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FORT LAUDERDALE, FL — U.S. Representatives Alcee L. Hastings (D-Miramar) and Robert Wexler (D-Boca Raton) issued the following statement in response to the decision made by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to resume deportation flights to Haiti.
“Upon hearing from several groups in South Florida today that deportations would be starting again, our staff confirmed with ICE officials that, in fact, deportations to Haiti have already begun. We find this decision to be short-sighted and inhumane.
“Over the course of the past year, Haiti has been ravaged by a devastating food crisis and four back-to-back natural disasters.
Months later, Haiti’s economic and physical infrastructure remains practically obliterated. Haiti is certainly no stranger to crisis and despair.
Even more, many deported Haitians simply have no communities to return to. It is disappointing that the Bush Administration would even consider sending people back to this incredibly fragile nation. “Instead of pursuing this course of action, the United States should extend a helping hand to Haiti, as it has done for other nations in similar situations, by granting Haitians Temporary Protected Status. Haiti has long met the qualifications for TPS, and it is now more urgent than ever that the United States provides them with this much needed, long overdue, temporary assistance.”
By WILL WEISSERT
SANTIAGO, Cuba – President Raul Castro said Sunday that Cuba has battled Washington’s trade embargo for nearly 50 years and is prepared to do so for another 50 if need be.
His comments appeared to be a small swipe at Washington at a time when President-elect Barack Obama has raised expectations that warmer U.S.-Cuba relations could be on the way. He spoke as leaders from the 14 member nations of the Caribbean Community trade bloc, or Caricom, gathered in the eastern city of Santiago to discuss ways to strengthen tourism in the region despite the global economic crisis.
Castro and Antigua Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer, whose country is occupying the rotating post as head of Caricom, led a visit by summit leaders to the tomb of 19th-century Cuban independence leader Jose Marti, where each leader laid a flower in front of the hexagonal mausoleum.
Later, during an event at Santiago’s Plaza of the Revolution, Castro said of the U.S. economic sanctions that “we have learned to resist for half a century, and we are prepared to fight for another half century.”
Canada’s governor general, a largely ceremonial position, could decide the fate of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s embattled government.
BY ROB GILLIES
TORONTO — Canada’s governor general cut short a European trip Tuesday to deal with an unprecedented political crisis that could force the second national election in two months or see an opposition coalition take power.
Michaelle Jean, who is the representative of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II as head of state, holds a mostly ceremonial position. But it will be her decision which path to take if the opposition votes to oust Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government.
Constitutional experts speculated Jean would probably allow the opposition to form a government because parliamentary elections were just held Oct. 14.
The Liberals, New Democrats and Bloc Quebecois, which together control a majority in Parliament, signed a pact Monday agreeing to vote to oust Harper’s minority government next week and setting the structure for their proposed government.
Governor Palin displays the same blind spot to suffering that goes into providing for Westerner’s pampered consumerism. In the same vein, most Americans are not aware that Christopher Columbus never set foot on American soil. He spent most of his time in this hemisphere in the Caribbean participating in the genocide of the Tainos. Likewise, most Americans celebrate Thanksgiving in complete oblivion to the suffering, murder, rape and mutilation that was the hallmark of the Pilgrims “landing” on Plymouth Rock.
By Jeff Mason and Tom Doggett
CHICAGO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President-elect Barack Obama is not planning to implement a windfall profit tax on oil companies because prices have dropped below $80 a barrel, an aide said on Tuesday.
“President-elect Obama announced the policy during the campaign because oil prices were above $80 per barrel,” an aide on Obama’s transition team said. “They are currently below that now and expected to stay below that.”
Oil prices have fallen from a record $147 a barrel in July to under $50 this week.
Obama, who signaled early in his campaign for the White House that he would take an active approach to oil markets as president, had planned to use the revenue from a windfall profits tax to fund a tax rebate for low- and middle-income families struggling with high energy prices.
But the aide said Obama’s presidential campaign had already taken the price drop into account six weeks ago. When Obama laid out his economic plan for the middle class in mid-October, revenue from a windfall profit tax was not included because of the price change, he said.
ALBANY – Gov. Paterson took the blame Wednesday for a botched effort to deliver supplies to Hurricane ravaged Haiti.
“This situation has been messed up, the fault lies with me,” Paterson told reporters. “It’s my responsibility to have gotten those supplies there.”
Paterson launched the relief effort in late September, asking New Yorkers to donate nonperishable food, clothing and other items. Most of the material – nearly 300 pallets – has remained at the Bedford-Atlantic Armory in Brooklyn.
Erin Duggan, a Paterson spokeswoman, said the delay stemmed from problems finding an organization to work with in Haiti. Those problems have been solved, and the state plans to start shipping the materials soon, she added.
Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, who had criticized the state’s effort to deliver the supplies, credited Paterson for taking responsibility for the matter. “Listen, we all messed up,” Markowitz said in a statement. “We all knew there would be hurdles, but we assumed this would be further along by now.”
Oprah says she wants Palin on her show.
(CNN) – Did Sarah Palin snub Oprah Winfrey?
That’s what the most popular daytime talk show host and fervent Barack Obama supporter appeared to suggest in a recent interview with the entertainment show Extra.
“I said I would be happy to talk to Sarah Palin when the election was over… I went and tried to talk to Sarah Palin and instead she talked to Greta [Van Susteren]. She talked to Matt [Lauer]. She talked to Larry [King]. But she didn’t talk to me.”
Winfrey’s comments came in response to rumors she refused to invite the former vice presidential candidate on her popular daytime show.
Earlier this week, the talk show host announced she will tape her inauguration week show in the nation’s capital, and has rented the Kennedy Center’s lush Opera House – which seats roughly 2,300 — to serve as her studio.
“There are not even words to talk about what this night means,” Oprah said of Obama’s inauguration. “Everybody keeps using the word historic — there’s never been a night like this on the planet earth… Nothing can compare to this.”
The Bahamas and Haiti signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the waiver of visas for holders of diplomatic and official passports, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Goodman’s Bay Corporate Centre. Pictured at the signing are Ambassador Louis Harold Joseph, Republic of Haiti and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Brent Symonette. Looking on is Terry Archer, Protocol Division, and Ministry of Foreign Affairs. (BIS Photo/Raymond A. Bethel)
NASSAU, Bahamas (BIS): The Bahamas and Haiti signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the waiver of visas for holders of diplomatic and official passports on Wednesday.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Brent Symonette signed on behalf of the Bahamas and Ambassador Louis Harold Joseph on behalf of Haiti.
“This Memorandum of Understanding is a reciprocal agreement providing for the waiver of visa requirement for diplomats and officials from both countries,” said the Minister of Foreign Affairs. “This waiver will also facilitate the closer collaboration between our two countries, as both Haitian and Bahamian diplomats and officials can travel to the respective country without a visa.
“This ease of travel by our diplomats and officials is a sign of the deepening of our relationship and a further strengthening of the bonds that have shaped the social and historical development of the two countries.”
Symonette thanked the Haitian Ambassador for his work in assisting the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in fostering relations between both countries, which he considered to be “working as smoothly as possible and we look forward to 2009 being a very productive year.”
I always had my doubts about any real change in Washington. There is still a dim hope; but this is my general conclusion after reviewing the confirmed and expected appointments by President-Elect Obama.
Joe Biden – Vice President
A major facilitator of the “war” in Iraq who proposed partitioning Iraq into three areas based on ethnicity and religion. Biden has served for decades as the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and bears major responsible for failed U.S. foreign policy stances.
Timothy Geithner – Treasury Secretary
News of this appoint spurred a surge in the market on Friday, but it is not encouraging that Mr. Geithner was International Monetary Fund Director in its Policy Development & Review Department. The IMF’s globalization agenda and debt and dependency policies have devastated the global south and contributed to the global economic crisis. Also, Geithner worked for Kissinger and Associates, Henry Kissinger’s firm. In my opinion, Mr. Kissinger is a war criminal who ordered the “secret” carpet bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam War.
Peter Orszag – Director of the White House Office of Budget and Management
Mr. Orszag was a Senior Fellow and Deputy Director of Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell
By Thomas Ferraro
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A top Republican said on Friday that Democratic U.S. President-elect Barack Obama is “off to a good start” and indicated he was pleased to see President George W. Bush get ready to leave.
“Our members, in one way, are kind of relieved by the departure of an administration that became unpopular and made it very difficult for us to compete,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell told reporters on Capitol Hill.
In part because of Bush’s unpopularity, Obama won the White House and Democrats expanded their majorities in the U.S. Congress in the November 4 elections.
Obama, who inherits a global financial crisis and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, has vowed to work with Republicans to try to overcome the bitter partisan divisions that have marked Washington-style politics, including the current standoff over proposals to bail out the failing auto industry.
McConnell expressed appreciation that Obama’s pick for White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, visited Capitol Hill this week to talk to Republicans ahead of the new Congress convening on January 6, two weeks before Obama is sworn in as president.
“I think the new administration is off to a good start,” the Kentucky senator said.
“They’re saying, in my view, all the right things … that they want to govern in the middle and tackle big things.”
