Max Forte's List: CARIBBEAN

Fuad Abu Bakr arrested | CNC3 1

Feb 26, 16

www.cnc3.co.tt/...fuad-abu-bakr-arrested Trinidad_Tobago Jamaat_al_Muslimeen FuadAbuBakr national_security_state persecution
- Fuad Abu Bakr arrested
  
  
     
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  Date:
  Thursday, February 25, 2016
  Police officers have reportedly apologised to the leader of the New National Vision Party Fuad Abu Bakr after they arrested him last evening.
  
  Bakr was held for seven hours last night while police ran checks on his vehicle. But Bakr tells CNC3, sorry will not suffice, and he will be taking legal action.
'We're back': Aristide allies toast Haiti's interim president at palace | Reuters 6

Feb 15, 16

www.reuters.com/...s-haiti-election-idUSKCN0VN0OF Haiti election2016 protests Aristide Lavalas
- Sun Feb 14, 2016 11:05pm EST
  Related: World
  
  'We're back': Aristide allies toast Haiti's interim president at palace
  
  PORT-AU-PRINCE | By Joseph Guyler Delva
- A senator who served as interior minister under former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide was sworn in as Haiti's interim president on Sunday, a development met with elation by allies of the leftist leader who days ago were leading street protests.
  Haiti canceled a runoff presidential election in January amid often-violent protests over alleged fraud in the first round and after the opposition candidate boycotted the vote.
  Former president Michel Martelly finished his term a week ago with no elected successor as a result. Instead, a deal was struck for the opposition-controlled parliament to choose a provisional president to oversee fresh elections quickly.
- Factions of Aristide's Lavalas movement were heavily represented at the ceremony for President Jocelerme Privert, 63, at Haiti's national palace, which some had not visited since the ex-president was toppled 12 years ago.
  "The last time I came to the palace was in 2003 when President Aristide was in power," said Ores Nixon, a street activist with a Lavalas splinter party who lives in the Bel Air slum in the capital, Port-Au-Prince.
  "Now look at me, inside the national palace with a glass of champagne, celebrating the inauguration of our President Jocelerme Privert," he said.
- By contrast, the ceremony and reception on the lawns of the building devastated in the 2010 earthquake were thinly attended by supporters of Martelly, or his party's candidate.
  
  Aristide remained a potent symbol for the poor until the present crisis, but his influence was seen as fading as the movement he founded splintered into bickering factions and he largely vanished from public life.
  As protests against Martelly and the elections gathered steam the factions reunited, however short-lived that may be.
  Aristide's wife was at the ceremony in a rare political appearance, as was the current Lavalas presidential candidate.
- "We have shown that we are able to overcome our differences and our infighting in the benefit of the general interest,” Privert said at the swearing-in.
  Privert is a member of the Inite political party founded by ex-president Rene Preval, another estranged Aristide acolyte.
  Privert vowed to engage all sectors in dialogue to complete the elections after an evaluation of the fraud allegations, and hand over to an elected president by May 14. Elections are set for April 24 under the deal struck last week.
  After Aristide, a former Jesuit priest, was forced from power by armed rebels in 2004, Privert was thrown into prison for two years on charges he organized a massacre of the president's opponents. The charges were later dropped.
- One of the major challenges ahead will be to reach an agreement about who can participate in the election, with many parties rejecting the October results that led to a two-man race between opposition candidate Jude Celestin and ruling party favorite Jovenel Moise.
  Activist Andre Fadot, who has led protests in favor of Celestin, was more cautious in his support of the interim government, warning at the palace on Sunday that free and fair elections should happen quickly.
  It took two years to hold elections the last time there was an interim government in Haiti, after Aristide's ouster.
  "Our presence here means Lavalas and Aristide are back in the palace. We are back in power and we won’t let it go," said Lavalas supporter Clausel Romey.
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Cheddi Jagan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 1

Feb 13, 16

en.wikipedia.org/...Cheddi_Jagan Winston_Churchill Guyana Cheddi_Jagan coup regime_change
- Jagan won elections in 1953. However, Winston Churchill was alarmed by Jagan's unabashed Marxism-Leninism, and was convinced Jagan could allow the Soviet Union a foothold in Latin America. There was strong behind-the-scenes pressure from the United States, and the CIA asserted that he had ties to the Soviet Union. This prompted a British military intervention only days after his victory.^[3] Jagan resigned as Chief Minister after 133 days. Britain suspended the constitution and installed an interim government. Jagan's movements were restricted to Georgetown from 1954 to 1957. After a PPP victory in the August 1961 elections, Jagan became Chief Minister for a second time, serving for three years. In the December 1964 elections, the PPP won a plurality of votes, but Burnham's party, the People's National Congress, and the conservative United Force held a majority of seats and were invited to form the government.^[2] However, Jagan refused to resign, and had to be removed by Governor Richard Luyt.^[4]
The Significance of Trinidad and Tobago to the U.S. | Americas Quarterly 7

Jan 28, 16

americasquarterly.org/...ficance-trinidad-and-tobago-us Trinidad_Tobago SOFA Biden strategic_interests LNG oil Venezuela China
- The Significance of Trinidad and Tobago to the U.S.
  
  BY Michael W. Edghill | May 23, 2013
- Trinidad and Tobago, known more for Carnival and sandy beaches, is not often discussed in terms of its strategic importance to the United States. Yet there are several reasons that this small two-island nation appears on U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s itinerary for his trip to Latin America next week. After traveling to Brazil and Colombia, home to the two largest economies in South America, Biden will visit Port of Spain just over four years after President Barack Obama was in Trinidad for the 2009 Summit of the Americas.
  
  The juxtaposition of this small island nation with the extremely large and influential nations of Brazil and Colombia may appear odd. However, Trinidad and Tobago is quickly becoming a much more important player in regional affairs and an increasingly important friend of the United States.
- While it is not the oil exporter that Mexico, Canada, and Venezuela are, Trinidad and Tobago falls just behind Ecuador and Brazil, on average, as a Western Hemispheric supplier of crude oil. Additionally, Trinidad and Tobago is the largest supplier of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the United States. Trinidad and Tobago’s position as an energy exporter becomes even more significant in the context of the U.S. goal to reduce its dependence on Middle Eastern supplies of energy.
  
  Over the last decade, proximity to the Venezuelan coast has also made Trinidad and Tobago a prime transit point for drug traffickers moving narcotics out of South America to markets in Europe and the United States. Incidences of violent crime and narcotics-related gang activity have peaked, leading the government to declare a state of emergency in August of 2011. To help combat drug gangs, the Trinidadian government has worked with the United States government through a variety of programs, including the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative.
- Trinidad and Tobago’s proximity to Venezuela may simultaneously be of strategic interest to the Pentagon. Reports from Venezuela indicate that the post-Chavez government shows signs of internal unrest. Should that unrest manifest itself in an armed struggle for power, the pressure to intervene from interested parties within the United States would come quickly. Having strong relationships with Colombia, to Venezuela’s west, and with Trinidad and Tobago to the east can be very appealing for the United States.
- Besides energy interests, strategic interests and drug interdiction, the United States is wise to try and bolster its relationship with Trinidad and Tobago because of Trinidadian membership in the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), two regional bodies of which the U.S. is not a member. Due to its relative economic strength and stability, Trinidad and Tobago is a respected voice in those international organizations. If the intention of the Obama administration is to try and increase engagement with Latin America, then all avenues, direct and indirect, must be explored.
- As with any international relationship, there are certain things that the prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, will be seeking to discuss with Vice President Biden. Continuing cooperation in security and economic development for Trinidad and the Caribbean region will undoubtedly be high on her list. Do not be surprised, however, if the prime minister asks Vice President Biden for American support in adding small-state representation to international bodies such as the UN and the IMF. Persad-Bissessar was in Washington recently speaking on that very topic, and it has become an important issue for the government of Trinidad and Tobago.
- When trying to figure out the significance that a small Caribbean nation could have for the United States, perhaps the final piece to the puzzle was revealed last week. Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit Trinidad and Tobago just days after Vice President Biden leaves. As American foreign policy has pivoted towards the Pacific, Chinese foreign policy has been engaging Latin American and Caribbean nations in trade negotiation and development deals.
  
  It could be mere coincidence that Trinidad and Tobago will be hosting these two vital state representatives just days apart. But it is safe to assume that this was a strategic geopolitical move by both sides to garner support and promote good relations with this small yet increasingly important Caribbean nation.
  
  *Michael W. Edghill teaches courses in U.S. government and the Caribbean and Latin America. He is a contributor to Caribbean Journal and has published in the Yale Journal of International Affairs and Diplomatic Courier. Follow him on Twitter at @MichaelWEdghill.
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Barbados plans to remove Queen Elizabeth II as titular head of state - The Globe and Mail 6

Mar 23, 15

www.theglobeandmail.com/...article23584875 Barbados monarchy decolonization independence republic
- Barbados to remove Queen Elizabeth II as titular head of state Add to ...
  
  Carol Williams and David McFadden
  
  BRIDGETOWN, Barbados — The Associated Press
  
  Published Monday, Mar. 23, 2015
- Barbados plans to remove Queen Elizabeth II as titular head of state and replace her with a ceremonial president from the Caribbean island, a former British territory once known as “Little England” for its colonial trappings.
  Prime Minister Freundel Stuart announced that the plan is to make Barbados a republic by November, 2016, when the island of roughly 300,000 people celebrates its 50th anniversary of independence. He said it makes no sense to keep the monarch as the head of state of an otherwise independent country.
- “It’s a little awkward in the year 2015 to still have to stand up and instead of pledging allegiance to Barbados to be pledging allegiance to ‘Her Majesty the Queen,’ ” Stuart said during a late Sunday meeting of his ruling Democratic Labour Party.
  A Buckingham Palace spokesman said Monday that “it is a matter for the government and people of Barbados.” British Prime Minister David Cameron’s spokesman said he expected the approach in Barbados to be “consistent with self-determination.”
- The republican debate has raged for years in Barbados between older islanders who see the queen as a symbol of stability, and mostly younger nationalists who call her an anachronism. It echoes similar debates in many countries that once were part of the British empire and retained the queen as their head of state after independence.
  In the Caribbean, former British colonies including Dominica and Trinidad and Tobago have established republican forms of government.
  But others such as Barbados and Jamaica have not replaced the queen with another head of state even though their officials have called for the tie to be severed.
- Upon taking power in early 2012, Jamaica Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller said the queen was a “lovely lady” but insisted her country must remove the monarch as head of state, in part because of slavery’s legacy. But nothing has changed since Simpson Miller made that statement.
  In Barbados, historian Trevor Marshall welcomed Stuart’s announcement, arguing there is “nothing to be gained by remaining as a dominion.”
  Despite the change, Barbados would remain in the Commonwealth grouping of former British colonies, according to Stuart.
- Barbados needs a two-thirds majority in Parliament to authorize the constitutional change. Stuart’s government currently has that majority in the Senate, but not in the lower house. Opposition leader Mia Mottley did not immediately comment on Stuart’s plans.
  Barbados was among the few islands settled in 1605 by Britons who imported slaves from Africa. While other Caribbean islands were swapped as war booty among Spanish, British, Dutch and French colonizers, Barbados remained British during the colonial years.
  But in a sign of changing times, Barbados adopted the Caribbean Court of Justice as its final court of appeal in 2005, dumping the London-based Privy Council that long served as the court of last resort for many former colonies.
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Inside the Billion-Dollar Battle for Puerto Rico’s Future - The New York Times 28

Dec 20, 15

www.nytimes.com/...puerto-rico-money-debt.html PuertoRico hedge_funds bankrupt debt_crisis economic_crisis recolonization
- Inside the Billion-Dollar
  Battle for Puerto Rico’s Future
  
  The impoverished island turned to hedge funds to stave off collapse. Now someone has to pay.
  
  By JONATHAN MAHLER and NICHOLAS CONFESSOREDEC. 19, 2015
   
  Inside
- The money poured in by the millions, then by the hundreds of millions, and finally by the billions. Over weak coffee in a conference room in Midtown Manhattan last year, a half-dozen Puerto Rican officials exhaled: Their cash-starved island had persuaded some of the country’s biggest hedge funds to lend them more than $3 billion to keep the government afloat.
  
  There were plenty of reasons for the hedge funds to like the deal: They would be earning, in effect, a 20 percent return. And under the island’s Constitution, Puerto Rico was required to pay back its debt before almost any other bills, whether for retirees’ health care or teachers’ salaries.
  But within months, Puerto Rico was saying it had run out of money, and the relationship between the impoverished United States territory and its unlikely saviors fell apart, setting up an extraordinary political and financial fight over Puerto Rico’s future.
  
  On the surface, it is a battle over whether Puerto Rico should be granted bankruptcy protections, putting at risk tens of billions of dollars from investors around the country. But it is also testing the power of an ascendant class of ultrarich Americans to steer the fate of a territory that is home to more than three million fellow citizens.
- The investors with a stake in the outcome are some of the wealthiest people in America. Many of them have also taken on an outsize role in financing political campaigns in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision. They have put millions of dollars behind candidates of both parties, including Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush. Some belong to a small circle of 158 families that provided half of the early money for the 2016 presidential race.
- To block proposals that would put their investments at risk, a coalition of hedge funds and financial firms has hired dozens of lobbyists, forged alliances with Tea Party activists and recruited so-called AstroTurf groups on the island to make their case. This approach — aggressive legal maneuvering, lobbying and the deployment of prodigious wealth — has proved successful overseas, in countries like Argentina and Greece, yielding billions in profit amid economic collapse.
  The pressure has been widely felt. Senator Marco Rubio, whose state, Florida, has a large Puerto Rican population, expressed interest this year in sponsoring bankruptcy legislation for the island, says Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut. Mr. Rubio’s staff even joined in drafting the bill. But this summer, three weeks after a fund-raiser hosted by a hedge-fund founder, Mr. Rubio broke with those backing the measure. Bankruptcy, he said, should be considered only as a “last resort.”
  And this past week, House Republican leaders said any financial rescue for Puerto Rico may not come until the end of March.
- The fight over the island’s future is stretching from the oceanside neighborhoods of San Juan, where a growing number of wealthy investors and financial professionals have migrated in recent years to exploit generous tax breaks, to Capitol Hill. Their efforts are being closely watched by financial institutions, labor unions and policy makers on the mainland, where many ordinary investors own Puerto Rican bonds through mutual funds.
  
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  Some warn that Puerto Rico could be a test case for the rest of the country, paving the way for troubled states like Illinois to escape unsustainable debts.
  Stephen J. Spencer, a restructuring expert representing Puerto Rico bondholders including some hedge funds, said letting the government renege on agreements with hedge funds and other investors would set a dangerous precedent, undermining the integrity of the bond market.
- “It’s really a wealth transfer from the bondholders to the municipalities,” Mr. Spencer said.
  Others fear a different precedent: A handful of wealthy investors, they argue, are trying to rewrite the social contract of an entire United States territory. Puerto Rican officials say they have already cut public services and slashed central government spending by a fifth to keep ahead of payments to the hedge funds and financiers.
  “What they are doing, by getting all the resources for themselves, is undermining the viability of Puerto Rico as a commonwealth,” said Joseph E. Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist. “They want their money now, and they want to get the rules set so that they can make money for the next 20 years.”
- A Bet on Resurgence
  Along Ashford Avenue in San Juan’s Condado district, newly renovated hotels gleam beside shops like Gucci and Cartier. Slightly to the west are new high-rise condominiums, known as WeCo, or West Condado, by an enterprising real estate agent originally from Manhattan. Still farther west, not far from the Capitol in Old San Juan, a new development named the Paseo Caribe makes a more explicit pitch to potential buyers: “The Puerto Rico Advantage: Sun, Sand and Zero Taxes,” the development’s website promises.
  This was supposed to help solve Puerto Rico’s problems. The commonwealth has been in a depression for over a decade. Pharmaceutical companies and manufacturers have fled the island, followed by young Puerto Ricans looking for jobs, draining the island’s work force and tax base. Forty percent of the island’s residents live in poverty.
- Three years ago, in a bid to lure financial services firms and other employers, Puerto Rico’s governor at that time, Luis Fortuño, a Republican, signed laws intended to turn the island into a domestic tax haven. Americans who relocated to Puerto Rico, spent at least half a year there and brought their company with them would pay no federal income or capital gains taxes.
- Private-equity magnates, hedge funds and investment advisers began moving to the island. They settled in Condado and a handful of coastal enclaves like the Dorado Beach Resort, where the billionaire investor Toby Neugebauer, who provided $10 million to the presidential campaign of Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, bought a home.
  John Paulson, the hedge fund investor and leading Republican donor, snapped up resort properties and fading resort hotels, betting on a resurgence. Puerto Rico, Mr. Paulson told an investor conference last year, would become “the Singapore of the Caribbean.” This spring, at his urging, the island even rented a booth at the hedge fund industry’s annual conference at the Bellagio casino in Las Vegas, where two attractive women pitched Puerto Rico’s charms to guests.
  
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  It was not the first time that Puerto Rico had turned to Wall Street for help. For decades, the island had been borrowing money to pay its bills. Puerto Rico’s bonds were particularly attractive to mutual funds because they were exempt from federal, state and local taxes in all 50 states. But in 2013, after the island’s general obligation bonds were downgraded, they caught the attention of a different sort of investor: hedge funds specializing in distressed assets.
- These funds began buying up the debt at a steep discount, confident that this was a bet they could not lose. Not only were the bonds guaranteed by the Puerto Rican Constitution, but under a wrinkle of federal law, the island’s public corporations and municipalities — unlike those of the 50 states — do not have bankruptcy as a recourse.
  When the investment bank Lazard hosted a discussion for investors on Puerto Rico in October 2013, so many people showed up that some had to stand. By the next spring, as the island’s economic situation worsened, virtually no one else was willing to lend to Puerto Rico.
  A round of spending cuts and tax increases by Gov. Alejandro García Padilla, the Democrat who succeeded Mr. Fortuño, had not produced enough cash to keep up with the island’s earlier debts. A prospectus circulated for the March 2014 bond offering — which raised the $3.5 billion that Mr. García Padilla hoped would buy time for a recovery — warned in boldface type of “significant risks.”
- Nevertheless, some of the biggest hedge funds kept buying, drawn by the promise of what was a 20 percent return, based on the interest rate coupled with the tax exemption. Mr. Paulson’s firm purchased bonds in March 2014, as did Appaloosa Management, founded by David Tepper; Marathon Asset Management; BlueMountain Capital Management; and Monarch Alternative Capital, said Puerto Rico officials involved in the sale.
  The recovery never arrived. The $3.5 billion ran out. And Puerto Rico now owes its creditors in excess of $70 billion, a bigger debt load than all but two states. As much as a third of it is owed to hedge funds, according to some estimates.
- The Bankruptcy Option
  Early this year, with Puerto Rico’s economic outlook darkening, the island’s nonvoting member of the House of Representatives, Pedro R. Pierluisi, made what he thought was a modest proposal.
  He introduced a bill that would change federal law to allow Puerto Rico’s struggling municipalities and public corporations, such as the island’s power authority, to declare bankruptcy. It would affect only about a third of the island’s debt, Mr. Pierluisi told Republican colleagues in Congress. It would also give Puerto Rico the same right as most states and leverage against creditors — so-called Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection. And it would cost taxpayers nothing.
  Republicans in the House seemed receptive, as were some conservative groups. Even some of Puerto Rico’s other creditors liked the idea: If public corporations could shed some of their debt, it would free up more money to repay other bondholders. (The power authority’s financial troubles were being felt on the island, and not only by locals: Last summer, one of Mr. Paulson’s luxury hotels lost electricity, briefly forcing the use of a backup generator.)
- Mr. Blumenthal was an enthusiastic supporter of the bill. Eager for a Republican co-sponsor, his staff turned to Mr. Rubio. One of three Latino members of the Senate, Mr. Rubio had won a large portion of Florida’s Puerto Rican vote in his 2010 race, and he was now about to announce his presidential campaign.
  “We were given to understand by his staff that they were very interested in the bill and in fact were going to co-sponsor it,” Mr. Blumenthal said in an interview. Puerto Rico’s government officials also believed Mr. Rubio intended to support the legislation.
  In the weeks that followed, the staffs of the two senators worked together on the legislation. “To give them credit, his team made contributions to the substance of the bill,” Mr. Blumenthal said.
- But opponents were organizing against the measure, led by firms that owned debt from Puerto Rico’s power authority, according to federal lobbying records and other documents. Among them were two mutual funds — Oppenheimer Funds and Franklin Templeton — and hedge funds, some specializing in distressed debt: the D.E. Shaw Group and Angelo Gordon, along with Marathon and BlueMountain.
  The hedge funds were among the largest in the world, with a combined tens of billions of dollars under management. Some of their founders and principals were also donating large sums in the presidential campaign. David E. Shaw of D.E. Shaw has given more than $800,000 to Mrs. Clinton and groups supporting her campaign. (Mrs. Clinton has called on Congress to pass the bill.) John Angelo of Angelo Gordon has put a quarter of a million dollars behind Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey. And Richard Ronzetti, a partner at Marathon, has given $30,000 to groups linked to Mr. Bush.
  
  Proponents of the bill mounted their own campaign, recruiting island businesses, bankruptcy experts and groups like Americans for Tax Reform, which argued that forgiving some of the debts would be better than plowing additional federal money into the island. Mr. García Padilla’s government hired SKD Knickerbocker, a public-affairs firm with close ties to the White House.
- But the hedge funds hit upon a novel lobbying strategy: Mobilize conservative opposition by attacking Mr. Pierluisi’s bill — and by implication any broader bankruptcy attempt by the island — as a “bailout.” Because allowing the island to restructure its debt would cost their investors money, the funds argued, it was no different from the much-reviled taxpayer-funded bailout of the big banks after the financial crisis in 2008.
  Puerto Rico could not now gain access to bankruptcy protections that it had not been entitled to when it borrowed the money, the funds argued. And, they suspected, there was still revenue hiding within the island’s opaque books, as well as cuts to be made to its oversize bureaucracy.
  In a letter circulated to Republican staff members in February and obtained by The New York Times, representatives for BlueMountain, a $22 billion firm headquartered on New York’s Park Avenue, warned that the bill would put the bondholders at a disadvantage in any fight over Puerto Rico’s debt. Bankruptcy, they said, would inevitably prioritize those with pension claims over the island’s creditors, as had been the case when Detroit declared bankruptcy in 2013.
- “Chapter 9 proceedings bail out Puerto Rico on the backs of the very bondholders Congress incentivized to invest in Puerto Rican municipal bonds,” they wrote.
  Reaching out to lawmakers and to Republican presidential candidates, the financial firms quickly recruited allies. Tea Party groups, usually the harshest critics of Wall Street lobbyists, joined the fray.
  The bill was “nothing but a backdoor, taxpayer-funded bailout for Puerto Rico,” Jenny Beth Martin, the national coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots, wrote in a March letter to the House Judiciary Committee. (Asked in an interview to identify the taxpayer funds at risk in the bill, Ms. Martin said, “I don’t know that I can answer that.” She added: “It’s more bailouts for bad decisions, expecting us to help take care of things that we should not be responsible for.”)
  The pressure put Mr. Rubio in an awkward position. Tea Party activists had helped elect him in 2010, wealthy Wall Street donors had embraced him as a rising star in the years since, and he was now entering an intense Republican presidential primary campaign against better-credentialed conservatives.
- When it came time to introduce the legislation on the Senate floor in July, Mr. Rubio held off. “We delayed the actual formal introduction of the bill while we were waiting for a final answer from Senator Rubio, and at some point, we said: ‘We need to go. Does he want to be a part of it, or does he want us to go ahead without him?’” Mr. Blumenthal recalled. “The answer we got was, go ahead without him. We never learned why.”
  In September, on the eve of a campaign visit to Puerto Rico, Mr. Rubio abandoned the idea entirely In an essay on the website Medium and in Puerto Rico’s largest daily newspaper, he wrote that bankruptcy should be considered only as a “last resort” if the island first took “significant steps to fix its budget and economic mess,” echoing a refrain among Republicans in Congress.
- Mr. Rubio’s move was welcome news for bondholders, some of whom have supported his presidential campaign. Monarch’s founder, Andrew Herenstein, co-hosted two fund-raisers for Mr. Rubio’s presidential bid, one over the summer in the Hamptons, the other in Manhattan in October. A spokesman for Mr. Herenstein declined to comment.
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  Larry La Fountain
    1 hour ago
  
  Puerto Rico should demand independence and reparations for 117 years of American colonialism and immediately default on its loans.
  
  
  
  Steve
    1 hour ago
  
  So the Hedge funds have now been admitted to the to big to fail bloc and we'll pay the bills?
  
  
  
  DS
    1 hour ago
  
  Why is it that liberals insist on changing any laws that they don't like to favor their constituents. The rule of law and private property...
  
  
  
  
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  A spokesman for Mr. Rubio said his views on the legislation were unrelated to campaign donations. "Given Marco’s interest in Puerto Rico issues, our office did the due diligence of reviewing the bankruptcy bill, as well as other possible solutions, and meeting with stakeholders," he said. "Marco ultimately decided not to support it, because he believes Puerto Rico’s leaders should first pursue other fiscal reforms with Chapter 9 being a last resort."
- Unsustainable
  In June, 16 months after the hedge funds had come to Puerto Rico’s rescue, Governor García Padilla rattled trading floors around the country. Puerto Rico, he said, was in a “death spiral.” It could no longer pay its debts.
  
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  Only weeks earlier, his administration had hired as an adviser the retired judge who had overseen Detroit’s bankruptcy. Puerto Rico had also released a report by a former chief economist of the World Bank, warning that its debt load was unsustainable.
- In October, amid the impasse over Mr. Pierluisi’s bill, the Obama administration weighed in with an even more ambitious plan. It proposed to create a new form of bankruptcy for United States territories, which would restructure all of the island’s debt — and put all of the financial firms’ investments at risk.
  Relations between Mr. García Padilla and the hedge funds he had once courted soured, and the investors intensified their fight. Several more hedge funds hired Washington lobbyists. Puerto Rico, now looming as potentially the biggest government bankruptcy in American history, the lobbyists warned, could carve a path for cities and states around the country to escape their debts without reforming their governments.
  Hedge funds commissioned their own economic study of the island’s finances, which concluded that further cuts to public spending, in particular to education and health care, would allow the island to keep up.
- Some of the investors also tapped into an existing network of conservative nonprofit groups that in recent years has become a major conduit for moving large, anonymous contributions into lobbying and campaign activity.
  This fall, a conservative group called the 60 Plus Association, based in Alexandria, Va., unleashed a wide-ranging media and lobbying effort against a restructuring and Governor García Padilla, whom it accused of “manufacturing a crisis” and trying to “extort” money from Congress.
  The group cast the victims of a bankruptcy as ordinary Puerto Ricans and retirees who owned government-issued bonds. In November, 60 Plus recruited a group of these individuals, calling them “Main Street Bondholders,” for a news conference in San Juan.
- “Do these folks look like vultures to you?” asked Matthew Kandrach, the vice president of 60 Plus, who apologized for not speaking Spanish. “I want the governor to see these faces.”
- Exactly who the group was speaking for was unclear. Puerto Ricans own less than a fifth of the island’s debt, according to government officials. And while 60 Plus claims to represent millions of seniors, most of the group’s revenue comes from a few large, anonymous contributions, according to its most recent tax return.
  Two Republicans briefed on the arrangement said 60 Plus had been recruited by the DCI Group, a Republican public relations firm that specializes in “AstroTurfing” — orchestrated lobbying campaigns designed to look like grass-roots efforts. DCI’s clients include the hedge fund BlueMountain Capital, which has been one of the most aggressive opponents of federal intervention in Puerto Rico.
  DCI declined to comment. Asked about the arrangement, Mr. Kandrach responded: “When it helps us better serve and represent our seniors, we are proud to partner with firms such as DCI who offer valuable logistical support to getting our message out.”
- Hedge fund executives and their allies also pressed their case in private meetings with key members of Congress and their staffs. The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Utah’s Orrin G. Hatch, met with a representative for funds owning general obligation bonds, as well as with Puerto Rico officials. Several firms with investments in Puerto Rico have been among the leading sources of donations to Mr. Hatch’s campaign and leadership PAC in recent years.
  In early December, Governor García Padilla made a final plea to Mr. Hatch’s panel for bankruptcy relief. “This is a distress call from a ship of 3.5 million American citizens that have been lost at sea,” the governor said.
  Mr. Hatch was unmoved, reading a long statement raising doubts about the wisdom of bankruptcy. He suggested that broader changes to Puerto Rico’s government were necessary.
  A little more than a week later, Mr. Hatch blocked an effort to bring Mr. Pierluisi’s bankruptcy legislation to a vote. He soon offered his own proposal: To respond to the island’s humanitarian needs, Congress would provide $3 billion to Puerto Rico if it submitted to federal financial oversight. It was the approach favored by bondholders. It was also, in effect, a bailout.
- Supporters of the bankruptcy bill clung to the hope that congressional leaders would insert a provision in its end-of-year spending bill allowing Puerto Rico to restructure at least some of its debt. But when the bill was unveiled on Tuesday, it contained no such language.
- The island remains in negotiations with the financial firms that own its debt. Without the possibility of bankruptcy, its only leverage is the threat of default.
  The House speaker, Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, said on Wednesday that lawmakers would try to come up with a solution by the end of March.
  A reckoning could come sooner: On Jan. 1, bond payments of $1.4 billion will be due. No one is quite sure if the island can pay.
- Correction: December 19, 2015
  
  An earlier version of this article omitted part of the surname of Gov. Alejandro García Padilla of Puerto Rico in some references. His full surname is García Padilla, not Padilla.
- A version of this article appears in print on December 20, 2015, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Puerto Rico’s Pricey Struggle.
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Trinidad Express Newspapers: News | ONLY TRINIS NEED APPLY * 2

Dec 11, 15

www.trinidadexpress.com/...only-trinis-need-apply Trinidad_Tobago national_security_state nationalism police
- ONLY TRINIS NEED APPLY *
  
  govt changes rules for hiring new police commissioner
  
  Published on Dec 10, 2015, 8:38 pm AST
  
  By Kim Boodram
- Port of Spain
  
  THE rules have changed for the appointment of a Commissioner of Police (CoP), who now must be a Trinidad and Tobago national, Communications Minister Maxie Cuffie announced yesterday.
  
  The process will also now be handled by a local firm, Cuffie said at the weekly post-Cabinet press briefing at the Office of the Prime Minister, St Clair. He also said the appointee could be a national living abroad.
  
  No firm has been selected as the decision is a new one, Cuffie added, as he announced that Cabinet had approved an order to change the appointment process for the appointment of the CoP, a position that has since 2012 been manned by acting Police Commissioner Stephen Williams.
Maduro rejection mirrors Manley's defeat in 1980 | Lead Stories | Jamaica Gleaner 7

Dec 09, 15

jamaica-gleaner.com/...on-mirrors-manleys-defeat-1980 Venezuela elections2015 Jamaica Gleaner media propaganda PetroCaribe
- Maduro rejection mirrors Manley's defeat in 1980
- Wednesday | December 9, 2015 | 12:00 AMDaraine Luton
- A Jamaican legislator has suggested that the Venezuelans' rejection of the Hugo Chavez-type socialist policies in national elections on Sunday is comparable to Michael Manley's People's National Party (PNP) being booted from state power by Jamaicans in a 1980 landslide.
  
  "What happened in Jamaica in the 1970s under Michael Manley was what was happening in Venezuela," opposition Member of Parliament (MP) Gregory Mair said.
  
  Manley, who led the PNP, had embarked on a programme of democratic socialism between 1972 and 1980, but the policies did not find favour with Jamaicans, who booted his Government from office in October 1980, replacing his administration with the right-wing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), which was led by Edward Seaga.
  
  The JLP won 51 of the 60 seats in the House of Representatives as Manley's democratic socialism was rejected.
- "That is what happened [on Sunday] in Venezuela. It was a rejection of failed socialist policies and the need of the people to bring back a free-market economic policy that would create investment, growth, [and] jobs, which would come with freedom," Mair said.
  
  The North East St Catherine MP has more than a passing relationship with Venezuelan politics, having spent a more than two decades in that country between 1967 and 1989.
  
  Mair was, in 2009, forced to resign his seat as MP and renounce his allegiance to Venezuela, and then face the people through a by-election as he was found to have been in breach of the Jamaican Constitution.
  
  "What has happened is that the people of Venezuela have come to recognise that all the populist promises of the [Nicolas] Maduro regime were all a lie and that they have failed totally," Mair said.
  
  "In the '70s, a lot of us had to leave Jamaica because of Michael Manley's regime," Mair said.
- SOCIALISTS BOOTED
  
  The opposition in Venezuela has won a majority of seats in the National Assembly, overturning nearly two decades of dominance by the Socialists.
  
  It is the worst-ever defeat for the leftist movement founded by Chavez in 1999.
  
  Maduro said his government would "recognise these adverse results and accept them".
  
  However, he said the outcome of the election did not mean an end to the Bolivarian revolution he inherited from Chavez, who died in 2013 from cancer.
  
  Maduro said much of the country's woes are the result of an "economic war" being waged against the government by the opposition and the United States, exacerbated by the shrinking price of oil, Venezuela's lifeblood.
- "The economic war has won, for now, circumstantially," Maduro said, predicting that the opposition would try to dismantle the gains of the Bolivarian revolution.
  
  Mair, however, insisted that the president was spouting "nonsense", arguing that the policies were unworkable.
  
  "It was always felt that they would win, but for them to win the two-thirds, for them to really be an opposition that could hold a government accountable, I think that was a nice surprise," Mair said.
  
  With two-thirds of the seats in the assembly, the opposition has significant powers that can impact on international treaties and agreements such as the PetroCaribe agreement.
  
  "I would urge our Government to watch closely what is happening there, because my concern is that PetroCaribe would be threatened. I know the opposition has had a problem with PetroCaribe because they feel that the government of Venezuela is giving away income," Mair said.
- BE PREPARED
  
  PetroCaribe is an oil-trade pact that makes it possible for countries in the region to receive a regular supply of petroleum products from Venezuela at highly concessionary terms.
  
  Mair said Jamaica must now seek to prepare itself for the worst, noting that there was always opposition in Venezuela to the PetroCaribe agreement.
  
  "We need to be prepared that, in the event that PetroCaribe
  
  is eventually scrapped, that Jamaica, due to its long history with Venezuela and the fact that we have always fulfilled our agreements under PetroCaribe, they may give special consideration to Jamaica for us to continue a relationship where they would allow us easy payment structures as far as purchasing the oil from Venezuela is concerned," Mair said.
  
  "I hope our foreign ministry will start engaging persons not necessarily in the government but in the opposition. They need to be making the links and get ready so that Jamaica is well positioned in the event of the PetroCaribe programme being scrapped," the opposition MP and former Venezuelan citizen said.
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Latin American Herald Tribune - Trinidad to Seize Assets of Terrorist Jailed in U.S. 1

Dec 05, 15

www.laht.com/article.asp Trinidad_Tobago terrorism national_security_state
- Trinidad to Seize Assets of Terrorist Jailed in U.S.
  
  PORT-OF-SPAIN – Trinidad and Tobago Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi said Friday that efforts are under way to freeze assets belonging to a Trinidadian man serving a life sentence in the U.S. for terrorism.
  
  Al-Rawi told reporters that his office initiated the process after Thursday’s ruling by Judge Nadia Kangaloo declaring Kareem Ibrahim a terrorist.
  
  Authorities have so far been unable to identify any properties or accounts in the twin-island nation connected to Ibrahim, the attorney general said, adding that his office will seek to seize the assets of all Trinidadian nationals listed as terrorists.
  
  Ibrahim, 70, was sentenced to life in prison in the United States after he was found guilty of conspiring with others to detonate fuel tanks and a pipeline at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Trinidad Express Newspapers: News | Climate change at Piarco? 6

Dec 03, 15

www.trinidadexpress.com/...climate-change-at-piarco Caribbean Trinidad_Tobago cultural_imperialism
- Climate change at Piarco?
  
  Published on Dec 2, 2015, 9:54 am AST
  
  Updated on Dec 3, 2015, 9:22 am AST
  
  By Sue Ann Wayow
- Airport: The winter scene at the Piarco International Airport. Source: Facebook profile of Gregory McGuire
- THE winter scene on display in the atrium of the Piarco International Airport, is annoying some people, who consider it inappropriate for tropical Trinidad and Tobago. But it may be coming down.
  
  On Wednesday, Minister of Works and Transport Fitzgerald Hinds told the Express that the concerns of citizens had been noted.
  
  He said: “I have noted the comments of some citizens of the republic, I had a conversation with officials at the Airports Authority. I am assured that public sentiments would be taken into account.”
  
  Hinds added: “ I feel confident that that conversation will put the citizens heart at rest.”
  
  Energy expert Gregory Mcguire posted on his Facebook page his disappointment at the decorations.
- On Tuesday he wrote: “ Citizens of Trinbago - our still wonderful land. I happened to go to the Piarco International Airport last night and was greeted by the scenes in the pictures attached. I stood in my shoes stunned ! And I wondered. Where am I? What year is it? How could this happen? Yes, I know that there are those among us who celebrate Halloween and who climb on top of each other in the mad “Black Friday” shopping specials. Yes I know the American pop culture pervades our airways and that we have young people among us who emulate the worst of the American ghetto. But those are all private decisions made by individuals or by private sector hard nose business seeking to exploit the well known consumer preferences for things foreign. This is different.”
  
  He wrote: “ As Sprangalang would say, we have long since stopped listening to the “snows”. It was more than 35 years ago that the emergence of parang soca ushered in a new consciousness of the uniquely wonderful Trinbago Christmas. It was now 21 years since Machel Montano brought Soca Santa through Laventille in a big time Toyota. Now to face this abomination. This is NOT private space people. This is not Long Circular Mall known for its wintry decorations. This is our International Airport. This is the space where we only recently mounted a display in celebration of Divali. This is the space where, in three weeks time, we will be showcasing our Carnival- our mas, music and pan. To my mind, these displays are consistent with what I perceive to be the purpose of the Hall as a exhibition space. These displays have highlighted our rich cultural heritage to visitors and locals alike.”
- Mcguire wrote: “ But what manner of mind therefore can conceive, rationalize or justify this wintry display in this tropical land? What is the purpose of this display? What positive can we learn from it? Was any consideration given to an alternative design with a local theme? - Poinsettias- red and white, parang, pastelles and sorrel? How much money was spent on this display? What was the local content of the spend on “snow” reindeer, Santas, polar bears, Frosty the snowman, mistletoe and holly? Can those in charge of the Airports Authority please provide some answers to the people of Trinidad and Tobago ? Perhaps it may be simpler to kindly remove this eyesore and replace it with something that represents our Christmas. Thank you.”
  
  Corporate Communications Manager of State-owned airline Caribbean Airlines (CAL) Dionne Ligoure said CAL had nothing to do with the decorations at the airport.
  
  She said: “ The decorations at the airport, fall under the purview of the Airports Authority of Trinidad and Tobago , Caribbean Airlines is a tenant at the airport.” Other airlines said they were not consulted and they were not usually consulted regarding the decorations at the airport, she said.
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Latin American Herald Tribune - Guyana Increases Security amid Terrorism Concerns 1

Dec 03, 15

www.laht.com/article.asp Guyana terrorism national_security_state Venezuela
- Guyana Increases Security amid Terrorism Concerns
  
  SAN JUAN – After recent terrorist attacks in France and Mali, the government of Guyana announced Wednesday the start of a seven-month security exercise to avert possible threats.
  
  “Terrorism has no defined borders, terrorism can occur anywhere. We are not immune from that and therefore, it would be remiss of a government if it does not put into place arrangements which will secure its citizenry, and so we are not waiting for something to happen,” Minister of State Joseph Harmon said in a statement.
  
  The campaign will see an increase in the number of defense force members and law enforcement officials at key locations in Guyana even as voters in neighboring Venezuela prepare to go to the polls on Sunday for parliamentary elections.
  
  Venezuela and Guyana have had a long-simmering dispute over the Essequibo region, which is administered by Georgetown but claimed by Caracas.
  
  “Therefore, we always have to be on the alert for these things that are occurring on our borders,” the minister said.
Latin American Herald Tribune - Trinidad Court Postpones Jack Warner’s Extradition Hearing 1

Dec 03, 15

www.laht.com/article.asp Trinidad_Tobago extradition Jack_Warner FIFA
- rinidad Court Postpones Jack Warner’s Extradition Hearing
  
  PORT-OF-SPAIN – Wednesday’s hearing in Trinidad and Tobago on a U.S. request for the extradition of former soccer executive Jack Warner on corruption charges ended within minutes after the magistrate adjourned the proceedings until Feb. 19.
  
  The flamboyant Trinidadian businessman and politician served from 1997-2011 as a vice president of FIFA, soccer’s world governing body.
  
  Warner, 72, appeared briefly in court on Wednesday, but no evidence was heard, as both prosecutors and defense attorneys asked the judge for a continuance.
  
  The delay is to allow time for the Trinidad High Court to rule on a motion filed by Warner’s lawyers challenging the legal basis of the extradition bid.
  
  Warner is one of 14 former and present FIFA officials indicted in the U.S. on a number of charges including corruption and wire fraud.
OAS to observe general elections in St Vincent and the Grenadines | Caribbean News Now 1

Dec 01, 15

www.caribbeannewsnow.com/-and-the-Grenadines-28521.html OAS elections2015 observers
- OAS to observe general elections in St Vincent and the Grenadines
  Published on December 1, 2015 Email To Friend Print Version
  
  WASHINGTON, USA -- The Organization of American States (OAS) will send an electoral observation mission (EOM) to the general elections in St Vincent and the Grenadines on December 9, according to the agreement signed on Monday by representatives of the Organization and the Caribbean country.
  
  The secretary general of the OAS, Luis Almagro, recalled that the mission will be the 14th deployed in 2015 to various countries of the hemisphere. He noted that the mission will focus on issues of electoral organization and gender equality, and respect for conditions of equality and transparency in the electoral competition.
  
  For his part, the interim representative of St Vincent and the Grenadines to the OAS, Omari Seitu Williams, recalled the significance of the presence of an electoral observation mission for his country. This will be the fifth mission that the OAS has deployed to the Caribbean country, after the general elections of 2001, 2005 and 2010 and the 2009 referendum on constitutional reform.
  
  The mission in St Vincent and the Grenadines will be led by the chief of staff of the secretary general, Ambassador Jacinth Henry-Martin, and will include observers from different nationalities who will be deployed in all 15 constituencies of the country before, during and after the electoral process.
Letter: Why the IMF chemotherapy in Grenada will fail | Caribbean News Now 6

Dec 01, 15

www.caribbeannewsnow.com/n-Grenada-will-fail-28527.html IMF Grenada
- Letter: Why the IMF chemotherapy in Grenada will fail
  Published on December 1, 2015
- Dear Sir:
  
  In its narrow medical definition, chemotherapy is defined as the treatment of disease by means of chemicals that have a specific toxic effect upon the disease producing microorganism or that selectively destroy cancerous tissue.
- In Grenada, in collaboration with the government of Grenada, the IMF (International Monetary Fund) has undertaken to administer medication to a sick, cancerous economy in an effort to selectively destroy the causative agents of the country’s disease, albeit a form of chemotherapy.
  
  The dangers of chemotherapy are well documented and well known. Bad enough, of course, are the dangers of chemotherapy administered badly or administered by the wrong hands. Worse is where the agency administering the medication has no interest in whether the patient lives or dies.
  
  Even worse is where the agency administering the drug makes no provision for the sustainability of the patient while he undergoes this severe life threatening process.
  
  There are several areas of the current arrangement that were omitted from the contractual agreement, the absence of any one of which can possibly kill the patient during the period of treatment.
  
  The arrangement did not put in place the required set of injections for economic growth. To obtain economic growth measures would have had to be put in place to increase the capacity of the economy to produce goods and services from one year to another. Countries where sustained economic growth has impacted on the wider population have had to produce at least 6% to 8% of economic growth per annum. Growth rates of 1% and 1.5% just wouldn’t cut it.
- Given that it is possible to have economic growth without the benefits being spread to the wider population some countries have gone one step further to measure the impact of the economic growth on the happiness of the nation. These countries use a wide range of yardsticks to measure personal happiness over time including, access to education, employment, good and services, health care, recreation, culture activity, relaxation and others.
  
  To attain economic growth, the program would have had to include specific allocation of resources towards production. Production both in its traditional sense of agriculture and services but also in the non-traditional sense of new innovative areas and unexplored areas including, entertainment, theatre arts, performing arts, film, audio and visual production, animation and several other new technology driven areas.
  
  The sum total of our economic strategy cannot be reduced to the construction of the next concrete monstrosity on our diminishing green space. The Caribbean island of Puerto Rico has built every hotel known to man on its terrain but that did nothing to stop its slide into irrecoverable bankruptcy. To survive we must expand our thought process to include and accept other innovative developmental methods in our arsenal.
- Grenada continues to slide unchecked towards the bottom of the pile in the rankings of the ease of doing business in the World Bank Review. Not only is it close to impossible to start a business it is also unforgiving to survive in it and to liquidate it. Duty and taxation arrangements, operating costs and other hidden charges all work in tandem to ensure your demise. For now, the island remains closed for business.
  
  The basis of governance lies in the constitution. Real progress cannot be made without addressing fundamental flaws in that document. Those are not necessarily flaws inherent in the initial document as passed in 1973 but simply flaws that developed due to the effluxion of time. After 40 years of scrutiny we are proposing a six-point change, none of which are exactly earth shattering. Imagine that, in 1973, the framers of the constitution turned up in London with only six points saying to the Queen of England that this all they could muster in the circumstances.
  
  In its attempt to administer justice the island does not even have a proper courthouse. After moving around from one derelict building to another some of the courts are now settled at the former LIME building on the Carenage. Needless to say there is a need for a proper Hall of Justice where all arms of the judiciary can function in close proximity and harmony. A concerted effort must be made to eliminate the backlog of cases and the barrage of small claims that remain stuck in the system.
- The package does not require persons to be held accountable for their actions. It is becoming all too common that it requires action from an outside agency to discover, track and bring to justice people who break the law in Grenada. Stories abound of persons who break the law and allowed to roam free for want of prosecution.
  
  These days when one enters the police station to file a complaint the police act as judge, jury and executioner, dismissing the complaint based on their whim and fancy. Gentlemen’s agreements are no longer valid. Several citizens will only pay a parking ticket when they are sentenced to be committed to prison.
  
  Openness is not a requirement of the current arrangements. The nation is run by heresy and rumours. Long after Bills are passed in Parliament the population gets to know the new status quo. Persons in leadership positions are being swapped around and replaced, without due regard for this skills, qualifications and competence.
  
  We can go on and on examining several other key factors left out of the current arrangements between our government and the IMF but the conclusion is clear. The government of Grenada has entered us into an arrangement that provides for extensive, radical treatment of our diseased economy without any regard or provision for the survival of the patient during the period of the treatment.
  
  Garvey Louison
  
  Reads: 88
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Trinidad court of appeal allows election challenge to proceed | Caribbean News Now 6

Dec 01, 15

www.caribbeannewsnow.com/hallenge-to-proceed-28516.html Trinidad_Tobago elections2015 UNC Kamla_Persad_Bissessar protest
- Trinidad court of appeal allows election challenge to proceed
- By Caribbean News Now contributor
  
  PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad -- In a majority decision, the Trinidad and Tobago Court of Appeal has allowed the election petition brought by the United National Congress (UNC) to proceed.
  
  The ruling was handed down on Monday, with Justices Peter Jamadar and Allan Mendonca ruling to uphold the decision of the High Court to grant leave and Chief Justice Ivor Archie ruling against.
  
  On September 18, High Court Justice Mira Dean-Armorer granted the UNC leave to proceed with the petitions to challenge the election results, agreeing that the UNC had presented an arguable case with a realistic prospect of success.
- However, the EBC and the members of parliament for the six affected constituencies appealed the High Court decision.
  
  The UNC have challenged the action taken by the Election and Boundaries Commission to extend voting by an hour on Election Day (Monday September 7, 2015), a move the EBC said it made as a result of torrential rain. The UNC has also argued that the late notice was not properly communicated to voters.
  
  The UNC argued that the constitution does not give the EBC the authority to extend the mandated voting hours of between 6 am and 6 pm by an additional hour due to inclement weather.
  
  It asserts that the EBC only had the power to adjourn the voting process to the following day in the event of election violence.
  
  The UNC claims that the additional hour worked in favour of the People's National Movement (PNM), resulting in that party winning the general election by 23 seats to 18.
- However, the UNC will now have to return to the High Court and provide cogent and credible evidence at a substantive hearing on the merits of the petition to show that it was significantly disadvantaged and the EBC decision affected the results, and that the general election results in six marginal constituencies should therefore be declared null and void.
  
  The EBC has denied any wrongdoing and has contended that it acted within its remit.
  
  Chief Justice Archie, in a dissenting opinion, sided with the EBC, which had argued that that it is the sole body responsible for governing the voting process and had the authority to extend the voting hours on September 7, should there be good enough reasons for doing so.
  
  Archie said that the evidence presented in the Appeal did not show that the process was unfair or that the election result would have been different, if there was no one-hour extension of voting in the September 7 general election.
- Justices Jamadhar and Mendonca said the voting process had to be seen as free and fair, and that justice must not only be done, but seen to be done. The judges said that where there was public trust and confidence, the outcome would be more acceptable, even if there was disagreement.
  
  In a statement following the decision, UNC political leader, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, said the UNC welcomed the historic and landmark ruling by the court of appeal.
  
  “This is a victory for democracy and the people of Trinidad and Tobago who are entitled to a system of elections that is free, fair and in accordance with the Constitution,” she said, adding, “No man or entity is above the law and hence the EBC is itself subject to the constitution from which it derives its powers.”
  
  According to the UNC, is a strong case that the decision to extend the time for voting by one hour was illegal and unfair. It put the UNC election machinery and supporters at a great disadvantage and contravened both the spirit and letter of the law.
- She noted that in addition to these election petitions, there are two other matters before the court namely, a judicial review challenging the decision of the EBC and a constitutional motion brought by two aggrieved citizens from Tobago who claim they were the victims of discrimination.
  
  “It is very strange, to say the least, that the EBC did not similarly extend the time for voting in Tobago,” Persad-Bissessar said.
  
  She pointed out that Monday’s ruling paves the way for a full-scale trial of these election petitions and citizens who were affected by the decision or who may be in possession of relevant information can now come forward and let their voices be heard so that justice can be done.
  
  “Many aggrieved citizens who were turned away at the polls when they went to cast their vote after 6.00 pm will no doubt let their voices be heard. The chaos and confusion that followed the sudden decision by the EBC to extend the voting time will now be the subject of judicial scrutiny. Conflicting information and opinions saw many polling stations remaining closed whilst others allowed people to vote in the midst of the prevailing uncertainty as to what the true and correct position was,” she said.
  
  Reads: 201
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French Caribbean under state of emergency following Paris attacks | Caribbean360 3

Nov 19, 15

www.caribbean360.com/...rgency-following-paris-attacks Caribbean France French_Caribbean Martinique Guadelope state_of_emergency national_security_state
- French Caribbean under state of emergency following Paris attacks
  
  Caribbean360November 19, 2015
- FORT DE FRANCE, Martinique, Thursday November 19, 2015 – The state of emergency declared by France following the deadly terror attacks in Paris has been extended to Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Martinique, Mayotte, Reunion Island, and St Martin and St Barths.
  
  This means that lawmen will have the power to randomly stop the circulation of persons and install zones of protection and security and detain suspicious persons and their possessions.
  
  They will also be able to ban meetings or demonstrations, order searches in houses day or night, give a compulsory order of residence to any persons whose behaviour or activity is deemed dangerous for security and public order, and order the submission of weapons and ammunition.
- In making the announcement, French Minister of Overseas Territories George Pau-Langevin said the decision is justified and necessary for “coherence and reinforcement of security systems”.
  
  VIDEO – Paris attacks: France lower house votes to extend the state of emergency by three… https://t.co/17VKINgZYl pic.twitter.com/efK2t1FPXw
  
  — FRANCE 24 English (@France24_en) November 19, 2015
  
  <script async="" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
  
  The emergency measure went into effect after at least 129 people were killed and more than 350 injured in last Friday’s coordinated attacks on Paris, which terrorist group, the Islamic State, has claimed responsibility.
  
  French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has since warned that France was at risk of a chemical or biological weapons attack as legislators opened debate on extending the state of emergency for three more months.
  
  The measure is used in “cases of imminent danger resulting from serious breaches of public order, or in case of events threatening, by their nature and gravity, public disaster”.
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In Guyana, a Land Dispute With Venezuela Escalates Over Oil - The New York Times 19

Nov 19, 15

www.nytimes.com/...ezuela-escalates-over-oil.html Venezuela Exxon ExxonMobil Guyana border_dispute
- In Guyana, a Land Dispute With Venezuela Escalates Over Oil
- WILLIAM NEUMAN
- NOV. 18, 2015
  
  Inside
- BARTICA, Guyana — At a little tin-roofed beer joint on the west bank of the Essequibo River, Rawle Huggins relaxed on a wooden bench and considered his tiny country’s escalating border spat with its much bigger neighbor, Venezuela.
  
  “Here is Guyana,” said Mr. Huggins, a sometime gold miner, referring to the land beneath him and everything around it. “I don’t live in Venezuela. I live in Guyana. They live,” he added, gesturing beyond the jungle that fringes the town, “over there.”
  Bartica (pronounced BAR-ti-ca), a two-and-a-half-hour journey by car and boat from Guyana’s capital, Georgetown, is the jumping-off point for what the Guyanese call “the interior,” a sparsely populated region of forest and savanna that holds indigenous villages, mining camps and deposits of gold, diamonds, bauxite and other minerals.
- That region is at the center of a bitter battle between neighbors. In a squabble that goes back more than 100 years, Venezuela insists it is the rightful owner of everything west of the Essequibo, laying claim to nearly two-thirds of Guyana’s territory, including Bartica.
- The dispute has heated up in recent months, after Exxon Mobil, working for the Guyanese government, announced in May that it had discovered a large reserve of oil in ocean waters off the disputed territory. Venezuela’s tough economic and diplomatic retorts have even kindled warnings of a military clash.
  “The oil that we find, Venezuela is claiming,” said Towannh John, a waitress at a nearby refreshment shack, the Palm Court, where miniature Guyanese flags flap from the ceiling.
  To emphasize her indignation, Ms. John began singing a folk song popularized during an earlier standoff with Venezuela over the same territory: “I ain’t giving up no mountain, I ain’t giving up no sea, I ain’t giving up no river that belongs to me.”
- The dispute dates to the 19th century, when Guyana was a British colony and Britain was seeking to expand its foothold in South America by making aggressive claims about the colony’s boundaries. Venezuela objected and sought help from Washington, which, in a crucial test of the Monroe Doctrine, pressured Britain to take the dispute to an arbitration panel.
  
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  The panel met in Paris in 1899. It consisted of four judges, two each from Britain and the United States, and a Russian diplomat who could cast a fifth vote as the tiebreaker. A former United States president, Benjamin Harrison, was the lead lawyer arguing the case for Venezuela.
- When the panel announced its decision, it was seen to be highly favorable to Britain, which got almost all the land it had sought.
  That appeared to be the end of the controversy until 1949, when a letter from an American lawyer in the proceedings was made public, asserting that the British judges had colluded with the Russian diplomat to force an outcome benefiting Britain.
  Venezuelan officials declared the 1899 decision invalid and insisted that the territory be returned, a demand that continued after Guyana gained independence from Britain in 1966.
  
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  The dispute has entered one of its angriest phases in recent months, against the backdrop of a deepening economic and political crisis in Venezuela.
- President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela has long accused the United States of conspiring against him. This year he shut down the main border crossings to Colombia, accusing its government of backing conspirators planning to kill him.
  Now he has focused his aim on Guyana, the only English-speaking country in South America.
  After Exxon Mobil’s announcement, Mr. Maduro issued a decree establishing maritime defense zones that encroached on Guyanese waters, as well as on the territorial waters of other Caribbean and South American neighbors. Although he later pulled back the decree, a loud statement had been made.
- Around the same time, Venezuela stopped subsidized oil shipments to Guyana in exchange for Guyanese rice, which had been part of Venezuela’s program supporting many smaller countries in the region.
  Mr. Maduro also withdrew Venezuela’s ambassador from Georgetown, and Guyana eventually removed its ambassador from Caracas.
  There was more. Venezuela objected to Brazil’s efforts to help Guyana develop hydroelectric projects in the disputed zone. It sent a letter to Exxon Mobil objecting to the oil drilling. And it sent a similar letter to a Canadian company, Guyana Goldfields Inc., threatening to stop it from operating a large gold mine west of Bartica.
- Officials in the two countries have also engaged in a fierce war of words. Mr. Maduro accused President David Granger of Guyana of representing Exxon Mobil rather than his own people.
  Mr. Granger warned over the summer that Venezuela was massing troops and military equipment on the border, while Venezuela said it was merely conducting military exercises.
  Mr. Maduro and Mr. Granger met in September in New York, but little came out of it other than an agreement to restore their ambassadors.
- Mr. Maduro, a leftist, has sought to play Venezuela as the victim in the dispute, saying it was cheated by the powerful British Empire.
  It is a variation of Mr. Maduro’s standard script, which has Venezuela playing David in an epic struggle with the United States, cast as Goliath.
  But many here see Venezuela’s tangle with tiny Guyana, one of the poorest countries in the region with a population of just over 735,000, in a similar light.
- “Venezuela has 40 times our population; it has four times the territorial size of Guyana,” Mr. Granger said in an interview, adding that his army has only two helicopters, two transport planes and no navy, while Venezuela has fighter jets, tanks and warships.
  “There’s no way we can contemplate a military confrontation,” Mr. Granger said.
  Mr. Granger, a soft-spoken former army general, warned of the “Finlandization” of Guyana, meaning it risked being dominated by its more powerful neighbor. “A simpler word would be bullying,” he said.
  “The main impact of the claim is the effect it has on potential foreign investors,” Mr. Granger added. “The risk is they would rather not invest here.”
- Officials in Venezuela did not respond to requests to interview Mr. Maduro and Delcy Rodríguez, the foreign minister.
  In July Mr. Maduro gave an interview to a government-run television station, Telesur, in which he objected to the suggestion that “Venezuela is now the imperialist country.”
- “We are the country that had something taken away from us,” he said. “That land was not given to us as a gift by the British Empire or the Spanish Empire. Our grandfathers won it fighting on the battlefield. It is sacred ground.”
  In Venezuela, maps routinely show the disputed land as part of Venezuelan territory, sometimes covered in candy cane stripes, with the label “Reclamation Zone.” It is generally referred to as the Essequibo, but because of the area’s elongated shape, some Venezuelans call it “the elephant’s trunk.”
- But while Venezuelans are taught from the earliest years of school that the territory is rightfully theirs, few have actually set foot there.
  “All these people that talk about the Essequibo have never been there,” said Charles Brewer-Carías, a Venezuelan outdoorsman and explorer.
  Mr. Brewer-Carías was a youth minister in 1981 when he led a group of about fifty young Venezuelans on a secret excursion over the border and into the Guyanese jungle, planting Venezuelan flags as they went.
- He also flew over Guyana in a small plane to map strategic facilities, such as airstrips. At the time he hoped to incite his government to invade. (It got him fired instead.) He started out thinking that the area was an empty jungle, but came to find it was occupied by Guyanese people, towns, farms and mines.
  He says that Venezuela should accept the status quo and emphasize friendly relations.
- “It is impossible to take away land from a country that has developed it,” Mr. Brewer-Carías said. “We are so given to magical things that we think we will get it and get its oil wells and gold mines.”
  On a dock along the Essequibo River, in a town called Parika, Mike Prince, 61, a Guyanese Army veteran, sat watching passengers boarding boats for Bartica.
  “I would re-enlist just to chase these sons of back to where they came from,” he said, genteelly omitting an obscene word. It was, he said, all about the oil.
  “Greed,” he added, “is a terrible thing.”
- A version of this article appears in print on November 19, 2015, on page A6 of the New York edition with the headline: In Guyana, a Bitter Land Dispute Escalates Over Oil.
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What the FIFA scandal really tells us -- about the US 15

Nov 01, 15

theconversation.com/ly-tells-us-about-the-us-42657 cultural_imperialism FIFA US_intervention Trinidad_Tobago Jack_Warner *
- What the FIFA scandal really tells us – about the US
  
  June 1, 2015
- Simon Reich
  Professor in The Division of Global Affairs and The Department of Political Science, Rutgers University
- I have lived in the US for over three decades. And I have never seen soccer – that is, real “football” – dominate the front pages of US newspapers for so many days and with so many stories. In that sense, at least, FIFA rules.
  
  Of course, trust the Americans to inject themselves in such an unorthodox way into the nearest thing that the rest of the world has to a universal religion.
  
  While billions watched the annual cup finals in England, France and Spain over the weekend, the bigger stories in the US focused on fraud, corruption and the reelection of FIFA’s notorious 79-year-old president, Sepp Blatter.
- So, in case you wondered, Arsenal in England and Barcelona in Spain (if not the more dour PSG in France) amply demonstrated why football fans love the game so much that they will put up with the kind of corruption that threatens its purity in the reputed squalor that is FIFA.
  
  But be clear: this is not just a story about cronyism in soccer. It isn’t even about cronyism in sport.
  
  This is a story that intersects with four major themes that transcend the world of sports – and the world of crime.
  
  This is a story about the issues that the US has to grapple with in many places and in many ways.
- The US as the world’s sheriff
  
  The first concerns the US’s more general role in global affairs.
  
  Students of international relations, or of the interminable debates in the run-up to presidential elections, will be familiar with a central question: should the US be the world’s sheriff (or policeman, if you aren’t an American), or should it have a more restrained role in world affairs?
  
  Republicans like John McCain and Lindsey Graham believe that the US should be an unmitigated bulwark against tyrants, bullies and thieves. Republicans like Rand Paul think America should be more reticent to involve itself in issues that are not of substantial and explicit interest to American national security. President Obama – like many Democrats – often falls somewhere in between these two views.
  
  In the FIFA case, the US has decided to act as a sheriff and vowed “to end graft in FIFA.”
  
  It has exercised its power well beyond its shores, in the posh confines of Zurich, Switzerland – demonstrating what the lawyers called “extraterritoriality.”
- On the -– let’s face it –- relatively flimsy basis that money was moved through US banks, it had people arrested across the globe. And even when some returned to their home countries, it used local courts to press its demands for extradition – Jack Warner in Trinidad being one notable example.
  
  Not surprisingly, some cheered the US’s use of its power to reclaim the sanctity of football’s governing body. But it would be naïve to assume that was the universal response. One Argentinean magazine called the US’ behavior “Yankee imperialism.”
  
  Vladimir Putin, sensing that this scandal might challenge Russia’s right to stage the 2018 World Cup, called in an American conspiracy -– in effect, to paraphrase Prussian general and military theorist Carl Von Clausewitz’s famous adage, the FIFA scandal has become “geopolitics by other means.”
  
  Blatter’s own daughter Corinne agreed with that assessment, although she was more discreet in not focusing on the Americans and the British. But Blatter himself was not so discreet in pointing the fingers at the Americans.
- America’s supporters were just as predictable – the Europeans, led by the irascible, supremely talented former French player Michel Platini, who now heads Europe’s governing body. And yes, just as predictably for many Americans, France was one of the reportedly 18 European countries who defected from the supposedly unified European position and voted for Blatter’s reelection on Friday.
  
  So the Europeans were as fragmented and incoherent as ever. But the French held true to their custom of opposing America’s unilateral exercise of power in an international forum.
  
  It is Bush’s invasion of Iraq all over again!
- Defining democracy
  
  The second broader theme raised by the FIFA scandal is the question of the true meaning of democracy.
  
  Like the UN, each member of FIFA gets one vote when it comes to electing the organization’s president. American Samoa gets the same number of votes as America. But unlike the UN, there is no Security Council to oversee the vote of the 209 members, no veto power to ensure a degree of unanimity.
- So British Prime Minister David Cameron’s call for Blatter to resign even before the vote took place went unheeded. And it proved relatively easy for Blatter, in the midst of the organization’s crisis, to muster the simple majority needed to win reelection in Friday’s vote.
- Some critics called the process “undemocratic,” despite the universal franchise. Now many among the dissidents, including the English, are calling for European countries to withdraw from the next World Cup, the pinnacle of global soccer.
  
  How could these vocal critics, mostly hailing from liberal democracies, reject the results of this process?
  
  Well, as with voting in Russia, Gaza or Venezuela over the last decade, many in the US and Europe don’t like elections when “the wrong” people get elected. They object when they think that a formal process has been observed but the rule of law has been sacrificed to corrupt practices – what Americans used to call “Tammany Hall machine politics.”
  
  There is plenty of evidence that Blatter’s FIFA has dispensed patronage and earned the loyalty of some of the smallest members of the organization relatively cheaply. But the whole case again raises the question of what means to “buy a vote” – whether it is by the purposeful bribing of officials or the process of simply bringing home the bacon.
- Corporate responsibility in the modern age
  
  The whole question of corruption brings us to the third theme –- that of corporate social responsibility.
  
  Over the course of the last decade, the world’s largest firms have embraced the notion that firms don’t just have to make money. They also have to be good corporate citizens. And from pharmaceutical firms to the Clinton Foundation, the American government has learned to partner with corporations and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in implementing key aspects of US foreign policy - like the fight against Ebola in West Africa last year.
- Likewise, the UN’s Global Compact partnership “asks companies to embrace universal principles and to partner with the United Nations” in the enlightened implementation of those principles. It advocates “an appeal by the private sector to Governments to promote anti-corruption measures and to implement policies that will establish systems of good governance.”
  
  American firms were generally slow to accept the notion that they had a responsibility beyond their own shareholders. European firms really led that process in the early 2000s.
  
  Yet the whole question of the FIFA scandal brings the role of corporations into sharp relief. From Visa to McDonalds, Coca Cola to Budweiser, Adidas to …okay, Gazprom: the world’s largest firms partner with FIFA.
- No World Cup is complete without the accompanying bombardment of advertising.
  
  As one reporter has succinctly suggested, “FIFA’s best friends are multinational corporations, and theirs is a friendship rooted in helping one another make lots and lots of money.” Many have remained silent about the current scandal or have crafted diplomatic comments.
  
  The optimist might suggest that at least they are speaking up now, having largely ignored the deaths of scores of workers laboring in intolerable conditions in building the stadia for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. But these firms can’t claim they didn’t know what has been going on.
  
  They knew there were problems when Michael Garcia, the chief investigator and author of a report on ethics in FIFA in the selection of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, resigned from his post in protest over the censorship of his report last December.
  
  From a broader perspective, these companies' willingness to tolerate FIFA’s brazen institutional and individual corruption speaks volumes about the lack of progress in the field of global corporate citizenship. There has simply been too much money at stake for them to worry about corruption.
- The role of global finance
  
  And finally, of course, is the role of global banking.
  
  The US Supreme Court tells us that corporations have the same rights as people. But unlike people, they don’t go to jail.
  
  Fourteen FIFA officials have been indicted. Many more, we are confidently told, may be in the future.
- But, even here we see the echoes of much bigger financial issues. For we can be sure that the bankers involved in the fraudulent wire transfers and money laundering at the heart of the Department of Justice’s case will not go to prison.
  
  Like the malfeasance that led to the Great Recession of 2007-2009, the banks will get off with a fine at worst. Only the relatively “small fish” beneficiaries – the convicted FIFA officials – will go to jail.
  
  So at the end of the day, the FIFA case isn’t really about football at all.
  
  When an American gridiron football player takes a swing at his partner in a lift, we understandably make it a story about domestic violence. When an African-American hockey player is booed, we understandably make it a story about racism. When a football gets deflated, we make it a story about honor. So we had also better understand that this is a story about America’s role in the world: about its power, its allies and rivals, its great corporations and -– ultimately –- the values it tries to promote.
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Trinidad and Tobago ratifies SOFA | Trinidad and Tobago Government News 3

Sep 29, 15

www.news.gov.tt/...nidad-and-tobago-ratifies-sofa Trinidad_Tobago SOFA
- Trinidad and Tobago ratifies SOFA
- May 27, 2013:
  
  Trinidad and Tobago has ratified the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the United States, which governs the temporary presence of US military/defence personnel in Trinidad and Tobago (TT) for mutually agreed activities.
  
  This agreement is intended to strengthen the existing excellent relationship between Trinidad and Tobago and the United States in matters of national and regional security.
  
  The terms of the agreement will only become operative and applicable to particular exercises in which both governments mutually agree to engage.
  
  Mutually agreed activities are defined in the SOFA as “such activities for which the government of Trinidad and Tobago shall transmit its approval in writing through diplomatic channels to the United States Authorities”.
  
  In accordance with international practice, a determination on whether an action occurred during the course of official duties is customarily made by the relevant authorities of the sending State’s force who are in the best position to define what constitutes official duties of the members of that force.
- There is a provision in the current agreement that permits the Government of Trinidad and Tobago to become involved in such a determination. This enhances the scope of involvement by Trinidad and Tobago and diminishes the scope for unilateral action by the United States.
  
  As is the case with the previous SOFA, for the purpose of mutually agreed activities, US forces will be designated under the Trinidad and Tobago Visiting Forces Act, (Chapter 14:04 of the Laws of Trinidad and Tobago.
  
  This SOFA cannot be the basis for the establishment of an American military base in Trinidad and Tobago because it contemplates the temporary presence of US personnel in Trinidad and Tobago. No provisions are made or contemplated for the grant of facilities and areas to be utilized by the US military on the territory of Trinidad and Tobago.
  
  ###
  
  Communications Unit
  Office of the Prime Minister
  Contact: Mr. Dennis McComie
  Director of Public Information and Communications
  622-1625 Ext. 4007
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AG AL-RAWI SIGNS ATP IN WARNER EXTRADITION CASE | Trinidad and Tobago Government News 3

Sep 29, 15

www.news.gov.tt/...-atp-warner-extradition-case-0 Trinidad_Tobago Jack_Warner FIFA extradition
- AG AL-RAWI SIGNS ATP IN WARNER EXTRADITION CASE
- September 22, 2015: Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi has signed the Authority To Proceed (ATP) in the Jack Warner extradition case.
  
  Queen's Counsel for the State, James Lewis, confirmed that the ATP had been signed when the former FIFA Vice President reappeared at the Port of Spain Magistrates' Court on Monday morning.
  
  Deputy Chief Magistrate Mark Wellington heard cases in the 8th court in place of Chief Magistrate Marcia Ayers-Caesar, who is currently abroad.
  
  While the ATP was acknowledged and not challenged by Mr. Warner's defense, they argued he should be discharged from his provisional warrant before continuing the case.
  
  Senior Counsel Fyard Hosein, representing Mr. Warner, said the failure to sign the ATP prior to the September 16th deadline meant his warrant should be discharged.
  
  He cited that under Section 12.3, the Magistrate had no grounds to grant an extension and as such, to avoid the matter facing a Judicial Review over the issue, the warrant should by discharged.
  
  QC Lewis, in his counter-argument, stated there was no real reason to discharge the warrant as the nature of the proceedings had already changed due to the ATP.
  
  He said the discharge would be purely "academic."
  
  The Deputy Chief Magistrate stated he was troubled by differing arguments and opted to adjourn the case to Friday, stating he needed time to review the ATP.
  
  Mr. Warner did not take questions from the media after leaving the court.
- In May this year, US Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced that the United States had formally indicted 14 individuals after years of intense and forensic investigations into corruption at FIFA and their umbrella organisations.
  
  Mr. Warner was among those named and the US has been seeking to have him extradited to face charges of racketeering, corruption and conspiracy charges associated with FIFA, dating as far back as 1991. Among the allegations were schemes and plots related to bidding for the 2010 World Cup, the 2011 FIFA Presidential election, and next year's Centennial Copa America tournament.
  
  Mr. Warner's sons, Daryan and Daryll Warner, along with former CONCACAF Vice President Chuck Blazer, are among those named as convicted defendants.
  
  According to a Reuters article in June, a court transcript showed that the brothers agreed to assist US authorities as part of separate plea deals.
  
  The transcript showed that in Daryan Warner's cooperation deal, prosecutors agreed not to charge him with fraud and money laundering in connection with aiding and abetting an alleged bribe payment by the South African Bid Committee connected to its bid to host the 2010 World Cup.
  
  That agreement signaled a potential area of testimony by him should the larger case against the 14 go to trial, as prosecutors alleged that Jack Warner solicited payments worth $10 million from the South African Government. Mr. Warner has denied wrongdoing.
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