Kaieteur News

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Kaieteur News

Thursday January 10, 2013

Overseas-based Guyanese fêtes Convalescent Home

Carol Bagot centre and family members with some of her guests The children from the Red Cross Convalescent home at the function.

“There’s nothing better than giving back to the less fortunate,” says overseasbased Guyanese Carol Bagot.

Bagot, who heads the Organization for Social and Health Advancement in Guyana, (OSHAG), entertained some two dozen children from the Red Cross Children’s Convalescent Home. The children spent the entire afternoon at her Enterprise, East Coast Demerara home.

According to Bagot, the toys the children received were donated by Sybil Chester from New York. Food

and drinks were donated by the organization’s New York Chapter. The woman also donated a number of eating trays to the Convalescent Home. This, she said, was made possible through Dr. Lewis from the Kings County Hospital.

Bagot said that the organization has been in operation for the past 10 years and recently got its NGO status. She said that over the years, she along with members would donate a number of items to various orphanages and elderly homes across the country.

Technical institute signs training pact with Caricom Rice Mills Based on an agreement which will facilitate employment as well as sponsorship for Level One trainee students of the Essequibo Technical Institute (ETI), Caricom Rice Mills Limited (CRML), dealers in production and exportation of cargo and parboiled rice, yesterday signed an agreement as a part of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the next two years.

As part of the agreement between the two agencies, the memorandum will be amended as becomes necessary to ensure that the quality of training and the welfare of the recruits and interest of both parties are maintained, Principal of ETI, Michael Turner explained.

Turner said that Level One trainees (Repairman II Artisans) are eligible candidates who will enter into the apprenticeship programme and as such, CRML agrees to inform the institute of the required number of recruits by skill area for training at ETI. The Mill will also provide partial scholarships to the recruits as a means of encouraging competition of

ETI Principal, Michael Turner their training.

Similarly, CRML, which is eyeing students with a required aptitude that will ensure a quality graduate for the apprenticeship programme, will provide competency based on Education and training to the required standard to the recruits, while ensuring that students acquire the attitude, competence and skills required to perform, Turner added. The Essequibo Technical Institute was established in 2000. More than 400 students from the riverain and coastal areas on the Essequibo Coast and Bartica attend the Institute.

Last year, Barama signed an MoU with ETI.

Thursday January 10, 2013

Kaieteur News

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CPA touts massive outreach programme Although teen suicide would not necessarily be described as being “on the rise,” Director of the Child Protection Agency (CPA), Ann Greene, has said that one case of a child killing itself is already dreadful. She said that teen suicide is a grave social issue, and to tackle that issue, Greene said that a stern approach by guardians and adults, in general, must be taken through meaningful community outreach programmes.

Greene insisted that the issue of child protection is “everyone’s business” and that a collaborated effort by agencies, communities and the ordinary man on the street is the most vital approach. With this in mind, Greene opined that community outreach programmes would be the best manner to disseminate information while “getting everyone involved.”

“Why should a child commit suicide?” she asked.

“They are now starting their lives. Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem,” she described.

“But suicide,” the child care director related, “does not run

…. added focus on teen suicide

Child Protection Agency Director Ann Greene in a family,” as some persons may like to believe. It may however be a trend in a family, especially if past members would have committed the act.

“What happens is that one family member might have used suicide to deal with a situation and another family member, when he or she reaches that point, would too.”

“So what we need to do,” she continued, “Is to do a family watch for suicide.”

This, she said, means that if one member commits suicide, the family should be on a watch so that it could get help

to deal with issues that they might want to remedy with that ‘permanent solution.’

To tackle this issue, Greene reiterated that continued coalition with varying stakeholders in their community outreach programmes can help. For that purpose, she said CPA officers are currently preparing new outreach schedules and programmes.

Greene pointed out that teen suicide, like many of the other child endangerment issues, should be focused on in the home. The agency is thus promoting family outreach programmes. What this seeks to do, is to arrest the attention of parents, guardians and care givers, so that they would be able to identify negative or impacting issues before these possibly escalate and end disastrous.

In this initiative, Greene said that the agency is gearing parents to be more responsible by paying attention to their children.

That is, looking out for signs and signals that would highlight discrepancies.

Greene added that for this to take place, many of those

Bandits rob Chinese on ship delivering fuel

Rubis gas station Providence.

Police are investigating the circumstances under which a speedboat with armed bandits attacked a vessel delivering fuel to Rubis gas station at Providence, East Bank Demerara yesterday.

The name of the ship is Conistom.

Reports disclose that the ship which was filled with Chinese workers was on the

vessel that was delivering fuel to the gas station. At 5:00hrs yesterday morning the speedboat with armed men pulled up alongside the ship and climbed on board.

They then proceeded to rob several Chinese workers on board before making good their escape after noticing one of the three Guyana National

Shipping Corporation (GNSC) guards running to the main gate to raise an alarm. The GEB Security guards then reported the matter to their superior who then notified the police who were prompt on their arrival.

The police are reviewing the security cameras that were mounted on the building.

children first need to have caring, care providers responsible for them.

“Many of the children we tend to,” Greene said, “are neglected and vulnerable to abuse.” She mentioned that the agency is working to have parents reclaim many of those living in organizations and institutions such as orphanages.

In that way, she said, parents or guardians may be able to play a more meaningful and productive role in their children’s lives. Even fathers can be more effective and the agency intends to reach out to them by giving the support needed, Greene said.

“Fathers are paying maintenance for children through the courts. So we want to help support fathers,

particularly those who are labeled as “dead beats”.” “It is not about just paying the child support, but we want to get them more involved in the child’s life.”

Frontline agencies, like the police and health institutes, Greene said, have always been in partnership with the agency, and in terms of child protection and care, more programmes and teamed approaches would be taken.

She said that her department wants more emphasis to be placed on these childaffecting issues.

Her agency is always ready to provide training and advice whenever necessary.

In the meantime, investigations are ongoing into the death of 15-year-old Natasha Nazamudeen and 16year-old Safraz Sattaur, who killed themselves a few weeks

apart. CPA had been contacted in connection with the matters since Nazamudeen’s father believed that his daughter was murdered, while Sattaur’s family believed that his suicide was sparked by education welfare workers allegedly making threats to him about Nazamudeen’s death.

Greene had stated that the police were conducting the relevant investigations and that she would be waiting on the results of the probes.

Olato Sam, Chief Education Officer also said the Education Ministry was conducting investigations to ascertain who visited the child and questioned him in the absence of his parents.

Both parties highlighted that when needed, the relevant actions would be taken.

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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

Relaxing the abortion law The headline screamed that the public hospitals would soon be performing abortions. The argument is that too many women are dying as a result of botched abortions.

And it is no secret that this is indeed the case.

Last year, a young Mon Repos woman died of septaecemia following an abortion at a private clinic. The person performing the abortion had put up a shingle advertising the fact that he was a doctor and was duly certified. What he did not say was that there was not an adequate supporting staff.

Indeed, in 1995 there was a conscious vote in the National Assembly because abortion had become a critical issue. Surveys revealed that women were using abortion as a means of contraception. Some were using drugs in a do-it-yourself scheme and some were going to bottomhouse abortionists where unsterilised pieces of equipment and other dangerous instruments were used.

Women simply kept dying. It was as though these young women were not aware of the dangers of illegal abortions.

Of course, there was a time prior to the 1995 vote when abortions were illegal. Women either died or became sterile.

Many were the voices to express regret at the decision to undergo an illegal abortion.

When it was announced that the nation was contemplating saving the lives of the hapless women, the church came out and threatened the ruling party with its vote. Abortion had become a political issue. There were campaigns against; activists in the church mounted demonstrations and held public forums. Some took to the airwaves to complain that abortion was murder, that a foetus was a life and that it had every right to life.

Indeed, there were counter protests. Women’s organisations made it known that the woman should be in control of her body, that the foetus was a parasite to be tolerated at the whim of the woman. The debate was furious, but it was the political threat that forced the government of the day to put forward a legislation that clearly showed that the church had a powerful voice.

Rather than protect the hapless woman, President Bharrat Jagdeo caused to be tabled a piece of legislation that stated that taxpayers’ money would not be used to fund an abortion. However, he did also cause to be placed in the legislation that the public institutions had the right to correct botched abortions.

The parliamentarians were not bound to vote along party lines, but the church was not done with applying pressure. The protesters vowed to sit in parliament and make a note of how every member voted. Thankfully, this did not faze most of the people and the vote was carried.

Abortion was now legal in Guyana, but only at private institutions. Those performing abortions were required to counsel the person seeking the abortion; wait a few days to ensure that the person really wanted the abortion, and to keep a record of every abortion. We later found out that the rule was observed more in the breach. Most of the abortionists could not take the time to counsel anyone.

But there was another side to this. Many women wanted the anonymity and therefore did not seek the more established doctors, because they did not want to be documented. The result is that they continue to end up at the public institutions, victims of botched abortions.

Perhaps the numbers of suffering women have reached epidemic proportions; perhaps there are too many instances of the victims complaining of not having money to pay the private clinics. The result is that after nearly two decades there is to be a review; the victims of botched abortions are refusing to identify the abortionists.

This decision gives rise to other questions. Have the religionists become reconciled that there will always be abortions? Have they been shocked by the number of botched abortions? Have they lost interest in the abortion debate?

What is known is that with the public institutions performing abortions, the question of cost to the already cash-strapped woman does not therefore arise. We all know that for one reason or the other, most of the people who seek abortions are those from the lower income bracket.

Thursday January 10, 2013

Letters... Where your views make the news

Rohee lacks credibility to institute police reform DEAR EDITOR, I refer to Mr Harry Gill’s letter in the Kaieteur News Jan 5, 2013, in which he blames the opposition for holding the security of the nation at ransom. It is the PPP which has failed to deliver security to the nation for twenty years. The actions of the PPP over the past twenty years make me extremely doubtful that Minister Rohee is serious about reforming the police.

Let us go through a few historical facts to see whether the PPP has ever sent the signals that it desires a professional police force.

This Minister allowed a Commissioner who “benefited materially from the drugs trade” to continue in that capacity without even an investigation.

He failed to deliver a forensic lab and instead produced an agency suspected of spying on opposition activists – the Central Intelligence Unit.

They have now placed the names of several activists, including yours truly, on a surveillance list.

Gradual steps are being made towards an authoritarian government run by elected oligarchs and buttressed by a few in the private sector connected to the oligarchy through special privileges.

No entity has failed this country in security as much as the PPP. No government

has weakened and compromised the security apparatus as much as the PPP. Hundreds of murders have gone uninvestigated and unpunished – some are obvious cover-ups.

Documents are disappearing thus making trials impossible.

Some of these murders started early in the administration – for example the Good Friday 1993 murder of a young lady Monica Reece. Gill should talk to Guyanese in Georgetown.

Some of them will give leads.

As if allowing a compromised Commissioner is not enough, the PPP allowed a now convicted cocaine trafficker to fight crimes on behalf of the State.

This is perhaps the greatest example of undermining the capacity of the State since independence.

It would take the Americans to convict this drugs dealer since he was given complete protection by this country’s government.

If any Guyanese wants to have insights into the political aspects of the Buxton freedom fighters they will need to read Mr Freddie Kissoon’s columns in the Guyana Chronicle. Imagine the great powers in the PPP allowed their greatest nemesis, Kissoon, to write in the Chronicle, only on these events, because of their willingness capitalise politically on the events and the suffering of innocents.

Kissoon also is the only

Guyanese – I stand corrected – who has published peerreviewed and scholarly work on this period (see Kissoon, F., 2007, “African extremism in the age of political decay: the case of Guyana.” In Governance, Conflict Analysis and Conflict Resolution, Grant, C.H. and R. Mark Kirton (eds.), Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers).

The lesson here is the PPP is only willing to address crimes in a selected manner and exploit heinous crimes for political gains.

They have continued to fail the nation and even their own members and supporters. We don’t know who killed Minister Sawh and family, for instance. Who were behind the Lusignan, Bartica, Agricola and Lindo Creek massacres?

Why did the PPP refuse an official Inquiry into the riots of Jan 12, 1998? This inquiry was left to a private organization to do.

This is never optimal.

Without official sanctions the country will not be able to fashion solutions.

The PPP decided early on that it would not do police reforms, in spite of many warnings on Oct 5, 1992, that reforming the police ought to be its top priority. It did nothing and even maintained the old Commissioner and structure.

Yet Harry Gill has the gall to question the valid points raised by Mr Granger and Mr

Ramjattan.

Gill has conveniently brushed under the carpet the PPP’s sordid crime-fighting record. As a matter of fact, the PPP does not have a crimefighting record. It has a crimeperpetuating record. But there is a more insidious side to this strategy.

The PPP can stir up ethnic fears in East Indian villages by blaming the opposition for crimes while not doing anything – they can suck cane and blow whistle!

Fortunately, East Indians are beginning to see the strategy of destruction that has accounted for a decline in their population from 51% in 1992 to 43% today.

Since Mr Rohee lacks minimum credibility as Minister of Home Affairs, it is important for President Ramotar – if he is genuinely concerned about police reform – to call on the Parliamentary parties to serve as part of this reform process. The reform of the police can serve as a confidence-building mechanism and start a new era of cooperation between the government and opposition.

As this letter highlights, I am deeply suspicious of the PPP and doubt it genuinely wants to reform the police.

Therefore, I hope the Ramotar government will prove me wrong by bringing everyone into this reform process.

Tarron Khemraj

Thursday January 10, 2013

Kaieteur News

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

AFC should not support Granger’s call for inquiry from 2004 to 2010 DEAR EDITOR, After ‘disappearing’ from the scene for the past few months, David Granger is back with a motion - not with a motion to create an anticorruption agency or to assure ethnic balance in every facet of society or to clamour for a commission of inquiry to deal with rampant racism that cripples this country, but a motion to have a commission of inquiry on criminal violence from 2004 to 2010.

Utterly despicable.

Downright facetious.

Intellectually heinous. Most troubling. Why? Well, David Granger, a known researcher and respected historian, and a man who has lived in Guyana virtually all his life, and most definitely since the 1990s, has somehow conveniently forgotten the murder, mayhem, brutality and bestiality that hounded this country from February 23, 2002 when five prisoners broke out of Camp Street prison and terrorized this country in a fear-filled terror rampage.

One would be tempted to say it is old age, but in the face of incontrovertible evidence that Granger’s faculties are still formidably intact, it is more a case of old tricks. It is a rotten misadventure for David Granger to start off 2013 with this macabre mess of a motion.

For a man to wilfully skip two years of turmoil, violence and savagery and seek to use the democratic vehicle of Parliament to pass a motion to this effect is immoral.

It completely revokes and discards the sufferings of those who wilted and fell under the battering of those

two years. It makes a complete mockery of this nation’s pain and angst and demoralizes the affliction of those who fell victim to those terrible two years. It erases February 23, 2002 to December 31, 2003, from the historiography of this country.

It also signals that David Granger, despite his grand comprehension of history and his innate knowledge of the facts of this country’s life of ethnic struggle and triumphalism, will resort to convenient morality when it suits him. If Granger tried to pull this miasma with something else, something of minuscule importance where lives were not extinguished and children not left fatherless and people not victimized and criminally devastated, I would have probably let it pass. But this inexplicable attempt to bury the torment of those who lived under the atrocity of the period from 2002 to 2004, and a blatant denial of their misery under the gun and violence of those days, cannot pass.

All those involved in the rise of criminal violence in this country have to be brought to account. You cannot start at 2004 and dismiss the catalyst of the February 23, 2002 Mash Day jailbreak and the loss of innocence in this country. If Granger is so consumed with finding the truth, we should not stop at the period of 2004 to 2010, but also launch inquiries into the murders of Walter Rodney, Father Darke and the thuggery of the House of Israel. Leaving out two years of criminal terror, miscreant agendas of ‘freedom fighting’ and whispers of political links between murderers and

politicians is intolerable, no matter how politically convenient it may appear to the PNC/APNU. If we are going to investigate one group hiring a drug lord to criminally and extra-judicially slaughter fellow criminals and innocent citizens, we should have the decency to investigate hardened villains extra-judicially and coldbloodedly slaughtering innocents and criminals alike and whether there is truth to political backing for them.

We cannot as a country advance when we see wrong in one group defending criminals to fight crime while we similarly cannot see wrong in another group defending criminals obliterating ordinary citizens in the names of crime fighting or freedom fighting.

We need to investigate how we arrived at this frightening value system of one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s crime fighter and vice versa and the even more bizarre conception of low-lifes and thugs being freedom and crime fighters.

The criminal violence of 2004 did not occur in a vacuum, as Granger would want us to believe with this motion. There is something callously despicable about this motion and the AFC cannot support it without losing its soul. The PNC/ APNU will lose its soul with this motion but like the PPP, the PNC had no soul to begin with.

Many in this country and more importantly, crossover voters (Amerindians and Mixed Races) will view this motion and its inherent bias as symptomatic of a mindset within the PNC/APNU to

DEAR EDITOR, There are two major concerns that we the residents of Ann’s Grove-Bee Hive, would like to highlight to the relevant authorities.

Firstly, the main access road that leads to the villages of Bee Hive, Clonbrook, Ann’s Grove, Two Friends and Dochfour, is in a deplorable state, and is in dire need of urgent repairs.

This one road services five villages and countless vehicles that traverse it on a daily basis.

There is a section which is approximately two hundred yards from the public road which is so bad, that drivers

have to navigate with extreme caution while getting in and out of the community on a daily basis.

This section has a hole nearly two feet in depth, and it is getting wider and wider every day, because when it rains, a lot of water accumulates, and drivers have no other option but to drive through it.

Now that the rainy season is at hand, it will only get worse if urgent repairs are not done.

Secondly, the compound of the health centre was recently cut, after its vegetation was overgrown at a frightening height.

Now with the rainy season in progress, the grass and the wild eddoes are once again very high.

We would like for the authorities to try their best in keeping down the growth of these vegetation, and not allow them to reach the previously unsettling level.

As a health care institution, we expect a clean and safe environment for our citizens.

One suggestion - If the health ministry could afford to spray that facility once every six weeks, it will surely kill out the roots of the long grass, and wild eddoes.

Fitzroy Hughes

Two major concerns that need to be addressed

deny history and to twist the truth. This motion reminds us why the PNC has never and will never admit to its atrocities.

In its mind, it still seems like history is a malleable substance, moulded to its own manufactured moods. Those crossover voters will reason deep within that the PNC deliberately removed the 2002 to 2004 period from the motion for political selfprotection and self-interest and in doing so, ignores the suffering of the people of Guyana during this period.

The AFC cannot agree to this motion in this form. This motion is the AFC’s Gettysburg, that seminal moment in its history where it either stands for something or falls for anything. There is no better moment for the AFC to quell the ‘PNC and AFC ah wan’ whispers by insisting the enquiry must be from February 23, 2002. The AFC should support an enquiry from 2002 to 2010, not 2004 to 2010.

When I told AfricanGuyanese the PNC/APNU is the worst thing that

happened to them politically, I meant it. The last election result occurred because some Indians resisted the fear politics and venality of the PPP by voting for the AFC. It also happened because the PNC/APNU got for the first time in a long time a decent percentage of crossover votes from Amerindians and Mixed Races. These two effects, along with strong African turnout, led to the PPP losing its majority.

This motion by Granger threatens to undermine these two changes. It hands the PPP an opportunity to psychologically corral those Indians who left, back into the fold. While that will not be enough for the PPP to ever regain a majority, it will likely ensure the PPP maintains a plurality in the 2016 election, and the PPP knows a minority presidency is just as good as a majority one.

More devastatingly, this motion, and the sinister serpentine nature of it, will drive those crossover voters away that the PNC/APNU was able to secure for the first

time, as they will see the PNC/ APNU as a biased, unfair, selective and still racially entrenched party in mentality and action.

People do not take kindly to gamesmanship with life, liberty, property and limb, and February 23, 2002 to 2004 had mounting losses in all those categories.

The PNC/APNU’s only hope of winning an election in Guyana is by capturing a hefty percentage of the future crossover votes.

This voting group (Amerindians and Mixed Races) are still suspicious of the PNC/APNU, although some voted for the PNC in 2011.

This motion erases those gains and sinks a dagger into the heart of the PNC/APNU’s electoral fortunes in the future. Some moral-minded Africans will depart the PNC/ APNU too. Then there are those Africans who see these elephant-sized political blunders occurring with great regularity and realize they voted for a pig in the poke in 2011 and no longer want any part of this circus. What a way to start the new year.

M. Maxwell

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Kaieteur News

Thursday January 10, 2013

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

Don’t feed the dolphins Teachers need to be taken seriously in 2013 DEAR EDITOR, I would like to extend on behalf of the executives of the Upper Demerara Branch of the Guyana Teachers’ Union, a happy and productive 2013 to all teachers.

Let us in this new year continue our efforts in making education fun and relevant.

Let us aspire to make the teaching learning experience, one that is not monotonous but exciting, and our pupils/ students become more aware as to why we do what we do.

Let us strive to extend our efforts in which we teach our children to teach themselves when they are out of the school’s learning environment.

In this new year let us always be cognizant and aware of the ever-present fact

that each student is unique and their individuality differs in many respects.

Therefore our methods, strategies and approaches in delivering our content must be broad-based to cater for those differences.

As educators let us be reminded that it is of vital importance that we keep up to date with what is new, not only in our field of study but the changing world.

Let us take up the challenge to re-inspire ourselves as well to learn new things on a regular basis and have fun in the process.

Let us be passionate about what we teach and continue to provide challenges for the nation’s children.

Let us continue

relentlessly in encouraging creativity in our students and challenge them to think outside the box for new possibilities and solutions that would contribute to a better society, a better Guyana and world for all of us.

I pen these words with the hope that this new year will be one in which the teachers and this noble profession will be given the seriousness that has been denied for far too long from its pay master.

The seriousness in realizing and acting on that realization that teachers need to be given better salaries, more resources, recognition and most importantly better representation from its ‘union’.

The seriousness in realizing that teachers not just teach academic lessons to pupils/students, but also help and guide them in every sphere of their life, by giving the right tools and advice.

They are nation-builders.

Jermaine Figueira Chairman Upper Demerara Branch G.T.U

DEAR EDITOR, Whenever I go fishing in Florida, the passengers are told, “Don’t feed the dolphins.” When I first heard this warning, I was angry with the people who told us not to feed the dolphins.

I thought these people were cold, cruel, and inhumane for depriving passengers of feeding the hungry dolphins.

I wanted to feed the dolphins because the dolphins like to come up to our boat and perform for the passengers. I wanted to reward the dolphins with a little food for entertaining us.

I decided to ask why we’re not allowed to feed these beautiful and friendly creatures.

I was told that if we feed the dolphins they’ll become dependent on us for food, and they will forget how to hunt for their own food. And when passengers are not around to feed them, they will starve.

Likewise, we should not help beggars/borrowers when they come to us for money.

This may seem cold, cruel, and inhumane at the time, but it is better for them in the long

run.

When we give food to beggars/borrowers, even though they are able to get their own food, we’ll make them dependent on us and they’ll become lazy and not want to work.

When they become dependent on us, they might die or become violent when we stop feeding them.

I have a family member who always has financial problems, even though he works and makes money.

Several times in the past, he asked me to borrow money to pay his rent or light bill. Each time, I said no because I didn’t want to “feed the dolphin”.

I didn’t want to enable him to continue mismanaging his finances and make him dependent on me to pay his bills. I said no because I love him. I wanted him to experience hardship so that he would become a better manager of his money.

Someone put it this way: “I believed it was my responsibility to help others who could not or did not want to help themselves...I didn’t realize that doing for others what they needed to do for themselves was, in fact,

doing them a great disservice.

Doing for others didn’t allow them to be responsible; it enabled them to be irresponsible.

God has a plan for each of us. Giving to the beggars/ borrowers robs them of the self-esteem that comes with struggling with and conquering the challenges that God has planned for their lives.

Letting others face the consequences of their actions allows them to learn and grow from their choices.”

In closing, Guyana has many beggars/borrowers.

Some of these people have jobs and make money, but they mismanage their finances because they have people who would lend them money.

I’m recommending that we don’t give or lend money to these people because it is hurting them rather than helping them.

When they come to beg or borrow money from you, remember don’t feed the dolphins so that the dolphins wouldn’t die. In the Bible, it says, “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.”

Name withheld

Thursday January 10, 2013

Kaieteur News

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Kaieteur News

Thursday January 10, 2013

Major donor nations up pressure for “…no valid justification 2013 local govt. polls for further delay”- diplomats Guyana is coming under increasing pressure to hold local government elections.

This time around, the pressure is from the international communityfrom four of Guyana’s largest donor countries.

In a joint statement issued yesterday by the local diplomatic missions — the US, Canada, Britain and the European Union— all said that it was a campaign promise by political parties leading up to the November 2011 General and Regional Elections to hold local government elections soonest.

The statement underlined the growing discontent over the functioning of the local government arm of Government which has been a source of criticisms from stakeholders over the years.

Government has been moving to replace a number of Neighbourhood Democratic Councils (NDCs) and even townships with Interim Management Committees (IMC). It has met with some resistance, like in Kwakwani, Region Ten.

Residents have been blaming the state of especially NDCs and town councils for failing infrastructure, garbage problems and other critical issues. It is no secret that some chairpersons have been holding offices for years, becoming power houses within the community.

In the meantime, local government reforms are engaging the attention of the National Assembly.

There has been an insistence for the reforms before elections.

Intolerable But the situation clearly is an intolerable one, the international community said.

The diplomatic community, traditionally, would quietly behind the scenes press home their demands.

“While Guyana has made great strides in strengthening its democracy, the continued absence of democratically elected and effective local government remains a persistent drag on Guyana’s national development and its attractiveness as an investment destination. Only

British High Commissioner, Andrew Ayre when people have transparent and accountable institutions at all levels of government — national, regional and local — will they have confidence in their future.”

This year, there should be no more delays and Guyana should seize its great potential by affording its citizens strong and effective local governance to build safer, more prosperous, and more democratic communities.

The statement was issued

EU Ambassador, Robert Kopecký

US Ambassador, D. Brent Hardt

by D. Brent Hardt, Ambassador of the United States of America; High Commissioner of the United Kingdom, Andrew Ayre; High Commissioner of Canada, David Devine, and Robert Kopecký, Ambassador of the European Union.

The missions noted that during Guyana’s 2011 National Elections, one issue on which all political parties were in full agreement was the need to hold local government elections.

“Given the important and pressing need for effective local governance, we believe that 2013 should be a watershed moment for the people of Guyana — the year they can once again democratically elect their local government.”

Local democracy goes far beyond the act of casting a vote, they said.

“Throughout the world, countries and international agencies have come to recognize the vital importance of representative local government. Effective and efficient public administration coupled with healthy local governance can drive development efforts. Local government institutions bring government closer to the people, fostering greater inclusion, civic responsibility, empowerment and participation.”

Local government offers

one of the most important avenues for women and other groups typically underrepresented to participate in the development of their communities and influence decision-making processes that directly affect their lives, they said.

DEVELOPMENT DELAYED The diplomats argued that throughout the world, a new generation of democratically-elected local leaders is creating change and sparking national development.

“Unfortunately, Guyana has not held local government elections since 1994, and the institutions and practice of local governance have withered on the vine since that time. While the people of Guyana are familiar with the reasons offered for repeated delays in holding local government elections, there is no valid justification for further delay.”

The statement pointed out that the local government reforms have been tabled in the National Assembly and they are now before the Select Committee.

“While there may be differences between the parties over the role and authority of the Minister of Local Government and over the control and scope of fiscal transfers, these issues can — and should — be resolved as a matter of urgency among all

Canadian High Commissioner, David Devine parties in the Select Committee.”

It was also noted that the principles that should guide the Committee and the Assembly in reviewing local government reform legislation have been amply articulated in a host of national and international assessments.

The statement noted that Guyana’s National Development Strategy of 2000, developed with the support of the Carter Center, called for “a local government system with greatly increased authority, with the power to formulate their own developmental plans and strategies, and with the legal right, within clearly specified boundaries, to enact local laws, and to collect specified rates and taxes, as approved

by Central Government.”

The diplomats said that all three parties have articulated their principles and commitments to this end, around which there is clear agreement.

“In its 2011 manifesto, the PPP called for reinvigorating local government and pledged to “ensure, within one year of the 2011 general elections, that local government elections are held, bringing much needed reinvigoration into local government entities.”

APNU, likewise, called for “the implementation of agreed Local Government Reforms and the holding of Local Government Elections.”

Similarly, the AFC affirmed that in its first year in office it would “implement local government reforms and hold local government elections.”

The diplomats were clear that in a political environment in which the people of Guyana and leading civic voices such as the Chamber of Commerce have called for greater national unity and cooperation, this consensus on local government reform and elections offers all parties a vital opportunity to work together in 2013 in the national interest.

Thursday January 10, 2013

Kaieteur News

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Parliamentary scrutiny of procurement needed in the health sector The revelation that one company receives as much as eighty per cent of the value of government pharmaceutical purchases is a most worrying development which raises serious questions about whether the system of national procurement is stimulating competition amongst pharmaceutical companies.

One of the main reasons why there is a system of competitive bidding is in order to ensure that the government gets the best value for money since it is held that through competition amongst bidders value for money is optimized.

The government and especially the President, Donald Ramotar, therefore need to intervene to ensure that this undesirable situation is reversed, and for a number of reasons.

The very fact that one company commands such an imposing share of government procurement in the health sector is indicative that the system of procurement being used needs to be examined to see whether it is meeting the purposes for which it was established.

In the past, the procurement of drugs by the government has attracted the attention of the country’s Auditor General who had pointed out in his annual reports to Parliament that for many years in the past,

competitive bidding was bypassed and waivers of tender board requirements were granted for certain procurement to take place.

Recently, the country was told that there was a system of prequalification of bidders for major contracts. Well, the fact that prequalification of bidders has also not promoted greater competition for medicines within the health system, means that the present prequalification system needs to be placed under the microscope to see whether it unfairly discriminates or disqualifies any companies.

This task of placing the system of prequalification under the microscope, it was hoped, would have been undertaken by the Parliamentary Economic Services Committee but not much is being heard about the establishment of this committee which at least one opposition party had promised to bring into being following a High Court ruling that went against the government in relation to parliamentary committees.

If the opposition is serious about making an impact on the culture of governance in Guyana, this is best done through scrutiny of government’s actions and not by passing unenforceable motions or by usurping executive functions through the tabling of its own legislation.

Dem boys seh...

Irfaat wake up he whole staff fuh one sign Irfaat wake up before bird wife wake and do wha he does always do—call fuh de Waterfalls paper. He butt up wid a sign that tell how he Ministry does wuk. Right away he cuss Shaik. He seh that Shaik ain’t even know bout water.

Then he call de sign man. De sign man get nervous. When de sign man tun up, Irfaat show he de paper but he didn’t even know something wrang.

Same time Irfaat call all dem CHPA people—big one, li’l one, everybody. He mek dem watch de sign like if was Republic Day and dem watching de flag. Dem boys seh that one man ask if he had to seh de pledge. Irfaat cuss he too.

Then de sign man go to wuk and Irfaat tell he to pledge that wouldn’t mek no more mistake. De poor man nervous but he correct de one that Irfaat see. But he didn’t see de other mistake.

Irfaat had to be a dunce because de other mistake staring he right in he face. De word wha suppose to got four ‘S’ got five. Dem boys willing to bet that Irfaat gun tek down de whole sign because he frighten dem same tourist who he seh coming in gun read and laugh. Then dem gun ask is who responsible and people gun tell dem is Irfaat.

He coulda pay Bar Bee li’l extra and get a professional job wid even more mistake. Irfaat like go overboard. Imagine he carry he whole staff to see de sign change. And talk about overboard, a man jump overboard to get away from de police. He been in he minibus as a conductor when de police stop he. Before de police coulda give he a ticket de man buss a sprint and jump overboard. Like he use a tape because he land exactly in de middle of de Lamaha Street canal. By de time he come out all he documents wash out.

Is then he show de police a plain piece of paper and seh is he licence. Dem police scratching dem head up to now. Talk half and watch fuh see wha Irfaat gun do today wid that sign.

The opposition cannot continue to give lip service to improving public transparency. It has to match its rhetoric by action and the best action that it can take is to ensure that the parliamentary economic services committee is up and running.

The first order of business of that committee should not be to demand the implementation of a procurement commission but to place the government’s procurement of medicines under scrutiny.

There have been threats by at least one opposition party to interrogate the operations of NICIL in parliamentary committees but this threat has turned out to

be a damp squib. There is a need for the procurement of medicines to be placed under the microscope to satisfy the public that everything is above board and that the system does not favour or discriminate against any company or companies.

Certainly from the perspective of the government there should be concern. It is not a desirable situation for any one company to have such a commanding share of government procurement in the health sector.

Should this company develop problems, then a national crisis may ensue since the government is highly dependent on this one company for the supply of

most of its medicines.

Then there is the possibility of companies with monopoly standing taking advantage of this dominance.

But the more fundamental concern is that for one company to have such an overwhelming share of government procurement, means that there is an absence of any real competition and this is worrying for a number of reasons.

It is worrying in that it may suggest problems with the system of procurement or it can be that the other local suppliers simply do not have the capacity. Either way, the problem has to be addressed and it is incumbent for the President to begin to look into

this matter.

Unfortunately, public confidence is waning in the President and in the absence of any political will by the government to examine the issue of procurement in the health sector. It will be for the opposition to use the parliamentary economic services committee to interrogate the relevant government officials about the state of affairs of government procurement in the health sector.

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Kaieteur News

Thursday January 10, 2013

=== THE FREDDIE KISSOON COLUMN ===

Guyana in 2012: The positives Two organizations enhanced their presence on the social milieu last year and maybe they have led to enhanced expectations that there may be more of a sustained pressure on the Government to be more democratic, accountable and transparent. They are the People’s Parliament and Transparency Institute.

They add to a growing national concern that there is a hardened, inflexible mind inside the corridors of power that is quickly closing the door of dialogue that Guyana so desperately needs if it is going to survive in the coming years. Of the two, I would say the People’s Parliament is by far the more grassroots in orientation, more activist and more likely to confront the government on its intransigency.

Transparency Institute on the other hand has a more narrow focus – its specific target is official corruption. In 2013, the expansion or contraction of these two organizations will tell us where Guyana is going.

The People’s Parliament was born on August 15 in solidarity with the mothers of children who were victims of

police shooting during the protest against the electricity hike in Linden. It patterned itself after Occupy Wall Street then morphed into a social rights entity. The People’s Parliament has found a good reception among ordinary Guyanese because it avoids the criticism that it is a front for the opposition.

Its essential personnel have no political affiliation though it has in its midst persons from various groups and opposition parties.

In 2012 the People’s Parliament achieved two outstanding victories. One was the right of Parika vendors on an unoccupied street to ply their trade on Sunday mornings and another group that has been occupying the parapet for over forty years near the Parika stelling.

Through a process of empowerment, the vendors themselves have acquired legal services and have sought redress in the courts.

The other is the right of motorists to travel through the barricades that are set up around Parliament when it is in session. After the National Assembly passed a motion to remove the barricades the

police refused to take them down. The Speaker wrote the Commissioner on the issue.

The reply stated that the barriers will be left up but light vehicles can still travel through them. However, this was a false claim. Members of the People’s Parliament saw for themselves that cars were not allowed through.

Armed with the Commissioner’s reply to the Speaker, the People’s Parliament confronted the Police Commissioner and showed him that he had deceived the Speaker. The result is that cars can now go through the barricades.

What Transparency Institute did last year must have awakened the Leviathans to the fact that the ubiquitous fear that permeates Guyana is waning.

The organization held a fundraising dinner at the Pegasus and one would have thought that fear would have driven people away because the cameras were there. In fact there was a full house.

This columnist was wrong in his prediction. I thought the Orwellian stalker would have caused so much trepidation among the ticket purchasers that there would have been a

thin turnout. It was not to be.

Transparency Institute is the local affiliate of the main German-based organization.

Its constant reminder to the society of Government’s lack of response to pathological forms of corruption within the wider public realm and inside the corridors of power itself is a valuable source of pressure on the State.

It provides information to the wider world of just how scandalous and abominable is the attitude of the ruling class to the culture of corruption.

Like the People’s Parliament, the ruling PPP is at a huge disadvantage. It cannot tell the world that Transparency Institute is a front for the opposition. The entity is not

led by opposition party personalities.

Much less known in 2012 was the birth of a trade union in Berbice to cater for workers at Oldendorff, a German company that offers transshipment services to Rusal for the movement of bauxite.

This columnist journeyed last year to Berbice to hear about workers’ grievances. I did a column on what I saw on November 2. If those workers could be treated the way they are by Oldendorff even though there is a union, then would there not have been a return to indentureship if the union wasn’t there?

It is a sad reminder of the complete disregard for

Frederick Kissoon workers’ rights in a country where trade unions were indispensable in the struggle for Independence. As 2012 drew to a close another entity was born, the Coalition for the 1823 Parade Ground Monument.

This organization promises a long battle with centralized power over the location of the 1823 monument.

GNBS certifies seven ISO 9001 lead auditors

Director of GNBS, Evadnie Inniss (fourth from left) and Head of the Conformity Assessment Dept., Candelle Walcott-Bostwick (centre), pose with the certified ISO 9001 lead auditors.

Seven persons were certified after completing the ISO (International Standard Organisation) 9001-registered lead auditor course yesterday.

This was facilitated by the Guyana National Bureau of Standards (GNBS) in collaboration with Delphi Consultants Limited of Trinidad.

The event was held in the Boardroom of GNBS, Sophia Exhibition Complex.

Participants included representatives from the GNBS, Ministry of Health, MACORP, Edward Beharry and Company Ltd, NAMILCO and Geddes Grant.

Head of the Conformity Assessment Department of GNBS, Candelle WalcottBostwick, said the course duration was for one week and it began in November last.

“The course is based in the United Kingdom and it is an International Registrar of Certified Auditor (IRCA) course which, when completed, gives participants

the required skills to carry out effective management audit by the ISO 9001 standard which equips the companies participating with staff who can carry audits that are internationally recognized,” Ms Walcott-Bostwick explained.

Adding that persons certified can now train others on location as auditors, as well as ensure that the system is consistently monitored, Ms Walcott-Bostwick, said that if the organisations want to take the participants to the next level of being an internationallyrecognized auditor, they would have to now gain the experience by participating in numerous audits which would qualify them to register to the IRCA on the international level.

She further explained that companies would no longer have to hire external auditors since they would have qualified individuals on board to improve their quality system and performance.

“We encourage businesses in Guyana to get on board and develop their staff. We have a training schedule that will be out later this year and we would usually invite a number of companies to participate in the training programme, since internal development is critical for the strengthening and growth of any organization.”

According to Director of GNBS, Evadnie Inniss, the course is designed to provide delegates with the knowledge to audit and improve quality management systems. It meets the requirements of the IRCA Registration Governing Board.

The course comprises a mix of lectures and practical exercises, including role-play and case studies to provide the delegates with a full understanding of the quality audit process.

The practical exercises focus on the audit process using the ISO 9000 series of standards.

Thursday January 10, 2013

Kaieteur News

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Govt. grants approval for private helicopter operations Government in 2012 gave approval for private aircraft operators to include helicopters to their fleet of operations thereby removing the monopoly held by the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) over the years in this regard.

This move has since seen Air Services Limited, which has been in operation for over 50 years, taking advantage of the endorsement. It has since acquired a helicopter and has commenced an expanded operation.

The company’s website states that the operation is facilitated by a fleet of 23 aircraft of six different types and one helicopter which are flown by a flight of 24 experienced pilots. “We provide a safe, efficient and reliable service on our domestic schedule and charter service to all of Guyana’s interior destinations,” the website http:/ /www.aslgy.com/ boasts.

A formal announcement of the development was made on Friday by Director General of the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA), Mr Zulficar Mohamed, during a Public Works Ministry press conference.

He disclosed that a few other operators have since stated their interest in assuming similar operations.

“Quite a few others, especially in the mining industry, are trying to acquire helicopters for private use,” said Mohamed.

The move by Air Services, he said, represents an inaugural undertaking by a private operator to offer commercial helicopter operations. The GDF has been engaged in such commercial operations for several years now.

Turning his attention to the wider aviation operation, Mohamed said that there has been an increase in aircraft operations in the country over the past year. He said that a number of operators have

In the not too distant future tipping fees may have to be implemented in order to sustain the operations of the Haags Bosch landfill site after the Inter American Development Bank (IDB) loan would have expired.

This is according to Junior Minister of Finance, Juan Edghill. According to Edghill very soon the $20M loan from the Inter America Development Bank will come to an end but the sustainability of the site is important, hence the implementation of the tipping fee.

“We have to sound the alarm that the M&CC as well as the Chairpersons and Councilors of all the NDCs that are bringing waste to this site must understand that that part of the agreement which you all agreed to at the time of the preparation of the agreement must be implemented.”

This agreement, Edghill said, stipulates that charges will have to be made for

tipping fees to continue to pay for the operation of the landfill site.

“As a government we don’t intend to increase the burden on anyone or to increase taxation but the reality is there is a cost that is attached and in the write up of the program there is a tipping fee that was supposed to have been charged from the inception.”

However, according to Edghill, initially the Government was able to renegotiate the loan and was allocating monies from one component of the project and over the years the government was paying that tipping fee.

“The time is coming when there is no more money in the loan, so this will have to be a cost carried by the people of Guyana, the modules which would have to be developed, whether by the M&CC or NDC’s be it through the collection of taxes or a special arrangement based on the arranged sum, this needs to be discussed and we need to

GCAA Director General, Zulficar Mohamed

The Air Services Ltd helicopter sought to increase their fleet too. “The exact number is eight aircraft that have been added to the fleet in Guyana...” said Mohamed who informed that GCAA had during the past year too issued a new air craft operator’s certificate thereby granting approval to another operator to undertake commercial operations.

Additionally, he disclosed that approval was granted for another aircraft maintenance organisation. A new fuel farm was licensed to commence operation at Ogle.

He related too that a number of pilots and engineers as

well as air traffic controllers were licensed last year.

However, Mohamed said that Guyana has been plagued by a shortage of staff, especially in the area of flight operations.

“We have not been able to attract that calibre of persons necessary to perform such functions.”

With assistance from the Caribbean Aviation Safety and Security Oversight System (CASSOS) “we have been able to carry out our mandate not quite fully but at least we have been able to accomplish about 80 per cent of it...” The Aviation Chief

said that efforts are still being made to attract suitably qualified persons to fill the flight operations void that currently exists.

Despite this shortcoming, Mohamed said that in the area of Air Navigation Services, over the past year, GCAA was able to complete installation of all of its navigation and communications equipment.

This undertaking which comes as part of a Modernisation Project was in fact one that started in 2010 and was continued in 2011 with a completion date in early last year.

According to Mohamed,

Government has since provided additional funding which now sees GCAA in a position to acquire high frequency communication and security equipment and VHF Omnidirectional Ranger (VOR) for the Control Tower at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport.

Mohamed disclosed that the VOR currently at CJIA will be refurbished and placed at the Ogle International Airport.

“These are all ongoing projects and for 2013 we are hoping for the commitment, and we have had that commitment, that we will continue the process. We will acquire surveillance equipment which will assist not only in air traffic control but we will be able to track aircrafts anywhere in the country,” said Mohamed.

There are also plans for the acquisition of new equipment which will allow for data sharing throughout the flight routes in the entire Caribbean and South American Region which is a part of an international network, Mohamed added.

Funding for this undertaking has already been provided and it is expected that installation will commence during the course of this year.

Tipping fees to be implemented at landfill site

One of the cells being used at the Haags Bosch landfill site. make this known,” Edghill noted.

He further pointed out that the sustainability of the landfill site in terms of payments and ensuring that

the site continues to operate at expiration of the loan is based on the proper implementation of what is in the loan agreement about the tipping fee.

“We have sought to avoid this for a while but the time is approaching,” he reiterated.

He noted that already some private contractors for

solid waste have been operating and have been charging private residents per barrel. However he noted that this will soon have to be formalized.

Thursday January 10, 2013

Kaieteur News

NIS boss rescinds resignation One day after she suddenly submitted her resignation, General Manager of the National Insurance Scheme (NIS), Doreen Nelson, is set to resume her duties.

The NIS boss yesterday withdrew her resignation after reportedly clashing with her Board of Directors on Tuesday over a number of decisions taken at the forum.

A short statement from the government yesterday merely said that Dr. Ashni Singh, Minister of Finance, has “just received and accepted Ms. Doreen Nelson’s letter withdrawing the notice of her resignation as the General Manager” of NIS. The statement offered no other explanation why Nelson, one of the longest serving employees of the state-owned social fund, resigned.

Government sources said she had refused to carry out directives issued by the Board overtime and during a meeting Tuesday, the matter came to a head and she handed in her resignation.

Well-placed sources said that there were a number of

meetings at NIS and with government to find a way out, following her temporary departure.

NIS officials were mum on Tuesday on the issue and its public relations office remained silent.

Nelson had declined comment also.

The resignation would have come at a time when NIS is facing a public discussion for ways in which the fund could increase its revenues if it wants to continue to be profitable.

Dwindling contributions and rising expenditures have prompted a critical, periodical review to warn that the fund could run into serious trouble in less than a decade unless actions are taken immediately to raise its revenue base.

With many pensioners and the country’s workforce depending on NIS for spectacles and other coverage for medical bills, the worry level has been rising for both Government and the population.

A $6B investment in the failed insurance giant, CLICO, has not helped NIS finances. Despite the billions it has in its reserves, it is noncompliance from a significant part of the workforce to remit their mandatory dues that also has been contributing to the situation.

Government has been keeping a tight hold on NIS with its Chairman being Dr. Roger Luncheon, Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Presidential Secretariat.

The Opposition has called for his sacking.

NIS has investments in the Berbice Bridge, among other places.

Wiltshire is presiding over the case of Kenise Glasgow, who is accused of murdering nineyear-old Christie Sookra. The child was reportedly shot dead during an alleged break and enter attempt at her home on August 28, 2004.

State prosecutors Rondel Weaver and Natasha Barker are representing the state, while Attorney-at law Basil Williams is representing the accused.

Before Justice Dawn Gregory, the case of Mortimer Melville and Jevon Ismond is being heard. At least five witnesses have taken the stand on behalf of the state which is represented by prosecutors Renita Singh and Diana Kaulesar.

Attorney Hookumchand is representing Mortimer Melville, while lawyer Compton Richardson is representing Ismond.

Wazir Alli, brother of the deceased, Nasir Alli, took the stand and testified to taking his sibling to the hospital after he was reportedly shot

four times in August 2007.

Alli’s wife also took the stand along with three police witnesses. Due to an oral statement taken by one of those officers a Voir Dire has commenced.

The allegation against the men is that at Better Hope, East Coast Demerara, the number one accused entered Alli’s wife’s shop and asked for items which the shopkeeper said she did not have. The accused reportedly left returning later with his companion.

Both the accused were reportedly present when Alli was allegedly shot four times during a robbery. At the time, Alli was said to be drinking with family and a few friends.

They were all robbed, reports said. The man succumbed to his injuries while at the hospital. The offence is said to be a felony-murder meaning that the murder was committed during the robbery.

All the cases are expected to convene this morning.

NIS’ General Manager, Doreen Nelson

Voir Dire commences in two High Court murder trials

Three murder trials got underway yesterday with two of the cases already attracting a voir dire (a trial within a trial).

Three prosecution witnesses gave evidence before Justice Navindra Singh who is presiding over the case involving Latiff and Arif Mohamed.

They are accused of on March 2008, murdering Jairam Balgobin, called ‘Bark’ at Success Squatting Area.

Mulchand Parbhu, a police officer gave evidence of reportedly holding a confrontation with another witness and one of the accused pertaining to the offence. Devika Parbhu also gave evidence.

Her information was in relation to the number one accused, Arif Mohamed, allegedly coming to her with a wound.

Colin Ross, a police officer, tendered the Post Mortem report of the deceased and read it out in court.

The witnesses were cross-examined by Attorneyat-law Peter Hugh. The state is represented by prosecutors Dhanika Singh and Konyo Thompson.

Thompson, in her opening address, asked the jury to be fair, just and impartial after listening to the presentation of the prosecution’s case.

Justice Roxanne George-

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Thursday January 10, 2013

GRA’s collections hit $116B mark, despite Linden Despite significant disruptions, Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) last year still managed to surpass the 2011 collections by $5B. According to Commissioner General, Khurshid Sattaur, the collection of $116B included significant increases of taxes from self-employed, a longstanding problematic area.

Government would be more than happy after a month-long protest in Linden caused the shutdown of several hinterland communities, badly affecting gold mining and logging operations and trade with Brazil. Speaking with the state-owned news agency, Sattaur noted, however, that the revenue collection is not the only indicator by which the GRA measures its performance.

Providing efficient service to the public, being able to deal with quite a number of issues, having to grapple with the daily flow of goods that accumulate on the wharves and having to clear them in a timely manner, are some of the major issues the GRA also has to deal with.

Sattaur observed that the fact that Guyana is still experiencing some amount of

- plastic Driver’s Licence from this year

GRA’s Commissioner General, Khurshid Sattaur brain drain from migration, has in no small manner affected the organisation and its capability.

Nevertheless, he commended the hard work of the GRA staff which enabled the body to overcome many of the obstacles and made them very optimistic that it would pay off the right amount of dividends for the GRA and Guyana. According to the tax boss, one major encouragement for GRA last year was the sense of accomplishment when the new building located in Camp Street became available for

occupancy and the process commenced to house the entire operations of the GRA under one roof.

While there was discussion in the National Assembly on whether funds should continue to be provided for its outfitting, the GRA boss said there was a significant amount of work that had to be done.

The installation of clean power, computers and staff accommodation, he explained would require a significant amount of outlay to accommodate approximately 750 staff members at the end of the exercise.

The building will house the Legal Department, Remission Unit, Planning and Analysis Unit, Human Resource Department, Finance Department, Facilities Management, Customs Operations, Income Tax Department, VAT Department and Licence and Revenue Department.

Bringing all the departments into a single building at one location would lead to more efficient services, as well as ease of access for the taxpayers.

TAX EVASION

Regarding the issue of tax evasion, Sattaur said that half of Guyana’s taxpayers comply voluntarily and meet their commitments without cheating. Efforts sometimes have to be made to force the non-compliant into complying, he said. Behind the scenes, the Audit Department would examine assets compared to income, he added.

The targets are big buildings and their owners, and persons who may not have submitted fair returns or failed to submit any. The Debt Management Unit also serves as an enforcement of the agency and targets evaders of Customs duties and VAT. The agency’s head noted that persons who do not issue receipts to customers are not accounting for VAT, and reports to the Legal Department would enable the enforcement of the law against those businesses who refuse to pay by adopting this method of business.

However, enforcement activities have been successful and are reflected in the increased revenue collected. While concerned about the shortage of human resources, Sattaur said that media educational programmes have contributed greatly towards enforcement and in encouraging compliance.

Regarding claims by the political Opposition that some government agencies and persons who were ‘friends of the Government’

were not paying taxes; Sattaur insisted that all taxpayers are treated fairly and justly and that there is no discrimination.

“All are put under the radar, Government or otherwise,’ he declared.

NONE UNTOUCHED However, with limited resources, he acknowledged that there may be the perception that the GRA does not go after those persons.

That doesn’t mean that the body will not. Sattaur explained, also, that while the Intelligence unit gathers information, informers also report to the GRA and records from business activities, ownership of vehicles, purchase of houses and assets are all processed by the relevant departments while the Debt Management Department takes care of the delinquent taxpayers.

The container scanner has been a major success during 2012 according to Sattaur, and its acceptance level is very high in the business community. This, he noted, has led to the detection of cocaine and false declaration of goods, among other things.

Nevertheless, with in excess of 5,000 containers entering the country each month, a risk management process determines which container is scanned. A request has been submitted for an additional scanner.

Tax rebate refunds were made to persons who are subject to PAYE deductions.

The GRA is committed to

clearing up those arrears which amount to in excess of $600M to pay to more than 72,000 taxpayers. This exercise is expected to be completed before the end of this month.

Reviews are currently ongoing on investors who were granted tax holidays and exemptions. Post audit verification is being conducted on their status.

If those companies are not performing or conducting business as they had initially indicated, their exemptions would be stalled until the investor complies.

Meanwhile, last year also saw the establishment of a monitoring secretariat to bring together the major domestic players of the US$840M Amaila Falls Hydro project.

This unit, chaired by President Donald Ramotar, is given administrative support from the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL).

According to Sattaur, as the largest investment in Guyana, the project will see hundreds of millions of American dollars in imports arriving by sea and having to be cleared and transported to the site at Amaila Falls.

Thus the GRA’s mandate will be carried out to ensure that all is above board.

Also this year GRA is moving to replace the decades-old book-format of drivers’ licences. Plastic card IDs will be used instead.

Additionally, motor vehicle owners will now be able to renew their licences on the anniversary of the vehicle registration.

Avon donates garbage bins to City Hall - hopes that they are put to good use

The bins in the compound of City Hall yesterday Av o n , v i a i t s s o l e authorized distributor and official consultant-Beauty and Home Systems (Guyana) Incorporated— is yet another entity opting to assist the Mayor and City Council of Georgetown in cleaning up the city.

The company on

Tuesday last donated 10 garbage receptacles to the Council with the hope that it will help to ease the severe garbage build up in the city.

The branded receptacles were handed over to Mayor, Hamilton Green, by the Company’s Public Relations Officer, Sean Bhola, during a small

presentation in the compound of City Hall.

Many businesses have donated such items to City Hall, however, the City remains in a mess.

Nonetheless, Green is expected to soon give orders on which parts of the city these receptacles are to be placed.

Thursday January 10, 2013

Kaieteur News

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Relatives of burnt motorcyclist express concerns of neglect Relatives of Sewdat Arjune, the motorcyclist who sustained severe burns about his body after his bike burst into flames during an accident with a Canter truck two weeks ago at Williamsburg Public Road, Corentyne, are calling for justice for the badly injured man.

According to Arjune’s grandfather, Mohandas Karamchand, since his grandson was involved in the accident on December 23, police have not visited him (Arjune) at the hospital or contacted the family.

When the accident occurred, Arjune was reportedly heading to his Lot 31, Number Three Settlement, Blairmont, West Bank Berbice home.

It is alleged that the driver of a parked Canter truck suddenly made a U-turn and ended up into the path of the motorcycle, causing Arjune to lose control and end up under the truck while his CBR exploded.

Arjune was rushed to the New Amsterdam Hospital and was later transferred to the Georgetown Public Hospital.

Yesterday, when Kaieteur News visited the man at the hospital, he was lying motionless on a bed. He

Sewdat Arjune on his hospital bed sustained a fractured left arm and severe burns to his feet.

According to Arjune, when the incident occurred he was not accompanied to the hospital by any police officer.

He added that although he has been in the hospital for two weeks, no one ever visited him to take a statement. The man’s grandfather, who is highly upset that his grandson cannot even help himself, said that the driver of the Canter is “roaming” while Arjune is in pain every day.

The family is now wondering whether or not there is an ongoing investigation.

“We want justice for him.

We want to know what is going on because no one is saying anything,” the elderly man exclaimed.

Arjune told this publication that when he recovers, he promises never to touch a motorcycle again, “…There wasn’t anybody who loved bikes more than me, but now I don’t want to see any.”

Thursday January 10, 2013

Kaieteur News

Chinese logging firm signals interest in establishing wood products park

President Donald Ramotar reviews business plans presented by Chairman of the China Forest Industry Group Company Ltd, Whenze Chu, during a meeting that also involved Minister of Natural Resources, Robert Persaud.

Bai Shan Lin Forest Development Inc., a Chinese wood processing company operating in Guyana, is looking to move ahead with haste on its large scale industrial plans to establish a trade park.

Whenze Chu, Chairman of the China Forest Industry Group Company Ltd, the parent company of Bai Shan Lin which engaged in timber harvesting, sale and processing, yesterday met with President Donald Ramotar and Minister of

Natural Resources and the Environment, Robert Persaud, for talks.

The park will occupy five square kilometers and will promote various kinds of wood products and brands.

While wood processing will be the main feature, the park will also encompass industries for ship building, woodworking, machinery, processing and manufacturing, food and aquatic processing, mining, a school and hospital, a government statements said

yesterday. Construction of an international mall and an exhibition centre to showcase finished products manufactured at the Bai Shan Lin plant in Linden and other entrepreneurship ventures are also on the cards.

Providence in the vicinity of the Guyana National Stadium on the East Bank Demerara has been proposed.

This area has been flooded with investments so numerous that in the near future will make it part of the urban network.

Culture Ministry to host competition for choirs - wants to resuscitate choral singing

(from left) Public Relations Officer of the National Song Festival - Russell Lancaster, and Music Development Officer attached to the Ministry of Culture, Andrew Tyndall during the press conference In an effort to resuscitate choral singing in Guyana, the Music Development Unit which falls under the Ministry of Culture Youth and Sport will be hosting a National Song Festival for Choral groups only.

The event is also expected to pave the way for a resuscitation of the singing of National songs, as every finalist of the competition will be obligated to sing at least one of Guyana’s National songs. Twenty-four groups from across Guyana will be competing in the finals of this first ever competition for Choral Groups only.

The competition is billed for Sunday at the National Cultural Centre from 15:00hrs.

Admission is free.

The organizers of the event are hoping to resuscitate choral music as a pastime in schools, religious organizations, clubs, and community groups.

Final auditions were held in Georgetown, Linden, and New Amsterdam last Sunday.

It saw several groups emerging to compete for at least one of the prizes, all of which total $1M. Contestants will be judged on several aspects, these include posture, diction, presentation, dressing, and the ability of the choir to bring out what the coordinator of the piece intended. This was explained to member of the media by both the Music Development Officer attached to the

Ministry of Culture, Andrew Tyndall, and Public Relations Officer of the National Song Festive, Russell Lancaster during a press conference at the National School of Music, yesterday.

Tyndall noted that even after the competition is over, the Ministry will still be striving to strengthen choral singing in Guyana via the National School of Music by way of vocal classes. This has not yet started, however, it was noted that preparations are on the way.

Registration for entry into the school has already commenced. Tyndall said that persons interested in gaining entry can visit the school’s location on Brickdam, Georgetown for 13:00hrs.

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Family unhappy with police action into suspicious death The relatives of 21-yearold Anthony Biswah are not happy with the way the police are treating his death.

Convinced that the young man was beaten to death, the relatives are accusing the police of being reluctant to conduct a proper investigation.

Biswah died on January 4, last, a day after he was admitted to the Bartica Hospital after what appeared to be a severe beating by his employers at a mining camp in the interior.

His relatives claimed that although he was in a critical condition, Biswah did manage to give some details of how he received the injuries that were clearly visible on his body.

A post mortem examination revealed that he had a swollen brain, although according to relatives, the results are inconclusive.

Biswah’s employers who had taken him to the hospital, had told medical personnel there that he was poisoned, a position that is being totally rejected by relatives.

However, relatives lamented the fact that the police have not shown any inclination to even detain persons for questioning.

To compound matters, the family is reportedly receiving threats from persons associated with Biswah’s employers.

“They telling we that anytime we go and put anything in de papers, dem gun bun down Kaieteur News,” Emily Biswah, the dead man’s sister related.

Speaking to this newspaper yesterday after a visit to the police F Division Headquarters, Eve Leary, the woman said that she is not satisfied with the way the matter is being handled.

“They treating us like if we kill he,” she said.

According to Emily

Dead: Anthony Biswah Biswah, her sister, Tiffany, who had travelled to Bartica and had spoken to her brother before he died, related to investigators what Biswah told her before he succumbed.

“It was she, he girlfriend, a nurse and an aunt who he talk to at de same time. All a we hear how they beat he with gun. He call names,” Tiffany Biswah told this newspaper.

She said that this was conveyed to investigators in a detailed statement but they keep insisting that it was hearsay.

Relatives said that they were informed that body samples from Biswah are being sent to Trinidad and Tobago for testing, as the police work on the poison theory.

According to Emily Biswah, the owner of the camp where her brother was allegedly beaten is in the city and she is at a loss as to why the police are not interested in questioning him.

“De police is a waste of time… Instead ah dem questioning de man, dem questioning we… People getting murder and dem ain’t doing nothing,” Emily Biswah declared.

According to Emily Biswah, the man has been offering the family money to assist them with the burial of their brother but they have refused to accept it.

Anthony Biswah had left his home in Albouystown on December 15, last, for a brief sojourn in the interior with a couple of neighbours from a notorious Albouystown family.

It was the first time in the ‘bush’ for Biswah. He was scheduled to return home after 20 days.

But the next time his relatives saw him on January 3, last, he was in the Bartica Hospital with a badly swollen face and battling for his life.

He succumbed a day later but not before relating a harrowing tale of being badly beaten by the very people who took him into the interior.

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Thursday January 10, 2013

Sir Ronald bestowed with Order of Australia

High Commissioner Kentwell congratulates Sir Ronald immediately after the Investiture ceremony On Sunday, Australian High Commissioner to the Caribbean, Philip Kentwell, invested Sir Ronald Sanders with the Order of Australia on special authority from the Governor-General of Australia. Sir Ronald Sanders is a member of the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group (EPG) and an international consultant, writer and a former senior Caribbean diplomat.

The award was bestowed in recognition for his “service to Australian relations, particularly concerning Commonwealth issues and advancing the interests of small developing states of the Caribbean region.”

In recognition of the award High Commissioner Kentwell stated, “I am delighted that Sir Ronald Sanders’s tremendous contribution to

Commonwealth discussions through his tireless work as a member of the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group is recognised

by Australia through this award. “It also is an acknowledgment by Australia of the vigour and value Sir Ronald brings to regional discussions on small island developing state issues and the future prosperity of the Caribbean region.”

North West-bound ferry experiences rough waters There were many seasick passengers onboard the MV Lady Northcote which departed port Georgetown on Tuesday for Kumaka but they arrived safely at Port Kaituma after a rough trip.

According to reports on Tuesday night, the Captain contacted Port Georgetown saying that he was encountering poor weather.

Soon after, the vessel was out of radio contact.

At the time the vessel was off the Pomeroon coast ad still heading into open seas.

According to a statement issued by Transport and Harbours Department, the M. V. Lady Northcote departed Port Georgetown at 13:00 hours on Tuesday bound for Kumaka, North West District, with 98 passengers and 11 crew members.

The scheduled arrival time was 13:00 hours on Wednesday January 9, 2012.

At approximately 18:30 hours on Tuesday, while the vessel was steaming off Anna Regina, it began experiencing

very rough weather, which resulted in the shifting of some deck cargo and the breaking of a plank, which is used to secure the vessel’s gangway.

The high waves caused some seepage of water into the engine room, but same was immediately pumped out.

At no time did the Captain request assistance as the vessel was not in distress.

The Captain made contact with T&HD and MARAD officials in Georgetown and informed of the poor weather conditions and that the speed of the vessel was slowed from nine to six knots. He also advised passengers to resort to life jackets. Officials in Georgetown remained in constant contact with the Captain, but at approximately 23:00 hours there was failure in radio communication. As a consequence, the Guyana Coast Guard was alerted of this development and an aircraft flying over the seas, was asked to be on the lookout for the vessel in order

to ascertain its exact location, during the period of noncommunication.

However, someone had used a cellular phone to contact the lighthouse.

At approximately 11:40 hours on Wednesday January 9, 2012 communication was regained with the vessel and the Captain informed that they were approaching Mora Passage at the mouth of the Waini River and that their estimated arrival time at Morawhanna was 14:00 hours at a speed of 9.7 knots. The Captain also informed that there was no serious damage to the vessel and all passengers and crew were safe.

On Tuesday several passengers heading to the North West District had to be turned away since the vessel had reached its capacity. The T&HD had reported that one of the vessels, the MV Kimbia, which also plies that route had docked for routine repair works.

Thursday January 10, 2013

Kaieteur News

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Brazil’s Lula may be Venezuela court endorses investigated in corruption case Chavez inauguration delay (Reuters) - Brazil’s top prosecutor will look into allegations that former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was involved in a votebuying scheme in Congress that led to the conviction of several of his closest aides for corruption.

Chief federal prosecutor Roberto Gurgel’s office said in a statement yesterday that he would analyze the accusations of a businessman at the centre of the corruption case, Marcos Valerio, who alleged Lula not only knew about the illegal scheme but received money from it.

If he considers the allegations to have substance, Gurgel could start investigating them or pass the case over to the judiciary. The results would determine if charges would be brought.

Lula led Brazil from 20032010 and is the political mentor to current President Dilma Rousseff. Although Rousseff has so far avoided any negative political fallout from the years-old scandal, that could change if Lula is found to have been directly involved.

A Brazilian newspaper reported earlier that Gurgel had declined to investigate the allegations himself and had decided to pass the case to be heard in a lower federal

court where Lula can be probed since he no longer has immunity from prosecution.

A government source familiar with the case told Reuters that the prosecutor, who was appointed by Lula, was inclined to pass the matter onto a court.

Lula’s foundation accused the O Estado de S.Paulo newspaper of misinforming its readers and said authorities had still not decided whether to investigate Valerio’s allegations.

Valerio was sentenced to 40 years in prison for channelling public money to politicians during the early years of Lula’s presidency, and his credibility as a witness is in some doubt.

Jamaica Observer - No deadline for finalising an International Monetary Fund (IMF) deal has been made public.

However, come February 24 the Government will have to find US$320 million in hard currency to pay its creditors, along with a more staggering $88 billion in local currency.

The debts are mostly owed to Jamaican banks and investors, so it is likely that the funds to be repaid could be raised from the same pool that would be paid out locally.

But the lack of a clear IMF agreement, or at the least, a final letter of intent to be taken to the multilateral lending agency’s board before the debts become due, may further push up interest rates and lead to an even weaker dollar.

A deal is expected to release locked up foreign currency inflows from other multilaterals, like the World Bank, and bilateral partners, such as the EU, but the window for the Government to secure an arrangement before it faces a potential

fiscal cliff is closing. Meetings of the IMF’s executive board are already scheduled up to next Wednesday, when the fund will look at the first and second reviews under the Extended Arrangement for Greece, which was approved last March.

That gives Jamaica five weeks to lay everything on the table and get the important stamp of approval, which will signal to the market that a feasible economic programme will be undertaken over the next four years.

On the other hand, a few issues are still left to be sorted out. Chief among them are how the Government plans to deal with tax waivers and incentives and achieve higher primary surpluses and sharper cuts to the public debt, according to Finance Minister Peter Phillips.

Even then, when they have agreed on those terms, certain actions will have to be undertaken “subject to that approval of the Cabinet and the necessary consultations with local stakeholders”

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva

The vote-buying scandal that erupted in 2005 almost brought down Lula’s government and led to the biggest political corruption trial in Brazilian history.

Three top leaders of Lula’s Workers’ Party, including his former chief of staff Jose Dirceu, were sentenced in November to more than 10 years in prison for running a political bribery scheme in which congressmen received monthly payments to vote for legislation proposed by Lula’s minority government.

The case, heard by Brazil’s Supreme Court, gripped Brazil for months, bringing an unprecedented level of accountability to a country long used to widespread corruption.

Lula was not charged in the scandal. He has repeatedly denied any knowledge of the votebuying scheme and has even suggested it never existed.

Though Lula remains Brazil’s most popular politician, the convictions have tarnished the memory of his time in office and marred his legacy.

Among the more serious accusations he made, Valerio said Lula authorized loans from state banks to the Wo r k e r s ’ P a r t y t h a t provided the funds to bribe politicians.

Jamaica’s Govt. faces Feb deadline to find $118 billion Financial sector eyes loan growth, region

before the IMF board will give its approval.

The lack of a deal thus far has fed into lower investor confidence and economic uncertainty, which was reflected in the decline on the local stock market and devalued dollar last year.

“Concerns exist also in relation to the upward pressure on interest rates,” said Victoria Mutual Building Society President Richard Powell, who was speaking to the Jamaica Observer on the state of the financial sector coming into 2013.

“From a financial market perspective, one of the important ramifications of the situation is that investors are adopting a short-term horizon, not being prepared to assume the risks of making long-term investment commitments,” he said.

For instance, average yields for treasury bills rose last month, with 91-day instruments seeing the rate climb as high as 1.3 percentage points over two months.

CARACAS (Reuters) Venezuela’s top court endorsed the postponement of Hugo C h a v e z ’s inauguration this week and ruled yesterday that the cancer-stricken president remained the South American OPEC nation’s leader.

The 58-year-old socialist has not been seen in public nor heard from in almost a month following surgery in Cuba. The government says he is in a delicate condition and c a n n o t a t t e n d t o d a y ’s scheduled swearing-in for a new six-year term.

“Right now we cannot say when, how or where the president will be sworn in,” Supreme Court Chief Judge Luisa Morales told a news conference.

“As president re-elect there is no interruption of performance of duties ... The inauguration can be carried out at a later date before the Supreme Court.”

Both Chavez and his heir apparent, Vice President

Nicolas Maduro, would remain in the roles after January 10, she added in a judgment quashing opposition appeals for a caretaker president to be named.

Government leaders insist Chavez is fulfilling his duties as head of state, even though official medical bulletins said he suffered multiple complications after the surgery, including a severe pulmonary infection, and has had trouble breathing.

It was his fourth operation since being diagnosed with an undisclosed type of cancer in June 2011.

The government has called for a massive rally outside the presidential palace on Thursday, and allied presidents including Uruguay’s Jose Mujica and Bolivia’s Evo Morales have confirmed they will visit Venezuela that day despite Chavez’s absence.

The president’s resignation or death would

Luisa Estella Morales, President of the Venezuelan Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ).

REUTERS/Jorge Silva upend politics in the oil-rich nation, where he is revered by poor supporters thankful for his social largesse.

His critics denounce him as an autocrat who has squandered billions of dollars from crude sales while dashing the independence of state institutions.

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Thursday January 10, 2013

PM attending PetroCaribe Haiti wants greater say in talks in Venezuela disbursement of Canadian funds Dr. Kenny Anthony

CASTRIES, St. Lucia – CMC - Prime Minister Dr. Kenny Anthony is heading a two-member delegation to Venezuela for a meeting of PetroCaribe, an initiative of Caracas allowing many Caribbean countries to purchase oil on conditions of preferential payment.

St. Lucia has not joined the alliance that was launched in 2005, but a government statement said that attending

the meeting would allow Castries to have an updated assessment of the initiative.

Last February, Prime Minister Anthony joined his counterparts from Dominica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Antigua and Barbuda in attending the 11th summit of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) in Venezuela.

Anthony had expressed then an interest in St. Lucia

resuming its interest in becoming part of the PetroCaribe but has shown little interest in the initiative particularly after a warning from the President of the St Lucia Petroleum Dealers Association (SPDA) Clinton Charlery about fully embracing the programme.

Charlery said while global conditions dictate that the island consider all available avenues to meet the national energy demand at cost efficient levels, government needed to be careful about taking any rash decisions about aligning with the initiative.

“This is a decision that government ought to have met with us to discuss and we, as a group, really cannot discuss the matter unless we are given the facts, we must have the details of what governs the arrangement.”

Prime Minister Anthony was expected to have announced plans for St. Lucia to become part of the PetroCaribe initiative when he p r e s e n t e d l a s t y e a r ’s national budget, but failed to do so.

MONTREAL, Canada – Haiti’s Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe wants his government to have a greater say in how aid from Canada is spent.

Lamothe’s position comes in the wake of a decision by Ottawa to put a temporary halt on aid to the Frenchspeaking Caribbean Community (CARICOM) country.

Last week, International Co-operation Minister Julian Fantino announced that Ottawa would not fund any new programme in Haiti until it finds a better way of assisting the country help itself.

Fantino said he was disappointed at what he considered the lack of progress in Haiti during his trip to the Caribbean country last November.

Canada has provided C$1billion (one Canadian Dollar =US$1.01 cents) in development assistance to Haiti since 2006 and Fantino warned that Canadian taxpayers cannot take care of Haiti’s problems forever.

But in an interview with the Canadian Press, Lamothe said he was now urging Ottawa to allow his government to assume a bigger role in the decisions

involved in rebuilding Haiti following the devastating earthquake that killed an estimated 300,000 people and left more than a million others homeless. “For any future cooperation, when it’s decided to resume, we will ask the Canadian government to focus on the priorities of the Haitian government.

“Basically, the development assistance, because of the perceived weakness of Haitian institutions, was routed directly to NGOs (nongovernment organisations) and Canadian firms,” he said, noting, “that weakened our institutions”.

Lamothe said that the earthquake on January 12, 2010, had destroyed 42 public buildings and caused damage estimated at US$12.5 billion.

In addition, Haiti has had to deal with an outbreak of cholera and natural disasters.

“For any country, that would be a great disaster, for Haiti, it was magnified by 50.

So, we are struggling and we are doing our very best to improve the economy, to create jobs.”

In a statement posted Tuesday on the website of the Canadian International Development Agency

Laurent Lamothe (CIDA), Fantino said Canada’s goal is to help countries help themselves. ‘’Canada’s assistance will not be a blank cheque,’’ he said. But Lamothe insists his government’s hands are tied when it comes to development programmes because it doesn’t receive any of CIDA’s aid.

He is urging Canada and other donor countries to work together to find a way to involve Haiti’s institutions in the process.

“It’s very difficult for us to be held accountable for progress or lack thereof...we want the (Haitian) government to be consulted together (with Canada) and we’ll do it in a transparent process... so that the Canadian taxpayer dollar is maximised to the best possible way.”

Students want DEA to release information on Jamaica NEW YORK - CMC Three Yale Law School students have filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request calling on the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to release aerial surveillance footage compiled during the operations by security forces in Jamaica to detain Christopher “Dudus” Coke who was wanted in the United States on drugs and firearms charges.

In 2010, Jamaica police and military officials moved into Tivoli Gardens in a bid to arrest Coke, following an extradition request from Washington. The operations led to the deaths of more than 70 civilians.

The three students filed the suit on behalf of Mattathias Schwartz, the reporter who covered the event for The New Yorker magazine.

The suit, which was filed on December 19, 2012, arose from Freedom of Information requests that Schwartz had made to the DEA and other federal agencies for records pertaining to the Tivoli operation. The DEA has until January 22 to respond.

An article appearing on

Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke the Yale Law School website, notes that although the DEA has acknowledged in response to Schwartz’s requests that it is in possession of six DVDs containing aerial surveillance footage of the raid, it has refused to release them, citing six exemptions under the US Freedom of Information Act. The students, who are members of Yale’s Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic (MFIA), argue in the complaint, filed in federal district court in the Eastern District of New York, that none of the exemptions are applicable to the footage being sought. The MFIA was established to, among other things, defend the public’s

right of access to government information.

Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ) has called on the Jamaica Parliament to explain why the Office of the Public Defender has still not produced a report on its investigation into the Tivoli Gardens incursion.

Public Defender Earl Witter has missed selfimposed deadlines to produce the report and JFJ executive director Susan Goffe said it is unacceptable that the country remains in the dark on the status of the probe.

“We are at a point of being stalled in this process because this, a report, is the next step in forcing the way forward. So here we are in 2013 and we will be calling on the Speaker of the House to update us on what the position currently is,” she said, adding that a petition containing 200 names had been submitted to Parliament last month. The petition called for the Office of the Public Defender to be provided with the necessary resources so that the report on the Tivoli investigation can be submitted by the end of January.

Thursday January 10, 2013

Kaieteur News

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US seeking renewed Venezuela ties after Chavez WASHINGTON (AP) — With President Hugo Chavez possibly in his last days, the United States sees the possibility of a long-sought reset in relations with Venezuela.

Chavez recently underwent his fourth cancerrelated surgery in Cuba and there is wide speculation that the 58-year-old — at the very least — will never again be able to govern. His allies have postponed his inauguration for a new presidential term, originally scheduled for today, prompting a fierce battle with the Venezuelan opposition, which argues such a delay is unconstitutional.

The Obama administration is steering clear of the legal debate. But it is nevertheless looking to the likely end of Chavez’s 14year rule, during which he championed a Latin America free of American influence and built alliances with U.S. foes across the globe such as Iran and Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi, destroying anti-drug

and counterterrorism ties with Washington along the way.

“Regardless of what happens politically in Venezuela, if the Venezuelan government and if the Venezuelan people want to move forward with us, we think there is a path that’s possible,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said yesterday.

“It is just going to take two to tango,” Nuland told reporters. “It’s going to take action on the Venezuelan side as well as our willingness in order to improve relations.”

Chavez hasn’t spoken publicly in a month and while American officials don’t know his exact condition, they believe he may be near death or a state of incapacity.

Venezuela’s government has kept Chavez’s health a closely guarded secret.

If either scenario plays out, there is little to suggest Chavez’s followers would seek to roll back his idiosyncratic — and often anti-American — vision of a

Hugo Chavez

Bolivarian socialist revolution. Still, the Obama administration is stepping up its outreach to the country’s next likely leaders, convinced it can find some areas of future cooperation with the firebrand populist out of the way.

Roberta Jacobson, the top American diplomat for Latin America, spoke by telephone with Vice President Nicolas Maduro in November and discussed ways of improving ties on such issues as fighting drug

Jamaica’s former contractor general in demand…

Trinidadian coalition brings Christie on board Jamaica Gleaner Jamaica’s former contractor general Greg Christie has been brought on board by a coalition of private sector and civil society groups in Trinidad and Tobago to advise it on draft legislative proposals now before the twin-island republic’s parliament.

Christie has been engaged by a private and civil society group headed by the Joint Consultative Council for the Construction Industry in Trinidad and Tobago.

The former contractor general’s mandate involves collaborating with the private and civil society groups regarding their draft legislative proposals which are currently being considered by the Trinidadian legislature.

Winston Riley, chairman of the procurement committee of the private sector and civil society group, told The Gleaner that he had had talks with Christie from as far back as 2010.

Riley said his lobby in Trinidad has been pushing for an arrangement in the island where its procurement regulator reports to parliament.

He said this would be similar to the arrangement with regard to Jamaica’s contractor general who is a

Greg Christie commission of the Jamaican Parliament.

Noting that the group faced opposition from the legislature on its proposal for the regulator to report to parliament, Riley said: “We didn’t want the regulator to be reporting to any minister and that is where the problem started. That is the genesis of starting our discussion with Christie.”

Agitating for legislation Last year a team from the Office of the Contractor General, led by Christie, gave a Trinidadian joint committee a first-hand and expert account of the operation and oversight of Jamaica’s procurement systems.

Riley told The Gleaner Tuesday that his group has been agitating for the proposed legislation for a number of years.

“We have lobbied the administration before to have proper procurement legislation. We reached very far and they turned their backs on it. We have lobbied this administration and they have decided to push ahead with it but it went to a joint select committee,” he explained.

He said under the previous Trinidadian administration, legislation was drafted to deal with government procurement but the then government changed its mind about taking the measure forward.

However, he said the Kamla Persad-Bissessar government took the draft law to a legislative review committee of parliament.

“Now that the legislation has reached this far, there is the question of the practicality under which we have to work. We felt that Mr Christie has the kind of experience to look at our legislation and tell us in terms of its practicality, what it is we need to change, what we should do in difficult circumstances.”

He stressed, however, that Trinidad did not intend to adopt the Jamaican procurement model but was seeking to align itself with the Australian-New Zealand model.

cartels to terrorism. Chavez hand-picked Maduro to run for president if he is unable any longer to govern.

U.S. diplomat Kevin Whitaker also has been in regular contact with Roy Chaderton, Venezuela’s ambassador to the Organization of American States in Washington.

Washington’s goal is a pragmatic relationship with Chavez’s successors, even as the two countries will likely have much to continue disagreeing over.

The approach is somewhat akin to the one President Barack Obama adopted with Russia after

taking office four years ago, hoping to eliminate the distrust that built up during George W. Bush’s presidency by re-establishing cooperation on issues such as Afghanistan and nuclear non-proliferation, while acknowledging that Moscow and Washington won’t necessarily agree on democracy and the rule of law.

The “reset” in ties with the Kremlin has stalled amid sharp U.S.-Russian disputes over missile defense plans and Syria’s civil war, but the administration still fiercely defends its merits.

With Venezuela, the U.S. is hoping to start with stronger counter-narcotics coordination, a challenge given that the Venezuelan government includes officials subject to U.S. drug “kingpin” sanctions. Other American priorities include energy cooperation and stronger enforcement of sanctions against Iran. The U.S. also fears Iranian efforts to use Venezuela as a base for terrorist or other activity in the Western Hemisphere against American interests.

Maduro and other

insiders in Chavez’s government also seek rapprochement, but want to start with the first exchange of ambassadors between the two countries since 2010. The U.S. Embassy in Caracas has been without a top envoy since Chavez rejected Obama’s nominee and accused him of making disrespectful remarks about Venezuela’s government.

That led Washington to revoke the visa of Venezuela’s ambassador.

Speaking last week, Maduro stressed that the U.S. and Venezuela have “great ideological and political differences.” But he held out the possibility of normalized relations based on mutual respect.

Despite Chavez’s tirades against the U.S. and what he sees as its attempts to bring down his government, and U.S. criticism of Venezuela’s lax efforts against drug traffickers, the two countries have maintained economic relations. The U.S. gets about 10 percent of its oil from Venezuela and remains the Latin American country’s top purchaser.

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Thursday January 10, 2013

U.N. envoy says 40 years of Assad family rule is “too long” BEIRUT (Reuters) Syrians believe 40 years of Assad family rule is too long, the international mediator for Syria said, the closest he has come to calling directly for President Bashar al-Assad to quit.

The remarks by U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi cast doubt on the future of his peace plan, the only major diplomatic initiative to end a war the United Nations says has killed 60,000 people.

He appears to have been pushed to take a firmer stance by a speech Assad delivered on Sunday, which was billed as a new peace proposal but offered no concessions and included a vow never to talk to foes he branded terrorists

and Western puppets.

“In Syria, in particular, I think that what people are saying is that a family ruling for 40 years is a little bit too long,” Brahimi told Britain’s BBC in an interview aired yesterday.

“So the change has to be real. It has to be real, and I think that President Assad could take the lead in responding to the aspiration of his people rather than resisting it.”

Brahimi’s comments were welcomed by the opposition, which has long been angered by the U.N. mediator’s refusal to take a firm position on excluding a future role for Assad.

“The statement of Lakhdar

(Reuters) - Democrats have regained the edge over Republicans among U.S. adults expressing a party preference even as a growing number of Americans say they are politically independent, a poll released yesterday showed.

Some 47 percent of Americans identified themselves as Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents last year, compared to 42 percent who said they were Republicans or Republican-leaning, according to the Gallup survey. “That re-establishes a Democratic edge in party affiliation after the two parties were essentially tied in 2010 and 2011,” the polling firm said.

The findings are based on all of Gallup’s polling data from 2012, which includes more than 20,000 interviews with adults across the country.

The November election saw Democratic President Barack Obama win a second term and Democrats pick up

eight seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. The party also maintained its control of the Senate.

But in a finding that could spell trouble for both parties, the number of Americans claiming political independence crept up.

Forty percent of respondents last year said they aligned with neither party, up from 39 percent in 2007 and 1995, the poll showed. Thirty-one percent said they were Democrats and 28 percent said they were Republicans.

“The rise in independence is perhaps not surprising, given the low esteem in which Americans hold the federal government and the political parties,” Gallup said.

“But with most Americans willing to at least express a leaning to either party, it does suggest the potential for the parties to gain more solid adherents in the future,” it added.

The poll had a margin of error of plus-or-minus 1 percentage point.

More Americans siding with Democrats, Republicans lag: poll

Brahimi has been long awaited,” the opposition National Coalition’s representative to Britain, Walid Saffour, told Reuters.

“He hasn’t criticized Bashar al-Assad before, but now after he despaired of Assad after his Sunday speech, he had no other alternative than to say to the world that this rule is a family rule, and more than 40 years is enough.”

Assad has ruled since 2000, taking over from his father Hafez, who seized power in a 1970 coup.

Brahimi met Assad in Damascus two weeks ago and has been convening senior U.S. and Russian officials in an effort to narrow differences between the superpowers backing either side in the war. The next round of those talks are due next week.

Brahimi said Assad had told him in December he would launch a new initiative. The veteran Algerian diplomat advised the president that any announcement should go further than previous failed proposals.

He was disappointed by Sunday’s speech.

“I’m afraid what has come out is very much a repeat of previous initiatives that obviously did not work,” Brahimi said of Assad’s proposals. “It’s

not really different and perhaps is even more sectarian and more one-sided,” he added.

“The time of reforms granted magnanimously from above has passed,” Brahimi said. “People want to have a say in how they are governed and they want to take hold of their own future.”

Brahimi said there was no military solution to the conflict: “The government will not win.

The opposition may win in the long term, but by the time they do, there will be no Syria, so what is the victory in that?”

He said Assad had told him he wanted to run for reelection in 2014. Although Brahimi did not comment directly on whether Assad should be allowed to stand, he said the crisis needed to be resolved by the end of 2013 “or there will be no Syria”.

The uprising against Assad is backed mainly by the Sunni Muslim minority, while he is supported mainly by other members of his Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, and other religious minorities.

Assad’s speech on Sunday was firmly rejected by Western countries and the opposition, which described it as an attempt to cling to power and thwart mediation efforts.

After three days of silence following the speech, Moscow finally offered its support on Wednesday.

Assad’s proposals “affirmed the readiness for the launch of an inter-Syrian dialogue and for reforming the country on the basis of Syrian sovereignty,” the Russian foreign ministry said.

Western countries have been searching for signs of Moscow curbing its support for Assad, hoping that this could finally lever him from power just as Russian withdrawal of backing for Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic heralded his downfall in 2000.

Syria’s state news agency, SANA, said Assad’s new peace plan had been sent to the United Nations and was in line with Brahimi’s peace plan.

Damascus did not immediately comment on Brahimi’s remarks. But in social media, where in the past it was the opposition that usually expressed hostility to Brahimi, anger could now be heard from Assad’s supporters.

“Brahimi is finished in Syria, he may as well resign,” said a pro-Assad twitter user calling himself

SyrianCommando.

Some opposition supporters were wary of Brahimi’s apparent late change of tone. Col. Abdeljabbar Oqeidi, a rebel leader in northern Syria, said he had not heard Brahimi’s full remarks but it sounded as if his words were positive.

“Any initiative that doesn’t require the entire regime to go and be put on trial will not be enough. We won’t negotiate with that criminal or his gangs,” he said by telephone.

Rebel fighter Abu Faisal, reached on Skype with the sound of exploding rockets in the background, laughed and said of Brahimi’s conclusion that Syrians had enough of the ruling family: “This is a new discovery after two years? Maybe we should worship him now.”

(Reuters) - The United States wants Britain to stay in the European Union and fears that a possible referendum on its membership of the 27-nation bloc would be divisive and make Britain inward-looking, a senior U.S. official said yesterday.

The comments come as British Prime Minister David Cameron prepares to deliver a long-awaited speech on Britain’s ties with Europe and mounting calls for a referendum on whether to leave the European Union

after 40 years.

“We have a growing relationship with the EU as an institution, which has an increasing voice in the world, and we want to see a strong British voice in that EU,” Philip Gordon, U.S. assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs, told reporters at a briefing in London, according to two journalists present at the meeting.

Cameron says he wants to renegotiate ties with Europe and to then seek the public’s “fresh consent” for a new

settlement. In the coming weeks, he is widely expected to offer a referendum on Europe that could be held after the next election in 2015.

Cameron says he does not want to leave Europe, its biggest trading partner, but “euroscepticism” has increased among Conservative lawmakers and the public in recent years, with the anti-Europe UK Independence Party making gains in local polls in 2012.

Urging Britain and the EU to focus on big issues such as economic growth and jobs,

Gordon said that “referendums have often turned countries inward”.

“It is best for everyone, we think, when leaders have the time to be able to millfocus on common challenges rather than spending their time on internal workings.

“Every hour at a summit spent debating the institutional make-up of the European Union is one hour less spent on how to deal with the common issues of jobs, growth and international peace around the world.”

Lakhdar Brahimi

U.S. says Britain should stay in the EU

Thursday January 10, 2013

Kaieteur News

Iraq PM’s foes demand he face questioning in parliament

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Afghans say total U.S. pullout would trigger disaster

Protesters take part in a demonstration in Ramadi, 100 km (62 miles) west of Baghdad, yesterday. REUTERS/Ali al-Mashhadani BAGHDAD (Reuters) Opponents of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki yesterday demanded he appear before parliament for questioning in a second attempt to force a vote of no confidence, as the Shi’ite leader faced Sunni Muslim protests.

Thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets in Sunni strongholds across Iraq for more than two weeks, increasing fears that turmoil

in neighboring Syria may help tip Iraq back into the broad sectarian violence it suffered a few years ago.

Maliki’s rivals among Sunni, Shi’ite and Kurdish blocs remain sharply divided, and failed last year to win required approval from the president or support in the 325-member Council of Representatives for a vote of no confidence.

But popular unrest and parliamentary pressure may

combine to become a major test for Maliki, a Shi’ite nationalist whom many Sunni leaders accuse of marginalizing their sect and amassing too much power a year after the last U.S. troops left.

Lawmakers collected more than the 25 signatures required to call Maliki to appear in parliament to be questioned on alleged violations of the constitution and of a power-sharing agreement.

(Reuters) - Sudan has secured a $1.5 billion (936.2 million pounds) loan guaranteed by Chinese state oil firm China National Petroleum Corp, its finance minister said, throwing a lifeline to the African country battling its worst economic crisis for decades.

Sudanese Finance Minister Ali Mahmoud said the loan, agreed on December 31, would come from a Chinese bank, which he declined to identify. It comes at a crucial time for Sudan which has been unable to stop a slide in its currency since losing three-quarters of its oil production when South Sudan seceded in 2011.

Oil was the main revenue source for the budget and for dollars needed to buy basic food imports such as wheat and sugar.

China is the country’s biggest trading partner apart from Gulf Arab oil producers and China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), which was not immediately available to comment, is the biggest investor in the oil industry in Sudan and South Sudan.

Sudan has avoided an “Arab spring” revolution that toppled the rulers of Egypt, Tunisia and Libya but annual

inflation running at 46.5 percent in November has sparked small protests against the government.

“The $1.5 billion loan will be used to bridge the fiscal gap and enhance our balance of payments,” Mahmoud told Reuters in Abu Dhabi yesterday.

He said the loan would help stabilise the Sudanese pound which has more than halved in value on the key black market since southern secession in July 2011.

In July, Sudan devalued the official dollar exchange rate to around 4.4 pounds to end a differential with the black market rate. But the pound fell further, to 7 pounds to the dollar in December on the black market, which has become the reference for import firms as the central bank struggles to supply dollars.

China has stayed out of recent tensions between both African countries which came close to war in April. But Beijing has an interest in Sudan overcoming its crisis given that it has been the biggest buyer of South Sudanese oil which has to be exported through Sudan.

Landlocked South Sudan shut down its output of 350,000 barrels a day a year

ago after failing to agree with Sudan over export fees. Both countries now plan to resume cross-border flows but need to secure their disputed border first.

Sudan says secures $1.5 billion loan from China as it battles currency slide

NATO and Afghan forces inspect at the site of suicide attack in Spin Boldak district of Kandahar province. REUTERS/Ahmad Nadeem (AFGHANISTAN - Tags: CIVIL UNREST MILITARY KABUL (Reuters) Afghan lawmakers said yesterday disaster and civil war would follow if Washington pushed ahead with a suggestion to withdraw all its troops from the country after 2014.

The White House said a day earlier it was considering the so-called “zero option” of a complete pullout - despite earlier recommendations from the top military commander in Afghani s t a n t o k e e p soldiers there to help the government.

That option and the angry reaction from Afghan officials are likely to dominate talks between U.S. President Barack Obaba and his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai in

Washington tomorrow.

The meeting was already likely to be tense, given ongoing strains in their relationship over the war.

“If Americans pull out all of their troops without a plan, the civil war of the 1990s would repeat itself,” said Naeem Lalai, an outspoken lawmaker from volatile Kandahar province, the birthplace of the Taliban.

“It (full withdrawal) will pave the way for the Taliban to take over militarily,” Lalai told Reuters.

When the Soviets left Afghanistan in 1989 after a decade-long war, financial aid dried up and the Afghan communist government collapsed, leading to

infighting between warlords.

A civil war paved the way for the Taliban’s rise to power.

The United States has about 68,000 troops there and that number was already expected to reduce sharply ahead of December 31 2014 the official end of the NATOled combat mission in the country.

NATO and its partners are racing against the clock to train up Afghanistan’s 350,000-strong security forces though questions remain over how they well they will be able to tackle insurgents in the face of intensifying violence.

Many leading Afghan officials had assumed some U.S. troops would stay.

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Berlusconi rips magistrates over divorce deal ROME (AP) — Former Premier Silvio Berlusconi has infuriated Italy’s legal establishment by blasting a group of female magistrates as “feminist” and “communist” for what he said was a •200,000- ($260,000-) aday divorce settlement.

The comments — and the backlash — have added to the drama surrounding Berlusconi’s return to public life amid his continued sexual and legal scandals and his new role as the leader of a center-right coalition campaigning in Italy’s Feb. 24-25 election.

Italian media initially reported that Berlusconi’s divorce from his second wife, Veronica Lario, would cost him •36 million ($47 million) a year. That breaks down to about •100,000 ($130,000) a day.

But on Tuesday, Berlusconi told the La7 private television network that the amount was much higher. While he didn’t detail how he got to a •200,000-aday figure, he said he was ordered by the Milan magistrates to pay Lario •36

million a year, with another •72 million ($94 million) in back payments.

“These are three women judges, feminists and communists, OK?” the threetime ex-premier said. “These are the Milan judges who have persecuted me since 1994.”

Berlusconi has long accused Milan prosecutors and magistrates of mounting politically inspired cases against him, and he frequently accuses his legal and political enemies of being communists.

Milan chief judge Livia Pomodoro said yesterday that she was “surprised and hurt” by the remarks, and “as a woman I am degraded.”

In a joint statement, Pomodoro and the head of Milan’s appeals court “strongly rejected any insinuation of partiality” by the tribunal’s judges, whom they described as “diligent professionals.”

While she said criticizing the justice system is healthy, Pomodoro told private Radio 24 that “I believe that qualifying a decision as

biased because it was made by women, rather than men, does not seem right to me.”

Pomodoro herself was not one of the judges on the Berlusconi divorce case.

The president of the Italy’s national magistrates’ association, Rodolfo Sabelli, said Berlusconi’s accusations were “unacceptable” and challenged him to appeal the sentence if he found it unfair.

Berlusconi said he was appealing. In Italy, alimony payments are designed to keep the receiving spouse in the lifestyle that he or she was accustomed to while married.

“Judges base alimony mainly on income,” Rome attorney Manrico Colazza said. “Berlusconi would have been required to produce his income records, including his bank statements, for the past two years.”

Berlusconi, a 76-year-old media mogul-turned politician, has a real estate and media empire that Forbes estimates is worth $5.9 billion — enough to rank Berlusconi and his family 169th on the magazine’s list of the world’s billionaires.

Thursday January 10, 2013

Central African Republic ceasefire urged as talks begin LIBREVILLE (Reuters) Mediators urged Central African Republic’s government and rebels to sign a ceasefire yesterday as talks got under way to end a month-long insurgency in the former French colony.

The rebels have come within striking distance of the capital Bangui, posing the biggest threat to President Francois Bozize since he took control of the mineral-rich nation in a rebellion a decade ago.

Bozize has relied on foreign military help to fend off a series of smaller insurgencies while in power.

He won elections in 2005 and 2011 despite opposition complaints of fraud.

The Seleka rebels, who accuse him of reneging on a 2007 peace deal, pushed government forces back within 75 km (45 miles) of Bangui before bowing to international pressure to attend the peace talks in Gabon’s capital Libreville.

They reject a powersharing deal offered by Bozize and insist the president step down.

“I am asking everyone to show restraint and in this context, we will suggest at the start of the talks that a ceasefire agreement be signed,” said Basile Ikouebe, foreign minister of Congo Republic which is mediating the talks.

Central African Republic’s political opposition is also attending the negotiations, along with diplomats from the European Union and Western countries including France.

France used air strikes to defend Bozize in 2006 but has refused his request for military help this time. It has 600 troops in the country to

defend about 1,200 French citizens living there.

Plagued by instability, Central African Republic has seen low levels of investment.

France has the biggest mining investment in the country, a uranium mine in the southeast being developed by French nuclear energy group Areva.

Prospects for a peace deal appear slim. On Tuesday Bozize accused the rebels of being foreign gunmen hired by shady business interests.

“The issue of my departure is out of order. I was twice elected as head of state with more than 70 percent of the vote. I’m here and that’s it,” Bozize told journalists late on Tuesday in Bangui. “According to information reaching us..., among these rebels are Janjaweed (Sudanese militia) and foreigners from neighboring countries,” he said.

Regional leaders have supplied Bozize with hundreds of troops - mostly from Chad but also from Congo, Gabon, Cameroon, and South Africa - to bolster his country’s armed forces.

(Reuters) - Many Egyptian viewers were horrified when preacher Hisham el-Ashry recently popped up on primetime television to say women must cover up for their own protection and advocated the introduction of religious police.

That an obscure preacher could get publicity for such views was seen as another example of the confused political scene in Egypt since the revolt that toppled Hosni Mubarak gave birth to a cacophony of feuding voices.

“I was once asked: If I

came to power, would I let Christian women remain unveiled? And I said: If they want to get raped on the streets, then they can,” Ashry told Nahar TV last week.

Introducing a Saudi-style anti-vice police force to enforce Islamic law was “not a bad thing”, he said, and added: “In order for Egypt to become fully Islamic, alcohol must be banned a n d a l l women must be covered.”

Few take Ashry, who admits he flew to the United States dreaming of a Western lifestyle and romance but instead found truth in

preaching, seriously. But his views have stirred emotions.

With the economic downturn and rising food prices putting pressure on the government, moderate Muslims, Christians and others worry their new-found political freedom is at risk of being exploited by hardline Islamists bent on imposing their values on a society that has been traditionally moderate.

Watching a recent television interview in which Ashry expounded his ideas on women and sharia law, members of one family jumped to their feet in outrage.

(Reuters) - Separate meetings between Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi and the leaders of Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah in Cairo yesterday yielded no signs of progress towards healing their five-year feud.

Palestinian and Egyptian officials said Mursi met President Mahmoud Abbas of the secular Fatah group and Khaled Meshaal of the Islamist Hamas movement to discuss how to implement a reconciliation deal that they agreed in Cairo in 2011.

Egyptian mediators had hoped to coax all three into the same room, and a Palestinian

source told Reuters that Abbas and Meshaal would meet later in the evening, but without the Egyptian president.

Speaking after Mursi’s meeting with Abbas, Egyptian presidential spokesman Yasser Ali gave no indication of any major progress but said Cairo would spare no effort to bring about reconciliation.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri played down the talks in Cairo, describing them as “exploratory”. “Egyptian officials aim to explore where things stand and look into the best ways to activate reconciliation efforts,” he told

Reuters. Abbas is reluctant to accept any format that would imply giving the Hamas leader a status equivalent to his own.

Mursi, mired in political and economic difficulties at home, helped broker a ceasefire deal that ended a war in November between Israel and Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip.

Leaders of the two groups have been deadlocked over the how to implement the agreement and have traded blame over continued arrests among members in the West Bank, where Abbas holds sway, and in Gaza, which Hamas wrested from Abbas’s control in 2007.

Francois Bozize

Preacher alarms many in Egypt with calls for Islamist vice police

No sign of progress as Palestinian rivals meet in Egypt

Thursday January 10, 2013

Kaieteur News

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Kaieteur News

Thursday January 10, 2013

Millions expended in 2012 to support – Human Services Minister vulnerable citizens Millions were expended last year by the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security as part of its efforts to provide assistance to a number of vulnerable individuals.

Speaking at a press conference on Monday, Minister Jennifer Webster said that during the course of the past year, more than $2 million was spent to bring

relief to several persons who lost their homes to fire.

The Ministry was also able to render support to several underprivileged families who suffered losses as a result of heavy winds during the latter part of last year. This support she valued at some $326,000.

The Ministry, last year, too, doled out in excess of $4 million towards helping

persons to meet funeral expenses. According to the Minister “we give a funeral grant to persons who are unable to meet the full cost of funeral expenses of their relatives.”

Some persons with visual challenges were also recipients of financial aid from the Human Services Ministry last year, as according to Minister Webster, both old-

The charge of murder against Nazrudeen Jahoot, called “Buddy”, of Cotton Tree, West Coast Berbice, began on Tuesday in the Berbice High Court before Justice Brassington Reynolds and a mixed Jury.

Jahoot, who was 18 at the

time, is accused of murdering his one-time neighbour, Ramlall Mangal, called “Ochro” and “Dereck”, on August 25, 2008 at Cotton Tree, West Coast Berbice following a misunderstanding.

After the jury was sworn

and the indictment was read by state prosecutor Prithina Kissoon the matter was adjourned to today upon a request by defence attorney Charrandass Persaud, after he informed the court that he had only received the deposition a few minutes before.

Cotton Tree man on trial for murder

aged pensioners and school children were together afforded more than $2.5 million for eye care.

Those in need of prosthetic limbs were no exception, since over $1 million was expended in this regard. Added to this, a sum of $562,000 was availed to assist persons who are deaf and those who have difficulty hearing with hearing aids.

Financial aid was directed towards other forms of medical assistance such as CT Scans to the tune of $830,000, Minister Webster disclosed. She also revealed that support was rendered to aid the economic upliftment of some vulnerable individuals. In this regard, a number of small business grants were given in areas such as poultry rearing - $719,000; sewing - $115,000; leather craft and small business in garments $150,000 and beverages $90,000. Funds were also made available for cosmetology.

Although funding was made available to bolster

their economic standing, Minister Webster said that the Ministry also provided food assistance to some, an undertaking which amounted to some $2 million.

The Ministry also provided housing support to three differently-able persons, who were able to join with Habitat for Humanity to construct homes. A sum of just over $2 million was expended in this regard.

Also last year, the Human Services Ministry dedicated a total of $1.9 million towards transportation for the differently-able, while donations to the elderly and Non-Governmental Organisations translated to approximately $3 million.

Another $1 million was directed towards victims of Trafficking In Persons (TIP), Minister Webster said. The local TIP situation has been one of the major areas that the Ministry has been giving attention during the course of the past year.

According to the Minister during 2012, the Ministry worked with all

victims providing them with counselling and other support.

Two of the victims were offered additional assistance to enrol in training institutions so as to ensure that they did not return to activities that constitute TIP, Minister Webster said.

“We continue to work throughout our communities.

We have been doing a number of training programmes too.”

TIP, she emphasised, is regarded a horrible crime and “I think it is about the w o r l d ’s s e c o n d l a rg e s t (worse) crime after drug trafficking.”

Against this background, she said that the Ministry has in place a Counter TIP Unit, complete with a hotline, to allow for callers to report suspected cases.

This operation is backed by a Task Force which works in collaboration with the Ministries of Amerindian Affairs, Natural Resources and Home Affairs.

The Minister revealed that the Task Force will soon issue a detailed report on the state of TIP in Guyana.

Thursday January 10, 2013

Kaieteur News

Page 27

Cycles for Haags Bosch litter-pickers

Minister of Local Government Norman Whitaker handing over a bicycle to one of the litter pickers, in the presence of Junior Minister of Finance Juan Edghill and Mr. Gordon Gilkes, Head of the Solid Waste Management Programme.

Yesterday, Minister of Local Government, Norman Whitaker, handed over bicycles to litter pickers operating at the Haags Bosch landfill site.

According to the Minister, the small but significant donation is to show appreciation for the contribution made by the litter pickers. The donation also coincided with the launch of the Ministry’s Solid Waste management campaign. “We need to acknowledge the contribution of the waste pickers and at the same time we need to look at the progress we would have made since our last meeting at this site.”

During yesterday’s forum the Minister noted that in spite of all the challenges in the implementation phases of the site the Ministry has made significant progress.

“This is a work in progress; we need to be reminded that this is a model that we are developing and we are hoping that this can be replicated in the other nine regions and we have already started taking steps in this direction,” the Minister noted.

Junior Minister of Finance Juan Edghill who was also present at the forum, lauded the efforts of the litter pickers, noting that this new site has changed the dynamics of solid waste management.

“We have to change the mentality where we had junkies in the past. We have a well implemented waste pickers programme and it’s improving the lives of people and bringing in income for many,” Edghill noted.

Further, the Junior Minister stated that it is his hope that the media will seek to understand and promote

the dynamics of what is taking place and ensure that the correct information is passed about the changes taking place in solid waste management.

“This site is not just a n o t h e r d u m p s i t e . We have to be able to move from the mentally of having too much garbage and just dumping it, but the management of solid waste is important and it will be with us for as long as we live.”

He added that when a country is developing when people have greater access to money and they are having more disposable income, the level of sophistication, including can foods and bottle products, waste will be generated at a faster rate.

“Gone are the days when people cooked from their kitchen garden, we have

Beverage giant, Ansa McAl, yesterday launched its ninth edition of the “Carib Soca Monarch”. This year’s competition will see some 22 contestants trying to get their hands on that $1.5M cash price.

Organizers of the event also disclosed, yesterday, that they are seriously considering adding a motorcar as another prize for the winner.

Ansa McAl’s Marketing Manager, Troy Cadogan, said that the reason they keep the competition is because they have realized that music is the life of carnival festival. He said that in the formative years of the Soca monarchy the music was not at a particular level.

Cadogan said that after sponsoring for a few years, the company recognized that although the impetus was there (prize money) one

would still hear foreign music on Mash Day. He said that contestants were treated to a music workshop with renowned artistes from around the Caribbean. He said that they have had the highest number of entries, 33. He explained that those entries were shortlisted to 22.

Cadogan further noted that this year’s competition will return with the quarterfinal leg. He said that the last time the quarterfinal was held was way back in 2007. This according to the organizers will no doubt augur well for the future of the competition and the further development of both the artiste and the local music industry since it allows for more participation and wider reach.

From a total of 33 entries, which matched last year’s

record, the in-house judging team has selected 22 for the quarterfinal which is scheduled for February 2, 2013 at the Mackenzie Sports Club Ground in Linden. Of the 22 quarterfinalists, 12 are first time entrants to the competition.

This stage of the competition will see five contestants being eliminated.

Those remaining will advance to the semifinal on February 9, 2013 at the Area H Ground, Rose Hall, Corentyne where a further five will be dropped.

The remaining 12 will be joined by the reigning monarch, Jumo Primo, for the grand finale at the National Park on February 16, 2013.

It was explained that the submitted entries were judged on the following components- lyrics, melody, rendition, diction and musical arrangement/party appeal.

Ansa McAl kicks off Carib Soca Monarch competition

Local Government Minister Norman Whitaker (right) and Mr. Gordon Gilkes, Head of the Solid Waste Management Program during a tour of the landfill site yesterday. boxed foods, cardboard, because of packages and other commodities that are coming in, hence we had to discuss solid waste management in the context of what is evolving as a country develops and we had to deal with the issue of recycling,” Edghill pointed out.

He added that the issue of recycling is being addressed at all levels in a more

aggressive way. Edghill said that while the litter pickers have been efficient in extracting scrap metals for export, there is still the issue of plastic bottle and cans for recycling.

“But even before it reaches to the dump there must be a level of thinking at the household level… ends of food cans, bottle and paper must be disposed into one

receptacle…in the campaign these kinds of discussion will come up,” Edghill stressed.

Nevertheless Edghill added that the contractor for the site has done an excellent job as they have received good reports from international bodies which have been monitoring the progress of the site, including a team from the donor agency- the IDB.

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Thursday January 10, 2013

Thursday January 10, 2013

DTV CHANNEL 8 08:55 hrs. Sign On 09:00 hrs. GMA 10:00 hrs. Live! With Kelly and Michael 11:00 hrs. The Ricki Lake Show 12:00 hrs. The View 13:00 hrs. Prime News 13:30 hrs. The Young and the Restless 14:30 hrs. The Bold and the Beautiful 15:00 hrs. The Talk 16:00 hrs. MacGyver 17:00 hrs. The Ellen DeGeneres Show 18:00 hrs. World News 19:00 hrs. Greetings and Announcements 21:00 hrs. The Big Bang Theory 21:30 hrs. Two and a Half Men 22:00 hrs. Person of Interest (New Episode) 23:00 hrs. Elementary (New

Kaieteur News

Episode) 00:00 hrs. Sign Off MTV CHANNEL 14/ CABLE 65 Sign on 06:00 hrs - Islamic Perspective 06:30 hrs - News Update 07:00 hrs - DAYBREAK 08:00 hrs - Dabi’s Musical Hour 08:30 hrs - Avon DVD Club music hour 09:15 hrs - Top Notch Music Break 09:30 hrs - Caribbean Temptation Music Mix 10:00 hrs - Amanda’s Costume Jewellery Music break 10:30 hrs - BBC World News 11:00 hrs - National Geographic 12:00 hrs - The View 13:00 hrs - Village talk 13:30 hrs - The Young and

the Restless 14:30 hrs - Days Of Our Lives 15:00 hrs - General Hospital 16:00 hrs - The Bold and the Beautiful 16:30 hrs - Cartoons 17:00 hrs - Birthdays and other greetings 17:15 hrs - Death Announcements/ In Memoriam 17:30 hrs - CNN News 18:00 hrs - Sitcom 18:30 hrs - Jai Santoshi Ma 19:00 hrs - Soul Melodies with Trans Globe 19:30 hrs - News Update 20:30 hrs - Winners Row Quiz 21:30 hrs - English Movie: Sky fall 23:00 hrs - News Update 23:00 hrs - Movie: Sky fall Continues Sign off

Guides are subjected to change without notice

Thursday January 10, 2013 ARIES (Mar. 21–Apr. 19) Focusing on your career may require all the energy you have now as the goal-oriented Capricorn Moon enters your 10th House of Status. You are more concerned with your own plans today than with the opinions of anyone else.

TAURUS (Apr. 20–May 20) It may be easier to make plans now than to actually execute them. Your key planet Venus lures you to envision the future as she joins three other planets in your 9th House of Big Ideas.

GEMINI (May 21–June 20) It’s irritating when something comes along in your life that’s significant enough to anchor you to one spot for a while, especially if your attention is drawn elsewhere.

CANCER (June 21–July 22) Your current commitments to others may interfere with the fulfillment of your own emotional needs today. It might be wise to just set aside your desires for a few days while you do whatever is expected of you.

LEO (July 23–Aug. 22) Put away your playthings and get out your tools and determination because you have chores to do and you might as well take your work seriously.

VIRGO (Aug. 23–Sept. 22) You might feel as if time is running out, but the faster you attempt to complete what’s on your plate, the slower everything appears to move now.

LIBRA (Sept. 23–Oct. 22) You might feel the stress today as you try balancing your work with the emotional needs of friends and family. Although you cannot walk away from your job, responsibilities may be calling you back home.

SCORPIO(Oct.23–Nov.21) Everyone seems to be paying extra close attention to what you say today with so many planets traveling through your 3rd House ofCommunication.

SAGIT (Nov. 22–Dec. 21) Low self-esteem could get in your way today as you struggle against the limitations of your current job. This frustration might not be a new one, but it continues to surface again when outside pressures build.

CAPRI (Dec. 22–Jan. 19) You may be approaching what appears to be the end of a road and you’re trying to determine where to go next. Even if you’re ready to charge ahead, unfinished business needs to be completed before you can see around the next bend.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20–Feb. 18) Your dreams may be so vivid now that it’s difficult to distinguish them from reality.

One inner voice reminds you of the beauty inherent in the spiritual and metaphysical approach to life.

PISCES (Feb. 19–Mar. 20) A team of co-workers or a group of friends places so many demands on you now that it could be hard to find any time away from the noise of social interactions.

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Thursday January 10, 2013

Atop the heap! Bolt, Fraser-Pryce, Mills claim JAAA Awards Jamaica Observer - AS expected, Olympic Games sprint champions Usain Bolt and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce walked away with the 2012 Male Athlete and Female Athlete of the Year Awards at the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA) Golden Cleats Awards Luncheon at the Terra Nova Hotel in Kingston on Tuesday.

Celebrated coach Glen Mills was named the Coach of the Year.

The three were chosen by a selection panel which included Earl Bailey, Anthony Foster, Donald Quarrie, Bernie Panton and Hubert Lawrence.

Bolt, who was last year named the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) top male athlete, became the first person to successfully defend the Olympic 100m and 200m titles at the London Olympics in August. He was also a member of the 4x100m

relay team which broke the world record.

Bolt, who quickly fled the function, briefly spoke of his pride in being recognised by his countrymen. “It’s always good to be appreciated by your own Jamaicans; it’s the JAAA, so it’s wonderful. For me, it’s always wonderful to see Jamaican people celebrating and having a good time,” he said.

Fraser-Pryce became the first non-American to retain the women’s Olympic 100m title when she posted 10.75 seconds for victory. She also copped silver in the 200m in a personal best 22.09 seconds.

Fraser-Pryce was also a member of the 4x100m relay silver medal-winning team and set a new personal best and national record 10.70secs to win the 100m at the Olympic Trials in June as well as the IAAF Diamond League title.

The diminutive star, who also delivered the vote of thanks, called for an end to the animosity between

groups falling under the umbrella of the JAAA, calling for unity for the good of the sport local. “Put away what side is feuding and what side is not feuding,” she said.

The reserved Mills, who guides Bolt as well as Olympic 100m and 200m silver medallist Yohan Blake and 200m bronze medallist Warren Weir, said he was proud of the overall work done last year by members of the University of the West Indies-based Racers Track Club. “(There were) a number of achievements, although they weren’t gold medals... I like the work we have been doing,” he said.

Meanwhile, reigning World Junior discus champion Fedrick Dacres was presented with the Howard Aris Award for the outstanding junior in a nontraditional event. In addition to the aforementioned accolade, Dacres won his event at the CAC Junior, Carifta, and Pan American

(From left) JAAA’s Male Athlete of the Year Usain Bolt, Coach of the Year Glen Mills and Female Athlete of the Year Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce display their awards at the Golden Cleats Awards Luncheon at the Terra Nova Hotel in Kingston. (Photo: Bryan Cummings) Junior Championships last year.

Dacres and World Junior 400m hurdles champion Janieve Russell also won scholarships towards

university tuition worth $250,000 apiece, courtesy of Scotiabank.

Scotiabank, which sponsored the awards function, invested US$5000

towards the JAAA’s purchasing of new finish line equipment as the association moves to enhance and broaden its hosting of worldclass events.

Thursday January 10, 2013

Kaieteur News

Page 31

Malinga ‘in the form of his life’ - Hussey ESPNCricinfo - David Hussey has described his Melbourne Stars team-mate and soon-to-be ODI opponent Lasith Malinga as “in the form of his life” and believes the ability of Australia’s batsmen to handle Malinga’s three variations will be critical when the oneday series begins on Friday.

Malinga is the equal leading wicket taker in the Big Bash League this summer and his presence in Sri Lanka’s team makes them a much more daunting outfit than they were during the Tests.

The spinners Ajantha Mendis and Akila Dananjaya, who boast hard-to-read variations, will also play

important roles but it is Malinga who has the potential to really flummox the Australians. Hussey said Australia’s batsmen would need to watch closely for the slower balls, bouncers and yorkers from Malinga, who collected 4 for 49 last time Sri Lanka played a one-day international at the MCG. “They’ve got some of the best bowlers in the world,” Hussey said. “Lasith Malinga, I was lucky enough to play with him at the Melbourne Stars and he’s in the form of his life. All our batters have to really get down to business and do their homework and really try to take him out of the

equation.

“Never scared [of facing him] - it’s always exciting. You always want to play the best bowlers in the world. It’s a great opportunity to face him.

If you do well against him, it gives not only your team a lot of confidence but yourself and your game a lot of confidence as well.”

“You’ve just got to get your plans and your focus purely on his three different balls. He’s got a very fast bumper, a very good yorker which he executes every time, and his slower ball. Just get your individual plans ready to go and try to nullify his game plan. If we take him out of the game, it definitely goes a long

Armstrong to break silence in Oprah interview Seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong awaits the start of the 2010 Cape Argus Cycle Tour in Cape Town March 14, 2010. REUTERS/Mike Hutchings/Files

(Reuters) - Lance Armstrong will break his silence about his lifetime ban from cycling and the doping charges made against him in a televised interview with Oprah Winfrey next week, the television presenter announced on Tuesday.

The interview, to be broadcast on the Oprah Winfrey Network on January 17, will be the first the American cyclist has conducted since receiving his ban and being stripped of his seven Tour de France titles.

“Armstrong will address the alleged doping scandal, years of accusations of cheating, and charges of lying about the use of performanceenhancing drugs throughout his storied cycling career,” the network said in a statement.

On Saturday, the New York Times reported that Armstrong, 41, had told associates and anti-doping officials he was considering an admission of using banned drugs. he Times said Armstrong hoped to persuade antidoping officials to allow him to resume competition in athletic events that adhere to the World Anti-Doping Code, under which the Texan is currently subject to a lifetime ban.

However, Armstrong’s lawyer Tim Herman later told USA Today that there had been no talks with antidoping bodies about any admission.

Armstrong has always vehemently denied charges of doping and has never been proven to have tested positive.

An October 10 report from the U.S. anti-doping body USADA cited Armstrong’s involvement in what it characterized as the “most s o p h i s t i c a t e d , professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen,” involving anabolic steroids, human growth hormone, blood transfusions and other doping.

Less than two weeks later, Armstrong’s seven Tour de France victories were nullified and he was banned from cycling for life after the International Cycling Union ratified the USADA’s sanctions against him.

In November, Armstrong, a survivor of testicular cancer, stepped down as a board member of Livestrong, the cancer-support charity he founded in 1997.

Lasith Malinga way to winning the game.”

Hussey will have a key role to play in that, as the second-most experienced member of Australia’s batting group for Friday’s match, behind the recalled Brad Haddin. The absence of Michael Clarke and Shane Watson, and the controversial decision not to include Michael Hussey after his announcement that he would retire from international cricket at the end of the season, has left a major

experience vacuum in Australia’s side.

But despite having played 64 ODIs, Hussey knows that his future in the national side may be assessed on a series-byseries basis, and at the age of 35 he is well aware that time is running out to bring his domestic form to the international arena. He is likely to fill the finishing role occupied so successfully by his brother in the past and he wants to make up for his

struggles during the one-day series against Pakistan in the UAE last year.

“A few times I’ve played for Australia in the past, I’ve had a few regrets and didn’t really play the way I wanted to play,” Hussey said. “This time I’m just going to have a lot of fun, enjoy myself and play with no regrets and a lot of freedom. I haven’t done quite as well as I wanted to do. I haven’t really finished games off the way I wanted to finish games off and win games of cricket for Australia.

This time, fresh mind, new opportunity and play with no regrets.

“The UAE series probably didn’t go to plan. I didn’t play very well at all, and then the World T20 I didn’t get much of an opportunity. You come back to Australia you really want to right the wrongs and prove a few people wrong. I really have struggled the first part of the Shield season but one-day cricket I’ve done quite well. This is a great opportunity for me to free the mind, play with no regrets and show a few people that I can play at the level.”

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Kaieteur News

Thursday January 10, 2013

Kevin Pietersen signs new England central contract BBC Sport - Kevin Pietersen has signed a full central contract with the England team.

Pietersen’s international future was in doubt last year after he was dropped in August for sending “provocative texts’ “ to South Africa players.

The 32-year-old was not initially picked for the winter tour of India but later agreed a four-month deal. He scored 186 in the second Test in

Mumbai and also made two half-centuries as England won 2-1, their first series victory in India since 1984-85.

Pietersen is now eligible for all three international formats, which had seemed unlikely at one stage in an eventful 2012.

Last May, the SouthAfrican born batsman announced his retirement from one-day internationals, which the England hierarchy insisted would also have to

apply to Twenty20 internationals.

However, Pietersen effectively reversed his decision by pledging his full commitment to all three England teams in a YouTube video published on 11 August. But following a spectacular century against South Africa in the second Test at Headingley in the same month, details emerged of texts in which he was alleged to have criticised then

England captain Andrew Strauss and offered tactical advice to the tourists.

Pietersen, who made his international debut in 2004, was dropped for the final match of the series, which the South Africans won 2-0, left out of the squad for the World Twenty20 tournament in Sri Lanka and overlooked for a central contract.

He apologised to Strauss, who retired from all forms of cricket after the South Africa

series, and a series of meetings with England senior players and officials followed, with Pietersen subsequently offered a four-month contract and shortly afterwards a place in the squad to tour India.

During the trip, England coach Flower said of the turmoil over the texts: “We did move on from it as soon as we had our meetings and everyone made a commitment to do so.

“We don’t all always get on with people all of the time - any of us, in any walk of life - and everyone has made an effort to make it work. “It’s been really good fun and he should be very proud of the way he’s operated out here, both as an individual and as a player.”

Pietersen is preparing for England’s ODI series in India but will be rested for the three one-day matches and three Twenty20 internationals in

Kevin Pietersen New Zealand in March as part of the policy of rotating senior players.

Messi sends shirt to Mueller after breaking his record Lionel Messi

MADRID (Reuters) Lionel Messi has sent a signed shirt to Gerd Mueller after the Argentina forward broke the former Germany striker’s record for the number of goals scored in a calendar year in 2012.

“For Gerd Mueller, my respect and admiration, a hug,” Messi wrote on the shirt, which had his name and number 10 on the back.

Messi finished last year with 91 goals for Barcelona and Argentina, six more than Mueller netted for Bayern Munich and Germany in 1972.

The 25-year-old Argentine, known as ‘the flea’ while Mueller’s nickname was ‘torpedo’, collected an unprecedented fourth FIFA Ballon d’Or award on Monday.

How dare you...

From page 37 United from your Trinidadian source among others.

You have been ranting for quite a while without persons following you up but it won’t continue.

You need to be honest with yourself and back off.

Allow honest and committed

people to chart the way forward for the game and the youths of this nation.

The only peace football would have is for you, Mr. Odinga Lumumba, to come out of the sport totally.

For the Game. For the World.

Christopher Thomas

Thursday January 10, 2013

Kaieteur News

Timberwolves overcome lost Love to clip Hawks Minnesota Timberwolves head coach Rick Adelman looks on in the third quarter of their NBA basketball game against the Brooklyn Nets in New York November 5, 2012.

REUTERS/Adam Hunger

indefinitely after reinjuring his right hand last week, but the home team still had enough beat the Hawks for the first time since April 2006.

Nikola Pekovic scored 25 points and had 18 rebounds, Andrei Kirilenko added 21 for Minnesota (16-15), who had lost 11 straight to the Hawks before Tuesday’s game.

“We were really motivated,” Pekovic told reporters. “I think everyone wants to step up and show more.”

Minnesota led 100-89 with four minutes remaining but Atlanta managed to cut the deficit to one in the final minute. Minnesota’s Dante Cunningham made a crucial jump shot with 15 seconds left and the Timberwolves added free throws to put the game away.

Minnesota’s Ricky Rubio returned from a four-game absence with back spasms and had eight assists in just 19 minutes of action. Josh Smith and Louis Williams each scored 21 for the Hawks (20-13),

who have lost three straight.

“If this doesn’t change there’s going to have to be some changes, that’s plain and simple,” said Hawks coach Larry Drew. “(To) come out and not be energized to play, that’s totally unacceptable.”

Atlanta fell behind early, trailing by as much as 17 in the second, but they sprang to life late in the fourth, with Kyle Korver making two straight three-pointers. Al Horford had 19 and 11 rebounds in the defeat.

Armstrong offered donation to anti-doping agency: report (Reuters) - Disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong once offered to donate nearly $250,000 to anti-doping efforts, the head of the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) tells 60 Minutes Sports in an interview aired yesterday.

Armstrong, who was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles last year after an investigation by USADA found evidence of widespread doping, had a representative offer the agency a large sum of money in 2004, USADA chief Travis Tygart says in the wideranging interview.

“I was stunned,” Tygart tells interviewer Scott Pelley, according to a statement issued by the programme. “It was clear — it was a clear conflict of interest for USADA. “We had no hesitation in

rejecting that offer.”

Asked how much money Armstrong offered the agency, Tygart replied; “in excess of $150,000.”

Told by Pelley that 60 Minutes had learned it was $250,000, Ty g a r t answered; “It was around that ballpark.”

Tygart also alleges Armstrong provided the International Cycling Union (UCI), a regulatory body for the sport, a gift of $100,000.

During the interview, Tygart describes Armstrong and his team of doctors, coaches and riders as similar to a “Mafia” that kept their secret for years and intimidated riders into silently following their illegal methods.

Some of those riders are considered victims by Tygart and he says they were forced

to choose between following the doping programme or being off the team.

Tygart tells Pelley, he was “stunned” when the U.S. Justice Department failed to charge Armstrong at the end of a two-year investigation and failed to share their findings with USADA. “I don’t know (why they failed to charge Armstrong),” says Tygart. “It’s a good question and one that if you finally answer, let me k n o w. ” Armstrong has denied ever using performance-enhancing drugs but according to a recent New York Times story is considering coming clean about doping in an effort to return to competition.

He declined to be included in the 60 Minutes Sports story and his spokesman did not return calls from Reuters seeking comment.

Page 33

Derbyshire sign Shivnarine Chanderpaul BBC Sport - Derbyshire have signed West Indies batsman Shivnarine Chanderpaul on a two-year contract.

Chanderpaul, 38, is rated as the number two Test batsman and has scored more than 10,500 runs in 146 Test matches at an average of 51.67. He is expected to be available for all three domestic competitions during the upcoming 2013 campaign.

“I’m excited to be joining an ambitious club with a talented young side,” he told the Derbyshire website. “I was impressed with [head coach] Karl Krikken’s vision for the team and am looking forward to linking up with them at the start of the season.”

As part of the deal, Derbyshire have first option to keep the veteran for a third season. Krikken, who led the side to promotion to Division One of the County Championship last season, is delighted to have secured the services of Chanderpaul.

“He knows what it takes

Shivnarine Chanderpaul to be successful and, as well as his outstanding ability with the bat, there is no doubt Shivnarine will have a hugely positive effect on our talented young squad as we embark on the challenge of Division One cricket,” Krikken said.

Chanderpaul has previously played domestically in England with Durham, Lancashire and Warwickshire.

Chief executive Simon

Storey told BBC Radio Derby: “It makes fantastic reading for anyone associated with the club. “It is tremendously exciting and it sends a huge message of intent out to the whole of cricketing world about what Derbyshire are aiming to achieve in the coming season.

“He is at the pinnacle of his game even at the age of 38 He will bring batting supremacy and will be a huge influence in the dressing room to a young side.

“Derbyshire have got an amazing set-up now and have made a lot of progress in the last couple of years “It was the overall vision for the team that has driven Shiv over the line and that was very clear as we were finalising the deal.”

Chanderpaul’s international stats · Tests: Matches 146 Runs - 10,696 · ODI: Matches - 268 Runs - 8,778 · T20: Matches - 22 Runs - 343

Page 34

Kaieteur News

Thursday January 10, 2013

Dwayne Bravo back to full fitness; makes maximum impact Port-of-Spain, Trinidad – When Dwayne Bravo is at full throttle it is a very good thing for Trinidad and Tobago. The livewire allrounder has returned to full fitness and gave another full-hearted display on Tuesday night.

The performance helped the home team brush aside Combined Campuses and Colleges by 7 wickets as the Caribbean T20 2013 entered its third day.

“This was a game where we needed to get full points.

We are not sure how the weather will hold up here in Trinidad during the first leg, so we have to make sure that when we get full play we make the most of it,” the 29-yearold said. “It’s nice to be back playing again, being competitive and doing what I really love – which is bat and bowl. I am happy and I thank God I have returned to fitness again and hopefully I can continue throughout the tournament.

“This was the first spell I

bowled flat-out since I came back from injury. I played a few warm-up games, but I was only allowed to bowl two overs per game on the advice of the physios.

This is my first match when I actually bowled ‘all out’ and I’m feeling good.

This pitch was good for seam bowling so I just made full use of it.”

Watched by a lively Queen’s Park Oval crowd, including his mother and father, Bravo was brilliant

with his medium-pace in the first half of the match and also held an amazing full-length diving catch at shortmidwicket.

He had the economical figures of 4-0-8-1 as CCC were restricted to 94-8 off 20 overs. He proved a good back up for Kevon Cooper (3-17) and Sunil Narine (214).

Bravo returned in the second period to play a match-winning knock as the defending champs recorded

Dwayne Bravo receives his Man-of-the-Match award from Dr Julian Hunte, President of the West Indies Cricket Board.

(WICB Media Photo Randy Brooks) their first win of the tournament. He ended on a well-crafted 36 not out off 42 balls – which included two sixes. He added an unbroken fourth-wicket stand of 46 with skipper Denesh Ramdin.

“In the batting is where my experience came in. I believe playing a lot of cricket around the world r e a l l y h e l p s . This pitch reminded me of Chennai [southern India] and I just used my knowledge of cricket

surfaces, along with the advice of the captain.

Chasing a small total, I knew once I kept my cool and batted all the way to the end we would win.”

The Caribbean T20 continues at Queen’s Park Oval on Wednesday.

Windward Islands will be in action against Jamaica at 4 pm (3 pm Jamaica Time) while Trinidad and Tobago will return to face Leeward Islands at 8 pm (7 pm Jamaica Time).

Bush Lot United Turf Club to hold one day Horserace Meet on February 3 The Bush Lot United Turf Club of West Coast Berbice will be holding a one day Horserace Meeting on Sunday February 3 at Bush Lot Sea View Park racetrack at 13:00hrs.

The events that are slated for the day are B3 and Lower race at a distance of 1600 meters, E & Lower 1200m, G & Lower 1200m, 3 year old open 1400m, 3 year old Guyana bred 1400m, I & Lower 1200m, J & Lower 1200m and K & Lower 1200m.

The winner of the B3 & Lower category, which is the main event, will take away $1,200,000, while the champion of the E & lower will receive $450,000, G & Lower $350,000, 3 year old open $500,000, 3 year old Guyana Bred $350,000, I & lower $200,000, J & Lower $150,000 and K & lower $120,000.

A release form the club stated that five horses must start in order for the third prize to be paid and seven horses

for the fourth prize. Owners of horses must pay the full entry fees at the time of entry for guaranteed inclusion on the official programme.

Entries close on Wednesday January 30th and a 10% penalty will be imposed for any late entry. Horse owners can have their horses booked\entered through the president\ treasurer coordinator and all jockeys are required to be in the jockey room no later than 12:00 hrs on race day.

The release also indicated that for any race with four or three horses starting the stakes will be reduced to 25 % and 40 % respectively. There may also be minor adjustments for any distance if required to accommodate starting gate.

Fans are assured viewing the action in comfort with rehabilitation works done at the venue. The track is also in excellent shape and the event has the makings of producing sizzling races.

Thursday January 10, 2013

Kaieteur News

Page 35

OVERSEAS BASED FORMER NATIONAL CYCLIST WILBER BENJAMIN OPENS SPORTS STORE IN BERBICE Overseas based former national cyclist Wilber Benjamin has decided to give back to the country of his birth in a big way. Benjamin a former national cyclist who hails from Fyrish Corentyne Berbice and now resides in Canada has opened a new Sports store in his home village Fyrish, Corentyne Berbice Benjamin a former member of the Flying Ace Cycle Club has over the years shown his benevolence to his former club, fellow cyclists, and village, county and country in many ways including assisting his former club in whatever way possible including sponsorship of races. He also recently assisted national female cyclist Marica Dick and Neil Reece with a number of cycling equipment.

Benjamin, who is back home on holiday, has decided to take his love for county even further by opening a sports Store “Benjamin Sports” at Fyrish. The one flat building was officially opened on Sunday. To mark

Benjamin Sports Store offers a wide array of cycle accessories and spares to the Berbice community. the opening the one time champion rider sponsored an open cycle race which started and ended in front of the sore.

The store is well stocked will all kind of cycles including racing, mountain,

BMX and ordinary bicycles.

All cycling accessories are available including frames, wheel, bells, brakes, helmets, chains, pedals, seats among other accessories.

Fitness equipment,

including treadmills, are also a part of the store’s stocks as Benjamin believes that fitness should be an integral part of Guyanese daily lives.

There are different name brand equipment available

including GT, Fugue, Narco and his own brand Benjamin Sports.

The store will also be integrally involved in tuning up and repairs to cycles. There are plans to expand in the near future.

The former national cyclist operates another store in his adopted homeland of Canada with similar name.

Benjamin in is sojourn on the track represented Guyana at both the junior and senior levels.

Wearing senior’s colours, he rode for Guyana in the Pan Am and the Texaco Games among others in the early 90s.

In the junior division he was on the bike at Inter Guiana games among others.

His dominance started since at the school level when he captured three consecutive national school titles in the late 80s and also

went on to win many junior championships and titles. He along with his older brother Gary, who still rides in the veteran category, made a potent combination for Berbice and was a feared combination on the bike among junior and senior riders in 80s and 90s. He still rides in Canada.

Benjamin in brief remarks stated that he always wanted to do something for his country and people who helped him. He stated that it is his way of giving back to his country, club, and village and sport that nurtured him and helped in his development.

He wants the up and coming cyclist to have all the latest equipment available at reasonable cost. (Samuel Whyte)

Page 36

Kaieteur News

Thursday January 10, 2013

41 players get life bans for GCB Senior Inter-County South Korea match-fixing 4-day tourney starts today (Reuters) - Forty one South Korean players have been handed worldwide lifetime bans following a match-fixing scandal in the country’s K-League, world governing body FIFA said on Wednesday.

The 41, charged after a domestic match-fixing investigation dating back to 2011, received lifetime bans from all football activity by the K-League and the Korea

Football Association’s disciplinary committee with FIFA’s Disciplinary Committee extended the sanctions to have worldwide effect.

South Korean sport has been marred by match-fixing allegations in professional football, volleyball and baseball, forcing the government to declare war on the issue.

In February football

officials scrapped the KLeague Cup competition as part of sweeping changes brought in to avoid a repeat of last year’s match-fixing scandal.

Ten other players involved in match-fixing were given worldwide bans by FIFA in June while in March, South Korea’s volleyball association banned 11 players for life in a bid to curb corruption in domestic sport.

Wiltshire 58th birth anniversary dominoes

Christmas, Dodson guide Impressors to victory in latest action Yonette Christmas and Emily Dodson marked 16 and 15 games respectively to guide Impressors to victory when action in the Mark Wiltshire 58th Birth Anniversary Dominoes competition continued on Tuesday evening at Dynasty.

Impressors scored 83

games to finish ahead of Dream Team 76 and Rage 70.

Also recording victories for the night were Mix Up with 78 games who overcame Hot Shot 73 and KTS 70. TNT with 75 games defeated Golden Warriors 73 and Turning Point 66.

Delta Force won the final

round of the evening with 72 games; they got the better of Rage 70 and Pressure Point 64.

The competition continues tonight with the preliminaries while the finals will be played on Saturday 12th at Strikers on Meadow Brook.

The Guyana Cricket Board Senior four-day Inter County tournament gets cracking from today with Berbice facing the President XI at DCC and Essequibo playing Demerara at Everest.

The Berbicians will no doubt look to redeem themselves after suffering mixed fortunes in the 50-over format. Their batting will be centered around openers Sewnarine Chattergoon and Richard Ramdeen, Assad Fudadin, Gajanand Singh and Clinton Pestano. Pacer Keon Joseph, Gudakesh Motie Kanhai and Shawn Pereira spearhead the bowling department.

The President XI on the other hand are capable of creating up sets. Young opener Tagenarine Chanderpaul, who scored the only century and took the MVP in the 50 over tournament, leads their batting line up which also includes Krishna Arjune, Eugene La Fleur, Kevon Boodie and Jitendra Sookdeo.

Surprisingly omitted from the Berbice team, pacer Brandon Bess is expected to share the new ball with Gilford Moore, and with back up from Seon Daniels who replaced medium pacer Joshua Wade (groin injury), Collins Butts and Devon Clements this attack possess the fire power to restrict their opposition for gettable totals.

Essequibo fresh from a 148 run victory over the President XI in the limited over competition will look to continue their winning ways against the home team. Their openers Norman and Royan Federicks are in good touch and Essequibo can depend on

- Demerara aiming to repeat 50 over feat

Paul Wintz

Norman Federicks

Clinton Pestano

Tagenarine Chanderpaul

them for a solid start. The likes of Dillon Heyliger, Ricardo Adams and Wayne Osborne, Vijay Surujpaul adds depth to their batting and while Anthony Adams and Mark Tyrell and Herry Green have shown good form with the ball recently, they will value the support received from Dillon and Jason Heyliger and Ricardo Adams.

Demerara, the 50-over champions have proved that team work is very important in achieving success.

Talented left hander Kwame Crosse replaces the injured Ryan Ramdass, while Shemroy Barrington, Rajendra Chandreka, Vishal

Singh are in good form with the bat. Their bowling department consists of pacers Paul Wintz and Andre Stoll who have done well with the new ball in the one day, spinners Zaheer Mohamed, Totaram Bishun and Amir Khan.

Meanwhile the likes of Seon Hetymer, Latchman Rohit, Damien Van Tull, Andrew Lyght jnr., Deon Ferrier, Wasim Haslim and Ryan Rajmangal continued to be over looked for the 2013 inter county tournament which is used to select the Guyana team for the Regional 50-over and 4-day competitions.

(Zaheer Mohamed)

GFF, GFA LONG STANDING FEUD TAKES CENTRE STAGE TODAY - Is the GFA prepared?

After over a decade of voting rights being denied, many in the football fraternity are hoping that t o d a y ’s scheduled Assembly between the FIFA / CONCACAF Joint Mission, Guyana Football Federation (GFF) and the aggrieved Georgetown Football Association (GFA) do not meet the latter unprepared for the extremely important engagement which could set the foundation for stability among the sport’s administrators.

The inquiry became necessary after it was learnt from a source close to the

Association that the executive could not agree on the composition of the team to meet with the visiting officials.

If the claim by the source is accurate then it is easy to speculate that all is not well within the Body and this latest development could therefore jeopardise the team’s thorough preparations for the Meeting which is seen as critical for ending the long standing feud between the GFF and GFA stemming from the local governing body’s reluctance to re-establish voting rights to its largest affiliate.

The move by the GFF to

deem the GFA illegal had prompted the Body to seek redress in the courts after years of pleading with CFU, CONCACAF and FIFA about the injustice, but until recently had received no satisfactory response until a letter by President of Alpha United Odinga Lumumba to FIFA urging that the world governing body of the sport intervene in the impasse in an effort to find a solution.

The location for the one day Meeting was not disclosed to this media, while it is also not known whether or not important stakeholders have been invited to participate in the discussions.

Thursday January 10, 2013

Kaieteur News

Page 37

Strong-starting Li targets How dare you challenge another first in Melbourne ::: Letter to the Sports Editor :::

FIFA Mr. Lumumba!

DEAR EDITOR, President of the Alpha United Football Club, Odinga Lumumba, has once again stepped out of his parameters by writing that he is challenging FIFA to ensure resolution in the Guyana situation as published in the Kaieteur News Sports pages of Wednesday January 9, 2013.

Yet again, an individual is trying to pretend that he is without blame. It is this same Odinga Lumumba that was part and parcel of filing the injunction against the Guyana Football Federation; it is this same Odinga Lumumba that held several meetings with the Georgetown Football Association Executive members and planned to shut football.

When he could not get his way by trying to bully the GFA boys, he ran back into the fold of the GFF and threatened to bring the GFA down.

Wasn’t it you, Lumumba, who would have been charged for assaulting a female on elections day? Yet you try to pretend as if you are above reproach. You are certainly not. Your aim to get to the Presidency of the GFF will never see the light of day because you are just not interested in seeing progress of this sport that you have been using for your own personal gains over the years.

Prior to taking over Alpha United from Mr. Maurice Cato, you tried the same trick at Camptown FC but your dark maneuverings did not last for more than a week when you jumped ship and went to Alpha.

FIFA would have been notified and have been following and studying the Guyana situation ever since the first and second injunctions were filed against the GFF, so to even believe that it was as a result of your letter to that august body that would have warranted them coming, is hogwash.

You are surely out of place to tell or even suggest to the World Body that one day is not enough for them to do what they came to do. The high powered team which includes distinguished Lawyers from the FIFA Legal Department and CONCACAF are learned enough to come up with proper recommendations to bring this unfortunate situation to an end for the good of the game.

It is people like yourself that have continually sought to bring the game into disrepute and tarnish its image; but you will not succeed because the sport is much bigger than you.

You’ve highlighted injustices that would have been meted out by the GFF under Colin Klass to the GFA and others over one decade— during Klass’s 20year reign at the helm and FIFA’s perceived lack of action whenever you wrote that body and others. Be reminded that you are not and will never be an affiliate of FIFA, CONCACAF or the CFU so that these entities do not have a right to respond to any of your writings.

You’ve pointed out the fact that the GFF would not have been able to get its Goal Project going and that is so but if you have been following the news you would have been informed on the current status of the Goal Project and the way forward.

If you were not allowing your own ego to cloud your mind you would have also been informed that it is not USD $500,000 that has been allocated to this project, it is USD $400,000; just check the FIFA website and you’ll be informed.

Your call for statements to be taken from various entities is quite well and good but you need to make similar suggestions on the way this country of ours is being governed and you being a part of the administration.

The fact that you have suggested that you will continue your petition to form a parallel entity to the GFF despite being advised by FIFA to stay clear of such a move, tells the kind of

individual you are; that you are bent on being destructive at all costs.

No resolution would be to your liking if it does not go the way you want; you have been one of the main architects in this destabilizing process and must feel the full hands of FIFA for that.

Yes, termination of the GFF Executive would be to your liking, but despite the challenges, this same GFF Executive has been responsible for charting a historical path for the game; like it or not, no one can erase that.

All the GFF affiliates must know that whilst they are calling on the GFF to provide all that they require, they themselves must also put their houses in order. When we point a finger at someone else, four is pointing back at us; be reminded of that.

FIFA has been and is up to date with audited Financial Statements of the Guyana Football Federation and that’s why they have been able to survive with the FIFA grant and little or no support from the Government that you are an integral part of, Mr. Lumumba. We all make a big squabble of the USD $250,000 the GFF receives on a yearly basis, are you aware of the level of expenses the GFF face on a yearly basis?

What’s the status of Alpha United’s Finances?

Can you produce audited financial statements for the time you have been at the helm? If you are honest, tell this nation about the monthly support you have received under the previous President of this nation; tell us about the support that you have been receiving for Alpha (Continued on page 32)

GBFA launches season this Saturday The Guyana Beach Football Association (GBFA) will be launching its 2013 Football Season on Saturday with the staging of the Banks DIH-sponsored League & Cup Competition, at the Bayroc Sand Reserve Ground, Wismar, Linden.

According to a release from the EBFA, ten (10) teams will be represented in the two (2) tier tournament with the sole team being from the East Bank of Demerara Timerhi

Panthers, while the other nine (9) teams are from the host Region.

The release added that Minister of Culture, Youth & Sport (MCYS) Dr Frank Anthony, President (ag) of the Gana Football Federation Franklin Wilson, Banks DIH Sales & Marketing Executive Carlton Joao and Permanent Secretary within the MCYS Alfred King will be on hand to witness the March Past of teams and deliver remarks.

SYDNEY (Reuters) China’s Li Na has come closer than any Asian to winning the Australian Open singles crown and, if she can avoid a Melbourne Park meltdown, is a good outside bet to add another to her lengthy list of tennis “firsts” next week.

The 30-year-old has a good recent track record at Melbourne Park, reaching the 2010 semi-finals, losing the 2011 final to Kim Clijsters and then crashing out to the Belgian in the fourth round last year having given up four match points. Critics of the world number six, and there have been many in China over the years, would point to last year’s defeat as an example of the mental fragility that has dogged Li throughout her career.

At times she can be an allconquering superwoman pounding her opponents into submission with her raking groundstrokes. Just as easily, Li can suddenly fall apart and, apparently unable to string two serves together, plummet to defeat.

There was just a hint of that fragility in her victory over American qualifier Madison Keys at the Sydney International warm-up event on Wednesday, where she lost the first set before reaching the semi-finals with a 4-6 7-6 6-2 victory. “I was a little bit nervous at the beginning of the match. If you play the young player, you never know what might happen, what they might do on the court,” she said after tackling the big-serving teenager for the first time.

“It’s very good I could have (a tough) match before Australian Open to see how strong I am on the court though.”

Li Na of China hits a return to Madison Keys of the U.S. during their women’s singles match at the Sydney International tennis tournament January 9, 2013. REUTERS/Daniel Munoz Li stood down her coach and husband Jiang Shan after last season and has been working with Justine Henin’s former mentor Carlos Rodriguez. “He gave me a lot of tough times when I was training with him,” Li said.

“First three days, my husband didn’t come with me.

After three days, I was calling him saying, ‘Please come with me’. I was thinking about retiring after three days, because he’s really, really tough.” The result has been a more attacking Li, even if she is not yet delivering everything Rodriguez wants. “He feels I can still do even more,” she said.

“You know, it’s very tough if you’ve got new thing. You need time to recover. You need time to get used to it. So where once you needed time to think about it, maybe you can do it automatically. “So now I’m still trying to work like Carlos wants me to.”

Li has, however, enjoyed a fine start to the year and, in yet another first, became the inaugural champion at the new Shenzhen tournament last week.

STRONG START Li was the first Chinese

player to win a singles event on the WTA circuit, the first ranked in the top 20 and the first to reach a grand slam quarterfinals, at Wimbledon in 2006.

In 2010, she became the first Chinese player to reach the top 10 and then, in 2011, she reached the Australian Open final before becoming the first player representing an Asian country to win a grand slam singles title at the French Open. The start of her season has always been strong and she won the title in Sydney in 2011 before reaching the final again last year. After this week, her rivals know that if Li does melt down in Melbourne, it will not be because of the heat.

Li comes from Wuhan one of three Chinese cities known as “the furnaces” for their fierce summers - and coolly played through temperatures in excess of 40 degree Celsius in Sydney on Tuesday. “It felt like playing in a sauna,” she said. “But at least I have played in the high temperatures and not gone straight (to Melbourne from China) without any matches in between.”

t r o Sp

Windies fans can now wear limited -edition “World Champions” jersey P ort-of-Spain, Trinidad – The clothing item for every true West Indian cricket fan is here! Windies supporters who celebrated the amazing triumph at the ICC World Twenty20 tournament last year can now savour the moment by purchasing a limited edition West Indies commemorative jersey.

The shirt features a photo of the world champion players celebrating with the trophy after they beat Sri Lanka at the R Premadasa Stadium on Sunday, October 7, 2012. It is styled in crewnecks for men and boys as well as V-necks and sleeveless for women and girls and comes in all sizes from Small to XXLarge. It was designed and manufactured by Admiral – the official clothing suppliers to the West Indies Cricket teams.

“This is the kind of item every West Indies fan will want. It is a celebration of the one of the magic moments in West Indies cricket history – a day cricket fans will

remember for a very long time to come,” said Nelecia Yeates, the WICB’s Commercial Manager.

“We all celebrated a few months ago as our team beat the world’s best to win the World T20 trophy. Here is a chance to continue the celebrations by purchasing a limited-edition world champions shirt featuring our favourite players.

“To commemorate the historic occasion we decided to produce an item which fans can wear with pride featuring a special photo across their chests and relive the moment. We looked for that special image which captured the occasion. The result was an eye-catching shirt which everyone is sure to love,” Yeates told WICB Media. Fans attending the Caribbean T20 tournament will get the golden opportunity to make early purchases as the shirt will be on sale at Queen’s Park Oval and Beausejour Cricket Stadium in St Lucia. The shirt can also be found at admiralcricket.com by fans hoping to online purchases.

Members of the world champion West Indies team: Sunil Narine, Kieron Pollard and Darren Bravo display the “West Indies WT20 2012 Champions” jersey. Picture courtesy WICB Media/Randy Brooks

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