Covid-19 in Caribbean (Feb. 25, 2022)

The Caribbean remains vulnerable to Covid-19, even as deaths have dropped in the Americas for the first time since the omicron variant took hold, according to the World Health Organization. Vaccination rates are continuing to lag in many countries and territories, and a surge in new cases is leading to increases in hospital admissions and deaths, said Dr. Carissa Etienne, the director of the WHO’s Pan American Health Organization. (Miami Herald)

The warning comes as several governments consider relaxing COVID-19 measures after placing limits on funeral attendance and large indoor gatherings like concerts, and as others consider resuming Carnival festivals this year. (Miami Herald)

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Haitian police kill journalist

Haitian police fired into a group of protesters in Port-au-Prince on Wednesday, killing a journalist and wounding two others. The move came after thousands of Haitian factory workers launched a new strike to demand higher wages than those the prime minister announced earlier this week. Earlier, police had fired tear gas as protesters threw rocks at them and used trucks to block a main road near the international airport in Port-au-Prince, reports the Associated Press.

Haiti's government hiked the minimum wage by as much as 54 percent this week, following weeks of demonstrations by garment workers who say their wages are not enough to keep up with the rising cost of living. (Reuters)

The Haiti National Police force has begun an internal investigation into allegations that police officers carried out the deadly attack, reports the Miami Herald. (See yesterday's post.) In recent years Haiti has seen an increase in the slaying of journalists, none of which have been solved.

Migration

• The Dominican Republic began building a wall to cover parts of its border with Haiti this weekend. The wall will cover almost half of the border between the two countries and will affect Haitians who cross the border in search of work in the fields or in the construction industry in the Dominican Republic, reports Deutsche Welle.
  
  
• There are concerns that the wall will bring opportunities for bribery, reports the Guardian.
  
  
• Dominican Republic President Luis Abinader's popularity remains high. In a new poll 70 percent of respondents said they approve of Abinader, while only 24 percent disapprove. Abinader’s perceived strong stance on security and migration are likely giving him a boost, in addition to the country's strong economic recovery from the pandemic, according to the Latin America Risk Report.
  
  
• A Trinidadian aboard a fishing vessel fired upon by Trinidad and Tobago's Coast Guard has disputed the official account of events in which a Venezuelan baby in his mother's arms was killed. (Trinidad and Tobago Guardian)
  

Democratic Governance and Decolonization

• The United Nations Security Council made it clear that it wants elections in Haiti before the end of the year and called on the country’s political and civic leaders to collaborate on resolving political gridlock, reports the Miami Herald. The government and its main opposition, known as the Montana group, have different visions for the country: Prime Minister Ariel Henry is angling for a new constitution and elections by the end of the year, while the Montana group is seeking a two-year transition process to guarantee free and fair elections.
  
  
• Puerto Rico's recently announced debt agreement will not make it easier for citizens to find homes, schools, and jobs. But it will fuel and test Puerto Ricans’ ability to mobilize politically, argues Carlos A Suárez Carrasquillo in the Conversation.

Climate Justice and Energy

• The Suriname government has begun the process of ending a deal for the construction here of a state-of-the-art hydrogen plant by the Danish company, Hybrid Power System Group. According to the government it has become apparent that HPSG has “given an incorrect representation” and that the Danish company “has not and cannot fulfill basic obligations under the agreement.” (Caribbean Media Corporation)
  
  
• Electric buses in Bermuda and Barbados.

Culture

• A new book by Sharon Milagro Marshall traces the reverse migration of some CuBajans, the descendants of Barbadians who moved to Cuba in search of economic opportunities in the early twentieth century. While they have not always been regarded as true Barbadians by some among the local population, the CuBajans themselves have a sense of pride in what they have been able to achieve in Cuba, and they count themselves fortunate in having two homelands. (Repeating Islands)

Human Rights

• Jamaican maximum-security correctional facilities are largely identified by their extremely poor, anachronistic, and inhuman conditions of custody. This overriding identity shelves the positive influence of reforms that have taken place or are currently underway, writes Dacia Latoya Leslie in International Criminal Justice Review.

Racial Justice

• A top beauty pageant in Jamaica has banned women who have bleached their skin from competing. (Repeating Islands)
  

Events

• 25 February -- 1 p.m. Book Launch: How Britain Underdeveloped the Caribbean: A Reparation Response to Europe’s Legacy of Plunder and Poverty by Hilary McD. Beckles -- UWI TV
  
  
• 2 March -- How does climate adaptation look in the Caribbean? -- Caribbean Climate Network
  
  
• 9 March -- Global climate negotiations and their impacts in the Caribbean -- Caribbean Climate Network
  
  
• 10 March -- “Women in Foreign Policy”, a space for female Latin American and Caribbean ambassadors in the UK to share their insight into the challenges and opportunities faced by women in global diplomacy -- Canning House

Opportunities

• Two Fellowship Vacancies - the United Nations Voluntary Trust Fund on Contemporary Forms of Slavery and the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture. Programme of the UN Human Rights Office. More information 
  
  
• Grant letters of interest for feminist and women’s, girl’s, and trans people's and intersex people’s rights organisations and initiatives led by and for women, girls, and trans people and intersex people from anywhere in the world.  -- Mama Cash 

We welcome comments and critiques on the Just Caribbean Updates. You can see the Updates on our website, as well as receive it directly through the mailing list. Thank you for reading.

Loss and Damage in Caribbean (Feb. 17, 2022)

 Caribbean countries and other Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are being forced to borrow in order to recover from the effects of climate change disasters, "to respond to a problem that they did not cause, in fact to respond to a problem where they are the victims. And I think that’s unconscionable," said former chief climate change negotiator for Saint Lucia, Dr James Fletcher. 

Because many of the countries hold private debt rather than owing multilateral institutions, "it’s difficult to enter into a debt for climate swap with private debt," he noted, speaking at an online webinar by the Commonwealth Foundation on climate change reparations. (Loop News)

Fletcher (who was the leading Caribbean negotiator at the Paris Conference in 2015, former Saint Lucia Minister for Sustainable Development, and founder of the Caribbean Climate Justice Project) also suggested that carbon taxes collected from major polluters, like shipping companies and airlines, should be funneled into a Loss and Damage fund. 

The conversation ranged widely on the highly political issue of loss and damage for SIDS and recent initiatives including Antigua and Barbuda-Tuvalu’s announcement at COP26 of a commission to explore litigation. See the entire presentation.

"Climate is not an environmental issue, it's political. And politicians only care about things that impact their votes. So civil society is our greatest vehicle right now," argued Fletcher.

More Loss and Damage

• Speakers at a Chatham House event outlined potential principals for a funding mechanism to compensate for loss and damage caused by climate change. By 2030, lower-income countries are expected to see between $290 billion and $500 billion in costs due to loss and damage from climate change. Alpha Kaloga, a lead negotiator of the African Group of Negotiators at COP 26, suggested three key guiding principles: accessible funding, accessible data about the climate events that require funding, and equity around who pays. (Devex)

Democratic Governance

• Haitian interim-prime minister Ariel Henry invited members of an opposition coalition to join his election push, rather than continue their efforts to replace him with a two-year transitional government aimed at creating better conditions for free and fair elections, reports the Miami Herald. Supporters of the Commission to Search for a Haitian Solution to the Crisis, which drafted the Montana Accord, have vacillated between having Henry join their proposed power-sharing agreement and calling for his removal from office. 
  
  
• Henry met Montana Accord representatives last week and the two sides said they are working on a negotiation process aimed at finding a consensual path out of the country's prolonged political crisis. (Press Lakay)
  
  
• Guyanese Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo rejected allegations placed before him by Vice Media Group that he accepts bribes to assist Chinese businessmen to gain lucrative public sector projects. (Stabroek News)
  
  
• Civil rights groups led by the ACLU asked U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration to disavow century-old Supreme Court rulings suffused with racist language that gave the government license to treat people living in Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories differently than other Americans. In a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland that the Justice Department should publicly condemn a series of rulings in the early 1900s called the Insular Cases, reports the Associated Press.
  

Public Security

• Jamaica's Supreme Court is trying 33 alleged gang members on charges including arson, murder and being part of a criminal organization. The case is testing recent judicial reforms designed to fight the island's powerful criminal groups, reports Reuters. Prime Minister Andrew Holness' government is hoping for convictions that could help slow gang violence in Jamaica, which authorities say is responsible for 70 percent of the country's homicides. (See last week's Just Caribbean Updates.)
  
  
• Jamaica's Firearm Licensing Authority head Shane Dalling accused former employees of participating in an alleged extortion ring once headed by a former senior official, which benefited key players in the $6.5-billion gun industry, reports the Jamaica Gleaner.
  
  
• Easy access to weapons is the main factor behind St. Lucia's gun violence, according to former Prime Minister Allan Chastanet, whose opposition United Workers Party recommends measures to stop illicit weapons flows. (St. Lucia Times)

Decolonization

• British shadow foreign secretary David Lammy asked the government to pardon 70 abolitionists convicted for their role in the historic 1823 Demerara rebellion by enslaved people against British colonialists in the Caribbean. The revolt in part of present-day Guyana involved 10,000 enslaved people and was brutally crushed by the colonial militia. Granting a pardon would be “a significant step in Britain’s acknowledgment of its role in the history of slavery," wrote Lammy. (Guardian)
• The University of the West Indies has joined forces with the Garvey Institute and the PJ Patterson Centre for Africa-Caribbean Advocacy in mobilizing signatures for an online petition to posthumously exonerate Garvey of his unjust charge and conviction in 1922.  UWI forum on this.
  
• By 2030, it is more than likely that the eight independent Commonwealth Caribbean countries which are still monarchical states will become republics, argued Sir Ronald Sanders in a column last month. They would join the other four Commonwealth Caribbean countries that have already separated from the Queen.
  
• British royals the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will visit the Bahamas, Jamaica and Belize next month as they seek to prevent further Caribbean nations from severing ties with the Crown, reports the Telegraph. The visit comes at a critical time, as Commonwealth realms increasingly debate whether to follow Barbados in severing ties with the British monarchy.
  

Development

• The combined macro-level economic impact of Hurricane Dorian and the COVID-19 pandemic on The Bahamas is projected to inflict losses of $7.5 billion, according to a recent study commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme. (Eyewitness News)
  
  
• The United States, the European Union and others pledged $600 million in additional funds to help Haiti reconstruct its southern peninsula following a devastating earthquake six months ago. The pledges made during a conference held by the United Nations and Haiti's government fell short of an international push to raise $2 billion, reports the Associated Press.
  

Climate Justice and Energy

• The last refuges for the world’s ailing coral reefs could vanish completely if global warming exceeds 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, according to a new study published in PLOS Climate. (Carbon Brief)
  
  
• Rising sea levels could force Guyana to consider moving capital Georgetown to higher ground, reports News Room. President Irfaan Ali has also long touted the creation of ‘Silica City’ a new city in Guyana’s hilly sand and clay region, further inland.
  
  
• St. Lucia's government will require a private development on the island to guarantee public access to several affected beaches, and to protect an ancient Amerindian site -- the new promises are in keeping with protection and sustainable management measures organizations have been advocating for, writes the St. Lucia National Trust.

Human Rights

• The police officer who allegedly cut a young Jamaican's dreadlocks in custody will not face criminal charges, a delayed outcome that is not surprising, writes Emma Lewis in Global Voices.
  

Caribbean in the World

• The Caribbean should definitely care about rising tensions in Ukraine, argues Sir Ronald Sanders, pointing to likely higher prices for oil and gas and a knock-on economic effect. But countries in the region, that "came to independence by exercising the right to self-determination and which treasure their sovereignty and territorial integrity, would have to be very concerned," he writes.

Events

• 17 February -- “Climate Action: Roadmap to Climate Recovery in the Caribbean” -- Bahamas Climate Change Caucus at the University of The Bahamas.
  
  
• 19 February -- Le-Anne Roper, 1st Senior Technical Officer (Adaptation) with Jamaica’s Climate Change Division will be launching her book ‘Building Rock-Solid Resilience to Natural Hazards: The Church Edition with UWI’s climate scientist Professor Michael Taylor.
  
  
• 2 March -- How does climate adaptation look like in the Caribbean? -- Caribbean Climate Network Sessions on Climate
  
  
• 15 March -- SOGIESC and climate justice in African, Caribbean and Pacific states -- ECADE - Eastern Caribbean Alliance, a network of LGBTQ+ and human rights organisations working towards LGBTQ+ equality in the eastern Caribbean
  
  
• 17 March -- Hidden Paradise: SOGIESC and Climate Justice in the Caribbean -- ECADE - Eastern Caribbean Alliance, a network of LGBTQ+ and human rights organisations working towards LGBTQ+ equality in the eastern Caribbean

We welcome comments and critiques on the Just Caribbean Updates. You can see the Updates on our website, as well as receive it directly through the mailing list. Thank you for reading.

Just Caribbean Updates (Feb. 8, 2022)

For the second year in a row, Jamaica had the highest murder rate in the region, according to InSight Crime's annual homicide roundup. The Constabulary Force recorded 1,463 killings in 2021, giving the country a homicide rate that reached nearly 50 per 100,000 people. Jamaicans were shaken last year by brutal slayings and spiraling violence amid a “third wave” of COVID-19.

So far this year, the island has recorded 112 murders. The government recently launched a campaign, that will pay as much as US$4,000 in local currency to persons who provide information leading to the seizure of illegal guns and the arrest of wanted criminals, though experts say it is unlikely to have real impact on crime rates. The campaign seems to be targeting persons with illegal firearms and those with information about the weapons, reports the Caribbean National Weekly.

Last year Jamaica's government declared a state of emergency in seven police districts on the island, in response to increases in violent crimes, ranging from 16 to 57 per cent. (See Just Caribbean Updates for Nov. 19, 2021) The state of emergency ended after two weeks when the restrictions were not supported by legislators.

Public Security

• Trinidad and Tobago, Belize, and Puerto Rico all made the top ten in the region's homicide ranking. The first two in particular are among the region's high homicide rates: 32 per 100,000 and 29 per 100,000, respectively. Trinidad and Tobago, which has been affected by the ongoing crisis and spike in criminality in Venezuela, saw a 12 percent increase in murders last year. Other violent crimes – including shootings, sex crimes and kidnappings – increased amid the surge in violence. (InSight Crime)
  
  
• In Belize, homicides reached their lowest point in a decade in 2020, but rose last year due to deadly gang conflicts, according to government authorities. (InSight Crime)
  
  
• In Puerto Rico there were 616 homicides recorded by the National Police in 2021 compared to 529 in the previous year, causing the homicide rate to jump up to 19.3 per 100,000 people and reversing the decline that had given the island nation its lowest homicide rate in over 30 years. (InSight Crime)

Climate Justice and Energy

• The UK Privy Council granted permission to appeal to a case from the Bahamas brought by Responsible Development for Abaco. The appeal will consider whether orders for security for costs breach constitutional rights. The Bahamas’ Court of Appeal routinely requires huge sums to be paid as security for costs in environmental cases. This prevents judicial review cases from progressing to trial and raises significant issues about RDA’s right of access to the Court. RDA brought judicial review proceedings to challenge a proposed marina development at Winding Bay on the Island of Abaco. (Clayton Comments)
  
  
• Natural hazards and climate change impact men and women differently for a host of factors, which include their different roles and individual and family responsibilities, and policy development and service delivery by mandating bodies. The UN Women Multi-Country Office Caribbean commissioned studies on the Impact of Climate Change and Disaster Risk and Cost of Inaction for the EnGenDER programme countries, to understand the differential impact and whether institutional gender biases exist.
  
  
• The Biden administration and Puerto Rico have signed a memorandum of understanding and launched a joint effort to accelerate the growth of renewable energy resources and strengthen the island's electric grid. (NBC)
  
  
• Cuba established a new, 728 km, marine protected area off its northwest coast in an area known as Este del Archipiélago de Los Colorados. (Mongabay)
  
  
• The Honduran island of Roatán is focusing on balancing the return of tourism (and divers) with the fragility of the marine reef environment -- New York Times.
  
  
• "The race to save the world’s reefs from the climate crisis" – in pictures in the Guardian.

Regional Relations

• On the sixtieth anniversary of the U.S. embargo on Cuba, the National Security Archive posted a collection of previously declassified documents that record the origins, rationale, and early evolution of punitive economic sanctions against Cuba in the aftermath of the Castro-led revolution. 
  
  
• The documents show that the initial concept of U.S. economic pressure was to create “hardship” and “disenchantment” among the Cuban populace and to deny “money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, [and] to bring about hunger, desperation, and the overthrow of [the] government.” However, a CIA case study of the embargo, written twenty years after its imposition, concluded that the sanctions “have not met any of their objectives.” (National Security Archive)
  
  
• It's a good opportunity to delve into the complexities of the embargo, which is shorthand for a complex patchwork of laws and regulations that comprise the oldest and most comprehensive U.S. economic sanctions against any country in the world, writes William LeoGrande at Responsible Statecraft.

Democratic Governance

• Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley's sweep in general elections last month was not expected, and shows that Barbadians continue to support her Barbados Labour Part, whatever its shortcomings, writes Kristina Hinds in World Politics Review. The win poses a challenge for democratic accountability, and should push other parties to find ways to reestablish their relevance and credibility in the country.


• This week marked the official end of the slain Haitian President Jovenel Moïse's term (by some counts anyway). Political opponents have demanded that interim Prime Minister Ariel Henry step down, arguing that his administration is unconstitutional. The government was rendered unconstitutional on Feb. 7, according to an opposition alliance dubbed the Montana Accord and independent experts. (See Monday's Latin America Daily Briefing post.)
  
  
• A new investigative CEPR article reveals new details about suspects in the plot to assassinate Haiti’s president Jovenel Moïse in July last year, and their connections to a murky, earlier “Petit Bois” conspiracy a year ago that was supposedly aimed at ousting Moïse and resulted in the mass, illegal arrests of more than a dozen people. The article is based on interviews with individuals involved in, or close to, the supposed plots against Moïse; former US government officials; and associates of people connected to the plots; and on business records, government documents, and other primary source information.

Human Rights

• Orphanages have proliferated in Haiti over the past decade, thanks to an influx of Western funding. There are few barriers to opening one, and even fewer mechanisms to hold operators accountable for child welfare. The result, according to BuzzFeed News, is a shadowy industry where kids routinely face abuse, exploitation, living standards that don’t meet state requirements, and sometimes death, while Westerners who fund, operate, or promote many orphanages face minimal oversight.

Migration

• Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard officers fired at a boat carrying Venezuelan migrants Saturday night, wounding a mother and killing the baby in her arms. Officers were trying to stop a boat crossing the Venezuelan border into Trinidad and Tobago, in what the island nation’s officials described as an act of self-defense, reports the Associated Press.

Gender and LGBTQI

• The Concacaf and the St. Kitts and Nevis football associationare at loggerheads over coach accused of sexual abuse in Barbados, reports the Guardian.

Culture

• Set to the pulsating beats of Afro-Caribbean music, the feature-length documentary film Frenemies examines the fraught relationship between the island nation of Cuba and the United States. 
  
  
• The ABCs of Trinidad and Tobago Carnival, TikTok style -- Global Voices
  

History and Colonialisms

• Caribbean history is filled with failed slave rebellions. "Each is worthy of a place in memory through graceful and compassionate retellings," writes Scott MacDonald in a Global Americans review of Marjoleine Kars’ Blood on the River and Tom Zoellner’s Island of Fire. "Both books are masterful tales, the first breathing life into what had been a largely forgotten rebellion against the Dutch in Berbice in 1763 and the second taking place in Jamaica from 1831 to 1832."
  
  
• A History of Guyana’s Prisons -- Stabroek News
  

Opportunities

• Funder survey to inform the Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, Clément N. Voule, who will dedicate his thematic report to be presented at the 50th session of the Human Rights Council, to the study of trends, developments, and challenges regarding the ability of civil society organizations to access resources, including foreign funding. (Deadline 11 February.)
  
  
• The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights calls for applications for a fellowship program for the protection of the rights of children and adolescents in the region, aimed at professionals from an OAS Member State with experience in human rights, specifically in the rights of children and adolescents.  (Deadline 16 February)
  

Events

• 17 February -- “Gender, Violence, and Politics in Haiti,”  -- The Rutgers Advanced Institute for Critical Caribbean Studies (RAICCS) The panel will include Haitian organizers, activists, and scholars Danièle Magloire, Fania Noël, Pascale Solages, and Dominique St Vil. Registration.
  
  
• 26 February -- Online Seminar: Discriminatory Laws Affecting LGBTQ+ Individuals in SVG: State-Sanctioned Homophobia?  -- Equal Rights Access and Opportunities SVG Inc. Registration.

We welcome comments and critiques on the Just Caribbean Updates. You can see the Updates on our website, as well as receive it directly through the mailing list. Thank you for reading.

Haiti civil society groups choose transition leader (Feb. 1, 2022)

A group of Haitian civil society and political organizations chose former prime minister Fritz Alphonse Jean to head the country as interim president for two years. The vote was carried out by 42 voting members of the National Transitional Council (CNT) out of 44 (after the withdrawal of the Famni Lavalas party).  Delegates also chose former Senate president Steven Benoit as interim-prime minister. The vote was not recognized by acting-prime minister Ariel Henry.

The CNT stems from the Montana Accord (after the name of the hotel in Port-au-Prince where it was announced), the agreement is a blueprint for a two-year transitional government that will serve Haitians’ basic needs, bolster democratic institutions, reestablish legitimacy and trust, and organize free, fair, and participatory elections. In mid-January, the coalition grew bigger and now includes the modified Protocole d’Entente Nationale (PEN), a powerful alliance of seven political parties, writes Monica Clecsa in Foreign Affairs. The end goal of the transition is free and fair elections. "However appealing quick elections may appear to outside powers, it is clear they are not the answer to Haiti’s problems: in all likelihood, they will lead only to undemocratic outcomes and further instability."

Last week Henry rejected a separate attempt to form a transitional government by the "Haiti Unity Summit," which also chose Jean to head an interim government. Henry said the country's next president will be "elected freely and democratically by the majority of the Haitian people," but did not say when. 

February 7 marks the end of Moïse's presidential term, a date that could provide Henry’s adversaries with a pretext to challenge his fragile authority, and which could develop into a new flashpoint in Haiti's prolonged political, social and security crisis, reported the Miami Herald earlier this month.

(EFE, Haiti Libre, EuropaPress, Le Nouvelliste, Miami Herald)

Democratic Governance

• Puerto Rico's revised fiscal plan, approved this week, includes pay raises for teachers, firefighters, corrections officers and other employees. A federal control board that oversees the U.S. territory’s finances noted that many government workers have not seen a pay raise since 2014, a year before Puerto Rico announced it was unable to pay its more than $70 billion public debt load, reports the Associated Press.
  
  
• But the new bankruptcy plan does nothing for most of the island, argues Julio Ricardo Varela in an MSNBC column. "In the end, the debt burden and the continued austerity push will fall once again on the people of Puerto Rico."
  
  
• The Barbados Labour Party's landslide win in this month's snap elections leaves Barbados without parliamentary opposition, which means "checks and balances fall primarily on an independent judiciary which is the custodian of the rights set out in national constitutions," writes Sir Ronald Sanders. "But the day-to-day vigilance relies more particularly on a free and vigilant media – these days the social media platforms."

Development

• Many Cayman Islands residents are increasingly frustrated by growth that seems dictated by investors and foreign interests rather than local needs, reports Periodismo Investigativo. Cayman’s open and mostly tax-free real estate market means that any one from anywhere can buy, trade and profit off of Cayman Islands properties and government revenue data indicates a sharp increase in wealthy transplants and real estate investors to the islands during the pandemic.

Climate Justice and Energy

• The U.S. should increase financing and aid to the Caribbean to help the region recover from the pandemic and cope with the growing impact of climate change, Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne told Reuters in an interview. China has lent over $4 billion to Caribbean nations in the last 10 years, according to figures compiled by the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue. But borrowing from Chinese banks shouldn't be construed as a political statement, said Browne, as the conditions of those loans are more favorable than even those provided by multilateral agencies such as the International Monetary Fund.
• Three Guyanese women filed a legal case challenging the May 2021 decision by Guyana’s Environmental Protection Agency to modify Esso’s permit to allow it to flare gas in exchange for a US$45 fee per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent. (Kaieteur News, Stabroek News) 
  
  
• Residents of the Dominican Republic's Haina industrial zone are increasingly sickened by toxic smoke from dozens of factories, reports Al Jazeera in a long-form piece.
  
  
• A Costa Rican dive center is training young people to do conservation work, such as seabed cleaning, reef monitoring, water pollution analysis, and underwater archeology, reports the Guardian.

Gender and LGBTQ+ Rights

• While most Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries in the Caribbean and Latin America legalized same-sex intimacy in the mid-1800s, most Anglophone Caribbean countries retained their Victorian Era bans on same-sex activity even after decolonization. For these countries, the movement for LGBTQ rights can seem like a foreign imposition on domestic policy and spark a nationalist backlash, writes Robert Carlson in Global Americans.
  
  
• A woman whose marriage broke down after she reported allegations of domestic abuse against her husband faces having her Cayman Islands residency revoked, according to court documents. (Cayman Compass)

Access to Justice

• St. Lucia has not been able to hold a homicide trial for two years, because courtrooms are too small to safely seat a jury under Covid rules, even as the murder rate has risen to record levels. It is one of the most extreme examples of the damaging impact of the pandemic on access to justice globally, according to the Guardian.  

Housing

• The U.S. government has allotted more than $554 million to repair some 275 public housing complexes in Puerto Rico that were damaged by Hurricane Maria more than four years ago, reports the Associated Press.

Public Security

• Dancehall artists in Jamaica took to social media to denounce the country's violent crime, and to call on perpetrators to stop, reports NY Carib News.
  
  
• Jamaica's Advocates Network is registering its deep disquiet and disappointment at the lack of information and delays in the investigation of the alleged cutting of the locks of Nzinga King in July, 2021. (Petchary's Blog)

Histories

• Eric Williams' groundbreaking Capitalism and Slavery will be published in Britain, 84 years after it was first rejected by publishers. Slavery, Williams argues, was abolished in much of the British empire in 1833 because doing so at that time was in Britain’s economic self-interest – not because the British suddenly discovered a conscience. -- Guardian
  
  
• Academics and artists are shedding new light on the traditionally ignored history of indentured labor in the British Empire -- Commonwealth Foundation.

Events

• 1 Feb (2 p.m. EST) -- Oil Dorado? Guyana's Black Gold | Live Book Launch
  
  
• 15 February -- How can small island states fund their urgent battle against global warming? -- Commonwealth Foundation

• 7-10 March -- The Diplomatic Academy of the Caribbean online training module: Caribbean Small States and the Diplomacies of Climate Change: Negotiations in Practice. More information.

Opportunities

• FY 2022 Julia Taft Refugee Fund call for proposals to support to one-time, low-cost interventions that address important gaps in protection and assistance for refugees and stateless persons -- The U.S. Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM).
  
  
• WHO -- Call for proposals for six low- and middle-income country (LMIC) case studies examining how health systems are responding to the climate crisis at the national or sub-national levels.