Kaieteur News

Monday April 29, 2013

Kaieteur News

Jagdeo issued radio licences, frequencies outside Broadcasting Act

- PSC The Private Sector Commission is concerned that President Bharrat Jagdeo before demitting Office in 2011, issued radio licences and frequencies outside of the Broadcasting Act and was unfair in the distribution process.

This assertion was made

by PSC’s Executive Member, Kit Nascimento during a brief interview with this publication last week at the Georgetown Club, where the body held a press conference.

“Those licences were issued outside the current law; they were issued by the President at the time under the Wireless and Telegraphy Act and its regulations which did not provide for public hearing and provided very few criteria in which to assign them”, Nascimento said.

According to Nascimento, Government has publicly assured the PSC that those licences issued are under review by members of the Broadcasting Authority that were only appointed last year under President Donald Ramotar.

But that does not necessarily satisfy the PSC, which believes that all the licences issued should satisfy the criteria of the Broadcasting Act, which is a competitive application as o u t l i n e d i n t h e Act, he added.

Less than a week before Jagdeo left office he had announced 10 new radio licensees. He was reported as saying that the licences were granted from 55 applications that had been on file.

The method of selection was never disclosed.

Jagdeo’s close associate, Dr. Ranjisinghi ‘Bobby’ Ramroop, was awarded five radio channels; New Guyana Company Limited five and Telcor and Cultural Broadcasting Inc. another five.

Telcor’s contact person is Omkar Lochan, who happens to be the Deputy Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment, a Ministry headed by Minister Robert Persaud.

New Guyana Company is the one that publishes the party’s newspaper, Mirror, and whose contact person i s P P P ’s M e m ber of Parliament (MP), Dharamkumar Seeraj.

There has been widespread condemnation of the allocations of the licences by local media bodies, including the Guyana Press Association (GPA) and the Guyana Media Proprietors Association (GMPA).

PSC’s Executive Member, Kit Nascimento

President Donald Ramotar

Dr. Ranjisinghi ‘Bobby’ Ramroop

Former President Bharrat Jagdeo

The issuance of two cable licenses to two of Jagdeo’s closest friends, Vishok Persaud and Brian Yong, emphasized the extent of control that was and still is being exercised over the national spectrum.

According to Nascimento, “with regards to the distribution of licences and frequencies we would expect the law as it is to be wholly observed and any granting of licences and frequencies that are in conflict with that law should be regularized”.

Nascimento said that the PSC does not endorse the Broadcasting Act as it is and is currently reviewing the Act. As such, his comments on the Act are not reflective of the PSC’s.

He noted that for a long time Guyana did not have a Broadcasting Act and now that one exists the way in which it is written is questionable.

In his opinion, the composition of the board does not reflect international best practices.

He said that usually in democratic countries selection of the board reflects a wide cross section of the

society as a whole. “It is not usually left to the President only to appoint it,” Nascimento said.

The Executive Member said that the Act as it is currently written gives undue influence and decision making power to the Minister responsible for Information who in this particular case is the President.

“The board could be overruled the way it is currently written by the President…How the members are appointed is questionable and the influence the Minister has in the Board itself… the ultimate decision making power rests with the Minister”, he stated.

According to Chairman of PSC, Ronald Webster, the Commission only became aware of the distribution of the frequencies recently through statements by Prime Minister Samuel Hinds.

He said that the PSC is not a huge organization and there are a number of other commitments and concerns which probably over arch this particular issue but the body is definitely looking at it.

Webster said the PSC is still awaiting additional information.

Page 3

Budget 2013 fails to ease woes of past and present public servants - GPSU

The Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) is unimpressed with the provisions made in the recently announced budget, despite charging that some measures applied in a “minuscule manner” by the Honorable Minister of Finance Ashni Singh had its genesis in recommendations made by the Union.

Head of the public sector union Patrick Yarde said they advocated for a minimum increase of 50 percent in all pensions payable by the State and that the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) be encouraged to do likewise.

However, in the 2013 budget, Yarde said the, “Government proposes a hike in only old age pensions by a miserly $2,500, while ignoring other pensions that are currently paid to persons, who serviced the state but are condemned to abject poverty while in retirement because of inflation and other factors” Yarde said that one would think that Government’s stated concern for the wellbeing of all citizens would motivate it to make more realistic and generous provisions to sustain its

dwindling population base, including the unfortunates that gave their all to the sustainability of state-run institutions.

The union head said suggestions were made for tax reform in Guyana to reduce the level of taxation being borne by salaried workers, while widening the tax net by including measures to make tax evaders more compliant.

The GPSU proposal included the increasing of the tax threshold to $100,000 and the reduction of the income tax rate to 20 percent on taxable income. The Government’s response however, he charged, was to propose a miserly 2.33 percent reduction, which is the net effect of a token Pay As You Earn (PAYE) decrease of 3.33 percent and an increase of the NIS rate by 1 percent.

“This in effect has no effect on the salaries and wages of the majority of public servants, whose salaries are pegged below the $50,000 tax threshold and

offers a paltry relief to the remainder.

The recommendation by the Finance Minister for increasing the property tax ceiling is commendable,” Yarde admitted.

“Even though this would not benefit the majority of salaried workers and mortgage payments for first time home owners to be exempted from tax.”

Yarde continued that, “The Minister proposed that only the interest on mortgage payments for this group be tax deductable, and even though this could be considered a step in the right direction, it is insufficient to motivate low and middle income earners to invest in their own homes.”

“GPSU is therefore of the view”, Yarde said, “That the failure of the Government to fully implement the recommended measures, which at minimum would ease some woes of Public Servants (past and present), other employed poor and elderly unemployed, is nothing less than a charade, where our citizenry are used as “pawns” to further special interest ties and is insensitive and uncaring to the plight of the (Continued on page 15)

Page 4

Kaieteur News

KAIETEUR NEWS Printed and Published by National Media & Publishing Company Ltd. 24 Saffon Street, Charlestown, Georgetown, Guyana.

Publisher: GLENN LALL Editor: ADAM HARRIS Tel: 225-8465, 225-8491 Fax: 225-8473, 226-8210

Editorial

Rural Schools

In our news report from yesterday’s edition, “Schools in rural areas being overlooked - GTU”, General Secretary of the union, Coretta McDonald, emphasised that rural and hinterland schools are being squeezed of supplies and ancillary services such as counselling as opposed to the “fancy” Georgetown schools. She laid the blame squarely at the feet of the Regional Education Officers, (REO’s) who, in the estimation of the GTU’s President Colin Bynoe, are too “tied to their desk”.

While we would not break a lance over the responsibility of REO’s in the delivery of supplies to the schools in their regions, we believe the neglect of schools outside of Georgetown is the consequence of deeper structural issues that must be addressed if we are ever to have a more equitable distribution of education in our country.

This skewed delivery of education has led to the overall retardation of growth in our country since the three-quarters of our country that live outside of Georgetown remain in an entrenched state of underdevelopment.

This is not to say that the schools in Georgetown do not have problems of their own. But in developing the point made by the GTU officials, we are viewing the situation in a comparative context. The Government and its Ministry of Education (MoE) are not oblivious to the untenable situation.

A decade ago, the then Minister of Education announced a plan for the equalisation of the performance of the schools across the country by providing them with a proportionate share of the education budget and the resources funded by that budget.

As is usual with the plans that emanate in quick succession from that Ministry, the equalisation plan seems to have been quietly abandoned. The most visible symptom of the disparity in education delivery remains the siting of all the “premier” secondary schools in Georgetown. Berbice High School, which once had aspirations of being the “Queens College of Berbice”, has long been denuded of such Icarus-like pretensions by the Ministry of Education.

President’s College, which had been established by former President Burnham as a rival to his erstwhile alma mater, Queens College, has also been cut down to size: meaning that it is now like all the other floundering rural schools. The establishment of the “premier Georgetown schools” began in the 19th century as the colonial bureaucrats wanted schools that would be worthy of their children - and simultaneously groom the scions of their local collaborators to produce a loyal upper stratum.

Queens and Bishops were followed by the Catholic boys and girls schools like St. Stanislaus and St Roses, established by the rising Portuguese business class. The Georgetown schools were therefore always pampered by the colonial civil service. This continues to this day since the Georgetown schools fall directly under the protective care of the MoE, while the rural schools have to make do with the Regional Education Departments which have never been given the personnel or resources to compete with the central Ministry.

And this is where any change designed to install a more egalitarian basis in our school system has to begin. The Regions must be given resources, both human and material, proportional to their school populations. We could do worse than begin with trained teachers.

While there has been some improvement in the percentage of trained teachers in rural schools, we are still light years away from the situation that exists in the Georgetown schools. In the latter, graduate teachers are now common because of the proximity of UG to the city.

Once the graduate teachers have tasted the facilities of the Georgetown schools, how do we get them back into the country?

If the MoE is interested in giving equal opportunities for every Guyanese child to have an equal education, it should refurbish off its old plan and add a time-line to it.

The great strides made in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to deliver education in rural and other far-flung regions as exemplified by the new Learning Channel, suggests that we have moved beyond sharing school supplies to bring equality in education.

Monday April 29, 2013

Letters... Where your views make the news

This sort of journalism has no place in a modern country DEAR EDITOR, Please allow me to use your letter columns to comment on the continued abuse of the state owned National Communications Network (NCN) by the Government of Guyana.

Quite apart from the malicious propaganda broadcast by this state agency gone rogue, there are other harmful aspects to the blatant subordination of its duty to inform, to the political agenda of Central Government.

Last year’s revelations of what is clearly a culture of corruption within NCN illustrates the nexus between such political interference in an organization’s operation and the type of leadership it attracts.

The credibility of the State as an institution transcends passing governments, and once destroyed is not easily restored. One may argue that this credibility was destroyed before the assumption to power of the PPP-C Government, but the fact remains that this government is now a deliberate contributor to this phenomenon.

Moreover, the credibility of the State spills into a number of areas that affect the wellbeing of our country. A lack of public trust will undermine the best efforts at policing, tax collecting and economic expansion, all of which are critical to this country’s development and none of which are happening at optimal levels.

As with lost credibility, abuse of authority does not easily reverse itself once unleashed. Au contraire, it quickly spreads to other parts, assuming new forms and generally creating a comfort zone for those individuals who, like maggots, thrive in what is for most an unhealthy environment.

What a society is prepared to tolerate does give some indication of the quality of that society, and the silence of so many Guyanese on such a fundamental issue paints an unflattering picture. One wonders whether this

glaring misuse of the state media has totally escaped the notice of the advertising profession, or at least that of its clientele whose dollars are funding this organization.

When one contemplates the sinister objective behind the skewed political coverage provided by NCN, it becomes clear that NCN is the single most effective tool in the PPP-C’s propaganda machinery. The problem is that NCN belongs to the state and not the PPP-C, and it therefore has a responsibility to ensure that all political parties are allowed equal access to their facilities.

It might also be a good time to point out that this responsibility is in no way linked to parliamentary approval of its annual subvention from the nation’s consolidated fund. In other words, the fact that for two years in a row NCN has been denied this subvention by the National Assembly does not entitle it to discriminate against those political parties which refused to approve these funds.

I happened to watch a news broadcast on NCN earlier this week during which exclusive coverage was given to the Government’s version of the budget deliberations. Not a single opposition member was interviewed as Minister after Minister lamented the vindictive and irresponsible actions of the opposition in not approving the estimates under the Ministry of Public Works’ Transport Capital program heading. This sort of journalism has no place in a modern country. It belongs behind an iron curtain.

A few members of the private sector were also shown adding their views which, unsurprisingly, mirrored those of the governing party, with two of these gentlemen using words like unfathomable, unthinkable and thoughtless to describe the opposition’s actions. Quite apart from my personal views on the priority of a new terminal building for the Cheddi

Jagan International Airport and their obvious partiality deriving from personal interests in this particular project, I wondered whether these gentlemen were aware that their comments would be used by NCN to further the partisan objectives of the Governing party.

I believe that the time has come for NCN to be given the recognition it deserves as an organ of propaganda and misinformation. It does not matter how entertaining or how interesting the rest of the programming might be, as long as its newscasts and its political talk shows continue along current lines, this entity is in effect an enemy of the people of this country. Those who support this organization can no longer feign innocence; they are contributing to a national problem.

I have listened to the argument emanating from high up this Government that the state media has a duty to correct or counter the lies and misinformation being peddled by the opposition media and hence its apparent lack of balance. This is utter nonsense no matter how it is phrased. Those making such utterances are clearly appealing to the very minds they have helped to underdevelop over the last twenty years.

To sum up what I am saying, I do not believe that, left to its own devices, NCN will morph into a decent and responsible national television station anytime soon. New devices need to be deployed to force this to happen and the people of Guyana need to reject this insult to their intelligence. I have stopped just short of recommending some sort of boycott of products or businesses advertised on this station because I feel that this should be a last resort, however, it is an option that we should seriously consider if NCN continues its refusal to represent the views of the opposition in its broadcasts.

Dominic Gaskin

Monday April 29, 2013

Kaieteur News

Page 5

Letters... Where your views make the news... Letters... Where your views make the news

A case of glaring deceit DEAR EDITOR, An intricate web of lies, innuendo and deceit is being woven by the Guyana government vis-à-vis GUYSCUO. That being said, I would like to highlight a glaring deceit hidden in the constant smoke and mirror theatricals of those attempting to mislead us.

December 22, 2012, Kaieteur News – “US$200M Skeldon plant… Factory 65% operational, but only produces 20%” ‘Bosch is being paid US$130,000 to design the modifications that are needed at the Skeldon plant.’

January 24 2012, Kaieteur News – “SouthAfrican firm hired to salvage Skeldon factory” ‘Specifically, the

company, Bosch, is being paid US$130,000 to design the modifications that are needed at the Skeldon plant, Paul Bhim, the Chief Executive Officer of GuySuCo told Kaieteur News.’

April 15, 2012, Kaieteur News - “We will fix the mistakes at Skeldon factory – Ramotar” ‘Addressing the deficiencies at the modern sugar factory is South African firm, Bosch. However, critical works such as modification to the punt dumper design and replacement of the structure was not catered for in the Bosch contract.

The defects which will be fixed in the Bosch redesign works are those related to the

Time for full public disclosure DEAR EDITOR, As disclosures continue to be made in parliament and the media about secret bank-accounts and private investment ventures of government ministers and other public-officials holding various positions in Guyana, I think that the time has come for a law that requires that persons seeking parliamentary or public office should be required to give full disclosure of their holdings and investments.

These personnel should also be required to give periodic updates on those holdings and investments.

Editor, this is not a new request, it is already happening in the United States of America and other democratic countries. We have to make every possible effort to stamp out occurrences and appearances of white-collar crimes.

Morris Wilson

bagasse feeding system and the cane conveyor system.

Installing a condensate tank and obtaining a clean water supply to the factory are also on the cards.’

April 17, 2013, Kaieteur News – “Agri Ministry staves off Opposition cuts” ‘There were also questions over $4B in a subsidy that went to GuySuCo last year from the Government. The Minister said that $1.5B went to meet expenses to retroactive pay, $796M towards payment of NIS, $1B for crop financing while $142M went to South African’s Bosch Engineering for repairs to the Skeldon Factory. The sugar industry and Skeldon have both been a vexing one for the Opposition.’

If you’re conscious, that 142 million should’ve set off alarm bells. The Guyana government has always said that they were paying the South African firm US$130,000 or 26 million Guyana dollars. Without warning or explanation, 26 million is now 142 million, which is approximately US710,000. As this caravan of chicanery rolls on, I await new spectacular subterfuge and sleight of hand.

I close with a simple question, how and when will this all sophistry end?

Mark Jacobs

Enmore would be the ideal place to settle!

DEAR EDITOR, I have discovered the beauty of Guyana all the way in Calgary this week. I met a gentleman who visited Guyana in 1985, I had had this etched memory of him in English shorts and camera hanging on his shoulders; too young to remember names and old enough to know that this was intriguingan Indian gyal married to an Englishman!

Anyhow, he said he had lost his camera naively to some unknown passerby, who asked to see his camera and upon return he later realized the leather case was the only thing he owned now! Camera and beautiful memories all gone!

However, what makes Guyana so divine in the hearts of the visitors and still the destination of homesick diaspora across the world is the fact that love and generosity, good taste and excellent cooks still grapples the hearts of endless visitors, like the Kaieteur- when the eyes are first beset with this pristine glory.

The gentleman said he would always think after

these many years and world travels, that Enmore would be the ideal place to settle!

Yes, my own Enmore would be the place to settle with its lush green expanse of sugar cane fields and fertile rice acreage, sequined with black water trenches and much fruit gardens! Well you never miss the water til the well runs dry!

I must say thank God for being Guyanese- my recent trip to Guyana made me feel special, with a well attended book launch of ‘Whispers of Kaieteur’ at the National Library, a presentation of kindness to the folks making a difference to keep Georgetown the Garden City- and not the garbage city; and the wonderful platitudes of development amidst the corruption and crime.

It’s amazing how people see contentment and empathy for others who live through devastation of humanity daily.

My sincerest sympathies to those who have lost loved ones recently and in the Boston tragedy- the essence of life is at times in the words

of Rumi to feel pain whilst others mock your honesty!

As I had said before that Enmore historically and socio-economically has all the trimmings to make it a town. Not Jonestown but Demerara Gold is what made this fellow remember Guyana!

That the sugar cane is still ripe with such potent powers that a son of a British planter living in Calgary could feel the juices dripping down his fingers, all these years; that he wants to make Enmore his resting place.

Of course you’ll have to get the old boys club there to clean that cemetery, turned “jumbie- jungle”!

As Oprah said, recently, that when one finds beauty, it’s the self reflection of the inner person, wishing to return to a place one day, where the love of self will be greater than the love of others and that is true love!

Congratulations again to the organizers of the annual Enmore social in Toronto- it’s time to consider making the true Enmorean shine for the goodness of humanity.

Habeeb Alli

Page 6

Kaieteur News

Monday April 29, 2013

Letters... Where your views make the news... Letters... Where your views make the news

Are we paying ineligible persons Old Age Pension?

DEAR EDITOR, It was the late Sheila Holder who raised this issue some four years ago but no action from the PPP. The PPP has failed to rectify this total breakdown in the system of Governance around the printing and issuance of Pension Books.

It was the Auditor General in his 2011 Report who expressed deep concern that the Ministry still has not corrected the deficiency in the contract to ensure “ownership and control of the printing software, and minimum security standards

at the printing facility….”

Again, no corrective action from the PPP. Why is the printer still the sole custodian and controllers of the pension book printing template weeks and months after the completion of the process of printing of the pension books? Are we having rogue pension books in the system?

Why are these templates not created by the Government, then deposited with the printer under State supervision and finally destroyed by the

Government of Guyana? Why is the Government not the owners of the design software to print these pension books?

Further, why is the pensioners’ database not kept up to date? The Auditor General in his 2011 Report clearly outlined that “information such as serial numbers of the pension book and the month of the coupon was not maintained in the database for pensioners.”

We have to reflect on the high possibility that the information on the Ministry’s database is not an accurate

reflection of the actual number of senior citizens in Guyana. The Minister of Finance in his 2013 Budget speech claims that there are some 42,000 pensioners, but is this accurate?

The Bureau of Statistics reveals in its latest report that the number of persons over 65 years of age is 37.380. That is an inconsistency of 4,620 persons.

Worst case scenario for this conflict in arithmetic is likely to cost the taxpayers G$555 million every year.

Ms. Sheila Holder had called for systemic audit to

verify the pensioners’ database to ascertain if the number of pensioners in Guyana is really forty plus thousand persons, but as per norm, the PPP has something to cover up and thus no action.

If these 4.620 persons are in existence, there is enough evidence to justify that they are either residing overseas or someone is illegally collecting the pensions on their behalf.

Isn’t this a cause for a through audit investigation?

The criteria are clear - you must be a resident of Guyana to be eligible for old age pension.

Therefore that regulation must be enforced. The US Federal Government and other overseas Governments provides Social Security

Supplement for all legal aliens over 65 years even though they did not work in those countries.

So it is tantamount to fraud to be double dipping, if some Guyanese are collecting a foreign pension and still want the Guyanese pension.

What has the PPP done about this loss from the Treasury?

If this G$555 million is plugged back into the pension of the real pensioners, they can benefit from some G$1,500 per month more on top of what they are collecting at present.

So the G$15,000 per months is highly possible but there is no political support for it from the Jagdeo/Ramotar cabal.

Dr. Asquith Rose and Harish S. Singh

It is challenging to work with the poor DEAR EDITOR, I want to share with you an experience that I had working in the jungle of Guyana with poor people.

A Non-Government Organization (NGO) wanted to help the women in the community to earn a skill and a few dollars. The NGO donated sewing machines and cloth for the project. At first, the women were excited about the project, opportunity to learn to sew, and to earn a dollar.

A few months after the project started, the NGO left the community and the project continued successfully. Women made clothes with the donated cloth and sold them.

A year later, the women’s excitement faded, and they lost interest in the project.

Soon afterward, the women decided to sell the remaining unmade cloth because it wasn’t being used.

Three years later, a new NGO arrived and wants to start a project to help poor

women out of poverty.

These same women asked the NGO, for you know what, “cloth” to make clothes and sell. And the NGO, not knowing the about past, donated the material to make the clothes.

With experience like this, it makes it challenging to work with and the help the poor.

This experience reminded me of a story about a man who was digging a hole. When asked why he was digging the hole, he said to get some money.

When asked why he needed the money, he said to buy some food. When asked, why he needed the food, he said to get some strength.

When asked, why he needed the strength, he said to dig the hole.

Sometimes, not all times, when I’m working with the poor, I feel like the man digging the hole, I’m going nowhere. I’m not making any progress in helping them out of poverty.

Anthony Pantlitz

Monday April 29, 2013

Kaieteur News

Page 7

Page 8

Kaieteur News

Monday April 29, 2013

Monday April 29, 2013

Kaieteur News

Page 9

IT IS THE OLD THAT GAVE BIRTH TO THE NEW The tragedy of the PPP, the fact that it today finds itself in the unexpected and unpredictable position of not having a parliamentary majority, must be laid squarely at the feet of its leadership, and especially the old guard.

Blame for this state of affairs must be apportioned fairly. It is not a case of the old dying and the new not yet being born. That is a plaster to conceal the sore, the coverup of the decay that set it a long time ago. The new guard is not still born; it has had its first gulp of oxygen under the midwifery of the old guard.

There is no interregnum within the PPP or within the country. There has been neglect, by the old guard, of its responsibilities to secure the future of the party and the country. The old guard has failed Cheddi.

The old guard must accept some responsibility for the state of affairs of the country. It is the old guard who felt that the demands of running the affairs of the country would best be entrusted to those with more nimble minds, stronger legs and greater stamina. They hoped to control these

inexperienced hands from behind the scenes, but forgot that once the perquisites of power were tasted once the young got their feet wet they were not ever going to become surrogates to anyone.

The new guards are the creatures of the old, the only difference being that the old guard has been unable to shackle them or to control them in the way they thought they would have been able to do.

The old guard is dying and is being disinherited of their legacy by those who they created. This is poetic justice for having abandoned the ideology that the party has long stood for.

The PPP was always vulnerable to such an eventuality. Ideologically the PPP lacked depth. They had a great thinker in Cheddi Jagan but because the party had longed developed a suspicion over the intellectual types, because loyalty often trumped ability in the apportioning of positions within the party, there was a neglect of ideological formation within and this was most evident when the PPP regained political office in 1992.

But it was not just the failings of ideological training within the party that is responsible for the state that the PPP finds itself in today.

It is also the abandonment by many trusted comrades of what the party has always stood for. Many comrades became so bedazzled by power and obsessed with the perquisites of wealth and fame and forgot the ideology to which they had sworn loyalty. They forgot that it was on backs of the working class that they regained power, instead forging alliances and strong friendships with the opportunistic capitalist class in the country.

Too many within the PPP have abandoned socialism and they have abandoned it too easily. Marxists analysis and scientific rationalization have been absent from the PPP’s assessment of the local political and economic situation.

Instead the party has succumbed to the temptation of running the affairs of the country abased on externallydriven edicts, especially those prescribed by international funding

Dem boys seh

Everybody Cutting When dem government people build school dem put nuff things in place including things to create fleas. People find that out when dem had to shut down Queen’s College.

Now de same thing happening in North West.

It tek dem three weeks fuh clear out Queen’s College. And that was in GT. Now dem boys wonder wha gun happen in de North West. And if it tek too long then de officials gun seh that is de budget cuts.

Of course dem blame the cuts fuh everything and when de sea come over de wall and flood East Coast dem seh that was de budget cuts. De cut was so bad that it cut de height of the de seawall.

Then dem seh that de cuts gun affect de electricity. Well dem had enough gas to last till de next shipment suh if dem cutting power now then dem boys can imagine wha gun happen when de real time come.

Imagine Donald using every speech to talk bout de cuts. He even talking bout dem babies who cutting teeth and he blame it to de

opposition. But de babies know different.

That is only de jokey part of de business.

De real business is getting some of dem things that disappear long ago back to de people.

For example dem boys hear that all de land along de road to Lethem done sell out to people who know somebody inside.

Of course that is only a part of de business.

All de land along de highway done sell, even de piece that dem was prepared to give dem Jamaicans who did want come to Guyana to plant.

Of course de government did believe that dem would plant ganja and Guyana woulda export and get rich but this set of Jamaicans was serious about food.

It reach de stage wheh de government decide that Guyanese gun plant more ganja and that is why de police cutting down so much farm. Is everybody cutting.

Talk half and wait fuh when de government start to cut de money dem paying people.

agencies and foreign consultants. Where was the old guard when the technocratic rather than the ideological solution to the country’s problems were being applied? They were trying to pull strings behind the scenes, abandoning the role of the PPP as the vanguard party and in some instances profiting from the new dispensation.

If the old is dying, may they go in peace because they have failed the PPP, failed the country and most painfully failed the working people. The old is dying, and may God bless their souls, but long

before that many of those who were entrusted with continuing the work of Cheddi has fled his ideals, fled the ideology of the party and abandoned the working class.

True revolutionaries do not fight for power; they do not connive and plot for positions; they do not cavort with the rich and powerful to the extent that some of them have now joined the economic class. True revolutionaries do not abandon ship at the first hurdle. True revolutionaries do not forsake the struggle.

But all of this has

happened because the party distanced itself from the ideology which had long cemented it. The old guard within allowed a young brigade of self- serving individuals to run amok within the party, to seize the party on behalf of a rapacious economic class. The old guard must therefore hold responsibility for this state of affairs. The old is dying but the new is their creation.

Page 10

Kaieteur News

Monday April 29, 2013

Murder of ‘Plastic City’ teen…

Alleged killer was prime suspect in girlfriend’s 2001 murder

By Michael Jordan Sixty-three-year-old Randolph Josiah, who is being charged today for the murder of his 14-year-old stepdaughter, was also the prime suspect in another brutal murder 12 years ago.

Kaieteur News has confirmed that Josiah was detained in February, 2001, after the body of his girlfriend, Emily Ann Bollers, was found on Mashramani Day of that year in a trench in Fourth Street, Agricola, East Bank Demerara.

Kaieteur News was told that the woman’s throat had been slit.

Josiah had lived with Bollers and the woman’s two small children in an apartment some 200 metres from the trench where her killer disposed of her remains.

Police sources said that detectives detained Josiah for over 72 hours, but were forced to release him because of a lack of evidence to link him to the killing.

Emily Bollers’ son, Lexton Williams, was just 12 years old and her daughter 15 years old at the time.

The siblings said that the murder last week of Josiah’s 14-year-old stepdaughter Fenella Samuels brought back unpleasant memories of their own mother’s unsolved murder.

“That whole experience just rushed back to me,” Lexton Williams told Kaieteur News yesterday, Both siblings recall being terrified of Josiah, who they said was particularly violent towards their mother and also threatened them.

“I used to be so afraid of this guy…I watched that man literally try to break my mother’s jaw. I recall one time the neighbours called the police and they locked him up for the night. He beat my mother every day and she was afraid of him. “ Lexton Williams alleged that on the last night that he saw his mother alive, Josiah had verbally abused his mother. He said that the two had then left the family’s Agricola home. She never returned and her body was found shortly after.

“I saw her leave the house and I never saw her back.”

William’s sister recounted having an eerily similar encounter with Josiah as the one 14-year-old Fenella Samuels is said to have

A mini health check is the first step to donating blood

Murdered in 2001: Emily Ann Bollers, former girlfriend of murder suspect Randolph Josiah experienced before she was cornered and slain.

“He was being verbally abusive to me and saying things that would make you believe that me and this man were in a relationship.”

The sister, at the time a mere teen, alleged that Josiah then shut the front door but fortunately, she managed to flee through the back door with only one of her shoes on. She never returned to the house.

The siblings expressed disappointment that their mother’s killer was never convicted.

Nevertheless, they hope that they will find some closure now that Josiah has been apprehended and will be charged for murder.

Prison officials confirmed last week that the now 63year-old Josiah was jailed for ten years around 1991 for the attempted murder of a woman. He was also twice remanded, but later freed, after he allegedly stabbed two other women. This newspaper understands that one of the victims was a policewoman who was stabbed in a Robb Street night spot.

Josiah’s stepdaughter, Fenella Samuels, a student of Vreed-en-Hoop Secondary, was stabbed to death at the family’s home, located in the West Coast Demerara squatting area known as Plastic City.

A postmortem on Friday revealed that she was stabbed some 21 times to practically every part of her body.

Kaieteur News was told that the wounds, reportedly inflicted with a large kitchen knife, damaged almost every vital organ.

“There was stab wound after stab wound; she was hacked to pieces; I got tired of counting,” a source who witnessed the postmortem told Kaieteur News.

“The arteries in her neck

Murder victim Fenella Samuels

Murder suspect Randolph Josiah were severed; her heart, liver and lungs were perforated.

This guy was crazy. This had to be (an act of) spite. This could not be just a guy quarreling over a (stolen) cell phone. This had to be a crime of passion.”

Josiah fled the scene but was apprehended Thursday night by residents who spotted him attempting to flag down passing vehicles on the Vreed-en-Hoop Public Road.

Kaieteur News was told yesterday that some individuals had warned the slain teen’s mother about his violent past.

Samuels’ mother alleged that her husband had become incensed and had begun to verbally abuse Fenella after the teen informed them that a boy had stolen her cell phone.

But she also said that the girl’s stepfather became further infuriated after his stepdaughter called him a murderer and accused him of previous abuse.

The woman told Kaieteur News on Thursday that while her spouse had hinted at his violent past, particularly during arguments, he had never physically abused her.

But she did say that her daughter had complained about her stepfather’s behaviour about three years ago when the family was staying at Linden.

Monday April 29, 2013

“So what exactly is the point at tissue?” I asked my friend who had called to draw my attention to a toilet paper war supposedly raging between Jamaica and Trinidad.

He expected my response and said it is no laughing matter as, like the Myrie and cement incidents, it is likely to reach the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) where the judges may have to sit on the matter.

The initial regional response to the problem was the utterance of one or other of the four-letter words for excrement uttered in mock anger, many times preceded by the word “utter”. Then the situation unravelled or unrolled. The Trinidad Express on April 18, 2013 reported that Trinidad and Tobago (TNT) and Jamaica were in a toilet paper row that was heading to CARICOM for a solution.

Obviously the situation was desperate since nobody with sense expects any solution from CARICOM. Anyone in the far-flung outer reaches of the CARICOM Empire knows that if death came from Georgetown we

Kaieteur News

would all live forever. In this case, were it to be handled by CARICOM we would all be up the proverbial and appropriate creek in a puddle without a paddle facing a total wipeout.

The problem that is supposedly being sent to CARICOM is that TTL, a Trinidad manufacturer, complained to the Trinidad and Tobago Manufacturers Association (TTMA) that the Jamaican authorities were not a l l o w i n g T T L’s p r oducts to enter the Jamaican market. In other words they were under some kind of White Cloud.

One of the issues seems to have stemmed from a report in the Jamaican media that gynaecologists were seeing higher level of vaginal infections in patients. The culprit was narrowed down to inferior toilet paper (likely made from recycled paper) and samples of toilet tissue products were sent to the Bureau of Standards of Jamaica (BSJ) for testing.

Public health includes pubic health so that concerns like this are legitimate and it is the job of the authorities to get to the bottom of it.

On that same date, April 18, the Ministry of Health of Jamaica announced its decision to remove from the market, the four brands of toilet tissue found to be contaminated.

Dr. Winston Davidson, Head of the BSJ, stressed that despite public calls for the names of the contaminated brands to be published, t h e s t a n d a r d s t e s t i ng agency had to be cautious in its actions. He said the agency did not have the “legal coverage” to make the information public and had to be mindful of bringing the agency’s credibility into question.

The Jamaica Gleaner was not pleased with Dr. Davidson’s position and said in an Editorial, “He seems conflicted over what should take precedence: the protection of the public interest and people’s health, or shielding the Government from lawsuits which could result from action in support of the former. He chose to fear the lawsuit.”

In the meantime, Trinidad toilet paper manufacturers would have said “Bravo” to a letter in the Gleaner from a Dr.

Page 13

Clive R. Anderson, MD, who stated, “There is no credible scientific evidence to indicate that bacterial vaginosis or any vaginal infection may be caused by the normal use of toilet paper, even if it has a high bacterial or fungal load.

Vulval irritation, not infection, may occur in some persons as a result of the dyes and perfumes or other chemicals such as bleach or formaldehyde used in the manufacture of toilet tissue.”

Whether the issue would be an irritation or a full blown infection depends on how the rules are interpreted. The Trinidad position is that microbial testing of toilet paper is not part of the requirement for Caricom trade agreements.

The case for the Jamaican public, put forward by the Gleaner, is that “Dr Davidson should allow the lawyers to quibble over the legal issues.

His primary responsibility…is the protection of Jamaican consumers and the public health of the country.

One case of infection from a sub-par product is one too many. We prefer to risk a lawsuit than the public’s

health.” In other words, don’t worry about being Dainty, forget the Finesse, don’t Cuddle up with the manufacturers of tainted products, this is not the time for acting Charmin or even being Thrifty, Purejoy will only be found when you sue their butts.

Seeing that I’m on a roll here, another type of “paper” has caused turmoil in Trinidad and the region by exposing a tissue of lies and deceit. It is the report of the Integrity Committee of the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (“CONCACAF”) which investigated public allegations about the integrity of the former leadership of CONCACAF, specifically President Jack Warner and General Secretary Chuck Blazer.

The matters included the ownership of the Centre of Excellence (the “COE”) in Trinidad, apartments at the Trump Tower and in Miami, whereabouts of funds, failure

to pay taxes and to file tax returns and the completeness and accuracy of CONCACAF’s financial statements and audits for the past five years.

My friend, having made his point about the Jamaica situation, could not help it.

“First of all,” he said, “these people seem to be in the clothing business from the way they have tried to cover up the facts. If you give Jack his jacket you must give Chuck his blazer.”

Then he made the crucial observation, “The first three letters in the abbreviation of the name of the organization are C-O-N. and the next four letters are C-A-C-A. What do you expect from an organization with a name like that?” *Tony Deyal was last seen saying that someone who wrote Sears asking about the price of its toilet paper was referred to page 867 of the Sears Catalog. The person wrote back, “If you had 867 pages I would not have had to write you.”

Page 14

Kaieteur News

Monday April 29, 2013

Monday April 29, 2013

Kaieteur News

Tranquil Hururu - A Nature Lover’s paradise

By Enid Joaquin Quaint, tranquil Hururu is a nature lover’s paradise, with huge coconut and mango trees forming a beautiful milieu to the mostly modest homes.

But there are also a few beautiful and modern homes, except that here, the traditional and the modern coexist with none of the palpable discrimination prevalent in our urban villages.

The more modern houses are beautifully painted, with glass windows and with most of the modern conveniences of a city residence, and then there are the little shacks with thatched roofs, and just the barest of necessities. But the people all live as one.

Hururu is tucked away in the upper Berbice River. It is a small Amerindian community, which its residents fondly refer to as “the mission”.

It is also known as an Amerindian reservation, because in the past only Amerindians resided there.

Today although the community is still made up of predominantly Amerindians, it is also home to other Guyanese.

Most of the other people are spouses of Hururuians who took up residence there after getting married.

Jean Thomas, is one of them; she was not born at Hururu, but in New Amsterdam Berbice-but to her, Hururu is” home”.

“I love it here, the peace and quiet- everything.

I came here since I was fifteen years old, when I got married, and I’ve lived here ever since.”

Thomas said that she is of East Indian and

Amerindian heritage, while her husband is Amerindian.

She said that when she moved to Hururu in 1984 only six families lived there.

The population has grown tremendously since then, to about six hundred families currently.

At Hururu, there is no noise pollution from snarling traffic or impatient honking horns, no garbage lining the thoroughfares- I mean thoroughfare, as there is only one, which runs parallel with the nearby River that serves as the community ‘bathroom’.

Swimming and skinnydipping here, is a daily routine - not just a pleasurable pastime.

Here, care free children run around scantily clad, with sun burnished bodies innocently exposed, and hair flying in the wind.

They play in dry docked boats- oblivious to the cares of their parents, and the world.

Hururu to the visitor is a pleasant diversion from the hustle and bustle of more developed communities.

Huge, lush mango trees line the lone thoroughfare of earth, stamped solid by traversing feet, which is the only traffic, apart from the occasional bicycle or motorcycle.

Villagers or visitors to the community have to disembark from other modes of transport at the ‘head’ of the village, as the bridges encompassing the two creeks can only accommodate pedestrians or cyclists.

People of Hururu live a simple life, depending mostly on the nearby forest for their livelihood, which is logging.

A few are employed with the bauxite Company at Aroaima (RUSAL).

The children receive their early education at the Hururu Nursery and Primary schools, while some of the older ones attend the Hururu Academy, and a few go to schools at Aroaima or Kwakwani.

Both the schools at Hururu, along with the Head teacher’s residence and the community Health Centre, sit in a fenced compound, which is adorned by a huge mango tree. People of Hururu are friendly, though somewhat reserved.

The village Toshao, Winsbert Benjamin, is a soft spoken and unassuming Amerindian. But all is not well at Hururu. Residents are concerned that one of their main sources of income, which is logging, is under threat, because of the mining taking place there.

One youth who is engaged in logging, pointed out during a recent interview, “If they (RUSAL) continue mining at this rate, soon we wouldn’t have logs to harvest!

But bauxite mining is important to the residents of Hururu too, as quite a few of its residents are employed with RUSAL. However that did not stop them from protesting the activities of RUSAL recently, by blocking the road and river, after the company stopped them from using the main thoroughfare to get to their logging concessions.

Residents have meanwhile proposed that RUSAL establish five wells in their community, as they have no potable water. They are also concerned about the high cost of electricity, which is $53.78 per KWH, and are seeking to have the company grant them free electricity, or at least at a cheaper rate.

Budget 2013 fails to ease...

(From page 3) masses.”

“A few tidbits are dangled at the people of Guyana, clearly with a motive,” Yarde opined. “During the last elections and many previously, much was promised, by both Government and Opposition, in terms of bettering the livelihood of the masses.

Today, after si g n i f i c a n t lapses of time and broken promises, much is desired to enable the masses to enjoy the comforts craved during their lifetime, as a selected few benefits in a timeless routine.”

To meaningfully address the current plight of the labour force and other citizens, Yarde said that

reform such as a 25 percent salary increase is needed for public servants for 2012 and 2013.

“We continue to insist that remuneration increases be based on factors such as the annual inflation rate and annual growth rate in the economy. It must also take into consideration the inadequacy of salaries and the poverty line.”

Yarde revealed that GPSU proposed a budget allocation of $4.404B for the revision of wages and salaries. “This

represents a little over 15% of the projected wages and salaries of $29.130B for Ministries, Departments and Regions.

If the intention is to use this amount in accordance with the legal provisions or requirements as stated in the Appropriation Bill, then “across the board” payments of approximately 15 percent could be immediately made to each Public Service worker, should the estimates find approval in the National Assembly.”

Page 15

Page 16

Kaieteur News

Monday April 29, 2013

Mending their lives, one day at a time

By Enid Joaquin “My greatest regret is that I was never there for my children, I never played the role of a father to them- I was never really a father to my children both in North America or those in Guyana, and I almost destroyed their lives and that of my former wife, through my obsession with drugs.

I’ve made some negative choices that impacted my life severely, and took me from one level to another. It cost me thirty years of my lifealmost half of my life!” former drug addict Aubrey Daphness confessed during our interview recently.

He added, “In the United States, where I had married and had four beautiful kids, I forced my wife to go on welfare just to take care of our kids, while instead of supporting them, I spent all the money I made supporting my drug addiction.

When my children learnt of my drug addiction our relationship was severed.

However, now that I’m clean I’m trying to start a relationship with them, but it is very slow.

I have grown children, who don’t even know me- I

mean I have a daughter who is now a doctor, and I sometimes talk to her on facebook, and all she says is “hi dad”, and once when I tried to push further, she told me, “all I know of you is that you’re Aubrey Daphness, my biological father, nothing more.”

Both of his sons are officers in the US Marines, and he also communicates with them on Facebook.

Looking at Daphness, I found it hard to believe that this neatly dressed, clean shaven, well-spoken individual, sitting across the table from me, once walked the streets of Linden, looking for every opportunity to get another ‘high.’

And doing that was easy he said- “getting any kind of drugs here is easy, it’s available twenty four seven, seven days a week and you don’t have to go very far.”

Indeed he was so adept at getting his ‘highs’, that he was soon reduced to the “lowest of lows.”

His spiral into such abysmal depths would send shock waves throughout Linden, as no one expected that one of the community’s brightest minds could be reduced to such a state.

- two former drug addicts speak candidly Daphness said that he began experimenting with drugs, after graduating from the University of San Francisco, in the USA with a double degree in Business Economics and Computer Science in 1980. After his graduation he gained employment, with AT&T, where he ‘was introduced’ to cocaine and marijuana.

But cocaine became his ‘drug of choice.’

“My whole mind was always centred on drugs, drugs, drugs.

The core of my life was lost to drugs.”

His wife could not cope with his addiction, and was granted an uncontested divorce.

Daphness was later deported from the US in 1992, and upon his return to Guyana, gained employment with the bauxite company, as a Senior Computer systems Analyst.

Always “Drugging” Daphness confesses that he was ‘drugging’ for fourteen

of the fifteen years he spent employed in the bauxite industry. He said that it was easy to do.

‘I was able to drug and hide it, because of the level that I operated at in management, I was able to get my subordinates to get the work done efficiently and effectively, as I had surrounded myself with ‘intellectuals.’

I was even drugging during the entire time that I was doing the RETA Programme, on television.”

Daphness was also well known in the entertainment circles for his “Daffo Karaoke System”. That too enabled his addictions.

REHABILITATION Aubrey Daphness is currently a drug counselor and administrative Officer of the Phoenix Recovery Project at Mon Repos.

Two years ago, he himself was undergoing the drug rehabilitation programme there.

It was the second time around for him.

The first time he entered the Programme was in February 2010, after he was taken there by relatives. But he absconded after three months, and went all the way to New Amsterdam, where he said the addiction got worse“spiraled out of control.”

He lived in the streets, “But then I couldn’t take it anymore, I was hurting too much, I couldn’t take the pain anymore; that is when I decided that if I was to survive I had to get help.”

Our erstwhile addict would go back to the Phoenix Centre seeking help, and was fortunate to be admitted for free, by the Coordinator Mr. Clarence Younge.

Today it is now two years since he is ‘clean.

“I’m now living testimony that this thing (drug addiction) can be beaten; and I get so much support, its overwhelming- people, especially here in Linden are really happy to see that I was able to turn my life around.

Some of them have even been contacting me to help get their loved ones into the programme, and I have been able to assist some of them, while a few others are on the waiting list.

However, with all the commendations that I get here, my relatives, especially my sister Camille, are not too keen on me taking up residence again in Linden, because this was my old stomping ground- this was

my drug haven, all my old drugging cronies are here, my suppliers, everybody that helped to support my habit.

And I myself am not keen either, because due to teachings here at the Phoenix Recovery Centre, we were taught to stay away from slippery people, places and things.

“Even the Linden Town Week, I won’t be here for thatI try to stay away from any type of festivities where drugs and the like would be easily accessible.”

Daphness pointed out that because of the easy accessibility of drugs in Linden, about ninety percent of youths, eighteen and over, are currently experimenting with marijuana.

He however added that he doubted that this situation is exclusive to Linden, as there are other communities where drugs are just as easy to come by. He pointed out too, that there are many ‘youngsters’ in the community, who are still in school, and could be seen imbibing alcohol freely in the streets.

This begs the question of the laws, surrounding the sale of alcohol, to minors by unscrupulous business people, whose only concern, seems to be the money they make, from such sales.

He said that in the US, it is strictly prohibited to sell alcohol to minors; but here, everyone seems to be turning a blind eye, and so are involuntary ‘enablers’ of future alcoholics and drug abusers.

HIS PLANS FOR THEFUTURE Daphness said that he hopes one day to perhaps reintroduce his RETA programme on television, which was very popular, a few years back; but has no plans to go back into the clubs with his karaoke machine.

“However I have plans to do business in that area, because I have quite a lot of karaoke tracks that were saved to my computer hard drive, by one of my Deejays.

But right now, I take life one day at a time, I have zero expectations, so I’ll have zero disappointments”. Presently he spends any spare time he gets with relatives in Linden, whom he visits every month, and worships at the Calvary Temple church.

DERECK BACCHUS Like Aubrey Daphness, Dereck Bacchus was also a drug addict, with a preference for cocaine, and it also destroyed his family.

But he has now been ‘clean’ for seven years. Dereck just decided one day that he had to stop ‘drugging’

Looking dapper!

Dereck Bacchus because apart from destroying his family life, the constant indulgence was also destroying him.

Dereck said he started smoking at the age of fourteen, then graduated to marijuana by the time he was fifteen, and later crack cocaine.

He pointed out that he was unconsciously ‘enabled’ in his addiction, by both of his parents, as his father used to buy a carton of cigarettes every week, which Dereck would pilfer from. Later when he started to smoke marijuana, he would convince his mother to allow him to smoke at home, as he would ‘get busted’ by the police if he smoked in the streets.

So Dereck was smoking marijuana both at home and at the Wismar Secondary School which he attended.

“Getting marijuana in those days was a breeze, it was easy- every day, I would run out during the break period, and get marijuana for both me and a teacher at the School that was a heavy user.

This guy used to even allow me to go into his apartment, and smoke, because we were close, and I used to be purchasing the stuff for him.

There were also a few other male teachers that were also smoking, so I felt comfortable doing it, I wasn’t afraid of being caught.

Dereck pointed out that his addiction never interfered with his studies, as he was always an A student.

After leaving High School he would later gain employment with the Bauxite Company and get married.

During his employment with the Company he would continue drugging, he said.

His wife, he pointed out, never had a problem with his smoking at first, because she knew he was a ‘user’ even before they got married.

“But later, after I really get hooked on this thing, she started getting fed up and (Continued on page 19)

Monday April 29, 2013

Kaieteur News

Page 17

Monday April 29, 2013

Kaieteur News

Baby allegedly gets skin infection after injection Yet another complaint against the New Amsterdam Hospital has surfaced. This time, scaly spots and lesions have started to appear about the body of a seven- monthold baby, Fiona Nowrang, of Adelphi, East Canje, a few days after an injection was administered by doctors at the New Amsterdam Hospital.

According to the mother of the baby, Omadai Gussai, the baby was admitted for a fever on Easter Sunday last and an injection was administered on her buttocks.

Following that injection, the mother stated that boils and sores started to break out on the child’s body. Additionally, there appeared to be a small abscess where the injection was administered.

The mother decided to revisit the hospital the following Thursday and a doctor requested that the child be admitted.

When she related her concerns to the doctor, Ms. Gussai said that she was told that the baby had a skin infection, “that nothing ain’t really happen”. “They said it’s just an abscess the child picked up”, said Gussai.

The woman added, too, that immediately after they took the baby home, an unbearable smell started to

The baby with the infections about the body emanate from the child’s body. “Her skin was smelling—bad bad”.

The parents visited the Rose Hall Estate Dispensary which referred the child to the New Amsterdam Hospital and the parents were given ointments to apply on the baby’s skin. But the situation has not been improving.

Gussai is convinced that the child is having a bad reaction to the injection administered on Easter Sunday.

Gussai added that the child’s skin was flawless before she was admitted to the hospital for the injection...”Clean, clean as

ever—she had nothing on her face and nothing on her nose—after she get discharged then I see these things on her skin—thick, thick, we did scorn to hold her”.

Medical Superintendent of the New Amsterdam Hospital, Dr. Vishalya Sharma has invited the mother to return with her baby to the hospital for further checks.

“What she needs to do is to come in and make a complaint and we will see her back and deal with her. It sounds like an allergy to something but we need to take a look at it again”, Dr. Sharma said.

Mending their lives, one...

(From page 18) frustrated, as I began to hide my pay slip, because I didn’t want her to know how much money I was spending on drugs.

It was quite a lot, and I mean my salary wasn’t that much, so it was like I was depriving my home a lot with my addiction.

On top of that I started to steal my wife’s money- I would take it from her purse, and that used to really get her angry.

After a while she couldn’t deal with it anymore, so we separated.

Dereck said that he has been separated from his wife now for more than seven years.

It breaks his heart that he had to be separated from his children, and grasps any opportunity he gets to spend with them now.

His youngest was with him, during our interview.

Asked about the child’s presence, he declared, ‘I want him to be here, all the moments I can spend with him are very precious; and I have nothing to hide, I want him to know everything.”

Dereck said that much of his drug addiction was fed off of frustration, as he encountered a lot of discrimination at his place of

employment.

He was also abusing alcohol, another addiction he said was fed by the constant celebrations that went on whenever persons got promoted; and said that there were persons, who kept the beverages handy, for those occasions.

After he lost his job, both his addictions spiraled out of control.

But Dereck soon became fed up with the life he was living, and decided that he needed to change course.

“When you are a drug addict people disrespect youthey think that they can do you anything, so I just got fed up of everything, the disrespect, and all the pain that this thing was causing me-it was just too much.’

Dereck said he never entered a rehabilitation programme, but cut drugs from his life through ‘sheer willpower’ He stopped drinking last January, after one of his

daughters, almost committed suicide.

“It was a wakeup call- my daughter called me one night and said she didn’t feel like living anymore, and then the phone went dead.

I called her back frantically several times, but the phone just rang out.

Fortunately, his daughter did not die, but that episode would help Dereck to sober up.

He has been sober ever since, but still smokes cigarettes. He however swears that he will cuff any cigarette out of his son’s mouth and out it on his lips, if he ever touches the stuff.

These days instead of hanging out in the streets looking for a chance to get another high, Dereck spends most of his time helping out his friend Judy Gravesande Noel at the Linden Museum. And just in case you haven’t noticed, he is always looking very dapper!

We are life savers, you should be one too!

Donate blood today!!!

Page 19

Page 20

Kaieteur News

Monday April 29, 2013

Investigators relying on CCTV to track down cop’s killers Detectives probing the fatal shooting of their colleague Corporal Romain Cleto will be relying heavily on footage from surveillance cameras in the downtown Georgetown area to help them track down the killers.

Cleto was shot dead near the busy Plaisance Bus Park area at the junction of Regent Street and Avenue of the Republic by gunmen in a silver Toyota Carina 212 car just before 19:00 hours on Saturday.

So far, apart from a few persons who police have detained for questioning, investigators do not have sufficient leads on the killers.

“We just pulled in a few known characters for questioning. People who we believe may be linked to activities like this one,” a source close to the investigation told Kaieteur News.

The source said that while they have spoken to several persons who were reportedly in the vicinity at the time of the shooting, they have so far been unable to get anything positive on the identities of the killers.

Investigators say they will be seeking the assistance of the Bank of Baroda, with respect to their cameras to come up with something that could point them in a positive direction.

It is not clear if the area is served by Closed Circuit Television cameras set up by the government to monitor activities in and around the city.

A few months ago at this year ’s Police Officers’ Conference, Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee had urged the greater us of CCTV footage from cameras around the city to identify criminals.

This was after an

- getaway car not yet located opposition Member of Parliament had raised concerns about the expenditure on the cameras, calling it a waste of taxpayers’ money.

His concerns were addressed by the Minister of Home Affairs who disclosed that he was informed by the Commissioner of Police that the cameras were successfully used in solving one major robbery in the city.

On Saturday night, several persons recalled seeing the policeman coming out from his patrol vehicle and approaching a car that had stopped at the traffic lights at the intersection of Regent Street and Avenue of the Republic.

They all recalled hearing several deafening explosions, followed by the sound of the

car speeding away.

Seconds later, they saw the policeman lying motionless on the ground with blood pouring from a wound in his head.

“This is a busy area and there were several people out there when the shooting took place, and if up to now they (police) can’t get a trace of the car, then something is definitely wrong with our law enforcement when it comes to catching criminals,” a source with previous law enforcement experience stated.

Investigators also had the difficult task of managing the crime scene which may have been contaminated by the scores of persons who converged there after the shooting.

This newspaper had

Corporal Romain Cleto observed several spent shells at the scene and despite the presence of police ranks, little effort was made to secure them.

It was not until after hours had elapsed that moves were made to secure the area and retrieve the shells which were scattered all over the road.

Saturday night’s shooting of the policeman mirrors a number of execution style killings in the city where the perpetrators managed to elude capture and vanish into thin air.

For the ordinary ranks of the Guyana Police Force, Corporal Cleto’s death struck at the heart of their existence as lawmen.

It was a scary reminder of the days not so long ago when several of their colleagues were targeted for execution by criminal elements.

Police officials have been very tightlipped on the matter so far.

Except for a brief press statement and a few

comments from one senior police officer, there has been nothing much said about the policeman’s death.

In fact, up to late last night no one from the Force’s hierarchy had visited the family of the slain cop.

When contacted by this n e w s p a p e r y e s t e r d a y, H o m e Aff a i r s M i n i s t e r Clement Rohee declined to comment.

“It is three o’clock on Sunday and I am relaxing with my grandchildren and I don’t want to be disturbed. I will comment on the matter tomorrow,” the Minister told this newspaper yesterday.

Meanwhile, Cleto’s two colleagues who were also injured in the shooting are recovering well.

Constable 21240 Randy Daly who was shot and injured in his left arm is resting comfortably at the Georgetown Hospital, while Constable 21144 Anil Persaud was treated and sent away on Saturday night.

Three dead in separate accidents Three people, including a child, have died over the weekend as a result of road accidents. The first was Mukesh Mangar, a 38 –year-old porter of Pigeon Island, East Coast Demerara, who fell from the tray of a Canter truck at around 15:20hrs on Saturday.

According to police, Mangar fell as the driver of the vehicle was negotiating a turn along the Hope Public Road.

He succumbed shortly after being taken to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC).

Mangar’s accident comes after several warnings were issued about the dangers of persons traveling in the trays of open vehicles.

Motorcyclist Mohamed Khalid, 22, of Dryshore, Essequibo Coast died at around 22:00hrs following another accident which occurred at Fairfield, Essequibo Coast.

A police press statement explained that Khalid, and pillion rider, 19-year-old Garbadan Whadan of Aurora, also on the Essequibo Coast, were proceeding along the roadway when they collided with a dog that ran across the road.

As a result both men fell off the motorcycle and sustained injuries. Whadan was transferred to the GPHC where he succumbed sometime yesterday.

Meanwhile, at about 14:15hrs yesterday, Dinesh Chand, eight, of Brothers Village, Corentyne, was struck down by a motorcar while crossing the public road at Tain, Corentyne.

The child was pronounced dead on arrival at the New Amsterdam Hospital. The driver of the motorcar is in police custody. Investigations into these incidents are continuing.

Monday April 29, 2013

Kaieteur News

Page 21

Man knifed to death at Lusignan bar Police on the East Coast of Demerara were able to capture a resident identified as ‘Skinny’ hours after he had allegedly slashed a man’s throat while at a bar in Lusignan.

According to reports, 50 year-old Madan Sahadeo of Lot 333, Lusignan bled to death after his throat was slashed during an argument at Seeta’s Bar, Lusignan.

This publication was told that the incident occurred at around 18:00 hours and Sahadeo collapsed just outside of the bar and was left there for almost an hour before the police were informed.

Persons in the area told this publication that earlier in the evening Sahadeo was seen consuming alcohol at Seeta’s Bar. Sometime later an argument erupted between Sahadeo and ‘Skinny’.

This publication was told that ‘Skinny’ drew a knife and slashed Sahadeo’s throat.

The injured Sahadeo barely made it to the bridge outside of the shop and collapsed.

Other patrons continued drinking as the suspect calmly fled the area. Reports are that the owners of the shop despite seeing what had transpired continued their business as usual and did not

DEAD: 50-year-old Madan Sahadeo render any assistance neither did they inform the police as the injured Sahadeo laid helplessly on the ground.

This publication was told that it was passersby who noticed Sahadeo and contacted relatives who were at a wedding in another East Coast Village.

However, relatives merely thought that Sahadeo was injured and needed to be taken to the hospital.

Unfortunately by the time the man’s relatives arrived at the scene he was already dead.

Reports are that it was only at that point the police were informed of the incident and when they arrived they

Crime scene ranks at Seeta’s Bar combing the area for evidence. were forced to order the owner of the shop to close.

Several persons who were still consuming alcohol at the bar when the police arrived were detained to assist with investigations. Sources say that a team of police was also

dispatched to Strathspey to look for the suspect.

When this publication visited the scene, at about 19:30 hours Sahadeo’s body was still in front of the bar but was covered with a sheet and the area was cordoned

off as investigators combed the scene for critical evidence. They were eventually able to track the suspect down and captured him without much fuss.

Mahadeo lived with his mother Dularie Sahadeo who

was too overwhelmed to talk when this publication visited her home.

The woman only said she last saw him at about 17:00 hours when a friend came to the house and invited him for a drink at the bar.

Page 22

Kaieteur News

Monday April 29, 2013

Monday April 29, 2013

Kaieteur News

Venezuela’s Maduro pledges continued alliance with Cuba HAVANA (Reuters) Cuba and Venezuela signed cooperation accords Saturday for 51 projects as Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, on his first trip to the island since his election, pledged to maintain the close alliance forged by his late predecessor, Hugo Chavez.

Maduro said they would jointly spend $2 billion this year on “social development,” but it was not clear if he was discussing the 51 projects, few details of which were disclosed, or other works.

His visit appeared aimed in part at allaying Cuban worries about post-Chavez relations with the oil-rich South American nation that is Cuba’s biggest ally and benefactor.

Venezuelan oil and money help keep the communistruled island’s troubled economy afloat and the governments have about 30 joint ventures, most of them in Venezuela.

“We have come to Havana, Cuba, to say to the people of Venezuela, the people of Cuba, all the people of Latin America ... are going to continue working together, we came to ratify a strategic, historic alliance that transcends time, that is more a brotherhood than an alliance,” Maduro said at a signing ceremony in Havana’s main convention center.

Maduro, a former bus driver and union leader, told reporters he met with former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, 86, for five hours on Saturday, “remembering Comandante

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro (L) speaks with Cuba’s President Raul Castro during their meeting in Havana, in this picture provided

by Miraflores Palace Saturday. REUTERS/ Miraflores Palace/Handout Chavez, remembering that those two built this relationship.”

Maduro narrowly won an April 14 election to replace Chavez, who died on March 5 after a long battle with cancer.

He ran basically as a Chavez surrogate who would continue his socialist policies both at home and abroad, including a close relationship with Cuba and Castro, whom Chavez considered his political mentor.

But his election opponent, Henrique Capriles, scored political points by criticizing the alliance with Cuba, which combined with serious economic problems facing Venezuela, made Cubans worry they could lose their economic lifeline.

Cuba receives an

estimated 110,000 barrels a day of Venezuelan oil in exchange for money and the services of some 44,000 Cubans, most of them medical personnel, in Venezuela. In 2000, Cuba and Venezuela created an intergovernmental commission that holds annual meetings to develop joint projects in a wide range of areas, among them healthcare, education, culture and economics.

Cuban President Raul Castro, who spoke only briefly at the ceremony, said that along with the 51 projects, they had agreed on memorandum of understanding for the development and adoption of a “bilateral economic agenda” for the next five years.

Page 23

IMF sees strong growth, lingering risks in the Caribbean WASHINGTON - CMC – The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says the Caribbean and other lowincome countries are among the fastest-growing economies in the world, but warn that many remain vulnerable to shocks and spillovers from advanced and emerging markets.

“Low-income countries have worked to develop institutional capacity and build fiscal buffers that they were able to use during the crisis, and now, all the hard work has paid off,” said IMF Deputy Managing Director Min Zhu told an IMF seminar.

But he said these economies should take this opportunity to shore up their resilience to potential new shocks if they hope to sustain their current growth momentum.

In the months leading up to the Spring Meetings, the Washington-based financial institution said it had stepped up its work on low-income countries, publishing a comprehensive review of its concessional lending instruments, as well as new research on growth prospects for economies in this category. Hugh Bredenkamp, deputy director of the IMF’s Strategy, Policy, and Review Department, said low-income countries are experiencing strong expansion that is based on relatively solid fundamentals.

Speaking at the seminar, “Low-Income Countries in the Global Economic Recovery: Strengths, Vulnerabilities, and the Role of the IMF,” Bredenkamp pointed to clear

signs that growth in lowincome countries was firmly rooted. He said low-income countries are relying less on domestic demand and more on external demand as the world starts to recover from the recent crisis.

He also said inflation has also come down steadily in the Caribbean and other lowincome countries, despite occasional spikes related to commodity price shocks.

“All this suggests that low-income countries’ currently strong economic performance has strong foundations, and from that perspective, we see good chances of it being sustained over the medium term,” he said.

During the 2008-09 global economic crisis, Bredenkamp said the Caribbean and other low-income countries did experience a downturn, but they bounced back more rapidly than the rest of the world.

The analysis of the Spring Meetings comes on the heels of a comprehensive review of its concessional lending instruments, encompassing both the funding model for subsidy resources and the design of the facilities.

This latest review follows on the 2009 overhaul of concessional lending, which changed the architecture of the IMF’s lending facilities to make them more flexible and responsive to the diverse needs of low-income countries. The IMF said the review accomplished several objectives, including the establishment of a selfsustaining funding model for

Min Zhu the IMF’s concessional lending.

The review also aimed to make lending to low-income countries more flexible by raising the cumulative borrowing limit under the Rapid Credit Facility, the IMF’s channel for delivering quick emergency support; allowing loans to be augmented more quickly when shocks hit; and relaxing some of the restrictions on the use of precautionary lending facilities.

At the Spring Meetings, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim announced his objective of “setting an expiration date” for extreme poverty by reducing the percentage of people living on less than US$1.25 a day to 3 percent by 2030, from 21 percent in 2010.

The IMF said this objective, endorsed by the joint IMF-World Bank Development Committee, will lay the foundation of a strategy that the World Bank says it will present at the Annual Meetings in October 2013.

Page 24

Kaieteur News

Monday April 29, 2013

JTA tells members to avoid violent fights between students Jamaica Observer TEACHERS who opt to break up fights between students in schools do so at their own risk.

The issue has again come to national attention after police from the St Andrew South Division criticised the inaction of teachers and other adult staff at Penwood High School when 16-year-old student Nario Coleman, otherwise called ‘Two Face’ of a Balcombe Drive address, was stabbed to death during a brawl with another male student on April 11.

Head of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) Clayton Hall, told the Jamaica Observer that educators have been warned not to get physically involved in an effort to break up fights... for their own protection.

“We ask that teachers seek to prevent or stop these occurrences by giving clear instructions. There have been cases where teachers have tried to break up fights

TEACHERS AT RISK! physically and have had the law come at them. So we have asked that teachers, unless they think they can physically do so, not to get involved in any physical altercation,” Hall said.

Coleman was involved in a fight with another student for about six minutes but no adult responded. He was stabbed multiple times in his upper body.

In 2008, another student was stabbed and seriously injured during a fight at Penwood High School.

Hall said that teachers who sustain injuries during any attempt to break up violent confrontations have no insurance and may only get recourse through the court system.

“There is technically no insurance plan outside of the National Insurance Scheme

that would assist teachers if they get injured on the job,” he said.

Education Minister Ronald Thwaites said that in light of the violent nature of some schools, the ministry was moving to have deans of discipline enlisted as district constables in the constabulary.

“A dean of discipline is an officer with special responsibility and that’s why I am moving to have them sworn in as district constables so they can have powers of restraint. A citizen has a common-law right to repel violence but no teacher has the power to do that. In schools, physical restraint may be needed and I am in discussion with guidance counsellors to make them able to do so without fear of legal repercussions,” Thwaites

said.

Head of the Professional Studies Department at the Mico University College Lynelga Beckford said although teachers are sensitised to expect confrontations between students, there is little, including in their training curriculum, to prepare them to physically break up fights.

“They are sensitised to the social problems and experiences at all levels of the education system and students are sometimes sent out into the field to study these things, but they are not taught like the police and others in the security areas to deal with that exactly,” Beckford told the Sunday Observer.

But for Garfield Dennis, who teaches construction at BB Coke High School in Junction, St Elizabeth, his experience with an unruly student has had a devastating effect.

Dennis was stabbed in the back after he reprimanded a male student and was hospitalised for about a week as a result of his injuries.

“I was speaking with some female co-workers when the boy came in front of me and said ‘dutty boy chi chi beard’. I simply touched him in the forehead and told him that we were not companions, and walked away. The boy stabbed me in my back and ran off. I was taken to a doctor in Junction, who referred me to the hospital. My lungs almost collapsed due to internal bleeding. I was rushed into emergency surgery,” Dennis said.

One female teacher who wished not be named, told of her ordeal when a female student became violent after she attempted to reprimand her for disrupting her class.

“It was a typical day. I went to class and they were being noisy. I spent about 10 minutes trying to get them calm. Eventually they became calm, but this one student insisted on talking to someone. I went over to her and patted her on her shoulder and before I could ask her to be quiet she pushed me to the ground. I got up and pushed her back and she grabbed at me,

tearing my blouse open. It was a good thing I had my register as I had to use it to protect myself from exposure,” the teacher said.

Eventually the skirmish was broken up as other students intervened, but that did not stop the enraged student from hurling threats and expletives at the teacher.

The teacher was forced to quit her job, after being told by school administrators that she was not suited for that type of environment.

The offending student was also expelled.

“People stay on the outside and think that teachers are the problem.

They have no clue what we go through. These students are something else. They come from different backgrounds and some have no idea what civil norms are.

They curse loudly in class and although we try to counsel them and give them a positive outlook, it is very difficult,” the teacher said.

She blamed the lack of proper parenting for the indiscipline in schools and the wider society, and said that while she felt empathy for the slain student’s loved ones, she could not blame her colleagues at Penwood High.

“I cannot support the argument that the school is to be blamed,” she said.

“Parents need to monitor their children and don’t allow them to leave home with weapons and other contraband.”

Another teacher has sworn that she would not take a beating from any student and would fight back, even at the expense of her job.

“I am not putting myself

A mini health check is the first step to donating blood

in harm’s way and part fights involving students, especially when knives and scissors are involved, but if a student attacks me, I am going to put down my chalk, register and duster and fight back.

Teaching is not a safe job anymore, and we have to protect ourselves from these disrespectful students,” she said.

In April 2012, five students of Aabuthnot Gallimore High School in St Ann were charged with wounding with intent and assault occasioning grievous bodily harm after they attacked the dean of discipline, Gavin Myers.

Myers was stabbed several times and his left leg was broken. The five boys were all on suspension but had turned up at the school during a ‘Girls Day’ function.

Myers attempted to remove the boys from the compound when he was attacked and mauled.

The boys all had behavioural problems and were suspected of involvement in intimidation, robbery, and extortion at the secondary institution.

In April 2008, teachers at Pembroke Hall High School wore black to register their disgust at what they described as the ‘indecisiveness’ of the school board which failed to expel three male students who had ganged up and beaten a male music teacher.

The teacher was beaten after he attempted to retrieve a chair that was removed from the music room. During the fight, the boys took turns holding the teacher while he was being kicked and punched. The fight was broken up by a member of the ancillary staff.

The three students were given five-day suspensions as punishment.

Monday April 29, 2013

Kaieteur News

Page 25

Mexican journalists march Ramlogan: I won’t probe Jack against attacks on press XALAPA, Mexico (AP) — Officials in Veracruz state say they know who killed Regina Martinez. The muckraking reporter, found beaten and suffocated in her house, was just the victim of a robbery, according to prosecutors and a local court.

But many of her colleagues don’t believe it.

The man convicted of the crime was tortured into a confession, they allege. And the magazine she works for says state officials discussed sending police across the country in an attempt to hunt down and seize another reporter who raised questions about the death, which is one of a growing list of killings that have put Mexico among the most dangerous places in the world to be a journalist.

Some 400 people gathered Sunday in the center of Veracruz’s state capital, Xalapa, for a march to demand justice in the Martinez case and an end to attacks on the press. Many held up posters suggesting the government had a hand in the case, some describing it as “a state killing.” Scores also protested in Mexico City.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said in a February report that 12 Mexican journalists went missing in 2006-2012 and 14 were killed because of their work.

Mexico’s federal Human Rights Commission lists 81 journalists killed since 2000.

Martinez was the Xalapa correspondent for Proceso, one of Mexico’s most respected investigative newsmagazines, and she was one of the few in the state who continued to work on stories related to drug cartels. Her last story for the magazine was about the arrest of nine police officers accused of links to traffickers.

State officials accused a man named Jorge Antonio Hernandez Silva of taking part in the killing, saying it came during a robbery, and he was sentenced this month to 38 years in prison. But he asserted he was forced to confess through several days of torture and Proceso’s editors don’t believe the killing has been solved,

noting that none of the fingerprints found at the scene of the killing match those of Hernandez Silva.

“Those who are truly guilty have not been identified,” the magazine said in an online statement.

Mike O’Connor, Mexico representative for the Committee to Protect Journalists said federal officials have doubts too.

“The federal government is not convinced that Hernandez Silva is guilty because a very active investigation by the federal government is continuing,” he said.

Proceso also issued a statement this month alleging that some current and former state officials had met to plan the capture of a reporter who questioned the verdict and “to do him harm if he resists.”

Veracruz Gov. Javier Duarte later met editors of Proceso and promised an exhaustive investigation.

His Gulf Coast state, plagued by clashes among powerful drug cartels, has been one of the most dangerous for journalists.

Twelve reporters have been slain or gone missing there since the start of 2010, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Less than a week after Martinez was slain, three local reporters were dismembered, stuffed into black plastic bags dumped into a waste canal, apparently by people linked to drug gangs that demand either favorable coverage or none at all.

Among those still missing is Sergio Landa Rosado, who vanished on Jan. 23, his first day back at work at Diario Cardel in the town of Cardel after being away for more than a month because of an earlier kidnapping that followed his reporting on the slaying of a taxi driver.

Attacks have become so common that many Mexican news media have announced they will no longer cover stories related to drug cartels.

As in the case of Martinez, it often can be difficult to determine whether a killing is directly related to a reporter’s work, and who might be responsible. Press rights groups say officials are

often sluggish in trying to answer those questions, and few of the slayings have led to convictions.

The hacked-up body of 22-year-old photojournalist Daniel Martinez Bazaldua and that of another young man were found in the northern Mexico city of Saltillo on April 24. Coahuila state officials said signs left at the scene suggested the two men had deserted from a drug gang and state Attorney General Homero Ramos told reporters later that investigators had testimony indicating both men “were participating in illegal activities.” But editors at Martinez Bazaldua’s newspaper, Vanguardia, said state officials provided no evidence the photographer, at least, had any links to drug gangs.

“We think it is sad and alarming that Coahuila has become a state in which the authorities condemn murdered people, converting them into criminals, without offering the least evidence,” the newspaper wrote.

The issue has become so serious that Mexico’s congress passed a bill this month that would allow journalists to request that federal prosecutors and federal judges investigate attacks on them, and would make federal intervention mandatory in some cases. It has been sent to the president for his signature.

Trinidad Express Attorney General Anand Ramlogan says he will not conduct a probe against former minister of national security Jack Warner.

That probe, he said, should be conducted by the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS).

Ramlogan was responding to questions posed by the Sunday Express on whether he would initiate an investigation into Warner following allegations of fraud outlined in a Concacaf investigation by its Integrity Committee, headed by Sir David Simmons, former Barbados chief justice.

“The allegations against Mr Warner relate to his dealings in FIFA. The most appropriate legal authority to investigate those allegations would be the TTPS under the directions and guidance of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP),” the AG told the Sunday Express in a telephone interview Saturday.

“There are no allegations against him in his capacity as a minister or as a public officer of the State and misuse of public funds,” he added.

“My jurisdiction is limited to civil law and it is difficult to pursue a civil remedy in absence of wrong. If, however, there is evidence that would justify such an enquiry involving the misuse of public funds then I would have no difficulty in pursuing the same.”

Questioned on whether

Anand Ramlogan

Jack Warner

the allegations made with regard to the Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation (TTFF) did not amount to public funds abuse, the AG pointed out that there is already impending civil action by the Soca Warriors and Warner which has reached an advanced stage.

He noted that there was a call for frank disclosure of all financial matters dealing with that issue.

“One must bear in mind that there is a limitation period for civil matters, which is four years. I am confident the court would employ all remedies to achieve justice. However, there is no limitation period in criminal law so it would be more prudent for a full-scale investigation to take place, where appropriate.”

He observed that a precedent had already been set in the bribes-for-votes scandal, allegedly involving Warner and Mohamed bin

Hammam during his failed FIFA presidential run in 2011, when the matter was referred to Director of Public Prosecutions Roger Gaspard last Thursday.

Ramlogan observed that it is the DPP who can lay charges, if there are any to be laid. Last week, Warner resigned from his posts as minister of national security, chairman of the United National Congress and MP for Chaguanas West following the publication and condemnation of his actions in the Concacaf report.

It was the Opposition People’s National Movement (PNM) who in June 2011 had written to former police commissioner Dwayne Gibbs, calling for an investigation into the possible breach of the laws of Trinidad and Tobago, including the Exchange Control Act, the Customs Act and, generally, the criminal law relating to bribery.

Page 26

DTV CHANNEL 8 08:25hrs. Sign On 08:30hrs. This Morning 09:00hrs. Live! With Kelly and Michael 10:00hrs. Roseanne 11:00hrs. The View 12:00hrs. World News 12:30hrs. The Young and the Restless 13:30hrs. The Bold and the Beautiful 14:00hrs. The Talk 15:00hrs. Without a Trace 16:00hrs. Criminal Minds 17:00hrs. Charmed

Kaieteur News

18:00hrs. World News 18:30hrs. Nightly News 19:00hrs. Greetings and Announcements 20:00hrs. Channel 8 News 20:30hrs.

Rules of Engagement 21:00hrs. 2 Broke Girls 21:30hrs. Mike & Molly 22:00hrs. Hawaii Five-0 (New Episode) 23:00hrs. Sign Off MTV CHANNEL 14/ CABLE 65 05:30hrs Dharan Kai Awaz-

The Voice of Dharma 06:00hrs Islamic Perspective 06:30hrs The Diary 07:00hrs DAY BREAK (live) 08:00hrs Dabi’s Musical Hour 08:30hrs Avon Video & DVD music hour 09:00hrs Current affairs 09:15hrs Top Notch Music Break 09:30hrs Caribbean Temptation music break 10:00hrs Amanda’s music break 10:30hrs Clairan’s Ent. Music Break 11:00hrs Salvation Message with Pastor Kelvin 11:15hrs The View 12:00hrs Village Talk 12:30hrs The Young and The Restless 13:30hrs Days of our lives 14:00hrs General Hospital 15:00hrs Katie Couric Show 16:00hrs The Bold and the Beautiful 16:30hrs Cartoons 17:00hrs Birthdays & other Greetings 17:15hrs Death Announcements/ In Memoriam 17:30hrs Sitcom 18:00hrs Aracari Resort Hour 19:00hrs CNN News 19:30hrs News Update 20:30hrs Getting it Right 21:30hrs Sports Watch with Jadon Samuels 22:30hrs Sitcom 23:00hrs News Update 23:30hrs English Movie: Marine Sign Off

Monday April 29, 2013

Monday April 29, 2013 ARIES (March 21 - April 19): Your email correspondence has been getting very interesting, lately -- could there be a new career or business opportunity coming soon? Keep up the virtual chit chat, and fire back some witty emails today to some people who have connections in the places you want to be. ******************* TAURUS (April 20 - May 20): Today, being around new cultures and new types of people will invigorate your mind and get you thinking about new ideas and new places to explore. ****************** GEMINI (May 21 - June 20): When a mistake happens today (and at least one will), you need to be the voice of authority. Help people focus on what needs to be fixed rather than on figuring out whom to blame. ******************** CANCER (June 21 - July 22): There will have to be a certain amount of give and take in your world, today -and despite your usual generous disposition, it's going to be you who has to do most of the taking. ********************* LEO (July 23 - Aug. 22): The connection you're developing with someone doesn't have to be just about romance -- it could be about personal growth, too. Try not to sell this thing short! ******************* VIRGO (Aug. 23 - Sept.

22): You simply won't be able to do it all today -- so take it easy on yourself, and don't set goals that are impossible to achieve! You don't need to let yourself out of your responsibilities, but you do need to take yourself out of the running for 'perfect person of the year' -- the title is not worth the stress it re-

quires. ********************* LIBRA (Sept. 23 - Oct. 22): Working in a partnership can be difficult when the personality you're matched with is too similar to yours. Luckily, today you're going to get the chance to work with someone who balances out your strengths and helps make up for your one or two weaknesses. ********************* SCORPIO (Oct. 23 Nov. 21): Your enthusiasm is a great force in your life, right now -- it's keeping you focused, and it is attracting powerful people to your side. ******************** SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22 Dec. 21): All it takes to meet new people is a little bit of confidence! Whether you are trying to find a new romantic partner or trying to just make a few new friends, creating a connection with another human being isn't as difficult as you are making it out to be. .********************* CAPRICORN (Dec. 22 Jan. 19): Fight the growing urge to speed up your life -what you think you want in your life may already be happening right now, but you're not able to notice it because you're so concerned with what is coming next. ******************** AQUARIUS (Jan. 20 Feb. 18): Your plans don't need to be kept secret in order to succeed -- so feel free to spread the word! Let everyone who cares about you know what is up your sleeve. ********************* PISCE S ( F e b . 1 9 March 20): Take time today to get to know the main authority figure in your life better -- put more effort into talking one-on-one to a teacher or your boss.

Monday April 29, 2013

Kaieteur News

Page 27

Local engineers feel they are being overlooked

By Abena Rockcliffe Even as the Guyana Association of Professional Engineers (GAPE) celebrated its 45th anniversary, the organization’s president, Joel Trotman expressed that there is a perception among local engineers and engineering firms that they are being overlooked when it comes to spearheading major projects.

Trotman’s utterances were made at the entity’s anniversary dinner held last Saturday at the Georgetown Club.

The event was graced by the presence of President Donald Ramotar, who did the feature address; and Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, who was there in the capacity of a Guyanese engineer.

Trotman expressed the dire need for mechanisms to be put into place so that Guyanese engineers can become technically trained on par with those internationally.

He noted that the University of Guyana is a major concern to GAPE, as GAPE’s belief is that for the country to move forward, at the advantage of local engineers, there must be a cadre of professional design engineers.

However, during a subsequent interview, Trotman said that local engineers don’t stand a chance at getting major contracts mainly because of the preconditions that make them ineligible.

Trotman said that there are few effective ways to tackle the issue. He first identified that there needs to be a transfer of technology.

He advised that all

contracts between Guyana and foreign contractors should have an embodied clause that secures the transfer of technology to local engineers.

In other words, the long time engineer is saying that if Guyanese are allowed to work along with foreign contractors on major projects, over a period of time, they too will become capable of producing at the levels of international standards.

Secondly, Trotman opined that everything done in the educational sector should be geared towards satisfying the developmental needs of Guyana.

In that regard, he said that many projects need special engineering training and noted that the University of Guyana only offers undergraduate training in the engineering field.

Trotman said that an undergraduate programme would be insufficient to adequately equip an engineer to execute certain projects, which, he noted, means that for there to be improvement, there needs to be a post graduate programme.

Emphasizing his point about specializing, Trotman pointed out that there has never been a hydro project in Guyana before; hence no Guyanese engineer would have had the experience or even capability to successfully man the project.

He said that as it is, each time Guyana ventures into a project of high magnitude, the country will need to seek foreign expertise.

With that being pointed out, the engineer said that Guyana needs to look ahead

and train accordingly. He even suggested scholarships, and noted that those can then come back and share or even teach at the University level.

“It must be noted what I am saying, I am not saying that the government is intentionally overlooking local engineers, it’s just that there is a lacking of developmental opportunities for local engineers.”

In his address President Ramotar congratulated GAPE on its 45th anniversary and noted that its “work has improved the standards of our country.”

He said that it had been heartening to see the works

- GAPE President of the engineering groups over the years and expressed that they have contributed significantly to the infrastructural improvements of Guyana.

Even though making his speech about engineers, Ramotar used the opportunity to make yet another statement on the recent budget cuts.

He told the gathering that it was “heart wrenching to see some of the cuts to our engineering projects that will contribute towards further improvement.”

He said that the opposition butchered the potential of cheaper electricity in Guyana when it cut allocations that the government had provided for the Amelia Falls project. He emphasized that he saw no logic in cutting the Amaila Falls project.

The President also mentioned that the Tourism sector cannot be boosted without the infrastructure which can be done through the Marriott Hotel and Cheddi Jagan International

Airport projects, “but they have been butchered.”

With that, the President said that he will do everything legally possible and necessary to reverse the cuts made to the budget so that the progress of the country won’t be halted and the engineers would not be further frustrated.

However, none of the projects that the President mentioned are any that Guyanese engineers are actually working on.

Nevertheless, he urged all engineers at the event to be examples and implore health and safety practices at their various work sites.

Page 28

Kaieteur News

Monday April 29, 2013

3 Taliban bombs target Pakistani politicians PARACHINAR, Pakistan (AP) — Taliban bombs targeting politicians in northwestern Pakistan yesterday killed 11 people, the latest in a series of attacks meant to disrupt next month’s parliamentary election, police said.

The wave of political violence has killed at least 60 people in recent weeks, and many of the attacks have been directed at candidates from secular parties opposed to the Taliban. That has raised concern the violence could benefit hard-line Islamic candidates and others who are more sympathetic to the Taliban because they are able to campaign more freely without fear of being of being attacked.

Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan claimed responsibility for the three attacks, plus two others against secular parties in the southern port city of Karachi on Saturday that killed four people and wounded over 40.

“We are against all politicians who are going to become part of any secular,

democratic government,” Ahsan told The Associated Press by telephone from an undisclosed location.

The first bomb on Sunday ripped through the campaign office of Syed Noor Akbar on the outskirts of Kohat city, killing six people and wounding 10, police officer Mujtaba Hussain said.

A second bomb targeted the office of another candidate, Nasir Khan Afridi, in the suburbs of Peshawar city. That attack killed three people and wounded 12, police officer Saifur Rehman said. The politicians were not in their offices at the time of the blasts. They are both running as independent candidates for parliament to represent constituencies in Pakistan’s rugged tribal region along the Afghan border, the main sanctuary for Taliban and al-Qaida militants in the country.

Many politicians running in the May 11 election from the tribal region have their offices located elsewhere and find it hard to campaign in their constituencies because of the danger. The two who

were attacked Sunday are considered to hold relatively progressive views compared to the deeply conservative Islamic beliefs of many in the tribal region.

The third attack occurred in the town of Swabi, where a bomb went off during a small rally held by the Awami National Party, which has been repeatedly targeted by the Taliban. The blast killed two people and wounded five, said police officer Farooq Khan. The two candidates targeted in the attack, Ameer Rehman and Haji Rehman, were not hurt.

The Pakistani Taliban have been waging a bloody insurgency against the government for years that has killed thousands of civilians and security personnel. The group’s goal is to oust Pakistan’s democratic government and implement a system based on Islamic law.

In mid-March, the Taliban threatened attacks against three secular parties that have earned the militants’ ire by supporting military operations against them in

Pakistani police officers and volunteers visit the site of an explosion in Peshawar, Pakistan yesterday. (AP Photo/Mohammad Sajjad) the northwest: the Awami National Party, the Muttahida Quami Movement and the Pakistan People’s Party. The Taliban have carried out at least 20 attacks against politicians and campaign workers since then, mostly from these three parties.

The violence has forced the parties to close dozens of campaign offices and has prevented them from holding large political rallies that are normally the hallmark of Pakistani elections. Many of the candidates have had to find ways to campaign from a distance, relying more on social media, advertisements and even short

documentaries to rally support.

That has put these candidates at a disadvantage, and many have complained the militant violence amounts to vote rigging.

Candidates from Islamic parties and others who have advocated negotiating peace with the militants rather than fighting them have been able to campaign with much less fear of being attacked.

Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, head of the Pakistan Muslim League-N party, held a rally with several thousand people in the northern town of Murree on Sunday without incident.

Many analysts predict Sharif’s party will come out on top in the parliamentary election.

The Taliban issued a statement earlier this year requesting that Sharif and the heads of the country’s two largest Islamic parties mediate peace negotiations.

Sharif declined but said he was a supporter of the talks.

The parties that have been targeted by the Taliban also support peace negotiations with the militants, but only if they lay down their weapons and accept the constitution first — conditions the militant group has rejected.

Cameron’s party turns on anti-EU rival before vote

(Reuters) - Britain’s Conservatives derided the rival UK Independence Party as a “collection of clowns” yesterday as they tried to stop supporters switching to the surging anti-European Union movement in local elections this week.

Thursday’s vote in England and Wales offers parties a chance to test the political climate before a national election in 2015 at a time when Conservative strategists fear UKIP will split the centre-right vote.

Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservatives, the senior partner in a twoparty national coalition, trail the opposition Labour party by up to 10 percentage points in opinion polls.

Ken Clarke, a prominent Conservative and government minister, said he agreed with Cameron’s assertion that UKIP had “fruitcakes and closet racists” in its ranks and that

Ken Clarke it tried to exploit voters’ fears.

“These are very difficult times. The political class is regarded as having got us into a mess and the last government left chaos behind them,” he told Sky News. “It’s very tempting to vote for a collection of clowns.”

Battling to kick-start a tepid economy and to cut a big budget deficit, Cameron

is banking on a rebound before 2015. But with no strong recovery in sight he faces losing hundreds of the more than 2,000 council seats his party is contesting.

A bad result in the vote held largely in rural English counties and in one Welsh area - could prompt some Conservative MPs to question Cameron’s leadership, though he has ridden out such dissent before.

Campaigning on a promise to take Britain out of the EU and to end “opendoor” immigration, UKIP has seen its poll rating oscillate between 11 and 17 percent, overtaking Cameron’s junior Liberal Democrat coalition partner at times.

“The trouble with UKIP really is it’s just a protest party,” said Clarke. “It’s against the political parties ... it’s against foreigners ... but it doesn’t have any very Continued on page 29

Monday April 29, 2013

Kaieteur News

Page 29

Egypt’s Mursi backs down, to seek compromise on judges CAIRO (Reuters) Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi and top judges agreed yesterday to seek a compromise to defuse a battle over Islamist attempts to force out thousands of judges that have deeply polarized the Arab world’s most populous nation.

Mursi’s Islamist allies had proposed legislation to purge more than 3,000 judges at a stroke by reducing their mandatory retirement age to 60 from 70 to sweep away senior jurists appointed under autocratic former President Hosni Mubarak.

But after nearly three hours of talks, the president’s office and the Supreme Judicial Council said they had agreed to hold a conference on the future of the justice system that would work out a reform acceptable to both sides.

The deal appeared to be a significant climbdown by the ruling Muslim Brotherhood in the face of fierce resistance to its push for a fast-track law to “cleanse the judiciary”.

A presidential spokesman said in a statement read on state television that Mursi had praised the idea of a justice conference and would start preparatory sessions at the presidency on Tuesday.

Mursi would “personally adopt all the conclusions of this conference in draft laws and present them to the legislative council,” he said.

Mohamed Mumtaz, president of the Supreme Judicial Council, gave an almost identically worded statement.

A judicial source said

discussion of the Islamist draft law that sparked an outcry among judges, lawyers, opposition parties and civil rights groups, would be frozen until after the conference and the president would present a new draft.

Gamal Soltan, a political science professor at the American University in Cairo, questioned whether the president’s move marked a sincere attempt at reconciliation with the judges.

Instead it was likely to be a “tactical move” in a drawnout power struggle, he said, noting that Ahmed El-Zend, head of the Judges Club, an informal trade union for judges, and one of the Brotherhood’s most vocal critics within the judiciary, had not been invited to Sunday’s meeting.

“It’s also a divide and rule strategy,” Soltan said, saying the presidency could be “making a distinction between the doves and the hawks among judges, and trying to empower the doves by giving them some credibility”.

The Brotherhood accuses many judges of being remnants of the previous regime, who abuse their position to obstruct elections and laws proposed by bodies elected since the uprising that overthrew Mubarak in 2011, and of frustrating efforts to bring corrupt former officials to justice.

The secular, liberal and left-wing opposition, as well as ultra-conservative Salafi Islamists, charge that the

Cameron’s party...

From page 28 positive policies. They don’t know what they’re for.”

UKIP has had some success in local elections and is represented in the European Parliament, but holds no seats in the British parliament.

As its popularity has grown so too has public scrutiny.

It was forced to suspend one of its more than 1,700 candidates over his support for a group that has organised protests against Muslim immigrants. Another candidate resigned over his past membership of a far-right group and a third was suspended over an antiSemitic online row.

UKIP has said it is the victim of a “reprehensible” smear-campaign by the Conservatives, who it says are running scared.

“They must be utterly terrified that their shallow approach to government is

being seen through by the public,” said Nigel Farage, the party’s leader.

Leaked emails published

by The Observer newspaper on Sunday suggested UKIP was worried it had few credible policies beyond its opposition to the EU and immigration, saying its members were struggling to coalesce around other ideas.

The party said the emails were evidence of a lively internal debate.

Analysts say UKIP’s popularity has already prompted the government to harden its stance on Europe and immigration.

Peter Mandelson, a former Labour minister and European Commissioner, urged Cameron not to become more eurosceptic if UKIP did well in the elections.

“Long-term national interest must be our guide, not short-term politics,” he wrote in the Independent on Sunday.

Muslim Brotherhood is trying to monopolize power by purging independent judges to make way for its own place men in key courts.

The opposition is also demanding the removal of Prosecutor General Talaat Ibrahim, whose appointment by Mursi was ruled illegal by an appeals court. Ibrahim, accused of bias towards the Islamists in his conduct, is appealing against the ruling.

Several thousand judges

held a protest rally last week to denounce the planned amendment of the Judicial Authority Law in the upper house of parliament as unconstitutional.

But the floor leader of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, Essam El-Arian, said on Friday lawmakers should press ahead with the new law without delay.

The battle over the judiciary has triggered street violence with the Brotherhood holding a mass demonstration on April 19 to

demand a “cleansing of the judiciary” that ended in clashes.

Regardless of the bill’s fate, the battle over judicial independence was about power, not reform, Soltan said, pointing to the lack of positive change in other Egyptian institutions, such as the police.

“It’s about dominance and control. This is the name of the game,” he said. “If it’s about reform, I think the Interior Ministry deserves to come first.”

Mohamed Mursi

Page 30

Kaieteur News

Monday April 29, 2013

German finance minister calls Fire breaks out in Bangladesh anti-euro party’s policy “insane” building where 377 die (Reuters) - A core policy of a new anti-euro party was criticised as “economically insane” by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble in an interview published on Sunday.

Support for the Alternative fuer Deutschland (AfD), which wants Germany to quit the euro and reintroduce the deutsche mark, is at 2 percent, according to a survey by Emnid pollsters also released yesterday.

“For Germany, it would be economically insane to exit the euro,” Schaeuble told German weekly Focus, adding that Switzerland’s struggle with its soaring franc proved how problematic it could be to have a stronger currency. Schaeuble warned support for the AfD could still cost the ruling coalition crucial votes in September’s elections.

Political analysts say it would be difficult for the AfD, launched a few months ago by a group of renegade academics, journalists and businessmen, to get above the five percent threshold

Wolfgang Schaeuble needed to enter parliament in September.

But Schaeuble said that the elections in Lower Saxony in January, in which the centre-left opposition edged Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives out of power in an extremely tight race, had shown how crucial each vote was.

“We need each vote. That is why we are dealing with the AfD,” the minister said. “We will not do so arrogantly but in the firm belief that a common currency is in

Germany’s best interest.”

A majority of Germans continue to back the euro, opinion surveys regularly show, but the AfD is trying to tap into concerns about the mounting costs of bailouts for heavily indebted countries in the southern euro zone.

Analysts say a strong result for the AfD in September could influence German euro zone policy by making Berlin even less willing to back future bailouts. Yet Schaeuble told Focus that even thinkers who had been critical of his government’s bailout policy, such as Germany’s best-known economist Hans-Werner Sinn, believed in the euro.

Sinn distanced himself from the AfD in an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung published yesterday.

Schaeuble said the AfD was merely a protest party, feeding on voters’ fears about the crisis. “A party, that is only against something, cannot be taken seriously.

And it will not be successful in Germany,” he said.

Rescue workers assist a colleague who was injured in a fire during a rescue operation inside the rubble of the collapsed Rana Plaza building, in Savar, 30 km (19 miles) outside Dhaka yesterday. REUTERS/Andrew Biraj (BANGLADESH - Tags: DISASTER TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY) (Reuters) - Fire broke out yesterday in a garment factory that collapsed in the Bangladeshi capital, complicating attempts to find any survivors of a disaster that has killed 377 people.

Fire service officials said the blaze had been started by sparks from cutting equipment used by rescuers.

Police said the owner of the factory, Mohammed Sohel Rana, was arrested yesterday trying to flee to India, as hopes of finding more survivors from the country’s worst industrial accident began to fade.

Rana was arrested by the elite Rapid Action Battalion in the border town of Benapole, Dhaka District Police Chief Habibur Rahman told Reuters, ending a four-day manhunt that began after Rana Plaza, which housed factories making low-cost garments for Western retailers, caved in on Wednesday.

Bangladesh television showed Rana, a local leader of the ruling Awami League’s

youth front, being flown by helicopter to the capital Dhaka, where he will face charges of faulty construction and causing unlawful death.

Authorities put the latest death toll at 377 and expect it to climb higher with hundreds more still unaccounted for.

Four people were pulled out alive yesterday after almost 100 hours beneath the mound of broken concrete and metal, and rescuers were working frantically to try to save several others still trapped, fire services deputy director Mizanur Rahman said. One woman was pulled out of debris by rescuers but died, fire service officials said.

“The chances of finding people alive are dimming, so we have to step up our rescue operation to save any valuable life we can,” said Major General Chowdhury Hassan Sohrawardi, coordinator of the operation at the site.

About 2,500 people have been rescued from the wrecked building in the commercial suburb of Savar,

about 30 km (20 miles) from the capital, Dhaka.

Officials said the eightstorey complex had been built on spongy ground without the correct permits, and more than 3,000 workers - mainly young women - entered the building on Wednesday morning despite warnings that it was structurally unsafe.

A bank and shops in the same building closed after a jolt was felt and cracks were noticed on some pillars on Tuesday.

Police said one factory owner gave himself up yesterday following the detention of two plant bosses and two engineers the day before.

Anger over the disaster has sparked days of protests and clashes, with police using tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets to quell demonstrators who set cars ablaze. Garment workers blockaded a highway in a nearby industrial zone of Gazipur yesterday demanding capital punishment for the owners.

Monday April 29, 2013

Kaieteur News

Page 31

Japan hopes Russia summit can bring momentum on island dispute MOSCOW (Reuters) Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe hopes talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin today will revive efforts to end a territorial dispute that has prevented the nations signing a treaty to end World War Two. Japan also expects Russia to present a proposal for Japan’s participation in building a pipeline connecting East Siberian gas fields and a planned $38 billion Vladivostok gas hub built by state-controlled Russian export monopoly Gazprom.

It is unclear whether Abe, whose talks with Putin will be the first full-fledged RussoJapanese summit in Moscow in a decade, will leave with progress toward either of those goals, despite areas of interest that converge.

Japan is the largest importer of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and sees Russia as a strategic partner as it looks to diversify and cut the costs of LNG imports, which shot up after a 2011 disaster at its Fukushima nuclear plant.

Russia is seeking to firm up its footing in Asia as it warily watches China’s growth - despite warm ties with Beijing - and the U.S. “pivot” to the Pacific. Russia could use Japanese money and know-how to develop its sparsely populated far east.

But Russia’s interest in increasing commerce with Japan will not necessarily lead to progress in the dispute over four small islands in the Pacific, known as the Southern Kuriles in Russia and the Northern Territories in Japan.

The islands were seized by the Soviet Union after it declared war on Japan in August 1945 and days before Japan surrendered, forcing about 17,000 Japanese to flee.

They are near rich fishing grounds.

The dispute has prevented Russia and Japan

from concluding a peace treaty and clouded ties ever since.

Senior Russian and Japanese officials have discussed the territorial dispute repeatedly in recent years, including at bilateral talks between the heads of state on the sidelines of international meetings, but have made little apparent progress.

“I would like to agree on a new start to the protracted negotiations on a peace treaty,” Abe said in an interview shown on Russian state television before the visit, speaking through an interpreter. He arrived in Moscow on Sunday.

Russia has frequently signaled that Japan should focus on economic relations and not get too hung up on the islands. The Kremlin last week repeated its message that a solution to the territorial dispute is not a prerequisite for increased trade.

“The Russian side proceeds from the position that dialogue (on a peace treaty) should be held in a calm, respectful atmosphere in parallel with the development of the entire range of Russo-Japanese relations,” Putin’s press service said.

Dmitry Medvedev, the ally Putin steered into the Kremlin for a four year term in 2008-2012, and is now prime minister, angered Japan by making the first visit to the islands by a Russian president in 2010.

Japanese officials have suggested economic ties would develop faster if the territorial dispute were resolved.

Abe will be accompanied by a 120-strong business delegation, Japanese Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroshige Seko told Reuters last week. He said one aim was “to convince Russia of the merits of having a good long-

term relationship with Japan.”

“Through forming strong personal ties between the leaders, we want to make Russia feel that by quickly solving the Northern Territories issue, Japan can contribute to the development of Russia and Siberia in particular,” Seko said.

Abe’s trip follows two months of talks on expanding gas-supply agreements in which Japan has been pressing Gazprom

to present a detailed plan of the Vladivostok project that would spell out the potential role of Japanese companies.

Seko said Japan wants to sign up to 20 memoranda of understanding between Japanese and Russian companies during the visit, but that a major deal on the Vladivostok project was unlikely. The Kremlin said the leaders will discuss international issues including tense situation on the Korean peninsula.

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe inspects the honour guard during a welcoming ceremony upon his arrival at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport yesterday.

REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin

Page 32

Kaieteur News

Monday April 29, 2013

Page 34

Kaieteur News

Monday April 29, 2013

Great Britain Rifle Russians survive epic against Coomacka; Silver Bullets, Shooting Team due today Silent Assasins, Half Mile / One Mile make semis The Great Britain Rifle in the Australia Cup. Team will arrive in Guyana Guyanese Paul Slowe has Guinness ‘Greatest of the Streets’ Futsal Competition

Not even the inclement weather managed to dampen a night of enthralling action in this year’s Linden segment of the Guinness ‘Greatest of the Streets’ Futsal Competition which continued on Saturday evening, at the Amelia’s Ward / Wisroc Bus Park.

The feature clash of the night between T.L.C Russians and Coomacka United lived up to all expectations as the two teams treated the crowd to a thrilling contest from the start. The Russians, widely regarded as the best exponents of the futsal format in the mining community took the lead in the 9th minute through Carlos Grant.

Despite some excellent

exchanges, the scoreline at the break remained the same and everyone present waited with eager anticipation for the resumption of the game.

Once again, both teams attacked with tenacity, but robust defending put paid to any scoring opportunities and when the final whistle sounded it was the Russians’ one-goal advantage that ensured a semi-final spot for them much to the disappointment of the Coomacka fans.

In the opening encounter, Silver Bullets advanced with a comfortable 2-0 win over Star Boys with Nigel Bennette (5th) minute and Damion Williams (18th), the players on target. In the next game, Silent Assasins edged

Retrieve Unknowns 2-1 thanks to strikes from Romain Haynes, who netted in the 4th minute and Quacy Johnson in the 13th.

Darrel George in the 18th minute managed to pull one back for Retrieve Unknowns, but the Assasins held tenaciously to their slim advantage until the final whistle came. Half Mile / One Mile star-studded lineup proved too strong for Wisroc as they hammered them 4-0 with Steve Brewley opening their account after just two minutes of play.

Four minutes later, Trevor Trudor added another, before Keron Cameron’s strike seconds later gave them a comfortable 3-0 ascendancy.

Javon Bibel’s 16th minute

goal was enough to secure a semi-final victory for Half Mile / One Mile who must now be a strong favourite to go all the way to the championship game.

Clarence Huggins’ goal in the 18th minute was merely a consolation one. The semifinal matchups scheduled for tonight have already been decided with the Russians taking on Silent Assasins and Half Mile / One Mile tackling Silver Bullets in what is anticipated to be two explosive encounters, at the same venue.

Two exhibition matches are scheduled for the same evening with L.U.C.S.L taking on Team Greatness and Brooklyn All Stars engaging Bosai.

this evening to engage their Guyanese counterparts during this week as part of a four-nation Caribbean tour.

The team is being captained by Nigel Penn with Charles Brook serving as the vice captain.

The team visited Jamaica on the first leg of the tour and will travel to Trinidad and Tobago on the third leg before winding up their visit to the Region in Barbados where they will compete in the Australia Cup International shooting championships.

Penn said the team comprises both experienced shooters and some new caps.

The GB team will be here as guests of the Guyana National Rifle Association (GNRA) who will host a Media briefing this afternoon to discuss plans for the visit as well as Guyana’s participation in the West Indies Fullbore Shooting Championships, slated for Barbados next month.

Guyana are the defending Long and Short Range title holders a n d several members of the national line up will also be looking to secure a place on the West Indies team to compete

been named captain of the West Indies team.

National Fullbore captain Mahendra Persaud said that the national shooters look forward to the visit of the Great Britain team, regarded as one of the world’s leading shooting team.

The GB and Guyanese shooters will be in action in individual competition at the 300 and 900 Yards Ranges tomorrow while on Wednesday they will battle at 500, 600 and 1000 Yards Ranges.

The two teams will contest a Team match on Thursday over 300, 600 and 900 Yards Ranges.

On Friday the visitors will travel to Kaieteur and Orinduik Falls before they depart for Trinidad and Tobago.

The Guyana squad to be captained by Persaud will include vice captain Dylan Fields, current Caribbean individual champion Lennox Braithwaite, newly crowned national champion Ransford Goodluck, Ryan Sampson, Dane Blair, Leo Romalho, Lt. Col. Terrence Stuart, Paul Slowe, Charles Deane, Peter Persaud and Everad Nelson.

GASP Open Scrabble Championship

Leon Belony spells his way to the spoils They say that sometimes words get in the way but for Leon Belony, who has been struggling to clinch the prime podium spot for most of the year, words flowed freely and he was able to amass 5 points and a positive spread of 530 to capture the honours when the Guyana Association of Scrabble Players (GASP) staged the GASP Open Championship at the Malteenoes Sports Club, Thomaslands yesterday afternoon.

James Krakowsky finished in the second place after amassing 4 points and a positive spread of 330 while Abigail McDonald closed off the podium spots with 4 games and a positive spread of 162.

Belony lost his first game to Colin Chichester by a close spread of 6 but rebounded to register wins against McDonald (79), Michael Benjamin (191), Wayne Cave (92), Krakowsky (193) and Orlando Michael (71). Krakowsky’s second place position came at the expense of Cave (81), Grace Hercules (150), Orlando Michael (91) and Maurice Munro (207). He also relinquished a game to McDonald (7) in the very first game.

The unpredictability of the game was underlined after Orlando Michael started at a brisk pace defeating Hercules (128), Munro (87) and Chichester (47) to go off at the lunch interval on an impeccable 3 points and a positive spread of 262.

His luck ran out in the post lunch session and he conceded games to Krakowsky (91), Cave (58) and Belony (71). Grace Hercules was also in full flow in her game against Benjamin and registered the largest bingo of the day, ‘fixtures’ which was a double triple play which netted her 221 points.

She might have clinched the prize for the top player outside of the top 10 but the organizers decided beforehand to only award the top three players.

The players will rest for a few days but return on May 1 for the May Day Open at the very venue. In between, they will congregate at the Maltenoes Sports Club on Wednesday for practice sessions. Further, the executive committee of the GASP is currently putting the modalities in place for the National Scrabble championships due to get underway soon.

Monday April 29, 2013

Kaieteur News

Page 35

Changes to Volleyball Nadal beats Almagro for 2nd Division fixtures eighth Barcelona Open title The Guyana Volleyball Federation National (GVF) 2nd division tournament which was slated for May 11, 2013 has been shifted to the May 19, 2013.

The GVF National 2nd division competition is sponsored by the Guyana Defence Force and will be played at the National Gymnasium.

The Playoff’s, slated for the May 10th will now be played on the 18th at the same venue. Participating teams to take note of the changes and to make adjustments accordingly, they are the Guyana Defense Force, Goed Fortune, Young Achievers, Lusignan, The University of Guyana, the Guyana School of Agriculture and Enterprise.

Sharapova makes easy work of Stuttgart title defense

Russia’s Maria Sharapova in action against China’s Li Na in the final.

STUTTGART (Reuters) World number two Maria Sharapova saved her best performance of the week for last when she successfully defended her Stuttgart Grand Prix title with a 6-4 6-3 victory over second seed Li Na of China to kick off her claycourt season in style.

Sharapova, who had needed three sets in all her previous rounds in Stuttgart, found it easier against Li, with her serve setting her up for her second consecutive victory in the indoor arena.

The top seed, her loud grunts echoing around the stadium, snatched a break at the start, with a sizzling backhand down the line that left Li stranded.

Li sent a crosscourt backhand into the net to give the Russian another break and allow her to go 4-1 up.

The Australian Open finalist bounced back in the next game and grabbed her own first break when Sharapova sent a forehand long after a long rally.

Sharapova was in no mood for adventures, however, and quickly established a double break cushion, then served out the first set on her first opportunity when Li sank a return into the net after another well-placed serve.

The pair traded blows until Sharapova earned another break point and went 4-3 up.

With a superb first-serve figure of 76 percent throughout the game, she kept her opponent pinned to the back and earned her second title of the year when Li double-faulted on the first match point.

(Reuters) - Rafa Nadal won his eighth Barcelona Open title in nine years with a 6-4 6-3 victory over fellow Spaniard and fourth seed Nicolas Almagro yesterday.

The world number five and second seed survived a whirlwind start from Almagro, who broke his first two service games in cloudy, drizzly conditions on the clay of the Real Club de Tenis.

Nadal battled back with three breaks of serve to take the first set and ran away with it in the second, to notch a 10th straight victory over his compatriot.

The French Open champion’s 39th consecutive win in Barcelona secured his fourth title of the year since returning from a seven-month injury lay-off.

Spain’s Rafael Nadal bites the trophy after winning the Barcelona Open tennis tournament.

(REUTERS/Albert Gea)

Monday April 29, 2013

Kaieteur News

Page 39