Kaieteur News

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Kaieteur News

Monday February 11, 2013

Marriott Hotel project…

Guyanese right to work has been sold - Opposition MP Government’s explanation of why no locals were hired in the US$51M Marriott Hotel project in Kingston has drawn sharp reactions with the main opposition party in the National Assembly, leading to calls for the resignation of the Minister of Finance.

A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) Member of Parliament Joseph Harmon, who has responsibility for public works, is now demanding the immediate resignations of Finance Minister, Dr. Ashni Singh, and head of the Atlantic Hotel Inc., Winston Brassington.

APNU has 26 seats in the National Assembly and together with the Alliance For Change, commands a one seat majority for the Opposition. On Friday, in wake of growing anger over news that checks at the project found no locals gainfully employed, Brassington in defense said that the contractor, Shanghai Construction Group (SCG), had demanded Chinese labour be used as part of the contract conditionalities.

There have been questions why government

- demands immediate resignation of Finance Minister, Brassington was plunging state funds into such a venture, especially as there was no evidence that a feasibility study was ever conducted. While a number of private sector groups have publicly endorsed the project, none of them have reportedly admitted to wanting to invest in it. Monies, around $2B, were advanced since 2011 and construction began last year but negotiations with the investors are still continuing, a disclosure that is also angering Parliamentarians.

According to Harmon, the country’s laws require that before work permits are granted to foreign nationals, there must be an absence of the skill in Guyana.

“Was there an advertisement for the skills?

Is there a shortage of labourers for construction in Guyana?” The MP said that the claims by Brassington flies in face of the very glaring reality that there is a high rate of unemployment among young people. “Did this requirement pass over the

Minister of Labour or the Minister of Home Affairs and the venerable Attorney General, the champion of constitutional rights?”

The fact that the Board of Directors of Atlantic Hotels Inc. agreed to these conditions should be grounds for their immediate firing, Harmon said.

AHI, a subsidiary of government’s privatization arm, National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL), reportedly includes a number of Government Ministers.

“We must not sell the rights of our people for a few million dollars. It would be interesting to note how much has been paid to the National Insurance Scheme and the Guyana Revenue Authority on behalf of these super efficient workers,” Harmon said. It was exactly in fear of a scenario like this that APNU had supported a motion, requiring all funding by the state to this project be approved by the National

Finance Minister, Dr. Ashni Singh

Winston Brassington

APNU’s MP, Joe Harmon

Assembly.

“How could we, as a nation, accept that for the construction cost to be lowered, the right of Guyanese to work as guaranteed in the Constitution of Guyana and the Caribbean be frittered away?”

On Friday, Brassington, in an exclusive interview with the state’s news agency, said that the use of a mostly Chinese labour force to construct the multimillion-dollar Marriott Hotel was just one of several conditionalities necessary for the facility’s efficient and speedy construction.

Brassington, who has been under fire as head of

NICIL/Privatisation Unit, which manages Government assets, explained that SCG won the bid to construct the hotel from 23 other firms.

Initially, the price was US$65M, “but they were able to lower the cost to US$51M with the condition that they be able to control who they employ on the site,” the release said Friday.

In defending SCG’s decision to hire Chinese nationals, Brassington said that the company indicated that “(it) had examined the level of skills available for the project as well as the levels of productivity.”

According to

government, the hotel when completed will boast 197 rooms, a large ballroom, conference centre, a casino, nightclub, restaurant, a concrete walkway and all other amenities of a worldclass hotel. However, the casino, nightclub and restaurant will be leased to a third party, which will manage them separately.

Government, in defending its decision to build a Marriott Hotel, said there is a shortage of quality rooms in Guyana…a claim that has been denied by hotel owners who said that there are too many empty rooms to justify a new hotel.

Monday February 11, 2013

Kaieteur News

Executed man buried, family questions reports about ties to underworld Close relatives of executed miner Dave Jason Wills described him as “a loving father and husband” and “a hard-working and decent individual” while expressing skepticism about reports that seemed to tie him to known underworld figures.

The 33-year-old Wills was buried last Friday following a simple ceremony attended by relatives and close friends.

Police have not arrested any suspects and, his mother, Merle, who returned from the US to bury her son, indicated that she prefers to leave it up to God to provide answers regarding her son’s brutal death.

“I came and buried him and I am going back. I am not looking for answers (about his death) and if I get any answers, my answers will come from God.” “All that we are hearing is speculation. I don’t want to know who his associates were. All that I know is that my son was killed unjustifiably. I was not in that sort of world in which they portrayed him to be. I did not raise him that way. His family is a quiet, decent family and he was also quiet and decent.

His family is not attached to the life that they painted him to be attached to. He was hard-working.”

There were also suggestions that Wills might have been the victim of mistaken identity.

Stressing that her son was not a wealthy individual and that he relied on her

Jason Wills support, Wills’ mother said that she had provided him with US$50 and $4,000 in local currency for his trip from Mahdia to Georgetown.

“He did not have to wait on me to give him money if he had so much. With all of that ‘underworld stuff’ I should have been well off. Dave was not worried about anything. I spoke to him Thursday evening (some hours before his execution) and he said he had no beef with anyone.”

Kaieteur News was told that Wills had a security job in Mahdia and had planned to repair a truck and put it back into service.

His reputed wife, who makes and sells pastries, described him as a loving father and husband.

She explained that Ricardo Rodrigues, who was gunned down last year and to whose name Wills is being

tied, had operated a dredge at Mahdia in an area near to where Wills was located.

She said that her reputed husband had told her that he was attending Rodrigues’ funeral “to pay his respects” and “the very next day he came back home”.

The father of seven was gunned down at around 20:00 hrs three Thursdays ago while staying at a friend’s house in Meadowbrook Gardens. It is alleged that at least two gunmen, armed with an assault rifle and semiautomatic pistol, entered through the front door, which the occupants had left open.

Wills’ friend and the man’s mother-in-law alleged that they were all watching television but that they both went to the kitchen together, leaving Wills in the living room. The mother-in-law reportedly told police that she heard Wills shout “Oh God, don’t do duh, don’t do duh…” before gunfire erupted in the living room.

The friend alleged that he heard the gunshots some 30 seconds after entering the kitchen. The occupants denied seeing the gunmen enter or leave.

Police are still to come up with a clear motive as to why Wills was slain.

Commissioner of Police Leroy Brumell told Kaieteur News that investigators were “working on some leads” and were hoping to effect arrests, while another official stated that investigators were seeking “a person of interest.”

President’s assent to Bills…

Attorney General says he is following his predecessors Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister Anil Nandlall, in responding to opposition statements which questioned his position with regards to Bills passed in the National Assembly, yesterday said that the role of the (AG) in the process is one which is hallowed in time and which is inherited.

Two leading members of the opposition had criticized the public utterances of the attorney general who had suggested that he first has to clean up Bills that are passed in the House before they are sent to the President for assent.

A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) frontbencher Deborah Backer had described the AG as a mere “transmitting officer” once Bills are passed in the National Assembly.

Leader of the Alliance for Change (AFC) Khemraj Ramjattan, had stated that the Attorney General is trying to

“fluff up” his authority, since he should not touch any Bills once they are passed in the House. But the Attorney General in an invited comment yesterday told Kaieteur News that the criticisms which are leveled against the sacrosanct process are simply unlearned.

“The Attorney Generals before me including Dr. Fenton Ramsahoye, Dr. Mohamed Shahabudeen, Keith Massiah, Bernard DeSantos SC, among others have all followed the same process and there must be some vindication of its utility and constitutionality,” Nandlall said.

In a previous letter to the Editor, Nandlall stated that all Bills passed by the House are first sent to the Chambers of the Attorney General by the Clerk of the National Assembly, “firstly to be examined by the Chief Parliamentary Counsel and then by the Attorney General

who issues an Assent Certificate advising His Excellency, the President, that he may properly assent to the Bill, provided, of course, that in the opinion of the Attorney General, the Bill is in order.”

“That is crazy,” Backer had said of the Attorney General’s interpretation of his role. She said that the functions of the Attorney General are mainly administrative and there is no constitutional requirement for the Attorney General to “tidy up” anything.

She said that if legislation is passed in the House, it is the administrative duty of the Attorney General whether he chooses to “use carriage or fax” to ensure that the Bill as passed in the House, without any changes or amendments, goes to the President. It is up to the President to assent or withhold his assent, she stated.

Backer said any tidying (Continued on page 12)

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Safety, quality predominate Third Engineers’ Conference The country’s third Engineering Conference, an annual feature of the Public Works Ministry, was held Thursday to target new technologies and to discuss major concerns.

According to Prime Minister, Sam Hinds, himself an Engineer, the time is ripe for taking stock of the execution of engineering works. At the gathering at the Guyana International Convention Centre were several Consultants and some of the country’s top Engineers.

The Prime Minister drew reference to the changing face of Engineers working for the government over the years, with a lot of brain drain and subsequent outsourcing of several projects as a result.

The Prime Minister said that there is now a new era of development and that the time has come for the Ministry to adapt a new comprehensive policy that it will execute, using its own Engineers. The Prime Minister proposed that this new sufficiently comprehensive policy also entails “recognition of the cost that the Ministry would

have to incur in being a prime place for training, accumulating experience, for testing and developing new experience.”

Public Works Minister, Robeson Benn, noted that the theme of the conference, “Improving Guyana’s Infrastructure for Future Generations”, was apt, as the work the engineer does in “building and developing Guyana, can only assure a good future for coming generations.”

Minister Benn said that the annual conference itself is crucial to developing the skills of the new crop of Engineers in the country.

He said that it is his hope that the conference will become a two-day annual event, featuring central presentations, with poster sessions ”where we have peer review of the work that we do; where we have public scrutiny; where we have open discussions and criticisms and criticisms of how we do our work.”

Minister Benn also outlined some issues of concern that the Engineers must adhere to when building infrastructure around the

country including safety, efficiency, quality, planning and the question of money.

“We have to continue to take vigorous steps with respect to ensuring safety in all the things we do and in relation with the national infrastructure building industry and particularly to point out where we still have problems in terms of the culture when we build,” he said. “We still see high buildings going up and there is no harness, no safety signs and so on,” he said.

He urged that quality be assured in everything and said that poor planning or rushed jobs and uncertainty as to the specific technical and administrative roles t h a t a r e i n h e r ent in the functions of each person responsible for the project, will lead to a well-planned project falling into confusion and doubt. With regards to the issue of money and funding for the project, Minister Benn said that the Engineers also have the responsibility that the public money given out for projects is utilised for the public good and the public get what it wants with this money.

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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

GDF’s missions Last Thursday, the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) held its Annual Officers’ Conference at Camp Ayanganna.

Organised under the theme “Consolidating and modernising the Guyana Defence Force for total defence”, Chief-of-Staff, Commodore Gary Best declared that it was time for the organisation to ‘define new missions”. He revealed that the GDF had crafted a “strategic defence review” which it had “already submitted to the Defence Board.”

The country’s disciplined forces operate under the ambit of our Defence and Security Policy articulated in Article 197 A of the Constitution. That article states: “The state defence and security policy shall be to defend national independence, preserve the country’s serenity and integrity and guarantee the normal functioning of institution and security of citizens against any harmful aggression.”

More specifically, Section 5 of the Defence Act stipulates: “The Force shall be charged with the defence and maintenance of order in Guyana and with other duties as may from time to time be defined by the Defence Board.”

Formed in 1965 at a time when Venezuela was aggressively pursuing in revanchist claims over Essequibo, the GDF’s major focus was to defend Guyana from external aggression.

Suriname’s 1969 overt actions to assert its claim over the New River Triangle necessitated an armed response, which solidified that mandate of the GDF. But in a major reappraisal, which unfortunately failed to elicit any response from our leaders (political or civil), the Chief of Staff, who is scheduled to retire later this year, reportedly declared that present realities now demand a shift from the “conventional construct of territorial defence.”

It is within this context that he expatiated on the ‘writing and defining of new missions’ for the GDF. While we would not disagree with the Commodore on his declaration that the GDF must be equipped and deployed in a more ‘strategic, adaptable and wellcoordinated” way, we wished he had expanded on his assessment of our purportedly diminished “territorial” threats. We are not as sanguine as he (or his staff) evidently is on the strategic aims of either Venezuela or Suriname.

While the present leftist leaders might seem to be more disposed to place their territorial claims on their back burner, we must appreciate that those claims stir deep passions in the people of those countries. Only recently we had one opposition party in Venezuela accusing President Chavez of ‘going soft’ on their claim over Essequibo.

Rattling of swords against an external ‘enemy’ is a timehonoured avenue for politicians of all stripes and hues to mobilise domestic support at the polls. How many times has this kind of rhetoric not fuelled passions that tripped over into overt hostilities? Commodore Best appears to be leaning very heavily on strategic alliances to protect our territorial interests.

“I have no doubt in my mind that current bilateral military relations with the USA, Brazil, China, Canada, Jamaica and French Guiana continue to provide a sound platform for defence enhancement. In deepening this effort, I therefore believe that it is necessary to establish these and in some cases re-establish military-to-military relations with nations such as Venezuela, Suriname, India and Czech Republic among others.”

In this vein, it might be useful to quote from the Disciplined Forces Report, which was unanimously passed by all parties in Parliament in 2010. “While the Commission recognises that it is in Guyana’s interest to pursue not a military, but a peaceful solution to its border dispute problems, the possibility that Venezuela and Suriname may seek to assert their claims even in a limited way by force of arms cannot be discounted.

“Guyana continues to rely essentially on diplomatic efforts coupled with the forging of strategic relationships based on its interests. But the need for military support of its peaceful efforts has occasionally manifested itself and has brought home the importance of military preparedness and vigilance as part and parcel of its territorial defence efforts.

“As stated by the (then) UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan: “You can do a lot with diplomacy, but, of course, you can do a lot more with diplomacy backed up by firmness and force.”

Monday February 11, 2013

Letters... Where your views make the news

Freddie’s sensationalist column was typically partial and unbalanced DEAR EDITOR, Freddie Kissoon’s sensationalist column of 0202-13, “In physics and dialectics, there is the concept of balance” was typically partial and unbalanced, which has contributed to his bane.

It is unfortunate that the Salem Church on Hadfield Street desecrated its hallowed halls by allowing Mr. Kissoon, an avowed atheist, to use their pulpit to fumigate hate in the country. And I wished I were a fly on the wall in the Bethel Congregational Church in Beterverwagting to hear what gospel Nigel Hughes and others were actualizing in that sacrosanct dwelling; (the word “Bethel” means ‘House of God’, or ‘the place where God dwells’)!

Mr. Kissoon is peeved that 98% of the faces found in ads were “either light in complexion, very white and are from people outside of the African ethnic mix”. It is farcical and absurd that the columnist was writing about ‘balance’ when his focus has consistently been only on the African side, which make up only 30% of the population.

It would have been insightful if the researcher could have given us the percentage of faces (say, over the past 20 years) who were from the Amerindian ethnic mix, considering that they are 10% of the citizenry. And you’d think the now famous statistician would have given us comparative data for Indians, who comprise 43% of the population!

Mr. Kissoon is angry that

almost all of the ads have light skinned persons, and has repeatedly expressed his disgust that Indians in India have been partial to those with lighter complexion in the Bollywood arena. (I share this sense of disgust, as it is true not only to actors, for also those in certain employment, for those looking for a spouse, etc.).

But does he know that Africans, from Jamaica to South Africa use lightening creams to look lighter and non-black?

A University of Cape Town study showed that one in three women in South Africa tries hard to whiten their skin to look white, including Local musician Nomasonto “Mshoza” Mnisi, who is now several shades lighter.

The situation in Nigeria is worse, where approximately 77% of the women use skin lighteners. And many African women in the continent and in the diaspora, including Guyana, have used hair straighteners thereby departing from the traditional Bantu appearance.

In Jamaica, the most public proponent of bleaching is singing star Vybz Kartel , whose own complexion has dramatically lightened in recent years. His ‘Look Pon Me’ contains the lines: “Di girl dem love off mi brown cute face, di girl dem love off mi bleach-out face.”

And residents of Denham Town, in west Kingston, say the introduction of a ‘new type’ of skin lightening cream has sparked fist fights and a

rift among women in a section of their community. The women are reportedly accusing each other of spitefully purchasing too much of the commodity to get the other jealous.

On 13-01-13, the Stabroek News carried an article, “Fly Jamaica inaugural flight delayed”, and showed a photo of the attendant crew.

There were eight women shown in the photo; except for one, all of them were light skinned, most with dyed hair!

The bottom line is people in many parts of the world like to look lighter, and advertisers hone in on that axiom.

Mr. Kissoon again rouses, “Where is the balance in commerce, import-export trade, financial houses, land ownership, property ownership, investments in business ventures, agricultural projects, engineering firms, the construction industry, the retail trade in downtown Georgetown etc?” Ow bai, Freddie, where were all those things when the PNC held power for 28 years? Have the PPP, PNC, UF, or the colonial powers buckled down those of a particular ethnic background not to flourish in those areas mentioned?

Can you imagine dictating to advertisers or the Private Sector Commission that 10 percent of the ads should fall within the Amerindian “ethnic mix”, 30 percent to the Africans, 43 percent to the Indians, etc.?

The U.S. government interjected in their struggling economy billions of dollars

not to help specifically ethnic groups; it did so to make it easier to help the struggling American. You provide grass for the horse to eat, but, as my Aggy used to say, “you can’t force haass to eat grass”!

Mr. Kissoon is petulant about the sizeable financial (Indian) ownership in the country. Why have Indians become more successful in business in Guyana, and elsewhere? Whether it is in Trinidad, Jamaica, the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Kenya or South Africa, the Indians have made their mark, and have done well in business. The eminent and consummate business acumen of Indians is universally known and is respected; their enterprising spirit and diligence (haad wuk) is reason for their success.

While some are asleep from their late night dance, they get up early in the morning and start to wuk haad to feed themselves and their families.

Mr. Kissoon reminds us “ if sections of a society are deprived, sensing gloom and doom, they tend to become desperate”.

“Desperate”, is what Idi Amin, the brutal dictator of Uganda, felt, and kicked out almost all the Indians out of the country in 1972 – about 75,000, as they had controlled 90% of the country’s economy. Now that the economy was in the hands of the Ugandans, what happened?

The economy was Continued on page 5

Monday February 11, 2013

Kaieteur News

Page 5

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

SUICIDE – the crime we struggle with DEAR EDITOR, The Kaieteur News of the 23rd January 2013 informed us of a recent press conference held by the AFC, at which its vice chairman – Mr. Moses Nagamootoo, expressed his party’s disappointment “with support from the public against suicide.”

Mr. Editor I must admit that for me it is more the lack of robust response by the government to what seems as a frightening level of extreme violence against self here in Guyana, that is most noteworthy.

I am not really surprised by the absence of “support from the public against suicide” as Mr. Nagamootoo seems to be, simply because Guyana is a country in which, on too many occasions, governments have taken upon themselves the right to initiate and lead on most aspects of life in the country.

This is even more evident as it relates to a particular race group. As it relates to this group, for example, it is the party and government that identifies what aspects of our history is to be remembered, what form the commemoration takes, the planning and organising all done by the government or the PPP. This paternalistic behaviour of the PPP towards this group has undermined what was this group’s much admired and incredible tendency to do for itself. So, now faced with an absence of enthusiasm from the PPP to provide leadership on this matter, which affects this group the most; it sits still, seemingly incapable of doing anything in its own defence, as if hoping time itself would eliminate the plague.

But the PPP’s inaction on the matter of suicide is easy to explain. If one tells the PPP that Guyanese are generally dissatisfied with the state of affairs in the country, they will respond “it is a lie.”

They will say citizens are generally happy, that it is the power hungry PNC and its disgruntled supporters who are spreading this lie, in an attempt to discredit the PPP. With this narrative it then becomes difficult for the PPP to explain any act of its supporters that suggest dissatisfaction or that a major problem exists in its midst.

Mr. Editor, to illustrate this point, let me share with you an experience a friend of mine, who lives on the Corentyne shared with me.

Sometime ago he had become very concerned with the number of suicides and attempted suicides in his community and sought to

draw public attention to this serious matter.

Soon he was invited to a certain senior government official’s office in Georgetown, and told he must stop peddling such lies.

Anticipating this would have been the reason for the invitation, he had armed himself with figures and names of victims, so as to support his claim, his information was waved aside and the senior government official reiterated that he must stop spreading lies.

The above incident makes it easier to understand why we have contradictory messages coming from the government on this matter.

For instance, in an article carried in the Kaieteur News of the 7thSeptember 2009, the then Minister of Health was quoted as saying his “ministry does not have any evidence which indicates an increase in suicide deaths.”

On the other hand the government’s spokesman – Dr.Prem Misir told us in a letter that appeared in the Kaieteur News of November 15th 2009 that “Guyana is teeming with suicides; the rate of suicide is up and up.”

Sorry Mr. Nagamootoo, your wish expressed at the same press conference held on 23rd January 2013; that this suicide issue does not “become a political football,” is a bit too late, it is already “a political football.”

I would urge the AFC, to organise its discussion sessions on this matter either in Essequibo or /and Berbice, I do so simply because I believe it is easier to organise and gain the participation of rural communities on this matter.

You see, in the city there is an absence of public trust of politicians which manifests itself in this absence of public involvement and contribution.

If the AFC can develop momentum in the rural areas, the enthusiasm might inspire citizens in the capital to get on board. Of course Mr. Nagamootoo, the biggest threat to you doing this work in the rural areas would be action by the PPP to undermine the initiative.

Mr. Editor, in anticipation that some action will be taken by an interest group, let me beforehand, offer this contribution to the forthcoming discussions.

Suicide is one of those crimes/social problems that are not always easy to establish. In that same article appearing in the Kaieteur News of September 7th 2009 Dr. Ramsammy was quoted Continued on page 6

Power plus money can be a very effective weapon

DEAR EDITOR, About fear being intrinsic to a civilised life. I am not sure that fear alone causes a country’s people to remain silent, because they are “in trepidation of their happiness being taken away”.

Sometimes they are simply living in the hope that things will improve one day, sometimes they are frustrated in their attempts to correct the situation, sometimes they are just peace-loving people, content with their lot in life.

I know of a soft-natured man

whose family are often furious with him because, rather than upset the applecart, he prefers to appear to side with strangers rather than with them.

I agree that the abuse of power is very destructive and can rob us of the happiness we are all entitled to. I experienced it while in the workforce.

My secretarial colleagues felt intimidated, became cowed and nervous and, rather than complain, left their jobs, because the line supervisors responsible for

their unhappiness could always ‘hit back’ and make matters worse - for everyone.

Those two supervisors eventually got their comeuppance, when they harassed and ‘constructively dismissed’ a secretary who was highly thought of by two chief executives and directors of various sections, having worked to them in the absence of their personal secretaries.

People in positions of influence. An internal investigation was held, their savage regime was exposed,

and they both lost their jobs.

They had not only broken civil service rules on equal opportunities but the law of the land itself, so they had to face the consequences.

The Department’s reputation was at stake.

Power plus money (plutocracy) can be a very effective weapon and, in the wrong hands, used selfishlessly, can create havoc. However, until a long-term solution is found, it is worth remembering that nothing lasts forever.

Geralda Dennison

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Kaieteur News

Monday February 11, 2013

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

Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality DEAR EDITOR, It was Lord Acton who said “Despotic power is always accompanied by corruption of morality.” We were reminded of these words when we read the GINA press release captioned “Opposition motion to revise former president’s bill, an insult – Finance Minister”.

An insult to whom may we ask?

Clearly the Minister was not referring to the $10,000 per month insult that eligible mothers of Plastic City will collect if they retire today?

It has certainly not escaped our notice that this “affront” that Dr. Singh is

alluding to, will result in former Presidents receiving pension and benefits exceeding $3,000,000 a month vs. $10,000 a month for members of the working class. Yes it is an affront that the poor can get so little while the Minister’s former boss can get so much notwithstanding that his personal wealth can take care of him for many lifetimes.

How can a former Guyanese scholar achieve such negative notoriety by defending such an abomination? Why has his sense of fair play and decency abandoned him at this time of national need?

Where is his sense of loyalty to his ancestors and elders resulting in such immoral counsel from the Minister?

It is unfortunate that the majority opposition have been so unkind to the mothers of Guyana to even offer $5,000 per month to former Presidents, when they already enjoy a Cadillac lifestyle on the sweat of the poor man.

When the Berbician ancestors of Dr Singh were toiling in the sun under the white man, was it their dream to feed a corrupt cabal at the expense of the working poor?

Certainly not!

But to add insult to injury,

Harassment by Traffic Rank DEAR EDITOR, I would like to voice my concern about the way some traffic ranks go about their duties especially a particular female rank who rides a motorcycle (licence number given). This particular rank rides around Georgetown sometimes on streets where there is hardly any traffic and if she finds anyone in violation no matter how minor it might be, she orders those individuals to drive to the police station, irrespective of their commitments. If one asks any questions they are rudely

told to keep quiet and further threatened with additional charges.

If every traffic rank were to order traffic violators to Brickdam or Eve Leary for minor offences we surely will have absolute chaos at these stations Instead of issuing a ticket or taking down the details such as licence and fitness and issuing a summons, asking one to drive to the station with the rank close attendance now seems to be the order of the day.

If someone has a doctor’s appointment or has to make

court appearance and they are compelled by ranks to go to the station for minor offences, it places them in a precarious position.

I think this behaviour by ranks is tantamount to treating citizens like criminals.

Nowhere in the Caribbean or North America do we find the police behaving in this manner. As the saying goes, “Only in Guyana” Sometime ago, previous Commissioners of Police made it clear that traffic ranks should desist from this practice.

David Williams

SUICIDE – the crime we...

From page 5 as saying he “is confident that there is 100 percent reporting of all suicide deaths.” Let it be clear no one knows with certainty how many suicides occur in any country for any given year.

This is so because suicide is one of those crimes that are usually committed when alone, thus making it difficult to detect in some circumstances.

For example a few years ago a businessman; who was a friend of mine; was driving in down town Georgetown during the very early hours of the morning, allegedly he drove into a canal and drowned. Was this an accident or a suicide? Around the same time we had the case of another man who died after driving into a post; apparently he was earlier drinking heavily; again this occurred during

the early hours of the morning; was this accident or an act of suicide?

It is true that in some cases; for example, when a note or letter is left by the deceased or when behind a locked door a person is found hanging from a roof with a chair obviously kicked from beneath him/her; it is reasonable to conclude that an act of suicide has been committed.

However, outside of such situations it is difficult for us to know, with a fair amount of certainty, whether we are dealing with an accident or a suicide?

How we decide to dispose of incidents like those mentioned above will influence the number of accidents and suicides we offer the public and international agencies as having occurred in our country over any given period.

Claudius Prince

Dr. Singh’s vexatious concern of whom is natural born and whom is adopted, it is nothing but a flight to wonderland.

Why would a senior Executive of the Jagdeo / Ramotar cabal spend executive time on such semantics and verbal fluff?

Does he not have proper work to do? The Minister ought to pay more attention to crafting a better budget for the poor and the working class rather than one that is usually stuffed with billions for the economic sponsors of the corrupt players in the Jagdeo / Ramotar cabal.

Let us make it immaculately clear to Dr Singh, it is an national scandal and disgrace that a former working class party supports such an antiworking class legislation to provide among other financial benefits - a battalion of security personnel around one man and a motorcade of luxury vehicles for one man that can run into tens of

millions of dollars a year on the backs of poor people, like the mothers of Plastic City.

So this unsolicited view from the Minister of a “manufactured controversy” is furthest from the truth.

This Presidential Pensions & Benefits Package is a real controversy. It is this controversy that drove so many thousands of former PPP supporters away from that party in the 2011 elections.

If the PPP political intelligence was functional, it would have clearly felt the political vibrations from the mothers of Guyana who are absolutely clear in their mind that because of this uncaring and corrupt Jagdeo / Ramotar cabal, 20 years from now they will still be poor, living below the poverty line while the PPP fat cats will still have billions pinched from illegitimate economic transactions, to live on.

Only if policy makers in the Jagdeo / Ramotar cabal can allow the truth to seep

into their cerebral matter for one second, they would realize that unless they desist from all these corrupt laws, they will fail politically.

Remember that Investment Law that was amended retroactively to regularize an illegality to pander to one of their economic sponsors (the Sanata / GPC deal)? We do!

The Minister should know better than to accept the role as a callow propagandist for un s c h o o l e d individuals. Unlike some of these yard fowls, the Minister did not procure his PHD from Russia, India o r t h e U K u nder very questionable circumstances.

In such a political condition where the gifted become slaves to the daft, the people will have to take direct action by way of the ballot box to bury these corrupt group of imbeciles into the history books where they belong.

Dr. Asquith Rose and Harish S. Singh

Freddie’s sensationalist...

From page 4 collapsing, so when Museveni seized power on January 26, 1986 he realized that perhaps the best way to revive Uganda’s persistent economic weakness was to call back the captains of industry. And these were the Indians. His efforts paid off as many of them returned and helped to give the country new hope.

More than 70% of the top taxpayers in Uganda are businesses owned or managed

by Asians, contributing in excess of 65% of the domestic revenue.

Approximately a million indigenous Ugandans are employed by Indian owned/managed businesses.

Indians, who play a vital role in providing goods and services in the country, own many of the new corner stores and flourishing businesses on Kampala

Road.

And what about business ownership and positions of Indians in the U.S.A., who comprise less than two percent of the population?

The former lecturer might have belly ache to know that the Indian American median family income is $61,322 as against the national median family income of $41, 994.

The high income clearly reflects the advanced educational levels achieved by the community. Indians account for more than 15% of high-tech startups California’s Silicon Valley.

It is mind boggling to think that 38% of doctors in the country are Indians; 36% of NASA scientists, 34% of Microsoft employees, and 28% of IBM staff are Indians.

And guess what, Freddie - approximately 37% of all hotels and motels in the U.S. are owned by Indians! How

did/can it happen – because of haad wuk! These figures are staggering, keeping in mind that Indians are less than 2% of the citizenry?

What if the U.S. population consisted of 43% as it is in Guyana?!

On an in-transit flight recently, I was struck to see that most of the employees at Heathrow airport seemed to be Indian, including those who were cleaners, the logistic staff, security guards, etc. (These jobs were obviously contracted, and the Indians won these contracts – not because of political or racial bias). So what account for success and ownership of Indians all over the world? Haad wuk – that’s the reason!

Speaking of dialectics, in my next letter, I shall protest lack of balance in Guyana’s national football and trackand-field teams!

Devanand Bhagwan

Monday February 11, 2013

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Monday February 11, 2013

Monday February 11, 2013

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Controversial Lamaha Gardens land sale…

Government investigation to be completed by Thursday Tempers are being moderated as Lamaha Gardens residents continue to investigate how a plot of community land ended up in the possession of a “well connected” businessman.

The residents who have vowed to reclaim their property are diligently monitoring the process by which the “illegally” sold property is being returned to them.

The community group’s spokesperson told Kaieteur News that, “The issue continues to be actively pursued by the residents and they continue to monitor any developments.” He said that lawyers are still in the information gathering stage and will soon be taking legal action if the property is not returned.

The community has however opted to give the relevant authorities additional time to sort out the discrepancies. It is alleged that so far, the matter has been recognized as having bigger implications apart from the alleged “illegal” sale.

Kaieteur News was told that dishonesty and deceit

surround the sale, but those particulars would “be divulged at the right time”.

At a community meeting held last week, irate community members expressed disgust and anger at what they called the “theft and illegal sale” of the almost 33,000 sq ft property at 142 Durbana Square, Lamaha Gardens.

They rejected the sale and even contemplated taking matters into their own hands by tearing down the fence placed around the property.

The residents had even indicated a seven-day ultimatum for the government to investigate the sale and to have the land returned.

On Saturday, the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) accused the government of selling the property behind its back. The GPSU said it had intervened in the sale prior to the businessman’s purchase, telling the government that the union was the rightful owner of the property.

It is said that Lot 142 was set for a playground and recreational area since the developmental stages of the high scale residential

Dem boys seh

Now people know who thiefing Guyana got a right to remain backward especially when dem got people like Brazzy. This got to be de first country when people coming in and telling de government wha fuh do. Imagine Guyana paying a foreign contractor fuh some work and de contractor telling dem that only foreign people can wuk pun de job.

That is alright but Guyana want to teach its people because everybody know that nuff skilled people gone away fuh one reason or de other. Jagdeo tell a press conference that Guyana lost skill. Wha he didn’t tell people was that de government ain’t mekking no special effort to develop training facilities.

GTI trying but government ain’t putting enough money to pay de teachers suh teachers ain’t jumping to tek de job. Suh de Chinese come and anybody woulda believe that Guyana woulda tek de opportunity to let dem train Guyanese but Brazzy talking how he and he friends gun save US$9 million.

Jackass. It gun tek more than that to train de skills that this country need. But dem boys seh that Brazzy only thinking bout he and he friends pocket. To hell wid Guyana. And he got de nerve

to talk bout language problems and how if no Guyanese ain’t deh pun de site de job gun done faster.

Well dem boys remember de days of slavery when de slaves didn’t understand de language of de master but dem learn it quick. Dem know that when Barama come was de same thing. Other foreigners come and dem didn’t understand creolese but dem tek Guyanese and de wuk done.

People sure that he gun blame Guyanese who wuk pun de Skeldon fuh de state of de plant because dem couldn’t understand Chinese.

This man got to be a big goat. He talk bout saving US$9 million. But he is de same one who talk bout de contract done sign. If de contract sign fuh US$60 million then that is wha he got to pay de contractors. If as he seh that he save US$9 million who getting that money since none ain’t come from de Treasury? He mean fuh seh that de Chinese gun give he that money?

Dem boys seh that if people want evidence that nuff thiefing tekking place dem only got to look at de Marriott.

Talk half and watch how dem thiefing.

community at Lamaha Gardens. The union said that the land had been handed over by the late President, Forbes Burnham to senior public servants and Government officials, most of whom were members of the then Civil Service Association (CSA), now the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU).

GPSU said it had written to the land’s liquidator, requesting certain information about the sale’s authorization, but that was never provided. The Union said that it first noticed the land’s advertisement in the Chronicle Newspaper on November 16, 2012 and immediately sent a letter that was hand delivered to the liquidator on November 20, 2012, from the union’s lawyer Joseph Harmon.

GPSU said that, “Despite their clear intention to assert the right of the Co-operative Society to the land, the liquidator with the concurrence of the corroborating elements of the Government, went ahead with undue haste to sell the property and pass transport to this property within the

The controversial land at Lamaha Gardens. space of one month.”

The union thus called for the businessman’s transport to be recalled, that a GPSU nominee serve in the investigation of the land’s acquisition and the results of the investigation be made public.

The various stakeholders have cited corruption when explaining that the land was

sold way below market price. Kaieteur News was told that, “5500 sq ft of land in the area is sold at approximately $30M-$35M, but the controversial property, estimated at six times that size, was reportedly sold for little more than $25M to the businessman.”

President D o nald

Ramotar, subsequent to the resident’s upheaval on the matter, ordered the Labour Minister Nanda Gopaul to spearhead investigations into the sale.

Gopaul told Kaieteur News that soon some light would be shed on the matter.

He said that by Thursday, he expects that a report would be ready on the matter.

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Kaieteur News

Opposition cries foul over “gagging” of Councilor by Regional Chairman Despite returning with an “optimistic and open mind” after walking out of last month’s Region Three Democratic Council (RDC) meeting, Opposition Councilors said they are faced with more hardships from the Region’s Chairman. They have charged that the Chairman continues to act in a disrespectful and autocratic manner towards all Opposition representatives.

More recently, the Councilors have spoken out against the alleged “unjust” gagging of one of the APNU members.

A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) member Kathlene Armstrong said she has been barred from speaking at Regional meetings.

She told Kaieteur News that she had raised the issue about the Chairman’s disregard for the members and he accused her of lying.

He allegedly told her to provide the proof of disregard and disrespect, or she would never speak at another meeting. In the end, the woman said she was ordered to sit and be silent.

Harry Narine Deokinanan, an Alliance for Change (AFC) member, said that, “Since the

last meeting,” when all seven Opposition members walked out, “Nothing has changed, and the Chairman continues to disrespect and disregard the views of Opposition representatives.”

Deokinanan said that he was present when Armstrong spoke up for the members, addressing the Chairman again on his behaviour. He said he, as well as the other opposition members, have cited the “gagging” as unjust and unfair.

Deokinanan further related that he too had issues he wanted to raise. He said that he especially wanted to talk about the incidence of rape in his area, the lack of public facilities and the community’s non functioning police outpost.

But before he or any other member could relate anything meaningful in the meeting, the Chairman closed the session after telling Deokinanan that he always brings negative things to the table.

Armstrong has related that she consulted with her party about “gagging” and the Chairman’s behavior, and certain action may be necessary. The members are also contemplating the next step about attending

meetings since they said none of the Opposition views are being heard, let alone addressed.

At the January 9 meeting, Opposition members walked out, saying that they had enough of the Chairman’s frustrating antics.

When they returned for another meeting on Wednesday last, they were met with the Chairman’s same dismissive and sarcastic attitude.

They said that when they raised issues highlighting inefficiencies in their community, they are told to, “Sit down, shut up or are threatened to be thrown out the meeting.” They said that financial data, project progress and other important information are not being related to opposition members. In addition, the representatives said they are unable to measure success in their Region since works programme are not being provided.

If one is not on the Region’s Finance Committee, then one cannot attain the work program, they lamented.

“But the one and only opposition member that sits on that committee is not even (Continued on page 13)

Monday February 11, 2013

Budget will not see any “dramatic” economic deviation - Focus is on macro-economic preservation, security revamp and addressing the constraints of the sugar industry

By Abena Rockcliffe Finance Minister, Dr. Ashni Singh on Saturday, for the first time, made some extensive pronouncements on this year ’s budget preparations, noting that it will confront the challenges in the sugar industry, address macro-economic stability and provide the revamp of the security sector among other things.

During a press conference held on Saturday last at the National Communication Network, Singh expressed disappointment in the opposition’s public utterances on budget talks.

According to the Minister, the Opposition is seeking to cast a negative cloud upon budget talks by forecasting a negative outcome, while the government doesn’t believe in making premature comments on the engagement.

Dr. Singh opined that the opposition’s preempting of the outcome of the discussion means that “they” are trying to “prejudice public opinion, which is not helpful at all.”

“If two groups meet to address a matter of public interest then both parties should have an open mind,” Singh said.

He noted that the government is committed to being open-minded although it is under no illusion that “we” might necessarily agree on every detail.

“We are willing to listen to every priority brought forward by the opposition… and not only the parliamentary opposition but other stakeholders countrywide.”

Dr. Singh told media operatives that at the last

budgetary engagement held on Friday last, the opposition made a number of suggestions.

He said that some suggestions were very specific while others were quite vague.

As such, Dr. Singh said, the government will require an opportunity to examine and consider each suggestion and to add detail to some of the more vague or general suggestions.

The Minister proceeded to inform that the technical work, which is a prerequisite to the conclusion of the budget, started several months ago.

He said that the budget will not witness any “dramatic” economic deviation from previous budgetary paths.

One of the priorities of the government that is to be reflected in this year’s budget, as stated by Singh, is the continued emphasis on the preservation of macroeconomic stability.

According to Dr. Singh, Guyana has been recognized regionally and globally for the magnitude of accomplishments as it relates to sustained economic growth in “an extremely hostile external environment.”

He said that for the country to continue that trend, a certain amount of macro-economic development is required to be in place.

Further, the Minister disclosed that the budget will also focus on continued stability in Guyana’s exchange rates and interest rates.

He added that “continued” efforts will be made to manage indebtedness so as to ensure

Finance Minister, Dr. Ashni Singh preservation of external balances to sustain the external economic activities.

Emphasis will be placed, he said, on investments in physical infrastructure, social services, education, health, housing, water and sanitation.

Dr. Singh noted that the sugar and rice industries will be modernized and the budget will seek to maintain competitiveness within the business environment.

Singh said that the sugar sector remains a key element in sustaining the economy, notwithstanding progress in diversification.

He admitted that the industry is experiencing a number of challenges and those are expected to be confronted through this year’s budget.

He said that for the sugar industry to play the role it is expected to and ensure a profitable industry, long term modernization is needed.

The budget will also provide for a security sector revamp, accelerated investments in other agriculture projects, investment in the social sector, labour market, skills and training programmes and the education sector with an online delivery of university programmes.

Attorney General says...

(From page 3) up, or any amendments, are the functions of the National Assembly and not the Attorney General, as he has suggested.

She said that the Attorney General cannot seek to jump ahead of his responsibilities and tamper with Bills passed in the House.

Ramjattan shared the same view, saying that the function of the Attorney General is merely of an administrative nature once Bills are passed.

As such, he said that for

the Attorney General to say he has to decide if the Bill is “in order” and use that as an excuse to delay or not send Bills for the President is highly out of order.

“Nandlall is only trying to big up himself and to make himself look more important than he is not,” Ramjattan said.

For Ramjattan, Nandlall’s interpretation of his function makes it seem that Bills passed in the House need two assents, “the assent of Nandlall and the assent of the President.

That is nonsense.” It was Attorney and Chartered Accountant Christopher Ram who picked up Nandlall on his “proclivity for misunderstandings and misrepresentations… (and) his frequent pronouncements show extremely poor acquaintance, and at times no acquaintance, with the finer points of the Constitution.”

Nandlall was reported in the press as saying that Bills passed in the House have not reached his chambers for “his inputs.”

Monday February 11, 2013

The English word “poison”, first used around the early 14th Century, meant “dose” and indeed dose were the days when a favourite method of getting rid of people who stood in your way or who had something you coveted was to poison them. Take the case of Pope Alexander VI, the patriarch of the notorious Borgia family.

He appointed rich men as Bishops and Cardinals, encouraged them to become wealthier and then invited them to dine with his family which included his daughter Lucrezia who, like the invitation, had a hollow ring.

Hers, however, had a mechanism that allowed her to release poison into a glass of wine. According to Cathy Newman in a National Geographic article, Twelve Toxic Tales, “The house wine, dry, with overtones of arsenic neatly dispatched the guests, whose wealth, by church law, then reverted to their host.”

In other words, Lucrezia proved lucrative.

Poison was first used around 4500 BC to kill animals and later the Romans used it for assassination. The National Geographic article listed several famous stories through the years. Socrates was executed with a cup of hemlock. Medieval Tatars catapulted plague-infected corpses over enemy walls to spread disease. Hannibal’s sailors tossed pots of venomous snakes onto the decks of enemy ships. The British gave blankets infected with smallpox to Indians during the French and Indian War. At the AuschwitzBirkenau concentration camps during World War II, the Nazis killed more than a million people with a cyanidebased gas called Zyklon B. In the 1960s, the CIA planned to poison Cuban dictator Fidel Castro’s cigars or his scuba gear. In 1978, a Bulgarian dissident was assassinated in London with a poisoned umbrella tip.

In addition to Lucrezia, there have been several famous female murderers.

Kaieteur News

Agrippina, the wife of the Emperor Claudius; Mary Ann Cotton, a 19th Century poisoner; Nannie Doss, known as the “Black Widow”; Anna Marie Hahn, an American serial killer (1938); a woman known as Arsenic Annie who fed cyanide to her four husbands and most of her family; and then there is the woman known as “Banana Pudding Lily” who filled her husband’s banana pudding with arsenic.

Wives poisoning husbands is not unusual.

Take the case of Jake who was dying and whose wife Becky maintained a candlelight vigil by his bedside. She held his weak hand, tears running down her face. Her praying roused him from his slumber.

He looked up, and his pale lips began to move slightly.

“Becky, my darling,” he whispered. She told him, “Shhh, my love, rest. Don’t try to talk.” He was insistent.

“Becky,” he said in his tired voice. “I have something that I must confess.” “There isn’t anything to confess,” replied the weeping Becky, “everything’s all right, go to sleep.”

“No, no, I must die in peace, Becky. I... I had illicit relationships with many women!” “I know,” whispered Becky sweetly, “that’s why I poisoned you.”

Generally, the poison is put in food but in a recent case a Brazilian woman attempted to murder her husband by putting poison in her vagina and inviting him to perform oral sex on her. The husband became suspicious because the odour was unfamiliar and then had to rush the woman to the hospital because it seemed that the poison had seeped into her system. It was both bizarre and ironic.

She tried to take his life and, even though he now wants her charged with attempted murder, he ended up saving hers. If this proves anything it is that the proof of the pudding is not necessarily in the eating.

As the Trinidadian man revealed to his priest. He was

Opposition cries foul...

(From page 12) informed or advised of any meetings,” they fumed.

The Councilors also blamed the Chairman for the Region’s poor performance last year.

They said, “We are dissatisfied with the progress made in 2012.The region is in a state of stagnation. We cannot account for projects that were done in 2012.”

The opposition members pointed to the Chairman’s behaviour as “political games,” accusing him of trying to “frustrate and prevent” the work of the Opposition representatives. They have also accused him and his fellow People’s Progressive Party (PPP) members of using their onemember majority to function, undermining the opposition representatives.

They said that while the opposition has seven members, the PPP has eight members seated on the Region Three Democratic Council.

deeply disturbed and told the priest, “Father, there is something terribly wrong happening in my life. My wife is slowly poisoning me.” The priest was aghast and asked the man if he was certain. The priest did not believe the man but wanting to calm him down promised that he would personally speak to the man’s wife, find out what he could and then advise him what to do.

A week later the priest called the man and said, “Well, I spoke to your wife on the

Page 13

phone for three hours. You want my advice?” The man anxiously says, “Yes.” “Take the poison,” advised the priest.

Sometimes the roles are reversed. Answering a call of nature deep in mesquite territory, the Lone Ranger was bitten by a deadly rattlesnake right where it hurts most.

Reeling from the shock and pain, he called his Indian buddy Tonto who, on seeing his friend in trouble, raced to nearby Dodge City, found Doc Holliday and asked him

what to do.

The Doc advised, “You must work quickly, time is of the essence if your friend is to live. You must take a sharp knife, make a very small incision at the bite area and suck the poison out. Place your mouth over the wound and gently suck, then spit, suck, then spit. Do this for at least fifteen minutes. Now hurry back.” When Tonto returned, the Lone Ranger

was barely conscious and asked weakly “Well, what did the doctor say?” Tonto replied stoically, “He said you’re going to die.” *Tony Deyal was last seen saying that two men were served rum on the rocks from the same bottle. One drank slowly and died. The verdict was poisoning. The other man drank fast, left hurriedly and lived. Why? The ice was poisoned.

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Road works to resume as Timehri roadside vendors relocated Finally, roadside vendors along Timehri Public Road have been relocated to a newly constructed $16M market tarmac.

The stalls encumbering the state’s reserves have been demolished to facilitate the expansion of the thoroughfare into a four-lane.

For months, the expansion project was stalled because of the presence of encumbrances and utilities.

Works are expected to conclude this September, making the project one year overdue.

Even if the utilities and vendors were relocated sooner the project would have still experienced delay.

Construction of the parallel road along the East Bank Demerara Public Road from the Timehri Police Station to the Cheddi Jagan International Airport’s Terminal Building is being expedited in two phases. The first phase is being funded by the Inter-American Development Bank to the tune of US$1.6M. Under this

phase the contractor, BK International, was tasked with overlaying the road’s surface and installing street lights.

The contractor has completed overlaying the surface of the road but is still to install the street lights, according to an engineer of the Public Works Ministry.

He related that the contractor had experienced difficulties with the shipment of the lights and assured they will be erected soon.

This aspect of the project was expected to be concluded in August 2012, one year after it started.

Meanwhile, the second phase of the project, which focuses on the expansion of the existing roadway, was stalled because of the utilities and roadside vendors.

It involves the cutting, filling and construction of 2.3 km of flexible pavement, travel lane 3.3m wide and sidewalk 1.2m wide, in addition to the construction of concrete drains, sidewalks and median.

The contractor has to build box culverts and install traffic

safety features including road markings and signs.

This aspect of the project is locally funded and costs $618M. According to the Engineer, the contractor will commence building concrete drains near the police station now that the vendors have been removed. He noted that essentially, the project was not stalled all together, because the contractor erected drains in some unhindered areas.

However, there is the concern that the drains being erected may not be strong enough for a road since they are being built of concrete blocks. But, the Engineer assured that concrete blocks are acceptable for building road drains. He pointed out that the concrete blocks are being used on the East Bank Demerara four-lane expansion from Providence to Diamond.

He related that when the drains are erected, the Guyana Water Incorporated pipelines will be relocated along with the utility poles.

Man killed by ambulance while crossing road A man was pronounced dead on arrival at the New Amsterdam Hospital after he was struck and killed by an ambulance which was heading to the very institution with a patient in a critical condition.

The dead man has only been identified as ‘Milo’ and was stuck down on the Rose Hall, Corentyne Public Road at around 19:30 hours last evening.

Reports are that the ambulance was being driven by Narinedatt Budial, 29, and had just left Skeldon Hospital with a patient.

Eyewitnesses told this publication the siren was heard and then an impact which suggested that the ambulance had stuck something. When persons ran out to the road

they noticed ‘Milo’ lying motionless. The driver of the ambulance stopped briefly but then continued on his journey to the New Amsterdam Hospital where he put off the patient he was carrying and then turned himself over to police at the Central Police Station New Amsterdam.

The driver reportedly told investigators there that he noticed the man attempting to cross the road despite the warning from the siren.

Only yesterday the Ministry of Home Affairs published an advisory in sections of the media, pleading with pedestrians and drivers to adhere to sirens when using the roadways.

Monday February 11, 2013

Murder charge for ‘Trini’ in grocer’s execution style killing Wayne Duncan, called ‘Trini’ is to be charged this week for the May 2011 murder of East Coast Demerara businessman Mark Kandhai.

The Festival City, North Ruimveldt resident was captured last week at a South Ruimveldt residence.

Kandhai, 32, was gunned down in his Industry Railway Line grocery store on May 21, 2011.

Eyewitnesses said that the grocer was at his counter when a man disembarked from a white car and entered the shop.

The ‘customer’ then asked the grocer for an item, but when Kandhai was about to serve him, the man drew a gun and shot him in the head

Mark Kandhai and stomach.

“Is when he (Kandhai) turn around to hand he de thing….de man start fuh shoot he….De first bullet miss and de second one went

straight to the head and the other to the belly,” a relative had recalled.

Relatives rushed him to the Georgetown Public Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

After viewing images on a surveillance camera, investigators identified Wayne Duncan as the gunman seen fleeing the scene of the killing. They then issued a warrant for his arrest.

Police had disclosed at the time that Kandhai was suspected of being involved in drug trafficking and that they had searched his home shortly before his death.

The grocer was also suspected of being involved in the theft of some $6M from an interior resident.

Mental health services to be extended beyond National Psychiatric Hospital - Ramsaran

By Leon Suseran Minister of Health, Dr. Bheri Ramsaran is hoping to extend mental health services and treatment beyond the doors of the National Psychiatric Hospital (NPH), into the various communities across Guyana, especially through the health centres.

“We want to bring mental health down to the primary health care level,” he stated.

Ramsaran is hoping that persons seeking mental health treatment can access those treatments within their own communities first before having to move to higher levels of treatment provided by the NPH in Berbice. Some health centres, he boasted, are now equipped with trained psychiatric nurses.

The NPH, he stated, should deal with only very serious cases.

“So, we manage them [mental health cases] before they reach the stage of the Psychiatric Ward.”

He noted, too, that there is a partnership with the Dalhousie University in

India, along with a consultant here in Guyana “who is giving us certain advice for us to push this project.”

The Health Minister stressed the importance of training more Psychiatric Nurses to send out to the various health centres, “so when the first signs of the disease are seen, they (health workers) are able to pick it up easy and manage it.”

The Minister added that recently there was an advertisement in the media for more psychiatric nurses.

Usually, he stated, the psychiatric patients are intimidated and “even the doctors or nurses, who are not trained, so we want to train these nurses at the primary health care levels and the Regional and District Hospitals …to interface quickly with the family and the psychiatric patients.”

Fifteen per cent of the world population suffers from mental issues, and four per cent of people, at any one time in the world, would have had some mental issues.

Dr. Bhiro Harry, he stated, has been the National Psychiatrist and has been tasked with furthering the mental health initiatives of training more Psychiatric Nurses.

On the issue of suicides, Dr. Ramsaran noted that there have been “some negative trends in suicides incidents.”

He mentioned Region One which has seen an increase in suicides. He talked about the “high profile case” whereby a young man committed suicide after “severely wounding his girlfriend—a teenager…so we are looking at that to find out what is the cause of the suicide, especially among the Amerindian youth of Region One”.

The Ministry of Health is also reaching out to vulnerable communities, like the prison population.

“We are hoping that, with the advent of more and more doctors, to send some of them into the prisons and to have our nurses specially trained to go to the prisons…we have already got a small batch of them to the prisons and there is still some resistance, so we need to work with the nurses and the nursing schools to create a prisonnursing module.” Hopefully the prisoners, he said, would be treated more humanely.

“We are recognizing as Guyanese citizens, they are human beings, and I think that is a significant thing because we need to live up to some of the conventions that we (Guyana) have signed on to.”

The Health Ministry is also partnering with corporate entities and taking health services directly to those workplaces.

Monday February 11, 2013

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Guyana Zoo to be upgraded soon The Zoological Park (Zoo) will soon be transformed from a holding facility for animals into an information and education delivery facility, according to the Minister of Natural Resources and Environment, Robert Persaud.

The Minister made this disclosure at his Ministry’s head office last week during a presentation ceremony by the Beharry Group of companies.

The company, with the aim of turning the Zoological Park into a family-oriented environment, presented $5M towards the start up of the feasibility study.

The Zoo will undergo a massive transformation as part of the “Three-Parks” initiatives being undertaken by the Guyana Government under the administration of the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment.

The “Three Parks” initiatives include the Zoo, the National Park and the

Botanical Gardens. The aim of the sudden transformation plans is to bring the facility up to international standards.

The feasibility study for the Zoo is to begin in March and is expected to take about two months to be completed.

The plan will then lead to the creation of a concept design for the facility’s transformation and will include illustration of the various zones and enclosures.

There will be other features such as different zoning areas including a Coastal Wetland Zone, a Savannah Zone and a Mountain and Forest Zone, each with a minimum of five enclosures and other amenities such as information booths.

The Minister said that Cabinet would soon approve the Ministry’s Three-park initiative .

Included in this, is extending the opening hours of the National Park to 9:30pm, security and getting

The Zoo

the support of Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GT&T), to rehabilitate the shared

fenced.

The Minister added that the upgrade of the parks is necessary and will bring the

country on par with what is offered outside of Guyana.

The upgrade of the Zoo will allow for the people

who live in the city and along the Coast to better experience the country’s rich biodiversity.

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Monday February 11, 2013

Monday February 11, 2013

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Following election defeat Govt. showing some positive signs - London Trinidad Guardian Following the devastating defeat in the January 21 Tobago House of Assembly (THA) election, Central Government is showing some positive signals and THA Chief Secretary Orville London hopes it can be sustained. London said he was quite pleased that Prime Minister Kamla PersadBissessar agreed to meet with him to hold discussions.

He said he wrote to her on January 29 and two days later there was a response on his desk via fax.

“I am quite gratified that she would have responded so quickly. “In the letter she agreed to the meeting and I think it sends a very positive signal...a hopeful signal for the relationship between the Central Government and the THA.” Persad-Bissessar will meet with London on February 21 at 4 pm at the Office of the Prime Minister in St Clair. Up for discussion will be a review of the process for the granting of internal self-government to Tobago; a review of the relationship between ministers of Government and secretaries in the THA; and funding for housing programmes in Tobago.

London, who is now serving his fourth consecutive term, spoke with the Sunday Guardian on February 1 via telephone. He said there wasn’t much time to bask in the victory of the election which saw the People’s National Movement (PNM) winning all 12 seats in the hotly contested election.

He said preparing for governance was now the focus since failure to deliver

Orville London to the people could lead to resentment. London said, “It is going to be a very challenging period.

“The overall mandate was linked to great expectation.

“Of course, when one does not deliver, an expectation will soon turn into resentment, so we are trying to prepare ourselves in the best way we could to give to the people of Tobago.”

‘12-nil win re-energised the PNM’ The clean sweep at the polls for the PNM, he said, was an opportunity to change the dynamics of governance and nurture an environment of participatory democracy. He hopes to now engage Tobagonians in regular discussions so they can have the opportunity to voice their concerns about issues affecting them.

London said, he was always confident they were going to win.

He said Tobagonians voted on the issues and that sets them apart from the rest of people in the country. He also said statements made by Maha Sabha secretary general

Sat Maharaj about race were ridiculous and disingenuous.

London said the people who will know if there is racism in Tobago were the ones who visited. “Over the years, hundreds of East Indians have come here and they keep coming back.

“People have to live together.

But more importantly, the races have to live together for generations.

“It is unfortunate that these statements were made.”

The campaigning is over and so is the mudslinging, but he said if attacked he will defend himself.

He said the success has impelled the party to look at governance differently.

London also believed that the 12-nil win had reenergised the PNM. Impressed with Cadiz’s demeanour A meeting was held between London and Minister of Tourism Stephen Cadiz recently and much to London’s delight, was productive and meaningful.

Tourism is critical to Tobago’s development.

London said, “I was very impressed with his (Cadiz’) demeanour and level of cooperation.

“The foundation was set for closer collaboration and a more meaningful relationship between the THA and Central Government “The signals we are getting from the Central Government are much more heartening.

“It is a good sign and I hope it can be sustained.”

As part of moving forward

OECS to launch TV series on Climate Change CASTRIES, St. Lucia CMC – The Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Secretariat will launch a twelve-part television series on climate change on Wednesday as part of the awareness component of a USAID-funded climate change project.

The television series, which was recently completed with the assistance of a St Lucian based consultant firm, is a first-time initiative of its kind for the OECS Secretariat, and is expected to contribute to awareness building efforts of an OECS-USAID Climate Change Project aimed at “Reducing the Risks to

Human and Natural Assets Resulting from Climate Change (RRACC).”

“The series is expected to generate increased curiosity on climate change and specifically, provide tips on how the public can make individual choices that will help them better cope with climate change related issues,” says OECS Climate Change Communications Specialist Tecla Fontenard The launch ceremony will take place at “Our Planet” a state of the art cinema theatre in downtown Castries and the agenda will include the preview screening of selected episodes in the series, and performances on climate

change related issues.

An estimated 60 guests are expected to attend the ceremony, representing local, national, regional and international agencies involved in environmental conservation and climate change related work in the OECS region. Fontenard said the first time TV series initiative, produced by the OECS Secretariat features climate change impacts and solutions, “with an emphasis on issues related the water, tourism and agricultural sectors, as well as highlights on vulnerabilities to coastal areas, and increased exposure to natural disasters, such as hurricanes.”

and executing plans for Tobago’s development, London has met with several stakeholders and even with defeated candidate Hochoy Charles whom London said had several proposals for moving Tobago forward.

There are also plans to meet with several interest groups and the T&T Chamber of Commerce.

Asked whether he met with Ashworth Jack, London replied, “No. But I am not averse to meeting with the TOP. “I don’t want discussions just for discussion sake. “I must be sensitive to what is happening in their camp right now. “I have concluded that now is not exactly the time for that type of discussions.”

Plans are afoot to start holding meetings in different communities to gather feedback about issues and concerns. London said his team now had an opportunity to involve groups and individuals to make information available to them.

He said he would suggest to the chamber that each month an electoral district be

chosen to highlight their concerns and engage them in discussions. “In that electoral district we will do two things: We will discuss issues and concerns specifically to that district, and then we discuss one division.

For example, we go to Canaan/ Bon Accord and you discuss that area but you may also discuss health and social services. “So at the end of a year you would have done all the electoral districts and over a four-year period you would have touched each district at least three times.”

London said because there wasn’t an opportunity for question time in the House, he was hoping to make arrangements to get feedback/questions from the public and have them addressed through statements in the House by secretaries. “We have an opportunity and we want to grasp it.”

Plans are afoot to start holding meetings in different communities to gather feedback about issues and concerns. London said his team now had an opportunity

to involve groups and individuals to make information available to them.

He said he would suggest to the chamber that each month an electoral district be chosen to highlight their concerns and engage them in discussions. “In that electoral district we will do two things: We will discuss issues and concerns specifically to that district, and then we discuss one division.

For example, we go to Canaan/ Bon Accord and you discuss that area but you may also discuss health and social services. “So at the end of a year you would have done all the electoral districts and over a four-year period you would have touched each district at least three times.”

London said because there wasn’t an opportunity for question time in the House, he was hoping to make arrangements to get feedback/questions from the public and have them addressed through statements in the House by secretaries. “We have an opportunity and we want to grasp it.”

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Barbadian QC says court system ‘dysfunctional’ Barbados Nation - Calling the court system “dysfunctional”, a Queen’s Counsel has expressed concern about the high number of cases awaiting judicial decisions.

Alair Shepherd, who is awaiting decisions in about six matters, one of which dates back to 2002 and involves Cuban Immigration detainee Raul Garcia, told the SUNDAY SUN that the situation was “disgraceful”.

“It is shocking. The Bar has had a number of meetings with the Bench. This

Alair Shepherd has been an is s u e s i n c e Chief Justice Sir Marston

Gibson came into office over a year ago and there has been no improvement,” he said.

“It seems to me that the judges will only take these matters seriously if it comes to the attention of the public and the public understands how disgraceful the situation is.”

Shepherd provided a list with 55 outstanding cases, some dating back to 2002.

But he charged that there were other cases awaiting decisions which were not on the list.

NYPD ‘stop and frisks’ of Caribbean immigrants down The New York Police Department (NYDP) says there has been a major decline in ‘stop and frisks” of Caribbean and other immigrants as well as minorities.

In its latest report, the NYPD says cops used the

controversial tactic 22 per cent less and seized 14 per cent fewer weapons than in the previous year.

NYPD spokesman, Paul Browne, says the decline reflects a fall in staffing in high-crime areas, also called “impact zones”.

He says stops reduced following an increase in training and a decline in personnel assigned to impact zones. Persons assigned to impact posts were lowered to address the demand for staffing of regular precinct assignments.

Monday February 11, 2013

US visa bribery probe deepens Second security official to be charged Jamaica Observer - A senior security official who worked in the US Embassy in Kingston is expected to be charged soon for his alleged role in helping the manager of a popular Jamaican entertainer obtain a US visa to leave the island in the face of legal troubles, according to highly placed law enforcement sources.

The manager, law enforcement officials told the Jamaica Observer, works for the Jamaican deejay, who allegedly gave gifts to assistant regional security officer David J Rainsberger who helped the deejay obtain a US visa following the revocation of a previous visa in 2010.

According to our source, the senior security official — the second US embassy staff member to figure in the probe — gave a statement in mid2012 in which he admitted to accepting money, plane tickets and backstage passes to concerts for his effort.

He also admitted to being put up in a resort in Jamaica for assisting the artiste’s manager in securing the visa while stationed in Jamaica from 2009 to 2011.

Last week, 32-year-old Rainsberger pleaded guilty in a Virginia court to receiving unlawful gratuities from the artiste and is to be sentenced on April 19.

According to a release posted on the website of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, Rainsberger admitted to accepting two luxury watches worth approximately US$2,500 from the artiste in addition to free admission to nightclubs, backstage access to concerts, and a birthday party hosted by the musician.

The incident occurred

David J Rainsberger (right), is pictured at his birthday party in Kingston in June 2011 with two Jamaican deejays and a member of the US Embassy staff. Rainsberger pleaded guilty last week in a Virginia court to accepting receiving unlawful gratuities from a popular Jamaican artiste whom he helped obtain a visa while stationed at the US Embassy in Kingston. while Rainsberger, then a member of the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service, was stationed at the US Embassy in Kingston from 2009 to 2011.

“While there,” the release stated, “Rainsberger befriended a well-known Jamaican musician whose entry to the US had been barred because of allegations of criminal conduct.”

According to the release, Rainsberger’s investigation “of this individual” resulted in the reinstatement of his visa, “which allowed the individual to travel to the US to take advantage of performance and recording opportunities”.

In addition to the charge of receiving unlawful gratuities, Rainsberger also pleaded guilty in an Alexandria, Virginia court to making false statements to the United States Government on a national security questionnaire, which is

required to maintain his security clearance.

Rainsberger faces a maximum penalty of two years in prison on the gratuities charge and five years in prison on the false statements charge.

The false statement charge, according to the release, stems from allegations that Rainsberger, who was already married, became engaged to a Jamaican and intentionally withheld disclosure of the relationship from the US Government on Office of Personnel Management Standard Form 86, a national security questionnaire that requires disclosure of close and continuing contact with foreign nationals.

The US authorities also said that Rainsberger repeatedly acces s e d , without a u t h o r i t y, Department of State visa and passport databases for personal purposes.

Trinidad, Grenada and Jamaica rattled by earthquake PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - CMC – An earthquake with a magnitude of 4.9 and depth of 110 km rattled sections of Trinidad early yesterday morning.

It’s reported that the

tremor was also felt in Grenada.

The Trinidad-based Seismic Research Centre at the University of the West Indies (UWI) said the quake occurred at 1:27 (local time) .

It said the quake occurred north of the Paria Peninsula in Trinidad.

Meanwhile it has been reported that an earthquake shook sections of Western Jamaica early yesterday morning.

An earthquake tremor was felt in sections of Western Jamaica and it was felt at 6:10am and it lasted for approximately 3 seconds.

There were no immediate reports of deaths or damage related to the tremors.

Monday February 11, 2013

Kaieteur News

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After 2 months absent, still no sign of Chavez CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Two months have passed since Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez climbed the stairs of the presidential jet, blew kisses to his supporters and flew to Cuba to undergo his fourth cancer-related surgery.

Chavez hasn’t been seen or spoken publicly since that departure to Havana on Dec. 10, and the mystery surrounding his condition has deepened while the government’s updates have remained optimistic but have lately offered few specifics.

“The president is in charge and making decisions,” Foreign Minister Elias Jaua said Saturday after meeting with Brazil’s foreign minister. “It’s a slow, slow recovery process. But he is fighting his battle with great faith, and clinging to Christ and clinging to life ... and with the conviction that he is going to win this battle, too.”

Jaua, who visited Chavez in Cuba last week, said the 58year-old president has been making political and economic decisions. On Friday, for instance, the government announced it is devaluing the currency.

Confidants including Jaua have recently said the president has overcome complications including a severe respiratory infection following his Dec. 11 surgery for recurrent cancer in his pelvic region.

Vice President Nicolas Maduro, whom Chavez named as his potential successor before the surgery, has said that the president should be able to return home once his condition permits it.

When that might be remains unclear, and the long silence of a leader who used to speak on television almost every day has led many Venezuelans to wonder why he is unable to say at least a few words to the country by phone.

Some analysts say they expect that sooner or later, Chavez’s delicate health could make necessary a new election to replace him.

“The transition has already begun in Venezuela, and the election campaign has also begun,” said Tulio Hernandez, a sociologist and professor at the Central University of Venezuela. “The transition has also begun in people’s heads. Sometimes, there are mistakes among government spokespeople, who start to speak of Chavez in the past tense.”

Maduro and National Assembly President

return. He also said none of the other officials in his socialist movement can compare to the charismatic leader.

“I’m for the revolutionary process, but if I support another one (within Chavez’s movement) it’s only because El Comandante asked for it,” Colmenares said. “That man is unique.”

Chavez, who counts 19th

Hugo Chavez Diosdado Cabello have recently led street demonstrations where supporters have rallied around the president chanting his name and holding photos of him.

If Chavez were to die or step down from the presidency, a new presidential vote would be called within 30 days.

The long silence has left many Venezuelans, including both supporters and detractors of the president, on edge amid rumors and speculation.

“Whether we wanted to or not, it used to be inevitable to hear him, see him, talk about him,” said Emilia Torres, a university student who supports the opposition. “Now he’s disappeared. We haven’t seen him in a long time. We don’t even know if he’s really OK or not.”

Chavez has undergone several cancer treatments in Cuba since June 2011, including surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation treatment. He hasn’t revealed the type of cancer or the exact location where tumors have been removed from his pelvic region.

During previous stints in Cuba, Chavez regularly kept in contact through phone calls broadcast on television and messages on Twitter. Now, those messages have been replaced by updates given by his Cabinet ministers.

The updates recently have been given less frequently, while government officials say Chavez’s condition has slowly improved.

“I want them to tell us the truth. I don’t want to keep seeing ministers saying that El Comandante sends us regards,” said Lenin Colmenares, a street vendor who sells posters and photos with images of Chavez. “I hope El Comandante himself will be the one to say it. Why doesn’t he?”

Colmenares said he hopes the president will be able to

century independence leader Simon Bolivar and former Cuban leader Fidel Castro among his leading influences, first took office in 1999 and was re-elected to a new sixyear term in October.

Throughout his presidency, he has cultivated an image as the sole leader of his Bolivarian Revolution movement.

Now, he has turned to

Maduro and others to carry on in his absence.

“We’re obviously at a crossroads,” said Oscar Valles, a political analyst and professor at th e Metropolitan University in Caracas. He said that during the past two months, “it’s been hard for the predominant circle within Chavismo to articulate leadership that can begin to

replace that of the president in this difficult transition.”

There have been previous cases of leaders in other countries vanishing from public view for long stretches due to health problems.

Fidel Castro, for one, has appeared in public only occasionally since he fell ill in 2006 and formally stepped aside from the presidency less than two years later.

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Monday February 11, 2013

Monday February 11, 2013

DTV CHANNEL 8 08:55hrs. Sign On 09:00hrs. This Morning 10:00hrs. Live! With Kelly and Michael 11:00hrs. Roseanne 12:00hrs. The View 13:00hrs. World News 13:30hrs. The Young and the Restless 14:30hrs. The Bold and the Beautiful 15:00hrs. The Talk 16:00hrs. Chain Reaction 17:00hrs. Criminal Minds 18:00hrs. Facing the Nation 18:30hrs. The Wayans Bros.

19:00hrs. Greetings and Announcements

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20:00hrs. Channel 8 News 21:00hrs. Movie: Red Dawn 23:00hrs. Hawaii Five-0 (New Episode) 00:00hrs. Sign Off MTV CHANNEL 14/ CABLE 65 05:30h Dharan Kai Awaz- The Voice of Dharma 06:00h Islamic Perspective 06:30h The Diary 07:00h DAY BREAK (live) 08:00h Dabi’s Musical Hour 08:30h Avon Video & DVD music hour 09:00h Current affairs 09:15h Top Notch Music Break

09:30h Caribbean Temptation music break 10:00h Amanda’s music break 10:30h Clairan’s Ent. Music Break 11:00h Salvation Message with Pastor Kelvin 11:15h National Geographic 12:00h The View 13:00h Village Talk: Berbice 13:30h The Young and The Restless 14:30h Days of our lives 15:00h General Hospital 16:00h The Bold and the Beautiful 16:30h Cartoons 17:00h Birthdays & other Greetings

Monday February 11, 2013 ARIES (March 21 - April 19): Any bad news you get today is really not going to be bad news at all -- and it won't cause a real problem for you or your people. ******************* TAURUS (April 20 - May 20): Now is not the time to go solo -- your energy is contagious and you will be practically irresistible to other people. It's a great day for making new connections, especially if you will be in a mixed group of people you know and people you don't know well. ****************** GEMINI (May 21 - June 20): Even if it puts a stress on your free time, you should start accepting any and all invitations that come your way -- especially the ones that come from unlikely sources. ******************** CANCER (June 21 - July 22): Today all of your friends are going to help you maintain the good energy in your life -- and show you how to get rid of the bad energy that has been creeping in lately. ********************* LEO (July 23 - Aug. 22): All that glitters is not gold -especially today, when someone is going to be saying whatever it takes to get their way, even if it's not totally true. ******************* VIRGO (Aug. 23 - Sept.

22): This is a day when you can make a lot of headway working through a love, friendship or work relationship issue. More than ever, your mind is prepared for open and honest communication -- which is essential for effective dialogue and respectful disagreements. ********************* LIBRA (Sept. 23 - Oct. 22): It looks like that issue you were worrying about will turn out to be a fat load of

nothing, so get ready to breathe a huge sigh of relief today! This wonderful release of tension will keep you smiling all day long and make more than a few people notice how cute you are when you're happy. ********************* SCORPIO (Oct. 23 N o v. 2 1 ) : T h e d r e a m s you've had about your life are starting to come true -at least partly. A new person comes into your life today, although their role might be so minimal that you won't even notice them there. ******************** SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22 Dec. 21): Your ambitions take you far forward in life, but have you ever stopped to think about what (or who) they may have forced you to leave behind? Take some time today to remember the people, places and things that you miss. .********************* CAPRICORN (Dec. 22 Jan. 19): Be happy if a few people reach out for some assistance today, not annoyed.

You should be only too glad to help the people who have helped you so much in the past. ******************** AQUARIUS (Jan. 20 Feb. 18): If you are holding joint assets with anyone r i g h t n o w, y o u s h o u l d check in with them. You need to make sure that things are still in the status you thought they were in. ********************* PISCE S ( F e b . 1 9 March 20): Today, why not treat yourself to a few of your favorite things? Buy yourself something that you've been wanting for a while. Take yourself out for an extra special dinner at your favorite restaurant.

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17:15h Death Announcements/ In Memoriam 17:30h Sitcom 18:00h Aracari Resort Hour 19:00h CNN News 19:30h News Update 20:30h Getting it Right 21:30h English Movie: Paycheck 23:00h News Update 23:30h English Movie: Paycheck continues Sign Off

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Monday February 11, 2013

At least 18 dead in stampede at massive Indian Hindu festival ALLAHABAD, India (AP) — At least 10 people were killed and a dozen more injured yesterday after a stampede broke out at a train station in the northern Indian town where millions of devout Hindus gathered for a religious festival, a senior government minister said.

Pawan Bansal, India’s Railway Minister, told reporters that the stampede took place as massive crowds flooded the Allahabad train station on Sunday evening.

At least two television channels, NDTV and CNNIBN said as many as 20 people were feared dead and 30 others injured. News reports said the large crowds caused a section of a footbridge at the station to collapse leading to the accident.

News reports said tens of thousands of people were at the train station at the time.

Television showed large crowds pushing and jostling at the train station as policemen struggled to restore order.

“There was complete chaos. There was no doctor

Shoes and other belonging discarded by Hindu devotees are seen strewn across the ground at ‘Sangam’, the confluence of Hindu holy rivers Ganges, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati, during the Maha Kumbh festival at Allahabad, India, yesterday. (AP Photo /Rajesh Kumar Singh) or ambulance for at least two hours after the accident,” an eyewitness told NDTV news channel.

An estimated 30 million devotees were expected to

take a dip at the Sangam, the confluence of three rivers — the Ganges, the Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati — on Sunday, one of the holiest bathing days of the Kumbh

Mela, or Pitcher Festival. The festival lasts 55 days and is one of the world’s largest religious gatherings.

The auspicious bathing days are decided by the

alignment of stars, and devout Hindus believe a dip in the sacred river on one of these days will wash away their sins and free them from the cycle of death and rebirth.

The festival brings together millions of devout worshipers and thousands of religious leaders and ascetics.

The most dramatic feature of the festival is the Naga sadhus — ascetics with ash rubbed all over their bodies, wearing only marigold garlands — leaping joyfully into the holy waters.

According to Hindu mythology, the Kumbh Mela celebrates the victory of gods over demons in a furious battle over nectar that would give them immortality. As one of the gods fled with a pitcher of the nectar across the skies, it spilled on four Indian towns_Allahabad, Nasik, Ujjain and Haridwar.

The Kumbh Mela is held four times every 12 years in those towns. Hindus believe that sins accumulated in past and current lives require them to continue the cycle of death and rebirth until they are cleansed.

If they bathe at the Ganges on the most auspicious day of the festival, believers say they can rid themselves of their sins.

Monday February 11, 2013

Kaieteur News

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Rebels, troops battle for key Damascus highway BEIRUT (AP) — Opposition forces targeted Damascus with mortars, a roadside bomb and a suicide attack yesterday as they pressed ahead in their quest for the seat of President Bashar Assad’s power.

Outside the capital, government troops battled rebels for the fifth straight day for control of a key highway. Both sides consider the fight for Damascus the most likely endgame in a nearly two-year-old civil war that has already killed more than 60,000 people.

Sunday’s fighting was the heaviest in Damascus since the first rebel push into the capital in July. The rebels then managed to capture several neighborhoods, but were soon bombed out during a punishing government counteroffensive.

Since then, the rebels have threatened the heavily fortified capital from opposition strongholds around the city. Damascus, however, has been spared the kind of violence and destruction that has been seen in other major urban centers during the conflict.

A Free Syrian Army fighter sits behind an anti-aircraft weapon. (AP Photo/Abdullah al-Yassin) Checkpoints on the main artery into the capital have changed hands several times since Wednesday when the latest rebel campaign for Damascus started. The road is strategically important because it leads to northern Syria and the regime uses it to move troops and supplies.

Rebels cut the road off from Damascus with burning tires on Friday after seizing checkpoints from regime

troops in fighting that brought the civil war within a mile of the heart of the capital.

A rebel fighter told The Associated Press that opposition forces yesterday overran another roadblock, alAdnan checkpoint in Jobar, northeast of Damascus. He spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

But the Britain-based Observatory for Human

Senator vows to delay Obama’s nominees over Libya WASHINGTON (AP) — A leading Republican senator said yesterday he would hold up Senate confirmation of President Barack Obama’s nominees to head the Pentagon and the CIA until the White House provided more answers about the Sept.

11 attack against a U.S. installation in Benghazi, Libya.

The White House took aim at South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a persistent critic of Obama’s response to the terrorist assault, by urging quick approval of the president’s second-term national security team and scolding any lawmakers trying to “play politics” with critical nominations.

Graham accused the White House of “stonewalling” requests to release more information about the attack that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador to Libya.

“We’re going to get to the bottom of Benghazi,” he told CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

A Democratic colleague branded Graham’s threat to stall the nominations of former Sen. Chuck Hagel, RNeb., to be defense secretary and John Brennan, Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, to be CIA director as “unprecedented and unwarranted.” Senators

Lindsey Graham should have the chance to vote on the fate of those nominees, said Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island.

The White House did not address Graham’s demand for more information, but did note that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified Thursday before Congress about the chaotic day of the Sept. 11 attack.

In January Graham had signaled he would delay Brennan’s pick and told Fox News he would “absolutely” block Hagel unless Panetta and Dempsey testified about the Benghazi attack. The senator said he was “happy as a clam” when he learned the hearing with Panetta and

Dempsey had been scheduled.

Republicans have accused the Obama administration of an electionyear cover-up of the attack and at the hearing several suggested the commander in chief was disengaged as Americans died.

“We know nothing about what the president did on the night of September 11th during a time of national crisis, and the American people need to know what their commander in chief did, if anything, during this eighthour attack,” Graham said on CBS. Graham contended that a six-person rescue team was delayed from leaving the Benghazi airport because of problems “with the militias releasing them and a lot of bureaucratic snafus,” and he said he wants to know whether Obama called any Libyan officials to expedite their mission.

“I don’t think we should allow Brennan to go forward for the CIA directorship, Hagel to be confirmed to secretary of defense until the White House gives us an accounting,” Graham said, adding, “What did he do that night? That’s not unfair. The families need to know, the American people need to know.”

Rights, an anti-regime activist group, said that while the fight for the highway continues, government troops regained control of the area on Sunday after using fighter jets to bomb rebel positions the day before.

A mortar that hit a Damascus street near Shabandar Square killed four people and injured several others, a government official told the AP on condition of

anonymity because he was not allowed to brief the media.

State-run SANA news agency said a roadside bomb detonated at Arnous Street, in the heart of Damascus, injuring several people. In another part of the city, a suicide bomber blew himself up. He was the only one who died in the blast in Rouken alDeen neighborhood, the official news service said.

The rebels’ latest push for Damascus is similar to rebel offensives in other Syrian cities. The opposition controls large swathes of land outside urban centers — like Homs in central Syria and Deir el-Zour in the east, and even whole neighborhoods like in the northern city of Aleppo — but cannot oust all government troops because of the regime’s superior fire power.

The fighting has settled into a bloody stalemate and shows no signs of stopping, despite several tentative proposals from both sides to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

Also on Sunday, rebels fought a fierce battle with troops for control of military airport and artillery base that

houses the Syrian army’s 113th Brigade just outside the city of Dei el-Zour, the Observatory said. The Observatory said the rebels were using tanks they previously captured from the military in their assault on the regime’s outposts in the city, which has the same name as the oil-rich province along Syria’s border with Iraq that has been the scene of some of the heaviest fighting in the civil war.

Syria’s Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi reiterated the regime’s mantra that the only solution to the conflict is national dialogue in Syria, among Syrians, without foreign interference and in line with Assad’s peace proposal that would keep him in charge of a reconciliation process.

“There is absolutely no other alternative,” al-Zoubi told reporters after attending the enthronement of a new patriarch in Damascus. Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister, Faisal Mekdad, who was also at the ceremony, warned the West to stop interfering in Syrian affairs and called on opposition leaders to start talks with the regime without preconditions.

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Gunbattle rocks Gao after rebels surprise French, Malians GAO, Mali (Reuters) Islamist insurgents launched a surprise raid in the heart of the Malian town of Gao yesterday, battling French and local troops in a blow to efforts to secure Mali’s recaptured north.

Local residents hid in their homes or crouched behind walls as the crackle of gunfire from running street battles resounded through the sandy streets and mudbrick houses of the ancient Niger River town, retaken from Islamist rebels last month by a French-led offensive.

French helicopters clattered overhead and fired on al Qaeda-allied rebels armed with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades who had infiltrated the central market area and holed up in a police station, Malian and French officers said.

The fighting inside Gao was certain to raise fears that pockets of determined Islamists who have escaped the lightning four-week-old French intervention in Mali will strike back with guerrilla attacks and suicide bombings.

After driving the bulk of

A Tuareg soldier in the Malian army aims his rifle at a checkpoint along a road leading to the border with Niger in the northern city of Gao. REUTERS/Francois Rihouay the insurgents from major northern towns such as Timbuktu and Gao, French forces are trying to search out their bases in the remote and rugged Adrar des Ifoghas mountains, far up in the northeast.

But with Mali’s weak army

unable to secure recaptured zones, and the deployment of a larger African security force slowed by delays and kit shortages, vast areas to the rear of the French forward lines now look vulnerable to guerrilla activity.

“They infiltrated the town

via the river. We think there were about 10 of them. They were identified by the population and they went into the police station,” said General Bernard Barrera, commander of French ground operations in Mali.

He told reporters in Gao that French helicopters had intervened to help Malian troops pinned down by the rebels, who threw grenades from rooftops.

Malian gendarme Colonel Saliou Maiga told Reuters the insurgents intended to carry out suicide attacks in the town.

No casualty toll was immediately available. But a Reuters reporter in Gao saw one body crumpled over a motorcycle. Malian soldiers said some of the raiders may have come on motorbikes.

The gunfire in Gao erupted hours after French and Malian forces reinforced a checkpoint on the northern outskirts that had been attacked for the second time in two days by a suicide bomber.

Abdoul Abdoulaye Sidibe, a Malian parliamentarian from Gao, said the rebel infiltrators were from the MUJWA group that had held the town until French forces liberated it late last month.

MUJWA is a splinter faction of al Qaeda’s North African wing AQIM which, in loose alliance with the homegrown Malian Islamist group Ansar Dine, held Mali’s main northern urban areas for 10

months until the French offensive drove them out.

Late on Saturday, an army checkpoint in Gao’s northern outskirts came under attack by a group of Islamist rebels who fired from a road and bridge that lead north through the desert scrub by the Niger River to Bourem, 80 km (50 miles) away.

“Our soldiers came under heavy gunfire from jihadists from the bridge ... At the same time, another one flanked round and jumped over the wall. He was able to set off his suicide belt,” Malian Captain Sidiki Diarra told reporters.

The bomber died and one Malian soldier was lightly wounded, he added. In Friday’s motorbike suicide bomber attack, a Malian soldier was also injured.

Diarra described Saturday’s bomber as a bearded Arab.

Since Gao and the UNESCO World Heritage city of Timbuktu were retaken last month, several Malian soldiers have been killed in landmine explosions on a main road leading north.

French and Malian officers say pockets of rebels are still in the bush and desert between major towns and pose a threat of hit-and-run guerrilla raids and bombings.

“We are in a dangerous zone... we can’t be everywhere,” a French officer told reporters, asking not to be named.

One local resident reported seeing a group of 10

armed Islamist fighters at Batel, just 10 km (6 miles) from Gao. The French, who have around 4,000 troops in Mali, are now focusing their offensive operations several hundred kilometers (miles) north of Gao in a hunt for the Islamist insurgents.

On Friday, French special forces paratroopers seized the airstrip and town of Tessalit, near the Algerian border.

From here, the French, aided by around 1,000 Chadian troops in the northeast Kidal region, are expected to conduct combat patrols into the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains.

The remaining Islamists are believed to have hideouts and supply depots in a rugged, sun-blasted range of rocky gullies and caves, and are also thought to be holding at least seven French hostages previously seized in the Sahel.

The U.S. and European governments back the French-led operation as a defense against Islamist jihadists threatening wider attacks, but rule out sending their own combat troops.

To accompany the military offensive, France and its allies are urging Mali authorities to open a national reconciliation dialogue that addresses the pro-autonomy grievances of northern communities like the Tuaregs, and to hold democratic elections.

Obama to lay out economic growth plan in State of Union speech (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will describe his plan for spurring the economy in his State of the Union address tomorrow, offering proposals for investments in infrastructure, manufacturing, clean energy and education, a senior administration official said on Saturday.

In the annual presidential address to Congress, Obama plans to show he has not lost sight of the economic woes of middle-class Americans issues that dominated the 2012 election campaign but have been overshadowed recently by efforts to cut the deficit, overhaul immigration laws and curb gun violence.

“The potential success of his second term is hugely dependent on the rate at which the economy grows,” said Ruy Teixeira, a political scientist with the liberalleaning Center for American Progress.

“There’s no problem the Democrats have that can’t be

President Barack Obama solved with faster growth.

Conversely, there’s not much they’ll be able to do if growth stays slow.”

Obama previewed his economic growth plan in a speech to House of Representatives Democrats this week, telling them he would stress the importance of education, development of clean energy, and infrastructure.

There were no details on

the new initiatives for i n f r a s t r u c t u r e , manufacturing, clean energy and education, elements first reported by the New York Times. But any new spending will face tough opposition from Republicans in Congress who are focused on cutting spending and reducing the deficit.

Obama has urged Congress to take steps to postpone harsh government spending cuts slated to take effect on March 1, and the White House took pains on Friday to describe how the cuts would affect ordinary Americans’ lives.

Obama has said he is willing to cut a “big deal” with Republicans to trim spending on the Medicare and Social Security programs for the elderly, but has insisted in ending long-standing tax breaks for oil companies, private equity firms and corporate jet owners to create more revenue for government.

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Italy’s Monti slams Berlusconi as vote day nears

Silvio Berlusconi ROME (Reuters) Outgoing Prime Minister Mario Monti accused his media magnate rival Silvio Berlusconi of trying to buy votes with impossible promises yesterday as Italy’s election campaign entered its last phase.

With the February 24-25

vote two weeks away, polls suggest the center-left Democratic Party (PD) will win a solid lower house majority but may need a deal with Monti’s centrists to gain the control of the Senate it must have to govern.

Although both center-left leader Pier Luigi Bersani and Monti have rejected suggestions of an unspoken deal, their attacks have concentrated heavily on 76year-old former prime minister Berlusconi, whose strong campaigning has eaten into Bersani’s once-huge opinion poll lead.

Berlusconi “continues to make promises that try to buy the votes of Italians with money that belongs to Italians”, Monti told a rally in Milan, pointing to the center-

right leader’s promises of sweeping tax cuts if he wins.

Berlusconi, who stepped down in 2011 as the financial crisis threatened to push Italy’s huge public debt out of control, has hammered away with calls for lower taxes and an abolition of the hated IMU housing levy passed by Monti’s technocrat government.

Last week, he also said he favored a sweeping amnesty on unpaid taxes although he later said this was not part of his coalition’s official platform. “This may be able to stir up popularity but it would be the proof of a country completely lacking any memory,” Monti said.

In a separate television interview, the former European Commissioner said

Cameron urges Scotland not to go it alone

(Reuters) - Prime Minister David Cameron conceded yesterday that Scotland had what it takes to be an independent nation, but said it currently enjoyed “the best of both worlds”, imploring it not to break the United Kingdom apart.

Stepping up his government’s campaign to hold Britain together ahead of an independence referendum expected next year, Cameron urged Scotland not to sever a union with England that dates back 306 years.

“Put simply: Britain works. Britain works well.

Why break it?” he wrote in an article published in Scottish newspapers.

“This big question is for Scotland to decide. But the answer matters to all of our United Kingdom. Scotland is better off in Britain. We’re all better off together and poorer apart.”

Cameron’s political future and historic legacy are on the line. He has pledged to contest the next British general election in 2015 and his own Conservative party would never forgive him if he presided over the break-up of a United Kingdom comprising England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

London’s main parties are campaigning jointly against independence, knowing that Alex Salmond’s Scottish National Party (SNP) is an astute and highly motivated political machine that will spare no effort to win a vote on its flagship policy.

Tapping into an emotive cocktail of historical rivalry, opposing political tastes, and a perception that the British

David Cameron parliament in London does not nurture Scotland’s national interests, the “Yes Scotland” campaign wants independence to be a reality by 2016. Scottish secession could create serious problems for the remainder of the United Kingdom.

Britain’s Trident nuclear submarine fleet is based in Scotland, revenues from Scottish North Sea oil remain important to its coffers, and analysts say Britain would find it harder to maintain its voice in international bodies such as the U.N. Security Council as well as in European Union decision-making.

The SNP published a document this month suggesting the transition arrangements could be made within 16 months, and that Independence Day for

Scotland could come in March 2016, a timetable opponents dismissed as unrealistic.

Opinion polls suggest support for independence has stalled. The latest put it at 32 percent and opposition at 47 percent. But Cameron and politicians from other parties remain nervous.

The government is expected to release the first of many policy papers on Scottish independence on Monday, analysing the legal and constitutional implications of a “Yes” vote.

One of the central planks of Cameron’s argument is that Scotland already enjoys a high degree of autonomy through its own parliament, and he has hinted that it would be able to repatriate even more powers if it rejected full independence.

“I have no time for those who say there is no way Scotland could go it alone. I know first-hand the contribution Scotland and Scots make to Britain’s success - so for me there’s no question about whether Scotland could be an independent nation,” Cameron writes.

“We want you to scrutinise, challenge and form your own opinion. This must not be a leap in the dark, but a decision made in the light of day.”

Italy’s partners feared a return of Berlusconi, who has made attacks on the EU and German Chancellor Angela Merkel a central feature of his campaign.

“They’ve had enough of an Italy which puts itself, the euro zone and Europe at risk through its political fragility, its inability to take decisions and its financial indiscipline,” he told TGCom24 television.

Roberto Maroni, head of Berlusconi’s coalition partners, the pro-devolution Northern League, who is running for governor of Lombardy, home of the financial capital Milan, said Monti was preparing for a de facto alliance with the left.

“Monti is ready to commit incest with Bersani to get his hands on Lombardy,” he tweeted yesterday.

Speculation over postelection alliances has increased in the wake of a non-stop media campaign by Berlusconi that has enabled him to cut the center-left lead to around six points and threaten what had once appeared its near-certain victory.

Election rules give a minimum 54 percent lower

house majority to the group winning the biggest overall vote share.

But the upper house race depends on a series of separate regional contests and could be decided by results in big regions like Lombardy and Sicily, where polls show no clear favorite.

PD officials dismiss suggestions they will be unable to form a government but Bersani faces a potential dilemma as the prospects increases he will have to seek an alliance with Monti for a Senate majority.

Monti said yesterday he had always had “excellent relations” with Bersani but he has been sharply critical of the PD leader’s leftist allies such as Nichi Vendola, leader of the small Left Freedom Ecology (SEL) party, or Susanna Camusso, head of the CGIL trade union.

Vendola and Camusso have been sharply critical of the austerity policies imposed by Monti’s technocrat government, accusing it of pushing Italy into recession, creating record unemployment and heaping misery on ordinary Italians.

Bersani has refused to

Mario Monti drop Vendola and says a center-left government would not represent a radical departure from the proEuropean course set by Monti.

Last week, he sent deputy party leader Enrico Letta to London to reassure international investors that Italy did not risk sliding back on its budget and economic reform commitments if the center-left wins power.

Letta said there were questions about Vendola but added the bankers he spoke to were more concerned about another outcome.

“The big worries and the big questions were about the possibilities of a Berlusconi victory,” he told Reuters.

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Monday February 11, 2013

England hammer South Africa

England’s Anya Shrubsole took five wickets for 17 runs against South Africa. (Getty Images) BBC Sport - Anya Shrubsole took 5-17 as defending champions England thrashed South Africa by seven wickets to keep their World Cup hopes alive.

With England needing victory to stay in the tournament, Shrubsole bowled 10 overs unchanged to rip through the South Africa top order. Danielle Wyatt’s 3-7 mopped up the tail to dismiss the Proteas for only 77 in Cuttack.

With net run-rate in mind, England lost three wickets including Sarah Taylor for a third successive duck - in looking to complete a swift chase before being taken home by Lydia Greenway and Arran Brindle with more than 40 overs to spare.

The result lifted England’s net run-rate to +1.079, still short of New Zealand (+1.712) and West Indies (+1.187).

Charlotte Edwards’s side now need to beat New Zealand in Mumbai on

Wednesday, but the other criteria for their passage to the final will be determined by the outcome of the Kiwis’ match against West Indies on Monday.

If the Windies win, England will need Australia who booked their place in the final by beating Sri Lanka - to beat the Caribbean side in their final Super Six game. A New Zealand victory would mean England need to beat the White Ferns by a margin that takes their net run-rate past that of the Kiwis and the Windies.

That England still have a realistic chance of making the final is largely down to Shrubsole, the tournament’s leading wicket-taker. She followed up fine performances against West Indies and Australia by destroying South Africa for career-best figures and the sixth-best return by any England bowler.

Bowling full and finding in-swing to the right-handers,

Shrubsole trapped Yolandi Potgieter, Mignon du Preez and Cri-zelda Brits lbw, with Jenny Gunn holding a sharp catch at mid-wicket to remove Trisha Chetty.

Edwards, her decision to field first vindicated, opted to bowl Shrubsole out and was rewarded when the Somerset seamer struck again, this time clipping the bails of Marizanne Kapp.

With left-arm spinner Holly Colvin having Shandre Fritz held at point and Shrubsole’s new-ball partner Katherine Brunt switching ends to pin Chloe Tryon leg before, it was left to Wyatt to wrap up the innings.

The off-spinner had Shabnim Ismail caught Super Six table: Won Australia 4 New Zealand 2 West Indies 2 England 2 Sri Lanka 1 South Africa 0

Lost 0 1 1 2 3 4

behind, Sunette Loubser well taken low by Edwards at midoff then held Marcia Letsoalo off her own bowling for her best ODI figures.

Conscious that a swift run-chase would be key to England’s chances of reaching the final, Wyatt and Edwards raced after the target, with Wyatt peppering the off-side boundary. But aggression would prove their downfall, as Edwards slashed Kapp to third man and Wyatt flat-batted Tryon to mid-on.

The situation looked ideal for Taylor to register some confidence-boosting runs after two first-ball ducks.

However, the wicketkeeper, who had been linked with a move to men’s cricket before the tournament, again fell without getting off mark, bowled playing across the line to left-armer Tryon.

England had lost three wickets for three runs to slip to 26-3, but experienced duo Greenway and Brindle combined to ensure there were no more alarms.

With Brindle playing some eye-catching cover drives and Greenway looking to hit through the on side, they ensured that England’s continued defence of the trophy they won in 2009 will go down to the final round of Super Six matches.

Scores: England 81 for 3 in 9.3 overs (Brindle 28*) beat South Africa 77 (Shrubsole 5-17, Wyatt 3-7) by seven wickets.

NRR +1.003 +1.712 +1.187 +1.079 -2.636 -2.157

Pts 8 4 4 4 2 0

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Monday February 11, 2013

Parika Defenders, Herstelling record victories in feature softball fixtures

Dereck Ramoutar of Ray’s Auto sale XI presents the funds to the President of the ECC Rajesh Singh (2nd left). Managing Director of Ray’s Auto Sale Kamal Seebaran is on Singh’s left while the VP of the club Sham Ramroop is in the centre.

Parika Defenders and Herstelling recorded victories on Friday evening when the Everest Cricket Club hosted two 20 over softball games.

In the first game of the evening Parika Defenders defeated Speed XI by 7 runs. Parika Defenders batted first after winning the toss and scored 134-7 in 20 overs. Ramesh Rambahrose made 36(2x4,2x6) while Kenrick Persaud supported with 27 (1x4,1x6) as Ramchand Raghubeer captured 3-19 and Patrick Khan 2-20.

Speed XI in reply mustered 127-7 in their 20 overs. Orlando Charles scored 41(1X4,2X6), while Rambahrose bagged 6-21. Parika Defenders received a trophy and Rambahrose collected the man of the match award.

In the second encounter, Herstelling overcame Everest Masters by 46 runs.

Herstelling took first strike and posted 178 before being bowled out in 19.4 overs. Terence Sukhu was their leading run scorer with 68(1x4,7x6), while Budhan Baksh made 58(2x4,5x6). Ronald Persaud and Richard Latiff picked up two wickets each.

Everest Masters then responded with 132-

9 in 20 overs. Latiff top scored with 40 (1x4,2x6) while Vickram Singh chipped in with 24(4x4).

Amarnauth Debidyal claimed 3-24 and Amir Azeez 3-25. Herstelling took home the winning trophy; Sukhu grabbed the most outstanding batsman prize and Debidyal was given the best bowler award.

Meanwhile, Speed XI, Ray Auto Sale and Parika Defenders made a monetary contribution to the Everest Cricket Club which will assist to offset expenses for the permanent lights that is expected to be installed at the venue for softball cricket.

President of the club Rajesh Singh thanked the donors for their support and Tiger Sport, former national cricket Sheik Mohamed and Lokeshwar Mohabir of Herstelling for donating the trophies for the games.

He stated that, they have already acquired the lights and it is expected to be in the country shortly. He informed that the club is looking forward to contributions to assist in offsetting the expense for this venture. Anyone who is willing to contribute can contact the club at 592-226-6289 or 592225-1975.

GOOD SUCCESS BEAT GYO BY 4 WICKETS

Navishaul Pooran

Nazeer Mohamed

Good Success Sports Club of Wakenaam defeated Gandhi Youth Organization by 4 wickets in a feature 25

over match played Saturday at the GYO ground.

The host batted first and scored 167 all out in 25 overs

with Abdool Raheem top scoring with 40 (8x4), while Randy Ramroop contributed 27 and Wazeer Mohamed 21.

Left arm spinner Imran Khan grabbed 3-20, while there were two wickets each for Nazeer Mohamed, Seon Venture and Vickram Ramnarine.

The visitors then responded with 169-6 in 24 overs. Navishaul Pooran led with 58(9x4,1x6) and Nazeer Mohamed supported well with an unbeaten 41(5x4,2x6).

Masai Joseph took 2-31; Mohamed, Fenton Persaud and Shivnauth Moti picked up one wicket apiece.

Good Success received a trophy, while Pooran was given the man of the match prize.

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Super Eagles win third Africa Cup of Nations title Daily Mail - Nigeria claimed their third African Nations Cup title with a dominant performance over Burkina Faso in Johannesburg.

Sunday Mba fired the Super Eagles ahead with a superb volley five minutes before the break after a period of pressure saw Burkina Faso, competing in their first final, succumb to Stephen Keshi’s side.

Wilfried Sanou came close to levelling for the Stallions midway through the second half but his brief flash of brilliance was extinguished by a top-drawer save by Vincent Enyeama.

It was Nigeria’s first final since 2000 but they were hot favourites ahead of the match against the minnows from west Africa due to their 12game unbeaten record. Their win means coach Keshi becomes only the second man to win the cup as coach and player, following in the footsteps of Egyptian Mahmoud Al Gohari.

The Super Eagles set their stall out early, with wave after wave of attack which pegged Burkina Faso back

into their own half for the majority of the first 45 minutes. Efe Ambrose had the first chance of the match when he headed over the bar from Victor Moses’ free-kick in the seventh minute before Burkina Faso goalkeeper Daouda Diakite almost made a disastrous mistake moments later.

Diakite came off his line to take a ball above his own defender’s head, only to fluff his take, with Brown Ideye’s resulting weak shot looping over the bar. It was a huge let off for Burkina Faso in their first taste of the competition’s final, after they had previously only reached the last four of the tournament in 1998 where they lost to eventual champions Egypt.

However, there was a glimmer of creativity from midfielder Jonathan Pitroipa, who had his red card from the last match against Ghana rescinded, when he made a good run up the right and drew in four Nigeria defenders, only for the resulting corner to be easily neutralised.

Nigeria kept up the pressure, Aristide Bance

Nigeria players celebrate their victory. (Getty Images) wasting a good chance when his low, drilled 25-yard freekick flashed just wide of Enyeama’s right post, before Ikechukwu Uche’s turn on edge of box was miscued by the onrushing Ideye.

Burkina Faso were struggling to get out of their own half and Nigeria’s dominance told five minutes before the break, when Mba volleyed past Diakite from the middle of the box.

After some good build-up play, Moses’ shot was blocked and looped up to Mba, who plucked the ball from the air to fire the Super Eagles to a deserved lead.

The goal gave the match a much-needed boost, with Burkina Faso increasing their urgency and making a couple of surging runs into the Nigeria box before the halftime whistle.

Nigeria almost doubled

their lead two minutes after the break when Moses played in Ideye, who was unable to get enough angle on his strike and flashed it across the face of goal.

Moses then wasted a golden chance to score on the counter-attack when he failed to pull the trigger when oneon-one with defender Madi Panandetiguiri.

The Nigeria defence were then called upon to keep out

two testing corners before Super Eagles goalkeeper Enyeama denied Sanou’s powerful strike with a fantastic diving save to tip it around the post.

However, Burkina Faso remained unable to find that elusive cutting edge, with substitute Moumouni Dagano firing over the bar with his stoppage time freekick in their last meaningful attack.

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Australia march into final ESPNcricinfo - Australia entered the Women’s World Cup final with their fifth successive win in the tournament, completing a nine-wicket demolition of Sri Lanka with 27.4 overs to spare. Jodie Fields asked Sri Lanka to bat in the morning, and set attacking fields for her bowlers throughout. All six bowlers responded with wickets, the offspinner Erin Osborne returning remarkable figures of 106-9-3 after seamer Julie Hunter’s 6-3-6-1.

Australia’s batting, which has been a source of concern, had little trouble getting to the target of 132, with the openers Rachael Haynes and Meg Lanning drowning Sri Lanka’s remaining hopes in a flood of boundaries.

An hour into their innings, Sri Lanka were in trouble at 41 for 4 and it had it not been for a face-saving stand between Deepika Rasangika and Dilani Manodara, they would have struggled to get to 100. Fields did not let them get too far beyond that mark. The Australia captain was relentless in her pursuit of wickets, crowding the inner circle with fielders through the innings. One of the few times she had the maximum permissible four fielders in the deep was when the hard-hitting Eshani Kaushalya came in. The pressure of trying to beat the infield led to the regular fall of Sri Lanka wickets. This despite Australia’s lead seamer Ellyse Perry missing her second successive game, this time with an ankle injury.

Megan Schutt did not need any help from her fielders in getting the opening breakthrough. Yasoda Mendis pushed tentatively at an incoming delivery and was bowled through the gate. Chamari Atapattu tried to go hard over mid-off but chose a slower one to do that, and could not clear the field. Holly Ferling, the 17-year old quick, struck in her opening spell again, sending back Sri Lanka captain Shashikala Siriwardene who nudged one down leg to the wicketkeeper Fields.

The Australian captain kept the field up after the opening Powerplay, and also left cover vacant to invite the drive against the offspin of Lisa Sthalekar. Sandamali Dolawatte went for the stroke to a flighted one, and a delighted Fields snapped up the edge. There was turn and bounce for the spinners but Surangika responded the way she had played against India. She lofted the seamers down the ground, swatted them through extra cover and also cut hard. Batting with a cap on, she even hooked the pacy Ferling to the deep square leg rope.

Rasangika was put down by Sarah Coyte off her own bowling on 22, but Australia restricted the partnership to 49 as Schutt had the batsman caught on 43 at short extra cover with the fifth ball of her second spell in the 31st over. Manodara, who had edged Coyte twice past the slips for four, fell in the next

over as she tried to hit Osborne over mid-on, Schutt backpedalling to take a well-judged catch.

Kaushalya, who had shocked England and India with her powerful hits, did not hang around for too long. She slog-swept her fourth delivery from Osborne and Alex Blackwell took a low catch diving forward at midwicket. After some resistance from the tail, Sri Lanka were all out for 131.

Australia’s opening pair rendered the game even more one-sided as they added 55 in under 10 overs. Lanning played out a maiden first up to Udeshika Prabodhani, and was on 1 off 14 before she cut loose. Drives, pulls, cuts, and a straight six appeared in no time as she raced to 37 off 36 before cutting one to slip.

Haynes took over, piercing the off-side field with numerous drives as Sri Lanka’s fielding fell apart. She hit a couple over the advertising boards at long-on for six before bringing up the win with another cover drive for four. She was on 71 off just 61 by then, and Australia were in their seventh World Cup final in nine attempts.

Scores: Australia 132 for 1 (Haynes 71*) beat Sri Lanka 131 (Rasangika 43, Osborne 3-9) by nine wickets.

Monday February 11, 2013

New Era ENT/ LABA/Cell Smart tournament

B. Harry and Sons General Store and Lumber yard makes significant contribution

Kenrick Noel (left) collects the contribution from Beresford Harry (centre) on behalf of his business B. Harry and Sons General Store and Lumber yard towards the tournament.

As time draws near, more business in Linden are coming on board to support this year’s New Era Entertainment, basketball tournament and yesterday, proprietor Beresford Harry attached his entity B. Harry and Sons General Store and Lumber yard to the event.

Harry made a cash contribution of an undisclosed sum, stating that apart from the organizers being very well known to him, he sees his involvement as being part of helping the sport to grown in the mining town.

The tournament which features eight teams, all hailing from Linden, should provide players with a platform of playing in front of their supporters on a nightly basis in a well organize event.

This is the first time Harry said, that his business is being affiliated to any major basketball tournament, though he has been doing his share in helping out in other areas in the Linden community.

Harry also mentioned that, “…it’s only fitting to

support the people that support his business and helped it to blossom into what it is today.”

Kenrick Noel and Aubrey Major Jr, of New Era Entertainment, thanked Harry for his contribution towards helping to make the competition a major success.

The tournament which is held in conjunction of the Linden Amateur Basketball Association (LABA) has Cell Smart as its major sponsor and will bounce off on March 9 at the Mackenzie Sports Club Hard Court.

Australia win final ODI, whitewash...

Rachael Haynes steered Australia to victory. (ICC Solaris Images)

From back page the final overs with late wickets.

Johnson Charles, who replaced injured opener Chris Gayle, also scored a maiden ODI ton to give West Indies hope of hauling in the total, but the innings quickly petered out when allrounder James Faulkner had the hardhitting Kieron Pollard caught for 45.

That left the Caribbean side at 234-7, still needing 41 with less than four overs to spare, and seamer Clint McKay wrapped up the match on the second last ball when tailender Tino Best slogged straight to a man at deep midwicket.

Australia completed the victory without injured captain Michael Clarke and several other first-choice players, who were rested to head over to India early to prepare for a four-test tour.

“They were cruising along pretty much without taking

too many risks,” stand-in captain Shane Watson said pitch-side in a television interview. “I think we held them out really well.”

Watson scored a century and half-century to set up victory in the previous two matches, but was bowled for a duck with the first ball of the innings by paceman Best.

Best dismissed Watson’s fellow opener Aaron Finch for one in his second over, but finished with an expensive 271. Australia’s top order crumbled to 82-4, but man-ofthe-match Voges and Brad Haddin, recalled to the side in the absence of regular wicketkeeper Matt Wade, combined for a 111-run stand to steady the ship.

After Haddin’s dismissal for 43, Faulkner added an unbeaten 31, teaming up with Voges to plunder another 81 runs in less than nine overs to set up the win.

After Kieran Powell was out for two in the second

over, Charles and number three batsman Darren Bravo (33) added 106 runs before the latter was sharply caught at mid-off by Faulkner off the bowling of spinner Xavier Doherty.

After bringing up his 100th run, Charles pulled the next ball from McKay straight to Ben Cutting at short fine leg and trudged off the ground ruefully.

Pollard belted a six straight into the sight screen but came up short when he attempted another straight slog off the bowling of Faulkner and was caught by Finch at long on.

Paceman Mitchell Johnson (3-50) and McKay (3-52) combined to wrap up the tail as the hosts celebrated a dominant series sweep.

Scores: Australia 5 for 274 (Voges 112*) beat West Indies 257 (Charles 100, Johnson 3-50, McKay 3-52) by 17 runs.

Monday February 11, 2013

Kaieteur News

Berbice Chamber of Commerce delivers on promise As part of the recently concluded season three of the Corporate Business in Sports Tournament, the Berbice Chamber of Commerce and Development Association (BCCDA) on Wednesday delivered the top gate prize of one motor cycle to the lucky winner Miguel Batson of Rose Hall Town, Corentyne.

The tournament which is dubbed the Cooperate Business In Sports (CBIS) was held in October, saw corporate businesses participating in one of the region’s best organized sporting events.

Over 16 teams took part in the one day competition which was drawn from all of the corporate sectors including the Banks, Insurance, Beverage Companies, Regional Administration amongst others.

The Tournament which was held under the Motto “Building and Developing Unity Amongst Corporate Partners” was dubbed a success by the Chamber and Season Four will be played again in October 2013 under floodlights at the Albion Sports Complex. A number of prizes were also distributed including gate prizes of a Motorcycle and Cell phones.

Miguel Batson receiving his brand new motorcycle from President of the Chamber Imran Saccoor (left) while other Chamber members look on.

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US-based Maxie Stephens donates trophies for Linden U-19 Schools b/ball c/ships Plans are continuing for the successful staging of the 9th annual Linden Secondary Schools Under-19 basketball championship. This year the championship will see the Linden Amateur Basketball Association organising the competition which in the past eight years was planned by the Victory Valley Royals Basketball Club.

The defending champions are Linden Technical Institute, with Christianburg/ Wismar Secondary, Mackenzie High, New Silvercity Secondary, Wisburg Secondary, and Linden Foundation Secondary to other schools set to challenge.

In support of the championship United Statesbased Guyanese Maxi Stephens has committed by donating ten of the twelve individual award trophies, while the other two, for the Most Valuable Players in the final, will be donated by the founder of the tournament Linden ‘Sancho’ Alphonso, another overseas-based Guyanese.

The tournament will run for eleven days, starting on Monday April 8 and will be

Maxie Stephens and the trophies for Linden Secondary Schools b/ball tourney. played every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, with the semifinals on April 29 and the final set for May 1.

And former national women’s coach, Linden ‘Sancho’ Alphonso, who maintains supporting the

championship and is continuing to garner assistance from entities in United States where he is based, has committed to donating the two Most Valuable Player Trophies for the final.

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Monday February 11, 2013