The Big Issues

Three speakers join us on this episode to talk about the nursing profession both in general, and in the harrowing context of COVID-19. They say it has been a tremendously difficult year since the pandemic began in March of 2020. And they speak about why they chose their profession, and why others might be inspired to consider it for themselves. We discussed many of the chronic issues that affect nurses in Antigua and Barbuda, and in the Caribbean. This discussion was organised in light of International Nurses Day 2021 observed on Wednesday, May 12th.

This programme first aired on NewsCo Observer Radio 91.1 FM on May 16th, 2021. Get the latest news from Antigua and Barbuda at the Antigua Observer online.

COVID-19 cases are decreasing. A third of the population has been given at least one jab of a COVID-19 vaccine. There's talk of the return of regular flights and cruise calls. In this episode we talk about how optimistic we ought to be about the economic outlook for the rest of 2021.

Eleven thousand were made directly unemployed by the effects of COVID-19 according to the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda in his January budget speech. Scores and scores of businesses, small and large, have shutdown. The idea that business activity might pick back up again is news well received by everyone.

But with the pandemic still not totally arrested in our main source markets, and with the problem of vaccine hesitancy in Antigua and Barbuda, just how optimistic can we afford to be?   

The host is Kieron Murdoch. The guests are:

This programme first aired on NewsCo Observer Radio 91.1 FM on May 16th, 2021. Get the latest news from Antigua and Barbuda at the Antigua Observer online.

Officials are talking of the possibility of making vaccination mandatory by law. It has intensified the public debate over vaccination and the freedom to refuse it. In this episode we discuss whether Antigua and Barbuda can resolve the problem of vaccine hesitancy, and what it might take to do so. 

Will mandatory vaccination become necessary? How would that be enforced? Would it be more akin to a set of varied privaledges for the vaccinated as compared to the unvaccinated? Would that be fair? And with just around a third of the population jabbed, what are we risking if we don’t get to herd immunity?  

The host is Kieron Murdoch. The guests are:

This programme first aired on NewsCo Observer Radio 91.1 FM on May 16th, 2021. Get the latest news from Antigua and Barbuda at the Antigua Observer online.

Drinking, drug use, fighting, petty theft, dishonesty, avoiding school, neglecting academics, and gravitating towards others doing the same - these are the behaviours that no parent, no guardian, no teacher, and no mentor wants to see in a young person. But it happens. A lot, actually.

In this episode, we talk about how to intervene to get delinquent young people reinvested in themselves and the positive opportunities around them. What can be done to convince them to disassociate from delinquent behaviour? Such behaviour, if left too long, can harm their chances of maximizing their potential - academic, athletic, professional, productive and creative - into adulthood. But understanding the social ills, pressures, and traumas that push youth towards these activities is essential to designing any intervention.

The host is Kadeem Joseph, who is standing in for Kieron Murdoch. The guests are:

This programme first aired on NewsCo Observer Radio 91.1 FM on May 9th, 2021. Get the latest news from Antigua and Barbuda at the Antigua Observer online.

How free is the press in the Caribbean in 2021? We've invited two journalists and a political analyst to give us their views on that question. They talk about the role news media plays, and should play in our fledgling liberal Caribbean democracies. What would be the ideal situation? And what is the reality?

Ideally, we should want to see multiple news outlets in each country, but the prevalence of privately owned, politically neutral ones over those politically-aligned, or those that are state-controlled. We should want to see uncensored reporting on all critical issues in our societies, freely done across any medium - TV, radio, print, and digital. Commentary and reporting on business, government, politics, corruption, and crime, ought to be possible free from harassment, intimidation, or victimization. And more than anything, we should all want fair, balanced journalism of the highest ethical and professional standards. 

But in reality, good journalism costs money and sometimes there just isn't enough to be made. Harassment and victimization of journalists and commentators is not unheard of. It occurs subtly, and even sometimes openly. Politically-aligned news outlets often outnumber politically neutral ones. And state-owned media is almost always sympathetic to political masters. All this is not to say that the press is not free. This is merely us exploring how free it is, as compared to what we feel it ought to be. This discussion was organised in light of World Press Freedom Day 2021.

The host is Kadeem Joseph, who is standing in for Kieron Murdoch. The guests are:

This programme first aired on NewsCo Observer Radio 91.1 FM on May 9th, 2021. Get the latest news from Antigua and Barbuda at the Antigua Observer online.

Interest in getting vaccinated has waned - something you can tell by the sometimes sparsely populated vaccination centres. It was an entirely different scene back in February when vaccination began and the willing had come out in droves, nearly all at once. It gave some of us a false sense of how widespread vaccine hesitancy and skepticism is in Antigua and Barbuda.

Now, we've come to the end of the first week in May, and though getting vaccinated against COVID-19 has been shown to be safe and effective with benefits far outweighing the risks, there are many people who simply are not willing to get jabbed. Why? We discuss the issue in this episode. More importantly perhaps, we discuss whether the trend can be reversed, and what the consequences will be if too many of us simply remain unvaccinated.

This programme first aired on NewsCo Observer Radio 91.1 FM on May 9th, 2021. Get the latest news from Antigua and Barbuda at the Antigua Observer online.

Do you know the difference between vagrancy and homelessness? We explain that in this episode. We also discuss what factors often lead to a person living on the street. This episode followed a special report by Observer's Elesha George on the issue of vagrancy in St. John, the capital of Antigua and Barbuda. 

Watch the report, and you'll realize that vagrancy is complex. Drug addiction, alcoholism, disability, and mental illness are major contributing factor which can make it easy for someone to end up on the street. And there are proven strategies for assisting such people and curbing the problem. We unpack all of that in this episode.

The host is Kieron Murdoch. The guests are:

This programme first aired on NewsCo Observer Radio 91.1 FM on May 2nd, 2021. Get the latest news from Antigua and Barbuda at the Antigua Observer online.

Extreme poverty, poor housing, malnutrition, unemployment, and illiteracy. We are talking about Antigua and Barbuda in the 1930s during the Great Depression. It is amidst these nightmarish social and economic conditions that we witnessed the rapid emergence of organized labour - still illegal then - in the Caribbean. 

The Depression wreaked havoc on already impoverished working-class Black masses of agricultural workers, on an island where slavery had not been abolished for as many as 100 years, and where the colonial government had little interest in the people's welfare. In this time, the Black masses were landless, repressed, and abjectly poor. Their rural homes were made of woven sticks plastered with mud and roofed with cane trash - wattle and daub. They lived with pests and insects. Their measly wages had decreased. Their families were hungry. 

Similar conditions across the Caribbean unleashed a wave of popular protests and riots. Antigua was no exception. But by 1939, the Antigua Trades & Labour Union (AT&LU) was formed and other organisations would later follow. Decades later, the labour movement had proven pivotal in getting better pay and better conditions, and in organizing the first popular political parties. 

And labour organizations were influential in shaping the nationalism and working-class politics of the era - an era which later saw the granting of the right of all adults to vote (1951), self-rule (1967), and independence (1981). In this episode we talk about the significance of that movement to the development of Antigua and Barbuda ahead of the observation of Labour Day 2021.

The host is Kieron Murdoch. The guests are: 

This programme first aired on NewsCo Observer Radio 91.1 FM on May 2nd, 2021. Get the latest news from Antigua and Barbuda at the Antigua Observer online.

A child is kneeling with his hands behind his head. A police officer searches his bag while his classmates stand with their hands behind their heads, each awaiting their turn. What's going on? 

We are at the Pares Secondary School. It's the last week of April and the police have been called in to search students suspected of concealing illicit drugs. Ultimately, the search turned up marijuana, marijuana infused products, and ecstasy tablets. This is according to police.

But there was a massive online reaction to the incident, with many mainly upset at seeing young teens treated more like suspected criminals. Yet others argue that it's better the police be called in, than for the situation to get otherwise out of hand.

In this episode, we speak to a principal, an addiction specialist, and a coach and youth mentor about drug use among young people of school going age. We asked how schools, parents, the public health system, and society at large should respond to the problem of juvenile drug use.

They speak frankly about the dangers of marijuana and other drugs, and about the limitations that every institution - the school, the family, the church, and the government - faces in trying to arrest the trend. 

The host is Kieron Murdoch. The guests are:

This programme first aired on NewsCo Observer Radio 91.1 FM on May 2nd, 2021. Get the latest news from Antigua and Barbuda at the Antigua Observer online.

He pleaded for help and for the officer to remove his knee from his neck, but these pleas were ignored. George Floyd was soon motionless and found not to have a pulse, and only after paramedics arrived - by which time Floyd was already dead - did then police officer Dereck Chauvin stop kneeling on Floyd's neck. Now the name George Floyd is known internationally. He was a 46-year-old Black American man who was killed on May 25, 2020. Dereck Chauvin, the officer who knelt on his neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds, was convicted in the US of murder in the past week.

In May 2020, in the US, an unprecedented season of protests was unleashed. Floyd’s death, as well as the deaths of many others, caused a moment of social reckoning, so to speak in America. In this episode we speak to three Antiguans and Barbudans in the United States who are of different generations, about what they thought of the verdict, racism, and their experience of being black in America. 

The host is Kieron Murdoch. The guests are:

This programme first aired on NewsCo Observer Radio 91.1 FM on April 25th, 2021. Get the latest news from Antigua and Barbuda at the Antigua Observer online.