is accusing Barbadian officials of cruel and vulgar cavity search at the Grantley Adams International Airport on March 14 last year has filed a suit in the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).
The case, which is said to be the first of its kind before the CCJ, will be asking the court to determine a critical issue which will be used as a precedent.
Shanique Myrie, 22, who is being represented by the law firm HyltonBrown is asking the court, in the suit filed yesterday, to determine what is the minimum standard of treatment to be given to CARICOM nationals moving within the region under the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas and its goal of hassle-free travel.
Degrading treatment
Myrie is alleging that degrading treatment was meted out to her at the hands of Barbadian border officials at the airport.
The law firm had allowed sufficient time for both the Jamaican and the Barbadian governments to attempt to settle the issue. When a settlement was not reached, the firm obtained leave from the Jamaican Government to file the action. The firm, before filing the suit, had made attempts to engage the Barbadian government in discussions but to no avail.
Jamaican attorneys-at-law Anthony Hylton and Michelle Brown from the firm will be arguing the case for Myrie.
In a news release issued yesterday, the law firm disclosed that the case would set the precedent for how persons move throughout the region.

Are immigrants taking jobs from British youth or not?

2012-01-11T05:59:00.000-08:00

THREE reports this week have presented three different views on whether there is a link between immigration and unemployment in Britain. A report by Migrationwatch suggested there was a correlation between the influx of workers from Eastern Europe since 2004 and a rise in UK youth unemployment. This was followed by the National Institute for Economic and Social Research report which said there was no significant impact from immigration on jobless benefit claimants. Then a Home Office-commissioned Migration Advisory Committee (Mac) report found an "association" between non-EU immigration and job losses among those born in Britain. So who is right?

Comparing apples and oranges

It's possible they are all right, says Danny Shaw on BBC News. They all looked at slightly different things. The Mac report is “the most persuasive” because it draws on in-depth analysis and research and “it just makes sense”. It argues the effects of non-EU migration are most keenly felt in the economic bad times, when vacancies are scarce, and in the short-term, before the labour market has time to adjust.

Why not link economic growth to penis size?

You could be forgiven for thinking that Migrationwatch’s new report was a smoking gun against immigration, says Sam Bowman in The Spectator. But a closer look quickly reveals “how implausible these claims are”. The report centres on a comparison of rising youth unemployment and rising immigration.

Read full article here.

Diaspora, Migration and Development in the Caribbean by Keith Nurse

2011-12-14T08:51:00.001-08:00

Although this paper was written in 2004, its content is still relevant and useful for those researching Caribbean migration. The paper was published by FOCAL, the Canadian Foundation for the Americas.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The paper examines the developmental impact of the growth of the diasporic economy on Caribbean
territories like Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and the Anglophone Caribbean. It focuses on issues like
remittances, diasporic exports, brain drain, as well as the new health and security risks associated with
migration and mobile populations. The key areas of benefit and cost are evaluated and an assessment is
given of emerging challenges and opportunities. The paper concludes that the policy dialogue should
move beyond the remittances issue to take into account wider developmental concerns.

Go to this link for the full paper: http://www.focal.ca/pdf/migration_Nurse_diaspora%20migration%20development%20Caribbean_September%202004_FPP-04-6.pdf

Senegalese Immigrants murdered in Florence

2011-12-14T08:20:00.000-08:00

A gunman opened fire in the southern Italian city of Florence, killing two Senegalese immigrants and wounding another two.

The gunman has been linked to a far-right group, which has disassociated itself from the killings.

Correspondents say Florence is considered one of Italy's calmer and more tolerant cities.

A Senegalese man who lives and works in Florence tells the BBC how he feels following the attack.

The shooting on Tuesday - when two of our Senegalese brothers were killed and another two wounded - has come as a shock to all of us and we are all very scared.

The shooting has shocked Africans in Florence
Senegalese traders are often the victims of racial abuse.

On the streets, people will call them names, accuse them of "stealing" the jobs of Italians and will tell them to go home.

My own impression is that the abuse has increased in recent years because of the economic crisis in Italy. People are more worried about jobs and are taking out their anger on Africans.

Continue reading the main story
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People have come up to us on the streets to sympathise and to show solidarity”

But I don't know why the gunman opened fire, killing the two vendors. Was it racial or was there another motive? We will find out once there is a thorough investigation.

I don't remember such a gun attack on Africans in the 10 years that I have been here - and it does make us all feel alienated and threatened. We are a fairly large community of Senegalese and Africans here.

Fortunately, most Italians have condemned the shooting and there is a national outpouring of grief. Here in Florence, people have come up to us on the streets to sympathise and to show solidarity.

I did not know the two traders who were killed by the gunman, but I used to see them around - selling goods on pavements or at social and religious gatherings of the Senegalese community.

Most Senegalese people who come to Italy start life as street traders. They buy goods from Chinese-owned shops and sell them on the streets.

'Anxious'
Continue reading the main story
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Start Quote

How can he a person who is born and brought up in Italy not qualify for Italian citizenship?”

It's what I also did when I first came to Italy 10 years ago. I came here legally, but did not have the necessary documents to work.

When I finally got them, I got a job as a factory worker.

Now, I am a foreman at the factory. It is good to have a stable job and income, making it easier to support my family.

But it is very difficult to become an Italian national.

My son, who is just one year old, was born in Italy, but he is still regarded as a Senegalese citizen.

This is very unfortunate. How can he a person who is born and brought up in Italy not qualify for Italian citizenship? How can social integration become easier when we are treated like foreigners?

I don't know whether my son has a future here - and I have become more anxious after what happened on Tuesday.

It may be better for him to go and live in Senegal, but we'll see what happens."

Original story here at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-16177877

Right now, our thoughts are with the families of the two people killed. Their bodies are going to be taken to Senegal for burial. I don't think there is a cemetery for Muslims in Florence.

Alabama parents prepare for the worst: separation from their kids

2011-10-12T02:55:00.000-07:00

Hundreds of parents in Alabama who fear being rounded up at any time and jailed or deported under the state's draconian new immigration law are making legal arrangements to have their children placed in the care of relatives or friends.

Lawyers working with Hispanic communities throughout Alabama report a huge surge in recent days in approaches from Hispanic families so desperate about the threat posed by the new law that they are preparing for the worst: sudden separation from their own children. They are drawing up power of attorney letters – documents usually applied to property or business assets, but in Alabama almost exclusively now used for the safe keeping of children.

"This is a real human rights crisis," said Linton Joaquin of the National Immigration Law Center. "There's widespread panic, and though parents don't want to abandon their children they are seeking guardianships for them."

Shay Farley, legal director of a collective of Alabama lawyers called Appleseed, says they have already drawn up more than 200 power of attorney papers in just one town, Tuscaloosa. A similar clamour for legal help is reported across the state.

Read full article here.

An example of how migration might kick-start growth - for the Greeks

2011-10-12T02:37:00.000-07:00

The Price of Austerity (BBC World Service)
CGD Experts

Michael Clemens

Oct 11, 2011

Senior fellow Michael Clemens was interviewed by the BBC World Service on the economic benefits of migration.
From the interview
The voices of ordinary Greeks - those struggling to hold things together in these difficult times - are not normally heard.
Coverage of Greece's economic problems is all too often dominated by images of ferocious riots and striking workers.
There is no question that wave after wave of wage-cuts and tax rises have generated a lot of anger, but the truth is that most Greeks haven't taken to the streets.
So, as the austerity measures bite ever deeper, how are these people being affected? The BBC's Europe Business Correspondent Nigel Cassidy reports from Athens.
Plus, what Greece and the other economies of the eurozone really need is economic growth to raise incomes and tax revenues and - the hope is - to begin to erode away those vast deficits.
Unfortunately most are experiencing - at best - stagnation.
So what could kick start growth? A recent survey by the American economist Michael Clemens of the Centre for Global Development suggests one answer could be migration. He concludes that the economic gains from freer migration would dwarf the gains from, say, freer trade - so long as the benefits to the migrants are included.
Justin Rowlatt asked him why migration can bring such big economic benefits.

Listen to it here at the link below.

See source

Diasporic Tourism & Investment in the Caribbean

2011-10-04T14:14:00.000-07:00

The survey, conducted by the Shridath Ramphal Centre for International Trade Law, Policy and Services (SRC) of the Cave Hill campus of the University of the West Indies, discovered some very interesting findings regarding the economic contribution of the Caribbean diaspora to the region's leading industry.

"We are confident that this report will put into perspective in a tangible way what the impact of the diaspora is. All these times it has been conjecture, we know the numbers are there, but have not been able to qualify or quantify the impact," said Irwin Clare, managing director, Caribbean Immigrant Services, New York.

"This should direct the resources, not just dollars and cents, but the full gamut of how you market and sell to this community," he argued, adding that there has been no clear marketing strategy for this community.

To see more on this report visit:
http://www.shridathramphalcentre.org/images/stories/news/2011/CTO_Caribbean_Week_Diaspora_Forum_DT_KEY_FINDINGS3.pdf

Guild Week hosts cultural event to eliminate rift between local and non-national students at UWI, Cave Hill

2011-09-28T04:17:00.001-07:00

SAT, SEPTEMBER 24, 2011 - 12:00 AM. Barbados Nation Newspaper

THE TALENT was as diverse as the nationalities of the students when the inaugural Carimagination Day took place at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies recently.

The event, one of the activities of Guild Week, took place in an intimate setting where the stage was set for a number of local artistes to express their creativity through the arts.

Humanities and Education representative Donnya Piggott said the aim of the event was to eliminate the rift between local and non-national students, one of the mandates of the university’s guild.

Piggott, who organised the event, added: “We don’t promote Barbadian talent here and through this event we also wanted to do that.

“The university has been lacking culture and so we decided to cut down on the fetes and increase cultural activities.”

As a result, numerous spoken-word pieces were performed by both local and non-national guest artistes, including Christina Katrina; Daveny Ellis; Sonia, who is a student from Toronto; Sam Pollard, Simply L and social commentator Adrian Greene, who highlighted a variety of issues stemming from political, economic and social concerns.

The delivery of the performances grabbed and kept the attention of the audience, which consisted mainly of regional students.

British Virgin Islands student Jevaughn Rhymer praised organizers for a good show but suggested “it should be more open to performances and not a set programme”.

Anthony Turton, 28, said the event was the first he had ever attended with “this kind of local talent and it was good”.

“The show was well organized and it exposed Barbadian talent and that is good for the young artistes. I believe more of these shows should be held to heighten the awareness of the public to these artistes,” Turton said.

Other guest performances were delivered by Kid Site, who revisited a number of his classics, Cave Hill Music Society, Toni Dyall, Marcus Miles, Matthew Allman, AzMan and Sunrokk, all of whom brought the curtain down on a commendable note. (TD)

We can and must speak up.

2011-09-26T05:30:00.000-07:00

By Anthony Morgan

A Jamaican who was born and raised in Toronto, Canada, Anthony Morgan is a Caribbean law student at McGill University, Faculty of Law. He enjoys thinking and writing about Caribbean international relations, relating specifically to diaspora affairs, regional integration, international trade and Haiti-Caricom relations.

My name is Anthony Morgan, I am a 25-year-old Jamaican, born and raised in Toronto, Canada. I am currently in my final year of law school at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. I will begin by sharing with you a bit about who I am, so that I can best explain how my identity as a diaspora citizen has affected my reaction to a very intolerable incident I experienced on a Montreal university campus on September 14, 2011.

First, some background. Before the summer of 2007 I was just another Black Canadian. During that summer, however, I was fundamentally transformed into a Caribbean-Canadian Diaspora Citizen. This came as a result of my participation in Grace Kennedy’s Jamaican Birthright Programme (GKJBP). The GKJBP is a world-class cultural and professional internship for students of Jamaican heritage who were born and living in the US, UK and Canada. For this programme, students from the diaspora are chosen to go live and work in Kingston, Jamaica to boost their professional skills and experience, and also help them more deeply connect with their Jamaican roots and culture.
Before taking part in the GKJBP, I was merely incidentally Jamaican, mostly identifying at a superficial level through our music, food and manners of worship. My amazing birthright experience, however, transformed me into not only a Jamaican nationalist but also a Caribbean regionalist.

As a result of my participation in the GKJBP, I have become committed to a journey of learning ever more about Jamaica and the Caribbean, particularly in relation to our history, as well as our current position in the global arena of geopolitics, trade and development. This journey has also caused me to become increasingly influenced by a Caribbean intellectual heritage emanating from the thoughts, lives and works of individuals such as Marcus Garvey, Walter Rodney, CLR James, Eric Williams, George Beckford, Lloyd Best and contemporaries, such as Kari Levitt, Norman Girvan, Anthony Bogues and Brian Meeks.

Read full article here.

China to support the Caribbean - David Jessop

2011-09-23T07:56:00.000-07:00

By David Jessop

News Americas, LONDON, England, Fri. Sept. 23, 2011: Two separate developments in the last week, both involving China, demonstrates the fundamental ways in which international relationships are changing.

The first involved China subtly suggesting that it might provide financial support for Eurozone economies in difficulty. The second was the announcement at the opening of the Third China-Caribbean Economic and Trade Cooperation Forum in Port of Spain that Beijing would make available over US$1billion in loans and other assistance for Caribbean economic development projects.

In Europe many economies are in trouble. Greece, Italy, Spain Portugal, Ireland and United Kingdom have had to take drastic action to address high levels of debt and low growth. However, the markets have not been convinced that some of the Governments concerned will be able to institute the tough austerity measures they have announced. This is particularly so in the case of Greece and Italy where special pleading by powerful interest groups has caused Government to back track on measures already announced, creating uncertainty about whether the nations concerned might default.

As these nations are within the Eurozone, this has had the effect of raising questions about the whole European integration process. In economically strong and fiscally correct nations at the heart of the Eurozone like Germany, domestic political pressure is making nations reluctant to provide further financial support for those EU states that seem incapable of bringing their economies under control. Somewhat over simplified, the effect is that if economically strong nations are unwilling to bail out weak Eurozone economies, the Eurozone, and by extension the European Union, is unlikely to survive in its present form.

Read full article here.

Are the provisions for free movement under the treaty discriminatory?

2011-09-21T04:49:00.000-07:00

Free labour movement
Dennis De Peiza

2011-08-31

The advent of the free movement of labour under the Caribbean Single Market and Economy brought great hope for nationals of member states, as they welcomed and embraced the opportunity to traverse the region in search of employment opportunities.

It is clear that there was a good intention on the part of heads of government to give licence to the movement of labour as a means of positioning the region to strengthen and develop its economic potential.

All indicators point to the fact that this could be achieved through the sharing and utilising of skills and talents of the region’s human resources. This apparently holds true, given the fact that the free movement of persons is said to underpin all other key pillars of the CSME, except the free movement of goods.

Article 45 of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas states: “Member states commit themselves to the goal to the free movement of their nationals within the community.” This, to all intents and purposes, seems to be ideal, but it is questionable whether the goal is being achieved.

The movement of people is enshrined in articles 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 45 and 46 of Chapter Three of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas. As it stands, the unrestricted movement is limited to university graduates, media workers, sports persons, artistes and musicians.

The free movement of skills and labour meant that work permits were eliminated. With this being the case, it can be argued that there would have been a relaxing of the regulatory procedures to facilitate the ease of movement. It is however understandable why there is yet the need to have some regulatory mechanism (s) in place to guard against those who have malicious and illegal intentions.

Read full article here.

Travelling Show Project / Proyecto Zapato Viajero

2011-09-20T15:22:00.000-07:00

We have all been historically affected by migration and each in different ways. With this project I invite people to share their
shoes as statements of where they have been and where they are going thus sharing movement and walking in each
other's footsteps...

Hemos sido históricamente afectados por la migración. Con este proyecto invito a la gente a compartir sus zapatos
como declaraciones de donde ellos han sido y donde ellos van así compartiendo el movimiento y andando en los
pasos de cada uno...

http://zapatoviajero-travellingshoe.blogspot.com/2011/09/arriving-at-venezuela.html

A documentary series on an important Caribbean man - Dr. Eric Williams by Mariel Brown

2011-09-20T15:07:00.000-07:00

Inward Hunger: The Story of Eric Williams is a pioneering documentary series that reveals Eric Williams in unprecedented breadth and depth, in the context of the history, society, region and world that shaped him; the forces to which he at times succumbed, and those he fought to change.
Dr Eric Eustace Williams is a complex and controversial Caribbean figure best known for leading Trinidad and Tobago to Independence in 1962. This year, the 100th anniversary of his birth, comes a new documentary series that explores the fascinating personal and political history of the country's first Prime Minister. Inward Hunger: The Story of Eric Williams is a production of Savant Ltd, creators of The Solitary Alchemist and The Insatiable Season. This ground-breaking documentary series was directed by Mariel Brown.
A private screening takes place tomorrow at Central Bank Auditorium, Eric Williams Plaza, Port of Spain from 7.30 p.m. and on Republic Day, September 24 at 3 p.m., GISL Channel 4 airs this three-part series on the compelling and contradictory life of an iconic Caribbean leader.
Inward Hunger: The Story of Eric Williams Documentary Film Series Synopsis
Eric Williams was a man of contradictions. From a family that felt disenfranchised because of their class and colour, but who were in many ways privileged compared to the working class in the then British colony of Trinidad and Tobago. He was a man respected for reaching the pinnacle of British education, yet he dedicated his life to ending colonial rule. A lifelong scholar who was often unwilling to admit his mistakes. A politician who used even his disabilities as tools of power.
Calling for ethnic unity in party and country, yet not above using race to win elections. A passionate, loving husband to one wife, a cold and bitter wind to another and party to a third, secret marriage.
A man driven by hard-work and discipline, who allowed corruption and intrigue to flourish around him. He was seen as a man of the people, and at the same time, he saw himself as intellectually superior to others; a visionary who expected his decisions to be followed without opposition.
He sought after mentors, then pushed away even those closest to him. One of the first advocates of West Indian Federation, yet unwilling to drive the union after Jamaica's withdrawal.
Anti-colonial, yet not willing to depart radically from British systems of governance. A Prime Minister who transformed the lives of many in Trinidad and Tobago through education, political mobilisation and economic development, yet did not go far enough, some say, to undo the ongoing hierarchies of a post-colonial society.

Read full story here.

Hope for some Jamaicans facing deportation from US - News - Jamaica Gleaner - Monday | September 19, 2011

2011-09-20T15:00:00.000-07:00

Hope for some Jamaicans facing deportation from US - News - Jamaica Gleaner - Monday | September 19, 2011

Forward Home to be screened in Barbados

2011-09-20T14:06:00.000-07:00

Forward Home. VIP Cinema, Olympus Theatre,
Monday 26th September, 2011. 6:00 pm.

Please join us for the Caribbean and Barbados Première of “Forward Home”,
a new documentary from the Shridath Ramphal Centre
for International Trade Law, Policy and Services, UWI, Cave Hill.

The screening is hosted by Caribbean Tales Worldwide Distribution which continues the series “By Popular Demand”: Every last Monday of the month, showcasing a Caribbean Film at the VIP Cinema of Olympus Theatres. The screening on Monday September 26, 2011, will feature “Forward Home: The Power of the Caribbean Diaspora”,
starting at 6:00 pm with light refreshments. Screening begins at 6:30 pm.
Price per ticket BDS $16.00.

For further information please call 417-4807
www.shridathramphalcentre.org
Forward Home: A documentary revealing the economic power of Caribbean overseas communities, showcasing the experiences of Diasporic peoples who straddle the dual worlds of Caribbean Homelands and Global Cities as travellers and entrepreneurs, and the organisations that make the relationship work.

The documentary will be distributed by Caribbean Tales World Wide Distribution.
www.caribbeantales-worldwide.com

Marcus Garvey movement owes large debt to Caribbean expats, UCLA historian finds

2011-09-14T10:07:00.000-07:00

By Meg Sullivan

This article, by Meg Sullivan, was originally run by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Newsroom, August 18, 2011. We will be following up with an excerpted essay by historians Nigel Westmaas and Juanita de Barros on the UNIA in British Guiana.

Conventional wisdom has long held that Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), which advocated racial self-help and the unity of the African diaspora, grew out of the heady political and cultural environment of the Harlem Renaissance and benefited African Americans above all other black people. Any Caribbean role, according to this view, was separate and incidental to the primary legacy bequeathed to American race relations by the charismatic Jamaica native.

Now a UCLA historian argues the reverse in the first book of a multi-volume series on the Garvey movement and the Caribbean. From the UNIA’s organizational structure to its most valuable foot soldiers during its first half-decade, Garvey’s Caribbean links were indispensable to the movement’s success, and the region ultimately proved to be its most important theatre, contends Robert A. Hill in “The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers: The Caribbean Diaspora 1910–1920.”

Researching the volume “was an eye-opener in many, many ways,” said Hill, a UCLA history professor and a leading authority on Garvey and the UNIA, which began in Jamaica but attained its greatest influence after Garvey established it in the U.S. in 1917. Caribbean nationals, both in America and abroad, Hill says, were the seed that grew the movement.

“Although the movement developed here and was based in America, it was predominantly a Caribbean movement, at least until federal prosecution of Garvey in the early 1920s drew the attention of African Americans and galvanized their support of him,” he said.

“The Caribbean Diaspora 1910–1920” is scheduled to be published by Duke University Press. With more than 400 documents, many of them newly discovered, it is the opening salvo in the third and final series of a vast collection of primary materials by and about Garvey and the UNIA, considered the largest mass political movement in black history. Highlights from the volume include Garvey’s earliest known published work, a 1911 letter to the editor of a newspaper in Costa Rica, where he was living among fellow Caribbean expatriates employed on banana plantations; a 1912 letter to a Belize newspaper criticizing social conditions under British colonial rule in that country; and a 1920 letter written from New York to the governor of British Guiana in which Garvey says that the majority of his followers are from the English-speaking West Indies.

Read full article here.

NEW YORK NEW YORK: Hope yet for Bajans on the deportee list?

2011-08-30T12:02:00.000-07:00

BY TONY BEST | FRI, AUGUST 26, 2011 - 12:00 AM

Scores of Bajans facing deportation to their birthplace may be given a second chance to remain in the United States.

But the tough question is: what may happen with Barbadians who have already been sent back home?

The opportunity and the intriguing query are linked to a decision by the United States Department of Homeland Security to take a second look at 300 000 deportation cases now before American immigration courts.

The dramatic move has been hailed by immigration advocates in and outside the United States Congress and the courts who have been pressing the Obama White House for more than two-and-a-half years to change a dreaded policy which has resulted in more than a million people being kicked out of the country.

Tens of thousands of men and women from the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados, many of whom have done nothing more than overstay their allotted time or committed misdemeanors, such as jumping a subway turnstile, possessing a joint of marijuana, shoplifting a $1 pack of salted nuts or sneaking onto a bus without paying the fare.

Almost 70 Barbadians in the northeastern United States are in the deportation pipeline and Andre Padmore, Barbados’ Consul in New York, described the move as “a step in the right direction”. He said they were “awaiting a detailed explanation of the administration’s plans”.

Read full article here.

Open Skies/Closed Skies

2011-08-23T04:22:00.000-07:00

REDJET EXPOSES CARICOM's CLOSED SKY
By By Ian Bertrand
Story Created: Aug 2, 2011 at 11:51 PM ECT
Story Updated: Aug 2, 2011 at 11:51 PM ECT
The REDjet imbroglio, though staunched, still continues, and it has exposed to us Caribbean residents the gross inconsistencies that underpin Caricom aviation policies. Policies that are supposed to advance the socio-economic interests of all of us.
We have seen that our Caricom leaders eagerly adopt Open Sky policies for international air services but enforce Closed Sky policies for intra-regional air services.
Trinidad & Tobago, Jamaica and Barbados have each signed an Open Sky air service agreement (ASA) with the United States. (Trinidad and Tobago negotiated their Open Sky ASA over a weekend.)
Yet these same fraternal members of Caricom and willing(?) signatories to the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, continue to persist in upholding Closed Sky ASAs among themselves.

Read full article here.

On The Map is part of the Caribbean Tales Worldwide Distribution library

2011-08-10T18:47:00.000-07:00

Established in Barbados and Trinidad & Tobago, with the vision of “taking Caribbean films to the world,” CaribbeanTales Worldwide Distribution (CTWD) is the first of its kind film distribution company in the English-speaking Caribbean.

Founded by accomplished Trinidadian/Canadian/British film producer and director Frances-Anne Solomon, CTWD aims to become internationally known as the go-to solution for Caribbean-filmed product, offering the best films by the finest filmmakers and producers from the Caribbean and its Diaspora.

CTWD’s principals are creative industries specialist Dr Keith Nurse (Chair), economist and businessman Dr. Terrence Farrell, producer and media personality Lisa Wickham, and filmmaker Mary Wells. CaribbeanTales Worldwide Distribution is a member of the Barbados Business Enterprise Corporation.

CaribbeanTales (TM) is the trademark of a group of companies, with bases in Canada, Trinidad, and Barbados,that also includes CaribbeanTales an educational multimedia production company, and the CaribbeanTales Film Festival Group – that produces film screenings, festivals, and industry training events around the world.

For more on the CTWD and to order On The Map, visit this link - http://caribbeantales-worldwide.com/?page_id=2744

Free movement from Monday - St. Lucia

2011-07-28T05:25:00.000-07:00

WED, JULY 27, 2011 - 3:00 PM

CASTRIES, St Lucia – The St Lucia-based organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) says it is making final preparations for the August 1 free movement of nationals from the sub-region.

It said the initiative will involve the six independent member states namely Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and St. Kitts and Nevis, with Montserrat expect to join by September followed at a later date by Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands.

Lisa Louis-Phillip of the OECS Secretariat's Regional Integration Unit said every effort was being made to ensure that all administrative arrangements agreed to by the working group have been put in place in time for Monday.

"We have been seeking to ensure that whatever procedure and arrangements that are in place are not complicated and does not prohibit nationals from moving from one state to the next," she said.

"OECS nationals will require at least a valid ID card to benefit from the free movement of labour which takes effect from Monday August 1," Louis-Phillip added.
She said the committee had agreed to a number of procedures, such as the document to be used for re-entry.

"That is important as well as a completed ED form, these are the two most important documents that an OECS national moving to another protocol state would have to present to an immigration officer," she noted.

"At that point the individual would be granted an indefinite entry into that state once immigration is satisfied that all security and other reasonable precautions have been taken," Louis-Phillip added.

Read full article here.

Barbados snubs Shanique Myrie's Lawyers

2011-07-28T05:18:00.000-07:00

(Jamaica Observer) More than four months after Jamai-can Shanique Myrie was finger-raped, verbally abused, locked up and kicked out of Barbados, the Barbadian Government is yet to respond to correspondence from her lawyers.

Shanique Myrie

Attorneys Anthony Hylton and Michelle Brown, who represent Myrie, say they have made repeated attempts to get the government of that eastern Caribbean island to address the issue but to date no positive response has been forthcoming.

Myrie, who was detained at the Grantley Adams International Airport in March, claimed that she was subjected to two demeaning cavity searches, locked in a cold, filthy room and kicked out of the country the following day, despite not being found with any contraband or in contravention of that country’s laws.

Read full article here.

Old problems for Caricom's New SG

2011-07-25T12:07:00.000-07:00

THE formal appointment of Irwin LaRocque as the new secretary general of the Guyana-based Caricom Secretariat is expected to be completed this week with a letter from current Community chairman Dr Denzil Douglas, the prime minister of St Kitts and Nevis.
For almost six years, starting in September 2005, the Dominican-born economist has been functioning as one of three assistant secretaries general of the 38-year-old Community. His chief responsibility was Trade and Economic Integration.
At 56, LaRocque's choice as SG has come as a surprise to officials of various regional organisations, who prefer not to be quoted, as well as to the Community Secretariat staffers, who prefer to comment more on his "politeness" and "respect for procedures" within the administrative structure than on other factors.
He was chosen from a shortlist of five candidates, submitted by a "search committee" that was established by the Heads of Government last August following the decision of Edwin Carrington to retire at the end of 2010 after 18 years as secretary general. That development itself took place against the backdrop of what some have euphemistically termed a " very frank dialogue" in Jamaica involving Carrington and then Caricom chairman Prime Minister Bruce Golding.
So, after some ten months of work by a "search committee" whose terms of reference, including the required skills and expertise of a new secretary general, were never clearly outlined as public information, the five shortlisted candidates were interviewed by the Caricom Bureau and, finally, by a process of telephone conversations, LaRocque was announced as the new secretary general.
As some highly respected and experienced regional technocrats and thinkers see it, Caricom's 15 Heads of Government now have a new SG on board in the person of an "in-house" appointee, but are still far removed from dealing with the pivotal factor to which they themselves have often referred -- the urgent need for a "comprehensive review" of the structure and functioning of the Secretariat.

Read full article here.

A Requiem for CARICOM by Peter Wickham

2011-07-14T13:43:00.000-07:00

(This article appeared in the Nation Newspaper but was not available on line. I have reproduced it here with the author's permission and attached an image of my work called "Hatchlings - A Requiem". The work is a laying in state of CARICOM...fifteen national entities sitting in nests on a shredded revised treaty of Chaguaramas.)

A Requiem for CARICOM

The title of this article might appear to be both premature and unfortunate; however anyone looking critically at recent events is left to conclude that the development of CARICOM is off the “front burner” for the time being and it is useful that the CARICOM Heads have finally admitted to us that it’s progress is not high on their list of priorities. This realisation causes me considerable discomfort since I have been committed to the cause of regionalism for several years without much good reason. In all of this I assumed that the region’s political leaders and bureaucrats shared my vision for this region and genuinely believed that we really were stronger as a unit; however I am now compelled to agree that schemes which seemed to signal some meaningful development of this Caribbean Community had more to do with the exploitation of some tangible benefit that a regional politician or bureaucrat identified for themselves or their country. It is therefore now useful to review the past few of CARICOM’s development with the benefit of hindsight and perhaps a hefty dose of cynicism.
This project of course stated with the 1958 West Indies Federation which had nothing to do with the Caribbean people or leaders, but was a Colonial Office project to unload 14 possessions that had stopped being profitable but were clearly not “worthy” of independence like India. This disaster ushered in the era of independence which was a proverbial “game changer” regarding regionalism since this would force us to compete among ourselves since we essentially all did the same thing. Thankfully, three visionaries named Barrow, Burnham and Bird, though perhaps we could mimic the European Community in their integration efforts in the same way that we mimicked their governance for decades. The vision of these three men was not entirely altruistic, but it was useful that they got things started and co-opted a Trinidadian named William Demas whose commitment is unparalleled. Demas worked hard to make the Caribbean Community a reality and to my mind was only handicapped by a vision of regional development that was both Eurocentric and “Trade-centric”.
These gentlemen meant well, but shamelessly borrowed from a European construct and rejected the occasional indigenous thinking that often sought to emerge from within the region. The end result was CARIFTA, followed by CARICOM which is a cheap “knock-off” of the European Community had long since evolved. It was therefore not surprising that “deficiencies” were identified after 10 years and as we approached the 20th Anniversary it was necessary to take a serious look at the project in an attempt to understand why it was going nowhere. The methodology selected by the Commission was as predictable as their prescription; hence we had our own version of the Royal Commission that set out under the distinguished Chairmanship of Lord Moyne. Naturally the WIC Report was equally voluminous and suggested a solution to our problems that required the establishment of new institutions, funds and projects. Ironically, this heavily bureaucratic approach was applied on one side, while on the other side the WIC called for “Hassle Free Travel” which is intrinsically anti-bureaucratic; however this would require a new bureaucracy to implement.
It did not take long for things to return to “Normal” in the Caribbean with regional bands and journalists being denied entry and in some instances being asked to leave the county. In the meantime our ever-expanding team of regional bureaucrats set to work on their new projects to facilitate trade expansion and to micromanage the little trade between islands. Institutions like the RNM were presented as being important to our survival and we had to find the recourses to fund its work. The vast majority of us don’t understand what these intuitions do, why these are so expensive to fund and why tangible results are seldom ever reported, but we continue to believe that we cannot live without them. To my mind it seems odd that we fund agencies to enhance trade capacity, market exports, negotiate trade agreements, standardise exports standards, collect, collate and analyse trade data and only two or three territories actually export any significant quantities of goods, the vast majority of which are intra-regional anyhow. As we battle the worst global recession since the 1930s the enormous and sophisticated “trade capacity” appears not to have been particularly useful especially in places like Barbados where Tourism has been our saviour.
One of the positive signs coming from the CARICOM Heads has been the apparent enthusiasm for the CSME. This was piloted by Barbados and considerable work was done on it by PM Arthur which the other heads also appeared excited about. The fact that this same Arthur behaved in a way that was clearly anti-regional recently demonstrates the extent to which this project was always about what was expedient. Support for the CSME was and will continue to be born of the realisation that unless we made ourselves look more like the EU (even if in theory) the World Trade Organisation might argue that we are not a regional grouping and force us to treat all other states equally, which is not an option. Since this immediate threat has been removed, the Heads can now comfortably announce that they are not moving on with new CARICOM initiatives.
In the meantime Caribbean people continue to have problems of a regional nature that CARICOM is unable or unwilling to address. The original concept of hassle free travel was set aside on September 11th, while some of us have gone further in our efforts to harass nationals of other states when they enter ours. We now have the case of the regional airline REDjet being denied entry to another CARICOM state, while Barbados is modifying its rules of access to Health Care and inadvertently excluding persons who have lived here for extended periods. The recent announcement that CARICOM was holding off on any new projects was therefore the most honest the Heads have been in some time.
Peter W. Wickham (peter.wickham@caribsurf.com) is a Political Consultant and a director of Caribbean Development Research Services (CADRES)

THE BIG INTERVIEW - Jagdeo’s way ahead

2011-07-12T14:57:00.000-07:00

SUN, JULY 03, 2011 - 10:59 AM

The tenure of Guyana’s President Bharrat Jagdeo is nearing its end. While attending his last CARICOM Summit as Head of Government, Jagdeo spoke frankly to regional journalists, including NATION Managing Editor Tim Slinger, in St Kitts yesterday.

He was candid on several topical issues, including freedom of movement across the region, REDjet and West Indies cricket.

Q: This is your final appearance at the CARICOM Heads of Government conference. After 12 years, what are your impressions of the regional body?

Jagdeo: For too long we’ve held up these lofty ideas of the Treaty of Chaguaramas and almost in a sacred way without focusing enough on how we break those down into projects and programmes and get those implemented.

The only way that we’ll change the perception of CARICOM is not just through a PR job . . . . There are a lot of positive things about CARICOM but the more ordinary people can feel regional initiatives impacting on their lives.

The fishermen in Barbados, in Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada and Guyana and Suriname can have their fisheries agreement that allows them to move seamlessly across these countries and fish, then without any hassle they will start to say CARICOM is working. So it builds support through specific initiatives.

There is that sense of urgency that we need to create the mechanisms for that new approach. A change in mindset.

Read full article.

ALL AH WE IS ONE - Time for boldness

2011-07-12T14:45:00.000-07:00

BY TENNYSON JOSEPH | TUE, JULY 12, 2011 - 12:00 AM

RECENT NEWS on the regional integration movement has not been encouraging. The talk among the people who have been entrusted with the health of the living body is now of corpses and obituaries.

The Prime Minister of St Kitts, Denzil Douglas, ironically advocates a “slowing down” of the movement towards a single economy and tries to pass that off as a new advance, superior to the enthusiastic support for deeper integration once espoused by the founding fathers.

A clearer example of generational retreat and of “one step forward, two steps backward” cannot be found.

Leaders, who can hardly be stirred from their slumber to give a positive report on the achievement of long-overdue tasks, discover a new-found energy that fuels only cross-talk and mauvaise langue and are at their best only when verbally beating the integration project into the dust.

What is worse, all of this is coming at a time when the failure of stand-alone, single-island development is now beyond question, exposed as it is by the comatose nature of the Caribbean state in the face of the Great Recession. Indeed, if the scent of death can be picked up, it is not of the integration project, but of the false claim that any Caribbean territory can survive on its own.

Read full article here.

NATION EDITORIAL: Non-functioning of Caricom’s quasi-cabinet?

2011-06-21T05:17:00.000-07:00

TUE, JUNE 21, 2011 - 12:00 AM

When leaders of the Caribbean Community meet next weekend in Basseterre for this year’s annual summit, we hope they would review the relevance and functioning of the quasi-cabinet mechanism through which lead portfolio responsibilities are allocated.

The quasi-cabinet and the CARICOM Bureau (comprising current, immediate past and and incoming Heads of Government, along with the secretary general), are part of the governance system instituted in accordance with the “Consensus of Chaguaramas” in October 1999.

Its aim was to “spearhead action in sectors critical to the region’s integration and its vision of development into the 21st century”.

We today recall this development of almost 11 years because of recurring lapses and dissatisfaction over adherence to the letter and spirit of the functioning of the quasi-cabinet across the 14 independent member states (Montserrat is the exception).

The distribution of portfolios is done on the basis of country and responsibility held by whoever is that state’s Head of Government. All of the leaders are collectively responsible to the Heads of Government conference which is the primary organ of the Community.

Read full article here.

Free Movement Game by Rickey Singh

2011-06-21T05:13:00.000-07:00

FRI, JUNE 17, 2011 - 12:15 AM

OPPORTUNISM is a game that has special attraction for governing parties not only in our Caribbean region but one that’s quite appealing worldwide in the ebb and flow of political fortunes.

Several governments in our Caribbean Community, including Barbados, have been playing this game quite well when it comes to implementation of decisions to effect the Single Economy dimension of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME), particularly in relation to freedom of movement of nationals.

The latest example appears to involve, surprisingly, the Prime Minister of St Kitts and Nevis, Dr Denzil Douglas.

None of the governments in the single economy project has ever considered it necessary to issue an official policy statement outlining its position on the phased implementation of the first

five, later extended to ten, categories of skilled CARICOM nationals who would be eligible to live and work in a Community state.

Although the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas provides the legal foundation of the CSME, excuses, apologies, lack of positive action have been the norm when it comes

to instituting relevant policies.

Contrary to what was alluded to in a June 12 Sunday Sun article CSME in hindsight, no government of CARICOM has ever promised what any sensible Community citizen ever seriously expected – “the opening of doors to all (my emphasis) CARICOM nationals who wish to live in the country under the original freedom of movement regional plan . . .”.

Truth is, there never was such an agreed policy.

Read full article here.

Deportee slashes his throat

2011-06-20T11:50:00.000-07:00

An illegal immigrant slashed his throat as he was being deported from London on a plane.

The man is receiving treatment in hospital after the Virgin Atlantic flight from London Gatwick to Kingston, Jamaica, was postponed.

A UK Border Agency spokesman said an investigation was being launched into how the man was able to inflict the "superficial injuries" on himself.

The airline has offered counselling to passengers, who looked on in horror as the incident took place on Monday.

Emergency services prevented more serious injury by "glueing" his throat together, a source said.

A spokeswoman for the airline said: "Virgin Atlantic confirms that flight VS69 from London Gatwick to Kingston has been delayed until 12.45 on 21 June following a passenger incident.

"Virgin Atlantic is cooperating with the authorities in their investigation of the incident and is offering counselling support to passengers and crew.

"All passengers on board the plane have been provided with hotel accommodation, refreshments and meals until the flight departs tomorrow. Any passengers who wish to change their flights will be able to do so."

The Boeing 747-400 aircraft was carrying 449 passengers and 17 crew.

To see source go here.

Dark season for Caricom as regional integration on pause

2011-06-14T12:47:00.000-07:00

By Ricky Singh

THE FAILURE to identify a new Secretary General for the Caribbean Community (Caricom) or to indicate any progress in coming to grips with the need for a new and relevant management structure at the Georgetown-based Secretariat, continue to attract attention across the region.

Just two weeks ago, the Jamaica Observer editorially declared that in deciding at their "special retreat" in Guyana last month to put on "pause" arrangements for the promised vital single economy, the Heads of Government may well be "sounding the death knell of Caricom".

As the Observer noted, the Community's leaders are yet to explain to the region's people the specific problems/challenges that prevent them from advancing the process towards a seamless regional economy.

The Single Market component of the CSME (Caricom Single Market and Economy) came into effect in 2006 and it was originally estimated that the single economy could be inaugurated by 2008. However, it was subsequently revised and hopefully, the single economy dimension would be inaugurated by 2015.

Click here to read full article.

Crack down on illegal immigrants

2011-06-05T15:46:00.000-07:00

SUN, JUNE 05, 2011 - 4:14 PM

MONTGOMERY – The southern US state of Alabama has passed a sweeping bill to crack down on illegal Caribbean and other immigrants, that both supporters and opponents call the toughest of its kind in the country.

Observers say it goes well beyond a law Arizona passed last year that caused a furore there.

The measure was passed by large margins in the Republican-controlled Alabama Senate and the House of Representatives. Alabama Governor Robert Bentley, a Republican, is expected to sign the bill into law.

The Alabama bill includes a provision similar to one that stirred controversy in Arizona, authorizing state and local police officers to ask about the immigration status of anyone they stop, based on a “reasonable suspicion” the person is an illegal immigrant. Federal courts have suspended most of that Arizona law.

However, Alabama’s bill goes beyond Arizona’s. It bars illegal immigrants from enrolling in any public college after high school. It obliges public schools to determine the immigration status of all students, requiring parents of foreign-born students to report the immigration status of their children.

The bill also requires Alabama’s public schools to publish figures on the number of immigrants — both legal and illegal — who are enrolled and on any costs associated with the education of illegal immigrant children. In addition, the it makes it a crime to knowingly rent housing to an illegal immigrant and bars businesses from taking tax deductions on wages paid to unauthorized immigrants.

“Alabama is now the new number one state for immigration enforcement,” said Kris Kobach, a constitutional lawyer, who is secretary of state in Kansas.

Representative Micky Hammon, a Republican who was a chief sponsor of the bill, described it as “a jobs-creation bill for Americans”.

“We really want to prevent illegal immigrants from coming to Alabama and to prevent those who are here from putting down roots,” he added.

Read full article here.

Existential Threats: Regionalising Governance, Democratising Politics by Norman Girvan

2011-05-24T20:18:00.000-07:00

I was privileged to first hear CLR at a lecture he delivered on the Mona
Campus of the UWI in late 1959. I was a first year student, an
impressionable youth, and the experience was unforgettable. His subject
was “The Artist in the Caribbean”; and he brought art, literature, politics,
philosophy, and economics together within a single unified vision of the
world and of human society. “The great artist‟, he said, “is universal because
he is national”- rooted in his or her society and reflecting and relating to the
social forces of their time and place.
It was not just his content, but his style. James spoke with knowledge,
feeling, authority, fluency and poetry. The words seemed to flow like a great
river from the mountain to the sea, sometimes changing direction and
speed, sometimes digressing, but always confident that it was headed
towards some glorious rendezvous with history. A first impression, a lasting
impact.
Years later, as a graduate student in London, I was part of a CLR James
study group that met every week at his house in London to sit at his feet—
intellectually and even literally.

Read full lecture here.

CARICOM-Girvan “disappointed’ at outcome of CARICOM retreat

2011-05-24T19:02:00.000-07:00

TUESDAY, 24 MAY 2011 01:57 CMC

UWI PROFESSOR EMERITUS, NORMAN GIRVAN
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – A prominent University of the West Indies (UWI) academic Monday said he was “deeply disappointed” at the outcome of the two-day retreat of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders in Guyana over the weekend.
“I am not seeing any concrete or meaningful decisions to address the deep seated problems of governance and implementation that presently afflict the community and which are at the root of the so-call information deficit,” UWI Professor Emeritus, Norman Girvan told the Caribbean media Corporation (CMC).

“I am just seeing another statement of good intention and if I might say so platitudes that the people of the region have quite frankly become tired and cynical about, said Girvan, a former professorial research fellow at the UWI Graduate Institute of International Relations.

A statement issued at the end of the retreat, which was attended by 10 of the 15 CARICOM) leaders, indicated that the process towards a single economy within the 15-member grouping that would have gone into effect by 2015, will now “take longer than anticipated”.

In addition, the leaders also “recognised that while the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) provided a platform for attaining further economic development of the Community, its ultimate goal was to provide a better quality of life and greater prosperity for the Peoples of the Community.

In their statement, the regional leaders noted that with respect to governance, “they reaffirmed the decision taken at their Inter-Sessional Meeting in Grenada in February to await the completion of the current review of the CARICOM Secretariat, before taking any firm decisions towards the establishment of the Permanent Committee of CARICOM Ambassadors (PCCA).

Read full article here.

Leaders end retreat

2011-05-22T18:48:00.000-07:00

GEORGETOWN, Guyana – Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders have ended their two-day retreat here indicating that the process towards a single economy within the 15-member grouping that would have gone into effect by 2015, will now “take longer than anticipated’.

The leaders from 10 of the Caribbean countries - Trinidad and Tobago, Haiti, Suriname, St. Lucia and the Bahamas prime ministers were absent – said in a statement afterwards that they would now await a restructuring of the Guyana-based CARICOM Secretariat before establishing an over-arching decision-implementation arm to ensure regional policies are adhered to.

“As regards the Single Economy, they recognised that the process towards full implementation would take longer than anticipated and agreed it may be best to pause and consolidate the gains of the Single Market before taking any further action on certain specific elements of the Single Economy, such as the creation of a single currency,” the statement said.

Read full article here.

Cuts preventing refugees from integrating, says Scottish study

2011-05-22T18:40:00.000-07:00

Refugees will face higher levels of poverty, unemployment and destitution because government cuts will prevent people from integrating into British society, a report published on Tuesday will warn.

A study by the Scottish Refugee Council has found that refugees remain one of the most marginalised groups.

Funding by the United Kingdom Border Agency (UKBA) to help refugees integrate will cease in September and the SRC says that grassroots provisions across the UK could be badly affected.

The report has found that only 13% of refugees were in full employment and that less than 1% of those in work earned more than £15,000 a year.

Language services could also be affected at a time when the government is demanding that immigrants learn English in order to integrate. In a controversial speech in April the prime minister David Cameron said that immigrants unable to speak English or unwilling to integrate have created a "kind of discomfort and disjointedness" that has disrupted communities across Britain.

The SRC said that the spate of coalition cutbacks contradicts a 2010 Home Office study which acknowledged that refugees require practical help to integrate. During 2010 the charity's Refugee Integration and Employment Service (RIES) helped 410 refugees to get into education and work. The SRC said it would continue to support people but would have to explore different sources of funding and it called on the government to rethink its strategy.

John Wilkes, chief executive of the SRC, said: "Our study shows a clear need for dedicated support on integration from all levels of government in order to help refugees rebuild their lives here. The UK Border Agency, run from Westminster, has pulled funding for RIES from September 2011, despite indicating in its own research that integration assistance is vitally important to refugees. On a wider scale, cuts to the voluntary sector mean many grassroots services working to help refugees and local communities integrate have been restricted. Scotland has already made great strides to help refugees integrate from the moment they arrive. We now want to see the Scottish government revisit their strategy for integration in light of our findings, as well as in light of UK-wide cuts."

Of 249 people interviewed by the SRC over a two-year period, only 32 said they were in full time employment and less than 6% said they were living "comfortably". Isolation was a major problem with more than a third of respondents saying they had little or no contact with neighbours and 71% said they had suffered discrimination in Britain.

Read full article here.

Mobilizing Diaspora: The University of the West Indies hosts International Conference on The Global South Asian Diaspora

2011-05-20T08:47:00.000-07:00

By Amar Wahab

Amar Wahab is a lecturer in Sociology at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus, Trinidad & Tobago

For the region’s Nobel Laureate, Derek Walcott, “the traveller cannot love,” unlike those more settled and put in place. If this is so in a region ironically settled by diasporic populations, what does it mean for those who have moved from home, those who are stranded while mobile, those who yearn for resettlement of self, family and community while aiming for boundless possibility? The myriad factors that push and pull, wax and wane and which organize diasporas and diasporic circuits are increasingly important to the region, where Walcott’s sense of ‘love’ (and hope) remains ever elusive.

Of the many regions that historically and presently impact the Caribbean, South Asia, especially India, has had and continues to have a deep connection with the Indo-Caribbean diaspora in Guyana, Trinidad and Jamaica. A similar relation to seemingly far off places like Mauritius, Fiji, and South Africa brings these countries, which share histories of colonialism and indentureship, into fruitful encounter with the Caribbean. The increasing attempts by India to marshal its troops in the global diaspora through economic, political and cultural venues, like clothes and jewellery fairs, Bollywood cable channels, and joint-venture banking, etc. can only be realistically assessed when thought of in relation to the response of the diaspora to this invitation to allegiance to homeland.

At the same time we see similar gestures of reciprocity connecting the Indo-Caribbean diaspora in Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, The Netherlands and France, though with different intensities and directions of exchange. These increasingly fluid mobilizations of love for return and returning for love’s sake must be watched to understand what they can make possible and problematic. Perhaps it is this attention to what Tejaswini Niranjana terms ‘mobilizing India’, and I would add, mobilizing diaspora in the name of India (People of Indian Origin and Non-Resident Indians), that the region needs to carefully consider alongside longstanding concerns about Western neoimperialism, as a unique framing consideration of our 21st-century horizon.

Read full article here.

“Look for Me All Around You”: Anglophone Caribbean Immigrants in the Harlem Renaissance

2011-05-17T11:32:00.000-07:00

Lost and found
By Carl A. Wade

Seven years after the appearance of Winds Can Wake Up the Dead: An Eric Walrond Reader, his highly respected anthology featuring the work of the neglected Caribbean writer, Louis J. Parascandola brings together the writings and speeches of a selection of those West Indian immigrants who exerted a powerful if not inordinate influence on that efflorescence of art and ideology familiarly known as the Harlem Renaissance.

Against the background of the complex social tensions of the times, Parascandola’s most recent text offers a comprehensive and timely reminder of the multifaceted contribution of this marginalised community to one of the most significant cultural and ideological events in New York City’s history. It celebrates the Caribbean immigrants as “key contributors to the burgeoning developments of this seminal era, cogently adding their unique voice to a variety of issues, including race and image building, the development of a Black aesthetic, progressive politics, and the struggle to define the status of blacks in America.”

The immigrants selected by Parascandola, a professor of English at the Brooklyn campus of Long Island University, represent every significant sphere of Harlem activity, as well as a cross section of West Indian communities, including Suriname. Many of these are well known to scholars and researchers, but unfamiliar to the lay community — especially in the West Indies — while the others have languished in obscurity for three quarters of a century. Apart from Walrond, born in British Guiana of Barbadian parents, Parascandola’s subjects include the well-known voices of Jamaicans Claude McKay, the eminent poet and novelist, and Marcus Garvey, founder of the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), and the most prominent of all Renaissance personalities; the Barbadian communist and labour activist Richard B. Moore; the Puerto Rican bibliophile Arthur A. Schomburg, after whom the famous Harlem research library is named; J.A. Rogers, the Jamaican historian and author; George Padmore, the noted Pan-Africanist born in Trinidad; Hubert Harrison, “the black Socrates,” socialist activist and newspaper editor, and Frank A. Crosswaith, trade union leader, both from St. Croix; and Cyril Valentine Briggs, the self-styled “angry blond Negro” communist newspaperman from Nevis. Otto Huiswoud, first black member of the American Communist Party, agitator, and editor from Dutch Guiana, and W.A. Domingo, the socialist newspaperman born in Jamaica, the son of a Spanish father and Jamaican mother, complete the list of male immigrants whose work is examined in the collection. Parascandola achieves something of a balance by discussing the contributions of three women, namely Amy Ashwood Garvey, co-founder of the UNIA; Amy Jacques Garvey, author and campaigner for the rights of women and blacks; and Eulalie Spence, the prize-winning playwright and drama teacher from Nevis.

Read full CRB article here.

PRESIDENT OBAMA'S CALL FOR IMMIGRATION REFORM

2011-05-11T11:32:00.000-07:00

The President spoke in El Paso about the urgent need to fix our broken immigration system.

We need an immigration system that reflects our values as a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants—and Washington won't act unless we lead. Watch the President's speech—and add your name to his call for reform.

Click on the link below to see Obama's El Paso speech.

http://www.barackobama.com/Immigration-Reform-Signon?source=20110510_BO_txt&keycode=&firstname=Annalee&lastname=Davis&email=annaleedavis%40gmail.com&zip=00000

Why Obama shouldn't have to show his papers

2011-05-03T19:17:00.000-07:00

Goldie Taylor of the Grio speaks to the whole issue of demanding legitmate citizens to show their status.
Reminds of some of the discussions that take place in the Caribbean around belonging, or not.

http://www.thegrio.com/politics/why-obama-shouldnt-have-had-to-show-his-papers.php

Please turn off the lights....

2011-05-03T04:18:00.000-07:00

Story Of The Song: Lyrics, Literature Trace Emigration Of Jamaicans

Emigration is a huge part of the Jamaican story. Even before the first wave of post-World War II emigrants to Britain sailed from Jamaica in May 1948 on the Empire Windrush, which stopped in Trinidad before going on to England, Jamaicans were involved in building the Panama Canal, which was finished in 1914.

Writing in The Gleaner in June 2000, Professor Patrick Bryan said: "Between about 1850 and 1930, Panama, Cuba and Costa Rica were the three most important destinations for Jamaicans. But there were other destinations as well - Ecuador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. In the 1920s and 1930s, others worked in the oil refineries of Curaçao and Aruba. One folksong reminds us that 'Solomon grandpa gone a Ecuador, lef' im wife an' pickney outa door.' Another tells us of the Panama man who returns with a substantial gold watch, which, unhappily, he cannot read."

That second song ridicules the 'Colón man' who has returned to Jamaica with the evidence of his prosperity ("One, two, three four, Colón man a come"), but although he has a watch on a chain, when "you ask him fe de time an' him look up pon de sun".

From that time, then, Jamaican lyricists were engaging with the migration phenomenon, both those who had gone and left their offspring behind, at a time when the term 'barrel children' had not yet been coined, as well as the person who had come back - again at a time when a now common term, 'returning resident', was not a commonplace part of the language.

Read full article here.

Franco-Italian push to partially renationalise border controls

2011-05-02T10:17:00.000-07:00

European Commission President

Brussels said on Sunday that national passport controls might be reintroduced across Europe to allow the "temporary" re-erection of borders between 25 countries.

Responding to intense pressure from Italy and France to tighten the no-borders system known as the Schengen regime, José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European commission, said he was looking at ways of satisfying the two countries' concerns. Paris and Rome are alarmed at an influx of migrants fleeing revolutionary north Africa.

In a letter to French president Nicolas Sarkozy and Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, Barroso said that the commission would unveil new proposals on Wednesday on immigration policy, common European asylum procedures, and reform of the Schengen system.

The commission's proposals are to go to a summit of EU leaders next month, with France and Italy leading the charge for a partial renationalisation of border controls, a trend the commission would like to resist but looks too weak to counter.

The Franco-Italian push to place greater restrictions on the Schengen regime, launched last week after a furious row between Paris and Rome over refugees from Tunisia, has already won support from a handful of other EU countries, including Germany.

Read full article here.

La Bloga: May day thoughts and a list of Latino Immigrant Literature

2011-05-02T09:56:00.001-07:00

La Bloga contributors forgo our usual format to contribute short pieces relating to today's immigration protests throughout and beyond Aztlán. We remind U.S. residents, including those whose "papers" are less than four hundred years old, that May Day's roots lie in the U.S. of 1886. If mexicano participation in this American holiday reaches historic proportions today, the reasons may lie in history: "In 1925, in the town of Matehuala, on the main highway between Monterrey and Mexico City, the trade unions of the area unveiled in the Plaza de Chicago a monument to the Martyrs of Chicago. Each May Day, workers from surrounding towns come here on the Day of the Martyrs of Chicago, what May Day is called in Mexico. . ." -- photo and cite from May Day: Made in the USA by W. J. Adelman.

See link here for more information.

Some thoughts on the contemporary trade union movement in the Caribbean

2011-05-02T09:35:00.000-07:00

Alissa Trotz is editor of the In the Diaspora Column.

Over the weekend both Stabroek News and Kaieteur News ran important pieces that addressed the significance of May Day, now celebrated all over the world. In its Sunday editorial, titled Radical Labour, Kaieteur News reminded readers that May Day started in the United States in 1886 as a general strike for an eight hour work day, with immigrant workers playing leading roles. It is interesting to reflect on this geographical beginning in light of the challenges facing labour and labour organizers across North America today. This is perhaps expressed nowhere more vividly than in the state of Wisconsin, where a Republican governor has introduced policies intended to destroy the collective bargaining rights of public workers. And across the US border just last Friday, in a decision that has shocked many labour advocates and organizers, the Supreme Court of Canada denied Ontario farm workers – numbering in the tens of thousands and many of whom are temporary migrant workers from countries like Mexico, Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago – the right to join unions for collective bargaining like other workers across the province. These are difficult times indeed.

(This is one of a series of weekly columns from Guyanese in the diaspora and others with an interest in issues related to Guyana and the Caribbean)

In formulating an answer to the question, what is the work to be done, both Stabroek News and Kaieteur News provocatively challenged the trade union movement in Guyana to take a long hard look at itself. The Kaieteur News, in editorials on Saturday and Sunday, made the point clearly that a key piece of the work involves thinking about divide and rule politics, and the ways in which the trade union movement has operated to restrict, and not expand, the scope of workers’ demands.

On Saturday the Stabroek News reported on a forum, titled Poverty, Development and Labour in Guyana, hosted by the University of Guyana Students for Social Change, with labour attorney Randolph Kirton, General Secretary of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union Seepaul Narine and social activist and Red Thread member Andaiye. This was an excellent initiative on the part of the student organizers, and one hopes it will continue. Notwithstanding examples from our past (like the establishment of the Sugar and Bauxite Worker’s Unity Committee in the early 1980s under the PNC dictatorship), the divisions facing the trade union movement today stand in the way of effectively addressing the difficult conditions faced by the majority of Guyanese women and men, a point made by Saturday’s Kaieteur News editorial when it talked about the likelihood of three different rallies. In this context, the role of the university should not be underestimated. Events like this can offer a space for conversations which bring people together – and young people in particular – to discuss key issues affecting people in their everyday lives, away from the politicking, the nastiness and the tribalism that have become such a feature of Guyanese life at home and in the diaspora.

Read full article here.

Derek Walcott wins OCM Bocas Prize

2011-05-02T03:45:00.000-07:00

Story Created: Apr 30, 2011 at 11:54 PM ECT
Story Updated: Apr 30, 2011 at 11:54 PM ECT
Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott takes 2011 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature.
White Egrets, his collection of poetry that has already won the TS Eliot Prize and was judged the winner of the OCM Bocas Prize poetry category, was chosen for the US$10,000 award last night, seeing off competition from the fiction and non-fiction winners.
The judges in their citation commented upon the "seemingly effortless flow of the language and imagery despite the poet's stated premonitions of the loss of poetic power and inspiration…. Walcott is still writing great poetry, lovely cadences, beautiful images".
They considered the book-length poem that is divided into separate poems and is an exploration of bereavement and grief in one's advanced years to be, "a book that tells of a period of life more usually talked at and talked about than heard from or listened to, which makes it a very important work".
White Egrets is Walcott's 14th book of poems. He has also published eight collections of plays and a book of essays. Extracts of the winning collection were featured in two parts in the Express in April.
The poet, who is at work in Europe on a new theatre production, was not present at the award ceremony and his daughter Mrs Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw, who is also a writer, accepted the OCM Bocas Prize cheque and trophy on his behalf. Tiphanie Yanique, whose debut novel, How To Escape From a Leper Colony, won the Fiction category, is visiting Trinidad for the occasion but Edwidge Danticat, winner of the Non-Fiction category for Create Dangerously: the immigrant artist at work was unable to attend.
The ceremony last night in the Old Fire Station included many of this country's and the region's most accomplished writers. It was one of the highlights of the new annual Bocas Lit Fest that started on Thursday at the National Library in Port of Spain. Readings from the winning books take place today at 4 pm, followed by poetry and music performed by the Freetown Collective and a jazz session by Mike Germain and Destino at 5pm, which bring the four-day Festival to an end.

Deutsche Börse prize for photography goes to chronicler of displaced people

2011-04-27T18:49:00.000-07:00

Magnum photographer Jim Goldberg has documented refugees and immigrants in across the world since 1983.

Jim Goldberg has won this year's £30,000 Deutsche Börse prize for photography, in a ceremony hosted by the Photographers' Gallery in London.

The Magnum photographer, who has documented the experiences of refugees, immigrants and displaced people from Africa, the Middle East and eastern Europe since 1983 in a project titled Open See, triumphed over a shortlist that included fine art photographer Thomas Demand, whom many insiders considered the favourite. Goldberg, who lives in San Francisco, and won the 2007 Cartier- Bresson Prize for an earlier version of the same project, describes himself as a documentary storyteller.

Open See was shown to great acclaim at the Photographers' Gallery last year. It features polaroids, video stills, found images and hand-written text often using the words of his subjects.

The chair of the jury, Brett Rogers, praised Goldberg's "timely and inventive approach to documentary practice … allowing these individuals to tell their own stories."

See link here.

Regional heads worry about Libyan investments

2011-04-27T04:30:00.000-07:00

By KINGSTON
Story Created: Apr 25, 2011 at 11:48 PM ECT
Story Updated: Apr 25, 2011 at 11:48 PM ECT
For the Caribbean governments, particularly those in the sub-regional Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), the events unfolding in Libya are more than just an attempt to remove an African leader from power.
For the nine-member OECS grouping who have adopted their own lines of engagement with Libya, much to the concern of some opposition parties, their main concern is—what will become of Libyan investment projects in region?
"Whether we like it or not, we're still very much dependent on oil from the Middle East and most of our economies are driven by that," said Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer of Antigua and Barbuda.
In the midst of the unrest in Libya, leaders in the region have found themselves caught between the proverbial 'rock and a hard place'.
Many of St Vincent and the Grenadines' major development projects in recent years have benefited from Libyan funding. The opposition in St Vincent and the Grenadines has criticised Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves' government for accepting what opposition leader Arnhim Eustace describes as "blood money".

Read full article here.

Beenie warns immigration

2011-04-27T04:22:00.000-07:00

BY YVETTE BEST | WED, APRIL 27, 2011 - 12:03 AM
BARBADOS NATION NEWS

DANCEHALL KING BEENIE MAN has a timely word of advice for the local immigration authorities.

He took a moment from his performance before a massive crowd at Brandons Beach, St Michael, for the Reggae Beach Party last Sunday night, to speak to the ongoing issue with his countrymen and local officials.

“Ease up Jamaican. Stop pressure Jamaican,” he said from the stage as he wagged his finger.

Speaking to the DAILY NATION after his explosive performance, Beenie said it was a warning, not a threat.

“Sometime you get fed up ah one ting, yuh know. ’Cause you have been all over de world and den sometime you doan really need to come to Barbados.

The immigration need to tink twice. I ‘ave friends who come over ‘ere and end up in jail fi four days fi no reason,” he stated.

He said he too had been “arrested” by local officers. He said he had issues on his last visit, but everything was cool this time around. Having said that, Beenie Man said the “vibes nice and de people dem enjoy demself and me like that. Thank you Barbados”.

Reports about Jamaicans being ill-treated have recently come into focus in the wake of accusations by Shanique Myrie that she was finger-raped while being held in Barbados last month.

Beenie said he had performed here a total of 15 times since 1992, and kept coming back because of the people.

The live wire on stage said he had been busy touring and was currently working on a new album, titled The King In Control, which is due out this summer.

PM: Cameras coming at all ports

2011-04-27T04:18:00.000-07:00

BY MIKE KING | WED, APRIL 27, 2011 - 12:05 AM

SHANIQUE Myrie is free to return to Barbados and point a finger at who she alleges assaulted her at the Grantley Adams International Airport last month.

And according to Prime Minister Freundel Stuart, surveillance cameras will be installed to confirm or contradict any allegation in the future.

This country’s seventh Prime Minister made these disclosures on a nationally televised interview on the state-run Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation (CBC TV) last night.

Prime Minister Stuart said the Myrie affair in which the Jamaican woman claimed she was finger-raped at the airport was unfortunate and had inflamed many passions. However, he said he was disappointed that certain elements had tried to inflame the issue because they thought that “here at last was a stick in which Government could be beaten”.

Stuart said he had in his possession a full report by the police on the issue, statements from all of the persons who were involved and gave the country the assurance that his Government was on top of the matter.“

No obstacles will be put in the way of Miss Myrie if she wants to be come back to Barbados and to point out to police who the offending officer, as alleged by her, might be.

“Suffice to say, I am not aware that there has been any formal complaint from the Jamaican police to the police authorities that would activate any prosecutorial processes,” he said.

Stuart said that relations between Barbados and all of its regional neighbours would continue to be normal.

The Prime Minister said there was a view that if any cameras had been in place for the March 14 incident, there might not have been any scope for speculation.

Read full article here.

Jamaica could take Shanique Myrie case to CCJ

2011-04-26T04:30:00.000-07:00

Dr Kenneth Baugh, minister of foreign affairs and foreign trade, has warned that the CCJ could be asked to rule on the case if the two countries cannot work out their differences.

This would be the first time that the Jamaican Government would be taking a case to the CCJ since it was established in 2001.

Ironically, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), which now forms the government, has been opposed to the CCJ being the country’s final court of appeal, although in recent months there has appeared to be a softening of that position inside the party.

With the Myrie dispute now at the level of government to government and a probe under way in Bridgetown, the Jamaican authorities are demanding that the Barbadian government does all that is necessary to establish the facts.

The dispute stems from claims by Myrie that she was subjected to verbal harassment and a demeaning cavity search on arrival in Bridgetown.

Responding to questions from Opposition Spokesman Anthony Hylton during last week’s meeting of the Standing Finance Committee of Parliament, Baugh declared that Jamaica is not backing down on the Myrie case.

Read full article here.

Myrie case triggers reminders

2011-04-26T04:21:00.000-07:00

BY TONY BEST | FRI, APRIL 15, 2011 - 10:00 AM

Names such as Tawana Brawley, Maryam Muhammad, Steven Pagones, Alton Maddox, C. Vernon Mason and Henry Crist are unlikely to ring many bells in Barbados or Jamaica.

But to a criminal investigator in New York City, they mean quite a lot. As a young lawyer in the late 1980s he followed an unfolding drama that involved those names and attracted national and international attention.

Twenty-four years later, he isn’t quite sure who or what to believe, except that he is leaning to accept the findings of a special grand jury that looked into the high-profile case.

Hence, when emotions ran high in Jamaica and Barbados after Shanique Myrie levelled explosive charges that she was “finger-raped” by a female immigration officer at Grantley Adams International Airport and Barbados’ Foreign Minister, Senator Maxine McLean, rejected the charges as being “baseless,” the attorney offered a word of caution to both sides.

“I believe Barbadians and Jamaicans should let investigators do their work, carefully and independently,” said the man who requested anonymity because of the position he holds in the city.

“The Tawana Brawley case offers a poignant reminder about how things can go horribly wrong and how passions can be inflamed when we rush to judgement.”

Read full story here.

Danticat documents truths about Haiti for the world to see

2011-04-25T15:06:00.000-07:00

In documenting painful truths about her Haitian homeland, Miami writer Edwidge Danticat demands that the world not turn a blind eye, writes Lydia Martin, who interviewed Danticat for the Miami Herald in the wake of the renewal of U. S. deportations of Haitians.

Music blares on a hectic Friday afternoon at Buena Vista Bistro, Edwidge Danticat’s favorite lunch spot, just a quick stroll from her house on the edge of Little Haiti. Patrons bellow in that wound-up, weekend’s-here way, and stressed-out servers do a valiant job of avoiding eye contact.

You’ve been sitting here 20 minutes, and no one has brought even water. But Danticat, who spent the morning wrestling with a deadline for one more op-ed piece about Haiti and will have to run soon to pick up Mira and Leila, her young daughters, is unperturbed.

“After the earthquake, we went a year without deportations,’’ she says, explaining in her unhurried, even way the topic of the piece she just finished for The New York Times as the low pitch of her voice pulls you in and mutes the clanking and clamoring around you.

“But then the deportations started again. A South Florida man died of cholera when he was sent back. It’s just inhumane. Many of the people who are sent back don’t have criminal records. It’s as if you were deporting people to Japan right now. It’s almost like a death sentence. A study says that 800,000 people could get cholera in Haiti this year once the rainy season starts. I just want to get the word out.”

For Danticat, Haiti has always weighed heavy. At 12, she moved from her homeland to join her parents, who had left her in Port-au-Prince in the care of an aunt and uncle a few years earlier to find jobs in New York that helped support several folks back home.

Read full article here.

USA resumes deportations to Haiti - is this a death sentence for returnees?

2011-04-18T03:57:00.000-07:00

MONDAY, APRIL 18, 2011 www.Nationnews.com

WASHINGTON – Despite what has been described as a humanitarian crisis, the United States has started the second round of deportations to Haiti.

Immigration officials said that 19 Haitians, who had been convicted of crimes in the US, were sent back to the impoverished, French-speaking Caribbean country.

“US officials confirmed that they have received no assurances that the 19 individuals who were deported will be treated humanely upon their arrival in Haiti,” said the Washington-based Center for Constitutional Rights, a civil rights advocacy group, after a conference call with immigration officials.

Friday’s deportation was the second since the devastating January 12 earthquake in Haiti last year that killed an estimated 300,000 people and left more than a million others homeless.

The US had halted deportations in the wake of the massive earthquake, but immigration officials announced in December that would resume deportations in January.

At least 27 Haitians were deported on January 20.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials said they plan to send 700 immigrants back to Haiti this year, ignoring the objections of human rights groups, which insist that the move is “equivalent to a death sentence.”

Barbara Gonzalez, an ICE spokeswoman, said those sent back were “criminal aliens,” who were convicted in US courts for various violations of the law. She said all have already served sentences in American prisons.

The Center for Constitutional Rights and a number of immigration advocacy groups have condemned the latest round of deportations, calling on the Obama Administration to immediately “halt all removals to Haiti and the release of all Haitians being held with final orders of removal.

“The United States has an obligation not to deport anyone to death,” said the groups, which comprise the University of Miami School of Law Human Rights Clinic and Immigration Clinic, FANM/Haitian Women of Miami, Alternative Chance, and Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center.

“Our country must live up to its human rights commitments and immediately halt any and all deportations to Haiti,” they added. (CMC)

OUR CARIBBEAN: Health care in Caricom

2011-04-15T06:32:00.000-07:00

BY RICKEY SINGH | FRI, APRIL 15, 2011 - 12:00 AM

When Caribbean Community Health Ministers assemble in Guyana today for a two-day meeting, they will have the opportunity to face an issue of deepening concern to the region’s people.

It has to do with a recognised need for a region-wide common approach for non-nationals with legal status to access prescribed drugs and health care benefits – without discrimination.

This problem has been made all the more urgent for objective consideration as a result of cries against discriminatory practices being experienced by non-nationals, with Barbados referenced as a current example for its exclusion of CARICOM nationals from access to even free drugs they once received – unless they have citizenship or “permanent residence” status.

This weekend’s 21st meeting of CARICOM’s Council for Human and Social Development (COSHOD), will have a special focus on “pressing issues related to the region’s health sector development and sustainability”, according to the Community Secretariat, with the battle against chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs) being a major topic for consideration.

Current chairman of COSHOD, Guyana’s Health Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy, who will chair the meeting, has said it would be difficult to “mobilise much needed active cooperation of nationals of CARICOM in the fight against NCDs – which remains a major and costly headache for our Community, if we do not strive together to achieve a common policy for our nationals to access free medical benefits, wherever possible and without feeling they are being discriminated against as a consequence of either official policy or practices . . . .”

His idea would meet with the approval of St Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister Dr Denzil Douglas, who has lead responsibility in CARICOM for health and human resources development Douglas wants to see the Community “prioritise an enlightened common approach in the provision of health care for all nationals of our Community . . . .”

Read full article here.

Visas for Jamaicans, Guyanese in effect, but confusion abound

2011-04-15T05:47:00.000-07:00

PHILIPSBURG--Nationals of Jamaica and Guyana now require a visa to visit St. Maarten. The requirement went into immediate effect on Monday, April 11 leaving travellers already booked to visit the country in the coming days in limbo because no easing in period was given.
Justice Minister Roland Duncan confirmed that visas were now needed, in a press release issued after The Daily Herald contacted his office asking for clarity because the Dutch Consulate in St. Kitts and Nevis had sent out a fax on Monday morning to travel agents in countries under its scope, but nothing had been issued locally by government.
Government had taken the decision to put a visa requirement in place for nationals of the two countries in a bid to curb the influx of undocumented persons and crime. That decision of the Council of Ministers was sent on to the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
While the press release from Duncan and the fax from the Dutch Consulate in St. Kitts and Nevis that was obtained by this newspaper states that the visa requirement was in immediate effective, travellers in Guyana who contacted Dutch authorities there were told that an official enforcement date still had to be set. This meant that travellers already booked can still travel without a visa until the yet-to-be decided enforcement date.
The Dutch Consul in Guyana directed callers to a contact person at John Fernandes Limited who explained that forms for visa application could be obtained at the office when requirement was enforced.
Attempts to get further clarification on the state of affairs from the Justice Ministry proved futile. Personnel at the ministry were not even aware that the visa requirement had come into effect on Monday and were provided with a copy of the fax obtained by this newspaper.

Read full article here.

Is Myrie a Caribbean version of Rosa Parks?

2011-04-13T05:35:00.000-07:00

BY TENNYSON JOSEPH | TUE, APRIL 12, 2011 - 12:01 AM

While social scientists tend to place heavy emphasis on large structural and economic explanations for occurrences of historical significance, the reality is often that the catalysts for these developments are often unassuming, ordinary individuals who refuse to stand at the back of the bus.

In the case of Rosa Parks, it was not a radical historical consciousness, but her overworked tired feet which compelled her to break the racist Jim Crow laws which were in operation in the southern United States at the time.

In our own time, we have seen how Mohammed Bouazizi, the Tunisian man who set himself ablaze, simultaneously set alight a wave of anti-authoritarian protests and revolutions throughout the Middle East and North Africa, far beyond what he was thinking when he made a human torch of himself. (What really was he thinking anyway?)

Marx describes this dynamic between individual action and structural change best, with his famous reminder that “whilst men make history, they do not make it in conditions of their own choosing”.

These historical realities therefore compel pro-integrationist Caribbean people to find a silver lining in Shanique Myrie’s refusal to remain silent in the face of what she regarded as unjust violations of her personal space, whilst seeking to move across her Caribbean.

Read full article here.

Barbados again! - Another J'can woman says she was mistreated Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Barbados-again--Another-Jcan-woman-says-

2011-04-11T17:30:00.000-07:00

YET another Jamaican woman has come forward with accusations of mistreatment by the authorities at the Grantley Adams International Airport in Bridgetown, Barbados.
Although Donna Benjamin-McLean's alleged case of abuse occurred in September 2004, she has decided to come public in solidarity with Shanique Myrie — a Jamaican woman who has bitterly complained of being strip searched, finger-raped, verbally abused and locked up before being shipped out of Barbados without a reasonable explanation.

In an interview with the Observer on Saturday, Benjamin-McLean expressed her displeasure with reported denials by Barbadian authorities that Myrie's account was lacking in veracity and that she was a victim of human trafficking.
"I want Barbados to know that it is happening. They are behaving as if it never happened, as if it is a lie. I don't believe I will ever revisit Barbados, because I fear them," Benjamin-McLean said.
Benjamin-McLean said she was plucked from the immigration line upon her arrival in the eastern Caribbean island and subjected to demeaning treatment after she was accused of smuggling drugs.
"They had my luggage on the counter all opened, they searched and found nothing. Then two women took me into a room and said I should strip. I took my clothes off, leaving my panties and they said 'take the panty off'. So I said, 'I can't because I am seeing my menstruation' and they said 'drop off the pad'â so I dropped it off," a distraught Benjamin-McLean said.
She also said that the Barbadian authorities put her through even further humiliation.

Read more here.

Jailed and raped in Barbados

2011-04-11T14:39:00.000-07:00

Jailed and raped in Barbados
Horrific allegations of another J'can woman
BY KARYL WALKER
Sunday, April 10, 2011

THE 27-year-old Jamaican woman who has accused officers of the Royal Barbados Police Force of rape and sexual assault has given a graphic and horrific account of the treatment she said was meted out to her after she was jailed in that country two months ago for drug smuggling.
The Sunday Observer obtained a copy of her signed statement, in which the woman, whose name we have been asked not to reveal, described the men she accused of the crime.

According to the woman, who lives in Spanish Town, she arrived at the Grantley Adams International Airport in Barbados on a Caribbean Airlines flight from Jamaica on Saturday, February 26. She cleared immigration, but was stopped by customs officials who searched her bag and found approximately two kilos of ganja hidden in a secret compartment.
She was strip-searched and taken to the Oistins Police Station where officers took a statement from her, but denied her the opportunity to make a phone call. They also denied her the opportunity to seek legal counsel, she said, and mocked her by saying that no lawyer would take her case because she had no money.
Later that night, she was transferred to the Central Police Station in Bridgetown, where she again gave a statement. She was then placed in a cell where, over the course of the next day, she alleged, she was raped, sexually assaulted and verbally abused by police officers.
According to the woman, after being locked in the cell, she heard a man call her name. The man, who she said was dressed in a plaid shirt and a pair of jeans, questioned her about her life in Jamaica, verbally taunted her, forced her to take a tablet he gave to her after which he demanded sex.
“When I took the tablet I felt like I was floating. I felt reckless and tired, but I was conscious of what was going on around me,” she said.
“He asked me if I didn’t want to have sex and I said ‘Sex? Sex a di least a my problems right now. Sex a di last thing pon my mind’. He said I had to have some sex with him before I go to Dodds (prison), so I started to cry,” she said.

Read more here.

Bajans Living Overseas sent home an estimated $322 Million last year

2011-04-02T08:17:00.000-07:00

Check out PP 2/3 of the Barbados Today April 2nd edition to learn more about Bajans emigration.

http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/launch.aspx?referral=other&refresh=nB03X2t11K6g&PBID=87ad6005-1972-4d63-92b0-8927eda53c7a&skip=

McClean’s words ‘reckless’

2011-03-30T04:42:00.000-07:00

BY TIM SLINGER | WED, MARCH 30, 2011 - 12:03 AM

MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS and Foreign Trade Senator Maxine McClean has come under fire for her handling of the incident involving a 22-year-old Jamaican woman, who claimed she was finger-searched before being denied entry into Barbados two weekends ago.

Jamaica’s Public Defender Earl Witter described McClean’s remarks that Shanique Myrie’s claims were baseless and untrue as injurious and reckless, adding that it had contributed significantly to the deteriorating relations between the two countries.

“I consider [McClean’s] remarks were injurious when she pronounced Myrie’s allegations a total fabrication. [McClean] was making definitive judgement as was reported to her by Barbadian functionaries.

“[McClean] should have heard evidence of both sides before making judgement that Myrie’s story was a fabrication,” Witter told the DAILY NATION from his office in Kingston yesterday.

Noting he sensed “a motion of hostility” while McClean was issuing her statement on the issue, Witter said she was also contemptuous when she referred to a diplomatic note sent from Jamaica to the Barbados Government as a “piece of correspondence”.“It smacks of contempt and to label it (diplomatic note) that way is to demean diplomatic correspondence at the highest level.

“It disturbs me,” he added.

Witter, who has been mandated by the Jamaican government to look into the matter, said he had made a request to Ombudsman Valton Bend to independently investigate the matter and report his findings.

But he noted that might not now be possible since Bend might find himself in an awkward position, given the stance of the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Witter said that based on the current atmosphere the incident had triggered, the court could be the best recourse to settle the issue.

“I don’t think it can be resolved in any other way. All the alleged actors can be subjected to cross-examination.

“The relations between the two countries are in a very unhappy state,” he added.

Barbados could be hauled before the International Court of Human Rights

2011-03-30T04:17:00.000-07:00

BY SANKA PRICE | WED, MARCH 30, 2011 - 12:04 AM

THE BARBADOS Government will be hauled before the International Court of Human Rights, if need be, to ensure Jamaican Shanique Myrie gets justice for the trauma she reportedly suffered at the hands of airport officials.

Myrie’s attorney, Anthony Hylton, pledged this yesterday saying he wanted to ensure she was vindicated in her claims of being finger-raped on March 14 after her arrival at the Grantley Adams International Airport before being denied entry.

“It did happen, and we will prove it,” said Hylton, a former Jamaican minister of foreign affairs. “We know the hurdles in the law and we will get around it.

“We are aware that the police are who did it,” he said in a telephone interview from his New Kingston office.

He, however, declined to speak further on this accusation. Myrie had said she was cavity searched by a female immigration officer.

When the MIDWEEK NATION reached Myrie yesterday, she referred questions to her attorney.The glum sounding 23-year-old did say: “I am very depressed at the moment.”

The issue is expected to be raised today at a meeting of the Caribbean Community Council.

Read full article here.

Jamaican delegation to head to Barbados this week

2011-03-29T08:20:00.000-07:00

The Foreign Affairs ministry says a high level delegation is to travel to Barbados this week to have discussions with officials in that country regarding allegations of abuse of a Jamaican at an airport there.

There has been much public outcry since Shanique Myrie, reported that on a visit to Barbados on March 14 she was subjected to two demeaning cavity searches by a female immigration officer and was detained for hours for interrogation.

She also said the immigration officer made several derogatory remarks about Jamaicans.

The Ministry says it has sought to address her case through diplomatic channels but has received no response to a diplomatic note faxed on March 25.

However, it says Foreign Affairs Minister, Dr. Ken Baugh, received an email from his Barbadian colleague outlining the text of a press release from the Barbados Government Information Service on March 26.

The report has refuted Myrie’s claim of abuse.

The Foreign affairs minister also received information showing that for the three-year period from 2008 to 2010 about 851 of the more than 51,000 Jamaicans who sought to enter Barbados were denied entry.

Read full article here.

Jamaica group to study airport abuse claims

2011-03-29T08:17:00.000-07:00

TUE, MARCH 29, 2011 - 12:06 AM The Barbados Nation News

The Jamaica Association is still to take a position on reports that a Jamaican woman was verbally and sexually abused at the Grantley Adams International Airport.

President Peter Kerr told the DAILY NATION yesterday that the association had not yet come to a position on the matter, but Jamaicans were “feeling aggrieved” at reports of an inappropriate search by Immigration officials of Shanique Myrie on March 14.

He said the association would be looking to obtain from the various parties involved reports that would be reviewed at an upcoming executive meeting.

The association’s executive would make a determination on whether there was need to get the general membership involved in the matter, he reported.

Ever since the story broke in the Jamaica Observer newspaper, people have been airing views in the Press and the other media.

Authorities launched an investigation into the matter and last Saturday Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Senator Maxine McClean told the Press there was no truth to the allegations.

McClean made it “absolutely clear that a thorough investigation had been carried out by the Immigration and Customs departments into reports that had been carried in the Jamaican Press suggesting that Shanique Samantha Myrie had been finger-raped by Immigration officers after she arrived on Barbadian soil”.

Following the announcement by McClean, Jamaica’s Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Minister Ken Baugh said he would be raising the issue at the impending CARICOM Council meeting in Belize.

Baugh also encouraged Jamaicans to inform the government of any unfair treatment they experienced while overseas.

Jamaica’s National Security Minister Dwight Nelson also expressed strong views on the matter and wrote a letter to Public Defender Earl Witter, urging him to intervene. (YB/TS)

Caricom must deal with free movement

2011-03-29T08:10:00.000-07:00

TUE, MARCH 29, 2011 - 11:00 AM

Prominent Caribbean academic and political scientist, Professor Neville Duncan, is calling on Caribbean Community (CARICOM) governments to make a definitive statement on the issue of free movement within the region.

His statement follows the decision of the Jamaica government to take claims of by one of its nationals that she was sexually and verbally abused by Barbadian customs and immigration officials to the meeting of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Council meeting this week.

In addition, the National Security Minister, Dwight Nelson, has written to Public Defender, Earl Witter, asking him to intervene in the issue after the woman, Shanquie Myrie, claimed she had been subjected to sexual and verbal abuse at the hands of the authorities at the Grantley Adams International airport last week.

But Parliamentary Secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office, Harry Husbands, who has responsibility for Immigration, said there was no record of Myrie being searched by either immigration or customs officers and that a full statement would be issued after more investigations.

Read full article here.

Finger-rape claim untrue

2011-03-28T05:52:00.000-07:00

BY CHRIS GOLLOP | SUN, MARCH 27, 2011 - 12:03 AM

THERE IS NO TRUTH to a report by a Jamaican woman who claimed she was finger-searched before being denied entry into Barbados last week.

Government is however planning a high-level meeting with the Jamaican High Commissioner to Trinidad to try to prevent any major fallout between the two countries as a result of the media hype surrounding the incident.

At a Press conference yesterday, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Senator Maxine McClean made it “absolutely clear that a thorough investigation had been carried out by the Immigration and Customs departments into a report that had been carried in the Jamaican Press suggesting that Shanique Samantha Myrie had been finger-raped by Immigration officers after she arrived on Barbadian soil on March 14”.

The story made headlines in Jamaica, and McClean confirmed to reporters attending the briefing at Government Headquarters that Jamaica’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Ken Baugh had written to her seeking an urgent investigation into the matter.

After three days of investigations, however, McClean told reporters:“There is absolutely no truth to a story carried in a Jamaican newspaper on Thursday, March 24, that a female citizen of that country was body-searched by Immigration officers on arrival at the Grantley Adams International Airport.”

In a prepared statement, she added: “Chief Immigration Officer Ms Erine Griffith has refuted this allegation made in the Jamaica Observer. She has confirmed that her department and Customs ‘have carried out extensive investigations and the claims were baseless’.”

Read full article here.

Jamaican Myrie plans to sue

2011-03-28T05:40:00.000-07:00

SUN, MARCH 27, 2011 - 3:00 PM

Shanique Myrie, the Jamaican woman who complained of being finger-raped and humiliated by Barbados immigration authorities earlier this month, has hit back at claims by the Barbados Government that she was not subjected to a body cavity search.

On Friday, Parliamentary Secretary in the Prime Minister’s office, with responsibility for Immigration, Senator Harry Husbands claimed there was no record of Myrie being searched by either immigration or customs officers and alleged that the Jamaican was a victim of human trafficking.

“Shanique Myrie, on arrival in Barbados, claimed she would have been staying with a female resident, but a closer investigation however revealed she was actually staying with a Barbadian man who actually facilitates the entry of non-nationals into the island,” Husbands was quoted in the online edition of Nation News as saying.

“I am going to sue them,” she said yesterday and contradicted Husbands’ statements.

She insisted that she was “defiled” by the Barbadian authorities at the Grantley Adams International Airport on March 14.

“I am not lying. They humiliated me and searched me like I was an animal. They can carry me back to the Barbados airport and I can show you every room they took me into. I can identify the woman who defiled me. They are the ones who are lying,” she told the Sunday Observer.

In her interview published in the Daily Observer on March 24, Myrie said: “The lady took me into a bathroom and told me to take off my clothes. I did as requested. After searching me and my clothes, she found no contraband or narcotics. She then asked me to bend over, open my legs and spread [my private parts]. She said that if I did not comply then she would see that I end up in prison in Barbados. When I bent over and spread my [private parts] I felt something enter my [private parts] and when I looked between my legs I saw her gloved hand in my [private parts]. I screamed and stood up.

“She then told me if I obstructed her doing a cavity search she would have me locked up. I bent over again and spread. She again inserted her fingers and poked around. I felt like I was being raped. I was so hurt and ashamed. I felt dirty and defiled, I don’t even know if the gloves she used was clean or had been used on somebody else,” she said.

Myrie, who said the immigration officer removed her identification tag before humiliating her, also said the immigration officer expressed her hatred for Jamaicans.

Read full article here.

Taking it to CARICOM!

2011-03-28T05:13:00.000-07:00

MON, MARCH 28, 2011 - 12:03 AM

KINGSTON – The Jamaica government says it will take the claims by one of its nationals that she was sexually and verbally abused by Barbadian customs and immigration officials to the meeting of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Council meeting this week.

Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Minister Dr Ken Baugh says the matter will be raised at the Council meeting, which is CARICOM’s second highest decision-making body.

“This is something that we have discussed . . . It is not necessarily Barbados but in the Caribbean. It’s a very topical issue at all our meetings at COTED (Council for Trade and Economic Development) as well as COFCOR (Council on Foreign and Community Relations), and I’m going to raise this at the Community Council meeting in Belize next week,” said Dr Baugh.

National Security Minister Dwight Nelson on Friday wrote to Public Defender Earl Witter asking him to intervene in the issue after the woman, Shanique Myrie, claimed she had been subjected to sexual and verbal abuse at the hands of the authorities at the Grantley Adams International Airport.

Nelson expressed outrage at the incident, noting that he was awaiting word from Baugh about discussions he was seeking with his Barbadian counterpart.

Baugh said he was encouraging Jamaicans to inform the government of any unfair treatment they experienced while overseas.

“People need to give us the information. They can call the ministry, write a report and send the information to us. I’ve asked my permanent secretary to document all the information so that when I go to the Community Council meeting next week I can give documentary reports,” Baugh added.

Meanwhile, the foreign affairs minister is refuting reports that Marlon Gordon, Jamaican’s honorary consul to Barbados, was removed because of his staunch defence of Jamaicans in Barbados.

A report in Friday’s Jamaica Observer newspaper quoted Gordon as saying that he resigned in January because the Barbados Government was not receptiveto his complaints.

But Baugh, speaking on a radio programme here, said: “That story is not in harmony with what I understand.

“We appointed him to be our honorary consul in Barbados and he was not approved and when we inquired, we learnt the reason why and there were other reasons which I will not go into. I read the article in the Observer and it had nothing to do with that at all. There were other reasons,” he said. (CMC)

The Bocas Lit Fest

2011-03-27T18:16:00.000-07:00

The Bocas Lit Fest, based in Trinidad and Tobago, is an annual celebration of books, writing, and writers. Launching in April 2011, the Bocas Lit Fest is an exciting new addition to the Caribbean’s literary calendar. The centrepiece of the festival will be the award ceremony for the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, a major new award for Caribbean writers of poetry, fiction, and literary non-fiction.

Boca is the Spanish word for mouth — the organ of speech and song and storytelling. And the Bocas del Dragón — the Dragon’s Mouths — are the narrow straits off Trinidad’s northwest peninsula, which connect the sheltered Gulf of Paria to the open Caribbean Sea. For centuries, the Bocas were the gateways connecting Trinidad to the Caribbean and the Atlantic. The Bocas Lit Fest invites readers from around the world to enter through the Dragon’s Mouths and celebrate with us the rich literary heritage of Trinidad and Tobago and the wider Caribbean.

The OCM Bocas Debate: first in an annual series of a high-level discussions of burning public-interest topics. This year’s subject: “Press vs. Government: the freedom to print what?”

Visit the official website for the full schedule at: http://www.bocaslitfest.com/schedule.html

BBC Caribbean Service makes final broadcast

2011-03-27T18:13:00.000-07:00

The BBC Caribbean Service has made its final broadcast, ending seven decades of programming for the region.

The service is being shut as part of budget cuts announced by the BBC World Service in January.

BBC managers say they have had to make tough choices because of a 16% cut in UK government funding.

But one critic called it a short-sighted decision, showing the BBC did not understand the complexities of the region.

The Macedonian, Albanian, Serbian and Portuguese for Africa services have also been closed in a bid to to save $75m (£46m) a year.

Seven other language services have moved away from radio to focus on online, mobile and television content.

These include Spanish for Latin America which last month ended its remaining radio broadcasts, on short-wave and intended mainly for Cuba.

This week, members of the Caribbean Service team have each presented a final programme, including material from the BBC archives.

Copies of the sound and text content of the service's radio and online output are being donated to the University of the West Indies, which will have a team working at the BBC's Bush House base to catalogue the material.

Regional voice?
E-mails to the Caribbean Service overwhelmingly voiced sadness at its closure.

"It filled a great need for the Caribbean audience to have a view of the world not provided by local radio stations," wrote Jacqueline Sharpe in Trinidad and Tobago.

Regional media commentators have said the demise of the BBC Caribbean Service should spur renewed efforts to create a pan-Caribbean news network.

Read full article here.

Jamaicans abused at Barbados airport

2011-03-24T19:10:00.000-07:00

Several Jamaicans who were recently denied entry into Barbados in separate incidents are furious with Barbadian immigration officers after they said they were discriminated against, sexually violated, assaulted, detained, and denied entry for the sole reason that they are Jamaicans.

The complainants also say they were labelled as drug mules as the immigration officers reportedly stereotyped all Jamaicans as being involved in drug trafficking.

One woman, Shanique Myrie, recounted her horror to THE STAR which took place last Monday.

"All you Jamaicans come here to do is either steal people's man or bring drugs here," Myrie said she was told by an immigration officer.

She added that after she arrived in Barbados she told immigration officers that her purpose for visiting was to stay with a friend who she met over the Internet but they did not believe her.

She said that she was immediately escorted to a room where she was questioned by two unidentified persons who continued to accuse her of lying about her reasons for visiting Barbados.

Interestingly, she emphasised that even after she gave them all the contact details for the person she was visiting and her story was verified, immigration officers continued to intimidate her, accused her of being a liar and began degrading all Jamaicans.

strip searched

She said that her luggage was searched for contraband and even when nothing illegal was found, the intimidation continued.

According to Myrie, at one stage she was escorted into a room, where the unidentified man returned with her passport in his hand, showing her that she was cleared to enter Barbados but her entry would be cancelled if she did not tell them the truth.

She maintained her innocence and was then escorted to the bathroom area where she was strip searched, "I felt like I was being raped," Myrie recounted.

Myrie said she was then returned to the room and it was then that the female immigration officer who searched her allegedly told Myrie that, "You are a liar, I don't like you Jamaicans, you are all liars. You think you're going to come here and (mess) up my country. It's not going to happen."

Myrie said she later asked if she could make a call to Jamaica to inform her family of what was taking place, but she was not allowed to do so.

Afterwards, Myrie said she asked if she could contact the Jamaican High Commission but was told by another immigration officer that, "If you know what is good for you, you will shut your mouth,".

Read full article here.

Finger-raped in Barbados

2011-03-24T18:51:00.000-07:00

ALLEGATIONS by a Jamaican woman that she was finger-raped by an immigration officer before being thrown out of Barbados, have brought the spotlight on poor treatment of Jamaicans visiting that eastern Caribbean island.
Shanique Myrie complained bitterly to the Observer yesterday that when she attempted to enter Barbados on March 14, 2011, she was subjected to two demeaning cavity searches by a female immigration officer who continuously spewed venom about Jamaicans. It was her first trip out of the island.

Myrie's story was corroborated by former Jamaican honorary consul to Barbados, Marlon Gordon.
Gordon, an attorney, said even though some Jamaicans do enter Barbados and get involved in nefarious activities, that was no excuse for wholesale discrimination against Jamaica nationals.
"This arbitrary kind of behaviour that is being exhibited by the Government in Barbados has to be looked at. You can't penalise an entire nation," Gordon said.
Jamaican Jaydene Thomas, a former journalist and now a practising attorney in Barbados, said the Jamaican foreign ministry had for too long ignored the cries of Jamaicans who suffered at the hands of Barbadians when they visited that island.
"Every time that a flight arrives from Jamaica, the nothing-to-declare line is automatically closed, she said. "We are treated like criminals by the authorities."
Myrie, in relating her story to the Observer said: "The lady took me into a bathroom and told me to take off my clothes. I did as requested. After searching me and my clothes she found no contraband or narcotics. She then asked me to bend over, open my legs and spread (my private parts). She said that if I did not comply then she would see that I end up in prison in Barbados.

Read full article here.

Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/Finger-raped-in-Barbados_8573453#ixzz1HZX5AQAX

Tighter rules for UK student visas

2011-03-24T09:48:00.000-07:00

By Sean Coughlan
BBC News education correspondent

Theresa May: "We will toughen up the entry requirements"

The rules for student visas into the UK are to be much tougher - after fears that this route of entry is being used dishonestly.

Home Secretary Theresa May said student visas were being abused and "too many were here to work and not to study".

She announced plans to cut the number of student visas by up to 80,000 - about a quarter of the current numbers.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper warned that rules must not damage an industry worth £5bn a year.

Mrs May told the House of Commons that the misuse of student visas had become a "symbol of a broken and abused immigration system".

Language rules
Tightening rules to stop false applications would be "in the best interests of legitimate students," she said.

The tougher rules will include a requirement for students to be able to speak English.

Mrs May said she wanted to end the situation where would-be students arrived at UK airports unable to even describe the courses they were about to begin.

There will also be tighter regulations on allowing the dependents of students to join them in the UK - and less flexibility in the number of years that overseas students can spend in the UK after courses are finished.

In response to concerns that students visas are being misused by economic migrants, there will be limits on the hours of paid work which overseas students will be allowed to carry out.

Universities had previously expressed fears about the loss of overseas students from tighter visa rules - but Universities UK said that their concerns had been taken into account.

Students at the University of Surrey discuss speaking English and studying
Many of the restrictions are targeted at students in private colleges - rather than universities.

Language colleges and providers of pre-university entry courses had warned of the damage to their businesses if visa rules make it difficult for legitimate students to enter the UK.

But Mrs May told MPs that such "pathway" courses into universities would be protected, if universities acted as sponsors to students.

Read full story here.

The multiculturalism the European right fears so much is a fiction – it never existed

2011-03-16T04:21:00.000-07:00

On 12 March 1983 A Sivanandan, one of the sharpest minds on the British left, gave a talk at the Greater London Council Ethnic Minorities Unit Consultation on Challenging Racism. "I come as a heretic, as a disbeliever in the efficacy of ethnic policies and programmes to alter, by one iota, the monumental and endemic racism of this society. There is nothing wrong with multiracial or multicultural education as such … But [it] has become the vogue … Government monies for pluralist ploys – the development of a parallel power structure for black people, separate development, Bantustans – a strategy to keep race issues from contaminating class issues."

The left has long had a critique of multiculturalism. While Tories were still arguing for Nelson Mandela's imprisonment, there were progressive voices debating its inadequacies, limitations and potential. The notion that those who attack it today, in Britain or elsewhere, are slaughtering a holy cow is laughable.

But Sivanandan was contesting something definite, whereas the target of the more recent onslaught is vague. Over the last decade multiculturalism, like political correctness, has come to mean whatever its opponents want it to, so long as they don't like it. Usually, the policies and dilemmas referred to are difficult to fathom or entirely invented. Ill-defined, the term is much-maligned – a lightning rod for the majoritarian impulses, cultural anxieties, economic insecurities and nationalist mythologies of the 21st century. Its contemporary critics keep telling multiculturalism's supporters to admit it has failed, without identifying what "it" is and who ever supported the lampooned version they present.

In this debate there are two types of multiculturalism: one rooted in fact, the other in fiction. The multiculturalism of fact is the lived experience of most people in Europe and the world. Cultures are dynamic, and emerge organically from communities. None exist in isolation or remain static. So the presence of a range of cultures in Britain or anywhere else is not novel, but the norm.

Read full article here.

New migrant boat lands in Italy from Tunisia

2011-03-03T18:06:00.000-08:00

A boat carrying 347 illegal migrants from Tunisia has reached Italy, raising fears of a new wave of crossings after a week of bad weather.

The fishing boat brought the migrants to the tiny island of Lampedusa, less than 160km (100 miles) across the Mediterranean from the Tunisian coast.

Thousands have arrived since mid-February, amid unrest in Tunisia.

Italy's Interior Minister, Roberto Maroni, said there were fears of illegal migration from Libya too.

There were, he said, 1.5 million illegal migrants inside Libya.

"They are now fleeing to the west [Tunisia] and to the east [Egypt] but I expect in the future they could also head north [towards Italy]," he told parliament.

Mr Maroni, a member of the anti-immigration Northern League, warned of a "catastrophic humanitarian emergency" when he met fellow EU interior ministers in Brussels last week.

Other EU officials said Rome was over-reacting to the crisis across the Mediterranean.

Read full article here.

CARICOM's puzzling secrecy By Rickey Singh

2011-02-23T07:59:00.000-08:00

WEDNESDAY, 02 FEBRUARY 2011 05:57 TRINIDAD EXPRESS

AS Trinidad and Tobago awaits the coming broadcast to the nation by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar on new initiatives to curb the epidemic of criminality, I wish to focus on a regional issue of much concern at this time to our Caribbean Community (Caricom):It pertains to the evident secrecy over the official "search'' to select an appropriate candidate for appointment a new Secretary General of Caricom to succeed Edwin Carrington
The 72-year-old Tobago-born Carrington, a former secretary general of the African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of states, retired last year after faithfully serving in that post for 18 years.

It is the norm for regional, hemispheric and international organisations, such as the United Nations, Organisation of American States, Commonwealth Secretariat and Pan-American Health Organisation, to indicate efforts to fill vacancies in their top posts and even provide names of nominees, as endorsed by their respective governments.

This is not happening in Caricom where a ten-member search committee, under the chairmanship of Barbados' Foreign Minister Senator Maxine McLean was mandated by Community Heads of Government last August to help in short-listing potential suitable candidates for the post of Secretary General.

The committee was established shortly after Carrington had officially announced on August 4, 2010, his decision to retire last year end after serving as Secretary General for 18 years.

His surprised announcement had followed a special caucus of Heads of Government at last July's Caricom Summit in Montego Bay. But host Prime Minister Bruce Golding, had denied that Carrington may have been provoked into making that decision as a consequence of the nature of the deliberations at the Montego Bay caucus.

Neither information on specific terms of reference to guide the work of the search committee nor qualification criteria required of potential candidates was forthcoming.

Beyond, that is, a bland press announcement which followed a meeting that was scheduled to deal with the broader and very pressing, but elusive issue of improved governance of an almost 34-year-old Caricom.

Read full article here.

Migrant farm workers stage wildcat strike to demand thousands of dollars in unpaid wages: Employer responds with deportation

2011-02-23T06:53:00.000-08:00

Although this wild cat strike by migrant workers took place last November in Canada, I have decided to post it because the site is a useful reference. Over the next few weeks here in Barbados, the government will be discussing the Green/White papers on proposals for legislative reform to the Immigration Policy and Guest Worker programmes are discussed in the paper.

November 23, 2010

(Simcoe, Ontario) Over a 100 migrant farm workers employed at Ghesquiere Plants Ltd. are facing imminent repatriation (deportation) after staging a wildcat strike to demanding thousands of dollars in unpaid wages.

The migrant workers from Mexico, Jamaica, Trinidad and Barbados came together across racial, linguistic and ethnic lines to organize this wild cat strike and strengthen their collective power. The workers employed by this farm described numerous rights violations and complaints about their living conditions including the following:

- Workers are each owed from $1000 to $6000 in unpaid wages
- Workers are to be evicted and will be homeless as of Thursday, November 25th, 2010
- Most of the Mexican and Trinidadian workers will be repatriated by this Thursday. All Jamaican workers have been repatriated
- Electricity and heat has been cut off in one bunk
- Deplorable and very crowed living conditions

Read rest of article here.

Some thoughts on the migrant experience from a Canadian-Guyanese in Toronto

2011-02-19T10:27:00.000-08:00

By Kevin de Silva for In the Diaspora

This piece is a response to an article, “Canadian Guyanese longs to come home” that appeared in the January 30th edition of Stabroek News. It isn’t meant to be read as a criticism of this article, which enumerates the benefits of the Canadian experience for the Guyanese diaspora. Canada as a place for wealth and opportunity is a strong enough theme in both popular talk and I would argue, even seeps into the Caribbean unconscious. Yet such a belief is rarely coupled with a different, more pragmatic understanding of the situation for Guyanese people in Canada. Whenever confronting a picture the key is to not see in two toned terms or in overblown colour, nor to focus on one isolated dynamic. The point is clarity, and a broader analysis, simply for the sake of honesty.
——
In the land of plenty, mega-supermarket temples dot the landscape with shelves full of food; items ranging from watches and furniture to toothpaste and shoes, all found of course, in one convenient location. The somewhat religious fervor of those who frequent these resource depots, as well as the cold and almost robotic activity found inside, is something still foreign to me, a person born and raised among them.
“Gyal, mi a come in las’ week and di soup a $2.09, mi come today an it $2.49. You people a lie.” An elderly Guyanese man, possibly in his 60’s, was scolding a sales representative about the store and his soup. The lady, who also was from the Caribbean answered calmly: “Sir we probably had a sale last week that’s over now.” The man snapped back, unconvinced by her explanation: “No, no, no. I un wan hear dat. Y’all people a lie and di aisle dem not even clean, everyting a mix-up, mix-up…”

Read full article here.

Barbados concerned about human trafficking

2011-02-19T10:20:00.000-08:00

(Barbados Nation) Human trafficking appears to have found a place in Barbados. And yesterday during debate on the Transnational Organised Crime (Prevention and Control) Bill, 2011, both Government and Opposition spokespersons were in unison on its likely existence in the island and the need for a holistic approach to stop it.

Leader of Government Business Senator Maxine McClean and principal Opposition spokesperson in the Upper Chamber, Senator Kerrie Symmonds, gave accounts of situations involving women, which fell within the perimeters of human trafficking.

McClean referred to the Ghanaian nationals who were left stranded in Barbados two years ago and indicated that some of the females in the group were reportedly engaged in acts of prostitution almost immediately after arriving and subsequently disappearing on the island.

She noted many of them had come to Barbados based on promises of employment and a better life. She added it was clearly a situation where the Africans were exploited.

Read full article here.

EU Faces Challenge Of A Widening Wave Of Migrants by SYLVIA POGGIOLI

2011-02-16T15:43:00.000-08:00

The uprisings in North African countries are creating newly freed societies, but it they are also triggering an exodus of people hoping to find greater stability and better employment in Europe.

In just a few days, 5,000 Tunisians have landed on Lampedusa, a small Italian island in the Mediterranean that normally has a population of just 6,000. The onslaught is challenging Italy and the rest of Europe to cope with this new migratory wave.

Lampedusa is a tiny flat island dotted with prickly pear cactus and sandy beaches.

It's closer to Africa than to the Italian mainland, and over the last decade it has become accustomed to receiving waves of boat people seeking better lives in Europe.

The latest to arrive are mostly young men.

Chakar Awadi, 28, says all he's seeking is freedom and honest work, either here or in France or Belgium. The sea passage was very dangerous, he says, with 75 people packed into a rickety boat for three days at sea.

When asked what he'll do if Italian authorities send him back home, he says he'll hang himself.

Read full article here.

Barbadian Migration to Brazil in the Early 20th Century

2011-02-16T09:14:00.000-08:00

Andrea Levy speaks about "A Small Island"

2011-02-01T03:17:00.000-08:00

Guardian book club podcast: Andrea Levy
The writer explains how Small Island was driven by a wish to write about her parents' experience as immigrants, and that of the white British who met them.

Andrea Levy explains to the book club that the motivation driving Small Island was a wish to better understand both her parents' generation – her father being among the generation of West Indians who arrived in England on the Empire Windrush – and the experience of the white English getting used to their new neighbours.

She says that during the research for the book, she was very struck by the differences between the reception met in wartime Britain by black American and Caribbean soldiers: how the former, living in segregated barracks, were met with immediate hostility; while the Caribbeans only began to encounter discrimination in the late 40s as the Windrush generation settled in England.

The novelist also talks about Small Island's structure, which moves backwards and forwards in time around the pivot of 1948 (and how only American reviewers were able to get the hang of this). The structure, she explains, was only constructed after she had finished writing the book, weaving together bits of the story written at different times. The title itself, she says, was something she only found after the novel was completed.

The craft of writing, meanwhile, she says was a skill she learnt from watching TV rather than reading books.

Access the Guardian podcast here.

CARIGONE AND CARICOM

2011-01-24T03:24:00.000-08:00

Earlier this year one of David Jessop's weekly contributions was entitled "Does the CSME have a future". My contention is that whereas "CSM" is alive and well with potential for significant refinement and growth to benefit of the people, the "E" did not have a chance of emerging any greater than that of a snow ball surviving in hell.

My reasoning is that for the "E" to survive each member state of the Caribbean Community would have to give up a measure of "policy" space to a supranational regional entity in order for this entity to have any meaningful clout as a true representative of all of the member states of the Caribbean Community. I further conclude that this is unlikely to happen in my lifetime or in my children's lifetime.

CARICOM States have demonstrated time and time again throughout the history of the Caribbean Community that they are quite capable of agreeing on several regional issues. Yet, when they return to the reality of their domestic environment they do what is politically expedient in the domestic setting in the interest of their political survival. This may be seen as the cause of "Implementation Deficit Disorder" from a regional perspective, even though it can undoubtedly be justified from a domestic viewpoint.

Read full article here.

Anti-Immigrant Hate Crimes Rise with Hateful Political Speech

2011-01-21T04:41:00.000-08:00

by Catherine A. Traywick, Media Consortium blogger

The federal trial of three Pennsylvania police officers accused of covering up the murder of an undocumented Mexican immigrant opened last week—reigniting critical discussion about the recent rise of anti-immigrant hate crimes. The officers—former Shenandoah Police Chief Matthew Nestor, Lt. William Moyer and Patrolman Jason Hayes—allegedly attempted to conceal the racially motivated nature of the 2008 murder of 25-year-old Luis Ramirez, who was brutally beaten to death in a park by a group of teenagers spouting racial slurs. At the time, Ramirez’s murder underscored a growing trend of anti-Hispanic violence in the U.S., which some attribute to increasingly anti-immigrant political rhetoric.

In recent years, hate crimes against Latinos have increased by 52 percent, a steep rise that Alternet’s Arun Gupta attributes to incessant "right-wing vituperation" and "caustic rhetoric." In Arizona, where anti-immigrant sentiment has fomented into a bevy of retrogressive and prejudicial state policies, the number of reported hate crimes rose from 161 in 2007 to 219 in 2009. Tellingly, the recent rise in anti-Latino hate crimes runs counter to an overall decrease in reported hate crimes nationwide.

Read full article here.

Owen Scolded

2011-01-18T05:15:00.000-08:00

PRIME MINISTERS Stephenson King of St Lucia and Ralph Gonsalves of St Vincent and the Grenadines have chided Opposition Leader Owen Arthur for attacks on Mara Thompson’s candidature in the January 20 St John by-election.

Thompson, a St Lucian-born Barbadian citizen, and widow of late Prime Minister David Thompson, has come under fire on the Barbados Labour Party’s (BLP) political platform, with her participation in next Thursday’s poll being questioned.

Last Sunday at College Bottom, St John, Arthur said there was no Barbadian woman who could be the wife of a St Lucian politician and run in St Lucia on the grounds that she was running to be the “queen”.

Read full article here

Owen chided for nationalist sentiments

2011-01-13T16:09:00.000-08:00

Owen Arthur's commitment to Caribbean integration came under scrutiny last night as the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) defended its decision to nominate St Lucian born Mara Thompson as the candidate for the Jan 20 by-election in St John.

Prime Minister Freundel Stuart, Finance Minister Chris Sinckler and the candidate herself, all questioned the commitment of the former prime minister to the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) as the DLP pitched tent in Coach Hill, St John.

Read full article here.

Nationality, a platform issue

2011-01-13T12:56:00.000-08:00

The issue of nationality has now developed as one of the hot topics in next Thursday’s by-election in St John.

Former Prime Minister and leader of the Opposition Owen Arthur, as well as some members of the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) have raised the issue of Mara Thompson, the Democratic Labour Party candidate being St Lucian and contesting the St John seat.

Read full article here.

Stories, in Between -an exhibition at the International Contemporary Art Foundation, Norway

2011-01-13T11:35:00.000-08:00

Stories, in Between features artists whose practices trace and unpack complex cultural identities impacted by diasporas. Based primarily in the Western hemisphere, these artists problematize and negotiate cultural and geographic associations of their personal identities as well as that of their work. The exhibition includes recent and new works by Loulou Cherinet, Patricia Esquivias, Brendan Fernandes, Tamar Guimarães, Will Kwan, Runo Lagomarsino, and Maya Økland. The artists share a desire to address the multifaceted implications of migration and globalization in relation to their various practices and positions.

For more information on this exhibition visit http://www.stiftelsen314.com/Stiftelsen314/Exhibition.htm

Is there a link between immigration tensions and the Arizona shooting?

2011-01-11T04:23:00.000-08:00

International Action Center statement on the Arizona shootings and the attempted assassination of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords
Joint statement from Tucson and New York City offices of the IAC

January 9, 2011

The Jan. 8 shooting of Arizona Congressperson Gabrielle Giffords should rightfully be termed a political assassination attempt. The planned murder attempt, which took the lives of six people, including a 9-year-old child, takes place in a political climate of extreme racism, anti-immigrant terror, and fear-mongering that the right-wing, their politicians and pundits have been stoking for more than a decade.

It is part of the calculation of the ruling elite in this country to fan the flames of division, racism, and reactionary thinking in order to divert people’s attention from the economic crisis. The attempt on the life of a member of Congress is a direct by-product of the economic crisis.

The infamous Sheriff Joe Arpaio, anti-immigrant law SB1070, the outlawing of Ethnic Studies programs in public schools, the escalating militarization of the border -- this is what laid the basis for the events of Jan. 8. “Hate radio” talk-show hosts, like Tucson’s Jon Justice, along with nationally known bigots like Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage and Glenn Beck, in their on-air rants continually use language encouraging violent acts.

The assassination attempt is also directly related to the policy of border militarization. “These senseless deaths are the result of a border policy that has been building since 1994,” stated Isabel Garcia, an immigrant rights activist and community leader with Coalicion de Derechos Humanos in Tucson. “This has propelled the growth of fear, hate and violence. Over 5,000 migrant deaths, shootings and continuing violence are a direct result of this policy.”

Read full article here.

CARICOM or Cari-gone?

2011-01-10T03:51:00.000-08:00

Caricom or Cari-gone?
By Ronald Sanders
Story Created: Jan 9, 2011 at 10:48 PM ECT
Story Updated: Jan 9, 2011 at 10:48 PM ECT
THE new year started with a great deal of frustration being publicly expressed over the Caribbean regional integration project which, this year, will have been in construction for 43 years. Other integration efforts, such as the European Union (EU), which began after the Caribbean Community and Common Market (Caricom), have moved ahead much faster and much more effectively for the benefit of the people of their member countries.
It is therefore understandable that, in an editorial, one of the Caribbean's oldest newspapers observed that a majority of people believe that "any official attempt to unite the region as envisaged in the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME) is nothing but reverie and doomed to failure''.
To be fair, the editorial did not trumpet this observation with glee or satisfaction. It said that "as we enter the second decade of this century, we hold fast, nevertheless, to the idea of one region''.
So, on the one hand, this editorial, reflecting the views of many, still believes in the notion of a deeply integrated Caribbean — "one region'', but it expresses no faith that we will see a CSME anytime soon. The editorial identified four contemporary reasons for its lack of faith in any "official'' attempt to unite the region.

Read full article here.

Sex Tourism and Trafficking: Not one and the same

2011-01-10T03:39:00.000-08:00

Megan Rivers-Moore did her doctoral work on sex tourism in Costa Rica. She is currently a research fellow at the Institute for Women and Gender Studies, University of Toronto

(This is one of a series of weekly columns from Guyanese in the diaspora and others with an interest in issues related to Guyana and the Caribbean)

By Megan Rivers-Moore

Latin America and the Caribbean are characterised by a long history of migration into, out of, and within the region. The Caribbean diaspora is surely one of the most significant in the world, marked by complex ties across nations and within families.

This is the case of those who would be included under the ‘free movement of skilled nationals’ provisions, as well as the working class and poor men, women, and children who move in search of survival and improved life chances. It is within this context of migration and diaspora that we must place discussions of trafficking, a much talked about but often poorly understood topic that is at the forefront of concerns about migration, labour, and sexuality.

A key problem in so many discussions of trafficking was reproduced in an October 15th article in the Stabroek News, titled ‘Sex tourism growing in favoured destinations in Caribbean’, namely, that sex tourism and trafficking are conflated, as if they were one and the same.

The Organisation of American States (OAS) co-ordinator of the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Unit in the Department of Public Security, Fernando Garcia-Robles, reportedly noted that several tourist destination countries in the Caribbean have a growing sex tourism industry, and acknowledged “concerns that the Free Movement of Skilled Nationals in Caricom could result in increased human trafficking.”

Read full article here.

Federal Judge, John Roll, killed in Arizona

2011-01-09T13:18:00.000-08:00

It was an event that represented American democracy at its finest – a Congresswoman making herself available on a street corner to anyone who wanted to raise concerns about local issues with her. But it left six dead and 12 wounded, among them several who had given their lives to public service.

The dead included John Roll, 63, the top federal judge for the state of Arizona, who had received many death threats since he was appointed by George Bush senior in 1991.

Two years ago he was given a 24-hour police guard amid a furore prompted by his decision to allow a group of illegal Mexican immigrants to bring a lawsuit against a rancher who had arrested them at gunpoint walking across his land.

Read full article here.

David Burgess, one of the most brilliant immigration lawyers of his generation, died in London, in October 2010

2011-01-09T13:13:00.000-08:00

On an autumn evening last October, a slight, pretty woman with a mass of curly hair fell underneath a tube train during rush hour at King's Cross underground station. The driver of the eastbound Piccadilly Line train applied the brakes as soon as he saw the woman lose her balance, but a whole carriage passed along the platform before the vehicle shuddered to a halt. It was shortly after 6.30pm on 25 October when the British Transport Police started trying to recover the body, a gruesome task that lasted late into the night.

The line was closed, the platform cleared. London's Underground network was severely disrupted as commuters struggled to make their way home. And yet, in the sprawling urban mass of the capital, many of those passengers – crushed against each other in scarves and coats, clutching their copies of the Evening Standard and adjusting their iPods – probably reflected that, depressing though it might be, a person throwing themselves in front of a tube train was not particularly out of the ordinary.

But all was not as it seemed. The ensuing media coverage revealed that the police suspected that the woman had not fallen but had been pushed by her 34-year-old female companion, who was later charged with murder. It then turned out that the woman who died, 63-year-old Sonia Burgess, was living a double life. Once the police had established her identity (from her railcard), it was discovered that Sonia was biologically a man – a man named David Burgess, one of the finest immigration lawyers of his generation, a man responsible for a succession of trailblazing judgments in the House of Lords and the European Court of Human Rights.

Read full article here.

African migrants drown in heavy seas off Yemen coast

2011-01-04T04:53:00.000-08:00

At least 43 African migrants trying to reach Yemen by boat have drowned in heavy seas off the coast, and a second boat with up to 40 Ethiopians aboard is missing, Yemen's interior ministry said today.

The ministry said three Somalis were rescued after a vessel carrying 46 people, mostly from Ethiopia, capsized.

"It's not known in which direction the wind took them, and their fate is unknown," the ministry's website quoted the Yemeni coastguard as saying of the missing vessel, which it said carried 35-40 Ethiopians including women and children.

Mass drownings have been frequent as many African migrants in unseaworthy boats try to reach Yemen, which they see as a gateway to wealthier parts of the Middle East and the west.

"The Gulf of Aden is still used by many migrants and asylum seekers trying to get to Yemen and then further on to Saudi Arabia," Jean-Philippe Chauzy, spokesman for the International Organisation for Migration, said.

www.guardian.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/03/african-migrants-drown-yemen

Greece plans Turkey border fence to tackle migration

2011-01-04T04:24:00.000-08:00

Greece has announced plans to build a 12km (eight-mile) fence along part of its border with Turkey to prevent illegal immigrants from crossing.

Public Order Minister Christos Papoutsis said more than 100,000 people had entered Greece illegally last year and Athens had a duty to act.

Greece has long complained to Turkey about border security.

But the European Commission said such fences were "short-term measures" which did not tackle the root of the problem.

The proposed fence would cover a short section of the Greece-Turkey border in the Orestiada area of north-eastern Greece.

The area has become the main route into Greece for migrants from Africa and Asia with an average of 245 people crossing illegally every day in October 2010, according to Frontex, the EU's border agency.

Read full article here.

Thousands of Caribbean nationals to benefit from new US immigration act

2010-12-22T05:12:00.000-08:00

Thousands of Caribbean nationals to benefit from new US immigration act
Published on December 10, 2010 Email To Friend Print Version

by Global News Staff

WASHINGTON, USA -- Thousands of Caribbean nationals stand to benefit from a Bill described as "Dream Act", which was passed in the House of Representatives in Washington on Wednesday.

The measure will provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants who came to the United States before age 16.

The Act was passed by 216-198 after sometimes heated debate.

A Reuters report stated that the legislation would provide legal residency to undocumented young people who graduate from high school, complete two years of college or military service and have no criminal record.

The measure is backed by President Barack Obama and Hispanic activists, who have been disappointed by Democrats' failure to deliver on Obama's promise of comprehensive immigration reform.

In a statement, Obama said, "This vote is not only the right thing to do for a group of talented young people who seek to serve a country they know as their own by continuing their education or serving in the military, but it is the right thing for the United States of America.”

The bill is opposed by Republicans, who slammed it as a "nightmare act".

For the source, see this link:
http://www.caribbeannewsnow.com/immigration.php?news_id=3904&start=0&category_id=47

Boat smashed on Australian cliff; 28 migrants die

2010-12-22T05:09:00.000-08:00

By KRISTEN GELINEAU and TANALEE SMITH, Associated Press – Wed Dec 15, 6:58 pm ET
SYDNEY – Australians on a high cliff watched helplessly Wednesday as a wooden boat smuggling as many as 100 would-be migrants was smashed against the jagged rocks by monstrous waves, dumping screaming men, women and children into the stormy surf. At least 28 people died and 44 were rescued.
The deaths off Christmas Island, a remote Australian territory, underscored the dangers faced by hundreds of refugees who have tried to sail from Indonesia to Australia in recent years — often in cramped, barely seaworthy boats — to start new lives after escaping from poor, war-ravaged countries.
Photos and video from witnesses showed the boat crashing into jagged rocks and breaking apart, as well as people floating in the water amid the wreckage. The boat was about 20 to 30 feet (6 to 9 meters) long, with a cabin covered by a sheet of fabric or plastic.
"When the boat hit the cliff, there was a sickening crack. All the people on board rushed to the land side, which is the worst thing they could do, but I don't think anybody could swim," island resident Simon Prince told The Associated Press.
"It was just horrible," he said. "People getting crushed. Bodies, dead children, the whole thing was pretty awful."
Some of those aboard were from Iraq, Home Minister Brendan O'Connor said from Christmas Island, which is closer to Indonesia than the Australian mainland.
In Canberra, Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said 28 people died and 44 have been rescued. Of those saved, 11 were children.

Read full article here.

Caricom boycott backlash

2010-12-08T05:04:00.000-08:00

T&T manufacturers fear losses...

By by Curtis Rampersad Business Editor
Story Created: Dec 1, 2010 at 12:41 AM ECT
Story Updated: Dec 1, 2010 at 12:41 AM ECT
Local manufacturers have complained their exports in Caricom countries faced product boycotts after Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar's statements on how Trinidad and Tobago would offer assistance following the destruction caused by Hurricane Tomas.
Philippe Agostini, executive chairman of Laventille oils producer CGA Ltd, said yesterday he received complaints from his agent in Jamaica after Persad-Bissessar said Trinidad and Tobago was willing to help Tomas-affected countries like St Lucia and Jamaica but it would have to benefit this country as well.
Agostini was making a point to Trade Minister Stephen Cadiz during a luncheon hosted by the Chamber of Commerce at its Westmoorings offices.

Read full article here.

Sabga: Diaspora 'sleeping giant'

2010-12-08T04:54:00.000-08:00

Chairman Emeritus of the ANSA McAL Group of Companies, Dr. Anthony N. Sabga says this country has a “sleeping giant” in the Diaspora as far as business and economic possibilities go, but he stressed that incentives and tax relief need to be strengthened as part of the encouragement package for people to return.

Dr. Sabga said that he has seen Guyanese in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States who could be encouraged to return home and invest provided there is a “safe and welcoming environment”. He posited that Guyana could reach its full potential if persons in the Diaspora with the expertise return home and contribute to this country’s development.

President offers citizenship for Chinese nationals in Guyana

2010-12-07T06:47:00.000-08:00

For many years it has been argued that Guyana needs a positive immigration policy that takes account of the stagnation in its population growth – a combination of heavy migration and a low birth rate. A low population density and vast open spaces suitable for settlement provide the opportunities for attracting migrants, or more feasibly, re-migrants. It also makes sense to try to boost population numbers as a larger internal economy is created and there is a greater growing of wealth. Had there not been the exodus of decades before, the population of Guyana today could easily have been over two million and providing the ignition for greater economic development. Today the population hovers around 740,000 with great concentration on the coastland and the sparsely populated interior.

It is unclear whether President Jagdeo was contemplating this conundrum when he met with Chinese nationals on Friday at the Chinese-built International Convention Centre at Liliendaal. Whatever his motivation, President Jagdeo delivered yet another puzzling performance that will leave policymakers and lawmakers wondering whether they have a role at all in the affairs of this country.

While there was nothing wrong with the Presi-dent convening a meeting with Chinese nationals, it was utterly unacceptable for him to unilaterally declare that Chinese nationals who were living here legally for seven years would now be entitled to citizenship of the country and that work permits would be extended from one to three years.

Read full article here.

Migrant cap 'will support business', says David Cameron

2010-11-23T13:33:00.000-08:00

David Cameron has said the immigration cap, due to come into force next year, will be "business friendly".

Businesses have been lobbying the government to exempt transfers within companies from the cap on workers from outside the European Economic Area.

A temporary cap is in place but an announcement is expected next week on permanent measures from next April.

The PM told Sky News: "We will try and exempt many of the inter-company transfers from the immigration system."

The annual cap on non-EU immigration was a key Conservative manifesto commitment - although it was opposed by their Lib Dem coalition partners before the election. But businesses have complained it will leave them at a competitive disadvantage.

Net migration - the difference between the number of people coming to live in the UK and the number emigrating - stood at 196,000 last year.

The government has promised to at least halve this by 2015, partly by capping the number of skilled workers from outside the European Economic Area.

Read full article here.