Daily Archives: March 31, 2021

A special courtroom in Lamezia Terme, Calabria, is shown on Jan. 13 as more than 350 people believed to be members of Calabria's 'Ndrangheta organized crime group and their associates went on trial. Marc Feren Claude Biart, suspected of being a member, was arrested in the Dominican Republic in March. Gianluca Chininea/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

A special courtroom in Lamezia Terme, Calabria, is shown on Jan. 13 as more than 350 people believed to be members of Calabria's 'Ndrangheta organized crime group and their associates went on trial. Marc Feren Claude Biart, suspected of being a member, was arrested in the Dominican Republic in March.

An Italian organized crime suspect was caught in the Caribbean after police tracked him down through cooking videos he had uploaded online in which he managed to hide his face but not his distinctive tattoos.

Marc Feren Claude Biart had been wanted on drug trafficking charges since 2014 and was located by authorities who recognized his tattoos on video, the International Criminal Police Organization, Interpol, said. They believe he is a member of the 'Ndrangheta, a powerful and brutal crime syndicate that originated in the southern region of Calabria and has expanded worldwide.

Biart, 53, had been living in the Dominican Republic town of Boca Chica for five years, where he kept a low profile and posted cooking videos to a YouTube channel started with his wife, Italian authorities said in a statement reported by NBC News. They said his "love for Italian cuisine" made the arrest possible.

Police said Biart, who is accused of trafficking cocaine into the Netherlands, had been wanted since 2014. He was arrested last Wednesday and arrived in Italy this week, as seen in a video posted to Twitter by Interpol.

The 'Ndrangheta is described by Interpol as "one of the most extensive and powerful criminal organizations in the world," and it "is considered the only Italian mafia organization present on every world continent."

Its "strong family ties and corrupt political and business practices allow it to penetrate all areas of economic life," Interpol added. The group is also believed to control the supply of large amounts of cocaine entering Europe from South America and beyond, according to the BBC.

"Driven by power and influence, the 'Ndrangheta is involved in a wide range of criminal activities, from drug trafficking and money laundering to extortion and the rigging of public contracts," Interpol said. "These enormous illegal profits are then reinvested into regular companies, further strengthening the organization's hold and polluting the legal economy."

Citing the "unique and urgent threat" posed by the "spread of mafia-type crime," Interpol recently created a three-year initiative that unites law enforcement in several countries to "combat the 'Ndrangheta." Authorities said they have already made a number of major arrests since launching the project last year.

Interpol said Tuesday that two key members had been taken into custody as a result of the international effort: Biart and Francesco Pelle, whom the Italian Ministry of the Interior deemed one of the country's most dangerous fugitives.

The Associated Press reports that Pelle, who was convicted in Italy of ordering the revenge killing of a mobster's wife, was arrested Monday in Portugal at a clinic where he was reportedly being treated for COVID-19.

The 'Ndrangheta is currently the subject of one of Italy's biggest organized crime trials, in which 355 suspected mobsters and political officials face charges including murder, drug trafficking, extortion and money laundering, according to the BBC. It took officials more than three hours to read the names of all the defendants at a pretrial hearing, AFP news agency said.

The trial, which began in January, is expected to involve more than 900 witnesses and last more than two years.

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Italian Fugitive Arrested In Caribbean Thanks To Cooking Videos - NPR

Brittany Baptise is a nurse at the Scarborough General Hospital in Trinidad and Tobago, in the Caribbean. Today is her day off and she smiles as she describes how nervous she was when she learned that she would be working in an intensive care unit (ICU) to treat COVID-19 patients.

I was a bit fearful because, coming from the medical ward, we didnt really know the rules and function of an ICU. I had no formal training, I had little knowledge about how the ventilator works, the settings and these things.

By the end of September 2020, Brittany was trained and working in the ICU with new skills and competencies to offer as part of an integrated team of health professionals. She was one of a cadre of 82 nurses across 7 Caribbean countries to take part in a 4-week training course to learn new skills and competencies to work in ICUs. These nurses are now making significant contributions to hospitals across the Caribbean providing critical care to COVID-19 patients.

This is crucial to the achievement of universal health coverage (UHC), which is dependent on a sufficient, equitably distributed and well-performing health workforce. The arrival of COVID-19 has severely challenged progress in this area.

Urgent need for critical care nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic

In March 2020, the Caribbean Region recorded its first imported case of COVID-19. By mid-March 2021, there had been more than 100,000 confirmed cases, and some 2,000 deaths across 20 countries in the Caribbean. The pandemic exposed a range of weaknesses in country health systems and the health workforce; a key problem being a shortage of critical care nurses.

Recognizing the urgent need, the University of West Indies School of Nursing, a PAHO/WHO Collaborating Centre for Nursing and Midwifery, developed a course to equip nurses with the right skills and competencies to provide critical nursing care in ICUs.

The PAHO/WHO Trinidad and Tobago Country Office supported the training of 2 cohorts of a total of 50 nurses from the Ministry of Health of Trinidad and Tobago. The PAHO Subregional Programme for the Caribbean, through the UHC Partnership, supported an additional cohort of 32 nurses from 6 other countries of the Caribbean: Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Barbados, Dominica, Guyana and Suriname.

The UHC Partnership works in 115 countries and areas to help governments accelerate progress towards UHC with a primary health care approach, through funding provided by the European Union (EU), the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, Irish Aid, the Government of Japan, the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, and the United Kingdom Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and Belgium.

Critical care training in theory and practice

The 4-week training was a combination of virtual sessions with face-to-face training in a clinical setting. The course covered clinical care for COVID-19 patients; foundations of critical care; management of respiratory conditions; renal dysfunction and replacement theory; epidemiology and infection control; management of neurological conditions; and the Critical Care Practicum.

In each hospital, the Ministry of Health identified a member of staff who acted as preceptor and provided mentoring and clinical supervision to the student nurses.

Nurses who have been trained are able to think critically about their work in the ICU, are no longer intimidated by the ward environment and equipment, are able to better assess patients and communicate more effectively with patients and colleagues.

Registered nurse, Rehemia Reyes, Head of Adult ICU at the Eric Williams Medial Sciences Complex. Preceptor ICU Nursing course. PAHO/WHO

From a health systems perspective, the nurses have gained new skills, which they can transfer to general wards, and their additional capacities can facilitate task sharing and task shifting as an alternative to shortages of health care workers during the pandemic.

This critical care training will also have an impact beyond the ICUs and contribute to a stronger health system overall throughout the Caribbean.

WHO has declared 2021 as the International Year of Health and Care Workers in recognition of their dedication to providing care during the COVID-19 pandemic that has challenged health systems worldwide.

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Read more about WHO's response to COVID-19 across the world

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Caribbean countries boost the capacities of nurses in critical care during COVID-19 - World Health Organization

Government of Canada contributes an additional CAN$1.2 million to PAHO aimed at providing essential equipment and supplies in the Bahamas, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago.

Washington, D.C., March 29, 2021 (PAHO) The Government of Canada announced it would contribute CAN$1,200,000 (approximately USD$950,000) to support the efforts of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) against COVID-19 in six Caribbean countries.

Several countries in the Caribbean are reporting a rise in COVID-related deaths including a doubling of COVID-19 deaths in some islands. Many countries have begun or will soon begin, rolling out vaccines to protect their populations.

The donation by the Canadian government will be used to acquire essential personal protection equipment, laboratory and medical equipment, as well as supplies to be used by health care workers and hospitals in the Bahamas, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago, as part of PAHOs technical cooperation in the fight against the pandemic. It will also help strengthen communication efforts around public health risks, continued promotion of protective measures and community engagement.

The pandemic is putting health care workers and systems of the countries in the Caribbean under great strain, which is why we are grateful to the Government of Canada for supporting COVID-19 treatment for countries in the Caribbean that are struggling due to the pandemic. Their contribution will help save lives and shows how we can all join forces in solidarity to defeat this virus, said PAHO Director Carissa F. Etienne.

This contribution is part of a 5-year subregional program between PAHO and Canada, which aims to reduce the heath consequence of emergencies and disasters in the Caribbean, through better preparedness and a more resilient health sector. It builds on the longstanding relationship between the organization and the Canadian government to strengthen health emergency risk management in the Region of the Americas.

For over 30 years, Government of Canada has supported PAHOs efforts to improve emergency preparedness, mitigation and response across Latin America and the Caribbean region. It also played a key role in the establishment of the Comprehensive Disaster Management (CDM) Framework adopted by CARICOM Member States, together with PAHO.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Government of Canada has donated over USD$8 million to support PAHOs technical cooperation to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic in the Americas.

Canadas Acting Senior Director for the Caribbean Regional Development Program, Ms. Jennifer Heys, said: Even one year later, COVID-19 continues to challenge health systems across the Caribbean, and we continue to see the stark health and socioeconomic impacts this crisis is having on the Caribbean people. Canada is proud to partner with PAHO once again to provide additional much-needed medical equipment, supplies, and training to support the Caribbean countries that are facing the greatest health sector crisis from COVID-19.

In the spirit of continuous collaboration and Pan American solidarity, the Canadian government and PAHO have been in conversations to keep addressing critical needs of Latin American and Caribbean countries to sustain the fight against COVID-19. As vaccine campaigns begin in many countries, there are still many challenges ahead which are best addressed collectively.

PAHO is the specialized health agency in the Americas and the Regional Office of WHO providing critical leadership, coordination and assistance to fight the spread of COVID-19, save lives, and protect the most vulnerable peoples in all 52 countries and territories of the Americas.

Daniel EpsteinNancy NusserSebastin Olielmediateam@paho.org

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Canada scales up its support to PAHO in its COVID-19 response in the Caribbean - Pan American Health Organization

There is an old saying that you wait ages for a London bus and then two or even three come along at once. It is not an expression, as far as I am aware, that has ever been applied to policy statements affecting U.K.-Caribbean relations.

However, in the space of just 14 days four documents have appeared that will, in one or another way, guide future relations between a stand-alone Britain and the Anglophone Caribbean.

The most specific of these is a joint communiqu on the outcome of the tenth U.K.-Caribbean Forum held virtually on March 18, and more importantly its accompanying action plan. Both documents were agreed by ministers just as Britain was unveiling its long-term post-Brexit security, development, and foreign policy strategy and separately, explaining how the U.K. intends responding militarily to changing global threats

Although the latter two documents only touch indirectly on issues affecting the long-term U.K.-Caribbean relationship, they are of relevance as throughout they address shared concerns including the changing geopolitical and economic order, climate change, the environment, sustainability, values, and security. Both also reference the Overseas Territories in ways that imply the U.K. will remain locked into the region for the foreseeable future.

The defense review, Defence in a Competitive Age, additionally indicates a permanent if limited U.K. naval presence in the Caribbean, a joint approach with allies to counter narcotics interdiction, security, and humanitarian issues, and as the international order changes, greater military emphasis on science and technology-based responses.

The implication is that post-Brexit the Anglophone and Hispanic Caribbean relationship with Britain will adapt as the U.K.s global preoccupations change.

Helpfully, region-specific short to medium term responses can be found in the two documents summarizing the outcome of the UK-Caribbean Forum. Together they propose ways to maximize the opportunities presented by the post-COVID-19 and post-Brexit realities.

The Forums communiqu acknowledges the many problems now facing the Caribbean including the multidimensional challenge caused by COVID-19, the regions concerns about access to vaccines and medical supplies, the need for post-pandemic concessional financing, the challenge of long-term indebtedness, and the consequences of de-risking by international banks. It recognizes too the regions vulnerability and the threat posed by climate change.

It breaks new ground in two new areas.

The first is in accepting the need to right the disgraceful wrongs suffered by those in the Windrush generation living in the U.K. As such the joint communiqu formally recognizes the central importance of the Caribbean Diaspora in U.K.-Caribbean relations.

The second relates to the Caribbean and Britains shared security interests, addressing the potentially critical economic, political, and societal role cyberspace now plays in Caribbean life. In this context the future relationship will involve U.K. support with threats to cyber security, the protection of critical national infrastructure, the development of the regions cyber security capacity.

The communiqu also publicly commits the Caribbean and the U.K. to working together to share intelligence, facilitate training, exchange expertise and techniques when it comes to tackling threats from terrorism and serious and organized crime and to deliver meaningful cooperation on common security concerns.

Beyond this, what fundamentally sets this forum apart from the nine others that preceded it, is a detailed two-year action plan running up to the next full meeting in 2023. This separate document commits CARICOM and British ministers to a remarkable number of deliverables, enabling civil society to determine the extent to which a real post-Brexit Caribbean partnership exists.

Strikingly, the two-year plan creates what it describes as realistic commitments with a standing agenda for quarterly review between the London-based Caribbean High Commissioners and the British minister responsible for relations with the region. Unusually, the document adds that such meetings will agree joint action in cases where specific objectives are at risk of not being met and require a full audit of achievements against the plan after the first year and prior to the next forum.

Other commitments made include Britain making the case internationally for the Caribbean to benefit from vaccination roll-out in part to restart tourism; arguing in multilateral fora for Caribbean access to concessional and other soft loan packages to support post-pandemic recovery; holding a Chiefs of Defence Staff conference in 2021; and supporting the establishment of a Caribbean Military Academy in Jamaica.

On trade, the Ministerial, Parliamentary and Civil Society dialogues envisaged in the CARIFORUM-U.K. Economic Partnership Agreement or EPA are to develop a trade plan this year; a new U.K.-Caribbean business-to-business round table will be established; greater use of U.K. export credits will be encouraged; a U.K. minister will participate in the EPA Joint Ministerial Council; and trade and investment will be encouraged on a two-way basis, as will services exports.

CARIFORUM ministers have also signed up to meeting fully global standards for tax transparency and anti-corruption measures, and building regional cyber capacity supported by a dedicated U.K. regional cyber security officer based in Jamaica.

There are also other commitments relating to gender-equality, climate change, the Windrush compensation scheme, and even to a monument to the Windrush generation.

Much will now depend on ministerial will, and the sustained and genuine commitment of officials on both sides. Quite how this will work is unclear. Caribbean ministers have little ability to ensure their CARICOM counterparts deliver the joined-up approaches required, and successive U.K. governments have had a mixed track record when it comes to retaining the interest of its ministers.

In due course, a better understanding of how the U.K. will now relate to the Hispanic Caribbean and Overseas Territories will also be required, as will comparative figures for trade and investment flows as one measure of success. In addition, Caribbean nations will need to decide what future weight they intend placing in areas that overlap with arrangements the region has or is seeking with the E.U., the U.S., China and others.

Despite this, if the new approach genuinely finds ways that include business, the diaspora, women, and young people, and accountably reinvigorates, redesigns and strengthens the Caribbean partnership with Britain, it is to be commended.

David Jessop is a consultant to the Caribbean Council and can be contacted at david.jessop@caribbean-council.org.

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A better approach to U.K.-Caribbean relations - Virgin Islands Daily News

HAVANA (Reuters) - Several Caribbean island nations have issued a plea to the United States to share its stockpile of COVID-19 vaccines with the region as it has said it would with Mexico and Canada, calling on it not to neglect its third border.

FILE PHOTO: Vials with Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca, and Moderna coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine labels are seen in front of a U.S. flag in this illustration picture taken March 19, 2021. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

The independent island states of the Caribbean archipelago - except for Cuba, which is developing its own homegrown vaccines - have complained of inequitable global access to vaccines hurting countries like them without the financial or political heft to seal deals.

These nations have only received a dribble of shots as donations from India or through the COVAX vaccine-sharing mechanism, while neighboring Caribbean islands that are still territories of former colonial powers, like the Cayman islands, have already started mass vaccinations.

The tourism-dependent economies of Caribbean nations are among those that have been most ravaged by the pandemic, which has devastated the travel industry, forcing the already debt-laden region to take on new loans.

And several Caribbean countries, including Jamaica and Antigua and Barbuda, are experiencing severe COVID-19 outbreaks at the moment with new cases per capita more than twice the global average.

The head of the CARICOM Caribbean bloc, Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Keith Rowley, has written to U.S. President Joe Biden seeking provision of World Health Organization-approved vaccines for the region, a foreign affairs ministry source told Reuters, confirming an earlier report by Trinidadian newspaper Newsday.

The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The United States plans to send roughly 4 million doses of AstraZenecas COVID-19 vaccine that it is not using to Mexico and Canada in loan deals with the two countries, the White House said last week.

The Biden administration has come under pressure from countries around the world to share vaccines, particularly its stock of AstraZenecas vaccine, which is authorized for use elsewhere but not yet in the United States.

AstraZeneca has millions of doses made in a U.S. facility, and has said it would have 30 million shots ready at the beginning of April.

The governments of Caribbean twin-island nations St. Kitts and Nevis and Antigua and Barbuda have also written to the Biden administration.

I have myself indicated to the United States that ... having benefited the other two borders Mexico and Canada, that it would perhaps be useful for them to think of their third border, the Caribbean, Mark Brantley, the minister of foreign affairs for St. Kitts and Nevis, said at a virtual forum hosted by the Organization of American States (OAS) last week.

Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne said he underscored the fact that the economies of Caribbean island states had shrunk up to 30 percent, with unemployment rising to more than 50 percent in some cases.

The vulnerability of states must become an important criterion in the provision of vaccines, and the Caribbean region is among the most vulnerable in the world, he wrote.

Jamaica last week became the first Caribbean country to receive COVID-19 vaccines through the World Health Organization-backed COVAX facility, but at just 14,400 doses it will not go far among the island nations nearly 3 million inhabitants.

Reporting by Sarah Marsh in Havana and Linda Hutchinson-Jafar in Port of Spain; Additional Reporting by Kate Chappell in Kingston and Matt Spetalnick in Washington; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Jonathan Oatis

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Caribbean appeals to Biden to share vaccines with U.S. 'third border' - Reuters

KEY FIGURES

866.1K NEW COVID-19 CASES IN LATIN AMERICA & THE CARIBBEAN FROM 22-28 MARCH 2021

43.4M COVID-19 VACCINE DOSES ADMINISTERED IN LATIN AMERICA & THE CARIBBEAN

REGIONAL

PAHO/WHO reports that the rapidly escalating COVID-19 situation in Brazil, whose 12.5 million cases and 312,299 deaths are second highest in the world behind only the United States, is now affecting border departments and states in neighbouring countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Peru. With single-day records for COVID-19 deaths throughout March, including 3,600 deaths reported on 26 March, and routine daily case counts of 80,000 or more, the dizzying surge is placing Brazil at the global epicentre of the pandemic and threatening the rest of the region.

Researchers from the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) report identifying potentially more transmissible variants beyond the P.1 strain that Fiocruz says is the dominant strain in six of eight studied states and is contributing to the fast-growing crisis. Health officials have identified the presence of P.1 in Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela and French Guiana, with local transmission detected in Mexico and Colombia.

Peru's National Institute of Health (INS) indicates that the identified presence of a Brazilian strain is a contributing factor in Peru experiencing a growing second wave of COVID-19 infections during much of 2021, a wave that saw the country set a new single-day case record with 11,260 cases on 24 March. INS says they have identified a Brazilian variant in about 40 per cent of confirmed cases in the Lima metropolitan area in the last week, mostly in eastern Lima where authorities have identified it in about 2 out of every 3 cases. This second wave has contributed about a third of Perus 1.5 million cumulative cases as of 25 March in a three-month span since late December 2020, driving up hospitalizations and intensive care unit (ICU) occupancies.

In Bolivia, cases are rising in the border department of Pando, where authorities and PAHO/WHO believe one of the highly contagious strains from neighbouring Brazil is already circulating. While current daily case counts have been relatively low, the growth rate in short lapse of time span has put health authorities on alert

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Latin America & The Caribbean Weekly Situation Update (22-28 March 2021), as of 29 March 2021 - El Salvador - ReliefWeb

The worlds largest number of children without face-to-face schooling

PANAMA, 24 March, 2021 - Total and partial school closures in Latin America and the Caribbean currently leave about 114 million students without face-to-face schooling according to UNICEFs latest estimates.

One year after the beginning of the pandemic, Latin America and the Caribbean remains the region in the world with the largest number of children still missing out on in-person classes. On average, children in this region have lost 158 school days of face-to-face schooling.

To date, only seven countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have fully opened their schools. In 12 countries and territories, schools remain fully closed. In the rest of the region, classrooms are partially closed.

Despite government efforts to ensure continuity of distance education through virtual platforms, radio and TV, school disruptions have had a catastrophic impact on students learning achievements, protection, health, mental health and their socio-economic prospects in the future.

Nowhere else in the world so many children are currently left without face-to-face schooling, said Jean Gough, UNICEF Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean. This is the worst education crisis Latin America and the Caribbean has ever faced in its modern history. Many children have already lost one year of face-to-face schooling; now they started to lose another school year. Each additional day without face-to-face schooling puts the most vulnerable children at risk of dropping out of school forever.

The longer children remain out of school, the less likely they are to return. It is estimated that more than 3 million children in the region may permanently drop out of school because of the pandemic.

In a region where before COVID-19 many students did not reach basic levels of math, reading and writing skills in elementary and middle school, the impact of prolonged school disruption on learning achievement will be severe and long-lasting.

According to a recent World Bank report, 71 percent of students in Latin America and the Caribbean in lower secondary education may not be able to understand a text of moderate length. Before the pandemic, the figure was 55 percent. That percentage could rise to 77 percent if schools are closed for three more months.

During school closures, some 45 million students in 24 countries in the region have been supported by UNICEF in the provision of distance programs and 9 million children, parents and primary caregivers have received mental health and psychosocial support in the community.

Distance learning programmes should continue and be scaled up to reach more and more children, but they will never be a substitute to face-to-face schooling in the classroom with a teacher, especially for the most vulnerable children. We are not asking for all schools to reopen everywhere at the same time; we are asking for schools to be the first to open and the last to close. Several countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have made great progress in prioritizing an urgent and gradual school reopening; now its time for others to follow the same path across the region, added Jean Gough.

UNICEF recognizes the efforts made by governments and education authorities in the region who together with partners and counterparts continue to mitigate the risks inherent to education disruption and its impact on children.

Last week, the Ministers of Education from Central America* and the Dominican Republic committed to prioritize the urgent and gradual reopening of schools. UNICEF praises this groundbreaking decision that now needs to be implemented with a sense of urgency and calls on education authorities in other parts of Latin America and the Caribbean to move in the same direction.

Given the urgent need to raise awareness about the importance of reopening and impact it has on children in the region, UNICEF is launching its #SchoolsFirstNotLast campaign reflecting the state of classrooms in the region, millions of empty chairs waiting for students to resume classes and continue their learning process.

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114 million children still out of the classroom in Latin America and the Caribbean - World - ReliefWeb