Election is taking place in a state where modis party b j p has been in power for the past twenty two years but the Opposition Congress and its leader are a whole dandy have mounted a surprisingly strong challenge those were the headlines here on aljazeera ill be back with more news in thirty minutes and next we have the stream to stay with us. Fear is a very important source of information for many people around the world when all the cameras are gone im still here go into areas that nobody else is going talk to people that nobody else is talking to and bringing that story to the forefront. Im for me ok and i really could be hurricanes say emery are long gone but the past of destruction they carved through the caribbean left indelible marks on the region and its people three miles off to a record breaking Hurricane Season first up ended their lives we speak to a few of the thousands working to pick up the pieces and with their homes thats today on the street where live on aljazeera. A sociology student. In the street. One after another. Move back to the caribbean causing widespread devastation out of Public Health crisis due to an abundance of stagnant water although many caribbean islands say that now open the business others are struggling to get back on their feet. Still without power. Since it is a ghost town and the famously. Has lost substantial vegetation take a listen to what because Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerritt said. I recall it was one hundred percent destroyed theres no question about it one hundred percent. True. For a reason every single tree has been parked cars or entire forests. Washed away and of course were not afraid plus percent of homes affected their homes there will have to be a constructor completely. So with tourist season right around the corner what more can be done to help the caribbean not only recover prepare for next years inevitable series of storms here with us to discuss skype in st johns and Charles Max Fernandez is the minister of Foreign Affairs tourism and immigration and paris france Vince Henderson is the minicon ambassador to the United States in the u. S. Virgin islands Julian Bishop is a High School Student living in st croix and in the u. S. State of connecticut julio lopez is the state director make the road thats an organization providing support services to Puerto Ricans in the diaspora we also invited santa. Cruz to join us today but she canceled just before we went on there but gentlemen it is really good to have you judy and im just looking at a tweet that you shared on the tenth of december. Just a couple of days ago today nearly three months since i finally have power while im very excited and the still keep in mind that the u. S. Virgin islands still does not have power no one should have to live in these conditions things must change because we exist the famous hash tag that went viral. Very. Cross in the caribbean but all of the focus was on the mainland of the u. S. And nobody was paying any attention to the cab and i and so usa people were out here so what is it like three most often these devastating hurricanes went by what is your daily life like where you can see that there can you still have an impact on the scene for us well. Just to be clear. Our very large amount of things has not improved in the Virgin Islands such as the you know only a few days ago i got power but you know and like i said its ridiculous that people are having to live this reality for so long but you know almost sadly people have become used to this weve had to live in these conditions so long ive become used to seeing downed power lines and poles on the sides and through some of the streets to the point where its almost cost Car Accidents im used to having a big hole in a part of my ceiling in my kitchen im used to there being you know broken trees all on the sides of the road driving past and seeing pieces of governess roofing on the sides of the road and this is really unfortunate that this is something that we have to face every day you know just the other day the legislature and the governor were trying to deal with the issue of getting rid of. Vegetation debris on the still or on the island thats something that still hasnt been dealt with and over in st john and st thomas which got worse on damage in some situations they have piles and piles of trash and debris just lining up the sides of the roads almost like a barricade. And thats really unfortunate because when these things finally get changed it almost surprises us because we you know we almost are noticing that these things are there anywhere because weve become so accustomed to it. Minnesota was so realistic timeline for the people who are. Just simply out to say ok and mostly on t. V. And now because they had to be evacuated but what is a realistic time why so much devastation in such a short period of time watch they released it will be hoping for. Well thank you rest of all let me say now that we have approximately by the end of this week about three hundred bucks mutants will be back into bob you know. We have hopes of course the government is up to take the initiative you know not we had a call and so were about to do everything ourselves apart from the donations that weve gotten and the grant aid that we have been pledged to us rehab approximately three hundred by the end of this week by putin so it will move repinned at least close to thirty roofs so the islanders cleaned up in terms of the roads and the deborah and so on its also declared safe by the environment and it departments we have to clean it up and so not just made it easier for us we have expect an oil so to have a number of people moving oh lady and so here who three weeks moving over to one of the stadiums complete youd ever been used as a shell it would be moving back we have ramped up the work in chimes of repairing the level of want to let the two groups under homes and repair into his homes so i think its realistic to say but by the end of the year we. Might see on brussels back in but you know the electricity has been up now for several weeks we cant operate all of it because theres not enough power to use the water has been up and running we have. Present but its costing us in antigua about fifty dollars and us at the just means we have had to deliver a boat shelters so far has been really good it had a visit from the u. N. Secretary general as you might have no one and we also had a visit as recent as a month ago from Prince Charles and recently bought a week ago we had. Our come cubas summit road kustra was here a number of the car come heads were here and some visits were made to show the so i think weve done a terrific job in terms of looking out for the folks in and to go in now with the men back to bob youve previously. So you mentioned that electricity is not available at all times because of the power load in need and needing to make sure that thats spread evenly this is also the case in puerto rico we got this tweet from angela she writes morning from puerto rico strong Woman Holding it down for sure eighty two days still no power she goes on to say life has changed dramatically i literally do not keep food at home i only sleep in my home due to that lack of power for warm showers food and moral support i can go to my parents house about ten minutes away but we have no idea when power will be restored in my area they wont tell us who you know when you hear tweets like this and messages like this what what do you think how representative is the angela story but those who are in puerto rico well if youre on my facebook youll find that most of the people have the same issue i just read someone one of my friends was not so abraded pointing out that she had been one hundred days without electricity so its its become part of the living but there he go you know i have my partner just got electricity about two weeks ago and electricity comes and goes the government doesnt really know how much electricity it has because its just basing its you know its estimates on generation but when they were starting to look at specifically households they they thought they would have they. And percent of households also had electricity and this is mainly concentrated in so one if you go to the middle of the island this situation is really where its part of whats interesting about this is that this is not necessarily about my yeah like my mate is worse but over a year ago we had three days of no electricity because our power grid has not been invested in by the government or by the u. S. Government over the over fifty years. For people who havent had that experience of losing power first significant amount of time dont explain how people are living in puerto rico right now. Its its very weird because i was there i was there for the year again and i was there for three weeks and as the gentleman was was saying it becomes a very normal way of life its a very difficult way of life but it becomes a formal way of life everything becomes slower i remember just having to will find water from wherever i could find it just finding why every space had a little bit of electricity so i could plug myself in when it comes to just you know basic movement and i dont have children i cannot imagine people that have children and what that means because you know you become very very cognizant of what hes basically said and having having a refrigerator where you can have you know things that are maintained and not have to waste money every day im just having to restock your your refrigerator become pretty important so it becomes normal but its a very its its a normal a mystery and its a very sad normal ambassador and when you see pictures of dominica immediately after the hurricane damage to your playing of how do you come back to that kind of devastation what is the last three months being like full dominica. You know as a whole i want to thank you very much for keeping us in the media keeping the impact of the hurricane in the caribbean in front of the worlds attention i can tell you the day i stepped out and immediately you just couldnt recognize those places because the trees was true and only good well known as the nature of the caribbean last Green Farmers it was wrenching to just just we come and what room for the streets and fallen trees and that kind of divest nation but you know the good thing its a long way to go but its Getting Better. Last time i looked out my window i saw the trees all green and you know we started looking once again like the nature because we have seen some of the trees although theyre still a lot of forests that weve lost but we can see progress being made and as i said its a long week but its Getting Better and i think people online from what were seeing say theyre also seeing progress but they think that not enough is happening and they think that the blame lies maybe outside of the region this is john wilson she tweeted and ive seen numerous politicians pundits celebs repeatedly appeal for assistance for say puerto rico and provide stats on recovery not so for the u. S. Virgin islands ive even reached out to my senator for progress on support for u. S. Virgin islands no response lets get the u. S. Virgin islands recovery trending to julian do you feel like youre being ignored. Well i would i want to put her puerto rico on the spot because i know im puerto rico did get a very large amount of damage as well coming up to maria we did notice that they were mainly covering a lot of news sources were mainly covering on puerto rico because it was like the first major hurricane to hit even though what i thought was significant was we were hit by a major hurricane like two weeks before i think the situation was still worse with both puerto rico and the Virgin Islands with both maria and we still heard more coverage of not only the states like the u. S. States that were barely affected by the storms but we heard more coverage of like other islands or other areas that might be hit we heard more coverage of like the hardy. Might might have hit ireland or was about to hit ireland and you know its something that Something Like thats ridiculous to me because including i think including puerto rico theres over three Million People americans u. S. Citizens that got affected by this hard too much and i saw news coming why do you think why do you think this this is because i think this is a big take away from what happened this year and in previous years ago and how we can see things where people Pay Attention when i got it why do you think that is. Well personally for me the first thing i want to point out is that this is probably this is one of the worst arkansas ever seen hit st croix and from my recollection this is the worst Hurricane Season weve ever had because not only did synchronicity john get buffeted by these storms but st cloud also took on so much damage that one island couldnt simply help the other because we were just completely devastated. I think part of it is this is a long standing thing the Virgin Islands is celebrating their one hundredth year on to the u. S. This year and twenty seventeen and we have been neglected from the time that we were brought in abruptly on our people were pushed under us control thats actually like one of the reasons i want to be in politics as a career and this is one of the main reasons why i want to is because i want to make things like this get changed and get fixed its actually my senior thesis this year as our status issues because issues like this result in the u. S. Giving virtually no coverage of us on you know responding in a very very late way because even though people are happy that fema came down an army corps of engineers came down and other Community Groups it took a weeks before we got any kind of assistance like that it took me it probably took over a month before i saw on Power Companies doing anything or you know any serious changes being made on the island and i think that would never happen on in the states we know with katrina there were some issues like that but that also became very big and that he might die and that you know if i may just say i think the difference between those many current u. S. Virgin islands what rico is that we dont have anybody to look to to come to our aid weve got to do everything on subs so i think theres a whole different type of mindset i just wanted to see the feel that the even though we contribute the least in terms of. The whole little bit along an aspect of it we tend to suffer the most and one may argue that even the u. S. Is no teeth and that the woman. Is not something. Recognized that you. Less is no look at even up to the mandates of twenty one and so on so this is a real serious issue for those of us not nor real. For the one you know of look to point to all rescue but these are some of the issues i think that we need to look at and i think the fact that we always have the are no ones really means that we have much more. Commitment to go forward and work with it so i think that is what makes a difference you know all of us and applying them saw and you have to get up and do those subs and that makes a big difference i think to us and i dont. Think it is but i could i think that had a video coming right after that had just a few. Minutes and weve grown used to that i mean we have been independent accused of the only comfort food nine years we have always had to fight all we got here tonight is something about how we can believe in the country was told to give us the truth but one of the wonderful thing about all caribbean people and i can say that even multiple media. He said you know. Weve gone through difficult times and we have ways of you know im just give you one story just a few days after we got hes by Hurricane Maria i accompanied a team from france on a helicopter to ensure that we could provide food and water to one of the most vulnerable communities you know in the country the Indigenous People of the continental people and when we got there and im talking about just a few days after we got here i met a gentleman and he said to me you dont want him boss of the asking holdings you said you know working with rob but you know we just came from repairing a house you had. We just lost the ambassador for a moment that heavy what do you want to add to come back. Here to have i just think its like i just think its its interesting because first of all i dont feel like the u. S. Is doing anything for puerto rico right now the u. S. Has not impressed that any money in port on equal at this point and every dollar that they are trying to support their request i mean with some sort of. You know some sort of way in which puerto rico has to do something whether it be keeping more powers through the imperial its a war thats really in the island or whether it be puerto rico having to privatized the schools or or doing a long you know list of on Story Missions that are going to hurt us more a more importantly i think with the burgeoning islands its also a difference between and i might be wrong but we have five point eight puerto rican in the u. S. Theres about a million that are in learning so theres a lot of power that we can and might have in orlando which is giving us a little bit of an advantage when it comes to who to Media Coverage but when it comes to reality and when it comes to what they were really doing in puerto rico the congress right now is about to impose a tax in puerto rico that would cripple our economy and take down about two hundred thousand jobs so congress is is not doing anything for puerto rico and what its doing for puerto rico would actually destroy the island more so i think at the end of a we might be a different call oneill status but we are in many ways the same boat and we need to support each other you know who you know its kind of thing id like to raise the point about feeling like the u. S. Federal government isnt doing enough or isnt doing anything were hearing that from people online as well this is abigail and abigail and her family have taken medical supplies personal supplies solar chargers pampers clothing and other items to Rural Communities are taking things into their own hands heres what she told the stream. People in the rural areas have had no access to food. From fema because team is usually stationed in the plaza in the town and people in the rural areas of those mountain towns just cant get there they have no access to Running Water they have no access to the principal power. Most of the generators that are now pounding the pumps that pump water to these towns i mean to these rule areas are supplied by Foreign Countries and private organizations such as ours but minister thats not the only example of people taking things into their own hands this is darlene she wants to think Curtis Gordon cooper hill Elementary Schools for supporting her island barbuda and a School Supply and book drive you can see the pictures here boxes are packed wrapped and ready to go how are residents coping by helping each other. Well thats a big plus for us even indicators of antigo where the bob but beautiful operation have come over to around the majority of antique guns took them into their homes so that was a grid grid i mean one of the produce moments for me. In addition to that. Maria dominique we know have approximately three thousand domany residing in antigua and that is the thing about it that we as islands and i love those all the pope and of course there was some here i was here the middle of it the time really and friends and thats something that were very proud about i mean even before the hurricane struck a couple days before a week before Dominique Dominique who was one of the first countries to offer it to one of the then there was dramas and i meet her and tour offered it to them and i just think we have flights coming in from all of the islands i mean we were really together and it shows the fact that i mean so so cooperation in the caribbean works very well together and is one of the produce moments for me being not just an empty gun but somebody from the caribbean so i think i get. Very fortunate but i must say that you know i agree i mean were the caribbean you know we always come together we Work Together and i thank you but once you dont buy beautiful your party no support we got to be no support from the people but but minister you would also i mean that part of the Republican Party dont we can go on to guns and you know very well because you are very very. Knowledgeable of that but but we happy that we have seen so many you know people being able to get support from own neighbors and i think thats a great lesson i am not sure what is the case in the caribbean but i dont see as especially because in southern and central caribbean we have each other they go. Not just the government but the people and what you saw in the q so important to school in these companies we received from him through the caribbean and this didnt all come from the governments we. Got from government especially. So i was just telling them let me just share this with you because were in the last two minutes of this program im sure people be watching this and also remembering the track of the three hurricanes that which are particular devastating i want to put them up on the screen because im actually going to go from that image here we go just going to repay them for you im sorry i have got it. So this is going back three months only get one track im sorry guess second track and then track number three ok bear with me and i come here to my laptop the caribbean is hope and open featured caribbean destinations when people think about the caribbean one of things i think about is vacations holiday destinations this is part of tourism its so critical if im asking you honestly to say is your island open for Business Today what would you say no. Struggling to figure it out not put away cannot or ok to do when it comes to like tourism it would be great to have or were not ready are you ready. Yeah i would say i would say yes we can bring people here technically and tourism is a very important part of our economy but the people here arent theyre not. You know theyre not in the state they were before. And you we got that same question on twitter i asked did you know the caribbean is open posting to that same advertisement gyrus says i didnt know id love to go i thought nothing was left or contaminated water to drink but someone else has an answer this is jay he says have you ever seen the ocean this state of blue this is why he goes more than seventy percent of the caribbean was unaffected by the twenty seven thousand Hurricane Season the biggest way to help the region is by continuing to visit hopefully ill be able to show the world that mt god is open for business well and there are and i love that hes got a top take he says check if the cruise ships are stopping where you can on visiting they make sure the level of the port experience meets a certain standard so if theyre going in that caribbean island is open for business thank you very much guys for sharing your updates on whats happened post the attic how it can seize and we will see you on a string take have to buy. In dont you find senses. The cartridge. Is quiet the signal is given. Out so its safe to walk to school last year more than thirty meters in this community in one month the police say this area is a red zone one of several in some townships in cape town children sometimes at court in the crossfire when rival gangs fight so parents and grandparents have started what they call a walk to. Violence i lost my. Go i also lost my but there are more than one hundred fifty volunteers working for several teachers say it is working class attendance has improved the volunteers also act as security guards. Just looking for youll get out of the suburbs to shoot evil or not ill try to shoot them shells and theyre all the countries of managed to solve this problem are you worried that this conflict could erupt into a right open war the sort of security people who paid the price clearly there writeup been prejudice setting the stage for serious debate up front at this time on aljazeera. The worlds Muslim Leaders declare that East Jerusalem is palestines capital agh
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