Atlantic Sentinel

Tag: Latin America

  • Support for Legalizing Cannabis, Cocaine Grows

    Karl Lauterbach
    German health minister Karl Lauterbach (Bundesministerium für Gesundheit)

    Germany plans to legalize the sale of recreational cannabis in 2024.

    Germany allows medical use of cannabis, but it is seldom prescribed. Karl Lauterbach, the health minister, wants to license the production, distribution and sale of recreational cannabis. Consumers would be allowed to buy up to 30 grams in specialized stores and they could grow three cannabis plants at home. All criminal cases would be closed.

    There would be quality requirements, but no price regulation. Lauterbach left open the possibility of a cannabis tax on top of sales tax (19 percent), but cautioned that legal cannabis must be competitive with the black market. (more…)

  • Which Countries Still Support Russia, and Why

    Vladimir Putin Jair Bolsonaro
    Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil pose for photos in the Planalto Palace in Brasília, November 14, 2019 (Palácio do Planalto/Marcos Corrêa)

    Vladimir Putin has few allies in his war against Ukraine. The democracies of East Asia, Europe and North America are against him, and have imposed unprecedented economic sanctions. Almost the entire rest of the world has condemned the invasion.

    A few countries are reluctant, or have outright refused, to take a stand. I asked the Atlantic Sentinel‘s China, India, Israel and South America experts to explain why. (more…)

  • Curaçao Election Result Will Set Off Alarm Bells in Netherlands

    Willemstad Curaçao
    Flag of Curaçao in Willemstad (iStock/Flavio Vallenari)

    Two days after parliamentary elections in the European Netherlands, voters on Curaçao, one of the three autonomous Dutch islands in the Caribbean, went to the polls on Friday.

    The result was a resounding victory for the populist Movement for the Future of Curaçao (MFK), led by Gilmar Pisas, which won nine out of 21 seats in the island Estates. (more…)

  • Dutch Intervene to Break Stalemate in Curaçao Legislature

    Willemstad Curaçao
    View of Willemstad, Curaçao (iStock)

    The Dutch government has intervened on Curaçao to break what it described as an “antidemocratic” impasse on the island.

    The government of what is nominally an autonomous country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands had requested the intervention to reconstitute the island legislature. “At the moment,” Prime Minister Eugene Rhuggenaath said earlier this week, “democracy isn’t functioning on Curaçao as it should be.”

    All ten opposition lawmakers refused to attend virtual meetings of the Estates, denying the ruling parties, who also have ten seats, a quorum to swear in a tie-breaking deputy: Emmilou Capriles, who succeeds Jeser El Ayoubi.

    The Dutch government has now appointed Capriles by decree.

    The same opposition lawmakers tried to use the death of a ruling party lawmaker to bring down the government last summer. They failed, but not before encouraging riots. (more…)

  • Aruba, Curaçao Agree to Terms of Dutch Coronavirus Aid

    Royal Plaza Mall Oranjestad Aruba
    Royal Plaza Mall in Oranjestad, Aruba, February 10, 2015 (Thomas Hawk)

    Aruba and Curaçao have agreed to liberalize their economies in order to qualify for continued financial support from the European Netherlands, without which the islands would almost certainly go bankrupt.

    The coronavirus pandemic has brought tourism, on which the islands depend, close to a standstill.

    Sint Maarten, the third autonomous Dutch island in the Caribbean, has yet to meet the terms of Dutch aid, which include cutting public-sector salaries by 12.5 to 25 percent. (more…)

  • Caribbean, European Netherlands Close In on Bailout Deal

    The Hague Netherlands
    Dutch government offices and parliament buildings in The Hague (iStock/Fotolupa)

    Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten are closing in on a deal with the European Netherlands for hundreds of millions of euros in support to cope with the impact of COVID-19.

    The sticking point in negotiations has been the Netherlands’ insistence that Dutch officials would carry out and monitor economic reforms on which the bailout is conditioned; a demand Caribbean leaders argue is incompatible with their autonomy.

    Prime Minister Eugene Rhuggenaath of Curaçao, the largest of the three self-governing islands, told lawmakers this week that a compromise is at hand.

    The Dutch supervisors would remain, but any decisions they take that affect spending and taxes would need to be ratified by the island legislatures.

    The government of Curaçao would also be consulted on the appointment of one of the three supervisors.

    Antilliaans Dagblad reports that a majority of lawmakers on Curaçao could agree to those terms.

    But Raymond Knops, the Dutch state secretary for the interior, sounded less optimistic on Tuesday, when he told parliamentarians in The Hague that the three islands are currently unable to “bear” their autonomy. (more…)

  • Dutch Caribbean Islands on the Brink

    Willemstad Curaçao
    View down the Breedestraat in Willemstad, Curaçao (Unsplash/Lakeisha Bennett)

    Time is running out for the autonomous Dutch islands in the Caribbean to do a deal with their former colonizer.

    Coronavirus has brought tourism, the mainstay of the island economies, close to a standstill. Tax revenue has dried up while unemployment has soared. Without support from the European Netherlands, the governments of Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten will run out of money in weeks.

    The Dutch are willing to help, but only if the islands accept temporary Dutch administrators to manage reforms. For most of the Caribbean politicians, this goes too far. (more…)

  • Politicians Break Deadlock on Curaçao

    Willemstad Curaçao
    Flag of Curaçao in Willemstad (iStock/Flavio Vallenari)

    Weeks of political deadlock on Curaçao have been broken with the swearing-in of Shaheen Elhage as lawmaker. He succeeds William Millerson, who died in June.

    Millerson’s death had reduced the government to ten out of 21 seats in the island’s legislature. Opposition parties refused to attend Elhage’s inauguration, denying the ruling parties a quorum. They are unhappy with cuts and reforms the government is enacting to qualify for financial support from the Netherlands.

    One opposition lawmaker, Marilyn Moses, did attend parliament on Monday.

    The other nine, seven of whom want independence from the Netherlands, still didn’t show. (more…)

  • Contrast in the Dutch Caribbean

    Royal Plaza Mall Oranjestad Aruba
    Royal Plaza Mall in Oranjestad, Aruba, February 10, 2015 (Thomas Hawk)

    The government of the Aruba, a Dutch island in the Caribbean, has presented a five-point plan to restructure its tourism-dependent economy, which has been decimated by COVID-19.

    Meanwhile on neighboring Curaçao, pro-independence parties are boycotting the inauguration of a pro-government lawmaker, bringing politics on the island to a standstill.

    The two islands, and Sint Maarten, are autonomous countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands and have yet to approve Dutch terms for financial support to cope with the effects of coronavirus. (more…)

  • Dutch Caribbean Resist Terms of Coronavirus Aid

    Willemstad Curaçao
    Cruise ships moored in Willemstad, Curaçao (Shutterstock/Galina Savina)

    The prime ministers of Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten have turned down conditions to qualify for as much as €1 billion in coronavirus aid from the European Netherlands. A cabinet meeting in The Hague on Friday, which the leaders of the three islands attended, failed to produce a compromise.

    The Dutch have proposed appointing a three-person panel to oversee reforms to which the aid is tied. The Caribbean islands consider this an infringement of their autonomy.

    Eugene Rhuggenaath, the prime minister of Curaçao, went so far as to accuse The Hague of having “an agenda for the takeover and control” of the islands, echoing the rhetoric of pro-independence parties that supported violent protests against spending cuts two weeks ago, which prompted the Dutch to deploy troops to support the local police. (more…)

  • Dutch Deploy Troops After Riots on Curaçao

    Dutch frigate Zeeland
    Dutch frigate HNLMS Zeeland on patrol in the Caribbean Sea (Ministerie van Defensie)

    The Netherlands is deploying troops to Curaçao, one of the kingdom’s islands in the Caribbean, following several days of rioting and unrest.

    The decision was taken with local police, who announced that, as a result of the deployment, a two-day curfew could be lifted on Friday. (more…)

  • Dutch Terms for Caribbean Support Are Fair

    Willemstad Curaçao
    View down the Breedestraat in Willemstad, Curaçao (Unsplash/Lakeisha Bennett)

    Politicians in the Dutch Caribbean have reluctantly agreed to spending reductions and reforms to qualify for €370 million in financial support from the European Netherlands:

    • 25-percent cut in the salaries of politicians.
    • 12.5-percent cut in the salaries of other public-sector workers.
    • Capping public-sector wages at 130 percent of the prime minister’s salary. (Such an income limit already exists in the European Netherlands.)
    • 20-percent contribution from firms to wage subsidies for the unemployed.
    • Oversight from the Dutch Central Bank in the financial industry of the islands.

    With their tourism-dependent economies in free fall due to the outbreak of coronavirus disease, the leaders of Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten felt they had no choice but to agree to what Prime Minister Eugene Rhuggenaath of Curaçao called “unrealistic demands” and John Leerdam, a former Labor Party politician, who was born on Curaçao, called a “diktat” from The Hague.

    But the terms (which do not apply to emergency food and health-care aid) still fall short of the more thorough and long-term reforms Dutch governments, of the left and right, have advised for years, in some cases decades:

    • Changes in the tax law, so the wealthy pay a bigger share.
    • Improvements in tax collection.
    • Diversification of the economy to make the islands less dependent on tourism and oil. (more…)

  • Venezuela Is Starving and Still Maduro Clings to Power

    Nicolás Maduro is still president of Venezuela. That may not sound like news, but in the six years he has been in power, he has so poorly managed the economy, with increasingly authoritarian measures, that GDP has shrunk 60 percent, inflation has reached an astronomical 10 million percent, once forgotten diseases have returned, 4.5 million Venezuelans have fled the country and 90 percent of the remaining population lives in poverty. It’s the worst economic collapse outside of a civil war.

    Little wonder mass protests have been a recurrent aspect of Maduro’s administration, but so far all attempts to remove him have failed.

    Maduro only won reelection in 2018 after arresting opposition presidential candidates, sidelining the opposition-controlled legislature and most likely rigging the vote.

    In January, Juan Guaidó, a social democrat and president of the National Assembly, took the extraordinary step of invoking Article 233 of the Constitution to declare himself interim president and call for early elections. (more…)

  • Leftists Denounce “Coup” Against Vote-Rigging Autocrat in Bolivia

    Let’s take a break from the right-wing apologists of a would-be autocrat in the United States to check in with the left-wing apologists of an actual autocrat in Bolivia.

    In the face of mass protests, the Bolivarian military has forced the left-wing populist Evo Morales to step down.

    Morales served an unconstitutional third term as president from 2014 to 2019. He called and lost a referendum in 2016 on whether he should stand for a fourth term, but the Supreme Court canceled that result, arguing that “American imperialism” had influenced the outcome.

    In his latest bid for reelection, observers from the Organization of American States found clear manipulations, including a 24-hour freeze in the vote count, before which Morales was losing and after which he suddenly won.

    You wouldn’t know it from reading British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders or New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a leading light of the American new left, who have all denounced Morales’ removal as a “coup” and are calling for “free and fair elections” — no matter that’s the very thing Morales wouldn’t allow. (more…)

  • Macri’s Failure Returns Peronists to Power in Argentina

    Argentinian Congress Buenos Aires
    Palace of the Argentine National Congress in Buenos Aires (Unsplash/Nestor Barbitta)

    Mauricio Macri will vacate the presidency of Argentina next month after a disappointing term in office and a first-round defeat to Peronist candidate Alberto Fernández.

    Fernández won by bringing the controversial former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner into the fold as vice president to help unite the moderate and leftist strands in his party. That unity will be tested by a severe economic crisis. (more…)