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Caribbean

As Latin America Moves Left It Successfully Confronts Hunger

By Marianela Jarroud in IPS News - The Latin American and Caribbean region is the first in the world to reach the two global targets for reducing hunger. Nevertheless, more than 34 million people still go hungry. “This is the region that best understood the problem of hunger, and it’s the region that has put the greatest emphasis on policies to assist vulnerable groups. The results achieved have been in accordance with that emphasis,” FAO regional representative Raúl Benítez told IPS. According to The State of Food Insecurity in the World (SOFI) 2015 report, released Wednesday by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), hunger affects 5.5 percent of the population of Latin America – or 34.3 million people. That means the region has met the target of halving the proportion of hungry people from 1990 levels, established by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted by the international community in 2000, with a 2015 deadline.

Obama Visits The Caribbean To Undermine Alternative Models

Projects such as Venezuela's PetroCaribe are popular in the Caribbean, leading to the first visit of a U.S President to Jamaica since the Cold War. ​On Wednesday, President Barack Obama visited Jamaica with the heads of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), before heading over to Summit of the Americas which will be held in Panama from April 9 – 10. While Obama will try and cast himself as a “progressive” President that is charting a new path in the region, particularly in regards to the ongoing diplomatic thawing with Cuba, without a doubt it will be his March 9 Executive Order, in which he declared Venezuela “an unusual and extraordinary threat to U.S. national security and foreign policy” that will overshadow much of the Summit.

US Agenda Is To Push TPP To Split Latin American Integration

Well, I think the Summits at one level are symbolic. In fact, they are these groupings of individuals, of leaders, but there's now parallel People’s Summits as well that are taking place. So there's week-long activities. In terms of commerce, there's also a Business Summit that takes place on the site of the Summit of the Americas as well. So it's very important in terms of what the U.S. would like to propose for the region. After all, it's confronting China as a major competitor in the region. So the Summits became a way for U.S. interests, but now also for Cuban interests, for Venezuelan interests, to promote their own economies as well.

Small Islands Facing Climate Change Are Beacons

Facing potential extinction under rising sea levels, many small island nations are embracing renewable energy and trying to green their economies. Although the least responsible for carbon emissions, small countries like Barbados are on the front lines of climate impacts. “Small island nations’ voices have to be heard by the rest of the world,” said Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). “Many will undergo fundamental changes. Some will lose 60 to 70 percent of their beaches and much of their tourism infrastructure. Climate change will destroy some countries and the livelihoods of millions of people,” Steiner told IPS in Bridgetown. Up to 100 percent of coral reefs in some areas of the Caribbean sea have been affected by bleaching due to too-hot seawater linked to global warming. Without global action to reduce emissions there may not be any healthy reefs left in the entire Caribbean region by 2050, according to UNEP’s Small Island Developing States Foresight Report. Released in Bridgetown on World Environment Day Jun. 5, the report calculates that island nations in the Caribbean face187 billion dollars in shoreline damage from sea level rise well before the end of this century.

Caribbean Reparations Initiative Inspires Revitalization In US

Picture this scene. It was almost surreal, improbable just a few years ago: a room filled with presidents, prime ministers and foreign ministers from the 15-nation Caribbean Community (CARICOM), all listening with rapt attention, several nodding in agreement, as one of the region's most distinguished academics, and perhaps the Caribbean's most prominent public intellectual, gave a riveting report on the recent work of CARICOM's Reparations Commission. Yes, "reparations," as in compensation for the crimes of slavery and indigenous genocide at the hands of former European colonizers - reparations, as in reparatory justice for the horrific consequences of two of the greatest crimes against humanity in the history of this planet - the 400 years of the African Slave Trade and the systematic and calculated extermination of the indigenous peoples of the Americas - reparations, as in fundamental and comprehensive social, economic and political justice, indeed, historical justice for the descendants of African slaves and native American peoples. This scene played out in the conference room of the beautiful Buccament Resort on the Eastern Caribbean island of St. Vincent on March 10, 2014; the occasion - the 25th Inter-Sessional Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community.

Caribbean Nations Sue Europe Over Slavery

The leaders of 15 Caribbean nations voted unanimously on Monday to sue England and European nations like France and the Netherlands over the scourge of slavery. The long-overdue lawsuit will seek a formal apology, debt cancellation and other reparations in a 10-part plan. The Caribbean nations, represented by British human rights law firm Leigh Day, will also seek a “repatriation” plan for Rastafarians who want to move to Africa. Associated Press notes, “Repatriation to Africa has long been a central belief of Rastafari, a melding of Old Testament teachings and Pan-Africanism whose followers have long pushed for reparations.”

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Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 

Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.