Author: The Cayman Institute

The Cayman Institute Director-General of The Cayman Institute. Nicholas Robson has a rich background in the non-governmental (NGO) sector. He received his MA in Peace Studies from the University of Bradford. Nick has consulted for the British Red Cross in Disaster Management and is the founder of the Cayman Institute, a think tank doing policy research in areas such as global warming and climate change, energy security and economic sustainability for small island states. Nick also has a background in security and law enforcement. His geographical areas of interest are Central and South Asia and the Middle East as well as Small Island Developing States. He is also the Chief Coordinator of the South Asian Strategic Stability Institute (SASSI) based in London whose aims are to make a leading contribution to regional and international academic and policy-orientated research discourses about South Asian security. His publications include Cayman Islands Energy Policy: Background Advisory Report and Sea Level Rise and Its Implications for the Cayman Islands. See Specialties -Geopolitical, strategic and security implications of climate & energy security -Food and water security implications -Climate / Refugee problem -Global terrorism and climate change -Disaster management and climate change -Economic, political and social issues in the world's smallest countries and dependencies (including SIDS) Counter Terrorism. Disaster Response - IFRC. Human Rights - Int’l Human Rights Academy (University of Utrecht). UN training in Peace Keeping Operations (UNITAR)

Chastanet issues climate change challenge

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Chastanet issues climate change challenge Hon. Allen Chastenet, Prime Minister of St. Lucia

Press Release:–  The Government of Saint Lucia and the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean of the United Nations (UNECLAC), hosted the fifth meeting of the Caribbean Development Round Table, under the theme “Promoting Climate Resilience and Sustainable Economic Growth in the Caribbean,” and the twenty-seventh session of the Caribbean Development and Cooperation Committee on April 26 and 27.

In frank and pointed remarks, Prime Minister Hon. Allen Chastenet, also the Chairperson of the Caribbean Development and Cooperation Committee called for deliberate action in dealing with climate change, questioning the preparedness of the region for the hurricane season, which is exactly one month away.

“Climate change doesn’t discriminate,” he said. “It does not have any empathy for you because you are a poor country. It does not have any empathy because more people are unemployed. It does not…

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Enhancing Environmental Management Legal And Policy Frameworks In Grenada

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Source: CANARI; May 4, 2018

Background

CANARI is facilitating the development of  National Forest Policy and Strategic Plan and Revised Environmental Management Act 2014.  This activity is part of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Global Climate Change Alliance Project on Climate Change Adaptation and Sustainable Land Management in the Eastern Caribbean (the iLAND Resilience – Promoting a Climate for Change) funded by the European Union.  Background papers, workshop reports and draft environmental frameworks are available through the links below.

Background paper

Report of First National Workshop  (December 2017)

The revised Grenada National Forest Policy and Strategic Plan and revised Protected Area, Forest and Wildlife Act are currently being drafted based on the outputs of the December 2017 Workshop. Stakeholders are invited to submit further comments and suggestions for revisions of the documents. Please review the original documents below and email your suggestions to Dr. Natalie Boodram at natalie@canari.org by…

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CCRIF Invites Applications for 2018 Scholarships and Internships

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CCRIF Scholarship Programme
Provides scholarships to individuals to pursue a masters degree in hazard/disaster related disciplines at Caribbean universities (other than UWI) as well as institutions the United States, United Kingdom and Canada. Deadline May 31 2018.
http://www.ccrif.org/content/scholarship

CCRIF-UWI Scholarship Programme
Provides scholarships to students at UWI for undergraduate and post-graduate study in fields such as natural resource management, climate change, meteorology, geography/geology and civil/environmental engineering
Deadlines: Postgraduate scholarships: May 25 2018 | Undergraduate scholarships: May 31 2018
http://www.ccrif.org/content/programmes/ccrif-uwi-scholarship

Regional Internship Programme
Provides opportunities for university graduates who have specialized in the areas of disaster risk management, environmental management, actuarial science, geography, climate studies and other similar areas to be assigned to national and regional organizations for practical work assignments. Deadline May 31 2018.
http://www.ccrif.org/content/regional-internship-programme

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Palestinian Declaration

Nahida Exiled Palestinian's avatarPoetry for Palestine

PLEASE SIGN  THIS DECLARATION IF YOU AGREE WITH ITS CONTENTS.

Palestinian Declaration

An invitation to All Palestinians and their supporters to unite under the banner of LIBERATION, affirming our Inalienable Rights and clarifying our aims and aspirations to ourselves and to the world.For the sake of historical truth, and for defending, preserving and protecting the rights of future Palestinian children, we present this document:

  • Whereas, no foreign government, international institution or individual, has any form of legitimacy or jurisdiction to dispossess any other Nation by distributing their land and property,
  • Whereas, all colonial dealings regarding Palestine, whether by the “League of Nations” or the subsequent land confiscations by British colonial forces, as well as coerced transactions by early Zionists, did not invalidate the irrefutable fact that Palestine is the sole indigenous representative of all people of Palestine, settled and anchored culturally to the land since time immemorial,
  • Whereas, the religious…

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Why the Pentagon Gets So Much Money So Easily

wjastore's avatarBracing Views

pent The five-sided puzzle palace on the Potomac is about to be flooded with new money

W.J. Astore

Over at Foreign Policy, there’s a good article on how the Pentagon gets so much money so easily.  Basically, the Pentagon complains about lack of “readiness” for war, and Congress caves.  But as the article’s author, Gordon Adams, notes, most of the boost in spending goes not to training and maintenance and other readiness issues but to expensive new weaponry:

But the big bucks, according to the Pentagon’s own briefing, will go into conventional military equipment. That means more F-35s and F-18s than planned, a new presidential helicopter, Navy surveillance planes and destroyers, Marine helicopters, space launch rockets, tank modifications, another Army multipurpose vehicle, and a joint tactical vehicle the Army, Marines, and Air Force can all use. Basically, the services will soon have shiny new hardware.

With its $160+ billion…

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The Coming Wars to End All Wars

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The Trump and Netanyahu governments have a problem: How to start a greatly expanded Middle-Eastern war without having a justifiable reason for one. No doubt they are working hard to solve this urgent problem. If they can’t find a “justification” (which they can’t), they will have to create one (which they will). Or perhaps they will find what they have already created. Whatever the solution, we should feel confident that they are not sitting on their hands. History teaches those who care to learn that when aggressors place a gun on the wall in the first act of their play, it must go off in the final act.

The compulsive hatred of Putin by many who have almost zero idea about Putin or Russian history is disproportionate to any rational analysis, but not surprising. Trump and Putin are like weird doppelgangers in the liberal imagination. John Steppling, “Trump, Putin, and Nikolas Cruz Walk into a Bar”

 

These sinister players have signaled us quite clearly what they have in store. All signs point toward an upcoming large-scale Israeli/U.S. attack on Lebanon and Syria, and all the sycophantic mainstream media are in the kitchen prepping for the feast. Russia and Iran are the main course, with Lebanon and Syria, who will be devoured first, as the hors d’oeuvres. As always, the media play along as if they don’t yet know what’s coming. Everyone in the know knows what is, just not exactly when. And the media wait with baited breath as they count down to the dramatic moment when they can report the incident that will compel the “innocent” to attack the “guilty.”

Anyone with half a brain can see the greatly increased anti-Russian propaganda of the past few weeks. This has happened as the Russia-gate claims have fallen to pieces, as former CIA analyst Raymond McGovern, the late Robert Parry, Paul Craig Roberts, and others have documented so assiduously. All across the media spectrum, from the big name corporate stenographers like The New York Times, CNN, National Public Radio, The Washington Post to The Atlantic and Nation magazines and other “leftist” publications such as Mother Jones and Who What Why, the Russia and Putin bashing has become hysterical in tone, joined as it is with an anti-Trump obsession, as if Trump were a dear friend of Putin and Russia and wasn’t closely allied with the Netanyahu government in its plans for the Middle-East. As if Trump were in charge. Read More

Israel backtracks on plan to tax church properties

JERUSALEM — Days after Christian leaders in the Holy Land bolted shut the doors to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in protest of attempts by the Jerusalem municipality to impose taxation on church properties, Israeli authorities backtracked Tuesday, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wading into the dispute.

A statement from Netanyahu’s office said that in coordination with Jerusalem’s mayor, Nir Barkat, a professional team would be established, led by a senior government minister and representatives of the foreign and finance ministries, to “formulate a solution to the issue of municipal taxes on buildings belonging to the churches that are not houses of worship.”

But the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which draws thousands of pilgrims daily to the place where Christians believe Jesus was crucified, buried and later resurrected, remained shuttered Tuesday. Church leaders said they had received Netanyahu’s statement and were still contemplating reopening the church.

In a news conference Sunday, the leaders of the Greek Orthodox, Catholic and Armenian churches, which jointly manage the site, said they had received “collection notices and orders of seizure of Church assets, properties and bank accounts for alleged debts of punitive municipal taxes.”

Later, in a joint statement, the churches said Israel was waging a “systematic campaign against the churches and the Christian community in the Holy Land, in flagrant violation of the existing status quo.” Read More

The Intelligence-Industrial Complex

The Intelligence-Industrial Complex

“…we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist.” Thus spoke President Dwight Eisenhower in January 1961.

Now we have an intelligence-industrial complex composed of close to a dozen and a half federal intelligence agencies and services, many of which are duplicative, and in the last decade or two the growth of a private sector intelligence world. Originally initiated in the National Security Act of 1947 as instrumental in conducting the Cold War, this massive expansion of data collection and analysis continued on even after the Cold War ended in 1991 and then received renewed energy with the declaration of a “global war on terrorism.”

It is dangerous to have a technology-empowered government capable of amassing private data; it is even more dangerous to privatize this Big Brother world. Read More