goldenequity
09-19-2017, 04:02 AM
A small (30mi X 70mi) steep sloped, impoverished 'forgotten' Caribbean island.
----------
As Dominca crawls out from the wreckage of its first Cat 5 Hurricane encounter
we have this Facebook post from its President, Roosevelt Skerrit:
"Initial reports are of widespread devastation.
So far we have lost all what money can buy and replace.
My greatest fear for the morning is that we will wake to news of serious physical injury and possible deaths
as a result of likely landslides triggered by persistent rains.
So, far the winds have swept away the roofs of almost every person I have spoken to or otherwise made contact with.
The roof to my own official residence was among the first to go
and this apparently followed by an avalanche of torn away roofs in the city and the countryside.
Come tomorrow morning we will hit the road, as soon as the all clear is given,
in search of the injured and those trapped in the rubble.
I am honestly not preoccupied with physical damage at this time, because it is devastating...indeed, mind boggling.
My focus now is in rescuing the trapped and securing medical assistance for the injured.
We will need help, my friend, we will need help of all kinds.
It is too early to speak of the condition of the air and seaports, but I suspect both will be inoperable for a few days.
That is why I am eager now to solicit the support of friendly nations and organizations with helicopter services,
for I personally am eager to get up and get around the country to see and determine what's needed."
The Geo-Politics of Dominica
“Dominica is an unspoiled and naturally beautiful country with all the potential of becoming the world’s leading Eco-tourism destination”.
http://thecommonwealth.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/images/project/Dominica620.jpg?itok=LnItyWU8
2011
The Caribbean island of Dominica is fast becoming a living example of the way that China has strengthened its influence by moving into countries that the United States and other Western nations have neglected.
The PRC maintains the largest embassy on Dominica, after Prime Minister Skerrit had broken diplomatic relations with the Republic of China (ROC: Taiwan) in 2004, and opened relations with the PRC, without parliamentary discussion.
Significantly, the PRC now has the biggest embassy in Dominica, substantially disproportionate to the size of the country (population 72,000). The U.S. does not maintain an embassy on the island, covering it from its Embassy in Barbados.
While the US has been preoccupied with wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the so-called ‘war on terror’, paying little attention to its immediate neighbourhood, the Chinese have established a presence throughout the Caribbean that, in large part, is regarded as beneficial to the people.
On the establishment of diplomatic relations, the Chinese promised to undertake infrastructural development projects totalling over US$100 million – all of it grants. Four projects were specifically identified: a sports stadium; a new grammar school; the rehabilitation of the major road connecting the capital, Roseau, to the second major town, Portsmouth; and the rehabilitation of the island’s major medical facility, the Princess Margaret Hospital.
The Chinese have, so far, fulfilled their undertakings on three of these projects. The stadium is built and in use, two phases of the school are complete, and work has started on the Roseau-Portsmouth road including the construction of miles of wall along the sea to help contain coastal erosion. Only the hospital project is pending and no one doubts that the Chinese will fulfil that commitment.
It should be pointed out that European Union (EU) is also helping with the rehabilitation and widening of the road from Dominica’s Melville Hall Airport to Roseau.
A significant difference in the EU and Chinese road projects is that the EU is employing Dominican workers while the Chinese use Chinese labour exclusively. While it might have been felt that the local population might have favoured the EU project, employing local labour, over the Chinese project that employs only Chinese, this is seemingly not the case.
Albeit a small number of people, asked about the Chinese not employing local labour, responded by saying that they were more interested in the projects, particularly the road, sea wall and hospital than they were in the jobs. They added that they were getting the projects for free.
it should be noted that in a White Paper on Foreign Aid, the Chinese government has listed as one of its Eight Principles for economic aid and technical assistance to other countries that “the Chinese government always bases itself on the principle of equality and mutual benefit in providing aid to other countries. It never regards such aid as a kind of unilateral alms but as something mutual”. China has been declaring that position since 1964.
Another consequence of relations with China is a gradual influx of Chinese into the local population. It is striking that far more retail shops in Roseau are now operated by Chinese than used to be the case. However, while this competition may trouble local retailers, people in the street point to less expensive products sold by the Chinese that they find affordable. And, in any event, while the number of Chinese retailers – and food outlets – is growing, the overall Chinese population is not yet large enough to create an outcry.
If China is welcome in Dominica and other small Caribbean countries, it is because China has filled a void left by the United States and other Western nations. Over the last decade, US assistance to the Caribbean region has dwindled except in the area of interest to the US – security including drug trafficking. Little attention has been paid to the interests of the region for infrastructural development, improving education and health facilities, and laying the foundations for investment that could produce employment and technical know-how.
The EU collectively stands out, among Western countries, as maintaining assistance to Dominica. That assistance goes beyond resurfacing the airport road to include a range of infrastructural projects, including improvement of the Melville Hall Airport. EU money also provides budgetary support to the Dominica government. But, while EU support has undoubtedly contributed to Dominica’s welfare, the island’s loss of its preferential banana market in the EU significantly hurt its economy and put hundreds of small farmers out of business.
For all this, Dominica’s physical infrastructure – roads and bridges – has made great strides, and it is helping the country’s economy. Poverty fell from 39 per cent in 2003 to 28.8 per cent in 2009, and absolute poverty declined from 10 per cent in 2003 to 3.1 per cent in 2009. However, the International Monetary Fund has observed that more than 30 per cent of the labour force has emigrated, and per capita GDP of about US$4,931 is low.
2017
U.S. national security officials were, on the night of Feb. 7, trying to determine whether an opening had arisen because of the sudden eruption of political unrest in Dominica to reverse the major diplomatic and intelligence gains of the past decade by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the Caribbean, the “third border” of the US.
Sources in Roseau, the Dominican capital, as well as in Washington, DC, were questioning whether this would present the first “national security crisis” of the new U.S. Donald Trump Administration, and present a further chance for the U.S. to push back against PRC strategic expansion and also to curtail a global Iranian sanctions avoidance scheme centered on the Caribbean.
Anti-Government protestors remained on the streets of Roseau, the capital of the Caribbean island Commonwealth of Dominica, late into the night of Feb. 7, but the peaceful protest rally against Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit earlier in the day had begun to unravel as the restraint of security forces began to evaporate.
Gunshots were heard in the city of 20,000 inhabitants, and fires were burning.
The protests against the Skerrit Government had risen rapidly, following disclosure of a series of interrelated scandals which involved the sale of Dominican diplomatic passports to individuals involved with the intelligence services of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Iranian sanctions-avoidance operations.
People were chanting through the Feb. 7, protests: “The regime must fall! We don’t want Iran or China! Skerrit must go!”
Elements of the Skerrit Government had attempted to deny that Mr Skerrit was under investigation by U.S. law enforcement for violations of U.S. law and for violations of the U.S. Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act (CISADA) of 2010, and particularly in relation to money-laundering linked to CISADA, among other issues.
Prime Minister Skerrit, whose wife is a U.S. and Dominican dual citizen, and whose children are U.S.-born and U.S. citizens, has an expensive apartment in New York City — valued in excess of his nominal asset value based on his earnings as a politician — and visits the U.S. regularly using his diplomatic passport.
As a result, he was becoming increasingly exposed to prosecution in the U.S. and to legal cases lodged by Dominicans in the U.S.
The main questions, as of late Feb. 7, centered around what the PRC or Iran could do to sustain their position involving Dominica, or whether the exposure of series of scandals and operations there made continued use of the base untenable for them.
The use of the fleet of 11 Dominican-flagged oil tankers as a key component of the sanctions-busting operation would almost certainly no longer be viable, and pressures were expected to be placed on Greece — the center of the management of the vessels — to stop participating in the Iran sanctions avoidance scheme.
The exposures began beyond the Caribbean on Jan. 1, with a US CBSCIA:) 60 Minutes television exposé on the Skerrit Government’s sale of diplomatic passports to individuals engaged in illegal activities, but was further expanded by the Feb. 3, report by GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs, and then by a detailed broadcast on the Dominica-linked strategic issues on the John Batchelor syndicated radio show on the U.S. Cumulus Radio network on the night of Feb. 6.
Street protests in Dominica — which had begun on Feb. 2, in Roseau — then became significant on Feb. 7, and were mirrored by the Dominican community leaders who converged on Washington the same day. Significantly, Prime Minister Skerrit had not been visible in Dominica, and was reportedly still in Athens.
http://www.caribbean360.com/opinion/china-039s-presence-in-dominica
and
http://www.worldtribune.com/unrest-roils-dominica-after-reports-reveal-governments-collusion-with-china-iran/
I guess we will wait and see who steps up. :cool:
----------
As Dominca crawls out from the wreckage of its first Cat 5 Hurricane encounter
we have this Facebook post from its President, Roosevelt Skerrit:
"Initial reports are of widespread devastation.
So far we have lost all what money can buy and replace.
My greatest fear for the morning is that we will wake to news of serious physical injury and possible deaths
as a result of likely landslides triggered by persistent rains.
So, far the winds have swept away the roofs of almost every person I have spoken to or otherwise made contact with.
The roof to my own official residence was among the first to go
and this apparently followed by an avalanche of torn away roofs in the city and the countryside.
Come tomorrow morning we will hit the road, as soon as the all clear is given,
in search of the injured and those trapped in the rubble.
I am honestly not preoccupied with physical damage at this time, because it is devastating...indeed, mind boggling.
My focus now is in rescuing the trapped and securing medical assistance for the injured.
We will need help, my friend, we will need help of all kinds.
It is too early to speak of the condition of the air and seaports, but I suspect both will be inoperable for a few days.
That is why I am eager now to solicit the support of friendly nations and organizations with helicopter services,
for I personally am eager to get up and get around the country to see and determine what's needed."
The Geo-Politics of Dominica
“Dominica is an unspoiled and naturally beautiful country with all the potential of becoming the world’s leading Eco-tourism destination”.
http://thecommonwealth.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/images/project/Dominica620.jpg?itok=LnItyWU8
2011
The Caribbean island of Dominica is fast becoming a living example of the way that China has strengthened its influence by moving into countries that the United States and other Western nations have neglected.
The PRC maintains the largest embassy on Dominica, after Prime Minister Skerrit had broken diplomatic relations with the Republic of China (ROC: Taiwan) in 2004, and opened relations with the PRC, without parliamentary discussion.
Significantly, the PRC now has the biggest embassy in Dominica, substantially disproportionate to the size of the country (population 72,000). The U.S. does not maintain an embassy on the island, covering it from its Embassy in Barbados.
While the US has been preoccupied with wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the so-called ‘war on terror’, paying little attention to its immediate neighbourhood, the Chinese have established a presence throughout the Caribbean that, in large part, is regarded as beneficial to the people.
On the establishment of diplomatic relations, the Chinese promised to undertake infrastructural development projects totalling over US$100 million – all of it grants. Four projects were specifically identified: a sports stadium; a new grammar school; the rehabilitation of the major road connecting the capital, Roseau, to the second major town, Portsmouth; and the rehabilitation of the island’s major medical facility, the Princess Margaret Hospital.
The Chinese have, so far, fulfilled their undertakings on three of these projects. The stadium is built and in use, two phases of the school are complete, and work has started on the Roseau-Portsmouth road including the construction of miles of wall along the sea to help contain coastal erosion. Only the hospital project is pending and no one doubts that the Chinese will fulfil that commitment.
It should be pointed out that European Union (EU) is also helping with the rehabilitation and widening of the road from Dominica’s Melville Hall Airport to Roseau.
A significant difference in the EU and Chinese road projects is that the EU is employing Dominican workers while the Chinese use Chinese labour exclusively. While it might have been felt that the local population might have favoured the EU project, employing local labour, over the Chinese project that employs only Chinese, this is seemingly not the case.
Albeit a small number of people, asked about the Chinese not employing local labour, responded by saying that they were more interested in the projects, particularly the road, sea wall and hospital than they were in the jobs. They added that they were getting the projects for free.
it should be noted that in a White Paper on Foreign Aid, the Chinese government has listed as one of its Eight Principles for economic aid and technical assistance to other countries that “the Chinese government always bases itself on the principle of equality and mutual benefit in providing aid to other countries. It never regards such aid as a kind of unilateral alms but as something mutual”. China has been declaring that position since 1964.
Another consequence of relations with China is a gradual influx of Chinese into the local population. It is striking that far more retail shops in Roseau are now operated by Chinese than used to be the case. However, while this competition may trouble local retailers, people in the street point to less expensive products sold by the Chinese that they find affordable. And, in any event, while the number of Chinese retailers – and food outlets – is growing, the overall Chinese population is not yet large enough to create an outcry.
If China is welcome in Dominica and other small Caribbean countries, it is because China has filled a void left by the United States and other Western nations. Over the last decade, US assistance to the Caribbean region has dwindled except in the area of interest to the US – security including drug trafficking. Little attention has been paid to the interests of the region for infrastructural development, improving education and health facilities, and laying the foundations for investment that could produce employment and technical know-how.
The EU collectively stands out, among Western countries, as maintaining assistance to Dominica. That assistance goes beyond resurfacing the airport road to include a range of infrastructural projects, including improvement of the Melville Hall Airport. EU money also provides budgetary support to the Dominica government. But, while EU support has undoubtedly contributed to Dominica’s welfare, the island’s loss of its preferential banana market in the EU significantly hurt its economy and put hundreds of small farmers out of business.
For all this, Dominica’s physical infrastructure – roads and bridges – has made great strides, and it is helping the country’s economy. Poverty fell from 39 per cent in 2003 to 28.8 per cent in 2009, and absolute poverty declined from 10 per cent in 2003 to 3.1 per cent in 2009. However, the International Monetary Fund has observed that more than 30 per cent of the labour force has emigrated, and per capita GDP of about US$4,931 is low.
2017
U.S. national security officials were, on the night of Feb. 7, trying to determine whether an opening had arisen because of the sudden eruption of political unrest in Dominica to reverse the major diplomatic and intelligence gains of the past decade by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in the Caribbean, the “third border” of the US.
Sources in Roseau, the Dominican capital, as well as in Washington, DC, were questioning whether this would present the first “national security crisis” of the new U.S. Donald Trump Administration, and present a further chance for the U.S. to push back against PRC strategic expansion and also to curtail a global Iranian sanctions avoidance scheme centered on the Caribbean.
Anti-Government protestors remained on the streets of Roseau, the capital of the Caribbean island Commonwealth of Dominica, late into the night of Feb. 7, but the peaceful protest rally against Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit earlier in the day had begun to unravel as the restraint of security forces began to evaporate.
Gunshots were heard in the city of 20,000 inhabitants, and fires were burning.
The protests against the Skerrit Government had risen rapidly, following disclosure of a series of interrelated scandals which involved the sale of Dominican diplomatic passports to individuals involved with the intelligence services of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Iranian sanctions-avoidance operations.
People were chanting through the Feb. 7, protests: “The regime must fall! We don’t want Iran or China! Skerrit must go!”
Elements of the Skerrit Government had attempted to deny that Mr Skerrit was under investigation by U.S. law enforcement for violations of U.S. law and for violations of the U.S. Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act (CISADA) of 2010, and particularly in relation to money-laundering linked to CISADA, among other issues.
Prime Minister Skerrit, whose wife is a U.S. and Dominican dual citizen, and whose children are U.S.-born and U.S. citizens, has an expensive apartment in New York City — valued in excess of his nominal asset value based on his earnings as a politician — and visits the U.S. regularly using his diplomatic passport.
As a result, he was becoming increasingly exposed to prosecution in the U.S. and to legal cases lodged by Dominicans in the U.S.
The main questions, as of late Feb. 7, centered around what the PRC or Iran could do to sustain their position involving Dominica, or whether the exposure of series of scandals and operations there made continued use of the base untenable for them.
The use of the fleet of 11 Dominican-flagged oil tankers as a key component of the sanctions-busting operation would almost certainly no longer be viable, and pressures were expected to be placed on Greece — the center of the management of the vessels — to stop participating in the Iran sanctions avoidance scheme.
The exposures began beyond the Caribbean on Jan. 1, with a US CBSCIA:) 60 Minutes television exposé on the Skerrit Government’s sale of diplomatic passports to individuals engaged in illegal activities, but was further expanded by the Feb. 3, report by GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs, and then by a detailed broadcast on the Dominica-linked strategic issues on the John Batchelor syndicated radio show on the U.S. Cumulus Radio network on the night of Feb. 6.
Street protests in Dominica — which had begun on Feb. 2, in Roseau — then became significant on Feb. 7, and were mirrored by the Dominican community leaders who converged on Washington the same day. Significantly, Prime Minister Skerrit had not been visible in Dominica, and was reportedly still in Athens.
http://www.caribbean360.com/opinion/china-039s-presence-in-dominica
and
http://www.worldtribune.com/unrest-roils-dominica-after-reports-reveal-governments-collusion-with-china-iran/
I guess we will wait and see who steps up. :cool: