Moontown

Luis Oliveros Serranos, in charge of logistics of the Cuban medical mission in that country, expressed that logic and efficiency are the main standards followed in this cooperation with the Haitian people, since resources are placed where they’re more necessary, in a balanced way.

The field hospitals (the previous ones are located in Croix des Buquet, Carrefour, Leogane and Jacmel) are equipped with state-of-the-art technology, and more will continue to be opened according to the needs of the population.

The purpose of the contribution made by the countries that are members of the Bolivarian Alliance for The Americas (ALBA) is to give their support to the Haitian people in the field of health after the earthquake that devastated the nation’s capital and neighboring cities.

Also in operation, besides the five field units, are five Centers for Comprehensive Diagnosis and three medical institutions (La Paz, Renaissance and Ofatma hospitals), all of them in charge of Cuban doctors, nurses and health technicians, with the support of Haitian fifth and sixth year students from Havana’s Latin American School of Medicine, and Haitian physicians graduated from this center.

There’s also primary health care, with the creation, as of Wednesday, of medical consultation posts in different localities, near people in need of these services. (Caribnet)

Reporters without Borders (RSF) has urged culture and communications minister Marie-Laurence Jocelyn-Lassègue to demand an explanation from the US military authorities.

“Six marines came up and surrounded me,” Cardichon told RSF. “Then they took my camera and my opened work bag and left with it. An hour later, one of them came back and photographed me. Then he returned my camera to me. I saw that the soldiers had erased some of the photos.”

According to RSF, there is growing discontent in Port-au-Prince with the countries involved in the humanitarian relief effort, including the United States.

“In this case, the US soldiers reacted in the worst possible manner in an attempt to protect their image. Aside from being a flagrant act of censorship, it has done further harm to their reputation in the eyes of the Haitian population. The government has a right to expect an explanation from the US military and to hope that such an incident will not recur,” RSF said.

RSF emphasised that news and information is vital for reconstruction in Haiti and for the efforts of its citizens to start rebuilding their lives. As regards the news media, it is time for Haiti’s own journalists to be playing a leading role again. (Caribnet)

BRASILIA, Brasil (AFP) – The United States fired a warning to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Thursday, telling him to not repress his people and to accept dialogue in his moment of “crisis.”

New US Ambassador to Brasil, Tom Shannon. AFP PHOTO

“Our message to the government of Venezuela would be: ‘Do not repress, rather give room to your own Venezuelan people and listen to them’,” Tom Shannon, a former top State Department official who on Wednesday officially became US ambassador to Brazil, told a news conference here.

“Venezuela is going through a difficult time. From our point of view, it’s important in a time of political crisis to open a political space to all the people and all Venezuelan citizens,” he said, speaking in Portuguese.

Shannon, who until recently was US Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs in the State Department, was referring to anti- and pro-Chavez demonstrations in Venezuela, and Venezuela’s recent decision to pull the plug on several opposition television stations.

On Thursday, more than 5,000 demonstrators took to the streets of Caracas to mark the anniversary of a 1992 failed coup led by Chavez, who in 1998 was elected Venezuela’s president.

A parallel, anti-Chavez student rally took place at the same time in the city with protesters unhappy over the leftwing president’s 11-year rule.

Chavez, 55, on Tuesday vowed he would stay in office for another 11 years.

“I promise I’ll take care of myself a little better and, if you like, in 11 years I’ll be 66 — God willing — with 22 years as president,” Chavez told a cheering crowd of supporters.

Speaking about his job as ambassador to Brazil, Shannon said he would work to resolve several points of friction in Washington-Brasilia relations.

On Brazil’s friendly ties with US arch-foe Iran, he said: “If Brazil and other countries want to communicate directly (with Iran), that’s a good thing.

“But all countries — I’m also speaking of the United States — have to measure the effectiveness of our diplomacy on the basis of results.”

He added that “at the moment” it appeared Iran was not interested in dialogue on the contentious issue of its nuclear energy program, which Washington fears is a cover to build atomic weapons.

Shannon also said negotiations were underway to determine how Brazil would apply 830 million dollars a year in trade penalties on US goods and services under a World Trade Organization ruling against US cotton subsidies.

He admitted the talks were “delicate” but said both sides wanted “a solution that avoided the need for retaliation, because retaliation always provokes retaliation.” (Caribnet)

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) — Ten US missionaries detained in Haiti were charged on Thursday with child kidnapping and criminal association for allegedly trying to take children illegally out of the earthquake-hit country.

After announcing the charges, Haitian Deputy Prosecutor Jean Ferge Joseph told the Americans their case was being sent to an investigative judge.

“That judge can free you but he can also continue to hold you for further proceedings,” the deputy prosecutor told the five men and five women in a hearing.

Laura Silsby (L), the head the Christian missionaries from the Idaho-based Baptist charity New Life Children’s Refuge from the US is in a van along with another unidentified member of the group on Thursday. AFP PHOTO

The missionaries, most of whom belong to an Idaho-based Baptist church, were arrested last week on Haiti’s border with the Dominican Republic when they tried to cross with a busload of 33 children they said were orphaned by the devastating January 12 quake.

Haitian authorities said the group lacked the authorization and travel documents needed to take the children out of Haiti.

The Americans, who were sent back to a police lock-up to await the judge’s decision, deny they were engaged in child trafficking and said they were just trying to help some of the thousands of orphans left destitute and abandoned by the quake.

The case could be diplomatically sensitive at a time when the United States is spearheading a huge relief effort to help hundreds of thousands of Haitian quake victims, and as US aid groups pour millions of dollars of donations into Haiti.

Speaking before the Haitian decision was announced, U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the United States was not seeking to interfere in the case.

Crowley sought to play down comments Wednesday by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that Washington was in talks with the Haitian government “about the appropriate disposition of their (missionaries’) cases.”

“I wouldn’t read too much into that,” he said. “We have been in touch with Haitian judicial officials just to help understand how they were going to act in this particular case.”

He added, “I would put this in the context of, you know, asking for clarifications about … what (their) procedure would be, what the … timeline, capacity to be able to pursue this case.”

After the Americans’ arrest, evidence emerged that most of the children intercepted with them were not orphans. Haitian police said some parents admitted to handing over their children to the missionaries in the belief they would get an education and a better life.

Haiti’s government has tightened adoption procedures since the quake, saying it feared unscrupulous traffickers could try to take advantage of the disaster by spiriting away vulnerable children. Officials said they already had reports of trafficking of minors, and even of human organs. (Caribnet)

Ria Taitt Political Editor

governmnet commitment: Finance Minister Karen Nunez-Tesheira makes a point during yesterday’s post-Cabinet media conference at the Diplomatic Centre in St Ann’s. At right is Public Utilities Minister Mustapha Abdul-Hamid. -Photo: STEVE McPHIE

Promising to give the population a full status report on CL Financial in the ’very near future’, Finance Minister Karen Nunez-Tesheira reiterated yesterday that Government will honour its commitment to give CL Financial depositors their money.

Speaking at a post-Cabinet news conference at the Diplomatic Centre in St Ann’s, the Minister said Government had thus far given some $2 billion to the beleaguered company.

However, the Minister did not give a full explanation for the exodus of high level managers at the troubled conglomerate. Among those who have resigned are Steve Bideshi, Michael Carballo, the resignation as chairman by Dr Euric Bobb, who stayed on as a director, and most recently Claude Musaib-Ali. (See story below.)

Yesterday, Nunez-Tesheira said Musaib-Ali was on a one year contract.

’The contract has come at an end and he has chosen to move on.’

She said Bideshi came in on an interim basis.

’The Government has given its commitment to guarantee those persons (depositors)… It is a dynamic process and we recognise that the public would like to hear more. And right now there is a note before Cabinet and once it comes out, the Chairman, Shafeek Sultan-Khan, Central Bank Governor Ewart Williams and myself would be able to give a more fulsome response,’ she said.

Addressing the issue of depositors not being able to access their money when their deposits mature, Nunez-Tesheira said: ’I would want to look at it another way. Had the Government not stepped in and done what it did, that would be a moot point (ie people would have definitely lost their money). It is because the Government had a concern, as it must have, for the systematic risk that Clico and CL posed…

’It is a very dynamic process. We look at what happened with First Citizens, it took about 20 years to get … and today First Citizens is one of the most successful banks in the country … You cannot expect that a situation that is as complex and as huge as CL Financial to be solved in one year …You are looking at a very extraordinary situation … It was not something that the Government planned for … We had our own AIG in Trinidad … And the key objective was maintaining and ensuring that there was not the systematic risk and there was not a run on the company that would have the effect of impacting on all the financial sector,’ she said.

She said the yardstick of success of the first phase of Government intervention was that Standard and Poor moved Trinidad and Tobago from a negative watch and maintained its investment grade rating.

On the issue of the return of Gita Sakal to the post of corporate secretary, Nunez-Tesheira said: ’I am aware of the issue. And it is not what it may appear on first blush, in terms of how Miss Sakal’s issue is being treated with.’

She said, however, that her first responsibility was to report to the Cabinet, which she has begun to do by way of a note. When this process of reporting is complete, a status report would be given to the country, she said. (Trinidad Express)

Ria Taitt Political Editor

Meet Kamla Persad-Bissessar: Siparia MP, Political Leader of the United National Congress (UNC) and, according to informed sources, soon to be conferred with the title of Opposition Leader.

Reliable sources told the Express last night that Persad-Bissessar has acquired the requisite number of votes to be named Opposition Leader. She needs the support of at least eight MPs-seven plus herself, to take the position.

Political sources had been predicting that this would be an evitable development given the magnitude of her victory over the former political leader and incumbent Opposition Leader, Basdeo Panday.

Panday’s position was that the issue of the Opposition Leader was a matter for the MPs. And it appears that he was right. The necessary number of MPs have determined in Persad-Bissessar’s favour, according to unimpeachable sources, who declined to name the individual MPs who have shifted allegiance.

Sources, however, had said that this matter is too serious a step to take in the middle of the Carnival celebrations. Therefore, the change will very likely be effected after the Carnival season has ended, they said.

Sources said the decision to wait has also been influenced by the fact that persons-MPs included-are not desirous of rushing Panday out of office.

Persad-Bissessar herself has made it clear that she would not hound her former leader out of office. She has also made it clear that she is not chasing after the job of Opposition Leader, but is more interested in job of Prime Minister.

However, in response to questions on the issue, she noted on Monday: ’I do believe that the MPs will let good sense prevail and that they would listen to the people.’

The shift towards Persad-Bissessar comes after Panday’s storming out of Wednesday’s parliamentary caucus, when he failed to muster support for his demand for an enquiry into the elections which resulted in his ten-to-one defeat at the hands of Persad-Bissessar. (See other story)

’That (caucus) meeting was a watershed,’ one source said.

The fact that his up to that time loyal supporters did not follow in his footsteps must have come as a severe disappointment to Panday. Among those who stayed were Tim Gopeesingh, Roodal Moonilal, Chandresh Sharma, Wade Mark, Jennifer Jones-Kernahan and others.

Panday has held the position of Opposition Leader since losing office in 2002, and before becoming Prime Minister in 1995, he was Opposition Leader for many years.

If Persad-Bissessar becomes Opposition Leader, as sources have assured, it would mean that the Panday magic apparently has finally disappeared. (Trinidad Express)