Garfield Ekon

Staff Writer

Haiti, December 9, 2024 – The United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) is warning that as Haiti grapples with escalating violence and systemic collapse, its children are bearing the brunt of a multipronged crisis that threatens their lives, safety, and future.

UN officials and humanitarian leaders used the ECOSOC meeting last Monday December 2 to highlight the direct conditions in Haiti, where violence has severely disrupted life in the  Caribbean Community (CARICOM) country.

They have called for immediate action to support its youngest citizens.

The UN said 5.4 million people, half the population are facing acute food insecurity and 700,000 displaced, urgent international intervention is needed to address a crisis compounded by armed groups violence, economic instability, and insufficient humanitarian funding.

UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, Tom Fletcher, who took up his post two weeks ago, spoke of the devastating impact of the crisis on children. “The children of Haiti are displaced. They are malnourished. They live in fear, their neighbourhoods controlled by armed groups.”

The Executive Director of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Catherine Russell said “we estimate that children account for 30 to 54 per cent of armed group members while the total number of children recruited by armed groups has jumped by 70 per cent over the past year.”

She also highlighted the collapse of essential services, with 1.5 million youngsters losing access to education and healthcare facilities shutting down due to violence and insecurity.

Despite the challenges, UN agencies and partners continue to deliver aid.  Facing a surge in displacement and food insecurity, the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) has announced an expanded response, targeting nearly two million people with emergency relief.

“We have been delivering record amounts of food assistance to Haitians in Port-au-Prince and across the country these past few months and will do even more in the coming weeks,” said the WFP’s Country Director, Wanja Kaaria.

The WFP also supports local economies by sourcing 70 per cent of school meal ingredients from Haitian farmers, fostering long-term resilience and development.

Yet, the scale of the response is dwarfed by the growing needs as speakers at the ECOSOC session stressed the need for immediate international action to close funding gaps, protect children from exploitation, and rebuild essential services.

UN Special Representative Maria Isabel Salvador, who also heads the UN Integrated Office in Haiti (BINUH), urged the global community to address root causes of the crisis.

“The challenges Haiti faces are immense, but one truth is undeniable: no progress can be made without addressing the pervasive insecurity caused by armed gangs.  UNICEF and other humanitarian leaders called on the UN Security Council -backed Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission and Haitian authorities to prioritise child protection during operations, ensuring safe reintegration for children recruited by armed groups.

Garfield Ekon

Staff Writer

Barbados, December 9, 2024 – When large swathes of invasive seaweed started washing up on Caribbean beaches in 2011, local residents were perplexed.  Soon, mounds of unsightly sargassum, carried by currents from the Sargasso Sea and linked to Climate Change – were carpeting the region’s prized coastlines, repelling some holidaymakers with the pungent stench emitted as it rots.

Precisely how to tackle it was a dilemma of unprecedented proportions for the tiny cluster of tourism-reliant islands with limited resources.

In 2018, Barbados’ Prime Minister, Hon.  Mia Mottley declared the sargassum situation a national emergency.  Now, a pioneering group of Caribbean scientists and environmentalists hope to turn the tide on the problem by transforming the troublesome algae into a lucrative biofuel.

They recently launched one of the world’s first vehicles powered by bio-compressed natural gas.  The innovative fuel source created at the University of the West Indies (UWI) in Barbados also uses wastewater from local rum distilleries, and dung from the island’s indigenous blackbelly sheep which provides the vital anaerobic bacteria.

The team says any car can be converted to run on the gas via a simple and affordable four-hour installation process, using an easily available kit, at a total cost of around $2,500 or £1,940.

Researchers had initially looked into using sugarcane to reduce reliance on costly, imported fossil fuels and help steer the Caribbean towards its ultimate target of zero emissions.

However, despite Barbados being one of few islands still producing sugarcane, the quantity was deemed insufficient for the team’s ambitious goals, explains the project’s founder Dr. Legena Henry.

Dr. Legena Henry grimaces as she points out that while some natural resources are limited, when it comes to the unwelcomed seaweed, she says sargassum is something “we will never run out of”.

“Tourism has suffered a lot from the seaweed; hotels have been spending millions on tackling it.  It’s caused a crisis,” Dr. Henry, a renewable energy expert and UWI lecturer, continues.

The idea that it could have a valuable purpose was suggested by one of her students, Brittney McKenzie, who had observed the volume of trucks being deployed to transport sargassum from Barbados’ beaches.

“We’d just spent three weeks researching sugarcane.  But I looked at Brittney’s face and she was so excited, I could not break her heart,” Dr. Henry recalls.

“We already had rum distillery wastewater, so we decided to put that with sargassum and see what happened.”

Brittney was tasked with collecting seaweed from beaches and setting up small scale bioreactors to conduct preliminary research.”  Within just two weeks we got pretty good results.  It was turning into something even bigger than we initially thought.”

The team filed a patent on their formula and, in 2019, presented their project to potential investors during a side meeting at the UN General Assembly in New York.

Upon touchdown back in Barbados, Dr. Henry’s phone was “buzzing” with messages of congratulations – including one from US non-profit Blue-Chip Foundation offering $100,000 to get the work off the ground.

Dr. Legena Henry

Biologist Shamika Spencer was hired to experiment with differing amounts of sargassum and wastewater to figure out which combination produced the most biogas.

She says she leapt at the chance to take part.  “Sargassum has been plaguing the region for several years,” Ms. Spencer, who is from Antigua and Barbuda, explains.  “I had always wondered about this new seaweed ruining the beaches in Antigua, and when I came to Barbados to study, I noticed it here too.”

The algae does not just threaten tourism.  They also pose a threat to human health through the hydrogen sulphide they release as they decompose, along with native wildlife like critically endangered sea turtle hatchlings which get trapped in thick mats of beached seaweed.

Water pollution and warming seas are credited with the upsurge in sargassum, another cataclysmic result of climate change that the Caribbean has done little to contribute to but often bears the brunt of.

Calls for eco reparations from leaders including Barbados’ leader Mia Mottley and Antigua’s Prime Minister Gaston Browne have been clamorous in recent years as the region battles ever-rising sea levels and worsening storms.

While waiting for those to bear fruit, this project represents one example of the Caribbean taking its environmental future into its own hands.

This past September, Rum & Sargassum, the Barbados-based start-up founded by Dr. Henry introduced the world to its brand of  RNG, Renewable Natural Gas.  The unveiling featured a vehicle rigged to run on the innovative cocktail of rum distillery wastewater, Blackbelly sheep manure and yes, that no longer pesky but valuable Sargassum seaweed.

Garfield Ekon and Deandrea Hamilton

Editorial Staff

USA, December 3, 2024 – He wants to deflate an over $4 Trillion bill for in health care costs and deliver on his vision to restore good health to Americans, one third of whom suffer obesity.  RFK Jr is widely regarded as a physical Phenom and he has called his alliance with president elect, Donald Trump, ‘an answer to his prayers’ but can he really accomplish his titan sized goals?

Combatting lifestyle illnesses will likely be one the major areas of concentration by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., if he is confirmed by the United States (US) Senate, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).

The presumptive Health Secretary has had a long history of concerns about additives in foods, and how big a part ultra-processed foods (UPFs) play in many people’s diets. In a recent post on X, he stated that “ultra-processed food is driving the obesity epidemic,” and argued many times that there is a link between UPFs and a range of medical conditions, including cancers in young adults and mental health conditions.

In a media interview, since the announcement that he has been picked by President-elect Donald Trump, to be the new Health Secretary, Mr. Kenedy said he got three instructions from Mr. Trump: “instructions” to remove “corruption” from health agencies, to return these bodies to “evidence-based science and medicine”, and “to end the chronic disease epidemic”.

Regarding his controversial stance on vaccination, he said vaccines were “not going to be taken away from anybody,” as he wants to improve the science on vaccine safety which he believes has “huge deficits” and that he wants good information so people “can make informed choices.”

Ultra-processed foods are usually characterised by industrial processing, the presence of food additives such as flavors or colors, and nutrients intended to make them appetising (sodium, added sugars, and saturated fat). Research points to ultra-processed foods being associated with diet-related diseases such as heart disease and diabetes.

Obesity and dementia are two such consequences of UPFs as well.

These and other diet-related conditions account for at least half of all U.S. deaths, disproportionately impacting black, indigenous, low income, and rural Americans, and contribute to $4.5 trillion in annual health care costs.

In recent times, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had taken a number of steps to help people build healthy diets, including with respect to ultra-processed foods but it is believed by those who subscribe to the RFK Jr perspective on health, that these government entities may be compromised.

“We are betraying our children by letting (food) industries poison them,” Kennedy offered at a Trump rally in November, after having suspended his own run for the presidency.

Statistics support his concern.  Thirty percent of American teenagers are pre-diabetic.

Kennedy, a father of seven and one of 11 children himself is on the record many times blaming big pharmaceutical companies for undermining the mission of good health by proposing drugs as the only solution.

“We have to start loving our children more than we hate each other.  When we have healthy kids we can do anything in this country.”

But the list of the problems with the quality of food and the over indulgence in drugs often promoted by RFK Jr is met with skepticism and push back.  Take for example, Dr. David Nunan, from the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine (CEBM) says “multiple factors, including broader lifestyle, socioeconomic determinants, and healthcare access, need to be considered. Studies to date cannot reliably separate out the individual impact of UPFs from these other factors.”

The Republican Party has now officially been confirmed as having control of both the House and the Senate following the November 5 general elections in the United States.  Still, it is expected that Kennedy, who is the founder of the world’s largest clean water advocacy group, Waterkeeper Alliance, is also a children’s health advocate, an environmental  lawyer and was named TIME Magazine’s ‘Hero of the Planet’ will face deep scrutiny due to his unconventional diagnoses.

The HHS comprises several agencies and offices including the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

As Secretary of Health, the individual has the authority to establish regulations that govern health, including food and drug safety, public health and health care quality, and can declare public health emergencies and coordinate federal responses to health crises, such as disease outbreaks or natural disasters.