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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: 225-8491, 225-8458, 225-8465 Fax: 225-8473 or 226-8210
Editorial
Copycats and juvenile suicide in Guyana The high incidence of suicide in Guyana reflects “a chronic state of unhappiness and poor mental health” that requires urgent action, said Dr. Bernadette Theodore-Gandi, PAHO-WHO Resident Representative, more than twelve years ago. She urged Guyanese to avoid denying that suicide was a “major health problem.” The problem was ignored then and has worsened now. The World Health Organisation – WHO – reported that Guyana’s suicide rate is among the highest in the Caribbean. Dr Frank Beckles’s landmark study – The Shadow of Death: A Recent Study of Suicides in Guyana, Incidence, Causes and Solutions – belatedly aroused the government’s interest in this previously neglected sector of public health. The Study conducted by Dr Kenrick ‘Ken’ Danns of the Centre for Economic and Social Research (CESRA) reported that the majority of persons committing suicide were young males below the age of 35 years. They were likely to be poorlyeducated, employed in low-income occupations, residing in the same community all their lives and to be less likely to have children. A ‘suicide cluster’ was identified in Black Bush Polder, a community of the East Berbice-Corentyne Region 52 per cent of all Guyanese suicides occur in that Region. The concentration of deaths by suicide in limited geographical areas and among limited demographic clusters in Guyana’s countryside suggests the element of emulation or ‘copycat suicides’ known as the ‘Werther effect.’ This theory had its origins in Johan Wolfgang von Goethe’s novel Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (The Sorrows of Young Werther), published in 1774. Werther, as related in that novel, shot himself after an ill-fated love affair. Many reports were made of young men using the same method to commit suicide shortly after the book was published. The term ‘Werther effect’ was coined by researcher David Phillips in 1974 to designate copycat suicides. The ‘Werther effect’ not only predicts an increase in suicide but suggests that the majority of those suicides would occur in the same or a similar setting as the one publicised. A well-known suicide, therefore, could serve as a model, in the absence of protective factors, for the next suicide. This is referred to as ‘suicide contagion’and seems to have occurred in some measure in Guyana. The research of Michael Fallahay, a collaborator with the Mibicuri Community Developers (MCD) in Black Bush Polder, East Berbice-Corentyne, in September 2012 seemed to reinforce the explanatory relevance of the ‘Werther effect.’ Fallahay conducted a house-to-house community survey in Mibicuri and published a report titled “Suicide in Black Bush Polder”. He suggested that persons of East Indian descent in Guyana, especially in farming areas, were more likely to attempt suicide. Eighty-one per cent of suicides were by Indian-Guyanese who comprise 44 per cent of the country’s population. Annual suicide rates have been consistently highest in the East Berbice-Corentyne Region (50 suicide deaths per 100,000 persons). This was followed by the PomeroonSupenaam Region (36 deaths), the Essequibo Islands-WestDemerara Region (24 deaths), the Mahaica-Berbice Region (22 deaths) and the Demerara-Mahaica Region (20 deaths). Suicide came to be recognised as a serious public health issue in Guyana only within the last decade. Suicide is ranked seventh of the ten major causes of death in Guyana. The suicide rate is approximately 20-25 per 100,000 population, and it has been consistent for years. Data indicated that suicide became the leading cause of death among young people age 15-24 and the third leading cause of death among persons age 25-44. Dr Leslie Ramsammy, a former Minister of Health, reported in September 2010, that more than 5,000 persons had lost their lives to suicide in the previous 25 years. There were 946 reported suicide deaths in Guyana during 2003-2007. Available statistics indicated that 201 suicides were recorded in 2003; 186 in 2004; 171 in 2005; 202 in 2006; and 186 in 2007.
Sunday June 29, 2014
Kaieteur M@ilbox Send your letters to Kaieteur News 24 Saffon Street, Charlestown, Georgetown or email us kaieteurnews@yahoo.com
Who has been monitoring these hapless nursing candidates? DEAR EDITOR, As a British trained Registered Nurse, Certified Midwife, Registerd Mental Nurse , New York and Canadian Licenced Nurse with Baccalaureate degree, and laying full claim to being of Guyanese heritage I was nonetheless perturbed and totally discomfited at reading of the recent disastrous nursing results. The question that immediately springs to mind is: Quo Vadis? Whither to? Are the nurses to blame? Certainly not! Who has been teaching them? It is apparent that it has not reached them. Is there an apparent misfit between student, teacher and teaching material. The teacher is not effective as a reacher or a preacher. I am calling on the Chief Minister of Health to examine the teaching strategies/ qualification of those who are partly if not fully entrusted with the future of Guyana’s
health improvement. I am going to take the place of Marcellus in the wellknown Shakespearean play ‘Hamlet’ and loudly proclaim that there is something rotten in the county of Berbice. Where were the nursing instructors trained? What credentials do they bring to the teaching environment? Are they supervised? If so by whom? Are they subjected to any form of professional development? In most nursing programmes abroad, nursing students are expected to pass all nursing courses. Many nursing schools have progression policies that insist on a certain grade percentage for the student to pass and limit the number of courses a student may fail. Who has been monitoring these hapless candidates along their nursing path? Shame! Shame and a triple heaping of more shame on Dr. Shamdeo
Persaud who had promised to conduct an investigation on becoming aware of this tragedy, but failed to do so. Why does Guyana have to conduct everything in such a third world manner? Should not such an occurrence jolt him off his haunches and spur him into action? Or am i being too realistic ?. . “As baby boomers continue to age, the need for health care grows.” With today’s aging population, nurses are a necessary resource. Who in Guyana is aware of this fact? The article also further attributes as another causal factor the inadequate qualifications of potential nurses. Many have been admitted to the training school not possessing adequate or at best the basic entry qualifications. It would be foolhardy then to expect Ivy league results from such a situation. Well (Continued on page 6)
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Kaieteur M@ilbox
THE PROBLEM OF BISRAM
Guyana would be better off if others in our political structure can adopt this approach
DEAR EDITOR, When I penned the letter on the insensitivities of the ads placed in the media by the Indian High commission on Thursday, May 15 in both independent Newspapers I hardly anticipated the rhetoric of folly that would follow. My letter was published in Kaieteur May 20. Since I have elaborated on the grounds for penning the letter on the 27,May and on the 16, June to the political PPP group ‘Sultan Mohamed’ and Vishnu Bisram, and suspecting that the Indian High Commission did not commission either of them to defend the undeniable, I will move on from the impetus of this preamble. The ads of contention. However, Bisram’s letter on June 18, takes me back to my school days, to the mouthy class instigator, usually tolerated by the teacher as he’s constantly passing her complaints, including some she doesn’t need to hear. Then you pray for recreation to get your hands on the twit, and he runs over to the girls and screams’ on who placed the mice in so and so sewing kit, then you wait for Friday after school when all scores for the week are settled, and he doesn’t come back to school after lunch. I have attacked Bisram’s racist obsessions and he accuses me of disrespecting ‘Indians’ in the same school profile I mentioned above. My reference to caste racism in India is a fact, that vestiges of those prejudices were brought to Guyana, is another fact. However, it does not mean that every member of that group recognizes and applies it in their lives. Human beings do abandon old traditions that no longer make sense. After the first 100 years of slavery, Afro-Guyanese abandoned the tribal reserves that still existed that had become meaningless. Indo Guyanese who came indentured and were subject to severe caste pressures from their own group, became part of the new African villages. This is Guyanese History, learn it. Racism is defined by collective stereotypes that are the result of hidden inferiority complexes. Such stereotypes impose on the believer someone to direct his hate venom towards, his feel better boast. Let me illustrate two examples of hate-venom at work; Vishnu Bisram, Stabroek News 3,Feb 2005: Quote…” While AfroGuyanese are getting the bulk of the relief. I am told that some people who did not have three meals a day before the flood now have many meals a day while supporters
of the PPP are neglected. I am told that some people who did not have a mattress before the flood now sleep on a mattress.” This was during the 2005 flood and is a classic case study of chronic racism. I accuse you, Bisram, you are the subject of my contempt, not IndoGuyanese or the Indian High Commission, with the above it’s you. Another manifest public media pit of racism is the ‘Sultan Mohamed ‘group, by a man’s works shall he be known… Thursday April 17, 2014 Kaieteur News, the group penned a letter titled ‘Prisons, cemeteries, garbage and Mashramani should be privatized.’ The letter constituted the same nonsensical arguments, but its racist vein was intact throughout, Quote; “ Afro Guyanese flock to fill Guyanese Jails, and they also currently manage its daily affairs. Who is best equipped to make it a business venture? “ And they continued as follows “ If perchance a predominant Afro Guyanese company ventures into running the prisons will they be more successful in dissuading their kith and kin from going back to jail repeatedly?” unquote; It is obvious that racism impacts a collapse of progressive intellect and a considerable loss of humanity, but it also exposes an administration’s
inability and petulant reluctance to manage arms of State responsibility not under their limited expertise, which have been managed well without a fuss by previous administrations who utilized the best persons available and not political and racial loyalists. History has taught us some severe lessons, The Nazis blamed the Jews for all their previous war mongering; that led to their post WW1 sorrows, contrived an Aryan master race mythology and ended up exterminating millions of Jews and Slavs. In a country of 50 million Germans how did less than a million German Jews have such an impact, notwithstanding the Rothschilds and their intrigues with the British, ect. Bisram mentions the Chinese in accusing me of racism. Well the Government’s undisclosed deals with their communist (Continued on page 6)
DEAR EDITOR, I would like to commend our President and the U.S. ambassador for their statesmanship and openmindedness that made them able and willing to forget any differences which they had encountered in relation to the Democracy project. This has led them to start cooperating in other areas of our political apparatus, as in the establishment of the DEA office in our country. The efforts of our most important leader, His Excellency President Ramotar, and the most influential diplomat, U.S. Ambassador Hardt, clearly provide a shining example to others in the various sections of our political system, as well as the rest of our society, to override any misunderstandings which may develop and work towards the overall betterment of our affairs. It demonstrates that we should
always avoid making any judgements on other people’s actions, consider that any rifts that may develop in our interactions may have come about as a result of some misinterpretation of what transpired in any situation, and work towards reestablishment of a cordial relationship. What has resulted is that two projects, which undoubtedly can significantly improve our dealing with problems in our
administration, will come on stream, and the relationship between our country and the U.S.A. will continue to be one of cooperation and mutual respect. If only the other actors in our political structure can adopt this broadminded approach to their interaction with one another, then I believe that our country will once again be on the real path to harmony and progress in our affairs. Roy Paul
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Kaieteur M@ilbox
Kaieteur M@ilbox A local DEA office is long overdue Ramotar’s hollow snap election threats
DEAR EDITOR, It is with much delight that I learnt in your newspaper that President Donald Ramotar has agreed to lend support to the US in establishing a local Drug Enforcement Agency office (DEA) in Guyana. It is a fact that small states like ours depend on the more developed countries for assistance, not only in fighting crime, but in sourcing critical financing for our
programs. Our resources are limited. With our wide open borders, the problem with illegal drugs entering our country, acknowledged as a trans-shipment point, has long been known. Intelligence gathering and other resources are areas that Guyana has been fighting to build capacity. Myself and family, and I know of countless others, have been subjected to humiliating strip searches at
airports because of the wrong perceptions and suspicions about Guyanese. A DEA office will go a long way in improving our society. The fact that the President has seen it fit to endorse such a unit is also testimony of his commitment to transmit a cleaner image of Guyana to the world. Again, I congratulate the President and the US in this latest collaboration in the right direction. Cobeer Persaud
How can Homosexuality considered a human right? DEAR EDITOR, How can Homosexuality considered a human right? Are there not morals and religious definitions in the formation of Human rights? I read with disdain almost daily the demands and deception of a minority group calling for the legality of same sex marriage under the banner of Human rights. All things are possible for
all men, but all things are not expedient! Should I then take a group of people and lobby for the legalizing of marijuana or to a greater extent Cocaine, should I then consider it a human right to curse the elected president of the day? What about bestiality? if this is not legalized should it not be considered an infringement of the human rights of those who desires
such an abominable act? The vast majority of Guyanese strongly rejects such moral revulsion, to the extent that all of our three Major religious groups (Christian, Muslim nor Hindus) condemn such acts in their practice. Homosexuality cannot be considered a basic human right! Jermaine Locke
THE PROBLEM OF BISRAM From page 5 now capitalist shadow deal making buddies, the alleged plan to settle 50.000 Chinese in Guyana, with special privileges, Chinese counterfeit products have already began to target local manufacturing, it must be remembered that a Chinese counterfeit children’s syrup killed over eighty children in Haiti over a decade ago. The Chinese Government is harsh on these violators as a deterrent, but they persist. The PPP has left it open to all types of piracy and we
must remember that it was a PPP parliamentarian who had brought counterfeit milk into this market. It was Kit Nascimento who then had exposed it. They, our protection agencies, are not empowered to institute charges with severe consequences against businesses who violate, so this imposition on our unprotected IPS with indifference to the development of our own small businesses has all Guyana peeved. Guyanese pay too much economically and psychologically for
e v e r y t h i n g , with high unemployment for our young people especially. We pay the highest VAT in the Americas, electricity charges are a major burden, there is no comprehensive housing planning and I have just started. We know of a better Guyana, we live now in a retrogressive narco-state, so Bisram come home to our junkie, filth-smelling flooded town and coast and then write letters based on experience, or join a support group in Queens and get a life. Barrington Braithwaite
Who has been monitoring these... From page 4 fertilized plants yield bounty crops. Then there is the overcrowding issue. Previously poor results at the Georgetown Hospital should certainly serve as a deterrent and guideline to controlling entry numbers. The fact that this academic aberration made front page media occupancy should serve as an immediate, call, plea and cry for the Minister of Health and all other relevant Health authorities to follow the foregoing recommendations if there is to be an improvement and non-recurrence of such a dismal na-
ture. That the educational material be evaluated to ensure fit between teacher and learner and expected end result. Investigation of the qualifications and instructional experience of the teaching personnel as well as supervision of their teaching strategies, Analysis of the results and possible causal or attributive factors. Guyana in its current moribund ste cannot afford theses nursing failures Resuscitative measures are urgently needed if survival is to be assured. Y. Sam. R.N. S.C.M. R.M.N . BSN. Med.
DEAR EDITOR The “last of the buffoon leaders” was how one American journalist described the leaders of the PPP in 2014 to us. The journalist was referring specifically to their gross incompetence at governance in which corruption and crime have reached new heights and their refusal to call Local Government elections despite Mr. Ramotar’s promise to do so. With his numerous outlandish threats of calling snap elections even when Khemraj Ramjattan, Carl Greenidge and Moses Nagamootoo called his bluff, it is clear to us that the President is behaving like a school yard bully. He has constantly used threats when he does not get his way. What he represents as a leader is cowardice, conceit, and gross ignorance. The President’s record of leadership is confusing and most inconsistent at best. Firstly, right out of the blocks in February 2012 at the opening of the 10th parliament, he threatened that his government “will not be held to ramson” by the opposition and thus snap elections is a possibility. Not satisfied with his own hollow threats, his ranting of snap elections continued on Labor Day 2012 when he warned the workers that “the opposition actions on the budget can force snap elections.” Again another hollow threat. Well in that year, the opposition had disapproved portions of the budget and there has been no snap elections. More hallow and cowardly threats occurred again when the majority opposition cut the budget in 2013 and in 2014, and yet he did not call snap elections. Not only did he expose his infantile behavior but Mr. Greenidge, Mr. Ramjattan and Mr. Moses Nagamootoo have continued to call his threats bluff. His hollow threats to call local government elections every time the minority PPP
cabal did not get their way in Parliament prompted Ramjattan to say that “Ramotar will never call elections since his own PPP will kick him out of the chair.” So to hear his bluff about snap elections in light of that insightful, clever and powerful statement of a “no confidence” vote in Parliament against the PPP cabal from the old warrior and statesman Moses Nagamootoo has scared the President who is bent on completing his full term in office. He knows that he will not be the Presidential Candidate for the PPP in the next general election because most in the regime see him as a failure who does not have the requisite skills to lead the nation. They also blamed him for reducing the PPP to minority status. We want the people to know that no one in the PPP not even Mr. Ramotar could bluff Moses Nagamootoo and Khemraj Ramjattan. After all, both of these gentlemen came from the belly of the beast of the PPP. So for the President to claim that he is a warrior and not a coward who is not afraid of elections is furthest from the truth. This is the ”warrior” who could not face a PPP Congress to approve or ratify the selection of his Presidential candidacy above more qualified persons. This is the “warrior” who lost the PPP majority in 2011. This is the “warrior” who was on GUYSUCO Board for almost 20 years, from 1992 to 2011 that presided over the destruction of the sugar industry. This is the “warrior” who during the 2011 election campaign had promised the people to end corruption and reduce crime, but after almost three years as President, crime has increased fivefold and corruption remains rampant with no end in sight. And last but not least, this is the “warrior” who refused to lower the tolls on the Berbice Bridge despite its passage in the National Assembly and demands by members of the PPP in
Berbice. Many Guyanese including some of the leaders in the PPP were happy to see Jagdeo demit office because of his cuss-down behavior which has embarrassed the party, his abuse of his wife and his failure to stamp out corruption and reduce crime. But they have also realized that Ramotar has shaped up to be an even worse political failure than Jagdeo. We want to put on record our deep admiration for the brave and courageous position of Moses Nagamootoo when he made it clear that his party, the AFC, is seriously considering a motion of no-confidence against the corrupt PPP government which APNU chief Parliamentary whip AMMA Alli said they will support. What we are getting from the PPP cabal is sheer foolish ideological talk aimed at misleading the people and distort the facts. The end result of all of this is that the leaders of the PPP know that the youths of Guyana both Indo and Afro Guyanese are fed up with their empty promises, distortions and untruths. The PPP is fully aware that the youths will end their reign of power whenever an election is called. They want leaders with the vision to lead and not be dictated to by the corrupt, greedy and selfish bullies at Freedom House. We sincerely thank Moses Nagamootoo for speaking the truth and are hoping that APNU will act like a warrior and support the AFC. Asha Balbachan Derrick Arjune, Rohit Misir, Harish Singh, Chandra Deolall, Asquith Rose, Dr. Vincent Nauth, Sase Singh, Allison Rutherford, Devita Khan, Dr. Reginald Watkins, Dr. Terrence Simon, Donna Mathoo, Noel Moses, Vicki Rampersaud
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Iraqi troops push to retake Tikrit from rebels, parties pursue talks BAGHDAD (Reuters) Iraqi government forces backed by helicopter gunships began an offensive yesterday to retake the northern city of Tikrit from Sunni Islamist militants while party leaders pursued talks that could end Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s divisive rule. Politicians in Baghdad and world powers warn that unless security forces recover cities lost to the jihadi insurgents in tandem with a rapid formation of a government that can bring Iraq’s estranged communities together, the country could rip apart along sectarian lines and menace the wider Middle East. On the battlefield, Iraqi troops were trying to advance on Tikrit from the direction of Samarra to the south that has become the military’s line in the sand against a militant advance southwards towards Baghdad. Iraqi special forces already have snipers inside Tikrit University who were dropped by air there in a bold operation on Thursday. Helicopter gunships fired at targets in Tikrit yesterday and ISIL fighters abandoned Tikrit’s governorate building, security
sources said. More government troops had been air-dropped in a pocket just north of the city. Iraqi military spokesman Qassim Atta told reporters in Baghdad yesterday that 29 “terrorists” were killed on Friday in Tikrit and that militant commanders were struggling because “their morale has started to collapse”. However, the militants were showing resilience and enjoyed the backing of some local Sunni tribes, as well as former ruling Baathists from the era of late Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein - whose hometown was Tikrit alienated from Maliki’s government. In other parts of the country, such as Jurf alSakhar, 53 miles (85km) south of Baghdad, militants from ISIL - the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant - were on the offensive. Three police sources said at least 60 ISIL fighters had been killed along with more than 15 Iraqi security forces members when the militant group launched a major attack on an army camp just east of Jurf al-Sakhar, firing mortars
and RPG rounds. “The ISIL terrorists fired many mortars at the camp and then started their offensive. They managed to break into the camp but could not hold their positions due to army helicopters cover,” a police colonel said. Since early June, the radical ISIL has overrun most majority Sunni areas in the north and west of Iraq, capturing the biggest northern city Mosul and fanning southwards. ISIL vows to re-create a medieval-style caliphate erasing borders from the Mediterranean to the Gulf and they deem all Shi’ites to be heretics deserving death. They boast of executing scores of Shi’ite government soldiers captured in Tikrit. In a stunning political intervention on Friday that could mean the demise of Maliki’s eight-year tenure, powerful Shi’ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani urged political blocs to agree on the next premier, parliament speaker and president before a newly elected legislature meets in Baghdad on Tuesday. Saudi King Abdullah
pledged in talks with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to use his influence to encourage Sunni Muslims to join a new, more inclusive Iraqi government to better combat Islamist insurgents, a senior U.S. official said yesterday. Abdullah’s assurance marked a significant shift from Riyadh’s unwillingness to support a new government unless Maliki, a Shi’ite, steps aside, and reflected growing disquiet about the regional repercussions of ISIL’s rise. “The next 72 hours are very important to come up with an agreement ... to push the political process forward,” said a lawmaker and former government official from the National Alliance, which groups all Shi’ite Muslim parties. The lawmaker, who asked for anonymity due to political sensitivities, said he anticipated internal meetings by various parties and a broader session of the National Alliance including Maliki’s State of Law list to be held through the weekend. Some Sunni Muslim parties were to convene later yesterday.
Iraqi Sunnis accuse Maliki of freezing them out of any power and repressing their community, goading armed tribes to support the insurgency led by the fundamentalist group ISIL. The president of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region has also said Maliki should bow out. Sistani’s entry into the fray will make it hard for Maliki to stay on as caretaker leader as he has since a parliamentary election in April. That means he must either build a coalition to confirm himself in power for a third term or step aside. Sistani’s message was delivered after a meeting of Shi’ite factions including the State of Law coalition failed to agree on a consensus candidate for prime minister. Maliki, whose State of Law coalition won the most seats in the April election, was positioning himself for a third term before the ISIL offensive began. His closest allies say he still aims to stay, but senior State of Law figures have said he could be replaced with a less polarizing figure. “It’s a card game and State
of Law plays a poker game very well,” said the official from the premier’s alliance. “For the prime minister, it will go down to the wire.” In Syria, where ISIL controls large swathes of land, other Islamist rebel groups pursued a counter-offensive in the border town of Albu Kamal, challenging ISIL’s grip along the Iraqi-Syrian frontier. ISIL is a more radical offshoot of al Qaeda that has its roots in Iraq and expanded into Syria shortly after the start of the three-year insurgency against President Bashar alAssad. U.S. President Barack Obama has ruled out sending ground forces back to Iraq, where they were for eight years after invading to oust Saddam, but has sent up to 300 advisers, mostly special forces, to help the government take on ISIL. U.S. defense officials said on Friday that the Obama administration was flying armed aircraft over Iraq although these aimed to collect intelligence and ensure the safety of U.S. personnel on the ground rather than attack targets.
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British minister condemns ‘cowardice’ of EU leaders over Juncker vote (Reuters) - Two British ministers condemned yesterday EU leaders who privately voiced concerns over the nomination of JeanClaude Juncker as EU Commission President but voted for him at a summit in Brussels, with one calling them cowards over the decision. On Friday, EU heads of government outvoted British Prime Minister David Cameron with 26 leaders backing Juncker’s candidacy against Cameron and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Oban who both
opposed the move. British opposition to Juncker centred around fears that the former prime minister of Luxembourg and veteran deal-broker at EU summits lacks the will to overhaul the EU, with Cameron saying any reform attempts would now be “longer and tougher”. Cameron, some of whose own ruling Conservative Party favour a British exit from the EU, has promised voters a referendum on leaving the bloc by 2017 - if he wins reelection next year. But yesterday, Health
Secretary Jeremy Hunt condemned as cowards those heads of government who privately had reservations about Juncker’s appointment but in the end voted for him to head the executive which proposes and enforces EU laws. “As a result of cowardice yesterday from other leaders who were not prepared to stand up in public and say the things they said in private, they’re going to have to work a lot harder to persuade the British people that Europe can be trusted with a proper reform agenda,” Hunt told Sky news.
Ukraine rebels free OSCE monitors, three Ukrainians killed in attack DONETSK Ukraine (Reuters) - Pro-Russian separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine yesterday released a second group of four monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) who had been seized on May 29, a Reuters witness said. Their release, which followed the freeing of another group of OSCE monitors early on Friday, came after Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko announced a 72hour extension to a ceasefire until tomorrow night. That ceasefire appeared under threat when three members of the Ukrainian military were killed in a rebel attack on their post near the eastern city of Slaviansk. This correspondent saw the four - three men and a woman - driven by heavily
armed men up to the entrance of a hotel in the eastern city of Donetsk. They stepped out, shook hands with other waiting OSCE representatives and then went into the hotel. A first group of OSCE monitors, seized days earlier by pro-Russian separatists, were released in the early hours of Friday. The OSCE monitoring groups are part of a 300-strong force sent there to observe compliance with a four-way agreement in Geneva in April aimed at defusing the crisis in Ukraine’s east. The circumstances of their detention is not yet clear. “A total of eight were detained and we have released eight,” Aleksander Boroday, “prime minister” of the self-styled Donetsk People’s Republic said on Friday. A ceasefire extension until
tomorrow night announced by Poroshenko called for the release of “hostages” held by both sides. But elsewhere yesterday the ceasefire appeared under threat when three members of the Ukrainian military were killed in a rebel attack on their post near the eastern flashpoint city of Slaviansk. “As a result of the (rebel) fighters shooting at the post near Slaviansk, three members of the Ukrainian forces were killed and a fourth was wounded,” the spokesman, Oleksiy Dmitrashkovsky, was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency. Poroshenko announced the extension, partly at the urging of some European leaders, after returning to Kiev from a European Union summit in Brussels where he signed a landmark free trade pact.
SAUDI KING, IN RAMADAN message, vows to crush terrorists DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi King Abdullah, in a Ramadan message yesterday, vowed to crush Islamist militants threatening the kingdom, the state news agency reported, saying the world’s top oil exporter would not tolerate “a band of terrorists”. The remarks came two days after the monarch ordered all necessary measures to protect the country against potential “terrorist threats” resulting from turmoil in neighboring Iraq, where Sunni Islamist militants have captured some cities from the government of Shi’ite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. “We will not let a band of terrorists who have taken religion as a disguise behind which they hide private interests to terrorize the protected Muslims, to touch our homeland or any of its sons or its protected residents,” King Abdullah said in a message at the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Saudi Arabia crushed al Qaeda after the Islamist militant group began a campaign of bombings and attacks on vital installations and expatriate compounds in the kingdom. The U.S.-allied kingdom has been rattled by a lightning advance through Iraq by Sunni militants spearheaded by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) - aided by other
Saudi King Abdullah Sunni Muslim militants, tribal leaders and remnants of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party which seized swathes of the country this month. Saudi Arabia shares an 800-km (500mile) border with Iraq. The birthplace of Islam, it sees itself as a champion of pure Sunni Muslim values and regards Shi’ite Iran as its main regional foe.
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Kaieteur News
DEA OFFICE IS POSITIVE NEWS FOR GUYANA – President Ramotar By Latoya Giles President Donald Ramotar has described as positive news for the country, the announcement that the United States Government through its local Embassy is setting up a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) office in Guyana. At a press briefing, yesterday at State House, Ramotar said that it was “a positive piece of news for Guyana. We have from the beginning been pushing for a DEA office.” According to the Head of State, the issue of fighting drugs should not be the task of one country because of the linkages and the volume of money involved in it. Ramotar said that with the establishment of the office, it would give a globalized nature of the beast with which we are dealing. He maintained that his administration has always been working to have more international cooperation. The Head of State added that having the DEA office ties in with the importance that the international community plays on the whole question of strengthening financial systems. In this regard there is the need for the passage of the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Act. The President described the AML Bill as being at the core because it is both an anti corruption and anti narcotics bill. “If you don’t want to support that Bill it means that you are on the side of drug dealers and money launderers.” the President posited. Last week at a press briefing he shared with US Ambassador Brent Hardt, he announced that the American-based DEA head office has been approved. Ambassador Hardt said that the US Congress has given the green light, for the agency to be established
Corruption benefits the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor. Say no to it.
locally. At present, Guyana works along with the Trinidad and Tobago-based DEA office, in the sharing of intelligence and exchange of mechanisms to tackle drug-smuggling problems. President Ramotar said that he is confident that the presence of the DEA office will enhance the whole process of informationsharing and collaboration. “The very fact that we have people on the ground 24/7 will enhance the whole question of informationsharing and we will probably be working and looking at different areas where we can build strong cases against those traffickers and have much more success.” It is usually the US agency that apprehends major smugglers outside of their native countries. The President stated that DEA partnership and collaboration with the country’s local law enforcement and anti-drug agencies will help to build strong cases that can stand up in court. President Ramotar said that narco-trafficking is an international problem that calls for global cooperation. Ambassador Hardt had
President Donald Ramotar explained to Kaieteur News earlier last week that the local Embassy had been working endlessly to get the US agency here in Guyana. He had said that due to budgetary constraints in the US, the Embassy was unable to significantly move forward. The Ambassador had also been pushing to bring technical expertise to look at the investigative aspect. Hardt had stated, during another engagement, that in late 2012, the Embassy had been instrumental in bringing attention to the impending implications of the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF), ahead of the deadline for the Anti-Money Laundering Bill.
“The Bill”, he asserted, “is actually one of the best ways to go after ‘the bigger fish’ (drug lords)…because you really need to get those who are organizing it (drug shipments) and I think money laundering laws should give you the opportunity to do that if you have an effective investigative capacity.” The DEA is a US federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Justice, tasked with combating drug smuggling and use within the United States. They are also the lead agency for that nation’s domestic enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act, sharing concurrent jurisdiction with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). It also has sole responsibility for coordinating and pursuing U.S. drug investigations abroad. The organization will not have the power to make arrests in Guyana since its role is to provide reinforcement for local anti-drug agencies.
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Dem boys seh...
Crying time coming fuh de rapists Old people always got a saying that people should do unto others wha dem expect others to do to dem. Some people know de saying but dem don’t practice it. Dem does do wha dem want and when people do back dem does get vex. De one place wheh people does try fuh listen to wha old people seh is in de jail but when dem deh outside is another story. Tek de case of this man in de Berbice jail. When he been outside he try fuh rape a woman. That is wha put he in de jail. That is a place wheh dem prison warders believe that dem smart suh dem does put three people in a cell. De man deh in de cell with two young man. One of dem grab he throat in a vice and de other one tek off he clothes. Dem two men fix he up and is then he know what it is to get rape and is then he understand wha he put de woman through. Well dem boys seh that dem have some people who got to tek note. Dem rape Guyana and wha people do does come back to haunt dem. That is why all of dem does get vex when dem boys talk bout dem pumpkin jump suit. Once dem get inside dem got to pay. Old people does seh wha sweet in you mouth does be bitter in you tail. Inside de jail all of dem who rape Guyana gun have to substitute de word bitter fuh something else. Donald trying to protect some of dem. He stick he neck out fuh Brazzy like if that gun save Brazzy. De man not only rape Guyana, he rape de taxpayers too. A lot waiting fuh he in de jail. Dem got others too. Some of dem might like it but most of dem got a lot to think about. Talk half and wait fuh de backlash.
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History Society recalls the birth of the WPA Kaieteur News columnist and former UG academic, Frederick Kissoon, yesterday outlined the context in which the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) was born in the early seventies and why it was able to sustain itself from thereon. The venue was the National Library which hosted the eighth annual conference of the Guyana Historical and Research Society. It was at this same conference in 2010 that Kissoon’s presentation on a comparison of Guyanese presidents titled “Ethnic Power and Ideological Racism”, led to a libel suit against Kissoon and the Kaieteur News by then
President Bharrat Jagdeo. That trial is ongoing. Kissoon said that to understand the WPA birth, it is necessary to comprehend the nature of the anti-colonial struggle in the West Indies. He posited that anticolonial politics had a polyclass structure. It was led by the mainstream middle class whose ancestral antecedents came from the house slave stratum. These were people steeped in European tradition and were the inheritors of status and wealth. A faction of this middle class had congenital contradiction. Though they were part of the middle class, their origins were from the upper working class and
achieved their class position through academia. These were mostly radical intellectuals steeped in anticapitalist ideologies, Kissoon contended. “The other classes making up the anti-colonial rampart were the rural peasantry and the national proletariat with its trade union dimension,” he said. Kissoon’s adumbration was that the anti-colonial struggle created the idea of “oneness” meaning that many of the classes involved in ousting colonial rule embrace the narrative of replacement of white, bourgeois society by an egalitarian movement. According to Kissoon, things fell apart in the post-
colonial environment. For the mainstream middle class, it was time to have a similar European society but led by local elites. There was need for a standing army, a presidential palace, highways, airports, a central bank etc. He argued that these things were not pursued for invidious or devious reasons. For the new rulers these institutions were the natural order and the new rulers saw them as absolutely necessary. The intellectual middle class, though not supportive of these European emulations was more concerned with the reorganization of the colonial economy to bring
US PROMISES MORE SUPPORT FOR NATURAL RESOURCES SECTOR The US has recommitted to support the natural resources sector, especially in areas of new technology and solid waste management. According to the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment, a team from the Embassy of the United States of America, consisting of Frisco McDonald, Economic and Political Officer; and D. James Bjorkman, Political and Economic Counselor, recently paid a courtesy call on Minister Robert Persaud. “Discussion centered on ongoing support for the Natural Resources and the Environmental Sectors with emphasis on sustainability
Natural Resources Minister, Robert Persaud, and the US Embassy officials during the meeting recently. and environmental stewardship. Minister Persaud stated that the United States Embassy has
been a valuable external partner with collaboration in the areas of oil and gas, park and green spaces
development and Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, among other areas.”
greater benefits for the peasantry and the proletariat. The postcolonial environment in Guyana soon imploded. “One can cite three incidents that led to class animosities that give rise to the WPA and from thereon, Guyanese society went deep into trouble. “First, there was a police killing of a Tiger Bay youth outside the then Strand De Luxe Cinema that got the intellectual middle class angry. They marched to Tiger Bay and formed an organization named Movement Against Oppression. For this group, this was colonial police brutality that should have died with Independence.” It was not coincidental that a trade union incident caused a major split between the working class and the new government. Linden bauxite workers rebelled over the government’s rejection of the demand for the payout of pension money (named the RILA Fund) that was left by the departing foreign owners. Thirdly, the government made a tragic mistake in denying an internationally respected Third World African-rights scholar, Dr Walter Rodney, a job at the University of Guyana, Kissoon said. As Guyana settled down as an independent country, the peasants weren’t given the land the English aristocracy left, the trade union movement was still clamouring for workers’ participation in the direction
of the economy and governance and the critical intellectual class were talking about socialism, he said. From hereon, the class unity of the anti-colonial struggle unraveled. The government embraced Black Power and invited its chief American activist Kwame Toure (then Stokley Carmichael) to address Guyanese. American Black Power activists wanted by American police were given sanctuary in Guyana. And nationalization became the essential plank of the economy, Kissoon said. Still the peasants had no land, still the trade unions had no direct hand in shaping the economy and still the radical intellectuals were demanding a working class power. In these circumstances the WPA was born. No compromise emerged between the Guyanese postcolonial regime and its former class allies. The trade union movement split with a critical body named FITUG aligning with the WPA. Linden became a strong base of the WPA. As the 1970s wore on, the WPA became intolerant of what it saw as the betrayal of the idea of “oneness” and sought a removal of Guyana’s first post-colonial government. Kissoon said that in 1980, the WPA’s confrontation with this government reached a sad stage when its leader died. From thereon, the WPA lost its scorpion sting. Four and half years later, the WPA’s main nemesis, President Burnham died.
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Finance Minister is insulting President Ramotar notified National Assembly - AFC about “alleged” Venezuelan The Alliance for Change (AFC) through its Vice Chairman Moses Nagamootoo has flagged the justification by the Finance Minister Dr. Ashni Singh that under the Fiscal Management and Accountability (FMAA) Act he had the right to spend $4.5 B of $31.5B that was disapproved by the combined opposition in the National Assembly. According to Nagamootoo, the Minister of Finance is “disingenuous; I think he invents these stories as he goes along. The Act to which he refers, the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act, permits us to establish the Contingencies Fund.” This fund is used for very specific situations of unforeseen, emergency situations and not a situation that is at hand. “So the Minister trying to shelter under that law is very futile effort to cover up what is a massive, illegal and unconstitutional act on his government’s part and on his part.” Nagamootoo said that the expenditure items that the Finance Minister has brought were not unforeseen nor were they urgent. He said that those expenditures were part and parcel of the 2014 Budgetary Estimates and were before the Committee of Supply and disapproved. “We do not think the
AFC Vice Chairman Moses Nagamootoo bringing of supplementary allocations on the ground which the Minister has brought them, that these are in the public interest and are emergency spending. “When you deal with an issue of request for Excess, it means that the money had already been spent, coming post facto having disobeyed the National Assembly, having gone and done something contrary to what happened with the Appropriation Bill,” said Nagamootoo. He said, “The Appropriation Bill was passed with certain reductions; the government had to agree to those reductions, i.e. to take away those items not approved. “To ignore the fact that these items were there before and bringing them as if these are sudden unplanned emergencies, we believe, is unacceptable.” The AFC Vice Chairman said that he could imagine
that if the government had come to the Parliament and said the money that was voted for health is not adequate for the vector control section because of the Chikungunya outbreak, “we could hold that as an emergency immediately.” Nagamootoo said, “When you try to bring this kind of eye pass on your National Assembly as if we are a pack of dunces and you want to come and say I spent it and Roger Luncheon went and say now we are going to spend it because the Chief Justice told us we could spend it, they are seeking constitutional cover, seeking legal cover for the spending of the money and then they come to the Parliament and say well it is authorized by law.” He said that his party takes a responsible position with regard to spending taxpayers’ money. It understands that there are expenditures that cannot be opposed because they are statutory. “The government wanted to foist on us funding for propaganda so it brought in the National Communications Network (NCN) and GINA (Government Information Agency) funding. According to Nagamootoo, the AFC is “prepared to play a game where you abide by the rules and where we see transparency in what the government is doing. At this point in time we do not accept the Minster’s explanation as valid and we believe that they are trying sneak up an illegal appropriation on the National Assembly, which is an insult.”
altercation with Guyanese Head of State President Donald Ramotar said yesterday that he is aware of an incident where members of the Venezuelan Army are accused of “beating” several civilian Guyanese at a landing in the Amakura, North West District. This is a location that is near the border Guyana shares with Venezuela. According to the President he knows that the security forces are on it, and definitely looking into the matter. Ramotar noted that he is currently waiting on more definitive word from the security forces, thus he could not divulge more on the issue. Foreign Affairs Minister Carolyn Rodriquez- Birkett and Elizabeth Harper, Director General Ministry of Foreign Affairs Guyana could not be reached for comment. It has been reported that there was an altercation between Venezuelan soldiers and a number of Guyanese civilians. According to reports, the incident occurred on Friday at “Bruk Up Falls” located on the Guyana side of the bordering Amakura River, which is approximately six hours from the farming community of Yarakita in the North West District. Kaieteur News understands that the Guyanese were held captive at the Tucupita Delta on the
Venezuelan side after being taken there by the Venezuelan soldiers. The Guyanese were suspected to be trading in gold and other material with the Venezuelans when a batch of rogue soldiers descended on them. Back in September of 2013, there was cause by the Guyana Defence Force to launch a probe to determine whether its soldiers guarding a border base at Eteringbang, erred in allowing a group of Venezuelans, to enter Guyana in somewhat strange circumstances on August 31, 2013. The group, called “My Map of Venezuela also includes Our Essequibo”, reportedly came to “carry out a civil exercise of sovereignty”. The group was accompanied by armed members of the Venezuela Army, according to El
Universal, a newspaper in that neighbouring Spanishspeaking country. While there was no explanation on what exactly the exercise involved, online Wikipedia explains that sovereignty is the quality of having independent authority over a geographic area, such as a territory. The visit is now being seen as an act of provocation by certain fringe groups in Venezuela to embarrass President Nicolas Maduro who came to visit Guyana on state business the same day. Venezuela is claiming a large swath of Essequibo. The issue has been rearing its head from time to time but took backseat under the administration of Venezuela’s former President Hugo Chavez. Chavez, who died earlier this year, had agreed to have the matter settled by a UN Good Office process.
Libyan suspect in Benghazi attack pleads not guilty in Washington WA S H I N G T O N (Reuters) - A Libyan militia leader pleaded not guilty in federal court yesterday to a federal terrorism charge in the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi that killed four
Americans. Ahmed Abu Khatallah arrived at the U.S. District Court in Washington yesterday morning and was charged with providing material support to terrorism at a hearing in U.S. District Court.
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US TIP report flawed and inaccurate, says Govt.
Human Services Minister, Jennifer Webster The government, on Friday, once again rejected the United States State Department’s report on Trafficking In Persons (TIP) in Guyana, describing it as inaccurate and a misrepresentation. At a press conference held at the Ministry of Home Affairs, Minister Jennifer Webster addressed the “inaccuracies” she and the Ministerial Task Force (MTF) had found in the document. The report was released a week earlier and highlighted what it deemed as Guyana’s deficiencies and made recommendations of the way forward. The Ministerial taskforce
which was established in 2005 “in recognition of GOG (Government of Guyana) seriousness in fighting TIP” comprises the Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Labour and Human Services and Social Security, Ministry of Foreign, Legal and Amerindian Affairs, the Ministry of Local Government, Natural Resources and the Environment, the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission, the Guyana Police Force, the Indigenous Peoples Association, the Help and Shelter, Food for the Poor and the Chambers of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). The task force, Webster said, is deeply concerned that once again the report has not reviewed Guyana fairly and therefore attracts “little merit on the part of Government of Guyana.” She said that the government does not treat trafficking in persons in isolation from other related crimes. There are several other complementary laws that have been enacted to protect women and especially children, she said. “What is clear is that once again the architects of this report have not made significant progress in improving the veracity, coherence and validity of their annual assessments,” said Webster.
The US report stated that Guyana is a source and destination country for men, women and children subjected to sex trafficking and forced labour and subjected to prostitution. Webster referenced from the United Nations and said that TIP is a global phenomenon which is the second largest criminal activity in the world in conjunction with arms trafficking and trailing the drug trade. She posited that the government has developed strategies to tackle TIP, under the guidance of the Ministerial Taskforce. “These strategies include school awareness programmes, general and community awareness sessions and training of trainers programmes, inspection of night spots, clubs, mining camps and regulated and unregulated landings.” The US report, she stated, has flagged reports of forced labour especially with children in the mining, agriculture and forestry sectors, as well as in domestic services and shops. Government, contrary to what the US State Department is saying, insists it has maximum presence in the interior mining communities. “The GGMC has mining officers in all six mining districts within Guyana and several other mining agencies are represented
Human trafficking: The US... From page 20 report lacks global authority and scrutiny. And, it is not as if there is no United Nations entity dealing with the problem. The UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNDOC) is engaged with the criminal justice element of human trafficking and its mandate could be expanded both to produce a global report on the actions of every government, and to provide technical and financial assistance to small and vulnerable countries and less
developed states to help bring them into compliance with standards set by the UN. Rather than being the world's unilateral enforcer on this issue – as in many others – the US might find that a genuine multilateral approach would be far more productive. A multilateral approach would remove the one-country 'big stick', and, instead, establish internationally agreed standards backed up by financial resources for implementation. To the extent that they can
The political scene is going to get rather confusing now that the country does not have to worry about financial blacklisting. The Alliance For Change has already created a diversion by telling the ruling party that it is planning to seek a vote of no-confidence, and the government has risen to the bait, knowing that it has a lot to tell its supporters. Unfortunately, there is not too much that the government can sell. The blacklisting did not occur, just as the opposition said that it would not. ** Silly people do silly things. A man is going
manage it – all countries and especially those in the Caribbean that have suffered slavery and indentured labour – should work together to eliminate human trafficking from the region. At the same time, countries like the US should help not hector. (The writer is a Consultant, Senior Fellow at London University and former Caribbean diplomat) Responses and previous c o m m e n t a r i e s : www.sirronaldsanders.com
to physically attack his paramour because he is convinced that she has eyes for another. Despite her protestations he is going to do what silly men do, resort to violence, then run and hide. He would be ferreted out by angry neighbours who would hand over a badly beaten individual to the police. ** A weather-related accident is going to occur when a cyclist would be blinded by an umbrella and swerve into a car. The driver is going to say that he tried to avoid the cyclist but people would accuse him of speeding.
within these regions…Officers from the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security, the police and the Health Ministry collaborate and share information in a joint effort to fight against TIP,” Webster outlined. The government, according to Webster, had members of the Task Force make covert visits to bars and to other night spots to observe the treatment of workers, ages of workers, and detect any cases of persons trafficked and any suspicious activities connected to TIP. “Raids on some of these establishments were later conducted and once there was sufficient evidence, relevant charges were instituted and the offenders prosecuted.” The US report further recommended that Government should develop child-sensitive investigate procedures to reduce additional harm to victims, develop procedures to protect privacy of children, and minimize the emotional trauma of providing testimony. Webster said that the Ministry of Labour, Human Services and Social Security, through the Child Care and Protection Agency, and in collaboration with local NGOs, have established the first child advocacy one-stop centre. The one-stop centre, she
said, is a child-focused programme in which representatives from key child welfare and protection stakeholders, including the police and NGOs, work together to “conduct forensic interviews for reporting child sexual abuse and exploitation cases. This is followed by therapeutic treatment for the child.” She added that this is the first centre of its kind, with the plan being to have such centres in all of the Administrative Regions. The US report added that the government made efforts to protect victims of trafficking, but a continued lack of accountability for perpetrators further endangers victims. Webster said that it is important to note that judicial independence does not allow for Government control or mixing with the Judiciary or Magistracy. “The long established practice has been that the GPF establishes and submits the case files to the DPPs office, and the DPP in turn would advise on whether charges would be laid or not, the decision to convict or not, is one exclusively for the Court.” According to Webster, the
role of government is to ensure that “legislation is in place and in this case, it has passed a very comprehensive piece of legislation, the combating of trafficking in persons Act.” President of the Guyana Women Miners Organization (GWMO), Simona Broomes, has been a vocal critic and fighter against TIP in Guyana. The organization has been rescuing women and children from sexual exploitation, more so within the mining sector, and despite the fact that the entity’s actions are not necessarily in consonance with the government, the administration shares a working relationship with Broomes, says Webster. “From time to time she (Broomes) would speak to me and she would be in touch with my department, and my officers would collaborate with her and conduct activities. I would like to publicly say that this perception that we don’t is not totally accurate, we might not be funding her activities, but we do collaborate.” Webster said that the GOG “stands committed to the fight against trafficking of persons in Guyana and calls upon all stakeholders and Guyanese as a whole to join the fight in TIP.”
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World War One: First war was impossible, then inevitable By Anatole Kaletsky (Reuters – Opinion) Why does the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand — the event that lit the fuse of World War One 100 years ago Saturday (yesterday) — still resonate so powerfully? Virtually nobody believes World War Three will be triggered by recent the military conflicts in Ukraine, Iraq or the China seas, yet many factors today mirror those that led to the catastrophe in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. The pace of globalization was almost as dramatic and confusing in 1914 as it is today. Fear of random terrorism was also widespread - the black-hatted anarchist clutching a fizzing bomb was a cartoon cliché then just as the Islamic jihadist is today. Yet the crucial parallel may be the complacent certainty that economic interdependence and prosperity had made war inconceivable - at least in Europe. A 1910 best-selling book, The Great Illusion, used economic arguments to demonstrate that territorial conquest had become unprofitable, and therefore
global capitalism had removed the risk of major wars. This view, broadly analogous to the modern factoid that there has never been a war between two countries with a MacDonald’s outlet, became so well established that, less than a year before the Great War broke out, the Economist reassured its readers with an editorial titled “War Becomes Impossible in Civilized World.” “The powerful bonds of commercial interest between ourselves and Germany,” the Economist insisted, “have been immensely strengthened in recent years … removing Germany from the list of our possible foes.” The real “Great Illusion,” of course, turned out to be the idea that economic selfinterest made wars obsolete. Yet a variant of this naïve materialism has returned. It underlies, for example, the Western foreign policy that presents economic sanctions on Russia or Iran as a substitute for political compromise or military intervention. The truth, as the world discovered in 1914 and is rediscovering today in Ukraine, the Middle East and the China seas, is that economic
British troops advancing. Battle of the Somme 1916. (REUTERS/Archive of Modern Conflict) interests are swept aside once the genie of nationalist or religious militarism is released. As I pointed out in this column, Russia has in past conflicts withstood economic losses unimaginable to politicians and diplomats in the Western world - and the same is true of Iran and China. Thus the U.S. strategy of “escalating economic costs” cannot be expected to achieve major geopolitical objectives, such as preserving Ukraine’s borders or Japan’s
uninhabited islands. Either territory must be open to renegotiation or the West must be prepared to fight to protect the “sanctity” of borders, which shows the really unsettling parallels with the world of 1914. Though historians continue to debate World War One’s proximate causes, two key destabilizing features of early 20th-century geopolitics created the necessary conditions for the sudden spiral into all-consuming conflict: the rise and fall of
great powers, and the overzealous observance of mutual-defense treaties. These features are now returning to destabilize geopolitics a century later. The great power rotation of 1914 saw the AustroHungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire in decline with Germany ascendant. Meanwhile, Britain, with France and Russia as junior partners, sought to maintain dominance in Europe. But their money, military resources and political
perseverance were running out. Today, Russia is a declining power and China is rising, while the United States is trying to maintain the 20thcentury balance of power, with Europe and Japan as junior partners. Under these conditions, both rising and declining powers often conflict with nations currently in control. The rising powers want to extend their territory or correct perceived historic wrongs. They challenge the status quo — as China is doing in its neighboring seas. The declining powers, meanwhile, want to prevent territorial erosion and avoid diplomatic humiliations. Countries like Russia today or Austria-Hungary in 1914 clash with the dominant powers presiding over what seems to them a natural and inevitable decline. The United States and Europe see no reason why Russia should object to the enlargement of the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. But to Russia this looks like territorial aggression and encirclement by hostile forces. Rising and declining powers naturally tend to unite (Continued on page 41)
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== THE FREDDIE KISSOON COLUMN ==
The silicone mind: Suárez, Hitler and Guyana The police raid a brothel and you are found in a room with a prostitute. The same thing happens again. Then it occurs for the third time. Conclusion – prostitutes tend to you. Why would any reasonable mind believe your denial? But this is what an entire country is doing with one of its sporting heroes – footballer, Luis Suárez. It may appear to the ordinary eye that this is just a country in support of its hero. But heroes do good things. Heroes are nice people whose action is never to intentionally hurt others. Heroes will kill in war out of self-defence, but heroes do not seek to kill a batsman by intentionally directing a vicious bouncer to his head in a game of cricket. From one end of the country to another, from tenyear-old to ninety-nine-yearold, from one important institution to another, in Uruguay, people praise Suárez as a superstar and see nothing wrong with him. In researching Suárez, even the archivists and librarians do not
cooperate with researchers on Suárez. They protect him. They love him. He is the person they believe in. Such a mental state of a country does not help Luis Suárez and Suárez is a selfdestructive Uruguayan footballing talisman who needs help. The danger with the Uruguayan attitude is that it will reinforce a lie that over time both Suárez and his nation will come to believe and accept as truth. At the moment, Uruguayans don’t believe Suárez has a psychological problem even though his career has been marked by horrible indiscretions, including biting his opponents three times in high profile matches, racially abusing a French football star on the field and causing deliberate head injuries to a referee in his youthful days in Uruguay. And these are just a few examples. The egregious reaction of the people of Uruguay to the faults of their so-called hero is identical to the way Germans felt about Hitler. Suárez says the western press
and Italy and England are out to get him so they vilify him. Hitler said the West was out to get Germany so Germans rallied around Hitler. They couldn’t see Hitler’s faults until it was too late. As the West sounded alarms about Hitler, the bigger the alarms the greater the protection for Hitler. As the Suárez incident keeps attracting biting (no pun intended) analyses from around the world, the people of Uruguay will continue to lie to themselves – our hero is telling the truth, he didn’t bite that player. The result will be disrespect for the nation of Uruguay, perhaps even scorn, and Suárez will be driven to deep levels of self-delusions. Nothing positive can result from such a dystopian drama. If any country should see the chasms that Uruguay is heading into, it is Guyana. The Suárez incident comes at a time when many East Indians from Guyana are chasing the PNC for an apology for when it was in power, and the Walter Rodney Commission is causing vexations among
African Guyanese on what witnesses are saying about Forbes Burnham and those who served under him. In Guyana, Uruguay and Suárez live. Long before Uruguay started to deny the faults of Suárez, Guyanese Africans were denying the nasty faults of Forbes Burnham and Guyanese Indians were in love with Cheddi Jagan, a man whose flaws were immensely tragic. Burnham’s lust for power destroyed Guyana, but like Suárez he was the talisman, the icon of African Guyanese, and they were happy to accept as truth the lies Burnham spun them. Cheddi Jagan had a tiny mind and was a willing stooge of Stalinist communism. He loved the Soviet Union more than his own country, and like
Burnham, devastated Guyana in the process. But he was the icon of the Guyanese Indians and they accepted as gospel, the lies he sank into their psyche. Surely, Uruguay is not alone in the example of a nation seeing a man with dangerously bad habits but still loving him because, after all, he is our hero. Before there were Suárez and Uruguay, there was Guyana with its African and East Indian communities. Burnham bit the Guyanese people and Africans said it was an invention of his Indian enemies. Jagan bit the Guyanese people and Indians said that was a fiction created by his African enemies. Luis Suárez has put Uruguay on the map in 2014,
Frederick Kissoon and maybe the peoples of the world will help the Uruguayans to see that their boy Suárez is dragging them down, that they must face the truth and see their boy for what he is – a man with a dangerous problem. Little Guyana remains unknown, and the lie Africans and Indians accept as truth will live on.
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Book Review Review:: Critic: Dr Glenville Ashby Poets have always stirred the conscience, embedding themselves in struggles for social change. Their words are also celebratory finding solace and warmth in the nature’s resplendence. Like the Psalmist, they cry out from the depths of their soul, soothing the bruised heart and offering hope to the hopeless. It is this authenticity that has made many poetic gems timeless, transcending cultures and creeds. To rank Trinidad-born Michael Ashby in the same vein as a Shelley or Wordsworth is arguably an overreach, but he comes daringly close. His Poetic Jewels journeys back to a life in all its rustic magnificence with whistling birds, brooks and streams and the fertility of green. And the beauty of the human body he lauds unabashedly. It is nature in its pristine form. Ashby’s verses are crisp with a pedestrian beat and almost symmetrical in tone
Kaieteur News
Sunday June 29, 2014
A pricey literary gem of unrivaled worth Book: Poetic Jewels by Michael Ashby and colour. Maybe its predictability can be faulted, but this does not detract from the overall weight of his message. There is a raw and appealing simplicity to Ashby’s oeuvre. He writes with elegant authenticity that proves to be a robust retort to any critic. Poetic Jewels beckons the reader to reflect on the fundamental gift of life, a gift that has been ravished by internecine wars and twisted teachings that promote social injustice. Alas, the existentialist’s philosophy of self-realisation, amid the most arduous of challenges is alien to today’s society. And Ashby responds in the only way he knows how. Whether it is “Who is a Friend,” “A Secret to Tell,” “The Stairway to Heaven,” or “Splendour,” Poetic Jewels flows effortlessly – in phases. From the homostrophic odes to ancestors and the glorification of nature; from the sensual hymnal tones of lost and found love to divine supplications, this poet is message unwavering.
Shunning prosaic poetry, he is an apologetic classicist. In “She is Gone,” he writes: “How must I feel now that she is gone, trashed in the gutter, melted and worn; where craziness lies and even spent, woe to this sadness there lies resent…” And in “the Pinnacle of Love,” the poet intones: “I am at the pinnacle of ecstasy, so aroused by this sensation of sublimity. How great thou art, I found my lady of black beauty…” While “Jewels” rings of genuine human emotions – love, acceptance and understanding – from an individual level, one cannot ignore its social implications. Ashby’s love grows outward, bursting with a cry of liberation that connects to those trapped and stymied by oppression. “I am what I feel, the surge of power it reveals. The essence of my tribulations that once were, now vibrates a joy I am happy to know,” he writes. We also see this catharsis in African Woman, a work of
rebellious pride: “My name is not colonial but of significant importance. Anika by birth of a n c e s t r a l acceptance…….Free at last, so free at last, Emancipation has made its way into our hearts. Come my African sisters, this is our day. Let us celebrate in our own special way. You may light a candle or beat a drum, but whatever you do, May it be done in honour of African Redemption….” And as a fitting corollary, Ashby hails Makandal Daaga in an eponymous poem: “We marched the length and breadth with this man, even to work in the sugar cane land. So now is the time for our children to heed of the struggles we had, so they can lead…” Has this poet left the sublime to swelter in the heat of politics? Not likely. “Daaga” is a poem replete with sensitivity, historical awareness and gratitude. In fact, it may very well encapsulate the humanistic underbelly of this compelling work.
F e e d b a c k : glenvilleashby@gmail.com/ Follow him on Twitter@glenvilleashby
Poetic Jewels by Michael Ashby, 2013 ISBN: 976-8193-10-7 Recommended
Sunday June 29, 2014
Kaieteur News
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MY COLUMN
A pressure cooker called Guyana There are many things to make us send up our blood pressure. For example, if you live in the city you must secure a pair of Wellingtons, the things that we grew up calling ‘long boots’, more so than those who live in the rural areas. This is a radical change from the days when I was growing up in the country. Of course, in the country those who had long boots were the better people. I say better because they were not rich but they were able to put food on their table more often than many. The long boots were necessary because the streets were not asphalted, so one could imagine the condition when it rained. But this was expected and we country people envied those in the city because they had paved roads and all they had to be concerned about was the water from the skies. All of a sudden things have changed. The people in the
country have all-weather roads that dry off quite easily while those in the city must contemplate buying boats. I know that I always envied the people in the city because they did not have to worry about mud on their feet like me in the country. Today I live in the city, but I suppose the city is a far cry from what it was way back then, and this sends my blood pressure soaring. But there are things that also make me laugh and I suppose that these do outweigh the annoying things. There was the football match on television and there were the boys at the corner store trying their best to behave as though they were in the ground. Up comes a friend who is across the road. At the same time the people in the store rise to their feet as one man and the fellow, in a haste to see what is going on, runs across D’Urban Street.
A car is coming but the fellow does not see it. Fortunately, the car was not speeding. The driver must have been in an impish mood because he drove right up to the distracted fellow, slammed his brakes and honked his horn. There is the joke by Paul Keens-Douglas about Slim or Tall Boy who leapt ten feet into the air. This fellow didn’t get off the ground. He did the next best thing. He spun toward the sound, saw the car, and hugged it as though it was a long lost love. The look on his face then, made me chuckle. Then there was the young reporter who believes that she is the cleverest person around. Of course there are many of them, but this one comes to mind. The hardest thing for this young woman is to get out of bed. She has to go to an 11:00 o’clock assignment but at 11:30 she tells me that she hasn’t yet reached because
she could not find the road to the Ogle airport. Of course this should have sent my blood pressure boiling, but I try my best to see the funny side of things rather than carp on those things that would annoy me. Life is about the good there is. And there is a lot of good. A man is walking along the road; suddenly he stumbles and falls. There is nothing in the world that would stop a Guyanese from laughing at someone who took a tumble. But at the same time the very people are going to rush to lend a helping hand. Sometimes an incentive would do well to make those hands even more helping, as some news reports would suggest. At every scene of a disaster there are those who appear to be very helpful when in fact they are helping themselves. People have been known to strip the badly injured and
some have stripped the dead, safe in the knowledge that where that person is going he or she would have no need of these earthly things. For all this, Guyanese are really good people. I have seen people rush to give blood to complete strangers; I have seen people share the sorrow of others. And this reminded me of a story that once did the rounds. It is said that the Chinese used to pay Guyanese to cry at their funerals, although the reason offered never made sense. And in any case, with the advent of television, I now know that Chinese do cry for their own dead. But if it w e r e true that they paid people, Guyanese would be very rich, given the large number of Chinese in Guyana. I must now take a quick look at something that caused so many sleepless nights. There I was sitting down and wondering how people in this
Adam Harris country would fare because of the non-passage of the antimoney laundering Bill. There was the fear that with the drastic reduction in remittances the exchange rate would have climbed so much higher than it is now. It turned out that the people who call the shots could not care less that Guyana failed to pass its antimoney laundering Bill. It was as if this country never counted in the scheme of things and perhaps it never did.
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Kaieteur News
Sunday June 29, 2014
The emergence of a dictatorship By Khemraj Ramjattan When Hitler was elected Chancellor in January 1933, Germany was a democracy. There were free and fair elections; persons were allowed to vote for the party of their choice; and, there were many to choose from. To pass a law, a Bill had to be tabled, debated and approved. The Reichstag of January 1933 saw over 50% of those who held seats being against the Nazi Party. What could have happened that resulted in Germany shortly thereafter having one of the most infamous dictators of all history? What lessons are there for Guyana? In politics, a dictatorship is government and governance not limited by law. There is a concentration of political power either in one person or in an elitist and strongly united core group. The central characteristic
of such a regime is that it dominates the political and economic and social levers of the entire society its rules without any regards to good governance and accountability principles, human rights, integrity of its offices and total disregard for checks and balances in financial affairs. Further, it is unabashed in its propensity to use state resources to advance its agenda. So it would be quite commonplace to see Ministers of a dictatorial government, using State resources such as vehicles, properties and finances to conduct its work and coerce and bribe citizens into becoming members and supporters. In a dictatorial regime, social and public institutions are generally run by cronies of the regime or relatives of the central cabal. Dictatorial governments are known to use their position and access to the
resources of the country to promulgate widespread propaganda designed to discredit any opposing view and promulgate themselves as the only ‘salvation’ for the people. Independent media daring to question or criticize such a government are labeled “oppositionists”, “detractors” and other derogatory terms. Such regimes are also known to expend significant amounts on its own propaganda so that what the public receives from the media is a constant dose of the achievements of the dictator or his regime, and how all of this is in the interest of the people. Powerful images will dominate all media to present the regime as most caring, respected and honest. Probably the most glaring characteristic of a dictatorial regime is its pervasive greed. Leading members of such a regime abuse power for their personal enrichment. They misappropriate from the
public purse and divert public resources with impunity and use their propaganda machinery to fool the public into believing otherwise. They are immersed in corruption. The country which a dictatorial government presides over generally suffers serious migration of its best and brightest, infrastructural degradation, economic decline and raging political conflicts. Now the point must be made that while it is generally known that dictators have never been held accountable for their atrocities unless they are thrown out of power, the development of the international criminal law and with the emerging trends on international anti-corruption legal regimes, there is a possibility of despotic dictators being held accountable for their atrocities outside their jurisdictions. Governing dictatorial cabals are loathe to adhere to international
best practices of governance and when their atrocities come in for international attention are quick to scream: “We are a sovereign state and would tolerate no outside interference”. Does such a country ring a bell? Yes…indeed it is today’s Guyana. For some who may want to deny that it has reached such a state, they must honestly pronounce that it will soon reach such a disastrous destination. After 21 years in power, we see these exact characteristics in the PPPC Government; the greed, corruption, concentration of power in the hands of a few, total disregard for the principles of good governance, contempt towards criticism and the general attitude that they alone have the right to rule. The Guyanese dictators need to wake up and read the writing on the wall. They must be reminded that the longest rope has an end. But our Guyanese citizens must also wake up to the reality that unless we actively engage in finding that end of the rope, this oppression will persist that longer. We must stand up and speak out. We must show our outrage at this spawning
of these maharajahs and sultans. By our silence we will only be condoning this brutality, this fast advancing local Nazism. As Justice William O. Douglas of the US Supreme Court said, “As nightfall does not come at once, neither does, oppression. In both instances, there’s twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that we must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.”
Sunday June 29, 2014
SUNDAY SPECIAL NY CASE…RAMROOP GIFTED SANATA COMPLEX DESPITE FAILINGEMPLOYMENT REQUIREMENT -COURT PAPERS TRACE LINKAGES BETWEEN NEW GPC, TVG, GUYANA TIMES The veil of secrecy over New GPC Inc. is slowly lifting, with the company admitting in a New York court this month that it was employing just 138 workers, at the end of 2012. The company also admitted that it shared a common principal with the Guyana Times newspaper and TVG 28…Dr. Ranjisinghi ‘Bobby’ Ramroop. And owning New GPC would be Atlantic Investments Incorporated and the National Industrial Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL). Atlantic Investments also has Ramroop as a principal while NICIL is a Governmentowned company charged with overseeing investments for the state. NICIL has a 10 per cent stake in New GPC. The number of staffers employed by New GPC would be significant as its parent company, Queens Atlantic Incorporated Inc. (QAII), had promised to provide up to 1200 jobs with the acquisition of the Sanata complex. It has been several years now since that that acquisition New GPC, the largest supplier of pharmaceuticals to the Government has been in news in recent years after revelations that all was not right with those drug purchases. With questions over the procurement procedures used in granting New GPC the contracts to supply drugs, the spotlight was thrown on its close relationship with the Ministry of Health and Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation and former President, Bharrat Jagdeo. MONDAY EDITION GOVT. ENGAGED IN UNPRECEDENTEDABUSE OF NATIONAL COFFERS Government had for nearly two months been quietly spending money in violation of an expressed non-approval of the National Assembly while it searched the Constitution for what it opportunistically considered loopholes to disregard the concept of separation of powers and to have its own way. The action by Government represents a major unprecedented abuse by the Executive of the Consolidated Fund which comes under the control of the Legislature.
Kaieteur News
At least this is according to Financial Analyst, Christopher Ram, who in an analysis of the $4.5B Statement of Excess brought to the House two Thursdays ago by the Finance Minister, Dr Ashni Singh and its accompanying Bill, said that there is no legal basis on which the government’s action could be based. Ram is of the opinion that a potential financial crisis looms in Guyana as a result of the actions of the Government. According to Ram, the Minister’s reliance on section 41 of the Fiscal Management and Accountability (FMA) Act seems even more tenuous since that section deals specifically with the Contingencies Fund. Ram points out that each of the 50 attachments to the Financial Paper, brought to the House by Dr Ashni Singh, is headed Statement of Excess – 2014, a different concept from Contingencies. BRASSINGTON STILL IN CONTROL OF MARRIOTT …TRANSFER OF POWER NOT CONCLUDED – DR. LUNCHEON The National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) remains in control of Atlantic Hotel Inc (AHI), the owners of the Marriott Hotel. At least this is according to Dr. Roger Luncheon, a Director on the Board of NICIL which has plugged some US$19.5M into the project. On Wednesday, Dr. Luncheon was asked about the new arrangements on the Board of Directors since the announcement of ACE Square Investment Limited as the majority equity investor in the project. According to Dr. Luncheon, the matter is being handled in a phased manner and as such a new Chairman and new Board of Directors have not been appointed as yet. Dr. Luncheon said that there are evolving plans to conclude the arrangement. Winston Brassington was and seemingly still is, the Chairman of AHI while his deputy at NICIL, Marcia Nadir-Sharma, remains his deputy at AHI. AHI recently announced that it has completed the financial arrangements with Republic Bank Ltd. for a syndicated loan of US$27M in debt financing for the project. TUESDAY EDITION APPROVAL OF $8.7B FROM CONTINGENCIES FUNDAN EMBARRASSMENT …FINANCE MINISTER STILL PERSONALLY
LIABLE FOR UNAPPROVED $700MGOOLSARRAN Former Auditor General, Anand Goolsarran, on Monday had a stinging rebuke for Minister of Finance Dr. Ashni Singh as well as the National Assembly, over what he maintains is a continued abuse of the Contingencies Fund. Goolsarran was responding to Dr. Singh’s attempt to explain that the Contingencies Fund was not being abused since of the $9.4B brought to the House since 2011, an Opposition controlled Parliament approved $8.7B representing 92.2 per cent. He had asked the question: Where is the abuse? Goolsarran’s position is that the Assembly was extremely generous in approving expenditure out of the Contingencies Fund that did not meet the criteria, notwithstanding that such expenditure might have been incurred to finance legitimate Government operations. “The Assembly would have done so with a very heavy heart in view of the fact that it was deprived of the ex ante opportunity to scrutinise and debate a request for supplementary funds… Indeed, it would have been an exercise in futility for the Assembly to engage in a debate about the merits of any expenditure that has already incurred.” According to Goolsarran, “the milk has already been spilled, and the Assembly was merely asked to rubber-stamp expenditure already incurred.” SHOTAMERICASTREET MONEY-CHANGER SUCCUMBS - ASSAILANTS STILLAT LARGE Wendell Liverpool, a popular America Street money-changer who was shot and robbed on Friday, June 20, by three masked gunmen in front of a night spot at West Ruimveldt, succumbed to his injuries early Monday (June 23). Liverpool, 44, of Lot 453 West Ruimveldt Housing Scheme died around 03:15 hrs in the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC)’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Kaieteur News was told that the money-changer died hours after doctors had informed family members that he was ‘brain dead.’ The father of four was sitting with one of his brothers at the night spot around 22:00hrs when three masked men approached him on bicycles and shot him to the back, buttocks and shoulder. WEDNESDAY EDITION COMPETITION
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Former President: Bharrat Jagdeo
Dr. Ranjisinghi ‘Bobby’ Ramroop
OFFENCES IN GUYANA…REGULATORS PROBING SEVERAL CASES OF BID RIGGING – RAMESH DOOKHOO In April 2006, Parliament passed a Competition and Fair Trading Act, which targets offences such as price fixing, conspiracy, bid rigging, misleading advertisements, anti-competitiveness, abuse of dominant position, and resale price maintenance. But according to a 2013 Investment Climate Statement – (Guyana) Report by the US Department of State, “The Act provides for a Competition Commission to have authority to review anti-competitive business practices, but the Commission is not fully functional…the Commission receives complaints, however, it remains inadequately staffed.” Members of the political Opposition however, have supported the claim of the report stating that competition offences still continue to plague the efficiency and effectiveness of doing business in Guyana It was also posited that more should have been done, and still needs to be done, by the Competition and Consumers Affairs Commission (CCAC). It is also believed by the Opposition that the entity has not had a significant impact as it relates to effectively addressing the issues which hinder competitiveness in Guyana. But the Chairman of the CCAC, Ramesh Dookhoo, begs to differ. He said that while he does not negate the fact that the issues are prevalent, the Commission, he believes, has taken the necessary steps thus far to continue making a significant impact as it relates to the said issues. GOLD SLIDE… MINING OPERATIONS DROP 40 PERCENT, EQUIPMENT SALES DECLINE – GGDMA
equipment sales and fuel, with operations scaled back as much as 40 percent. This is according to preliminary results presented by miners Tuesday during a critical meeting with Government on the sector. Government and miners have been extremely worried about the implications of the slowdown of the sector which has been boosting the performance of the country in recent years, so much so that gold has surpassed both rice and sugar. Gold brought over US$600M in foreign currency to the country last year, almost three times more than rice. THURSDAY EDITION US$4M PUMPS…INDIAN CONTRACTOR BUYS MAJOR COMPONENTS FROM US More than three years after Guyana signed a deal with India-based Surendra Engineering Corporation Limited for 14 large drainage pumps, the second fixed one has been commissioned at Patentia, West Bank Demerara. The over-budget $265M facility, built by contractor Harrichand Tulsi did not include the cost of the pump. Rather the contract to supply was signed with Surendra since May 2011 for
Guyana’s biggest money earner – the gold sector – is indicating a massive 30 percent drop in business in
Winston Brassington the provision of eight fixed and six mobile pumps for US$4M ($800M). Government was tasked with constructing the facilities to house the mobile pumps. It is expected that at the end, more than $1B would be spent to build the facilities. GPL GETS FINANCING NOD FOR US$65M MODERNIZATION PROJECT -NEW TRANSFORMERS, HIRING OF MANAGERS, METER TECHNOLOGY TARGETED In one of its largest programmes to date, the stateowned Guyana Power and Light Inc. (GPL) has been approved almost US$65M to help reduce losses while at the same time increase its efficiency. The project is designed to ready GPL for the coming of hydro-electric power. According to the InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB) Wednesday, the US$64.573M programme will be used to enhance operational efficiency of GPL, improve corporate performance and fund infrastructure investments to reduce overall losses. “This new programme will (Continued on page 45)
Former Auditor General, Anand Goolsarran
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(This article was first published in the Kaieteur News, on January 20, 2013) Minister of Legal Affairs Anil Nandlall rushed into the National Assembly last week with a raft of proposed amendments to the Motion by Leader of Opposition David Granger calling for a Commission of Inquiry into criminal violence. Speaker of the National Assembly Raphael Trotman, however, was obliged to rule that many of Nandlall’s proposed amendments in their original form offended the National Assembly’s Standing Orders. Trotman described some as ‘scandalous’ and suggested several changes. Granger was to have moved the Motion seeking to have the government appoint a Commission of Inquiry to investigate criminal violence – ranging from the assassination of Agriculture Minister Satyadeow Sawh to
Kaieteur News
the massacres at Lusignan, Bartica and Lindo Creek. He declined to proceed with it, however, on the grounds that the People’s Progressive Party had poisoned the atmosphere for rational debate. The PPP was bent on twisting the Motion that sought the promotion of reconciliation with relatives of the victims of violence and the advancement of national unity into a weapon of hostility and disunity. Ralph Ramkarran, former Speaker of the National Assembly and long-standing member of the PPP’s Central Committee then tried to explain what he called the PPP’s ‘psyche.’ He rushed to publish an article, “PPP’s enduring fears” only last week, which rationalised “the deeper realities” that motivate the PPP’s approaches to governance. Ramkarran attempted to separate the consequences of
the PPP’s own criminal behaviour from its causes. In referring to the “restriction and imprisonment of its leaders and members” in 1954, for example, he blindly ignores the several acts of terror which the PPP perpetrated in that very year. Official reports stated plainly, “There were several attempts at sabotage by a gang connected with the extremist element of the People’s Progressive Party. They involved the use of dynamite in various localities, culminating with the blowing up of the statue of Queen Victoria in the grounds of the Law Courts at Georgetown.” Ramkarran, blandly, refers to the ethnic and political violence of the 1962-1964 period and to the imprisonment of its leaders, but again omits any reference to causation. The imprisonment of PPP leaders to which he refers occurred 24 hours after several members
of the Abraham family were burnt to death when a ‘channa’ bomb was thrown into their home on Hadfield Street in June 1964. He surely must know that the Progressive Youth Organisation – the PPP’s youth arm – was largely responsible for the violence. The British Guiana Trades Union Congress published a report which stated, “In 1962 alone, at least 110 members of the PYO were sent off to Communist countries for training, mainly to Cuba. More than 200 are known to have gone to Cuba a l t o g e t h e r. Tr a i n i n g schools have been established in British Guiana, the instructors being Cubans, in some cases, and Cuban-trained or Soviettrained PYOs members”. Ramkarran must be aware, also, that Clem Seecharan, a well-known Guyanese historian wrote of Cheddi Jagan’s premiership that: “…in an obvious attempt to prevent the holding of elections under the proportional representation (PR) system in 1964, the PPPbacked GAWU [Guiana Agricultural Workers’ Union] called a strike in which sugar workers were the “backbone” in the campaign of violence on the estates, in an “orgy of arson, bombing and personal attacks on people who refused to strike.”
Sunday June 29, 2014
Ramkarran must be aware, too, that some defectors confessed that the PPP had sent them for military training in Cuba. This included sabotage tactics and the making of different types of bombs with the objective of fomenting violence. They expressed concern that such a campaign could only have resulted in racial warfare among the two major race groups in the country. Akbar Alli, a PPP activist, publicly stated, in December 1965 that he had been trained in Cuba, especially in military tactics, the making of bombs and the carrying-out of sabotage. Alli’s public betrayal of the PPP’s strategy of violence led to his own violent assassination within three months of his public disclosures. The PPP, despite its own bloody record of violence, persists up to today in distorting history. The PPP peddles tales that are being handed down from generation to generation to persons who do not know the truth, that it was the PNC that was the aggressor. Ramkarran, in fact, is admitting that the PPP is the author of its own problems. It is the PPP’s paranoia that has precipitated a crisis in confidence – in its government, the lawenforcement agencies, the criminal justice system, the
regulatory agencies, and in the political process. The crisis arose out of the collapse of the PPP’s electoral majority at the 2011 general and regional elections. The crisis of governance exists at the national level in the National Assembly and at the local level in the systematic debilitation of the municipalities and local government organs and the imposition of undemocratic interim management committees. Ramkarran and Nandlall are both aware that the PPP’s focus is on power for its own sake rather than for the achievement of the specific goal of national unity and national development. Its problems have arisen primarily because of a particular culture that exists at senior levels in the PPP. That culture holds that the PPP must never share or lose total executive power. Its astonishment at losing control over the National Assembly after the general elections of November 2011 is the main factor inhibiting its openness to change and inspiring Nandlall’s Supreme Court challenges to the Leader of the Opposition and the Speaker of the National Assembly. The PPP has called for a ‘Truth Commission.’ It ought to be careful, because it might just get what it is asking for.
Sunday June 29, 2014
Kaieteur News
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A Summit, a Council and a charter... GNCPP’S CONSTITUTIONAL COURSE By Zena Henry Much ado about Article 13 in Guyana’s Constitution has been evident recently. Perhaps it’s because it provides that: “The principal objective of the political system of the State is to establish an inclusionary democracy by providing increasing opportunities for the participation of the citizens and their organizations in the management and decisionmaking processes of the State, with particular emphasis on those areas of decisionmaking that directly affect their well-being.” The emergent Guyanese Civil Society groupings are embracing this provision as their Constitutional guarantee of status and empowerment, with some justification. Particularly, the increasingly vocal civil group, the Guyana National Council on Policy (GNCPP) has also recognized that other similar Constitutional assurances exist under citizens “Protection of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms of the Individual”, among others. The head of the organization, international corporate lawyer, Dr. Philip H. Mozart Thomas has noted that, “the issue for citizens in today’s Guyana is whether “the political system”, as manifested by and through the government, does indeed hold Article 13 and its declaration as any “principal objective.” Other relevant questions, he added, surround the concept of “inclusionary democracy” whereby the
State is to provide “increasing opportunities” for the Guyanese people, in between elections, to participate in “the management and decisionmaking processes” which have to do with the nation’s policies and even the distribution of its resources. Dr. Thomas pointed out that in the recent past a Government Minister expressed indignation over the fact that the European Union Delegation in Georgetown donated assistance directly to a representative Amerindian Rights group. In another section of the print media, he pointed out a commentary by an anonymous contributor which sought to analyse the “agenda” of the Americans in supporting the country’s Civil Society Organisations (CSOs). Dr. Thomas believes however, that “it must be readily understood that any embattled Administration would feel the need to be suspicious of certain activist organisations; and would be wary of popular effective structured Non-Government groups and would be quick to label certain visible vocal CSOs as ‘political’”.
That’s balance for the political course for any government/political system under constant scrutiny, criticism and opposition, Dr. Thomas explained. He continued that it is not “the Americans” who solely support Civil Society’s strategies for empowerment and inclusiveness in Guyana. “And why should the Country’s Civil Society not be strong enough to challenge wrongdoing?” he questioned. Dr. Thomas was unequivocal in stating that, “every NGO or CSO is not about regime-change.” He said that it is evident in our nature that Guyana’s NGOs and CSOs, in particular GNCPP, is about making sure that all stakeholders of the generation put all their efforts and energy into creating a better living environment and quality of life for all Guyanese. “As one CSO member recently declared: ‘We are not anti-government. We are antiwrong,’” Thomas said. THE GNCPP – AND A CIVIL SOCIETY SUMMIT Dr. Thomas asserted that it would be reasonable to expect cynicism and sighs of indifference when older Guyanese hear talk of a resurgent, burgeoning “Civil
Society”. “They’ve experienced ineffectiveness, exclusionary boorishness and, too frequently, NGOs compromised and coopted by political interests.” This time around, Dr. Thomas urged, “newer CSOs influenced and inspired by better ones before and supported by Diaspora affiliates or branches, are intent on making a difference as they invoke Article 13’s promise and protection.” Dr. Thomas, a Corentyne, Berbice native, is bent on invigorating and mobilising Guyana’s NGOs/CSOs. His organisation has assembled a number of Guyanese achievers, both at home and abroad, to spearhead its Think Tank/ National Policy Institute and to expand its membership to provide capacity to man its various departments which mirror governmental entities. Currently, the GNCPP is dedicated to convening Guyana’s first National Civil Society Summit – GNCSS; “a September Conference to elect a Civil Society National Council aimed at establishing a collective voice and programme for an empowered Civil Society Sector.”
GNCPP’s Advocacy, Administrative and Social Services Departments have now established a Summit Event Planning Secretariat housed in its new GNCPP headquarters in Kingston, Georgetown. The Secretariat has begun issuing both briefs and invitations to local NGOs/ CSOs with respect to the September Summit. The GNCPP, according to Dr. Thomas, completed a comprehensive feasibility study between May 2003 through to March 2010, which later saw the development of a plan to effectively implement values, creating a shift into a new dispensation of governance and management of a Society. In this regard, he said, it is necessary to establish the Guyana National Civil Society Council (GNCSC). The GNCPP leader said that among several objectives set out, the summit seeks to bring together representatives from over 400 Guyanese national and Inter-national Civil Society Organisations and Non-Government Organisations and Groups. It seeks to select a GNCSC; develop and implement the policies and principles that
GNCPP leader, Dr. Philip H. Mozart Thomas will guide Civil Society Actions in their new role of occupying, functioning and executing their Article 13, et al, Constitutional duties, obligations and responsibilities. The summit also seeks to develop and execute a National Civil Education Campaign on the Constitution and elections processes in relation to the role of civil society; to discuss adjudicate specific proceedings before the High Court. The summit plans to develop a process to enable discourse and dialogue with the political system on reform processes and behaviour culture, while advocating for an independent judiciary. GNCPP’s secretariat is located at 58 High Street Kingston, Georgetown.
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Sunday June 29, 2014
Biogas: An alternative energy source for farmers - GEA By Rabindra Rooplall Biogas is a gas produced by the breakdown or decomposition of organic waste in the absence of oxygen and comprises a mixture of gases, mainly carbon dioxide and methane; this can be used as an alternative energy source instead of firewood and fossil fuels, according to the Guyana Energy Agency (GEA). Public Communications Officer, Taiwo Williams, disclosed that the agency has been monitoring and supporting the installation of bio-digesters. At present there are approximately thirty (30) bio-digesters installed in Guyana that use organic materials to produce biogas. GEA encourages livestock farmers (cattle, pig,
etc) to take advantage of this technology and cash in on potential savings. The production of methane gas will help to conserve on imported energy sources (fossil fuels) thereby allowing for savings on energy bills and a positive contribution to the environment. “There are many raw materials (organic materials) from which biogas can be extracted, for example, animal manure, leaves, twigs, grasses and garbage, among others. Biogas production from animal waste provides a unique opportunity to mitigate the effects of waste produced on farms while providing a cheap and sustainable source of energy,” the GEA underscored. “To facilitate the production of biogas a structure referred to as a biodigester unit (BDU) is used. A bio- digester aids in the decomposition of organic materials, such as those listed above, to produce methane gas (biogas) that can be used for cooking, heating, lighting (using gas lamps), electricity generation, operation of farm machinery and other energy needs. “A bio-digester unit is a clean, healthy and economic
alternative since it not only provides fuel for domestic household use but also provides liquid and solid fertilizers that can be used in farming. This in turn aids in reducing the amount of chemical contaminants (in organic fertilizer) that affects human health and the environment.” DECOMPOSITION The decomposition of waste material during anaerobic digestion is caused by bacterial action rather than high temperatures. It takes place in almost any biological environment, but is favoured by warm, wet and low oxygen conditions. Anaerobic digestion also occurs in two
major situations created by human activities: Sewage (human waste) or animal manure. Landfill gas produced by domestic refuse buried at landfill sites. In nature, there are also many raw materials (organic materials) from which biogas can be extracted: human and animal manure, leaves, twigs, grasses, garbage, agricultural and industrial wastes with organic content greater than 2%. The biogas produced can be used for cooking, heating, lighting (using gas lamps), electricity generation, operation of farm machinery and other energy needs. The effluent produced from the process can be used as a
fertilizer for crops. COST The cost to set up a biodigester including parts and labour should be approximately $120,000 and would replace the need for at least one 20-lb LPG gas cylinder per month. The simple payback for the installation based on an average cost $3,600 per 20-lb LPG gas, is just under three years. After year three except for basic maintenance and labour, all gas produced will be free. Biogas is primarily used as a fuel for cooking purposes and electricity generation. Scientific advances have significantly enhanced
biogas yield production, leading to the development of commercial or large/medium scale biogas plants in recent years. In terms of both consumption and production of biogas, Europe leads the other nations mainly due to increased government regulation for renewable energy initiatives. The German experience is particularly impressive. Since the introduction of feed-intariffs for biogas in Germany, over 7000 biogas plants have been developed, and are on target to develop 17% of power from biogas. However, although Europe dominates biogas production, the technology application is fast increasing in Japan, Australia, New Zealand and the United States. The Asia-Pacific biogas plants market is displaying strong appetite for growth, especially in the emerging markets such as China and India. Global Analysts, Inc reports that the global biogas plants markets will reach $8.98 billion by the year 2017. The desire to reduce dependency on fossil fuels, heightened attention to ecofriendliness, and government incentive programs will continue to grow investment in biogas facilities.
Sunday June 29, 2014
Kaieteur News
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Nursing examination...
Health Minister touts intensified pre-screening of nursing students In what may be an attempt to garner sustained acceptable performances at the country’s Nursing Examinations delivered by the Ministry of Health, moves may be made to adopt an intense pre-screening process. This potential development was highlighted by Minister of Health, Dr Bheri Ramsaran, who during an interview related that such a strategy is one that is already being embraced by private education institutions. “Certain private schools I think do pre-screening of their students so as to guarantee more favourable passes,” he reflected. And perhaps it was such a tactic that was employed by the Nursing School operated by the privately-run St Joseph’s Mercy Hospital, which represents one of the four Nursing Schools of the country. According to the Minister, the private nursing school, possibly because of its quality student intake is one institution that
...in quest to reduce failure rate consistently produces good performances. At the most recent national nursing examinations, the Minister said that the private nursing school entered about seven students. He pointed out that while that is a small number to take into consideration, there is no doubt that the percentage pass rate was laudable enough to be recognised, since six of the seven passed all of the multiple papers of the examination while one failed partially, indicative by failure of one paper. The Minister’s remarks were forthcoming even as he deliberated on the level of failure that the public nursing schools have been seeing in certain areas in recent times. This development occurred among students of the three public entities – Georgetown, New Amsterdam and Charles Roza in Linden. Moreover, Minister
Ramsaran noted that the onus is now on his Ministry “to go back to the drawing board and decide what is the way forward taking into consideration the figures that we are seeing.” While he did not divulge to this publication the specifics of the results, in an interview with the Government Information Agency (GINA) the Minister disclosed that while the four recognised Nursing Schools in Guyana have shown a lot of improvement in individual areas, when the grades were combined it showed that some individuals were strong in one area while weak in another, resulting in them failing. He said that this can be broken down to 83 per cent in Functional Nursing Paper One and 27 per cent in Paper Two; 61 per cent passes in Clinical Nursing Paper One and 70 per cent in Paper Two along with 79 per cent in Practicals.
The Georgetown School of Nursing recorded the poorest performance, according to the Health Minister
The Charles Roza Nursing School, the Minister disclosed, showed some form of improvement as the results show a 92 per cent pass in Functional Nursing Paper One as opposed to 60 per cent in 2013 and 46 per cent in Paper Two as opposed to 20 per cent last year. Also, in the area of Clinical Nursing, there have been
improvements as well, evident by a 50 per cent pass rate in Paper One as against 23 per cent last year, while Paper Two saw a 72 per cent success as against 30 per cent last year. This school also showed improvement in the practical exam, resulting in an 83 per cent pass as opposed to 57 per cent last year. At the New Amsterdam
Nursing School there was a 100 per cent rate in Functional Nursing Paper One and 49 per cent in Paper Two, while in Clinical Nursing there was 46 per cent passes in Paper One and 76 per cent in Paper Two. There was a 46 per cent in Practicals. Minister Ramsaran in analysing the results (Continued on page 42)
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World War One: First war was impossible... From page 22 against the status quo leaders. In 1914, for example, Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire did this against France, Britain and Russia; today it is logical for China and Russia to collaborate against the United States, the European Union and Japan. This logic has been reinforced recently by the Obama administration’s odd decision to re-emphasize its support for Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam in their territorial disputes with China, at the same time as it confronts Russia in Ukraine. Which brings me to the clearest lesson from 1914: the pernicious nexus of treaties and alliances that commit great powers to fight on behalf of other countries. This turned localized conflicts into regional or
global wars - and did so with terrifying speed and unpredictability. The obvious examples today are NATO and the U.S.Japanese mutual defense treaty, which in theory commit the United States to launch wars against Russia or China if they encroached on disputed territories in Eastern Europe or the East China Sea. Could such treaties act as a hair-trigger for global war, as in 1914? Consider this statement by General Sir Richard Shirreff, formerly NATO’s second most senior military officer at a debate about Russia: “Everyone surely agrees that we would be ready to go to war to defend Britain’s borders. Well, as a NATO member, Britain’s borders are now in Latvia.” It may seem almost impossible that Washington
would go to war against Beijing to defend some uninhabited Japanese islands. Or against Moscow over some decrepit mining towns in Donbas, if Ukraine ever joined NATO. In early 1914, though, it seemed almost impossible that Britain and France would go to war with Germany to defend Russia against Austria-Hungary over a dispute with Serbia. Yet by
June 28, war moved straight from impossible to inevitable - without ever passing through improbable. Four years later, 10 million people had died. (Anatole Kaletsky is an award-winning journalist and financial economist who has written since 1976 for The Economist, the Financial Times and The Times of London before joining Reuters.)
Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria (1863-1914) with his children. (REUTERS/Library of Congress)
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Sunday June 29, 2014
Health Minister touts intensified... From page 31 presented to him, said that Georgetown recorded the majority of the failures, with the poorest area being a 12 per cent pass in Functional Nursing Paper Two. According to him, the overall pass percentage was found to be significantly low. He went on to explain that since the public sector allows individual students to re-sit
the exams they would have failed, it was found that the vast majority of the ‘re-sitters’ were among the failures. The recent sitting of the examination saw a total of 19 students repeating all papers of the nursing examination, as they had failed these last year. Moreover, Minister Ramsaran said that his Ministry will be paying more close attention to the re-sit
policy. “I am wondering if we should keep giving them this chance...they have up to three chances because lo and behold, every one of those 19 angels, given the chance, failed again,” disclosed the Health Minister. He added that “we at the Ministry are wondering if we should be more stringent with our dismissal procedures, because we have sat with our
economists and planners and crunched the numbers, and we see that probably because this too democratic or liberal approach to exam-taking, we are potentially losing a significant amount of money.” Currently, nursing students are afforded a monthly stipend of close to $20,000 which, when tallied up, represents a significant loss when students
repeatedly fail examinations. “The argument in the past was once you invest (for example) in a young lady to become a nurse, if you dismiss her without giving a second chance that initial transfer of an investment would have been lost...and since we have been stringently enforcing the academic requirements, we were being a bit lenient in giving them a second chance,” Dr.Ramsaran said And since the performance of the St Joseph Nursing School reflected 100 per cent pass rate in all of the
written exams and 67 per cent in the practicals, the Minister told this publication that moves will have to urgently be zeroed in on the shortcomings in the public nursing schools. “My Director of training, Mr Wilton Benn, has indicated that the paper where they seem to do badly is one which we probably need to look over. Is the curriculum being delivered as is expected? Are certain things needing to be presented differently, we are still in the process of discussion...” But according to the Minister there is currently no need for panic, as the Ministry “just needs to start crunching the figures differently and probably having less re-sits, because if we didn’t have almost 20 people re-sitting we would have gotten significantly better results.” Once this state of affairs is effectively addressed, Minister Ramsaran noted, not only human resources will be better utilised but financial resources as well.
Sunday June 29, 2014
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The Berlin Wall, artificial wealth, and a Guyanese... From page 35 debarred since it was in the American sector of the city; however we, as guests of the American-run IIJ, were permitted to go there. On one occasion we were spectators at a soccer match between Germany and France, during which I was strongly cautioned for letting out a lone, spontaneous 'Whoop' when France (with some Black players) scored a goal. When the home team scored however, the roar was ear-splitting. German nationalism was still very much alive. A group of us, Caribbean journalists, from Guyana, Jamaica, Barbados and Antigua, including three young women, hung out occasionally at a Berlin disco, where we tasted and tested Germany's world-famous pilsener beer and listened to the latest hits put out by American legend-in-the-making Whitney Houston. One unsavoury aspect of these outings was the perception we had that some German men presumed Black/Caribbean girls were up for grabs. On more than one occasion the males in our group had to protect our female colleagues from unseemly advances by German men. We had to be careful also of neo-Nazi youths who made it clear (non-verbally) that
they had little regard for Blacks. But it was also at a popular disco that I encountered someone I would never have expected to find in such a setting. Our group was at a table sipping and chatting when someone remarked that the music being played by the DJ was too bland. I was chosen to convey this sentiment to him/her. I threaded my way to the DJ's booth where I saw a relatively young Black guy spinning the discs. Upon hearing our concerns and correctly figuring I was West Indian, he promised to change the tempo. Upon hearing his accent I immediately enquired about his nationality. His response, “I from Guyana.” “What!” I practically shouted. “I'm from Guyana too. Which part you from?” “Georgetown, from Ladge (Lodge).” I can't remember much more of our brief conversation, but shortly after I returned and told the others what had just transpired, a waiter came over with a round of drinks, compliments of our amiable DJ. The rest of the evening was a pleasurable passage of time for me and everyone else at that table. And for a while at least, the music and the mood had a distinctly tropical ambience.
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Budding Aussie film maker mesmerized with Guyana’s beauty
Max De Bowen
By Romila Boodram Guyana is paradise for anyone who wants to escape from the rigours of everyday life. The country has an irresistible combination of fascinating and breathtaking natural beauty, rich heritage and the most hospitable people, says budding Australian writer/ director Max De Bowen. De Bowen is at present in Guyana scouting for locations and casting of supporting roles for the production of a feature film ‘A Bitter Lime.’ De Bowen, who is here for a third time, said that the film is based on a young couple who is tired of their everyday life in Los Angeles and wants to go somewhere a bit more exotic and far away from all their regular drama. “The name of the movie is a bit ironic. It is a feeling of good and bad at the same time, and Lime is a Guyanese word for a party,” De Bowen said, adding that he started putting things in place for the movie since in 2012. “Making a film comes down to quality and budget. We can do the filming in one month, but we will have to put things in place to do the filming.” De Bowen said that the movie will cost approximately US$60,000. “It is an independent project. We (De Bowen and his partners) took private loans from a bank to finance the project and we have sponsors.” According to the film
director, he picked Guyana to film his movie because it is an amazing blend of the Caribbean and South America. It’s a country where anyone who is on an “escape mission” would want to visit. “I am a big traveller. I have travelled 31 different countries and I have found Guyana the most interesting. I don’t think people really get to see Guyana outside the Caribbean. People don’t know a lot about Guyana,” the Australian film maker said. He added that when he first informed his colleagues that Guyana would be the ideal country to film the movie, they were a bit skeptical because none of them knew anything about this country. “It was not until I came here and took pictures and made documentations then they change their minds,” De Bowen said. A Bitter Lime would be his first movie. There will be approximately 70 people involved in the project, including Guyanese in the supporting cast and crew. The movie will be filmed at places like 704 Sports Bar on Lamaha Street; Palm Court, Main Street; Tropicana Hotel and Jerries on Waterloo Street; Theatre Guild and Main Street, Georgetown. “We are also planning on getting some helicopter shots of Georgetown and we will be filming on a barge in the Demerara River,” De Bowen stated. It will be shot in September and a part of the production team will be coming here from Canada, Los Angeles and Singapore.
Sunday June 29, 2014
From page 27 rehabilitate approximately 830 kilometres of GPL’s distribution network by implementing an integral approach to tackle overall losses while strengthening GPL’s management and technical capabilities.” It may also include hiring of experts, possibly from outside of Guyana, to help make GPL more efficient. FRIDAY EDITION US TO SETUP DEA OFFICE IN GUYANA - PRESIDENT SEEKS TO MAKE COUNTRY “TOTALLY INHOSPITABLE FOR DRUG TRAFFICKERS” The United States Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) is establishing its first office here at the local Embassy. With much talk about the benefits of establishing the agency in the battle against drug smuggling, outgoing US Ambassador B r e n t H a rdt in a joint statement with President Donald Ramotar, on Thursday announced that the American-based DEA head office has approved, and the US Congress has given the green light, for the agency to be established locally. Currently, Guyana works closely with the Trinidad and Tobago-based DEA office, in the sharing of intelligence and exchange of mechanisms to tackle drug-smuggling problems. President Ramotar registered his acceptance of the US agency and stated that it is a welcomed initiative. The President is confident that the presence of the DEA office will enhance the whole process of information-sharing and collaboration. “The very fact that we have people on the ground 24/7 will enhance the whole question of informationsharing and we will probably be working and looking at different areas where we can build strong cases against those traffickers and have
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much more success.” The President was at the time recognizing that Guyana has been unable to significantly tackle the issue of drug trafficking from the root; which involves the arrest of organizers and major kingpins. It is usually, the US agency that apprehends major smugglers outside of their native countries. The President stated that DEA’s partnership and collaboration with the country’s local law enforcement and anti-drug agencies will help to build strong cases that can stand up in court. President Ramotar reiterated also that he has advocated that narco-trafficking is an international problem that calls for global cooperation. “I was flogging from the very beginning that this (DEA office) is one of the things that we will welcome here because I would like to make our country totally inhospitable towards those who use it to traffic drugs and those types of illegal activities.” Ambassador Hardt said that the DEA head office approved the opening of the local office and Congress also gave the go-ahead last Tuesday. SATURDAY EDITION COURT CASE FILED TO BLOCK STATE FUNDING OF MARRIOTT HOTEL There is more controversy surrounding the multi-milliondollar Marriott Hotel in Kingston with a major constitutional case filed against Government over the use of state monies to fund that project. The case has been brought by Desmond Trotman, representing the Committee for the Defence of the Constitution Inc. He is accusing the Attorney General, the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL), Atlantic Hotel Inc. (AHI) and Winston Brassington, of abusing their authority and using state funds to illegally fund the hotel.
The court is being asked to find that Brassington is guilty of unlawful conduct by acting outside NICIL’s mandate with regard to the spending of state monies. Trotman, also a Member of Parliament for A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), is being represented by a number of high profile lawyers including Rex Mc Kay, S.C., Neil Boston, Christopher Ram, Bettina Glasford and Brenden Glasford. The case, which was filed this month, wanted a declaration that the decision of the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh, and the Executive Government to appoint NICIL and AHI, which will own the hotel, without the approval of Parliament, and to be in control of and finance the multi-billion dollar construction, “is an abuse of executive and administrative power, procedurally improper, unreasonable, irrational, illegal, arbitrary, capricious, made in bad faith, ultra vires, null, void and of no legal effect”. Trotman wanted a declaration, also, that the failure and refusal by NICIL with the connivance of the Minister and the Executive, to invite open tendering for contractors to construct and develop the Marriott Hotel Project, is in contravention of the Constitution and of the
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The pump supplied by Surendra Engineering
Procurement Act. According to the court papers, the plaintiffs wanted a declaration too that NICIL and AHI, with the blessings of the administration acted unlawfully, in breach of the Procurement Act, by not involving the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board to scrutinize the bids for the selection of a contractor for the construction of the Marriott Hotel. Trotman contended that the monies
used in the hotel project are really monies that belonged to the people of Guyana but were illegally withheld by NICIL and AHI. These monies came from stateowned entities including the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC), Guyana
Forestry Commission (GFC), Guyana National Co-op Bank Debt Recovery Unit, Lands and Surveys Commission, Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA), Central Housing and Planning Authority (CH&PA), and from the Lottery Company.
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Sunday June 29, 2014
Few lifestyle factors influence Women prefer longer labor sperm shape and size: study over more intense pain: study Sperm
For couples struggling with infertility, there are few lifestyle changes men can make to improve the size and shape of their sperm, suggests a new study. Sperm shape and size known as morphology - were worse in semen samples collected during summer months and from men who smoked marijuana. Morphology was better among samples collected after a man abstained from sexual activity for a few days. But alcohol drinking and cigarette smoking were not associated with misshapen sperm, researchers found. Neither was a man’s weight. “It’s always my recommendation to my patients to improve their health as much as possible,” Dr. James Smith said. “A study like this doesn’t discourage me from saying those things to my patient.” S m i t h, who was not involved with the new study, is a male reproductive health specialist at the University of California, San Francisco. It’s believed that sperm
with the most normal size and shape are most likely to survive in the female reproductive tract, Allan Pacey from the University of Sheffield in the UK and his colleagues write in Human Reproduction. Little is known, however, about the impact that certain lifestyle factors have on sperm morphology. To learn more, the researchers surveyed men who were seen at one of 14 fertility clinics in the UK about their health and lifestyle habits. They had information on 318 men with abnormal sperm morphology and 1,652 men with normal sperm. Men were considered to have abnormal sperm morphology if less than four percent of their sperm in a sample of 200 was of normal form, based on guidelines established by the World Health Organization. Any count above four percent is considered normal. The researchers found that men were about twice as likely to have abnormal sperm if the sample was collected during the summer. They were also more likely
to have abnormal sperm if they were young and smoked marijuana. Although most other medical and lifestyle factors, such as cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption, didn’t seem to be linked to sperm morphology, Smith said he still would advise his patients to be as healthy as possible. “Marijuana is certainly a potential worrisome risk factor for hurting sperm quality,” he said. “I’d tell my patients to stop smoking marijuana. I wouldn’t say to my patient to go out and do whatever you want because it won’t make a difference. To me, that would be overstating those results.” The researchers also caution that the men included in the study may not be representative of all couples with fertility problems. Smith said a better study would be to focus on whether the couples went on to conceive a child. “What would be great to see is if lifestyle factors - one way or another - are going to be related to getting pregnant,” he said.
If you were giving birth, what would be your choice: a longer labor with relatively less pain, or a shorter labor with terrible pain? That’s the question researchers posed to 40 pregnant women. Their preference? Less-intense pain, at the cost of a longer labor. “Interestingly, intensity is the driver,” said lead a u t h o r D r. B r e n d a n Carvalho, from the Stanford University School of Medicine in California. Using an epidural “may prolong labor but reduces pain intensity, and it seems that would be preferable to most,” he told Reuters Health in an email. For the study, Carvalho and his colleagues gave a seven-item questionnaire to expectant mothers who had arrived at the hospital to have labor induced but were not yet having painful contractions. The women took the survey a second time within 24 hours of giving birth. The questionnaire pitted hypothetical pain level, on a scale of zero to 10, against hours of labor. A sample question asked, “Would you rather have pain intensity at two out of 10 for nine hours or six out of 10 for three hours?” Both pre- and postlabor, women on average preferred less intense pain over a longer duration, according to results published in the British Journal of Anaesthesia. Granted, the 40 women in the study were all scheduled to have labor induced, so they may have been in for a longer labor anyway, Dr. Ruth Landau
said. It might be interesting to see the results of this questionnaire given to women who are not induced, or who do not plan to have an epidural, she said. Landau, who was not part of the study, is the director of Obstetric Anesthesiology and Clinical Genetics Research at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle. Nevertheless, this may reassure women who believe they want to have an epidural that they’re making the right decision to have an early analgesic, Landau told Reuters Health. “Obviously if we could control pain and duration, dial them both up and down based on what w o m e n wanted, we would do that,” Landau said. “But we don’t have a way to dial up or down duration of labor.” There is some evidence that an epidural may prolong labor, but it’s not unanimous, she said. “What we can do and should do is better inform women that we know that most women prefer low intensity of pain, particularly first-time moms,” she said.
In a way, it’s good that pain intensity seemed to be most important, since the current pain rating scale of zero to 10 focuses on intensity, Carvalho said. But doctors are limited in how they assess pain, he noted. “ L a b or’s got a lot of factors to it, it’s difficult to capture in one score,” he said. I t ’s a l s o w r o n g t o assume that women unwaveringly prefer zero pain, he said. Most women prefer a low, manageable level of pain. “The one good thing that does happen in labor is we use patient controlled analgesia,” he said. “Women control how much medication they get, which is better than getting prescribed a set dose from start to finish.” “More medication makes legs heavy, may make labor longer and will more likely involve forceps or vacuum (to help deliver the baby), and less medication means more intense pain and also the ability to be more active,” he said. “Women would benefit from more conversation about this.”
Canola oil-enriched diet may benefit people with diabetes Switching to a diet low in simple sugars and high in healthy fats, like the types found in canola oil, could help people with type 2 diabetes control their blood sugar, according to a new study. People with type 2 diabetes who were advised to follow a diet with a low glycemic index supplemented with extra canola oil had lower blood glucose levels and greater reductions in heart risk than those who ate a diet high in whole grains, researchers found. “We know that olive oil has a good pedigree among clinicians but canola oil has a good pedigree too,” lead author Dr. David Jenkins, from the University of Toronto,
told Reuters Health. Canola oil is rich in alpha-linolenic acid, a type of omega-3 fatty acid also found in walnuts, as well as monounsaturated fatty acids, which are also in avocados and olives. A food’s glycemic index refers to how quickly it causes blood sugar to rise. Starchy foods like white bread and potatoes are considered to be high glycemic index foods because they can cause blood sugar levels to spike. Low glycemic index foods, such as lentils, soybeans, yogurt and many high-fiber grains, create a more gradual increase in blood sugar. Sugar builds up in the blood of people with type 2 diabetes because it can’t be absorbed
by cells, ultimately increasing the risk of other health problems such as heart disease. “We thought using canola oil might be a good way to hit the heart disease and the high glucose problem,” said Jenkins. The researchers recruited 141 people with diabetes, all of whom were taking medication to help lower their blood sugar levels. None of the participants reported smoking, drinking excessively or having other illnesses such as heart disease, liver disease or cancer. Jenkins and his colleagues randomly assigned the participants to one of two groups. People in the test group were asked to supplement their diet with
four and a half slices of canola oil-enriched whole wheat bread each day and were told to focus on eating foods with a low glycemic index.Those in the comparison group were instructed to eat seven and a half slices of whole wheat bread without the added canola oil each day providing an equivalent number of calories - and to avoid products made with white flour.Over the next three months, blood glucose levels dropped in both groups, but the drop was about one and a half times larger among those on the canola oil-enriched diet. Improvements in other measures of heart disease risk generally favored the test diet as well.
Canola oil
Sunday June 29, 2014
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Miss Delaware loses crown for being a few months too old A beauty contest winner, stripped of her crown as Miss Delaware due to age, said on Friday she had done nothing wrong and wants to be allowed to compete in the Miss America pageant even though she will turn 25 this year. Amanda Longacre said she learned on Tuesday that she had been disqualified because the Miss Delaware pageant determined that she had violated the age requirement. On NBC’s “Today” show on Friday, a tearful Longacre said she was consulting a lawyer. Pageant rules require Miss Delaware contestants to be no older than 24 and they cannot turn 25 before the end of the year. Longacre’s 25th birthday is Oct. 22. In another upset, the winner of the 2014 Miss Florida pageant was dethroned on Friday just a week after her coronation when organizers said they had crowned the wrong woman after a vote-count error. Pageant officials said Elizabeth Fechtel, a 20-yearold University of Florida student, would have to turn over her tiara to the true Miss Florida, 21-year-old Florida State University student Victoria Cowen. Delaware’s Longacre said on Friday that she had been honest when she turned in her pageant
application, providing her birth certificate, driver’s license and other documents. “I did absolutely nothing wrong and I want to make that clear,” Longacre said in an interview with the News Journal of Wilmington. “Now I have lost everything, my scholarship money for school, my prizes and my crown, all because of a technicality that was not caught by the executive board.” Sam Haskell, chief executive and board chairman of the Miss America pageant, said Longacre will get the $9,000 scholarship given to the pageant winner, as will the new Miss Delaware. “Because we’re a scholarship organization, because we want to be benevolent and because our
heart breaks for her, we’re going to give her the $9,000,” he said in an interview. A resident of Bear, Delaware, Longacre won the title of Miss Delaware on June 14. The winners of state pageants compete in September to become Miss America. Longacre was replaced this week by the first runner-up in the pageant, Brittany Lewis, 23, of Wilmington, who was crowned at a special ceremony on Thursday. “It’s like they’re trying to erase me in a way like it never happened,” Longacre said on “Today.” “And it’s not fair because I won outright and I deserve to represent my state and I want the chance still to go to Miss America.”(Reuters)
World Cup television coverage breaks viewing records: FIFA
Japan’s clash against Ivory Coast was one of the most viewed games of the 2014 World Cup so far as television coverage shattered a host of records during the first round of group matches, FIFA said on Friday. As many as 34.1 million viewers in Japan watched the team’s 2-1 defeat by the Ivorians on the NHK channel at 10 a.m. local time, while 42.9 million in Brazil saw the hosts beat
Croatia 3-1 in the tournament’s opener on TV Globo. The match between the U.S. and Ghana was watched by 11.1 million on ESPN in the United States, setting a new record for ESPN coverage of a men’s World Cup match. “These record-breaking figures show just how popular football and the FIFA World Cup is across the world, from Japan to Argentina,” said FIFA TV
director Niclas Ericson. “We are seeing highly encouraging growth in interest in markets such as the United States and Australia.”England’s 2-1 defeat by Italy in the Amazon city of Manaus attracted 14.2 million on BBC 1 in the UK and 12.8 million on RAI 1, the highest TV audiences in both countries in 2014. Germany’s ARD channel had 26.4 million watching the country’s 4-0 win over Portugal.
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Independent music labels want EU to intervene in YouTube row Music trade association Impala has asked European Union antitrust regulators to intervene in a row with Google Inc’s YouTube over its paid streaming music service, saying some conditions demanded by the company were anticompetitive. YouTube, the world’s most popular online video website, last week unveiled plans for the new service, which it said would provide new revenue for the music industry. It is aiming to launch it by the end of the summer. However, the proposal has drawn criticism from some music trade groups, worried that YouTube may potentially block the content of certain labels from appearing on its free, ad-
supported website unless they sign up to the new service. Echoing protests from the Worldwide Independent Music Industry Network, Brussels-based Impala said that YouTube’s conduct was anti-competitive. “YouTube is insisting on extracting a package of rights that no other partner could get away with. The terms appear to seriously undervalue existing deals in the marketplace with other business partners,” Impala said in a statement. “They also appear to include a highly controversial ‘least favoured nation’ clause, as well as provisions regarding delivery of content that restrict the freedom of labels and their artists to
decide how to handle releases and marketing such as exclusives. This goes far beyond what would be agreed with any other service,” it said. Impala, which represents more than 4,000 independent music labels and national associations of indies across Europe, took its grievance to the European Commission on Thursday. Commission officials and Google did not immediately respond to emails for comment. Impala also asked the EU competition watchdog to issue interim measures against YouTube because the company “has threatened to start removing independent content from its platform ‘within days’, according to press reports” (Reuters)
Stars pay tribute to ‘soul legend’ Bobby Womack Some of the biggest names in music have paid tribute to singer and songwriter Bobby Womack, who died on Friday. Peter Gabriel said the musician was a “soul legend” while Ronnie Wood said his friend would be “greatly missed”. Womack, whose hits included Across 110th Street, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2009. The cause of death was not announced, but he had suffered from cancer and Alzheimer’s disease and battled with drug addiction. Bobby Womack’s career as a musician spanned more than five decades He had been due to perform at the Womad music festival in Wiltshire, UK, in July. In a statement on Saturday, Womad’s founder Peter Gabriel said Womack’s “songs and his voice have been so much a part of the fabric of so many musical lives”. Ronnie Wood, who covered Womack’s It’s All Over Now with The Rolling Stones, said “the man who could make you cry when he sang has brought tears to my eyes with his passing”. British soul singer Beverley Knight said he “truly epitomised passionate soul vocals” and praised DJ Tony Blackburn: ‘’He was one of the greatest soul singers of all time” Other tributes came from Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, who said he was a “beautiful dude”, and Damon
Songwriter Bobby Womack Albarn, who collaborated with the singer, who tweeted: “I will see my brother in church”. Gospel singer Candi Staton, who knew Womack since childhood, said he had “a style that nobody else could ever capture”. Womack outlived many of the artists he played with when he gained attention in the 1960s He was friends with Ronnie Wood, who had a hit with one of the soul singer’s songs with The Rolling Stones. Womack was born in 1944 in Cleveland, Ohio and began singing in a gospel group in the 1950s with his brothers. He later gained attention after the siblings signed to SAR Records in 1960. The brothers, including Cecil, Curtis, Harry and Friendly Jr, cut two R&B albums as the Valentinos. Later the group broke up and Womack turned to song writing and a solo career.
He outlived many of the acts with whom he played and with whom he was friendly, including Jimi Hendrix and Wilson Pickett. His songs were recorded by many artists, including Janis Joplin. His friend Sam Cooke persuaded him to let The Rolling Stones record It’s All Over Now. “He said, ‘One day you’ll be part of history, this group is gonna be huge,’” Womack told BBC Newsnight in 2012. “I said, ‘Why don’t they get their own songs?’” He also worked as a session guitarist, appearing on recordings by Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Dusty Springfield, and Pickett. From 1970-90, Womack charted 36 singles including That’s the Way I Feel About Cha and Woman’s Gotta Have It.A series of personal tragedies including the deaths of two sons led him to drug abuse, according to the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame.
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FOR SALE LARGE QUANTITIES OF HIGH PURITY MERCURY (QUICK SILVER) 99.99995% PURITY$19,000 PER POUND CALL: 592-227-4754. Dressed and mill cut lumber: Kabukalli, Silverballi, Greenheart, Crab Wood etc Call: 688-6579 Spares for washing machine, microwaves, fridges, stoves, timers, gearbox, pumps, etc call: 225-9032, 647-2943 Dell computers with 17" Led -$59,000, laptops from $64,000, Blackberry 8310 $9,000 at Future Tech – Call: 231-2206; 644-6760 One Water Dredge; 14" Missile, in excellent condition, situated in upper Mazaruni River – Contact: 685-7193 Pure breed Rottweiler puppies for sale – Contact Natasha: 653-5132 Fluffy Dachshund pups – Call: 670-2653; 618-1706 Three caterpillar engines: Model 3406-$1,6M, 3116 $1,1M, 3208- $1,1M. Contact 650-0402; Serious Inquiries Only Now In Stock Whole plucked chicken at BM Ent. Inc. contact: 227-8175/8176 delivery available Canadian rebuilt Perkins Duet engine, Lincoln generator welder, model AM with winch, 320 excavator – Call: 691-2921 Used pedicure chair, hair dryer and salon chair – Tel: 668-9583, 698-5272 One Tata Truck GEE 9962 in good working condition – Tel: 629-9286 One Toyota Hiace 2RZ minibus – Price: $1.5M negotiable, good condition – Contact: 677-9107 One Double stall with overhead storage at a prime location in Stabroek Market – Call: 619-7925 can be inspected One fruit dryer machine (new) 2 compressors, distilled water machine, 4 mag rims – Call: 231-5171 or 619-7134 Two 3 months old male Rottweiler, parents are imported – Contact: 264-2870; 672-6402 or 665-9140 after 6PM. 1-18 Nissan outboard Engine & 1-4.5 Evinrude & 1 omega compressor Call: 220-7664; 6127206 Ask for Barman One slate pools table 8’X4’ $360,000–Tel:601-8083,689-2658
CAKES & PASTRIES Courses for cake decoration, cake & pastry, bridal accessories, Floral Arrangement – Contact: Sharon: 672-8768, 612-4193, 223-3303 CATERING Roxy’s Snackette & Catering Services: Any occasion, daily breakfast, lunch, snacks, fruit juices, power porridge – Call: 2230092; 223-0095
LEARN TO DRIVE Soman Son & Outar Driving School at Maraj BuildingTel: 644-5166; 622-2872; 6150964; 689-5997
VACANCY
PROPERTY FOR SALE
Cut Style Nah barber Shop hiring barbers to fill complete barber stations – Contact: 643-5177; 648-0123 One welder/fabricator – Tel: 642-7898
1-2 storey wooden & concrete house with 5 bedrooms, upper flat & lower flat 4 apartments located@ Shell Road, kitty - $38.9M Tel: 642-7898
24 Hour East Coast Guyoil needs night pump attendants, salesgirl, office assistant & handyman- Call: 670-8893/684-2838
Diamond: Avenue A - Three bedrooms, two-storey concrete house & 1st Bridge - Flat concrete & high house. Have property for sale? Contact: 643-7633
Sewing girls with factory experience – Tel:622-4386 or 627-5378 Cashiers @ Shell Service Station Providence, EBD, Must be able to work shift (5am-3pm & 3pm-12pm) – Tel: 265-7305 One female clerk – Tel: 2256481 Office clerk senior/junior CXC: English, Mathematics & computer knowledge an asset- Call: 225-0188/225-6070 Experienced News Reporter - $150,000 -$200,000; Hours: Midnight – 8AM; 6 days per week - Tel: 673-5475 One Log truck driver for the interior, with 5yrs experience. Call Jerry: 694-1258
Happy Touch Day Spa: Come & Experienced heaven’s touch, visit us today! – 6684554
Lots of Original PS2, PS3, 3Ds XBOX360 systems – Game parts – Call: 683-8386 HP Printer Ink - $2,000; Cannon printer ink - $2,500. Phone: 650-7699 One lady-driven new model RAV 4J ‘KK’ series - $2.5M negotiable – Tel: 609-8425 15 cu ft. Frigidaire Gallery Freezer and one Ultra Chef 13 cu ft. cooler/chiller - Call 622-2899 5000 gas fuel tank – Call: 601-3194 MERCURY 99.99% PURE ELEMENTAL LAB GRADE QUALITY, NOT CHINESE! BEST PRICE! – CALL: 592648-5281 Garden Earth & builders waste our service also includes Bobcat rental, excavating, clearing & leveling - Call: 616-0617, 6633285 Cheap earth delivered to spot E.C.D, E.B.D, W.B.D Call:627-9977, 698-0182 Brand new cordless phones on sales, a pair for $6,000 – Contact Dave: 680-6194 for more information One Nissan X-trail 2004 Model PRR Series – Call: 6470016 Working fridge from $25,000 – Tel:223-4207
Concrete flat house with 3 bedrooms located at Tushen New Scheme – Call:692-3454 Lot 1064/65 Aubrey Barker Street, South Ruimveldt Park, Gauling St . – Serious Offers only- Call:619-7299 House & land for sale at Good-Hope, E.C.D – Tel:6211722 1-3 storey business – Opposite GPHC, Middle Street, 2 business property @ Whim Public Road Corentyne, Price Negotiable – Contact:619-7134; 225-6481 1-2 Storey roadside concrete and wooden house (45’X20") located at 57 New Road, V/ Hoop – Tel: 624-0779. 3rd Avenue Diamond 95X30feet, flat concrete house (nice deal) – Contact GME Realty: 231-2199; 2312200; 618-7483
MASSAGE
FOR SALE
Sunday June 29, 2014
LAND FOR SALE Land for sale at Better Hope South – Price $6,350,000, negotiable – Tel: 642-7898 La Parafaite Harmonie $1.1M Grove- $2.6M (foundation) Herstelling $3.5M (110ftX60ft) – Tel:2185591, 675-7292 Land for sale 110X60 at 5th Avenue Diamond, EBD. For quick sale - $7M. Contact: 652-5601 One transported lot @ Zeelught E.B.E – Tel: 6174439 Diamond, Grove, Land 40X80 feet $3.3M, Hadfield Street $14M, $12M, Kitty Railway 96X89X20X50ft – Contact GME Realty: 231-2209; 6187483 Eccles (100ftX50ft) - $3M, prime residential area – Tel: 218-5591; 675-7292 One ½ Lot land transported property in Triumph – Call:618-2840
Three Bedrooms, 2 storey house & land, @ Guyhoc Main Road, $15M negotiable – Tel:264-2154 Robb Street - $25M, Nandy Park - $22M, Eccles $21M$55M, Kitty - $35M – Call Diana: 227-2256; 626-9382 TOURS Suriname Tour Return: July 4th/ Caricom Holiday 4-7 July – Tel: 639-2663, 644-0185, 665-5171, 227-8290
Jean offers courses in dressmaking, designing curtains, floral decoration & cake decoration – Tel: 6181706; 670-2653.
Earn a certificate in cosmetology, wig designs or nails alone, limited spaces Call Abby: 619-7603, 666-5241 Signature Sensation Wedding Special: Do any service over $5000 & get 20% off- Call: 622-2643/ 225-8701
SERVICES PLANNING AN EVENT? BIRTHDAY PARTY, GRADUATION,WEDDINGS, ANNIVERSARY,ETC.–CALL DIAMOND TENTS: 2161043; 677-6620 Guyana Passport & Visa Forms Application, USA, Canada and England. Tel: 626-7040; 265-4535. Permanent & Visitors Vi s a Applications, Professional Immigration Consultant Room D5 Maraj Building Call Sabita: 2256496, 662-6045 Repairs, sales & spares, air conditioning, microwaves, washer, fridges & stoves. Ultra Cool, call: 225-9032,647-2943 Repairs to Fridge, Freezer, AC, Washers, Stoves: Call 683-1312, 627-3206 (Nick) For low cost: Repairs to fridge, freezer, A/C unit, microwaves, TV & washing machine - Call: 629-4946 or 225-4822 We repair fridge, freezer, AC, washer, dryer Call Omar: 2310655,683-8734 Low cost TV commercials & branding visit: www.snappyadz.com or call: 603-6823 Meditation: Learn transcendental meditation, gain deep rest, and eliminate stress. Call Ashoke:6093701; 233-6921 for introductory lecture
CAR RENTAL Dolly’s Car Rental - Call: 225-7126/ 226-3693 dollys autorental@yahoo.com/ w w w . d o l l y sautorental.com ProgressiveAuto Rental: Cars & SUV for rental- $4,000 & up per day- Call: 643-5122, 628-2284 ,Email:pro_ autorental @yahoo.com Fab’s Car Rental- Call:6716051
DRESSMAKING
SALON Make Up Courses, Artist Trained & Certified in Trinidad. Call: 660-5257, 647-1773
Wings Car Rental- Call: 6906494/ BBM pin: 24E17558 Aidan’s Car Rental, Canter & Pickup- Call: 645-7981/ 6987807
Brian Moe @ 642-3543; computer technician; FB: Brian.Moe165; home and office visits at your comfort Regassing fridge - $8,000 & repairs – Tel:223-4207 COOL TECH : Repairs Services & Installation of all types if homes appliances: Air Condition & Refrigeration units – Tel: 233-2008; 675-4959 VEHICLE FOR SALE One Starlet (EP82) -Tel: 6435161 Diamond Auto Show: Blue Nissan, Blue Bird 2007, fully loaded, 2/4 wheel drive – Tel: 682-1822
VEHICLE FOR SALE 2006 Blue Nissan Titan. Fully Loaded GSS Series. Contact: 604-6108. One NZE Toyota Corolla, 1 Toyota Sienta – Contact: 621-5407; 226-0041 1 Honda CRV, Toyota AT192, AT212, AE110 Corolla, Raum, Funcargo, Ep-71 Starlet, Nissan Pathfinder – Tel: 644-5096, 697-1453 Smart Choice Auto: Unregistered 212, Allex, old & new model Spacio, 05 & 03 Allion, Voxy- Call:6523820/ 665-4529 AT192, 212, Allion, unregistered Premio, Hilux Surf, BNN, RZ & Pit-bull, 7 seater super custom. Cash / terms- Call: 680-3154 We buy & sell vehicles for cash, also parts available & 30 seater buses; Extra Cab pickups; 2006 TacomaCall:680-3154 One Leyland Daf dump truck $2,5M, One S130 Bobcat $2,1M -Contact 6500402; Serious Inquiries Only One BZ – Touring Corolla Wagon: AC, CD, 17" mags all wheels, Disk Brake, PPP series, never worked here – $1,050,000 -Tel: 619-1047. One black Toyota Starlet – PHH Series, excellent condition, sunroof and back vizor equipped – call:6492645 One newly registered Toyota Premio, PSS Series – Contact: 670-4484 One RZ minibus BKK Series – Tel: 684-0990 We Order: Tacoma/Tundra/ Titan Body parts & Accessories – Contact Eddie’s Auto Spares – Tel:227-2835, 227-5381 New model Toyota RAV 4 $2.5M negotiable – Tel: 2255034, 639-5577 Toyota Avensis, Corolla 110, Tundra – Tel: 645-0078; 6030078 Toyota Sietna, 7 Seater $2.1M, Toyota Voxy bus both fully loaded - $1.8M negotiable, financing available – Tel: 629-2314 One 2003 unregistered Premio – 55000KM, excellent condition - $2.5M negotiable – Contact: 657-2790; 225-6810 New Toyota Noah: TV, Camera, 15" Rim – Tel:6632700, 629-2619 One Toyota Land Cruiser Prado, PMM Series Call: 2250188, 223-7500, Mon-Fri 8:154:15pm, Sat – 8:15-1:15PM Ford F150; 2009 year, excellent condition – GRR 7452 – Tel: 227-3728; 6183712 (Continued on page 63)
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Dentist injured during fight with patient over payment A dentist is currently nursing a fractured arm that he sustained during a fight with a patient who refused to pay him more money for a procedure performed at the Port Kaituma Public Hospital. Reports are that on Friday a heated argument erupted between 22-year-old Joel King of Citrus Grove, Port Kaituma and Dr. Rodriquez, the dentist attached to the hospital after he demanded a heftier payment. A police source has confirmed that during the argument, Dr. Rodriquez brandished a knife and King picked up a piece of wood and dealt the doctor two lashes on his arm. As a result of the incident, the doctor ’s hand was fractured and King was taken into police custody. King’s mother, Shelly Caleb, who spoke with Kaieteur News, said, “My son went to the dentist at the Port Kaituma Hospital dispensary to clean his teeth and the doctor tell he it would cost $9,000.” “He (King) tell the doctor alright because normally if you ask him to do anything for you and you don‘t pay he does give you the running around.” “When they done the doctor said he find a cavity when he did cleaning he teeth and tell Joel he gah pay $31,000.” Caleb explained that her son refused to pay the dentist and placed $9,000 on his desk. The doctor, she claimed, became annoyed when King stated
that that was all the money he had and walked out. “They were arguing and my son tell he (Dr. Rodriquez) that he not gonna pay more because it supposed to be free. He leave and walk out.” “The doctor rush up to he with a metal thing in he hand when he did walking to he car. He lash Joel and he pick up a piece of wood and lash he (Dr. Rodriquez) on he hand.” King’s mother lamented that despite the way the incident occurred, her son was the only one taken into custody at the Port Kaituma Police Station. Caleb said, “I don’t mind them charging Joel but why was he the only one arrested? This doctor using the Government resources to
conduct his own business.” “He (the doctor) been here for the past two years and even the doctor before he used to do the same thing. They use the Government dental place and make their own money.” “Poor people can’t get anywhere here. Port Kaituma used to be a very poor place but now that they have gold it developing but these people wanna take advantage of people when they go to the hospital.” “Everything should be free.” “The doctor called me last night (Friday) and said he will see my son pay him and he will smash up his car,” Caleb stressed.
VACANCY GUARD for Land of Canaan, accommodation available, LORRY DRIVER living on E.B.D. 266 4427 VEHICLE FOR SALE 1 Bedford TM 4 Wheel with Winch going cheap, price to go – Call: 660-9139
EDUCATION: Canadian School of Arts & Science, now enrolling students for summer classes in remedial Mathematics & English – Call: 216-6921 Certificate in home nursing and child care programmes – Tel:692-2063; 685-9095; 6130803 I.A.E is registering students for its secondary school, Forms1-5; CXC classes for adults – Repeaters and beginners – Call: 223-0604; 683-5742 Teach yourself Graphics, video editing, accounting etc. Software and training tutorials available – Call: 603-6823 Canadian School of Arts & Science, Third Avenue, Diamond: CAT Accounting Classes begin on July 1, – Call: 216-6921/22 to register I.A.S : 2nd Street Alberttown, CXC Adults Classes, $1200 per subject, summer classes for children – 4-17yrs old $5,000 (6 weeks) – Tel: 2237906; 690-5008 Summer Classes: Phonics, Language, Mathematics, Art & Craft, fun day (4-12yrs) July 15th – August 15th @ Roxanne Burnham – Call: 6194355; 218-2076
1 New Noah Bus – PSS series – Call:651-6263; 697-5933 One Toyota Marina 1992, Red, mag rim, DVD Player, AC. Price- $800,000 negotiable – Contact: 673-5475 One Leyland truck – Call: 6561067
TO LET Two bedroom apartment, fully grilled with toilet & bath, UG area; preferably a couple or student – Tel: 654-9807 1 Bedroom apartments at Prashad Nagar – Fully furnished with internet, hot & cold water, air condition etc – Call: 611- 8584 for further information Kitty (business) - $65,000, Queenstown - $US650, Lamaha Garden - $US1000, Eccles- $US1200 – Contact Diana: 227-2256; 629-9382 Furnished and unfurnished two bedrooms apartment in Eccles, for short or long term – Tel: 690-6494 Two bedroom house top or bottom flat to let at Mc Doom EBD- Tel:233-0044 VEHICLE FOR SALE One Nissan Titan 2008 manufactured 2010 register, excellent condition - $3.2M - Contact Junior: 665-4611, 261-5304 One Toyota RZ Super custom Mini bus BPP series, excellent condition - $2.4M Contact Junior: 665-4611, 261-5304 One Ford Driven Tractor, 60HP, almost new, 600 hours - $2.2M – Contact Junior: 6654611, 261-5304
(From page 62)
FOR RENT PLANNING AN EVENT? BIRTHDAY PARTY, GRADUATION,WEDDINGS, ANNIVERSARY, ETC. CALL DIAMOND TENTS: 216-1043; 677-6620 Furnished new apartments USD$600-$1000 located in Ogle: Pool, parking, hot water, AC, Wi-Fi. Contact Richard: 622-7236 One bedroom furnished apartment, 1-2 bedroom apartment @ Lot 4 Henry Street, Werk-En-Rust – Call Winston: 660-6446 2 BEDROOM UPSTAIRS FLAT, LARGE VERANDAH & WASHROOM, PARKING ETC @ LAMAHA GARDENS – SERIOUS ENQUIRIES – CALL:6098132 OR 672-8569 (MAX) 1-2 Story 3 bedroom back house with grill, verandah, fence & prepaid meter, rent includes water - $55,000.00 @ Vreed-enHoop – Tel:685-7566 Mining Blocks to rent at Mazaruni and Kwakwani – Tel: 627-4900 Hair & nails station to rent @ Prime Location – Tel: 2254665; 602-0333 Self contained rooms in Prashad Nagar weekly and monthly rates – Call: 2272993/ 629-2424 Business place to rent, good for Boutique, Gift Shop or Variety Store – Call: 223-8257 GT TOOL RENTALS SPECIALSCONCRETESAW; JACK HAMMER WELDING MACHINE, PRESSURE WASHER & RANSOM – CALL: 675-0767; 627-5098. One new two bedroom home with inside toilet & bath at Triumph. Price $50,000 negotiable – Call: 618-2840 1 Newly built upper flat to rent @ Diamond EBD – Tel:651-6263; 697-5933 Wash bay and snacknette @ Good Hope East Bank Essequibo- Contact:6632882 One bottom flat 2 bedrooms apartment, garage, big yard space, located at Section ‘A’ Diamond – Cal: 223-4281; 6784072 WANTED One handy boy to work in the interior- Tel:681-6044 One cook (must be able to assist in cleaning) Tel: 6883686 Acetylene welder to work no equipment needed – Call:628-1756; 228-5655
WANTED Experienced roti/puri Cook, curry cook, handy boys Apply at Hacks Halaal, 5 Commerce Street, Georgetown Over edge, straight stitch, button & button tack operator to work at garment factory – Call:222-2541 Silverballi and Kabakalli logs - Tel: 653-9752 One experienced general domestic. Must know to cook a variety of dishes; pleasant & trustworthy- Tel: 656-6388 Live out domestic babysitter and live in babysitter –Call: 225-0188, 225-6070 (Monday to Saturday ) (8:15am4:15pm) Heavy duty sewing machine and sorgors needed – Tel:622-4386; 627-5378 Female worker needed, 3 CXC subjects or sound secondary school education - Call: 612-1595 Female customer representative – CXC English, Mathematics and computer knowledge & customer friendly, written application- Call: 643-9268 INTERIOR EXCAVATOR OPERATOR SEEKS EMPLOYMENT WITH 8YRS KNOWLEDGE OF INTERIOR WORK, WELDING MACHINE – CONTACT:681-1605 Children feeding program continues, celebrating any occasion or just want to partake? – Call: 696-7467 Chef & waitress at Hibiscus Restaurant – Call: 231-5857 Welder, Gardener, Carpenter – Call: 265-3586 Live-in experienced domestic must know to cook & bake - $60,000 monthly & live-in waitress 18-25yrs $50,000 monthly – Tel: 6103974 We buy all low income land in La Parafaite Harmonie, Herstelling, Eccles, and NonPariel – Call: 218-5591 or 6757292 Experienced cashiers, counter servers. Apply at Hacks Halaal with written application: 5 Commerce Street. Housekeeper to work at hotel and one handyman – Tel: 602-0945 Couple from country. Wife: Domestic & Husband: Driving; free accommodation, high salary – Tel: 227-1830
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Guyana’s assets parceled out to foreigners at “give-away prices” - AFC While Guyana may have the ideal environment for foreign investment, many financial analysts have opined that before granting applications, proper screening on the type of companies investing in Guyana should be done. It is believed that this “screening process” hardly takes place. Meanwhile, Guyana’s resources and assets are given to foreign investors at “give-away prices” and in some cases state assets are given as gifts. This they assert, will certainly have dangerous implications for Guyana’s economy. They believe that it is important to conduct proper screening of all investment proposals to determine if companies are “high risk” or corrupt. The results of this screening should be one of the requirements before handing out “like candy” tax holidays, they said. According to a 2013 report by the United States Bureau on Economics and Business Affairs, (http:// www.state.gov/e/eb/rls/othr/ ics/2013/204653.htm), the Government of Guyana actively encourages foreign
….“GO-INVEST is an instrument of Cabinet…. will not be able to develop this country or stop the giving away of the country’s resources” - Ramjattan
AFC Leader, Khemraj Ramjattan direct investment (FDI), but needs to do more to facilitate investment and implement more transparent and accountable procedures. It said too that Guyanese law permits foreign ownership of companies, and there is no mandatory screening of foreign investment. However, the Government conducts de facto screenings of most investments to determine which businesses are eligible for special tax treatment, access to licenses, land, and approval for investment incentives. It said too that in spite of recent efforts to
remove discretionary power from various ministries, these agencies still retain significant authority in determining how relevant laws, such as the Investment Act, Small Business Act, and Procurement Act, are applied. It also highlighted that the country’s main investment agency, the Guyana Office for Investment (GO-INVEST), is the starting point for those seeking necessary permits and tax concessions. GOINVEST assesses whether a prospective investor’s proposals have sufficient capital backing, and if not, inquiries generally do not progress further. The report also said that though not required, the Government expects investors to submit business proposals to GO-INVEST that outline the proposed project, the value of the investment, and employment to be generated from the investment. GO-INVEST reviews the proposals and makes recommendations to
the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA). With this in mind, our financial analysts have called into question the nature of the due diligence reports conducted by the Guyana Office for Investment and whether a report is conducted on all companies it reviews and assesses before providing a recommendation for tax holidays. CEO of Go-Invest, Keith Burrowes said that it currently lacks the capacity to conduct a due diligence report on all the investors it sees or companies rather , thereby making it unable to identify high risk or corrupt companies. He said that GOInvest lacks the necessary resources to even monitor in many cases how the concessions granted to some of the companies will benefit the country. Former Auditor General, Anand Goolsarran, in sharing his views said, “If one were to look into what areas foreign investments take place, you will find that they are mainly in the areas of natural resources - gold, forestry, agriculture. Some would argue that Guyana
“patrimony” is being parceled out to foreigners at give-away prices. If you reflect on the level of corruption that is perceived to have existed in Guyana, it is easy to see why.” “It is true that GOINVEST does not have the capacity to do a proper evaluation of potential foreign investors. They need to do something about it. The question is, how independent is Go-INVEST of Government influence? One gets the impression that potential investors approach the higher authorities first and decisions are made accordingly. GO-INVEST comes into the picture after the decision is made and acts as “post office”. That must change.” In supporting the former Auditor General’s points, Leader of the Alliance For Change, Khemraj Ramjattan said that it does seem that Guyana’s assets are being given to foreign investors at give away prices and in some instances, it is gifted to them. “It does appear that especially natural resources which are exhaustible such as forestry and gold have been
Anand Goolsarran, Former Auditor General given away especially to the Chinese who are well known for their enormous appetite for these resources… The characteristics of countries which only seek to extract are corruption and an unsophisticated kind of entrepreneurship. They don’t want to get into production of other items and adjoining industries and value added industries which will sustain our economy.” As it relates to GOINVEST, Ramjattan said, “This is but an instrument of Cabinet and would hardly do anything without instruction. It is not going to be able to develop this country or stop the giving away of the country’s resources because it is not given its independence.”
Mother on a mission to unearth... From page 58 finally killed at a location near Kuru-Kururu, and for the government, the Lindo Creek massacre had died with him. Even though she contemplated many times to visit her son's grave in order to satisfy her soul, Mrs. Arokium said that she was dissuaded from doing so. “They keep telling me, there's nothing there.” She was unaware that her son's remains were buried in two tombs among those of his workmates. She subsequently read it in on the internet and it led to her failing her examinations. “I could not concentrate. It was a time when I had my finals to write and when I saw that, I freaked out and I had to go home from the school. They gave me three days off but
when I had to write the exams I failed,” Mrs. Arokium explained. Last week she held a thanksgiving service and went in search of her son's final resting place. She found it last Friday and so emotional were those few minutes at the two tombs that those who were with her were almost moved to tears. She waded through tall grass and flood waters to access the tombs where she laid flowers. But that is not the end of her mission. “Of course!” she exclaimed when asked if she would like to see a commission of inquiry similar to the one now being held to probe the death of Dr Walter Rodney. “I would really love for them to hold a commission of inquiry,” Mrs. Arokium said. “This must not be forgotten just like that,” she added.
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Kaieteur News
Sunday June 29, 2014
IMF chief says fundamental reform the foundation for better future Jamaica Observer - MANAGING Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Christine Lagarde acknowledged Friday that Jamaica’s structural adjustment programme with the fund has been painful, but said that with fundamental reform the foundation for a better economic future can be put in place. “Many Jamaicans have seen their wages frozen and are facing higher prices for food and other essentials,” the IMF boss said following a meeting at Jamaica House yesterday with Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller. She told reporters that the most vulnerable must be protected in the adjustment process, as an ongoing emphasis on safeguarding social spending and increasing the social safety net is crucial. The IMF managing director, in her official statement, made no mention of the sliding Jamaica dollar, which has been blamed for rising prices and economic woes faced by Jamaicans. “Jamaica has the IMF’s full support [and] we stand ready to help in any way we can, but of course it is up to you, Jamaicans, with the public and private sector working in close harmony, to build a bright future for this beautiful country,” said Lagarde. In the meantime, she praised Jamaica’s performance, saying the fouryear US$930 million Extended Fund Facility is off to a very strong start and is an exceptionally strong record by IMF standards. Said Lagarde: “The economic outlook is improving. Compared to a year ago, growth has picked up, unemployment has declined, inflation has been brought under control, the current account deficit has shown an ongoing
improvement, and reserves are starting to recover. “Much has been achieved, and yet much remains to be done. In the first year of programme implementation, key reforms that had been pending for a long time were implemented, in particular the tax incentive legislation approved by Parliament in December 2013, and the fiscal rule approved in March 2014. But there are other major reforms that are on the mustdo list, including improving the collection of taxes, modernising the public sector, and improving the business climate. Consistent implementation of these reforms will boost investor confidence and growth.” Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, who also addressed the press briefing, said her Government was conscious of the difficulties people have been experiencing in the current circumstances, but she, too, made no reference in her official statement about the sharp devaluation of the Jamaican dollar. Said SImpson Miller: “Stimulating growth and employment is, at this time, the highest priority of both the Government of Jamaica and the fund. We are advancing with major projects, which you will hear more about as they progress. “In this regard, the Jamaican Government is committed to continuing the process of reform. We are placing specific focus on cementing the gains from fiscal consolidation while accelerating the pace of domestic growth, making further improvements in the business environment, and implementing major projects in a timely way to serve as catalysts for growth and development.
Sunday June 29, 2014
Kaieteur News
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Too many airline on GT/NY route? By Abena Rockcliffe The possibility exists that Guyana will soon review its open skies policy. President Donald Ramotar has acknowledged that there is a danger in flooding the air travel market. He added that that danger will not be ignored. Open skies is an international policy concept that calls for the liberalization of the rules and regulations of the international aviation industry—especially commercial aviation—in order to create a free-market environment for the airline industry. Airline owners who serve the local market have been complaining about the number of carriers entering the market to fly the same route—Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) to John F Kennedy (JFK) airport in New York. There are four airlines that fly the CJIAJFK route and another is on the way. Guyana has a small market that has had numerous setbacks due to airline failures. Civil Aviation Director General, Zulfikar Mohamed, explained that there is nothing to stop Guyana from flooding the
market. About two weeks ago, following concerns expressed about the market flood, President Donald Ramotar met with some aircraft operators. During a press conference he hosted at State House, yesterday, Ramotar was asked about the concerns raised by aircraft operators who met with him. The Head of State did not mention the concerns raised but said that Guyana’s open skies policy is what allows for such a situation to exist. He said that people usually have much to say about allowing competition “but when they get competition they complain.” The President said that the number of carriers now on the market had successfully addressed the problem of fares being too high. The Head of State however said that the “danger” which comes as a result having too many carriers on the market is not one to be ignored. “We don’t want to over saturate the market.” The JFK/Guyana route cannot sustain five airlines— Caribbean Airlines, Travel Span, Fly Jamaica, Dynamic and Copa which is scheduled to come on-stream soon.
President Donald Ramotar The President suggested that the market may regularize itself as competition will force innovation. “This forces the airline to be more creative and go other routes maybe go south.” Experts say that open skies is a good policy for large passenger movements in bigger economies that can sustain multiple carriers. It is a consensus that competition is good for any economy, “but too many seats chasing after too few passengers will result in failures and market contraction,” said one stakeholder. In 2007/2008 there were
four carriers Caribbean Airline, North American Airline, TravelSpan, and Constellation. North American Airlines and TravelSpan pulled put due to heavy losses and Constellation failed. Travel Span returned to the local scene last December. Operators are saying that there are bound to be failures or airlines taking exit strategy, which has become a pattern. “Undoubtedly there will be short term gain with low prices, but rest assured there is a long set back and damage to passenger growth.” It is being said that government should continue to encourage airlines to operate routes that are in need of developments, but not those that are being effectively serve such as JFK to Guyana. Copa is set to come on stream this July. The Panamabased airline will begin operations with flights twice weekly, on Tuesdays and Fridays, to Panama City, Panama, and passengers would have the leisure of booking connecting flights to a number of other destinations such as Montreal, Canada, Fort Lauderdale, Florida and New York.
Male rape suspect raped in prison The New Amsterdam Prison authorities are investigating allegations of sodomy involving two high profile prisoners and another individual. The incident allegedly occurred within the prison walls on June 25, but the matter was reported on the 26. According to information, the three prisoners involved shared the same cell. The 40year-old victim of Orealla, Corentyne River is incarcerated on a charge of attempted rape. The two accused, Krisendat Seeram, called Apple Boy, 23, of Yakusari Black Bush Polder is incarcerated for robbery under arms while Navindra Seepersaud, 28, of Hampshire
Corentyne Berbice is in prison on a charge of break and enter and larceny. It is understood that around 19:30 hrs on Wednesday the men were in their cell when Seepersaud allegedly held on to the victim and choked him. Seeram then stripped the victim and sodomised him. The victim did not raise an alarm but reported the matter to the prison authorities around 07:00 hrs the following morning. The victim was taken to the hospital where he was examined and it was proven that he was molested. The two accused were subsequently handed over to the police as the investigation continues. Charges are pending.
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Kaieteur News
Sunday June 29, 2014
Influx of Chinese eroding Govt was not causing panic international labour standards over FATF blacklisting “The political leaders need to understand the seriousness and, more so, the consequences of what they are doing.” This is contention of General Secretary (GS) of the Guyana Trade Union Congress (GTUC), Lincoln Lewis. His comments were sparked by the influx of Chinese which he says is devaluing the labour markets and eroding the labour standards. According to Lewis the government has taken a decision that it is going to rely on Chinese investments. In so doing it is denying “the population an opportunity for employment.” Lewis said, “The Chinese in the construction sector make no provisions for the direct input of our people.” This was the case with the construction of the Marriott Hotel where only Chinese were employed even though Government had affirmed that Guyanese would be involved in its construction. It was further discovered that two Chinese businessmen will be the private investors in the project. “We have to put the citizens of this country to work; we can’t have a situation where we have masons and construction people languishing looking for jobs but at the same time
…dangers of such an event very real - Ramotar
- Lewis we are bringing in people to do the same jobs from China.” Lewis contended that there is a process of discrimination from the government. “They discriminate in favour of the Chinese.” “It is a political decision being made and it requires political actions. It is not a matter primarily for the Trade Union but the Trade Union has a responsibility to the community in which we operate and it against that backdrop we have to join forces to ensure that the Guyanese citizens are protected.” Lewis said that within the International Labour Organization (ILO) there “is an offer called the Decent Worker agenda which talks to specific labour standards. Those standards are embraced by the World Bank and the United Nations and so forth. In the past the Caribbean has been deemed as one of the regions that respect workers rights. “We have had over the last few years the Chinese coming in and they have been eroding those standards in collaboration with the government.” A classic example in Guyana is that of the then 14year-old boy who in 2010 was allegedly hidden away by his Chinese employers, China Trading, at their farm at Garden of Eden, East Bank Demerara. Labour officials, acting on information, went to the Garden of Eden farm and
By Gary Eleazar
General Secretary of the GTUC Lincoln Lewis located the teenager who was later reunited with his family. The Home Affairs Ministry had expressed specific concerns about allegations of sexual misconduct and abuse by the Chinese nationals committed against Amerindian girls and boys during their employ at China Trading. “We cannot as a people sit down and allow the Chinese to get away with it.” “These are serious things; they were done in Africa and now they are being done here. Labour sees politics as people and people’s development and we have to protect the interest of Guyanese” Lewis decried. “It’s a new form of indentureship we are encouraging, we are bringing people living and dwelling in certain conditions that are not to be tolerated. They have their own sites that the Minister of Labour is precluded, to some extent, from policing,” said Lewis.
The fact that Guyana was not mentioned by the Financial Action Taskforce (FATF) when it conducted its plenary has presented a dilemma where some will turn the situation and say that Government was only trying to create hysteria under the guise of international blacklisting and the consequences. This is the view of President Donald Ramotar, who addressed the media yesterday. He said that despite not being mentioned the dangers of what comes with international blacklisting are real. Ramotar said that Guyana has a unique situation and in many ways has been getting measures of reprieve hence the reason FATF did not blacklist Guyana during its recently concluded plenary. He was speaking to the fact that Government is unambiguous in its position that it wants to pass the Anti Money Laundering and Countering the Financing (AML/CFT) Amendment Bill and that it was the opposition which controls the National Assembly that is causing the delay. According to Ramotar, “We are not out of the woods.” He pointed to another deadline, this time in October, when FATF is expected to host another plenary. He said that Government is putting the Administrative measures in place such as the establishment of the Special Organised Crime Unit, which is expected to be in place shortly. According to Ramotar while he is not unhappy that Guyana was
not mentioned by FATF in its public statement the review process still goes on. “Since they have that process in train we will have to have a report again in October; we are not out of the woods.” While Ramotar conceded that given the size of Guyana’s economy, there is hardly any great risk of this country adversely affecting any other international financial system, he pointed out that the passage of the compliant AML/CFT Bill formed part of an international obligation. “It’s not totally in our hands; the decisions are taken at CFATF and FATF levels,” according to Ramotar. FATF completed its Plenary in Paris, France this past week but there was no mention of Guyana despite the fact that CFATF had referred Guyana to its parent body for failing to fully comply with its recommendations. There was much preaching about the gloom and doom that would obtain should Guyana not pass the current AML/CFT Bill prior to the FATF deadline. Japan gained the centre of attention when FATF issued its report as part of its ongoing work to identify jurisdictions that may pose a risk to the international financial system. Ramotar, prior to the commencement of the FAFT review, had called upon the Opposition to unconditionally pass AML/ CFT Bill, to limit the harm already done when the Country was blacklisted regionally by CFATF. Last November, the Caribbean Financial Action Taskforce (CFATF) issued a public statement with regard to two of its members — Belize and Guyana. In May, this year it issued a second public statement calling on its members to put
further measures in place when transacting business with Guyana. Guyana is yet to meet the legislative obligations namely the passage of the Anti Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Amendment Bill. The political opposition is adamant that its demands must be met before the successful passage of the AML/CFT Bill. Among the conditions set by A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) is the assent of a number of pieces of legislation related to the hosting of Local Government Elections among other demands. The Alliance For Change is demanding the establishment of the Public Procurement Commission. The AML/CFT Bill is still currently engaging the attention of a Special Select Committee. The work of the Special Select Committee which is addressing the AML/CFT Bill currently centers on the amendments submitted by Government through the Attorney General. APNU had submitted three substantive amendments to the Bill that had been bought to the House. It argued that the coalition wanted to strengthen the legislation with a view to seeing greater enforcement of the law. Opposition Leader Brigadier (Rtd), David Granger, is on record as stating that the legislation has been on the books for a number of years and that there is to date not a single prosecution in relation to money laundering in Guyana. While the committee has completed a review of the proposed amendments by APNU, the Attorney General had submitted some counter amendments that are currently the subject of review.
Sunday June 29, 2014
Kaieteur News
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“Cricket, soccer, tennis – Our world is in sporting heaven!” At times last week, especially last Thursday, I was very positive, while being also sure that I was still fully alive and kicking, that my entire sporting life was being levitated upwards way past purgatory! Last Thursday saw FIFA World Cup football featuring USA v Germany, Ghana v Portugal, Belgium v South Korea and Russia v Algeria, final games of initial Group Stage of 2014’s competition, all relevant games, as teams either wanted to win to avoid others, or to qualify for the knock-out stage. It was also Day 1 of the crucial 3rd, final Test under revamped ICC overseen series, featuring West Indies and New Zealand, at
Kensington Oval, Barbados, 50th Test there, with WI again doing spectacularly well, dismissing the Kiwis for 293 before close of Day 1, after the visitors, winning the toss, had batted first. Fighting for television recognition and visual importance too this World Cup season was perhaps the best tennis tournament around, LTA’s 2014 tennis competition at Wimbledon, England. This must be the closest anyone alive could have come to whatever they would call “sporting heaven!” I am also sure that you would know that I had said repeatedly that in the wide world of sports, I enjoy football (soccer), boxing, athletics, cricket, cycling and
grid-iron football, in that exact six-pack order. I even had to hear that my favorite sporting lady of all time, Serena Williams, had done similarly well in London last Thursday, as I had no time to spare to see her, not wanting to miss any football or cricket! FIFA World Cup Brazil 2014 has been sensational, and we have had only two weeks of competition. The next two weeks could be totally out of this world, but less adventurous, considering qualifying teams for round of 16, and remembering too that, onwards, it is simply win or go home! Everyone, especially progressing players, all of us too, needed that rest day last Friday, to catch our collective breaths. Amazingly, there were 136 goals in 48 games from initial stage in
Sunday June 29, 2014 ARIES (March 21 - April 19): Uptight is the word for today, Aries. At some point you might find yourself the center of attention. While you normally might not mind, now it could make you a bit nervous. ******************* TAURUS (April 20 - May 20): You're likely to want to be left alone with your own thoughts today. Relaxing with a good book might be at the top of your agenda, Taurus, and you aren't liable to want to be interrupted. ****************** GEMINI (May 21 - June 20): Worries over money could have you edgier than usual, Gemini. While you may be doing well, you still could be insecure and think your funds might not stretch far enough. Try to consider the situation objectively. ******************** CANCER (June 21 - July 22): You probably crave solitude, Cancer. Even though you may have committed to attending a party or two, now you find the idea irritating. ********************* LEO (July 23 - Aug. 22): Although you're normally a sociable person who feels most comfortable in the company of others, Leo, today you might rather be alone. You could feel a little under the weather or be stressed from job-related worries. ******************* VIRGO (Aug. 23 - Sept. 22): You tend to enjoy solitude, Virgo, and today you might feel more reclusive than usual. You could be invited to go out with friends but not feel like accepting. You might even feel a little irritated by them.
LIBRA (Sept. 23 - Oct. 22): Today there might be tension in the air with no discernible cause, Libra. Family members could seem preoccupied with problems they can't quite define. Your natural inclination might be to try to cheer them up, but it probably won't work. ********************* SCORPIO (Oct. 23 Nov. 21): You could get some mysterious phone calls today, Scorpio, like wrong numbers or hang-ups. ******************** SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22 - Dec. 21): Confusion over money matters might come up for you today, Sagittarius. You may need to check your records in order to shed light on some past transactions. Don't panic. .********************* CAPRICORN (Dec. 22 Jan. 19): Someone close to you might seem more preoccupied than usual, Capricorn, and perhaps a bit difficult to deal with. Don't take this personally. It has little if anything to do with you. He or she doesn't want to share their troubles. ******************** AQUARIUS (Jan. 20 Feb. 18): Today you might be feeling a bit tense, Aquarius, and you probably won't understand why. The secret? ********************* PISCES (Feb. 19 March 20): You probably aren't going to feel much like socializing today, Pisces, though friends might want you to go out. Your patience has worn a bit thin and you could get annoyed at incidents that normally wouldn't bother you.
Luis Suarez (thesource) Brazil. Whew! I started FIFA World Cup 2014 thinking that Germany would win it all in Brazil, with outside bets on Portugal and Italy, but with hopes that Germany would meet Argentina in the final come July 13.Italy and Portugal are gone, but Orange Brigade - Holland; Yellow Band – Brazil; surprising Blues – France; plus flying, tough Chileans, Columbians, Uruguayans, Costa Ricans and Mexicans, and more gritty and mature Swiss, Germans, Belgians and Argentinians, are still around, looking for more glory! USA, along with first-timeto-this-2nd-round-stage highest FIFA-ranked African nation Algeria, another African nation, Nigeria, and Greece; four probable spoilers; had also qualified for the knock-out stage. Look out for all sorts of fireworks, caginess and upsets this coming week, starting yesterday, Saturday! BTW: On Luis Suarez’s “biting” situation, I reiterate. As suggested when he bit Chelsea player Branislav Ivanovic in 2013, I am sure that if Suarez was playing against the WI team that I played in, and he, Suarez, bit anyone, then I guarantee that he would have no more “problem” after that.
He would never have bitten anyone, nor anything, again after that, since, if not dead, he certainly would have been badly wounded, and toothless! Anyway, it is extremely pleasant, sobering even, to understand and appreciate how well CONCACAF has done, with Costa Rica, USA and Mexico still representing us to better things. Only Honduras failed! No-one will say it now, perhaps never, as we in these parts forget quickly, but most of that opportunity for an added team of CONCACAF is thanks to that extra half-place made possible by former FIFA Vice President, Mr. Austin “Jack” Warner! When Germany played USA, I was not, like President Obama, viewing the game from Air Force 1, but Trotters Sports Bar in Port of Spain provided similar ambiance for this adopted son of USA. I expected Germany, so vastly superior, to win, but also hoped that USA would qualify. So it emerged! Great empathy for Ghana’s elimination, after they had salvaged a massive draw v Germany, best game of the tournament so far, while being aggrieved at not being paid. If only Ghana could have had the same commitment, passion, and fitness, against an improved Portugal. Maybe, Ghana was just
Colin E. H. Croft says: mentally spent, but one wonders how could Ghana’s soccer administrators be so inept and self-centered, not realizing that their guys represented 25 million Ghanaians? With no trust for their administrators, it is little wonder that Ghanaian players demanded their US$3 million payments owed to them in cash! Meantime, at Kensington, lanky Sulieman Benn bowled his heart out, again, for WI, taking five NZ 1st innings wickets, for 93 runs, from 26.2 probing overs. Fast bowler Jerome Taylor looked stale, but opening bowling partner Kemar Roach operated much better, at least keeping most deliveries up, inviting drives, thus getting 4-61 from 18 creditable overs. By the time you read this, WI should have a sizable lead over NZ, looking for that series win, while Brazil and Uruguay could have been eliminated too. Anything is possible in Brazil and Barbados. Enjoy!
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Federer breezes into second week by thrashing Giraldo Serena Williams knocked out by Cornet LONDON (Reuters) Seven-times champion Roger Federer needed just 81 minutes to breeze through to the fourthround of Wimbledon with a 6-3 6-1 6-3 victory against C o l o m b i a ’s Santiago Giraldo yesterday. The 32-year-old has yet to drop a set at this year’s championships and was again in impressive form despite some careless unforced errors. Federer wasted little time imposing himself on 35th ranked Giraldo, breaking serve at the first attempt. The Swiss galloped through the second set and although his South American opponent held him up a little in the third he was never remotely troubled as he powered into the last 16. Meanwhile, Top seed Serena Williams’ challenge f o r a s i x t h Wi m b l e d o n
singles title fizzled out with a shock 1-6 6-3 6-4 defeat by France’s Alize Cornet also yesterday. The 32-year-old American was untroubled in the first set but her game disintegrated as 25th seed Cornet took control in front of a stunned crowd on Court One. Persistent rain at the All England Club meant only two games were possible when play started and when the players returned four hours later it was Wi l l i a m s w h o l o o k e d determined to make up for lost time with some powerful tennis. The 24year-old Cornet refused to fade away though and with Wi l l i a m s looking uncomfortable moving on the grass she took the second set with some accurate shot-making. A desperate-looking Williams dropped serve at
2-2 in the decider and then again two games later and Cornet held her nerve to reach the last 16. And Rafael Nadal again offered a chink of light to an opponent on his way to the last 16 at a gloomy Wimbledon but another former champion Maria Sharapova was taking no chances under the Centre Court roof. For the third match in a row Spaniard Nadal found himself a set in arrears against an inspired adversary, this time in the form of Kazakhstan’s 63rd-ranked Mikhail Kukushkin, before switching on the afterburners to romp home 6-7 (4) 6-1 6-1 6-1. With play suspended on every court apart from Centre because of persistent rain, Sharapova then won 11 games in a row after a sluggish start against American Alison Riske, roaring into the second week with a 6-3 6-0 victory. Among those watching
New Zealand lead by 99 to leave Windies in the hunt New Zealand clawed back into the series decider on a slow Kensington Oval pitch yesterday through their two left-arm quicks as West Indies surrendered another promising position. West Indies begun the third day on 169-2 and succumbed to 317 all out by tea. The visitors managed a lead of 99 runs by the close but not before Kemar Roach and Jason Holder ripped out three wickets to keep West Indies in the hunt. Much of New Zealand’s position was down to Neil Wagner. He toiled with the old ball and epitomised an improved approach. They had been fickle with their tactics on the second day, but yesterday they had welldevised plans and were patient enough to see them through to completion. Trent
Boult had a quiet morning session but regained his mojo with new ball. He snared two wickets in two overs, including the last recognised batsman Denesh Ramdin for a plucky 45. Debutant Holder dominated a 36-run partnership for the eighth wicket and played some delectable drives. He was excellent with the ball too, snapping up Ross Taylor (6) as his maiden Test wicket. His height enabled him to extract a touch more bounce which helped spice up proceedings towards the end of the day’s play. He gave Brendon McCullum some grief, narrowly missing out a leg before decision. Hawk-eye pegged the impact outside off, but there was doubt over whether the New Zealand captain was playing a shot. Roach had been the other
source of threat after he settled into a probing length quite readily. He drew Tom Latham into an ill-advised pull before he had scored and elicited Hamish Rutherford (19) caught behind. Barring a few overs from Shane Shillingford, the rest of the attack was ordinary again. McCullum took 18 balls to get off the mark but he and halfcenturion Kane Williamson who had an outside edge bisect keeper and slip and escaped a tough stumping opportunity - managed to take New Zealand to stumps without further damage. Scores: New Zealand 293 and 123 for 3 (Williamson 58*, McCullum 23*, Kemar Roach 2-30) lead West Indies 317 (Brathwaite 68, Edwards 58, Denesh Ramdin 45, Chris Gayle 42, Jason Holder 38, Neil Wagner 4-64) by 99 runs.
Jeffrey, Anthony, Newton... From page 73 Alanzo Ambrose followed next in 43 minutes 02 seconds. Shaquille Agard and Silvio Inniss were also causalities for not following the rules. Like De Nobrega and Abdool, they were disqualified for tagging, Anthony, the rider in their case. Raymond Newton of Roraima Bikers Club was large and in charge of the veteran division, covering eating up the 12 miles in 24 minutes 53.73 seconds. Turhan Harris followed in 26 minutes 36.68 seconds; Mark Sonoram clocked 28 minutes 09.68 seconds to take third with Kennard Lovell fourth in 30 minutes 32,54 seconds.
The scene has now been set for today’s Road Race which starts at 07:00hrs on Carifesta Avenue. Senior competitors will cover 100 miles from Homestretch Avenue to Kairuni, Linden Soesdyke Highway and return. Juniors will do 70 miles turning back at the Police Outpost (Yarrowkabra) on the Linden Soesdyke Highway and back to the starting line. Veterans and ladies will cover a distance of 45 miles turning back at the first Parking Lot at Kuru Kururu , Linden Soesdyke Highway while the juveniles will cover 40 miles, turning back at Coverden on the East Bank and returning to the place of origin.
Nadal and Sharapova continue their title assaults was former England soccer captain David Beckham, one of numerous high-profile sportsmen and women occupying the Royal Box. Nadal’s matches have followed a familiar pattern. Against Slovakian Martin Klizan and Czech Lukas Rosol he was overpowered in the opening set, so it was no surprise to witness him slip behind against Kukushkin, one of three men in the third round with a female coach in his case his wife. Despite losing the tiebreak there was never the same sense of danger as in the previous round against the hard-hitting Rosol who knocked out the Spaniard two years ago. O n c e 1 4 - t i mes grand slam champion Nadal broke early in the s e c o n d s e t Kukushkin’s belief drained away and there was only ever going to be one outcome. The rain eventually relented at around 1730 local time but it was too late to preve n t t h e s c h e d u l e being shredded with Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka’s clash with Denis I s t o m i n a n d F e l i c i a n o L o p e z ’s d u e l
Roger Federer of Switzerland reacts after defeating Santiago Giraldo of Colombia during their men’s singles tennis match at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships, in London June 28, 2014. (REUTERS/Suzanne Plunkett) with John Isner being canceled. With Wimbledon the only grand slam not to p l a y on middle Sunday, tournament officials will have some re-organising to do ahead of Monday which is traditionally last-16 day in the men’s and women’s singles. Sharapova, seeking a rare French Open-
Wi m b l e d o n d o u b l e 1 0 years after her previous triumph at the All England Club, cranked up the volume on Centre Court her loud shrieking echoing off the translucent roof. Once she found her range she looked unstoppable and Riske, the daughter of a retired U.S. Secret Service agent, offered little resistance.
Rodriguez volley inspires Colombia win BBC Sport - Colombia will play Brazil in the quarter-finals of the 2014 Fifa World Cup after two goals from James Rodriguez sealed victory over Uruguay. Rodriguez, 22, opened the scoring in spectacular fashion with a volley from 25 yards which crashed in off the bar. Uruguay, without the suspended Luis Suarez, were poor throughout and fell further behind after the break. Rodriguez finished off a wonderful team move with a close-range shot for his fifth goal of the tournament. Uruguay finished strongly and had chances to reduce the deficit but Maxi Pereira’s half-volley from close range
James Rodriguez takes the plaudits after his wonder strike. was straight at the onrushing goalkeeper David Ospina
who later saved a long-range strike from Edinson Cavani.
GBA President elected to run for AIBA... From page 72 with his Guyanese counterpart over recent times for the improvement of the sport. He said he felt his Guyanese brother was in a better position to push for the sport at that level and is looking forward for him getting the vote come November. Shakes, who is the St Lucia association President, said he will be lobbying all the other Caribbean territories and the Americas to support Ninvalle’s bid in Korea in November. He sees this as a big step for the region as a whole and Guyana, with support from St
Lucia, Barbados and Trinidad has been keeping boxing on the move in the Caribbean, noting that Guyana has the lone Olympic medalist in the sport in Michael Parris to date. Shakes feels that much more is needed in the Caribbean to break the Olympics jinx and with the right representation the international body could help in the moulding of the talent to see countries here putting their stamp on the Olympics and other top flight competitions as Cuba did in the past. The meeting of Caribbean boxing head continues today.
Sunday June 29, 2014
Kaieteur News
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Schools Windball cricket- Region 3
Kawall, Goed Fortuin register wins Members of the participating teams
Kawall and Goed Fortuin recorded victories when the Annual End of School year Windball cricket continued recently at Wales on the West Bank of Demerara. Playing in the male category, Kawall overcame Two Brothers by nine wickets. Two Brothers
batted first and managed 282 in five overs. Jeewan Roopnarine grabbed two wickets for Kawall who replied with 32-1. Gajendra Persaud made 12 and Roopnarine 10. Goed Fortuin got the better of Malgre Tout by five
wickets. Malgre Tout scored 32-5 after taking first strike with Jarell Phoenix getting 14. Goed Fortuin responded with 38-5. Christopher Gurdyal made 10. Patentia beat Mc Gillivary by 10 wickets. Mc Gillivary made 28-2, batting first to which replied
Patentia with 33 without loss. Anthony Barrat led with 26. In the female division, Malgre Tout thumped Patentia by 10 wickets. Patentia took first turn at the crease and scored 41-2 with Anecia Williams scoring 17. Malgre Tout scored 43
without loss in reply. Elizabeth Emmanuel and Beonce Whyte were their leading batters with 15 and 10 respectively. Two Brothers went down to Mc Gillivary by nine wickets. Two Brothers took first knock and scored 30-1 with Shellon Fredericks
getting 10. Mc Gillivary responded with 31-1. Mythily Dilchand made 10. Kawall humbled Goed Fortuin by five wickets. Goed Fortuin batted first and made 30 without loss with Emma Suriena making 10. Kawall responded with 31-5.
Police Commander assists young athlete with Cesar holds firm as... sponsorship for CUT Games in Trinidad The police force is not only about solving crimes, executing charges and prosecuting cases but about helping people do good in whatever way possible and more. In that light, Police B Division (Berbice) Commander, Assistant Commissioner Brian Joseph along with a team of officers including OC in charge of the No3 subdivision (West Berbice) Assistant Superintendent Joshua Harvey –John took time out from their busy schedule to travel to Belladrum, West Coast Berbice. The occasion was to make a donation of a substantial amount of cash at a simple presentation ceremony to 13 year old Perry Reid a student of the Belladrum Secondary School who has been selected to represent Guyana at the upcoming Caribbean Union of Teachers (CUT) athletics championship which is slated to be held in Trinidad over the August Holiday. He will be participating in the Javelin U14 event. In making the presentation, which was done in the auditorium of the school, Mr. Joseph had words
Commander B Division, Assistant Commissioner Brian Joseph hands over the sponsorship package to Perry Reid. Sharing the moment is from left Assistant Superintendent Harvey John, Reid’s mother Paula Jackman, Headmistress Claudia Bobb-Blackman and Physical Education Teacher and Coach Royston Mc Donald. of commendation for Reid. He congratulated Reid on being selected to represent Guyana and wished him well. He encouraged him to make the best use of the opportunity given and to make his school and country proud. ”You are in a privileged position at an early age and you should go forward and become a role model,” he asserted. Mr. Joseph, who hails from the area, also reminisced on his day as a top athlete and cricketer in the district. He stated that, “I know how difficult it is at times for young
athletes to make it to the top. So it is our desire to always assist persons, especially youths, who are willing to make a positive contribution to society.” “The police have to be involved in almost every aspect of activity that takes place and we are always willing to assist and work along with any organisations to help. That is why when I was approached for assistance I hadn’t much difficulty in giving my full support and that of the division,” he stated. Head Mistress acting,
Claudia Bobb-Blackman thanked Mr. Joseph and the Guyana Police Force for responding so quickly to their request. She also encouraged the other students to continue to strive for excellence and try to emulate Reid. She gave the assurance that the funds received will be used entirely for the purpose it was donated for. Reid was also very appreciative and thankful for the donation and assistance and promised to make everyone proud. (Samuel Whyte)
From page 72 stadium swallowed up by a vast sea of yellow shirts, five-times champions Brazil kept pouring forward and Neymar should have done better when he raced clear only to drive a low shot wide. Chile, however, leveled 14 minutes later after making the most of a throw - i n mixup between Hulk and Marcelo to send Alexis into the box and the forward drilling in to stun the crowd into temporary silence. Neymar, deciding to take matters into his own hands, went agonizingly close with a header that scraped past the post and controlled a superb deep cross-field ball to set up Fred, who fired high. Dani Alves tested Claudio Bravo with a thundering long-range effort but the Chile keeper did well to tip it over the bar. Brazil, who had won nine of their previous 10 meetings with Chile, thought they had scored again early in the second half when Hulk controlled a deep cross to drill in but referee Howard Webb booked the winger for handball.
At the other end Cesar pulled off a sensational save to deny Charles Aranguiz from point-blank range in a pulsating game where players of both teams resembled tightrope walkers with no safety with one wrong pass proving costly. Chile, running on empty in extra time, almost snatched a dramatic lastminute winner when Mauricio Pinilla rattled the crossbar with a tremendous shot. David Luiz, Marcelo and Neymar converted their penalties for Brazil in the shootout and although Willian missed the target and Hulk’s effort was saved, Cesar denied Pinilla and Sanchez and when Jara sent his effort against the inside of the post the stadium erupted in celebration. “It’s at time like this you get your support from friends and team mates and thanks to Julio who made great saves,” Hulk said. “We ran till the end, God willing we will go to the end and make the final. We suffered but we made it. We knew this would be a very hard game, it went to extra time but even with cramps we ran till the end.”
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Guyana ‘Ruggers’ pull off historic extra time win over USA South for NACRA 15’s title Skipper Ryan Gonsalves scored a crucial ‘try’ to lead Guyana’s ‘Green Machine’ Men’s 15’s Rugby team to a historic 30-27 victory against USA South yesterday in Atlanta in a thrilling final of the North America and Caribbean Rugby Association (NACRA) Men’s 15’s Rugby Tournament. Guyana, who won the right to face the USA South after defeating Trinidad and Tobago 15-8 in the final of the Northern Zone at the National Park in Guyana, went into extra time with the contest locked on 27-27 with four minutes to go, before Gonsalves led from the front to seal the issue for the South Americans.
This is Guyana’s biggest victory to date after losing just once, to Jamaica, in the Caribbean in the last six years as the Guyanese dominated, especially in the sevens format. The USA South, who beat the Cayman Islands 34-30 to capture the Southern Zone crown, began the contest as favorites since they held the home advantage, but in the end it was Guyana who maintained the pressure and despite the several off-the field hurdles they were forced to cross, especially with funding for the trip, they prevailed to once again keep the Golden Arrow Head flying proudly on foreign soil. President Guyana Rugby
Football Union (GRFU) Peter Green said minutes after the memorable victory that ‘tears of joy flowing’ while Gonsalves, who said that he felt the North Americans were ‘very beatable’ after watching them play against the Cayman Islands on a flash drive, were was ecstatic after the win. “This team is one of the most successful sporting teams in Guyana. We only lost once in the Caribbean in the last six years, and dominated, especially in the 7’s format and Government should rally round us and come on board a bit more,” Gonsalves had lamented before departing with his team for North America. (Sean Devers)
National Women’s Basketball team named
Sunday June 29, 2014
Eletra Sports Expo continued yesterday Action shifts to B’ce next weekend
Yesterday’s Football action at Eve Leary in the Eletra sports programme. The Diamond, East Bank based Eletra Sports Club on Friday launched its Sports Expo at the Police Sports Club ground Eve Leary to assist in raising funds to take their school cricket teams to the Annual Sir Garfield Sobers and the Charlie Griffith Schools cricket tournaments in Barbados. The Sports Expo continued yesterday at the same venue with more cricket and football action and the event was deemed a success
although it has not yet ‘picked up’ in terms of sponsorship and spectator support, according to the club’s PRO, Nazia Persaud. The Expo now moves to the Tagore Secondary in Corentyne Berbice on Saturday and the Blairmont Community Center ground in West Bank Berbice next Sunday. The Expo, will also be held Mackenzie and at the Anna Regina Community Centre on the Essequibo Coast.
Olympic Day Bocce tourney held
Ann Gordon
Natasha Alder
Tamara Hunter
The Guyana Amateur Basketball Federation (GABF) has named the women’s team to represent Guyana in the 2014 Caribbean Basketball Confederation (CBC) Championships in Tortola, July 8-12, British Virgin Islands. The team includes: Natasha Alder (Captain), Shakelia Sampson, Sonia Rodney, Tamara Hunter, Shauna Chester, Kristy Roberts, Ginelle Ifill, Latoya Rodney, Philomena George,
Kean Andrews, Necosia Mitchell and Natasha Andrews. Head Coach of the team is Ann Gordon, Assistant Coach is Brian Carter and the Manager is Herbert Adams. The Guyana Women’s Basketball Team is scheduled to depart on July 6, after the departure of the male team today. A release from the GABF yesterday said that Laquantor Gibson, a likely starter in the women’s team,
was mostly unavailable for training sessions due to her participation in a training course with the Guyana Police Force and was unfortunately not included in the team. However, three other Police Officers are included in the team, including Guyana team captain Alder, along with Roberts and Latoya Rodney. Daily training sessions continue at the National Sports Hall with the final the session scheduled for July 5.
GBA President elected to run for AIBA position President of the Guyana Boxing Association Steve Ninvalle was yesterday elected to run alongside Dr. Domingo Salano, the AMBC President, for an AIBA Executive position when the AIBA Congress is held in South Korea in November of this year. Ninvalle was elected in Barbados at a meeting attended by presidents of 13 Caribbean countries. He was nominated by Barbados and seconded by the US Virgin Islands. Labeled a “firebrand” by
his Caribbean counterparts, Ninvalle received the nod of all 13 after St. Lucia’s David Shakes Christopher bowed out of the race. Contacted yesterday the GBA boss declared that the confidence shown on him by so many countries is heartening and gives him the opportunity, once elected, to fight for more assistance for Caribbean boxing. Trinidadian James Beckles in explaining the executive post via telephone from Barbados, pointed that once elected, Ninvalle will be in an
assistant Vice President capacity under Vice President Dr. Salano, who will seek reelection. Beckles noted that this is the first time that a rep from the English speaking Caribbean has been put up for this important election of the World amateur boxing body (AIBA) and he feels Ninvalle is a worthy candidate. David Shakes Christopher, who stepped aside to let Ninvalle secure the nomination uninhibited, has been working closely (Continued on page 70)
The curtains came down on a successful Olympic Day Bocce Team Competition sponsored by the Guyana Olympic Association, (GOA) and conducted by Special Olympics Guyana, at the National Gymnasium last Sunday. Teams and officials were commended by Special Olympics National Director Mr. Wilton Spencer for being present in full numbers despite adverse weather conditions. The Teams in rivalry were David Rose School for the Handicapped, (DRSH), St Barnabas Special School and Special Needs School, East
Bank Demerara. Officials were Mr. George Hughes, Sports Director Special Olympics Guyana, Wilton Spencer, coordinator, Mrs. Lynette Canterbury and Mrs. Marie Hinds from the Senior Citizens Bocce Club. In the first game Special Needs, EBD defeated St. Barnabas Special School 5 points to 4. Last year winner, David Rose School for the Handicapped won over St. Barnabas Special School 3 points to 1 in the second game. Finally, in the clash of champions, Special Needs School dethroned David Rose School for the
Handicapped 12 points to 3. Before presenting the winning Team with medals Mr. Spencer commended Joel Jardin for good sportsmanship and also for being the first athlete to arrive, 08:22h, travelling all the way from Enterprise, East Coast Demerara despite rain and flood conditions. Mr. George Hughes did the presentation of medals to the David Rose School for the Handicapped team. Thanks was also expressed to the supervisor of the National Gymnasium for his over whelming support.
Cesar holds firm as Brazil sink Chile on penalties BELO HORIZONTE Brazil (Reuters) - Brazil goalkeeper Julio Cesar saved two spotkicks in a shootout against Chile to send the hosts into the World Cup quarter-finals 3-2 on penalties following a pulsating 1-1 draw after extra time yesterday. Four years to the day since Brazil eliminated Chile at the same stage of the 2010 tournament, they did it again when Gonzalo Jara sent his spot-kick against the post after Cesar had twice denied the battling Chileans. Five-time champions Brazil will next play the winners of the other last-16
match later yesterday between Uruguay and Colombia. David Luiz put Brazil ahead after 18 minutes but Alexis Sanchez equalized for Chile before halftime. “It was complicated,” Cesar said in a television interview. “The pressure of representing Brazil and playing at home is really great. We played well in the first half but after Chile equalized they got into the game.” The Brazilians, who had eliminated their fellow South Americans in three previous World Cups, set a blistering pace from the start and
Marcelo took a first crack at Chile with a volley that sailed wide. Chile quickly lost the battle in midfield but their defense kept tournament joint top scorer Neymar in check. They were helpless, though, when Neymar whipped in a corner in the 18th minute, Thiago Silva headed it on and David Luiz, with what looked like some help from Chile’s Jara, flicked it in for his first international goal in his 40th appearance. POURING FORWARD With the small red patches of Chile fans in the Mineirao (Continued on page 71)
Sunday June 29, 2014
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GCF Nat. C/ships Time Trials – Crawford is 1st juvenile winner Jeffrey, Anthony, Newton & Fraser-Green are repeat champs By Franklin Wilson Romello Crawford of Trojan Cycle Club (Berbice) inked his name in the history books as the first juvenile rider to win the Guyana Cycling Federation (GCF) National Championships Time Trials which was contested yesterday on the Linden Soesdyke Highway. Despite starting more than half hour after the initial starting time of 10:00hrs due to the late arrival of the GCF officials and marking of the course, the riders kept the pace to deliver a successful event for the national governing body on a day that was overshadowed by the accident that involved junior rider, Andre Green. Defending champions in the senior category Raynauth Jeffrey (Team Coc’s), junior Michael Anthony (Team Coco’s), female Claire Fraser-Green (UK based) and veteran Raymond ‘Steely’ Newton will reign for another year
Romello Crawford
Raymond Newton – Veteran champion
having successfully defended their respective titles. Crawford covered the 12 mile course in 25 minutes 02.32 seconds winning ahead of Andrew Hicks (25. 29.66), Raphael Leung (26.39.57) and Alphie Sonoram (29.38.98). Jeffrey covered the 20 mile distance in fascinating fashion; the battle was between himself and Marlon ‘Fishy’ Williams. Starting eight (8) minutes after the first junior rider was Williams who was timed at 46 minutes 36 seconds. When the 8 minutes was subtracted from the time, Williams’ official time was 38 minutes 36 seconds. Jeffrey started ten (10) minutes down the line and was timed at 48 minutes 32 seconds; with the ten (10) minutes deducted, Jeffrey was recorded at 38 minutes 32 seconds to beat Williams by a whisker to retain his title.
Michael Anthony - #1 Junior
Claire Fraser-Green – Female winner
Lear Nunes, who successfully recovered from a vehicular accident a few years ago, took the third place in the senior category in 43 minutes 05 seconds followed by Enzo Matthews (43mins 47secs). Paul De Nobrega and Andre Abdool were disqualified by the GCF
having been found guilty of tagging Williams after he overtook them on the course, contrary to the rules. UK based rider Claire Fraser-Green retained the title on the distaff side recording a time of 28 minutes 34.31 seconds for the 12 mile course. Tashwanna Doris came
second in 31 minutes 55.11 seconds with Crystal Lambert third in 32 minutes 42.12 seconds. Last year’s road race champion Naomi Singh returned to Guyana on Friday night but was denied a place in the time trials after she suffered a back wheel blowout on the Long Creek
Hill. Michael Anthony was unstoppable among the juniors and continues his upward climb with another clinical display; he covered the 15 mile allocated for his category in 40 minutes 48 seconds. The hard working (Continued on page 70)
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Sunday June 29, 2014
Nothing is impossible: Laured Stewart WICB, GoG and opposition find consensus from GT to Australia in pursuit of his dreams WICB - ST. JOHN’S, 15. would prepare a Memorandum At age 20, while most young men may be focused on being part of the in crowd and sporting the latest, Guyanese Laured Stewart is in hot pursuit of becoming a world champion in the land down under. T h e f o r m e r p h y s ical education teacher, who also played hockey for Guyana in the Hikers Hockey Club, also threw shot-put and discus, but is now in Australia chasing his dream sport, boxing. In an exclusive interview from Australia, the Alberttown kid who resided in South Ruimveldt before his departure said he is looking not only to become a world champion but “one of the greatest sons of the soil!” Super energized, his quest ultimately is to one day be one of the greatest boxers whoever lived. To realize this dream Stewart is campaigning in Australia under the watchful eyes of legendary coach Johnny Lewis who has coached six world champions and he is being managed by Peter Mitrevski at the cooperative fitness Gym. When asked what got him interested in the sport he said, “I guess it’s in my genes...” His grandfather Lennox Stewart and father Laurex Benn Stewart are former boxers. Nicknamed the ‘Nightmare’ while in Guyana, he was spotted by two times Guyanese World Champion Gary St Clair, who also lives and fights in Australia. Stewart said, “He has been following me since amateur days and then he asked to see my two professional fights which he passed to a boxers’ manager from over here.” That manager was so enthused by his energy and hunger that he showed it to coach Johnny Lewis and
Antigua – A release form the West Indies Cricket Board has stated that a delegation from the board has concluded a series of high level meetings with various stakeholders in Guyana. The meetings took place on June 23 and 24. The WICB delegation met with representatives of the Government of Guyana, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance For Change (AFC) in separate meetings. The WICB delegation included Vice President Emmanuel Nanthan, Director Anand Sanasie, Legal Officer Alanna Medford and WICB external counsel Walter Scott QC and Roysdale Forde. The objective of the meetings was for the WICB to raise its concerns with the Guyana Cricket Administration Bill which had been passed in the National Assembly on May
Laured Stewart in training mode in Australia.
Lewis was enthused. “Mr Lewis decided I have major potential and should be in Australia under his wing and the rest is History”. In Retrospect: boxing fans on the local shores may recall him as nightmare, a name he got because that’s the type of fighter he is, ruthless, devastating and hungry. As an amateur he has entered the ring 37 times losing eight of the fights. But because of his love for the sport he never gave up. Due to financial circumstances he drop out of school in 11th grade, but has always been hitting the books, studying. His record is 2 fights with both wins. He
won his last fight in 1:36 seconds of the first round. He has represented Guyana in Saint Martin, Trinidad, Barbados, Suriname and Uruguay. Now because he has always wanted to become a boxer and is not a quitter, he is schedule to hit the ring for his first fight on the road to greatness on August 8th in Australia. A s a G u y a n e s e h is message to his fellow youth is, “NOTHING in life comes easy but nothing is impossible when you keep dreaming big, believing in yourself and working towards your set goals. With God first all things are achievable!” (Mondale Smith)
Further the WICB delegation sought to discuss with the various parties the best way, in light of the issues created by the passage of the Bill, to take the matter forward so as not to unduly affect cricket in Guyana, particularly since the Bill has not yet been assented into law by His Excellency President Donald Ramotar. The WICB is pleased to report that the tone and content of all the meetings were generally positive, with all parties recognising the reason for concern on the part of WICB and the need for certain areas of the Bill to be addressed. Over the course of the meetings, the parties for the most part agreed on the issues in the Bill which need to be revised. Another central focus of the discussions was the best way to achieve a solution which would be in the interest of all parties. It was agreed that the WICB
of Agreement which would be signed by the Government of Guyana, the WICB and the GCB. The MOA would identify those areas of the Bill which the parties agreed needed revision and set out the revisions to be made. The MOA would also prescribe a strict timeline to be followed for the implementation o f t h e revisions. The parties hope that this solution can be agreed and implemented within the next week. Vice President Nanthan commented: “The WICB thanks the Government – particularly the Minister of Sport Dr. Frank Anthony and Attorney General Anil Nandlall – and the opposition parties. WICB is positive that we are on a path that can help in the process and look forward to the next few weeks as we continue our negotiations with positive anticipation.”
Sunday June 29, 2014
Kaieteur News
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GOA’s ‘Discover’ Open Badminton Tournament
Ramdhani siblings dominate
The medal winners with GOA official Charles Corbin & GBA President Gokarn Ramdhani. By Sean Devers The Guyana Olympic A s s o c i a t i o n ’s ( G O A ) ‘Discover’ Open Badminton Tournament commenced on Saturday June 21 at the Queens College Badminton Courts and climaxed with an exciting final night action which included the Finals in Men Singles and Mixed Doubles last Friday.
Narayan Ramdhani and his little sister Priyanna Ramdhani both copped the Triple Crown by winning the Singles, Doubles and Mixed Doubles as they featured prominently in the tournament. After the finals, the presentation was done by the GOA pair of Secretary Hector Edwards and Vice-
President Charles Corbin, who both witnessed the matches. Corbin encouraged the Guyana Badminton Association (GBA) to get families involved, noting that it’s only at Multi-Sports tournaments the other athletes turn out to support other sporting events. GBA President-Gokarn
Cyclist involved in mini bus accident at GCF C/ships
Andre Green grimacing in pain on the parapet.
A damper was put on the Guyana Cycling Federation (GCF) Time Trials yesterday when Berbice cyclist, Andre Green, a member of the Trojan Cycle Club was involved in an accident involving a #43 route mini bus.The accident occurred on the Long Creek Hill, Linden Soesdyke Highway as Green, one of the junior competitors was making his way back to the finish line. Another rider who was with Green and some others said that the route #43 bus (BSS 181) that was being driven by Lionel Kanhai was behind the riders for a bit but Kanhai apparently got
impatient and decided to pull to his right to overtake the riders. Almost simultaneously, Green also pulled to his right and that is when the bus hit the young rider sending him off his cycle on to the parapet. As word spread that Green was knocked down, many riders and officials converged at the scene just over a mile from the finish line. Green, who was crying out for pain and with visible bruises about his body, was rushed off to the Diamond Diagnostic Centre by one of the Trojan Cycle Club officials. President of the GCF Cheryl Thompson
visited Green at the hospital said that he seemed to be fine and was conversing with others. “He seemed to be well after receiving dressing and was constantly finding out about his cycle saying that if it was destroyed, his career was over. I had to tell him not to worry about that but just focus on being fine.” Three Traffic Ranks of the Guyana Police Force Yarrowkabra Station arrived at the scene to conduct investigations. Over at the Diamond Diagnostic Centre, Cpl John visited with Green and was in contact with his colleagues on the Highway.
Ramdhani also made brief remarks to the players and small gathering of spectators on hand and thanked the GOA for making the tournament possible once again. The GBA top man informed that the next International assignment for the locals is the Junior Pan American Games in the Central American country of Guatemala from July 21-25. According to the GBA President, this tournament will be followed by the Caribbean Championships from August 7-15 in Jamaica. Improved players prizes in this tournament were presented to Kara Abrams, Hemraj Beharry and Ronals Chang Yuen. In the Mix Doubles Finals, siblings Narayan
Ramdhani & Priyanna Ramdhani defeated Nicholas Ali & Ambika Ramraj in two straight sets to take championship honours. Ali and Ramraj fought back bravely in the second set and the encounter was almost pushed into a third set before it ended in an exciting finish to give the talented Ramdhani clan the match, 21-9, 23-21. The Men Singles Finals saw Narayan Ramdhani & Nicholas Ali battling in a heated and highlevel three setter with Ramdhani winning the first game 21-17 and Ali taking the second at 21-16. Ramdhani bounced back to win the third and deciding game, 21-17. Overall Results: Men’s Singles:
1st. Narayan Ramdhani 2nd Nicholas Ali 3rd Jonathan Mangra & Avinash Odit Ladies Singles: 1st Priyanna Ramdhani 2nd Ambika Ramraj 3rd Kara Abrams & Abosaide Cadogan Men’s Doubles: 1st Narayan Ramdhani & Nicholas Ali 2nd Noel Shewjattan & Jonathan Mangra Ladies Doubles: 1st Priyanna Ramdhani & Ambika Ramraj 2nd Abosaide Cadogan & Kara Abrams Mixed Doubles: 1st Narayan Ramdhani & Priyanna Ramdhani 2nd Nicholas Ali & Ambika Ramraj
Narayan Ramdhani & Priyanna Ramdhani (red shirts) defeated Nicholas Ali & Ambika Ramraj.
t r o Sp
Cesar holds firm as Brazil sink Chile on penalties
Brazil’s goalkeeper Julio Cesar saves a penalty by Chile’s Mauricio Pinilla in the World Cup round of 16 soccer match at the Mineirao Stadium in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, Saturday, June 28, 2014. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)
Guyana ‘Ruggers’ pull off historic extra time win over USA South for NACRA 15’s title
Flashback: NACRA Rugby champs Guyana after they had beaten Trinidad here for the Southern title.
GCF Nat. C/ships Time Trials – Crawford is 1st juvenile winner Jeffrey, Anthony, Newton & Fraser-Green are repeat champs
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