“The response to the Republic Bank Five for Fun programme in Nevis has been overwhelming. Beyond the cricketing skills being developed, the programme has brought children together, encouraged teamwork and created a greater appreciation for the sport. We are proud to have been part of this initiative and to see our young cricketers experience the excitement of competing at this level. We look forward to building on this foundation and continuing to provide opportunities for the next generation of cricketers”

“The Republic Bank Five for Fun programme has provided our young cricketers with a wonderful opportunity to develop their skills while enjoying the game in a fun and positive environment. We are extremely pleased with the enthusiasm and participation demonstrated by the schools throughout St. Kitts. The National Festival Finals are a fitting culmination of the programme, and we commend Republic Bank, Cricket West Indies, the St. Kitts Cricket Association and all our partners for investing in the future of cricket and creating meaningful opportunities for our children.”

“The Republic Bank Five for Fun programme represents an excellent example of how sport can be used to engage our young people, develop their skills and instil important values from an early age. The enthusiasm demonstrated by the participating schools and young cricketers throughout St. Kitts and Nevis has been truly encouraging. The National Festival Finals provide a fitting celebration of their hard work and development, and we commend Republic Bank, Cricket West Indies, the local cricket associations, the Ministry of Education, coaches, teachers and volunteers for their collective commitment to creating meaningful sporting opportunities for our children.”

“The Ministry of Education is pleased to support the Republic Bank Five for Fun programme, which aligns strongly with our commitment to the holistic development of our students. Programmes such as this provide our children with opportunities to develop important values such as teamwork, discipline, leadership and sportsmanship, while promoting healthy and active lifestyles. We commend Republic Bank, Cricket West Indies, the local cricket associations, coaches, teachers and volunteers for their collective efforts in making this initiative a success and, most importantly, for investing in the development of our children.”

“For Republic Bank, Five for Fun represents our investment in young people. We believe sports has the power to build confidence, character and important life skills that extend far beyond the cricket field. Through Five for Fun, children are given an opportunity to learn about teamwork, discipline, resilience and ambition, while developing a love for a game that is such an important part of who we are as Caribbean people.

This year is particularly special as we celebrate the fourth staging of Five for Fun in St. Kitts and Nevis. Over those four years, we have had the privilege of watching children pick up a bat or ball, discover their abilities and, in some cases, continue along the cricket development pathway. That is the kind of impact that makes this programme meaningful to us at Republic Bank.

Thank you to the coaches, teachers, parents, cricket associations, Cricket West Indies, officials and everyone who contributed to making another season possible.

Source: Village Voice News

The A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) has challenged President Irfaan Ali and the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) General Secretary Bharrat Jagdeo to match their praise of democracy with action, citing weakened local government institutions, alleged electoral inequalities, concerns over state media bias and questions about compliance with court rulings.

In a sharply worded statement issued Friday, the coalition challenged the two senior PPP/C figures over their October 5 statements praising free elections, an independent judiciary, a strong Parliament and a free press, arguing that the government’s actions contradict those principles.

“Democracy cannot be speeches about 1992 while all the democratic institutions are being weakened or destroyed by the government,” APNU declared.

The criticism comes amid continuing political disagreements over electoral transparency, the independence of public institutions and the administration of local democratic organs following the September 2025 general and regional elections.

APNU argued that the government’s democratic credentials must be judged by its conduct in office rather than its public declarations, pointing to the failure to reconstitute the Local Government Commission, concerns about state media coverage, disputes over compliance with court rulings and resistance to the proposed introduction of biometric voter verification.

Local democracy under scrutiny

The coalition highlighted the continued absence of the Local Government Commission, whose tenure expired in April 2024. The commission provides independent oversight of staffing and related matters in local democratic organs.

APNU said the prolonged absence of the body, combined with complaints of central-government interference, undermines the ability of elected local representatives to serve their communities independently.

“Local councils must not be treated as administrative branches of the governing party or punished because voters chose representatives from another party.”

The coalition called on the government to restore the commission, provide adequate resources to municipalities and neighbourhood democratic councils, and respect their statutory authority without political interference or discrimination.

The issue is particularly significant because local government is intended to give communities a direct voice in decisions affecting their neighbourhoods, services and development.

Election observers and state media

APNU also challenged the government’s record on electoral fairness, citing findings it attributed to European Union and Commonwealth observer missions following the September 2025 elections.

According to the coalition, the observers identified disproportionate coverage favouring the incumbent, bias in state media reporting, unequal access to campaign resources and insufficient campaign-finance safeguards.

APNU condemned what it described as the PPP/C’s “effective dominance of state-funded political messaging” and demanded a genuinely independent public media system, fair access for competing political parties, transparent government advertising and enforceable rules against the partisan use of public resources.

The coalition’s criticism raises questions about the use of publicly funded communication platforms and whether political parties compete on an equitable footing during election campaigns.

Government’s record on court rulings questioned

The statement also questioned the government’s handling of the Guyana Teachers’ Union dispute, in which the High Court ruled in 2024.

APNU said the union reported in 2025 that the Ministry of Education had failed to resume deductions and remittances of union dues following the court ruling.

While acknowledging that the government had the right to appeal a judgment, the coalition argued that respect for judicial independence must extend to compliance with binding court orders.

“An appeal is a lawful right; ignoring a binding order is not. A government that praises judicial independence must show respect for it, particularly when judges rule against the executive.”

APNU called for a clear public accounting of the orders in force and the government’s compliance. Its statement did not detail the specific orders or provide the government’s explanation for the reported failure to resume remittances.

Renewed push for biometric verification

Electoral reform remains another major point of contention. APNU reiterated its support for legislation permitting biometric verification at polling stations, arguing that the measure could help prevent voter impersonation and strengthen public confidence in elections.

The coalition acknowledged the need to protect eligible voters from disenfranchisement but maintained that the risks could be addressed through reliable equipment, accessible procedures and independent auditing.

“The Commonwealth observers recommended addressing biometric registration and verification early in the next electoral cycle,” APNU said.

The PPP/C has raised concerns that biometric verification could exclude eligible voters. APNU countered that a properly designed and legislated system could provide safeguards while improving the credibility of the electoral process.

The coalition also demanded stronger accountability by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), timely publication of polling-station results, audits and enforceable rules governing campaign financing and the use of state resources.

APNU calls for public pressure

APNU proposed a time-bound programme of democratic reforms, including reconstituting the Local Government Commission, protecting local councils from partisan interference, amending electoral laws to allow biometric verification, guaranteeing fair access to state media and ensuring compliance with court orders.

It also urged citizens, professional associations, trade unions, faith communities, young people, businesses and civil society organisations to press for accountability beyond election periods.

“Private concern, occasional outrage and social-media complaints are not enough.”

The coalition warned against relying on international partners to resolve Guyana’s democratic challenges, arguing that meaningful change must come from citizens demanding accountability from their own institutions.

“What is needed is the recognition that the vote belongs to the people, the Constitution binds those in power, and democracy is a daily obligation.”

APNU’s statement sets out a series of demands that, if implemented, would require legislative action, institutional changes and consultation among political parties and other stakeholders.

The allegations and criticisms remain the coalition’s assessment of the government’s record. Responses from Ali, Jagdeo, the government and GECOM were not included in the release.

APNU ended with a direct challenge to the governing party and the electorate: “Demand democracy in practice, not merely in proclamation.”

Source: Village Voice News

(NBC News)- President Donald Trump lamented that the Norwegian Nobel Committee chose not to award him with its annual Peace Prize on Friday, telling rallygoers the decision leaves “an indelible stain on the country of Norway.”

Speaking at a rally in Syracuse to boost New York Republicans, Trump listed off all of the accomplishments he believes have earned him the right to win the Nobel Peace Prize, including efforts to end or prevent conflicts in Africa and Asia and for having “saved more lives than anyone in history.”

Earlier Friday, the committee awarded the prize to Navi Pillay, an 85-year-old South African legal pioneer who led a United Nations panel that concluded Israel committed genocide in Gaza.

“I’ve never heard of the person,” Trump said. “I know a lot of people. I never heard of this particular person, but congratulations, anyway. … The United States of America, represented by me as your president, should have received the Nobel Peace Prize, but didn’t.”

“And this is an indelible stain on the country of Norway and those people that made such a disgraceful and embarrassing decision,” Trump continued. “The Nobel Peace Prize has been forever discredited by a handful of radical ideologues who are antidemocracy and really enemies of civilization, and we will not forget Norway, that you didn’t give this prize with the greatest record in history.”

The president added that he should have received eight Nobel Peace Prizes for his efforts because he claimed to have ended eight ongoing conflicts. The president did not mention the war in Ukraine, which has raged on through his presidency as his administration has failed to bring the conflict to an end. And in the Middle East, the president earlier this year launched an ongoing war with Iran.

Trump said the committee’s choice to award the prize to Pillay “is just another sign of how Norway and all these others are ripping off our country.”

Throughout his second term, the president has made clear his ambition to secure a Nobel Peace Prize, and his allies have said he deserves it for efforts to end the war in Gaza in addition to other conflicts. Earlier this year, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, the 2025 winner, offered to share her prize with him as she sought his support for her efforts in Venezuela after the Trump administration removed President Nicolás Maduro from power.

After learning of her award at a law gathering in Germany on Friday, Pillay joked to the crowd: “If you clap a little bit more, I may share this prize with Trump.”

The president was in Syracuse to boost the candidacy of GOP gubernatorial nominee Bruce Blakeman and state Republicans. He shouted out Saritha Komatireddy, the Republican nominee for state attorney general too, before attacking sitting state Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat he has often clashed with.

“And on Election Day, New Yorkers should tell both [Gov. Kathy] Hochul and that disgusting Letitia dog — she’s a dog — you’re fired, get the hell out of here.”

The Trump administration has so far failed multiple times in its efforts to prosecute James, who spearheaded an investigation into his business dealings that led to a state judge ruling he had conspired to manipulate his net worth and ordering him to pay a fine of more than $350 million. The fine was later thrown out on appeal by a state court.

“Donald Trump is in Syracuse supporting the only attorney general candidate who clerked for Brett Kavanaugh, the man who ended Roe v. Wade,” a James campaign spokesperson said in response to the president’s comments. “The contrast is crystal clear and we welcome it.”

Source: Village Voice News

Attorney-at-law and chartered accountant Christopher Ram, a pensioner and three trade unions have taken the National Insurance Board (NIB) to the High Court, seeking to compel the payment of statutory minimum old-age pensions at the rate prescribed by law and recover arrears allegedly accumulated since January 2021.

The applicants estimate that pensioners who received the minimum rate throughout the period could each be owed approximately $510,300, as they challenge what they describe as the Board’s failure to adjust payments in line with increases in the Public Service minimum wage.

The judicial review application, filed on Thursday, names Ram, pensioner Kalicharan Heera, the Union of Agricultural and Allied Workers, the United Minibus Union and the Guyana Market Vendors Union.

At the centre of the dispute is Regulation 4(b) of the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) Benefit Regulations, which stipulates that an old-age pension shall “in no case” be less than 50 per cent of the Public Service minimum wage.

The applicants contend that the Board broadly honoured this requirement until 2020 but failed to maintain the statutory minimum as public sector wages increased in subsequent years.

According to their calculations, the minimum pension should now be $51,173 monthly, compared with the $43,075 currently paid to minimum-rate pensioners. That represents an alleged shortfall of $8,098 every month.

The applicants are asking the court to declare that the 50 per cent threshold is mandatory, order the Board to pay pensions at the legally prescribed rate, and require an accounting of all arrears since 2021, together with interest. They are also seeking payment of outstanding sums due to the estates of pensioners who have died.

“The NIS has never doubted its obligation. The Benefit Regulations set it out, and the NIS website, Annual Reports and actuarial reports repeated it: the minimum pension must not be less than 50% of the Public Service minimum wage,” the applicants said in a statement.

The dispute has previously been raised through political and administrative channels.

In 2024, Opposition Member of Parliament Annette Ferguson tabled a motion, seconded by Juretha Fernandes, calling on the Government to make retroactive payments to minimum pensioners for 2021 to 2023. According to the applicants, the Speaker rejected the motion, leaving the pensioners without the proposed payments.

The latest court action follows a letter sent on October 1 by Ram and 10 unions to the NIS Board, warning that legal proceedings would follow over the alleged arrears. The letter was addressed to the Board’s secretary and copied to its chairman, the NIS general manager and Senior Minister in the Office of the President with Responsibility for Finance, Dr Ashni Singh.

The applicants said the Board failed to provide a satisfactory response, prompting them to seek judicial intervention.

They have also questioned the Government’s handling of the matter, pointing to Singh’s responsibilities in relation to the NIS, the financial administration framework overseeing the Board and the regulations governing benefits. They argue that increases in the Public Service minimum wage should have triggered corresponding adjustments to the minimum pension.

The applicants further rely on section 34(2) of the National Insurance and Social Security Act, arguing that Parliament is required to make up any shortfall in the National Insurance Fund if the Scheme cannot meet its legal obligations.

Ram has previously warned that the total arrears could amount to billions of dollars, depending on the number of pensioners affected and the period for which payments are owed.

The proceedings are to be served on the National Insurance Board and the Attorney General, the Government’s chief legal adviser.

The applicants have called for the matter to be resolved promptly, arguing that the case concerns pensioners who may have been denied payments guaranteed under the law. The court will be asked to determine the Board’s legal obligations and whether the relief sought, including retroactive payments and interest, should be granted.

Source: Village Voice News

As the Trump regime pushes ICE toward 3,000 arrests per day, the Caribbean diaspora finds itself caught in an enforcement machine that has abolished every safe space — from churches and hospitals to school gates and asylum interviews

By Calvin G Brown (WiredJA) – There was a time — measured not in decades but in months — when a Jamaican mother dropping her child at school in Brooklyn could do so without scanning the street for unmarked federal vehicles. When a Trinidadian grandmother attending Mass at her parish church in Miami could worship without wondering whether the men in the back pew carried badges. When a Guyanese father driving to his construction job in Houston could be pulled over for a broken taillight without being detained, cuffed, and entered into a deportation pipeline.  That time is over.

The Trump regime’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement apparatus has, through a systematic dismantling of longstanding protections and a relentless escalation of arrest quotas, transformed virtually every space in American public life into a potential enforcement zone. For Caribbean nationals — whether undocumented, holding expired visas, awaiting asylum decisions, or in some documented cases holding valid work permits — there is now, quite literally, nowhere in America that is safe from detention.

The quota machine

The numbers tell a story of escalation that has accelerated with each passing month. In January 2025, the White House directed ICE field offices to meet a quota of 75 arrests per day each — roughly 1,200 to 1,500 nationally. By May 2025, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem delivered a new directive in a meeting so aggressive that senior ICE officials feared being fired: 3,000 arrests per day, or more than one million per year.

Miller subsequently confirmed the figure on Fox News. The Department of Justice later told a federal court that no such quota exists and that enforcement is based on “individualized assessments” — a direct contradiction of Miller’s own public statements.

The reality on the ground has fallen somewhere between the rhetoric and the denial. ICE recorded more than 43,000 arrests in June 2026 alone — an average of 1,438 per day, the highest monthly total since Trump’s return to office. In late June, more than 10,000 people were detained in a five-day period, roughly 2,000 per day, with the White House pushing for that pace to become the new operational baseline.

More recently, ICE agents have been called into mandatory seven-day work weeks under a “100% manpower surge effort” pushed, according to agency sources, at the last minute. The regime’s appetite for higher numbers shows no sign of diminishing.

The abolition of safe spaces

What makes the current enforcement regime qualitatively different from any previous administration — including Trump’s first term — is the systematic elimination of every location that was once considered off-limits.

On January 21, 2025, the Department of Homeland Security revoked the Biden-era sensitive locations policy, a directive first enacted in 2011 that prohibited ICE and Customs and Border Protection officers from making arrests at schools, houses of worship, hospitals, shelters, funerals, weddings, and public demonstrations. DHS declared that “criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches.”

The consequences have radiated across every dimension of daily life. Caribbean nationals in the United States can now be targeted for enforcement and detention at their homes; during vehicle stops on their way to work; at their workplaces, including construction sites; at USCIS field offices during immigration interviews, including asylum interviews; at routine ICE check-ins; at airports and other transportation hubs; on university campuses; during school drop-offs and pick-ups; in hospitals; and at houses of worship.

This is not theoretical. The American Immigration Lawyers Association has documented ICE arrests at USCIS field offices in multiple cities, where people attending required immigration interviews — a mandatory part of the legal process — have been detained on the spot. Internal ICE documents obtained by the Washington Post showed officers instructed to arrest people at courthouses immediately after judges dismissed their cases.

ICE agents began appearing at major US airports in force from March 2026, targeting foreign nationals with expired visas — a dramatic expansion from the previous practice of only detaining those with existing removal orders. Immigration attorneys report that the airport sweeps have caught tech professionals, asylum applicants, and spouses of US citizens with pending green card applications.

The vehicle stop programme became so aggressive — and so deadly — that it generated its own crisis. Since January 2025, federal immigration agents have shot and killed at least eleven people, with nineteen of twenty-two shooting incidents involving officers firing at people in vehicles during traffic stops.

In a single week in July 2026, ICE agents killed two men during traffic stops — Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston and a Colombian national in Biddeford, Maine — prompting DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin to temporarily suspend most vehicle stops. President Trump overruled the suspension within twenty-four hours, declaring on Truth Social that the traffic stop is “one of I.C.E.’s most important and effective Crime Fighting tools.”

The Caribbean in the crosshairs

For the Caribbean diaspora, these enforcement patterns carry a particular sting. Jamaicans have been specifically named in multiple ICE enforcement announcements. In January 2026, DHS identified Jamaican nationals among those detained in operations that the agency characterised as targeting “the worst of the worst.”

In June 2026, Caribbean nationals from Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, the Dominican Republic, Belize, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines were among fifty-eight people arrested in a single New York metropolitan area operation.

But the data tells a more troubling story than the administration’s rhetoric suggests. In June 2025, less than one-third of ICE arrests involved individuals with criminal convictions. The largest single category of arrests has consistently been immigrants with no criminal history whatsoever — a pattern that immigration scholars at Syracuse University’s Deportation Data Project have documented month after month.

ICE insiders have told the New York Post that the quota system is “killing morale” and forcing agents to deprioritise dangerous criminals in favour of easier targets — precisely the outcome that immigration enforcement professionals warned about from the beginning.

For Caribbean communities in the United States, this means that the net has widened far beyond the convicted criminals that dominate DHS press releases. Overstayed visas, pending asylum cases, lapsed Temporary Protected Status, even attendance at a mandatory immigration interview — any of these can now trigger detention.

Immigration attorneys who serve Caribbean clients in Florida and New York report that families are avoiding medical care, pulling children from school, and skipping required court appearances rather than risk encounters with an enforcement apparatus that has declared every public space fair game.

A question for Caribbean governments

The silence from Caribbean capitals on the scale and nature of this enforcement regime is itself a story. CARICOM governments, which maintain diplomatic channels with Washington and depend heavily on diaspora remittances, have offered little public comment on the abolition of sensitive location protections or the quota-driven enforcement that has swept up their nationals regardless of criminal history.

Jamaica’s government was advised as early as January 2025 to “brace itself for a flood of returnees.” Whether it has done so — whether reception infrastructure, reintegration programmes, and diplomatic representations are commensurate with the scale of what is unfolding — remains an open and urgent question.

What is not in question is this: for Caribbean nationals in the United States, the enforcement architecture of 2026 has made every space — sacred, medical, educational, judicial — into a potential point of capture. The quota demands it. The policy permits it. And the silence from home enables it.

Source: Village Voice News