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Tag: Antigua and Barbuda

  • Antigua and Barbuda Turns to US to Settle Gambling Dispute

    Antigua and Barbuda Turns to US to Settle Gambling Dispute

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    For over 20 years now, the country’s gambling regulation has found itself at loggerheads with the United States’ gambling laws, which Antigua and Barbuda has insisted are discriminatory. The country even won a case with the World Trade Organization, as it was shut out of the United States gambling market and sought a $21 million annual compensation.

    Time to Put Bad Blood Away

    However, the money has not been coming, and the country now wants the US government to act as Antigua and Barbuda’s economic losses continue to mount. The country has reiterated an early stance that it is willing to seek and settle the dispute with mutual accord and on amicable terms, but it would need the US to engage in discussions and find a settlement.

    The United States has responded that it is willing to work with Antigua and Barbuda but argued that such efforts must also come as part of a genuine effort to find a resolution. This has been ongoing for a while now, as the laws that are arguably hurting the Caribbean country’s economy were passed back in 2003.

    The issue has festered ever since with no resolution in sight. The dispute centres on Antigua and Barbuda’s decision to build an internet licensing regime for gambling companies to offset declining tourism revenue, but eventually and perhaps rightly finding itself shut out of the United States because of laws about cross-border gambling and transference of data which is respected to this very day on the mainland.

    Decision Long Overdue and Economy Hurting

    Now, though, the Caribbean country is hoping to benefit from the elusive $21 million annual payments from the United States, partially leaning in on the World Trade Organization as a mediator. The international body has granted the country the right to use trade sanctions to recoup its losses, but this would not put the Caribbean nation in any better situation, as engaging in a quasi-trade war with the United States holds no benefits to its economy.

    This is why the country has instead urged its much bigger neighbor to agree to the $21 million settlement. However, there seems to be a dissonance between what the United States can and is willing to offer and what the Caribbean country believes it should rightfully receive.

    The latest appeals come at a time when the country’s economy continues to struggle feeling the pinch of the denied access from the United States.

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    Fiona Simmons

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  • Why Rastafari smoke marijuana for sacramental reasons and the faith’s other beliefs

    Why Rastafari smoke marijuana for sacramental reasons and the faith’s other beliefs

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    Members of the Rastafari religion and political movement have for decades been persecuted and imprisoned for their ritualistic use of marijuana. But the tiny islands of Antigua and Barbuda recently became one of the first Caribbean nations to grant Rastafari official sacramental authorization to grow and smoke the herb that they deem sacred.

    Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne told The Associated Press in an interview that his government took this step to try to end the persecution and bring respect to the Rastafari faith.

    Rastafari elsewhere are pushing for similar religious protections. Experts and stakeholders think the Antigua and Barbuda law could give a boost to these efforts worldwide at a time when public opinion and policy are continuing to shift in favor of medical and recreational marijuana use.

    Here is a quick look at the faith’s beliefs and history:

    ORIGINS

    The Rastafari faith is rooted in 1930s Jamaica, growing as a response by Black people to white colonial oppression. The beliefs are a melding of Old Testament teachings and a desire to return to Africa. Its message was spread across the world in the 1970s by Jamaican music icons Bob Marley and Peter Tosh — two of the faith’s most famous exponents.

    A Rastafari’s personal relationship with “Jah,” or God, is considered central to the faith.

    SACRAMENTAL MARIJUANA

    Rastafari followers believe the use of marijuana is directed in biblical passages and that the “holy herb” induces a meditative state and brings them closer to the divine. The faithful smoke it as a sacrament in chalice pipes or cigarettes called “spliffs,” add it to plant-based organic stews and place it in fires as a burnt offering.

    But adherents, many of them Black, have endured both racial and religious profiling due to their ritualistic use of cannabis.

    GANJA

    “Ganja,” as marijuana is known in the Caribbean, has a long history in Jamaica, and its arrival predates the Rastafari faith. Indentured servants from India brought the cannabis plant to the island in the 19th century, and it gained popularity as a medicinal herb.

    HAILE SELASSIE

    Most of its many sects worship the late Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie. This is rooted in Jamaican Black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey’s 1920s prediction that a “Black king shall be crowned” in Africa, ushering in a “day of deliverance.” When an Ethiopian prince named Ras Tafari, who took the name Haile Selassie I, became emperor in 1930, the descendants of slaves in Jamaica took it as proof that Garvey’s prophecy was being fulfilled. When Haile Selassie visited Jamaica in 1966, he was greeted by adoring crowds, and some Rastafari insisted miracles and other mystical occurrences took place during his visit to the island.

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    Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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  • Guatemala expat community roiled by relic smuggling charges

    Guatemala expat community roiled by relic smuggling charges

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    ANTIGUA, Guatemala — Two Americans, one a photographer and the other a connoisseur of Mayan folk art, are facing charges of smuggling pre-Hispanic artifacts in Guatemala Tuesday in a case that has roiled the normally tranquil tourist-magnet town of Antigua.

    Antigua, just outside Guatemala City, is a place where visitors and expats live among centuries-old ruins of colonial buildings and soaring volcanic peaks, admiring the lively handicraft and art scene.

    American Stephanie Allison Jolluck was part of that community after moving from the Atlanta, Georgia, area. She wrote on her photography website, “I am a designer and social entrepreneur who has always been fascinated by Indigenous cultures. As a lover of ethnographic art, antiques, and handicrafts, I enjoy shopping markets around the world.”

    It was on one such shopping trip that she claims to have picked up two ceremonial basalt stone carvings, which she told a judge she thought were cheap souvenirs at a public market in Antigua, purportedly as a gift for her brother.

    Guatemala’s Culture Ministry said the two stone carvings were made between 600 and 900 A.D. Known as Mayan “axes,” because of their shape, the carved slabs may have been associated with the sacred ball game of the Mayas, rather than have any use as an axe.

    She was released on her own recognizance after her arrest at the airport because she was a long-term resident of Guatemala. But Jolluck and her American companion, Giorgio Salvador Rossilli, were detained again Sunday when they were found with 166 Mayan artifacts in their vehicle.

    Rossilli is listed as an author of a two-volume work on the “Masks of Guatemalan Traditional Dances” and was credited as one of the curators of Los Angeles art exhibitions of pre-Hispanic artifacts several years ago.

    Rossilli is also listed as a donor to the La Ruta Maya Foundation, which lists as its main work “the recovery of archaeological artifacts that have been illegally taken out of the country.”

    After police pulled them over, Rossilli apparently argued ignorance. Prosecutor Jorge Alberto de León said the couple told a judge they thought the artifacts were cheap reproductions.

    “They argued that, because they are foreigners, they cannot tell one piece from another,” de León said. “They told the judge that because they were pieces of stone they had seen sold at the markets, they never imagined that they were ancient archeological pieces.”

    Guatemala’s Culture Ministry says that 90% of the 166 artifacts — mostly stone carvings — found in the couple’s vehicle are authentic. People smuggling relics and archaeological artifacts face between 5 and 10 years in jail if convicted in Guatemala.

    De León said Rossilli also argued the pieces weren’t his, and that he had been given them by someone else to restore, and that he was returning them when he was detained. Why someone would want to restore fakes was unanswered.

    Court secretary Milton Benítez said a local architect, Franklin Contreras, has claimed the pieces belonged to him. Private citizens can hold such artifacts in Guatemala as long as they prove they weren’t looted from ruin sites and register them with the government.

    On Monday, Judge Sherly Figueroa released both Jolluck and Rossilli on bail of about $6,400 apiece and allowed them to keep their passports but prohibited them from leaving the country. They will be required to show up at prosecutors’ offices every two weeks as their case continues.

    Jolluck’s lawyer, Juan Carlos Velasquez, refused to discuss the case with journalists, saying ,“I don’t litigate in the media.”

    The expat community in Antigua and greater Guatemala seemed somewhat divided on the arrests.

    In an expat Facebook group, many warned against a rush to judgement, noting it would take an impartial investigation to determine whether the pieces were in fact genuine.

    Antigua resident Ivan Borja said. “From the people I’ve talked to in the expat community, the news was a shocker.”

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