Miami-Dade's inspector general is investigating allegations that county police misused a trust fund created to fight environmental crime by purchasing six hybrid SUVs that went to top command staff, including one used briefly by the mayor's office.
Florida Power & Light and its suppliers on Thursday denounced state regulators' decision to reject nearly all of the company's $1.3 billion rate increase, calling the ruling politically motivated and short-sighted, though business and consumer groups hailed it as sound.
Javier Rodriguez, a young Florida Department of Transportation engineer and supervisor, will start work early Friday to monitor the beginning of tolling on the new southbound express lanes of Interstate 95.
Government workers dug mass graves and buried more than 7,000 dead Thursday as corpses overwhelmed this earthquake-ravaged city awaiting a surge of relief supplies amassing in Miami and elsewhere.
Gov. Charlie Crist acted promptly on a promise Thursday, ordering the suspension of Miami Commissioner Michelle Spence-Jones two days after her runaway election victory — even before the votes were legally tallied and she was sworn into office.
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (BTA) — Prospective patrons of the 17th Annual Barbados Jazz Festival, which takes place from January 11-17, 2010, can now post comments, receive live updates and more on Facebook.
The promoters, GMR International Tours, recently launched a dedicated page on the popular social networking site, which boasts over 35 million active daily users.
The festival continues to be promoted as the perfect escape from the winter blues, giving visitors and locals a chance to soak up the sweet sounds and sights at select venues across the sun-drenched island of Barbados.
This year’s festival will be headlined by 1970s Motown star Smokey Robinson, and will also feature a wide range of both contemporary and classic jazz vocalists including Etienne Charles, Babyface, Lalah Hathaway, Robin Thicke, Warren Hill and the Cuban Classics, among others.
Some of Barbados’ most picturesque and enchanting locations will provide the perfect backdrop for the festival including: the Sunbury Plantation House; Heritage Park/The Rum Factory; Garfield Sobers Complex; Illaro Court, St, Michael; and Farley Hill National Park.
By Tom Brown and Andrew Cawthorne
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) — Desperate Haitians set up roadblocks with corpses in Port-au-Prince on Thursday to demand quicker relief efforts after a massive earthquake killed tens of thousands and left countless others homeless.
Angry survivors staged the protest as international aid began arriving in the Haitian capital to help a nation traumatized by Tuesday’s catastrophic earthquake that flattened homes and government buildings.
More than 48 hours after the disaster, tens of thousands of people clamoured for food and water and help digging out relatives still missing under the rubble.
Shaul Schwarz, a photographer for TIME magazine, said he saw at least two downtown roadblocks formed with bodies of earthquake victims and rocks.
“They are starting to block the roads with bodies. It’s getting ugly out there. People are fed up with getting no help,” he told Reuters.
The Haitian Red Cross said it believed 45,000 to 50,000 people had died and 3 million more — one third of Haiti’s population — were hurt or left homeless by the major 7.0 magnitude quake that hit its impoverished capital on Tuesday.
The quake flattened buildings across entire hillsides and many people were still trapped alive in the rubble after two days, with little sign of organized rescue efforts.
“We have already buried 7,000 in a mass grave,” President Rene Preval said.
Planes full of supplies arrived at Port-au-Prince airport faster than crews could unload them and aviation authorities were restricting non-emergency flights.
The influx of aid had yet to reach shell-shocked Haitians who wandered the broken streets of Port-au-Prince, searching desperately for water, food and medical help.
Relief workers warned the death toll will rise quickly if tens of thousands of injured Haitians, many with broken bones and serious loss of blood, do not get first aid in the next day or so.
“The next 24 hours will be critical,” said US Coast Guard officer Paul Cormier, 54, a qualified emergency worker who runs an orphanage in Haiti and has triaged 300 people since Tuesday’s disaster.
Looters swarmed a collapsed supermarket in the Delmas area of Port-au-Prince, carrying out electronics and bags of rice unchallenged. Others siphoned gasoline from a wrecked tanker.
“All the policemen are busy rescuing and burying their own families,” said tile factory owner Manuel Deheusch. “They don’t have the time to patrol the streets.”
Doctors in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, were ill-equipped to treat the injured.
The United States was sending 3,500 soldiers, 300 medical personnel, several ships and 2,200 Marines. Canadian military ships with 500 personnel were on the way and a disaster aid team had already arrived.
“To the people of Haiti, we say clearly and with conviction, you will not be forsaken. … America stands with you. The world stands with you,” President Barack Obama said.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Haiti had suffered a tragedy beyond imagination and “must become the centre of our world’s attention, the world’s compassion and the world’s humanitarian help.”
The United States pledged long-term help for the crippled Haitian government. Parliament, the national palace and many government ministry buildings collapsed and it was unclear how many lawmakers survived. The main prison also fell, allowing dangerous criminals to escape.
Makeshift tents were strung everywhere and Haitians at one informal camp approached a journalist shouting “water, water” in a multitude of languages.
“Please do anything you can, these people have no water, no food, no medicine, nobody is helping us,” said Valery Louis, who organized one of the camps.
From time to time, aftershocks still shook the wrecked city, sending panicked people running away from buildings.
The quake’s epicentre was only 10 miles (16 km) from Port-au-Prince, a sprawling and densely packed city of 4 million people in a nation dogged by poverty, catastrophic natural disasters and political instability.
Bodies lay all around the hilly city, and people covered their noses with cloth to try to block the stench. Corpses were delivered by the pickup truck load to the General Hospital in Port-au-Prince, where hospital director Guy LaRoche estimated the bodies piled outside the morgue numbered 1,500.
The Haitian Red Cross had run out of body bags and the International Committee of the Red Cross was sending more.
Haitians clawed at chunks of concrete with bare hands and sledgehammers, trying to free those buried alive.
A 35-year-old Estonian, Tarmo Joveer, was freed from the rubble of the United Nations’ five-story headquarters early Thursday, and told journalists he was fine.
The UN said at least 36 members of its 9,000-strong peacekeeping mission had been killed and scores were still missing. Brazil said 14 of its soldiers were among the dead.
Fourteen guests and workers were pulled alive on Thursday from the landmark Montana Hotel, which was largely flattened. Chilean Army Major Rodrigo Vazquez, who was directing the rescue at that site, said “We estimate 70 more inside. … This is devastating.”
Nations around the world pitched in to send rescue teams with search dogs and heavy equipment, helicopters, tents, water purification units, food, doctors and telecoms teams.
Aid distribution was hampered because roads were blocked by rubble and smashed cars and normal communications were cut off. Relief agencies’ offices were damaged and their staff dead or missing. The port was too badly damaged to handle cargo.
UN peacekeepers seemed overwhelmed by the enormity of the recovery task ahead.
Many hospitals were too battered to use, and doctors struggled to treat crushed limbs, head wounds and broken bones at makeshift facilities where medical supplies were scarce.
Several nations sent mobile hospitals, surgeons and even psychologists to help traumatized Haitians.
On a good day, Haiti is an extraordinarily difficult country in which to organize the distribution of food and services, if you ask Joseph Taylor, president and chief executive of real estate firm Matrix Development Cos., in Cranbury.
Taylor knows the fundamentals of distribution and logistics well — his company builds distribution centers for a living — but he also knows about giving back, something he’s pursued since visiting Africa as a 17-year-old volunteer. And he has an intimate familiarity with Haiti, having visited the small Caribbean nation two or three times per year over the past few decades.
Taylor is chair of Hands Together, a charitable organization in Springfield, Mass., that has been helping build schools, health care facilities, drinking water wells and farming cooperatives in the country.
“There are no police, no fire engines, no emergency medical services, no basic principles of a functioning support for the critically needy,†said Taylor, who usually stays in the quake-rocked capital of Port-au-Prince. “The roads are very poor; those that go out of the city are not paved; at the best of times there are very significantly long periods of blackouts.â€
Taylor is anxiously awaiting word from Father Tom Hagan, the founder of Hands Together, and Doug Campbell, its executive director, about the fate of some 200 staffers that work in their schools, health care facilities and feeding centers that provide food to between 7,000 and 8,000 people daily. Hagan is stationed in Haiti; Campbell flew in on the afternoon before the earthquake — both are safe, Taylor said he learned Thursday.
Hands Together’s offices and related buildings in Haiti are destroyed, Taylor said, adding that the prime task ahead was to rebuild communications and assess the safety of the staff on the ground. They will coordinate supply of food, medicines and other critical supplies in the meantime through international relief agencies, he said.
Efforts to get in relief planes to the country’s makeshift airport haven’t succeeded, Taylor said, though the U.S. military is operating flights. Matrix Development contributes to projects in Haiti through an annual golf outing; last year, it raised about $130,000, he said.
Guyana continues to lag behind in the process of seeking to update its domestic laws and trade policies to reflect its obligations to the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) under the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements, according to the recently published Eighth Report to the United States Congress on the operation of the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act by the Office of the US Trade Representative.
The Report, published on December 31 last year says that while the liberalization of its trade and investment regimes are important to the enhancement of the country’s integration into the global economy, Guyana continues to take only “halting steps†in that direction.
According to the Report Guyana must also make “further efforts to increase its competitiveness while also seeking to diversify its production and export base.â€
Meanwhile, the report says that the intellectual property of foreign companies investing in Guyana continues to be vulnerable to a less than adequate local legal framework for the protection of intellectual property and a deficient institutional capacity to enforce existing laws. “Despite repeated promises to update legislation to protect the intellectual property of foreign companies in Guyana, the current laws on copyrights and patents date from colonial times. Unauthorized use of music and video products is widespread and local television stations, including those run by the government, routinely transmit copyright-protected material without proper licensing,†the report says.
The Report by the Office of the US Trade Representative notes that the outcomes of Guyana’s Trade Policy Review in July 2009 had reflected an improved economic performance since the previous Review undertaken in 2003. It alludes to “significant reform efforts in various areas including tax and investment regimes, competition policy and government procurement.†It notes too that Guyana has demonstrated “a general commitment†to undertaking its obligations under the WTO Agreement citing the country’s support for an early and successful Doha Development Round with a “balanced development-oriented outcome†that focuses on preferences and special and differential treatments for developing countries.
The Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act of 1983 allows the US President to grant conditional duty-free treatment for certain eligible imports into the United States from Caribbean Basin Initiative–beneficiary countries. In order to qualify for such duty-free access, products must be imported directly from a CBI-beneficiary country or be substantially transformed into a new and different article in that country. Additionally, the product must contain a minimum of 35 per cent local content of one or more beneficiary countries.
In 2008, the last complete year for which the report provides statistics for Caribbean/US trade under the CBI arrangement, the total value of US imports from CBI countries reached US$19.6 billion, an increase of US$6 billion from 2007. In recent years US exports to the region have also benefited from trade expansion resulting from the CBI programme. In 2008 total US exports to the region reached US$25.1 billion, making the CBI countries the 14th largest market for US exports.
Under the CBI arrangement Trinidad and Tobago was the leading Caribbean Community (CARICOM) source of US imports in 2008. Under CBI preferences the US imported US$1.9 billion from that country, a decrease of 24.6 per cent from 2007. Imports into the United States from Trinidad and Tobago under CBI preferences are dominated by petroleum and methanol which accounted for close to 90 per cent of such imports under CBI provisions. During 2008 US imports of petroleum from Trinidad and Tobago decreased in value despite higher average prices mainly because of a decrease in the volume of petroleum imports while US imports of methanol increased mainly because of higher prices. According to the report Jamaica’s exports to the US under CBI preferences grew by 35.5 per cent to US$320m in 2008 mainly on the strength of fuel-grade ethanol exports. Among the smaller countries in the region frozen orange juice, electrical machinery and cane sugar were among the leading categories of CBI-preference imports in 2008.
While the CBI was initially envisioned as a programme designed to facilitate the economic development and export diversification of the Caribbean Basin economies the value of US exports to CBI countries rose by 19.9 per cent in 2008 over the previous year. “Collectively, at US$35.1 billion the CBI region………absorbed 1.9 per cent of total US exports to the world,†the Report says. Last year, The Bahamas and Jamaica were the principal regional markets for US exports accounting for 75 per cent of the exports to the CBI region. In 2008 the leading categories of US exports to the region included refined petroleum products, semiconductors, corn, jewellery and aircraft.
Between January and August last year US exports to Guyana totalled US$169.3m compared with US$189.6m for the same period in 2008. In 2008 the US recorded a US$142,579,120 surplus in trade with Guyana.
Can people change?
This question is at the heart of a fight between Homeland Security and Jean Montrevil. The answer has major implications for the reforms that lawmakers propose when they take up immigration reform after health care.
The feds charge that Montrevil is a hardened criminal alien. Montrevil claims he’s paid for past mistakes. He has a colorful rap sheet for crimes he committed 20 years ago. He’s now a community leader and the father of four American-born children, ages 2, 6, 11 and 19.
At a routine visit to Homeland Security on Dec. 30, 2009, Montrevil was arrested, pending deportation to Haiti. By New Year’s Day, a hundred gathered at his church to call for his release. U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler and other politicians rang Homeland Security round-the-clock with the same demand. Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania’s York County jail, Montrevil began a hunger strike.
Four days later, awaiting the government’s response, eight clergy were arrested by NYPD in a non-violent civil disobedience. Upping the ante, they demanded reform of the federal laws that put Montrevil into deportation in the first place. More actions are being planned.
Here’s the full story.
THE PAST
Jean Montrevil came to the United States legally with a green card. He and 12 siblings arrived from Haiti in 1986, after his U.S. citizen dad sponsored them. “We came to America to make it big,” Montrevil says. “Along the way, I got stupid.”
He stumbled into the taxi business. A fellow cabbie opened the door to drugs. “I started selling marijuana to passengers. From there, I took off.”
Montrevil didn’t get very far. In 1989, at age 20, he was arrested in New Jersey, driving down I-95. “No one told me it was a corridor,” Montrevil recalls. “Police stopped black guys driving nice cars all the time, looking for people like me.” Just months into selling, he was busted for cocaine.
Out on bail, he made another drug run to Virginia. A federal agent and deputy sheriff found an ounce of crack hidden in his car’s gas tank. Montrevil would’ve gotten five years under mandatory federal sentencing guidelines. But prosecuted in Virginia state court, he got 27 years. Inside, he caught an assault conviction for fighting with another inmate.
“1989 was a rough year,” Montrevil says. “Prison saved my life.” Released early for good behavior, he opened a store selling candles and religious supplies in Brooklyn in 2000. He believes that the 11 years he served kept him from getting killed in the underground drug trade.
HOMELAND SECURITY
Nationwide, of the 2.3 million deported from 1997 to 2007, 37 percent have criminal records. Homeland Security spokesman Mike Gilhooly explains in an email, “One of ICE’s primary missions is to remove foreign national criminals from the United States.” ICE, or Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is the federal government’s deportation unit.
Montrevil charges that this mission is double jeopardy. “Why do I have to keep paying for crimes I already served time for? I feel marked for life.”
By chance, the feds didn’t deport Montrevil directly from prison. They got him in a sweep of New York parole offices in 2005. He’s been in deportation proceedings since then, reporting to Homeland Security offices when asked, and banking on legal appeals and political pressure to stay here. Haiti’s refusal to take U.S. deportees bought him time at different moments.
On Dec. 30, 2009, his luck ran out. He was detained during a routine check in. Haiti was taking people back, and he had no appeals left. But the holiday grab surprised his supporters. Months earlier they’d requested a meeting with the feds to discuss Montrevil’s case.
The agency can defer action on any deportation order. Montrevil’s attorney Joshua Bardavid explains, “My client is eligible for deferred action. ICE has not yet refused or granted it.” According to Montrevil’s minister, Reverend Dr. Donna Schaper of Judson Memorial Church, “Jean’s spirit is not junk. We just want one face-to-face meeting to explain how we know that.”
According to Gilhooly, “Jean Murat Montrevil is an aggravated felon with a significant criminal record who has a final order of removal from an immigration judge. Montrevil has exhausted all of his appeals and ICE will enforce the immigration judge’s order.” Homeland Security declined to comment on their policy for exercising discretion.
Nadler jumped on the phone New Year’s Eve, as soon as he heard about Montrevil’s detention. But Nadler hasn’t been able to convince Homeland Security to budge.
Nadler connects Montrevil’s case to the call for immigration reform. “The practice of deporting people for minor crimes committed many years in the past when they have been law-abiding ever since makes no sense and is blatantly unfair,” Nadler says.
U.S. Rep. Nydia Velasquez, chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, echoed the sentiment in a letter to Homeland Security in 2008.
Prior to Montrevil’s detention, these supporters were hopeful. The feds had removed an electronic monitor from his ankle, thereby reducing his risk-level. His regular visits to Behavioral Interventions, a private security firm subcontracted by Homeland Security, were uneventful. “I complied with whatever they asked of me,” Montrevil says. “Why lock me up during my kids’ Christmas holidays?”
FAMILY
“I was still nursing our son when they took Jean in 2005,” says his wife Janay Montrevil. an African-American school teacher from Brooklyn. Janay, 31, met her husband on a blind date. She says, “When I fell in love, I didn’t know Jean could be taken from me.”
Montrevil told her he was locked up for crimes. But neither expected his deportation. The couple got married, each bringing a child from a prior relationship into their union. “I can’t believe President Obama would turn me into another single mother,” she says.
Montrevil is the family cook. “I tried making my kids oatmeal the morning after they took him,” Janay recalls. “But I don’t know how to do all that stuff with the milk and fruits. I just boil water. When I gave it to my kids, they looked horrified, like, ‘are we gonna starve now that dad’s gone?’” Montrevil just began a hunger strike to protest the deportation system.
Six-year-old Jahsiah seems the hardest hit by his father’s absence. An asthmatic who’s legally disabled, he’s wetting his bed and leaving voicemails on Montrevil’s cell phone.
Montrevil’s mom died in Haiti when he was Jahsiah’s age. He doesn’t think much of his own father, now deceased. “He beat us and ran around with other women. I promised myself I’d be a good father to my kids. What’ll happen to them without me?”
Enter your email address below to receive updates each time we publish new content.
SHABBA, SHAGGY TO PERFORM AT POST ADIDAS GRAND PRIX CONCERT IN NY
Foundation dancehall artiste Rexton Rawlston Gordon, popularly know to fans as Shabba Ranks is set to perform at the “adidas Jamboree” concert, Randall’s Island, New York on Saturday, June 9. The concert – which will serve as a 50th anniversary celebration for both Jamaica and Trinidad – will take place at the conclusion of the [...]
One Caribbean International Presents: CELEBRITY SOCCER CULTURAL FEST – THE BIGGEST FAMILY FUN DAY!
Fort Lauderdale – On Memorial Day, May 28th all roads will lead to the greatest Celebrity Soccer Cultural Festival in South Florida “Celebrating Jamaica’s 50th Year of Independence.” One Caribbean International’s will be hosting its’ 7th annual festival and Yes Jamaica’s 50th Year of Independence at Central Broward Regional Park, located at 3700 NW 11th [...]
About One Love Reggae Fest The One Love Reggae Festival will unite diverse cultures within South Florida through “One Love, One Heart and One Music”. This event will be held on Sunday, May 13, 2012 in West Palm Beach, Florida at the Cruzan Amphitheater. The 2011 Festival boasted a huge attendance of more than 5000 [...]
PM PORTIA SIMPSON-MILLER DA ZYNC BUZZ HEDA ROSE (NY LINKZ/ZYNC TV): May 4 – 11
BY ZYNC TV ON THIS WEEK’S EDITION OF NEW YORK LINKZ: JAMAICAN PRIME MINISTER PORTIA SIMPSON-MILLER VISITS THE NORTH-EAST DIASPORA; A PREVIEW OF THE FUN AND EXCITEMENT AT 2012 PENN RELAYS; A PREVIEW OF GRAMPS MORGAN AND RAGASHANTI TAKING OVER NEW YORK CARIBBEAN RADIO; PLUS SHERMAIN GIVES TIPS ON IMPRESSING YOUR BOYFRIEND’S PARENTS IN IMAGE [...]
Lloyd Brevett, founding member of The Skatalites, passes away aged 80
Lloyd Brevett, the Skatalites’ inimitable double bass player, has died following complications from a recent stroke. As The Washington Post report, Brevett fell ill in March following the murder of his son in Kingston. Anyone lucky enough to have seen The Skatalites live will be able to testify to Brevett’s remarkable charisma. His on-stage presence [...]
GFBC WORLD NEWS
