http://www.nationalpost.com/m/wp/news/blog.html?b=news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/greed-blamed-as-buy-a-passport-program-lands-st-kitts-and-nevis-off-canadas-visa-waiver-list&pubdate=2015-12-29#menu
An article published online in the ‘National Post’ is Headlined‘Greed’ blamed after Canada punishes St. Kitts & Nevis over its buy-a-passport program’. The Article states that “Foreign passport-buyers remain a critical part of the St. Kitts and Nevis economy.The Prime Minister of St. Kitts & Nevis had harsh words for the excesses of the buy-a-passport program that got his Caribbean country on Canada’s bad list. It was “all because one man was caught up with his greed and hubris and self-interest,” Prime Minister Tim Harris recently told his country’s parliament, as reported by theSt. Kitts and Nevis Observer. Anybody with $250,000 could buy a St. Kitts and Nevis passport without so much as visiting the island nation. The country even started selling diplomatic credentials, most notably for Iranian businessman Alizera Moghadam, who entered Canada with a diplomatic passport he claims to have purchased for $1 million. The United States soon warned that “illicit actors” were freely roaming the globe under the St. Kitts & Nevis name. Canada then upped the ante by ending a much-cherished visa waiver for visiting Kittitians & Nevisians. And to Parliament, Harris laid the blame on predecessor Denzil Douglas, whom he ousted in a February election.“And all he wanted was money, money for his own sake, and he was prepared to remove that which distinguishes us from other people and countries and other jurisdictions … to allow the illicit actors to be able to move about with disguise,” he was quoted as saying by the ‘Observer’. Of course, it’s still possible to buy passports in St. Kitts and Nevis, but Harris has insisted that his government has smoothed out the excesses of the previous Labour government. “The new government, which I now lead … has worked hard to strengthen the program to ensure that, by and large, no illicit actor can participate,” said Harris in an interview earlier this month. Officially known as the Citizenship by Investment program, it allows foreign nationals to purchase St. Kitts and Nevis citizenship via either a $400,000 real estate purchase, or a $250,000 donation to the country’s Sugar Industry Diversification Foundation. Debuted in 1984, it is a cheaper version of programs run throughout the western world, including Canada and the United States. Until it was cancelled earlier this year, the Canadian Immigrant Investor Program, for instance, offered a path to citizenship for anybody with a net worth of more than $1.6 million prepared to give a tax-free $800,000 loan to the federal government. Foreign passport-buyers remain a critical part of the St. Kitts & Nevis economy. For the 2014 fiscal year, citizenship fees were cited as providing nearly half of the government’s $767.9-million budget. In his 2016 budget address, Harris praised the Citizenship by Investment program as “a major contributor to the national economy” that had been allowed to “fall into disrepute.” Canada’s decision to kill the visa waiver, in particular, was cited as a friendly government “publicly telling the world it could not endure a relationship that had become risky to its national security interests.” At the time, Canada’s rejection prompted a mass recall of 15,000 St. Kitts and Nevis passports to remove a particularly controversial feature that did not display the place of birth of a passport holder. The ruling Team Unity government has maintained that the feature was maintained to make St. Kitts & Nevis passports more attractive to “illicit” buyers. Despite changes, however, visas remain mandatory for “genuine visitors from St. Kitts & Nevis,” according to a note by Citizenship & Immigration Canada. Entry will be denied to “those who would otherwise be inadmissible to Canada.” Meanwhile, citizenship sales continue, and St. Kitts & Nevis authorities are quick to note the dozens of countries that will still let in a St. Kitts & Nevis passport holder for free. “People holding a St. Kitts & Nevis passport can travel to 133 countries without the need for a visa; you can travel to Europe and a multiplicity of countries in the Caribbean,” said Harris in a recent interview.
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Employees of the Dominica State College (DSC) have finally received a long overdue salary increase12/30/2015 It may have been a great Christmas for employees of the Dominica State College as a long overdue salary increase was paid to them. The DPSU and the DSC Board has been at loggerheads for quite some time over late payment of salaries, non-payment of salary deductions, the issue of gratuity and payment of salary increases as well as working conditions. General Secretary of the Dominica Public Service Union, Thomas Letang, says he is elated that at long last the issue of their salary increase has been effected.
Clip: 3 donations totaling over EC $80,000 made to President’s Charities Foundation’s Erika Relief Fund12/30/2015 Reports indicate that three donations totaling over EC $80,000 were made to the President’s Charities Foundation’s Erika Relief Fund, through collaborative efforts of the President’s Charities Foundation, Dominica St Georges Lodge & the AID Bank.The objective of the relief fund is said to be to give medium term relief & comfort to the families, more particularly to the school children who reside in two of the worst affected communities on the west coast: Colihaut and Coulibistrie.The fund also caters to the ‘Grotto Home for the Homeless’ and ‘Operation Youth Quake’.
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The newspaper reports that Ryan was attacked twice by mobs and was subsequently taken to a hospital, but charged that “no police report was taken in either incident.” He reportedly fled St Kitts-Nevis for Toronto in 2013 with help from ‘Rainbow Railroad’, a Toronto-based group that helps rescue sexual minorities abroad to safety in Canada.Joel Dick, a lawyer who, along with his wife Dara Douma, sheltered Ryan for five months at the request of a friend at the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto, said that he does not “believe St Kitts, where being gay is criminalised, can protect Ryan”. “I didn’t know there were places that helped gay men,” said Ryan, who now works in a bakery factory in Toronto. “It is really tough being gay there. You have to do everything hidden. It is a very small, tight country. If people know that you are gay, they are going to beat you up.”Douma and Dick, along with their families and close friends, are helping to fund a new appeal to the federal court against the appeal tribunal’s latest decision, according to the Star. “In Canada, Rolston is out and happy,” Dick said. “He has a life and can live as himself. He is still reserved and private, but he feels secure here, and is less invisible, because he doesn’t have to hide who he is.” Silverlake Residents allege Police Stormed into their community and homes without a search warrant12/29/2015 On 28th December 2015, Police allegedly stormed into a poor community on the outskirts of the city of Roseau called Silverlake, for purposes unknown at this time. Residents claimed that the police came into their community without a search warrant, and were heavily armed with large guns, and allegedly fired some rounds of ammunition, in the presence of very young children. Unconfirmed reports indicate that the raid conducted by the Dominica Police Force may have resulted in three young men being arrested for possession of marijuana.
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