G7 to seek global tax (June 18, 2021)

G7 countries agreed to seek a basic 15% global tax on “stateless” multinational corporations, notably those of global big tech, earlier this month. (Guardian) The Economist magazine predicts the start of a process that could eventually render Caribbean and other tax havens obsolete.

But others ask whether the G7 tax initiative is another form of economic colonialism? "This move represents yet another chipping away at the economic sovereignty of small IFCs. What it effectively does is seek to take away a tool which these small IFCs have used for promoting inward foreign direct investment at a time when their COVID-19-crippled economies need those funds the most for propelling sustainable economic recovery," writes Alicia Nicholls of Caribbean Trade Law & Development. (See Jan 28's Just Caribbean Updates.)

ECLAC head Alicia Bárcena recently expressed support for a proposed multilateral agreement that would establish a minimum global rate for corporate income tax -- but emphasized that “the United Nations should be the main space for that discussion, "for a reform of the global tax system to incorporate the needs of developing nations and emerging economies – especially Small Island Developing States (SIDS)."

Economics, Finance and Fiscal Fairness

• The Paris Club of wealthy creditor nations agreed last week to grant Cuba more time to make payments under a 2015 debt agreement. The postponement was based, according to Cuban officials, on the ‘unprecedented penuries’ caused by Covid-19 and its impact on tourism, former U.S. President Donald Trump’s strengthening of the U.S. embargo and 54 hurricanes since 2000. (Miami Herald)

• But experts say Cuba's economy desperately needs the U.S. to relax its current sanctions regime in order to recover from the worst crisis it has suffered in decades. (Latin America Advisor, see last week's Just Caribbean Updates)

• The Inter-American Development Bank agreed to provide Grenada with a soft loan of US $8.95 million for the country to use as a stimulus package for people who have been marginalised by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Funds will be disbursed through the Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank. (Daily Herald, Loop News)

• Trinidad and Tobago's government said it opted to accept a $1.4 billion loan from China as it had fewer conditions attached to it as opposed to one from the IMF. “One loan no structural adjustment, you don’t have to retrench people, you don’t have to devalue your currency etc etc . . . and another loan at one per cent you have to do all kinds of terrible things, punish your population, that a no brainer,” said Finance Minister Colm Imbert. (Trinidad Express, Caribbean Media Corporation)

Human Rights

• Guyana's government honored prominent historian, political activist and academic, Dr. Walter Rodney, 41 years after he was assassinated, and said efforts will be taken to change key details on Rodney’s death certificate and make his gravesite a national monument. (Department of Public Information, Loop News)

Climate Justice and Energy

• Across the Caribbean, one of the world’s most tourism-dependent regions, states are struggling to balance protecting the environment and stoking their economies. A Reuters report looks at how Jamaica is struggling to address twin challenges: how to bring in visitors and boost jobs in the wake of COVID-19 while also keeping its commitment to slowing global warming.

• Whole-island conservation strategies should be among response measures deployed to protect diverse species in the Caribbean at risk for extinction associated with small increases in global temperatures, ecology expert Dr Shobha Maharaj told the Jamaica Gleaner.

• The University of the West Indies (UWI) launched its first Climate Change And Health Fellowship Training, a one-year European Union financed course of study to promote leadership in climate change and health. It is one component of a five-year €7 million project coordinated by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). (Caribbean News Service)

• A rescue mission is underway to save Barbados’ coral reefs, which have been impacted by a range of climate-related and other hazards. “There are no areas of very good reef– none,” said Kirk Humphrey, the country’s Minister of Maritime Affairs. (Caribbean Journal)

• Cuba's new wildlife trafficking law shows the country's illegal animal trade has become enough of an issue to warrant a response, reports InSight Crime.

Governance

• U.S. President Joe Biden said the Justice Department’s defense of continued discrimination against residents of U.S. territories in federal programs is “inconsistent with my Administration’s policies and values,” but said it’s up to Congress to amend the existing laws. (Virgin Island Daily News)

• The statement came after the DOJ filed a brief before the U.S. Supreme Court defending a provision in the Social Security Act that stops Puerto Rico residents from collecting Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, benefits. Biden urged Congress to amend the Social Security Act to make the benefits available in Puerto Rico, and also called for legislators to eliminate Medicaid funding caps for the U.S. territory. (NBC News)

• U.S. lawmaker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said that the Puerto Rico self-determination bill she is co-sponsoring “does not oppose statehood” and does not impose independence on the U.S. territory. (NBC)
  

Food Security

• The number of children suffering from “severe acute” childhood malnutrition in Haiti has more than doubled, increasing from 41,000 last year to an estimated 86,000 children this year, according to UNICEF. (Miami Herald)

LGTBQI and Gender

• Guyanese lawmakers are considering a bill that would officially decriminalize the offense of "cross-dressing." The move would give effect to Caribbean Court of Justice ruling from two years ago. (Stabroek News, Guyana Chronicle)

Public Security

• Escalating gang violence has pushed nearly 8,500 women and children from their homes in Haiti’s capital in the past two weeks, according to Unicef. Nearly 14,000 people in Port-au-Prince have been displaced by violence in the past nine months. Bruno Maes, Haiti’s representative for the UN’s children agency that issued the report late on Monday, compared the effect to guerrilla warfare, “with thousands of children and women caught in the crossfire," reports the Associated Press. (See last week's Just Caribbean Updates.)

• Belize Prime Minister John Briceño said that it feels like the gangs in the country and particularly Belize City “have a death wish. They are going after one another and as much as we put the police on the streets and try to monitor them as close as possible, they find ways.” He also stated, “You can’t stop people who want to kill themselves.” (Breaking Belize News)

Education

• The Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States has launched the regional teacher survey to explore how education systems have been affected by school closures and the massive shift from face-to-face to distance education. (Caribbean Media Corporation)
  

Culture

• “Axis Mundi,” the new solo exhibition by Puerto Rican artist Rafael Trelles, opens this month at the October Gallery in London, England. -- Repeating Islands

• Francio Guadeloupe's Black Man in the Netherlands: An Afro-Antillean Anthropology charts Guadeloupe’s coming of age and adulthood in a Dutch world and movingly makes a global contribution to the understanding of anti-Black racism. -- Repeating Islands
  

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