NAIROBI, KENYA (AP): KENYAN LAWMAKERS said Wednesday that parliamentary approval is required before the deployment of police to the Kenya-led peacekeeping mission in Haiti to combat gang violence that was approved by the UN Security Council this week. Opposition lawmaker Anthony Oluoch told a session of Parliament’s lower house that the conditions for foreign deployment hadn’t been met under the National Police Act. He also said that the country’s security needs “ought to take first precedence before any foreign commitments”, alluding to the internal attacks by the East Africa-based alShabab extremist group, which has links to al-Qaida. Another lawmaker, Junet Mohamed, said the matter should be tabled in Parliament for approval “before any police officer leaves the country” for what he called a “dangerous mission”, citing Kenyan police officers’ inexperience in combating local crime. The Kenya-led peacekeeping mission to Haiti was approved in a UN Security Council Resolution on Monday, and Kenyan President William Ruto pledged “not to fail the people of Haiti”. US President Joe Biden on Wednesday thanked Ruto for “answering Haiti’s call to serve as the lead nation of the Multinational Security Support mission”, according to a readout from their call. The Kenyan Constitution states that parliamentary approval must be sought before the deployment of a national force and previous peacekeeping missions by the military have been subject to this approval. But it’s unclear if this deployment of police officers can be defined as a national force. The chairperson of the national assembly defence committee, lawmaker Nelson Koech, told The Associated Press in a phone interview that the matter would likely be tabled to a joint committee that includes the national security committee before going to parliament for approval. The Kenya-led mission would be the first time in almost 20 years that a force would be deployed to Haiti. A 2004 UN mission ended in 2017. The upcoming mission would be led by Kenya, with Jamaica, The Bahamas and Antigua and Barbuda also pledging personnel. The non-UN mission would be reviewed after nine months and be funded by voluntary contributions, with the US pledging up to US$200 million. LONDON (AP): U.K. PRIME Minister Rishi Sunak on Wednesday proposed raising the legal age that people in England can buy cigarettes by one year, every year until it is eventually illegal for the whole population and smoking will hopefully be phased out among young people. Setting out his plan at the annual Conservative Party conference, Sunak said he wanted to “stop teenagers taking up cigarettes in the first place.” It is currently illegal for anyone to sell cigarettes or tobacco products to people under 18 years old throughout the U.K. Sunak’s office said the incremental changes would stop children who turn 14 this year and those younger than that now from ever legally being sold cigarettes in England. If Parliament approves the proposal, the legal change would only apply in England – not in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. “People take up cigarettes when they’re young. Four in five smokers have started by the time they’re 20,” he said. “Later, the vast majority try to quit ... if we could break that cycle, if we could stop the start, then we would be on our way to ending the biggest cause of preventable death and disease in our country.” The government said that smoking won’t be criminalized, and the phased changes mean that anyone who can legally buy cigarettes now won’t be prevented from doing so in the future. The number of people who smoke in the U.K. has declined by two-thirds since the 1970s, but some 6.4 million people in the country – or about 13 per cent of the population – still smoke, according to official figures. Britain’s government raised the legal age of sale for tobacco from 16 to 18 in 2007. That succeeded in reducing the prevalence of smoking among 16 and 17-year-olds by 30 per cent, Sunak’s office said. Health experts welcomed the prime minister’s plan to steadily increase the legal smoking age. A similar measure was approved in New Zealand last year. “This government’s plan to introduce ‘smoke-free generation’ legislation could become its defining legacy, righting a century-old wrong, with tobacco products being the only legally available commodity that, if used as intended, will kill over half of its lifelong users,” said Lion Shahab, an academic who co-directs the tobacco and alcohol research group at University College London. Sunak also said his government would introduce measures to restrict the availability of vapes, or e-cigarettes, to children. It is currently illegally to sell vapes to children under 18 in the U.K., but officials say youth vaping has tripled in the past three years and more children now vape than smoke. Officials will look into options, including restricting flavored vapes and regulating packaging and store displays to make the products less appealing to young people. THE MONTHLY GLEANER | OCTOBER 5 - NOVEMBER 4, 2023 | www.jamaica-gleaner.com | NEWS 4 Reunites Lovers, Removes Spells, tell you all PAST, PRESENT and FUTURE! …and who are your FRIENDS and ENEMIES! Call NOW and get IMMEDIATE ANSWERS! 347.448.6189 MS MORGAN, SPIRITUALIST Not so fast! Residents flee their homes to escape clashes between armed gangs in the Carrefour-Feuilles district of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, August 25, 2023. The United Nations Security Council approved on Oct. 2 the deployment of an international armed force to Haiti. AP Migrants sit in a queue outside The Roosevelt Hotel that is being used by the city as temporary housing, July 31, 2023, in New York. AP Opposition lawmakers say Haiti peacekeeping mission must be approved by parliament WASHINGTON (CMC): THE UNITED States has eased the entry of refugees from the Caribbean and Latin America, even as New York and other states vehemently protest the unprecedented number of Caribbean and other nationals seeking refugee and asylum status. Many of the asylum and refugee seekers arriving in New York from the southern border states are nationals of Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela and Guatemala. President Joe Biden has signed the Presidential Determination on Refugee Admissions for Fiscal Year 2024, setting the refugee admissions target at 125,000 for this upcoming fiscal year. “By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, in accordance with Section 207 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (the “Act”) (8 USC 1157), and after appropriate consultations with the Congress, I hereby make the following determinations and authorise the following actions,”said Biden in a White House Memorandum to Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken. “The admission of up to 125,000 refugees to the United States during Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 is justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest.” He said the admissions numbers shall be allocated among refugees of special humanitarian concern to the United States, in accordance with the following regional allocations: Africa – 30,000-50,000; East Asia – 10,00020,000; Europe and Central Asia – 2,000-3,000; Latin America/Caribbean – 35,000-50,000; and Near East/South Asia – 30,000-45,000. “The above allocation ranges are intended to provide flexibility as needs arise, but the total admissions among all of the regions may not exceed 125,000,” Biden told Blinken. “Upon providing notification to the Judiciary Committees of the Congress, you are hereby authorized to transfer unused admissions allocated to a particular region to one or more other regions, if there is a need for greater admissions for the region or regions to which the admissions are being transferred.” Biden said, consistent with the Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1962, he has determined that assistance to or on behalf of persons applying for admission to the United States, as part of the overseas refugee admissions programme, will“contribute to the foreign policy interests of the United States and designate such persons for this purpose”. The easing of entry for Caribbean refugees comes as New York Governor Kathy Hochul late last week deployed an additional 150 members of the New York National Guard to support the ongoing response to the asylum seeker and migrant crisis. Hochul said the state will be able to assign 250 National Guard personnel the full-time responsibilities of case management professionals. UK prime minister wants to raise the legal age to buy cigarettes in England US eases entry for Caribbean refugees
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