VOLUME 13 ISSUE 15

APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

Website: www.suntci.com

VOLUME 13 - NO. 15

Email: sun@suntci.com

Tel: (649) 348-6838

$1.00

Fax: (649) 941-3281

www.facebook.com/tcisun

POLICE DENY KILLING MAN IN FIVE CAYS T

he Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force is strong denying that any of its officers were responsible for shooting and killing Delano “Big Red” Ferguson in Five Cays, last Friday, April 7th, 2017.

When asked to comment on the widespread reports that officers shot and killed the 33-yearold man, police spokesman Kevin Clarke told The SUN: “Yes we are aware that there have been allegations indicating that police officers were actually involved in the recent shooting of Mr. Ferguson in Five Cays. No report was made to the police. This is just flying about as a rumor. This rumor has put officers who arrived on the scene in immediate danger as persons tried to physically assault them.

Persons who have information about this incident should come forward with the information or contact crime-stoppers to assist with the investigation.”

He added: “The police are aware of Whatsapp voice notes going around and other misinformation posted on Social Media. We would like to reassure the public and the family of the victims that a methodical investigation will be carried out to identify and charge the person(s) responsible for this crime.

We also ask that you as a community not to jump to any conclusions and allow the police to do their job.”

Clarke said police have launched an investigation into the incident, during which a 38-year-old man from Grand Turk also received gunshot injuries.

After 9PM, 911 received a call stating that gun shots were heard in the area of Granny Hill and that someone was shot. As a result, Police and Medical Team were dispatched. Upon arrival the 33 year old man was found unresponsive and was transported to the Cheshire Hall Medical Centre where he was pronounced dead at 10:28pm by a medical Doctor. While officers at the hospital, the 38 year old male arrived and it was determined that he suffered a gunshot wound. He was seen by the police and investigations

Heavily-armed police outside the Supreme Court Annex, where the 43 accused poachers appeared before Acting Chief Magistrate Mr. Jolyon Hatmin on April 11th, 2017.

are continuing.

According to reports, the shooters were wearing dark clothes similar to what is worn by officers of the Tactical Unit.

The deceased and the Grand Turk man were apparently in a

store buying items when they were approached by gunmen who told them to “freeze and put your hands up”.

Allegedly, shots were then fired from a high-powered gun, hitting Ferguson in the chest area and the Grand Turk man in his leg.

“They had on bullet proof vests as well just like the Tactical officers.

They were the same masks just like Tactical Unit officers and they said the same thing just like Police officers, freeze put your hands up,” it was reported.

Alleged poachers costing $285, 000 per month - Page 6

Deputy Premier Sean Astwood responds to Royal Robinson - Page 12

Staff upset by Zaneta Burton’s return to NHIP - Page 5

The Bahamas election on May 10 - Page 33

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TURKS & CAICOS SUN

APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

TURKS & CAICOS SUN

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TURKS & CAICOS SUN

@ Purchase something at any of the participating stores at e Regent Village Late Night Opening and be entered into a special raffle. Enjoy complimentary drinks and special promotions too!

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See our Facebook page and Look out for our Eblast

APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

LOCAL NEWS

TURKS & CAICOS SUN

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Zaneta Burton quietly returns to NHIP

Staff at the National Health Insurance Governor Freeman, however, while Mr. Seymour was at the helm of Plan (NHIP) have been questioning recently expressed concern about the NHIP, he instituted a number of new, why Zaneta Burton has been allowed NHIP has expressed concern about progressive and innovative policies. to return to work as Chief Executive way some statutory boards have been These included the Board’s Officer, especially given that she has operating.

Adoption of Charters and terms of been given a poor report card from Commenting on the audit, reference for all committees of the Governor Dr. John Freeman and two he said: “The object lessons from the Board; the Board’s agreement to successive Cabinets.

NHIB are particularly acute: it is recruit an HR consultant for a HR

The SUN was reliably not beyond the realm of possibility - review and to assist with a strategic informed that Burton returned to work as I have illustrated - that serious plan for the NHIB; the resolution of on March 6th, 2017, after being on mismanagement of the NHIB or of the long standing provider verification several months of paid administrative certain other Boards, could cause exercise with Family Medical which leave that was initiated by the mutual a serious run upon the budgetary was outstanding since July 2016; consent of her and the then Minister resources of TCI. The need to address Board decision on recommendations for Finance Hon. Washington Missick, the issues raised as regards the NHIB of a pharmaceutical review that was while a review of serious human are evident and are now being taken concluded in April 2016; achieved resources matters at NHIP was taken forward.” agreement with treatment abroad place.

Burton has been made aware providers to obtain further discounts

There has been no official of the report and has engaged to on health care cost for prompt statement from the Government or services of Conrad Griffiths, QC. payment; the Board’s review of the Governor’s office informing the Meantime, staff members told Grievance matters and reporting to public that she was back at work.

The SUN that although Burton “a little the minister; the stabilizing of the

The SUN also understands quiet and trying to be more friendly”, Board’s cash flow concerns with the that a report by the Chief Internal there is still the general feeling that help of TCIG; reduction in NHIB Officer that was commissioned by she is a “square peg in a round hole”. reinsurance premium rate; agreement Governor Freeman late last year “Everyone in Turks and on a tentative framework for improved was highly critical of Burton her Caicos knows that Mrs. Burton doesn’t relations between NHIB and NIB; management style and how she ran know what she’s doing and she can’t getting NIB Investment Committee the affairs of NHIP. handle this job, so why did they bring to request a proposal from the NHIB

The findings of that audit her back?” remarked one staff member. for the construction of a purpose built have not been made public, although “Things were running far better when facility. the affairs of the NHIP has been a Hon. (Floyd) Seymour was here for Seymour was also responsible subject of national interest for quite those few months.” for the drafting of a number of policy some time.

The SUN understands that documents to aid in the governance of

BIM PROJECT ARCHITECT We are looking for a qualified BIM Project Architect, minimum 5 year’s experience, to spearhead and be responsible for the Revit transition, with a proven background in BIM to assist in the development and deployment of in-house Revit processes, BIM standards adherence and digital team support. You will be working alongside the Development Team’s Architect, Civil, Structural and MEP Engineer providing one to one project trouble shooting and thus strong communication skills are paramount. It will largely be project focused where your core responsibility will be to implement BIM/ Revit for the project, therefore familiarity with family creation, worksets, scheduling and overall competency in Revit are essential, as is experience in the delivery process at a construction detailing level. You will be undertaking audits of BIM models and content creation as well as assisting in development of core documentation such as BEPs and EIRs. A history of solid Revit use in the industry is required as is an in-depth understanding of complex modelling, parametric families and worksets, demonstrating proverbial Revit and AutoCAD excellence is essential. Preferably you will have an architectural background and strong experience with Navisworks and Dynamo.

Salary circa US$60,000 depending upon experience.

Position open to all qualified TCI nationals.

Please submit applications to: Veronica Rigby, The Regent Ltd, P.O. Box 124, Regent House, The Regent Village, Providenciales, Turks & Caicos Islands, Tel: (649) 9465126; Fax (649) 946-5191; Email: ronnie@habgroup.com.

Interested Belongers must also submit copies of their application to the Commissioner of Labour & Work Permit Board Zone 2. Closing date for application is 21st April 2017.

the NHIB, including: A Treatment Abroad Policy; A record Retention Policy; A Procurement Policy; An updated compliance manual; Updated Registrations and Payments Manuals; Operations Department Procedure Manual; Accounting Department Procedure Manual; and drafting a request for proposal for the HR consultancy that is expected to deliver a Renewed Strategic Plan; a suggested Organizational Structure that Maximizes Internal Efficiency; Revised Organizational Chart;conduct and Report on a HR Audit; conduct and Report on NHIB Skills Audit; assist in preparing a revised HR Policies and Procedures Manual; prepare a new Governance Manual for the NHIB; provide Governance Training Workshop for Board and Management; Conduct and Report on Job Grading exercise; Report on Salary Survey; Develop a New Grading/Salary Structure; Develop a Staff Training and Development Plan; Make Recommendations for a more effective Human Resource Management System; A comprehensive performance appraisal system that ties into the strategic plan and organizational goals; and Provide staff training on the Appraisal system and completion of appraisals.

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TURKS & CAICOS SUN

APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

LOCAL NEWS

Accused poachers costing TCI $250,000 per month

An apparent stale-mate between prosecutors and defence lawyers has cost Turks and Caicos Islands at least $258,000 over the last month to keep and maintain 43 alleged poachers from the Dominican Republic.

Investigations by The SUN revealed that it has been costing approximately $200 per day since March 16th, 2017, to feed and keep each of the 43 accused men. This totals $8,600 per day for all of them.

The poachers, who were caught in a Turks and Caicos Islands marine police dragnet with close to 40,000 in sea food on March 16, 2017, are continuing to be a strain on this country’s stretched legal, penal, law enforcement and medical resources.

They are being housed at the Detention Center in Five Cays because the Grand Turk jail can’t

accommodate them.

Some of the fisherman have serious medical conditions and have had to undergo expensive procedures, including a surgery, at the Cheshire Hall Medical Center.

The cost to the country is expected to escalate significantly because Ms. Glenda Clarke, the local lawyer representing 43 alleged poachers from the Dominican Republic is actively considering applying for Legal Aid to represent them.

It successful, Clarke would be paid around $25,800 ($600 per client) each time the poachers appear in court.

The men who were formally charged and cautioned for use of breathing apparatus to take marine products, Possession of undersized Nassau Grouper, possession of Parrot Fish, using unlicensed commercial

fishing vessel, possession of spear gun, taking marine products by use of spear gun, and being engaged in commercial fishing in the Mouchier Banks without a license and taking Marine products without a licence.

When they appeared before Acting Chief Magistrate Jolyon Hatmin on April 11th, they pleaded guilty to some of the charges but were not sentenced. The matter was adjourned until May 9th, 2017.

When contacted by The SUN, attorney Glenda said it was the prosecution, and not her, who was responsible for the financial burden which the men are placing on the country.

She said the Crown has discretion to charge or withdraw charges, but they chose to keep charges against all 43 men.

“The buck stops with the

Crown,” she said. “All accused person are entitled to fair and proper representation and as a lawyer, I have a duty to defend my clients to the best of my ability, but I cannot tell the DPP’s office who to charge.”

Clarke said that in matters such as this, the Crown would normally charge the captain, the engineer, the cook and two persons who assist the captain and the engineer.

She argued that if the men are found guilty or plead guilty and are fined, then they cannot pay and have to be remanded, it would still be an additional financial burden on the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Clarke said it was not fair to accuse her of placing a financial burden on TCIG because she is of the opinion that the men should be deported as soon as possible.

on organizational plans, financial disclosure and operational performance.

•Ability to work extended hours including nights, weekends, and holidays

Graceway IGA Supermarket invites applications from suitable qualified individuals to fill the listed positions currently held by work permit holders:

General Manager Summary of Duties The position is the general overseer of all aspects of Grace way Supermarkets. This includes providing leadership and motivation to promote the consistent execution of standard practices, policies and procedures. Setting the tone and leading the stores culture/ environment to ensure success in all aspects of customer service, profitability, operations, people development, merchandise presentation and merchandise assortment.

Required Specifications and qualifications •Over ten (10) years experience in supermarket retail and wholesale management with a minimum of five (5) years in a senior management position to include management of individual departments •Experience in company expansion projects with the ability to lead and develop new store concept, design, layout, format and operations.

•Proficient in the understanding of retail and wholesale accounting and good business practices related to documentation and record keeping •Strong current product knowledge of the retail industry and a proven record in the ability to achieve the budgeted financial and operating results, including sales, profitability, and wage percentage •Experience managing and developing the human resources activities, maintain and develop organizational culture, values and reputation in market and with all staff, customers, suppliers, partners and governmental bodies.

•Must have the ability to identify, develop and direct the implementation of business strategy and report to shareholders

Salary rate will commensurate with experience and qualifications

Wine Specialist Summary of Duties: This position is responsible to promote and demonstrate fine wine knowledge throughout the island to increase sales among high profile local restaurants and retail accounts / customers while including managing logistics of wine shipments and consolidations in various wine worldwide countries. Requirements include: Required Specifications and qualifications •Ensue a good range of well priced quality wines is available •Create marketing and sales programs to increase sales •Purchase all wines, spirits and beers from local and international suppliers for Graceway Supermarkets •Create marketing and sales program to increase sales, maintain and develop the established distributorships, create additional exclusive distributorships and representations •Experience in whole sale distribution and retail of wines and spirits is essential •At least 5 – 7 years experience in international procurement of wines and spirits including working at the consulting level with large distributors is required •Previous years of retail, grocery management experience will be an added plus •Must be able to show strong background and understanding of French, Spanish and Italian wines Salary rate will commensurate with experience and qualifications Deadline for submission of applicants is April 7th 2017 Submit to: Graceway IGA Supermarket main office complex or email: hr@gracewayiga.com Please Note: Only short-listed applicants will be contact to attend interviews.

APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

TURKS & CAICOS SUN

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LOCAL NEWS

Edith Delancy hits back at Governor Freeman

Dear Governor Freeman,

Attacking the messenger and denying the message without proper investigation is routine operating procedure for the British FCO. Turks & Caicos Islanders are familiar with this FCO tactic and David Moore’s comments are typical of the FCO by accusing a TCI citizen of “attacking TCI public officials” for commenting or identifying government malfeasance.

If you had been properly briefed by the FCO prior to arriving in the TCI you would know that there is a very long and verifiable history of government retribution and retaliation against those who have the intestinal fortitude to complain or speak out publicly against government

incompetence, abuse or corruption in the TCI, so you must please excuse my reluctance to invite you to tea.

There is no need and you have no obligation to answer my open letter to you but do not be so naive as to believe that your public denials or the public denials of David Moore from the FCO will remove or eliminate the clear and convincing perception of poor governance that has deterred and is continuing to deter new inward investment and development in the Turks & Caicos Islands. To be clear, that poor governance is emanating from the Attorney General’s Office and apparently everybody but you is aware of it.

You can call it whatever you want Governor but the evidence and

statements from uninterested or disgruntled investors demonstrates that the Office of the TCI Attorney General has been killing the gooses that were laying our golden eggs and the laying of eggs has now been dormant for over eight years. You can deny the reason but you cannot deny the fact.

Lastly Governor, with regard to David Moore’s rude comments about me being “self-interested”; Yes, indeed I am self-interested. I live, work and play here in the TCI and I am effected like everybody else when government runs amuck and chases away investors and developers at a time when our economy and jobs sector desperately needs a boost.

Your predecessor former

Governor Beckingham was a polite English gentleman with a very short list of accomplishments in the TCI. Generally speaking he sat by politely and didn’t really get involved.

Consequently he left us with the same broken TCI government that was here when he arrived.

Will you do the same or will you endeavor to make the necessary changes that are begging in the TCI? Only time will tell but David Moore and the FCO’s defensive response to my identifying a problem well-known in the TCI business community is not encouraging.

Respectfully,

Edith Delancy

Below average hurricane season forecast for 2017

On Thursday 6th April, 2017, researchers group at Colorado State University issued their preliminary predictions for the 2017 Atlantic Hurricane Season.

This year, it is forecasted that we can expect a less active season with eleven (11) named storms. Preliminary predictions indicates that four (4) will become hurricanes and two (2) will become major hurricanes (Category 3 or 5). This is attributed to the potential of a weak to moderate El Nino developing during the peak of the season.

The term El Niño refers to the large-scale ocean- the DDME would like to encourage all residents, atmosphere climate interaction linked to a periodic businesses, schools, government and nonwarming in sea surface temperatures across the government organization to prepare effectively and central and east-central Equatorial Pacific. not to become complacent due to the preliminary

An average season in the Atlantic consists predictions. It only takes one storm to make a of twelve (12) named storms, six (6) hurricanes and memorable season! two (2) major hurricanes.

The 2017 Hurricane Season begins on June

This year as part of Department of 1 and runs through November 30 2017. Further Disaster Management and Emergencies’ (DDME’s) predictions will be provided on June 1, July 3 and Hurricane Preparedness Month Campaign under August 2, 2017. the theme “Are You Ready for The Unexpected!,”

PREMIERE GLOBAL DISTRIBUTION LIMITED Is inviting suitable applications for the following position:

CASHIER KEY DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Tasks

•Compute and record totals of all daily sales

transactions.

•Greet customers entering establishments.

•Issue receipts, refunds, credits, or change due to customers.

•Sort, count, and wrap currency and coins.

•Weigh items sold by weight in order to determine prices.

•Calculate total payments received during a time period, and reconcile this with total sales.

•Compile and maintain non-monetary reports and records.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE / QUALIFICATIONS

The ideal candidate will possess the following: • Bilingual with 2-3 years of customer service experience • Attention to detail in your job responsibilities • Team Player • Great communication skills.

Salary for this position will be commensurate with qualifications and/or experience.

Please submit Applications to: sales@premiereja.com Submission should be no later than April 21st, 2017

Landscape laborer required A professional landscape company on Providenciales is seeking to recruit a landscape laborer to join our team. The successful candidate must have the following experience and skill set; Min 3 years experience in landscape maintenance Responsible for weeding, pruning, trimming all plants on property Must have good knowledge of gardening techniques and ability to apply pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers properly Responsible for the upkeep and general maintenance of properties Ability to maintain and repair irrigation systems Willingness to perform laborious tasks Self motivated and industrious applicants need only apply Ability to follow directions and accomplish everyday jobs promptly $7.75 per hour Deadline for Submission of application April 14th, 2017 Please submit applications with references and relative experience to: Ms. Edith Cox Suite 200 ‘’Graceway IGA Main Office Complex Leeward Highway or by emailing to maintenancedept@khcapital.com Please Note: Only short- listed applicants will be contacted to attend interviews

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TURKS & CAICOS SUN

APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

LOCAL NEWS

Report from March 31st Cabinet meeting His Excellency the Governor, Dr. John Freeman, chaired the 9th meeting of the Cabinet on Friday, 31 March 2017, at the Hon. Hilly Ewing Building in Providenciales.

All Ministers were present. The Deputy Governor was absent from the territory.

At this meeting Cabinet:

*Advised the Governor to agree to a change to the use of one decal to cover the various categories of vehicles, licensed under the Road Traffic Ordinance.

*Advised the Governor to agree for an urgent amendment to the transitional provisions under the Adoption Ordinance to permit cases that were already in process prior to the new ordinance coming into effect, to proceed.

* Noted the award of several contract notifications as follows: -Development Management

Fund

Project

-Furniture and Equipment for H. J. Robinson High School - Grand Turk -Bight Fish Fry and Cultural Village Providenciales -Patrol Vessel for DECR -CCTV Implementation -Upgrading of the Labs for all Schools -Upgrade of DC Office - Salt Cay -Upgrade of NJS Francis Building Grand Turk - Agriculture Development Phase II Agriculture Centre - North Caicos - Event Management Services – Providenciales Hosting of Board of Governors Meeting - DECR Mooring Buoy Machine - Replacement Vehicles for TCIG - Wheelchair Accessible Vans for the TCIG - ICT Upgrade for all Schools - Road Development Phase II Providenciales - Post Office Redevelopment Providenciales - Equipment for Health Information Systems

- Furniture and Equipment for Estate Management and Conference Centre -Furniture and Equipment for the Attorney General’s Chambers Lands Division - Scholarship Database System - Border Control MIS Phase II - 911 Project - Business Transformation Project - Renovation of the NPHL

* Received an update from the Minister of Home Affairs, Transportation and Communication on Her Majesty’s Prison.]

* Received an update from the Minister of Health, Agriculture and Human Services on the Morgue.

*Received an update from the Deputy Premier and Minister of Border Control and Employment Services on the Dominican Republic Nationals who are currently being detained for their alleged involvement in illegal fishing activities within the Turks and Caicos Islands waters.

Governor responds to writer with pen name

A war of words is taking place between His Excellency the Governor, Dr John Freeman, and someone with the pen name Edith Delancy.

A statement from the Governor’s spokesman Dave Moore said that the Governor “is in receipt of an email communication - described as ‘open’ by the sender which has appeared in the TCI press and has presumably been sent to other recipients - from an individual called Edith Delancy which makes a number of allegations and criticisms about certain

public officials of TCI”.

Moore added: “Ms Delancy is not known to the Governor. Despite some effort to establish her identity, we have not been able to do so. We can only assume that the name has been assumed to hide the identity of the sender. Attacking TCI public officials, who act in accordance under the direction of Ministers and who are charged with advising and protecting the Government and its funds to the benefit of all islanders, in this anonymous and unsubstantiated way can only be

PROVO GOLF CLUB Provo Golf Club is seeking suitable applicants for the following position: LABOURERS Candidates must be physically capable of performing hard manual labour outside on a daily basis to be able to carry out duties which involve grass cutting, tree trimming, removal of brush and weed, general cleanup of debris and garbage from the company properties. Assist with irrigation and small construction installation projects which includes manual trenching and digging. Previous experience is preferred. Candidates must be willing to work holidays and weekends when required.

Wages starts at $6.50 per hour.

Please submit applications to: Veronica Rigby, Provo Golf Club, P.O. Box 124, Regent House, The Regent Village, Providenciales, Turks & Caicos Islands, Tel: (649) 946-5126; Fax (649) 946-5191; Email: ronnie@ habgroup.com.

inferred as self-interested in purpose.

Moreover, much of the communication is simply incorrect.”

The press release from Moore continued, “Should Ms Delancy make herself known to the Governor he would be ready to respond to the points made to him in the email. However the Governor does not intend to reply to communications, especially of this kind, which are anonymous or written under a pseudonym.”

Turks and Caicos Sun Suite#5, Airport Plaza Providenciales Turks and Caicos Islands Tel: (649) 348-6838 Fax: (649) 941-3281 Email: sun@suntci.com Read us online at www.suntci.com Publisher & Editor-in-Chief: Hayden Boyce Graphic designer Information Technology and Production Manager: Kelano Howell Todeline Defralien Reporter

The Turks and Caicos SUN is a subsidiary of The SUN Media Group Ltd. We are committed to excellence in journalism, educating and informing our readers, serving and satisfying our advertisers and assisting in the overall development of the Turks and Caicos Islands.

PROVO WATER COMPANY LTD. We are currently seeking a qualified Turks & Caicos Islander to fill the position of Pipe Fitter: REQUIREMENTS: o Minimum of 5 years experience in waterworks and piping networks. o Must be available for emergency maintenance calls on evenings and weekends according to rotational schedule.

WORK ENVIRONMENT: • Hot, dusty and wet conditions including open and confined spaces • Active roadways and associated traffic noise levels • Remote locations JOB DESCRIPTION: The Pipe fitter is responsible for installing, repairing and maintaining pipes, fixtures and other plumbing used for water distribution in residential, commercial and industrial connections.

MAJOR DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES ARE TO: 1.Fill pipes or plumbing fixtures with water or air and observe pressure gauges to detect and locate leaks.

2.Reads and follows installation plans and establish the sequence of pipe installations.

3.Measure, cut, thread and bend pipe to required angle, using hand and power tools or machine such as pipe cutters, pipe threading machines and pipe bending machine.

4.Use hand or powered tools to excavate trenches and ditches 5.Cut openings in structures to accommodate pipes and pipe fittings, using hand and power tools.

6.Repair and maintain plumbing, replacing defective washers, replacing or mending broken pipes.

7.Attend Emergency callout when necessary.

8.Carry out all other duties as directed by the Supervisor.

Salary Range: US$ 12.00 - $15.00 per hour

Interested Belongers must also submit copies of their application to the Commissioner of Labour & Work Permit Board Zone 2. Position currently held by a work permit holder. Closing date for application is April 24, 2017.

All applications must be submitted April 18th, 2017.

Turks & Caicos Islanders need only apply.

Office Manager PROVO WATER COMPANY LTD. P.O. Box 39, Grace Bay Road Providenciales, Turks & Caicos Islands Fax: (649) 941-8310 Email: K.Clarke@provowater.tc

APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

TURKS & CAICOS SUN

WATERLOO INVESTMENT HOLDINGS LTD.

CELEBRATING

AUTISM AWARENESS MONTH

The team of Waterloo Investment Holdings Limited and Alexandra Resort show their support for Autism Awareness month.

101 Governors Road | Leeward | Turks & Caicos Islands, B.W.I. | 649.946.8054 | wihl.com

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TURKS & CAICOS SUN

APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

LOCAL NEWS

Allan Robinson appointed to new executive role as FortisTCI continues company restructuring

FortisTCI has announced a new role for Allan Robinson, as the Company steps up its restructuring programme to respond to changing market conditions, rapid organizational growth and an expanded service territory across the Turks and Caicos Islands.

This new appointment took effect on March 1, 2017, along with the recently announced promotions of two Vice Presidents – Ruth Forbes and Devon Cox – to Senior Vice President roles.

In this latest round, Allan Robinson, former Vice President of Customer and Corporate Services, has been appointed as the new Vice President of Grand Turk and Sister Islands Operations. Mr. Robinson’s new and expanded role provides stronger executive presence across the Company’s service territory as he leads the independent operations in Grand Turk, Salt Cay, North & Middle Caicos and South Caicos.

Mr. Robinson has served FortisTCI as Vice President of Customer and Corporate Services since September 2007. His extensive experience in the utility industry began at Turks and Caicos Utility (TCU) in Grand Turk, where as a college graduate, he was first employed in the Distribution and Metering Department.

After a three-year stint, he left TCU in 1989 to work with the Turks and Caicos Islands Government Planning Department Development Control Section in Grand Turk. In November 1995 he was transferred to Providenciales as Senior Officer with the Planning Department Building Control Section. A year later he began working with PPC Ltd. (now FortisTCI Limited) as Assistant Supervisor in the Metering Department. In 1999 he was promoted to Supervisor and managed the company’s Meter Reading, Billing and Customer Services Department for all of PPC offices.

Mr. Robinson attended Antigua State College in Antigua, where he studied Electrical Engineering. He earned an Associate degree in Building and Electrical Technology from the University of Technology (formerly CAST), Kingston, Jamaica.

FortisTCI President and CEO Eddinton Powell stated, “We have embarked upon a comprehensive restructuring of our operations, with a strategic view on the future as we prepare the Company and its outstanding talent for a new era in the energy business. Allan has consistently demonstrated leadership growth and the capabilities and commitment to steer all Sister Island operations forward in line with the overall goals of

COMMERCIAL BANKING MANAGER Job Grade: A84 Annual Salary: $79,650 – $134,400 The Commercial Banking Manager manages the Bank’s Commercial Department to achieve profitable growth at acceptable risk in loans, deposits, and other commercial services. The incumbent also provides service to customers who meet the Bank’s Scotia Service and Complaint Resolution Standards.

Key Accountabilities 

Manages the Bank’s conventional credit portfolio at an acceptable level of risk while adhering to Bank’s policies and procedures;



Manages growth of the Bank’s Commercial business and contributes to the overall profitability;



Direct the effective management of customer relationships and provide high quality customer service;



Contribute to the Bank’s productivity and service;



Effectively supervise and develop subordinate staff to fill the needs of the Department and long term requirements of the Bank;



Execute the Department Compliance responsibilities as reflected in the Branch Services and Procedures Manual.

Requirements 

            

Excellent knowledge of Commercial Banking Products and services, including working knowledge of the systems, routines and operating procedures; Excellent credit skills and sound judgement, as demonstrated through his/her previous track record and experience; Excellent risk assessment and analytical skills; Excellent accounting and financial analysis skills; Knowledge of completion and registration/renewal policies and procedures for security documents, and of procedures and standards for correspondence and credit returns; Excellent coaching skills and knowledge of training resources made available by the Bank for use by self and subordinates; Superior industry knowledge with areas of specialization where required; Superior communication skills (oral and written); Good understanding of commercial management systems; Knowledge and understanding of the commercial and retail products used or of potential use to commercial customers and prospects; Sales Management skills; Ability to develop and maintain mutually beneficial banking relationship with clients; Leadership and supervisory skills; Graduate Degree and/or work equivalency.

Scotiabank offers a highly competitive compensation and benefits package with tremendous opportunities for personal and professional growth to the successful candidate.

Please submit applications no later than April 21, 2017 to: Joranda Lightbourne – Human Resources Department Scotiabank (Turks & Caicos) Ltd. P.O. Box 15, Cherokee Road Providenciales, Turks & Caicos Islands

FortisTCI. I am proud to congratulate him on this achievement and look forward to his continued success in this new role.”

FortisTCI has been restructured into three main divisions: Corporate Services; Operations; and Innovation, Strategic Planning and Information, Communications, Technology (ICT). These have further been segmented into three main Operating Business Units (OBU’s), namely Production and Project Management, Grand Turk and Sister Islands Operations, and Transmission and Distribution (T&D).

FortisTCI Limited (FTCI) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Fortis Inc., and is the sole provider of electricity in Providenciales, North Caicos, Middle Caicos, South Caicos, East Caicos and adjacent Cays.

In August 2012, Turks and Caicos Utility Limited (TCU), which is the sole provider of electricity on the Islands of Grand Turk and Salt Cay, was acquired by FTCI. Together the two companies serve more than 14,500 electricity customers in the Turks & Caicos Islands archipelago. FTCI and TCU have an aggregate diesel-fired generating capacity of approximately 82 megawatts.

Fortis is a leader in the North American regulated electric and gas utility industry with assets

Mr. Allan Robinson, FortisTCI Vice President of Grand Turk and Sister Islands Operations of more than CAD$48billion. The Corporation’s 8,000 employees serve customers at utility operations in five Canadian provinces, nine U.S. states and three Caribbean countries. Fortis shares are listed on the TSX and NYSE and trade under the symbol FTS.

WATERLOO HOTEL MANAGEMENT LTD

Alexandra Resort, Blue Haven Resort & Marina and the Beach House

The Turks and Caicos Collection is looking for a hospitality expert who can advise the CFO on all Financial matters of the group.

GROUP FINANCIAL CONTROLLER Reporting to the CFO, the Group Financial Controller will require extensive experience in hospitality Finance, in both branded and non-branded properties and in diverse locations.

•Must have 5 or more years’ experience managing the finance functions in hospitality operations, for different target groups with a strong background in the allinclusive offerings; •Extensive accounting experience with a thorough knowledge of preparing month end journals, the closing process, preparation of budgets, forecasts and cash flows; •Maintenance of financial ledgers and accounting processes, preparation of monthly P&L and balance sheet, ensuring that appropriate systems and internal controls are implemented and maintained; •CPA Certification (CA, CGA or CMA); •and the must have the ability to work in USA. Interested persons may contact our Corporate HR department by submitting your resume with qualifications and experience to: cgibbons@wihl.com Please also submit a copy of your completed application to our local labor department.

Closing date April 21st, 2017

APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

TURKS & CAICOS SUN

Page 11

Page 12

TURKS & CAICOS SUN

APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

LOCAL NEWS

Deputy Premier Sean Astwood responds to Royal Robinson’s comment on work permits From the desk of. Hon Sean R. Astwood -Deputy Premier & Minister of Border Control and Employment

The Opposition’s appointed member continues to attempt to mislead the public.

The last year under the Rufus Ewing Administration, work permit fees were $17.9million, of total projected revenues of $262million.

Therefore, work permits fees of approximately $18 million accounted for approximately 6.8% of Projected Government revenues. In our budget that will be debated on April 18th, work permit fees are projected to be $18million of total projected revenues of $273million, which accounts for 6.7% of the total budget.

There were no new developments for the entire four years under the Rufus Ewing administration and still work permit fees accounted for 6.8% of the projected Government revenues.

We have already seen a drastic increase in new and renewed interest for development projects. With this, coupled with our Government’s robust capital development agenda, one should anticipate the need for an increase in the labour force.

What the Opposition Appointed Member (Hon. Royal

Robinson) failed to recognized is that with all the upcoming economic activity we have still managed to reduce the percentage of work permit fees from 6.8% under the previous government, to 6.7% this financial year.

Although there is a $539,441 increase in the dollar value of work permit fees, the overall percentage is down. Therefore the increase in dollar value is just a reflection of our Government’s ability to create and provide the right environment for increased economic activity.

Just as we have accomplished our 100 day goals as a government, we have kept our commitment to not rely on work permits as a revenue source.

We are ensuring that our people get back to work and we are doing what the former government was not able to do, which is restore investor confidence and create jobs.

We anticipate that the Opposition’s Appointed Member will continue to try and mislead you, the voter, over the next four years.

However, through press releases and town hall meetings, we will ensure that you can get the facts from your

government and that you can also research and verify the facts for yourself. There will be no “alternative facts”!

On the matter of the TCI Status Commission which is the body now vested with the responsibility to make recommendations on Turks and Caicos Islands Status, this ordinance was brought into being under the former PNP administration in 2015.

Since then, and up until the time the PNP was removed from office by the people, they had not introduced any regulations to govern the working of the committee, nor had they setup the committee formally in order to carry out its mandate.

On coming into office, we met applications that had been submitted almost two years ago, with persons left in limbo. As a government we have a responsibility to give these applicants and up or down decision, so that they can plan the rest of their lives.

The most disappointing part of Mr. Robinson’s release demonstrates a relentless eager to score political points, or simply an intentional attempt to deceive the public.

While his government would

PROVO WATER COMPANY LTD. Position Summary

Description of Duties •Designing of overall water distribution schemes and associated structures such as pumping stations, pipe works and earthworks where necessary.

•Formulations of technical policies governing operational procedures in the building, renovation and expansion of the water distribution infrastructures and the proper utilization of material resources; •Development and maintenance of standards and practices for water installation and engineering practices within the company; •Transacts and negotiates with consulting engineers, government departments, others utilities, contractors and suppliers on works required by the company or as solicited by any government or private entity for the best interest of PWC; •Organizes work activities within the engineering department and delegate task among engineering staff in accordance with the level of importance and priorities as required in the distribution and maintenance; •Set up and maintain a data base that will consolidate all generated technical and administrative data from the engineering and distribution that will serve as primary source of information and reference in PWC’s future undertakings; •Carry out and implement all other activities for the engineering department as mandated and required by the Managing Director which includes among others the following: •Design of capital works, preparation of drawings and contract documents •Provision of standard specification for all material requirement in the distribution works •Implement health and safety, safe working procedures within the engineering and distribution department •Gathers data of meter readings for use in the billing and technical

have projected $1.7million in revenue from residence permits, the final sum is $2.2million for the year 2016 to 2017. Our projection of $2.3million represents a mere 3.3 % increase over last year’s actual.

We remain committed to our people and will be making every effort to ensure they move up the ranks in companies to greater responsibility and senior management positions.

analysis •Conducts investigative and analysis works arising from technical complaints •Carry out land surveys for distribution requirement or in drawing out quotations •Coordinates main testing, flushing and sterilization function •Formulates leak detection plans and activities •Updates the mainlaying programmes •Prepares reports and technical information as required by the Managing Director •Attends meeting and seminar for the furtherance and upliftment of engineering operation •Supervises and controls all other technical activities as delegated by the Managing Director.

Provo Water Company Limited is seeking a Qualified Chartered Engineer to fill the position of Head of Engineering.

The Head of Engineering Department of Provo Water Company shall manage, supervise and oversee the over-all technical operation of the company’s water distribution system including but not limited to the development of piping structural plans and the subsequent implementation thereof. This includes the following duties and responsibilities:

Hon Sean R. Astwood -Deputy Premier & Minister of Border Control and Employment

Performs all other delegated functions from the Managing Director that is in line with engineering works and in consonance with the existing rules, policies and standards of Provo Water Company.

Education Successful applicant requires an accredited bachelor’s degree in civil engineering. A post-graduate degree in civil engineering or water related field is preferred. Relevant professional qualification is required.

Desired Experience Applicant must have 7 to 10 years of progressive civil engineering experience, including previous supervisory duties. Experience in water supply utility environment is a must. Candidate should have a strong analytical background with a proven record of achievement.

Salary Salary starts at $63,000 p.a. plus benefits Deadline All applications (inclusive of cover letter, CV & copies of qualifications) must be submitted by 29th April 2017 to: Managing Director PO Box 39 Provo Water Company Limited Grace Bay Road Providenciales Turks and Caicos Islands provowater@tciway.tc Only applicants selected for an interview will be notified

APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

TURKS & CAICOS SUN

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LOCAL NEWS

TCIG launches recruitment drive for 2017-2018

The Turks and Caicos Government is pleased to announce the commencement of its recruitment drive for the financial year 2017-2018.

According to a Government press statement, in the financial year ahead the Government will be seeking to fill over 150 new and vacant positions. This includes 104 new positions and over 50 vacant positions across the various ministries and departments in government.

The new positions are largely focused on the area of Law and Enforcement and include: 18 new staff in the Police; 9 in Border Control and Employment Services; 10 in Finance, Trade and Investment; 18 in Home Affairs and Public Safety; 9 in Health and Human Services and 6 in Tourism and the Environment.

There is also an additional 10 positions related to the completion of Phase 3 of the Long Bay High School

and the focus on Special Needs within the Turks and Caicos education system and an additional 5 positions in the Ministry of Infrastructure, Housing and Planning to assist in carrying out the functions of that ministry.

Commenting on the recruitment drive for 2017-2018 Deputy Governor Anya Williams highlighted that it is going to be a very busy, yet productive year ahead for her and her human resources team.

“The Turks and Caicos Government through the recent implementation of the Pay and Grading Review, introduction of the Staff Professional Development Program and various other key initiatives has positioned itself as a leader in the employment market, having recorded in the last few financial years a very high interest in TCIG positions,” she said. “In the

Providenciales, Turks & Caicos Islands Paradise Smiles is looking to fill the following positions:

Dental Nurse/Assistant Job Duties: •Checking gums and teeth for oral abnormalities •Taking and developing dental x-rays •Educating patients on oral hygiene •Developing care plans for maintaining good dental hygiene •Smoothing and polishing restorations •Fluoride administration and sealant applications •Administering local anesthetic •Removing stains and plaque •Preparing and maintaining dental instruments, supplies and equipment.

General Dentist Job Duties: The jobholder must have a Degree

year ahead we look forward to both having new persons join our team and also to successful promotions from within the existing civil service which will further create opportunities for development and for new starters.”

She continued; “In accordance with our recruitment plan, we intend to actively work to ensure that all new and existing vacancies across government be filled within appropriate timelines and similar to last financial year, we have developed a recruitment calendar whereby we intend to release new batches of advertisements the second week of every month thereby creating some expectations from the public.

“All TCIG job advertisements will be posted on our: Website - www. gov.tc/government-vacancies; our Turks and Caicos Islands Government Press Office Facebook page; in local newspapers and also aired on the

Radio Turks and Caicos Job Corner.

“In applying for TCIG positions, persons should specify the title of the position that they are applying for and should also ensure that the necessary accompanying documentation such as copies of identification, academic certificates, a recent police record and appropriate references are also supplied.

Applications will be reviewed against the relevant advertised vacant position and the criteria noted in the advertisement.

“We therefor encourage all interested parties to continuously monitor our webpage and released advertisements for job opportunities and implore all persons to consider the civil service as an employment option whereas nation builders you are certain to make a meaningful impact in these ‘Beautiful by Nature’ Turks and Caicos Islands.”

in Dental Surgery (D.D.S.) or Dental Medicine (D.M.D.) as they will be responsible for diagnosing and treating patients at multiple locations. The responsibility of the Jobholder will be to: •Provide a full range of extensive treatments (preventative, restorative and surgical), examples include the giving of injections for infiltrations and nerve blocks, the extraction of teeth, the cutting of cavities with high speed rotary instruments.

•Plan the appropriate order of treatment, implement, and interpret / refine as treatment progresses to final stage.

•Discuss specific treatment plans, if appropriate, analyze patient information and adapt for individual needs.

•Analyze patient information and adapt treatment if appropriate.

•Treat patient groups including children and adults and those with multiple complex needs.

Understand the needs of patients with anxiety and disabilities and carry out their treatment accordingly.

Pay will commensurate with qualifications and experience.

Please submit applications to email: paradise.smiles12@gmail.com

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TURKS & CAICOS SUN

APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

LOCAL NEWS

Illegal Haitians keep coming

The Ministry of Border Control and Employment confirms that at approximately 1 p.m. on April 7th, Border Control officials received notification that a vessel suspected of transporting undocumented migrants from Haiti was spotted by fishermen off South Caicos and near the banks of North and Middle Caicos earlier that morning.

Members of the Marine Branch of the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force were the immediate responders and communication was made to Immigration Officials in South Caicos, Grand Turk and Providenciales.

At approximately 8:15 p.m. Immigration Officers from the Ministry of Border Control and Employment met the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force to receive 67 illegal migrants of Haitian nationality and comprising 59 adult males, 2 minor males and 6 females, who were subsequently detained and processed at the Detention Center in South Dock Providenciales throughout

the night.

The Ministry is extending commendation to the Immigration Department and stakeholders agencies, especially the Marine Branch of the Police Force and Department of Disaster Management and Emergency DDME, for their hard work, commitment and dedication. Commendation is further extended to the fishing community and Government officials of South Caicos who also played their part as responsible citizens and public officers.

Deputy Premier and Minister with responsibility for Border Control and Employment, Hon. Sean R Astwood, said “It is unfortunate that persons continue to risk their lives in attempts to breach our borders, in the hopes of improving their circumstances. While as a people, and as Government, we understand the hardships and desperation for many in Haiti, we are a very small country with limited resources and therefore can ill afford the strains on our social systems and other national security

risks that are inherent with illegal migration.

“The Ministry, along with the Police and support from the National Security Council and other agencies, are working hard to improve the protection of our borders, and will continue our ongoing efforts with the Haitian Government to invest in the interests of their people. However, I am also appealing to the Haitian diaspora and all persons who have connections with Haiti to assist in helping us to discourage persons from attempting this treacherous journey.

“As a Government we have a zero tolerance approach to human trafficking and I, through this medium, am sending a very strong message to persons involved in human trafficking and illegal migration, that when discovered, you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

“Sincere thanks is extended to the many men and women who continue to risk their lives day and night, to ensure the safety of us all, I am indeed grateful for your sacrifice.

May God continue to cover you and keep you safe from all dangers.”

Preparations are underway for the immediate repatriation of the 67 illegal migrants to their homeland, which will commence as early as today.

The Ministry of Border Control reiterates its caution issued to those in the Turks and Caicos Islands that might be inclined to harbor illegal migrants, that as a result of the new Immigration Ordinance which came into effect on April 1, 2016, penalties for harboring illegal migrants were increased, and such persons now face a fine of $20,000 on summary conviction or to a term of imprisonment of four years, or to both. In addition, persons acquiring status other than by birth that are convicted of such an offense, face the possibility of having their status in the Islands revoked, thereby making them liable to deportation.

Investigations into this matter will be conducted by local law enforcement agencies of the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Latoya Williams appointed HR officer with TCIG

The Turks and Caicos Government is pleased to both welcome and congratulate Ms. Latoya Williams on her appointment as a Human Resource Officer within the Office of the Deputy Governor’s Human Resource Management Directorate.

Ms. Williams graduated from within the top five of the H.J. Robinson High School’s graduating class of 2003 and later went on to become the salutatorian of the 2005 graduating class of the Turks and Caicos Islands Community College where she graduated with an Associate Degree in Business Studies. Ms. Williams also holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Management from Barry University in Miami, Florida.

Upon her return to the Turks and Caicos Islands in 2009, Ms. Williams gained employment with Scotiabank (Turks & Caicos Islands) Ltd. where she held the position of Customer Service Representative

grateful to be joining from 2009 to 2011 the team at the Human and having exuded a Resource Management strong determination Directorate and to provide quality believes that the customer service to Human Resource clients, Ms. Williams Department is the heart dedicated her time of any organization to also developing as it provides life via online and cross to the organization training a deeper by nurturing and understanding of cultivating the people sales, which led to of the organization. “I her being promoted in 2011 to the position Ms. Latoya Williams, Human have always been interested in the of Personal Banking Resource Officer within the Office of welfare of others and Officer; a post where the Deputy Governor’s Human have sought to motivate she achieved much Resource Management Directorate and to encourage success, having been others, which I named as the Top Sales Officer for Turks and Caicos believe will aid me in my new role. I Islands and having been awarded the intend to bring a solid foundation of Country Award for the financial years experience, dedication, leadership and professional integrity to the 2013/2014 and 2014/2015.

Ms. Williams stated that role; while upholding the standards she is both extremely ecstatic and of the Turks and Caicos Islands

Government Public Service. My time in the private sector has helped to develop invaluable communication, time management, self-discipline, relationship building, interviewing, solicitation and telemarketing skills, which I know will be an asset to my new role.”

Deputy Governor, Anya Williams stated; “We are pleased to welcome Ms. Williams to our HR team and we are happy that she has made the Turks and Caicos civil service her career choice. As we commence a quite ambitious recruitment plan for financial year 2017/2018, we will be counting on Ms. Williams skills to assist in ensuring that the absolute best talent is engaged by TCIG and look forward to working with her as I am sure that she will be looking forward to working with the various ministries across government to fulfil their recruitment and HR management needs.”

Emergency operations center training and exercise 2017

The Department of Disaster Management and Emergencies (DDME) recently hosted a three-day training exercise on Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands.

The purpose of this exercise was to certify 30 Emergency Operations Center (EOC) staff and chairs of subcommittee in Emergency Response for all-hazards EOC activation.

Facilitated by General, Earl Arthurs (Operations Specialist) and Ms. Joanne Persad (Programme Manager-Response and Recovery) of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), the

training was designed to enhance capacities in the principles of management, logistics, operations, planning, and finance within the context of an activated EOC.

Additionally, the training course focused on the ability to maintain flexibility during dynamic events when managing disasters and emergencies of all types and intensities.

Real-world examples of successful and unsuccessful emergency management situations were used to provide a more realistic and legitimate evaluation of emergency management challenges

and best practices. Team building and exercise scenarios were also incorporated into the training as a strategy for increasing effectiveness of the TCI’s EOC team.

During an information brief on this important training exercise, Dr. Virginia Clerveaux, Director DDME, said: “One of the major benefits of the training was that it enabled persons who needed to work with each other for coordinated management of emergencies, to better know and understand each other’s capacities, strengths and propensities within the context of stressful emergency operations. The

$135

interactions and dynamics afforded by the training fostered development of long lasting relationships which would only helped to serve and improve the effectiveness of the EOC during future activations in support of real-world incidents.”

A functional table-top exercise was held on the March 23rd, 2017 which gave the participants an opportunity to execute their training. In so doing, this exercise also tested the operability of the National Disaster Management Plan and aid in the identification of gaps that need to be addressed.

APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

TURKS & CAICOS SUN

Page 15

Personal Insurance

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Page 16

TURKS & CAICOS SUN

APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

LOCAL NEWS

Bladder Infections

By Dr. Marsha Barnett

Aurinarytractinfection,(UTI)isa bacterial infection anywhere along the urinary tract. This includes the bladder, kidneys, ureters, or the urethra. A bladder infection is the most common type of urinary tract infection. They are relatively common, affecting well over 25% of persons, especially women, at some point in their lives, and for many persons, this is a recurring problem.

What causes a bladder infection?

Bacteria is always present in the genital and rectal area. These organisms occasionally enter the urethra (the tube through which we urinate that opens onto the genitals) and travel into the bladder causing an infection. Normally, the body removes the bacteria by flushing them out during urination.

But sometimes the bacteria can attach to the walls of the bladder and multiply leading to an infection.

Whilst anyone can get bladder infections, women are more prone to getting them than men. This is because females have shorter urethras, making the path to the bladder easier for bacteria to reach.

Factors that can increase the risk of bladder infections for both men and women including insufficient fluid intake, repeatedly avoiding the urge to pee therefore holding the urine when the bladder is full and increased sexual activity. Anything that affects the free flow of urine through the urinary tract

such as having a narrow urethra, birth defects or injuries affecting the tract or an enlarged prostate will also increase the risk of developing a UTI. What are the symptoms?

The symptoms of a bladder infection vary depending on the severity. Some of the most common symptoms include urinating more often than usual and having sudden urges to urinate, pain on urination and lower abdominal cramping or pain. The urine may also become cloudy, tainted with blood or have an unpleasant smell.

Urinary infections can also cause back pain if it ascends into the kidneys. A kidney infection may cause a fever and make you feel lethargic and generally unwell.

How is a bladder infection diagnosed?

Most times your doctor will be able to tell what’s happening just by taking to your history and listening to your symptoms. After examining you, a simple test can be done in the office to confirm the diagnosis and help assess the severity of the infection.

Sometimes the urine may even be sent to the lab to confirm the diagnosis and help streamline your antibiotic choice according to the organisms that are present in the urine.

How is a bladder infection treated?

Bladder infections are treated

with oral antibiotics to kill the bacteria.

If you are having a fever or pain, your doctor may also prescribe medications to help with these symptoms.

Drink plenty of fluids to help flush the bacteria out of your bladder.

Whilst water is best, some doctors may suggest cranberry juice to increase the acid levels in your urine, which helps to kill the bacteria. Another benefit Dr. Marsha Barnett of cranberry juice is that it prevents some bacteria from sticking to the recurrent UTIs, the following lifestyle bladder walls and so you may find changes may help: that drinking it at the first sign of an •Stay hydrated throughout the day. For infection may prevent it from becoming most persons, this entails drinking 6-8 severe. Alcohol and coffee can irritate glasses of water a day, but consult with the bladder and cause more pain and your doctor about the correct amount cramping so limit your intake whilst of fluid to drink if you have a medical being treated. condition such as kidney issues and

In persons who get recurrent remember to account for increased bladder infections, your doctor may give fluid losses on days you are outdoors or you a prescription for daily antibiotics exercising vigorously. to prevent infections or to take when •Urinate as soon as you feel the you feel the symptoms of a bladder need infection. This is especially true in •Wipe from front to back after persons who have an abnormality in urinating if you are female the urinary tract. They may also have •Limit your use of douches, you take a single dose of an antibiotic feminine hygiene sprays, or to be taken after sexual activity. powders •Wear cotton underwear and Preventing Bladder Infections loose-fitting clothes •Urinate before and after sexual

Certain lifestyle changes activity may reduce your chances of getting a bladder infection. The goal is to reduce *Dr. Marsha Barnett is a general the likelihood of bacteria entering practitioner who also specializes in the urethra and diminishing the time dermatology. bacteria has in the bladder to attach to For questions or comments, please the walls and multiply if it does sneak contact at drmarshabarnett@gmail. its way into the bladder. If you get com

PROVO WATER COMPANY LTD. Provo Water Company Ltd is seeking a suitable applicant to fill the following position:

POSITION: DOCUMENTATION ENGINEER MINIMUM QUALIFICATION: •Must be a graduate of Bachelor’s degree in Engineering or Business Management.

•With at least 5 year minimum experience in distribution systems management under a water utility company setting.

•Must be familiar with the distribution system or water pipeline network including all the description of its appurtenances, line assets and installed devices.

•Must be proficient in technical report writing and knows how to prepare project studies.

•Must have a background on legal documentations and contract preparation.

•Must be analytical and apt in mathematical calculations.

•Must be proficient in both written and oral communication.

•Must be computer literate and familiar with computer maintenance management software (CMMS).

•Must be willing to do fieldwork and at night time or during wee hours in the morning •Must be willing to work under pressure and perform multitasking.

JOB DESCRIPTION 1.Writes all documentations for any given PWC project and manages all paperwork required under the engineering department.

2.Reviews all details of the design and processes in the distribution system to determine the type of documentation that may be required in every phases of the project.

3.Prepares feasibility study for any proposed undertaking which includes research, analysis, data consolidation, drafting and finalization of report for the PWC’s board approval.

4.Prepares contracts on any upcoming project and drafts memorandum of agreement /understanding/undertaking for

customers with specialized work requirement beyond the standard offering of PWC. 5.Prepares work orders for the distribution department and issues payment certificate on contractors & sub-contractors on every finished project after careful assessment of its completion.

6.Coordinates with other departments all paperwork and other materials related to project documentation. These documents include engineering drawings, technical specifications, modifications and project scheduling.

7.Keeps and maintains accurate records of all projects and implements a system to keep the information available and upto-date for both internal users and external customers.

8.Prepares an elaborate technical report as requested by customers on cases requiring enlightenment particularly on leaks, increase in billing, costing, technical investigation and any other assessment related to water and piping problems.

9.Designs and develops engineering forms including its flows and processes to ensure proper channeling of task and information among department involved.

10.Maintains a record of all engineering transactions and activities for ease of access and immediate reference.

11.Prepares correspondence and other related documentation as required to secure government permit or special concession on any road work projects.

12.Provides documentation to any private or government agencies as required in the fulfillment of a specified task.

13.Prepares monthly consolidated engineering report on all projects and related activities carried out by the department.

14.Perform other function as required by the head of the Engineering.

Salary Range: US$ 32, 400 – 42, 000 per annum All applications must be submitted by April 29th, 2017. Turks & Caicos Islanders need only apply.

Office Manager PROVO WATER COMPANY LTD. P.O. Box 39, Grace Bay Road Providenciales, Turks & Caicos Islands Fax: (649) 941-8310 Email: K.Clarke@provowater.tc

APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

TURKS & CAICOS SUN

Page 17

LOCAL NEWS

Strong Line-up of Caribbean and international speakers for TCI Business Outlook Conference

Turks and Caicos Islands Premier Hon. Sharlene CartwrightRobinson, Caribbean thought leaders Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace, Sir Ronald Sanders and Oliver Mills, and globally-recognised strategy advisor Bob Treadway will head the line-up of speakers at the inaugural TCI Business Outlook Conference.

The conference is spearheaded

by FortisTCI and will be held on Thursday, April 27, 2017 at The Shore Club, under the theme, ‘Future Ready: Opportunities for Business in a Changing Economy’.

The Hon. Premier will deliver a presentation on ‘The Future of the TCI: Outlook for 2017 and Beyond’ at the start of the conference.

Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace, a much sought after speaker and advisor to both private companies and governments in the tourism and hospitality arena, will speak on the topic, ‘The Future of Tourism in an Age of Changing Technology and Business Models – Airbandb/VRBO’.

Mr. Vanderpool-Wallace, a graduate of Harvard University, is the founder of Bedford Baker Group, a collection of independent professional advisors offering services in travel, tourism and hospitality. He is a former Director-General of Bahamas Tourism, Secretary General and CEO of the Caribbean Tourism Organization and also served as Minister of Tourism for The Bahamas.

Bob Treadway, forecaster,

consulting futurist, and strategy advisor, will address the conference on, ‘20/20 Foresight: How to Look into the Future of TCI Business Over the Horizon’. Mr. Treadway advises clients and organisations (including many Fortune 500 companies) on how to expand thinking, envision operational environments of tomorrow, form strategy, and take action. His perspective comes through work with hundreds of clients in information technology, agriculture, financial services, government, telecommunications, energy, distribution, manufacturing, healthcare, and education in the Americas and Europe.

Sir Ronald Sanders, a distinguished Caribbean advocate and diplomat, will address the conference on the topic, ‘Globalization and Small Island States: Challenges & Opportunities for the Caribbean’.

Sir Ronald is currently Antigua and Barbuda’s Ambassador to the United States and Permanent Representative to the Organisation of American States (OAS). His diplomatic career spanned two previous periods between 1982 to 1987 and 1996 to 2004. He was twice High Commissioner to the United Kingdom for Antigua and Barbuda and Ambassador to the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

Turks and Caicos educator Oliver Mills will discuss ‘Workforce Competitiveness and Education in the 21st Century’. Mr. Mills has served the Turks and Caicos Islands Public Service

NOTICE

Regulation 7 of the Physical Planning (Development Permission) Regulations, 1990 An Application, REGISTERED PR 13032, by BH DEVELOPMENTS LTD. for PROPOSED 50 RESIDENTIAL UNITS, GAZEBO, POOL, GYM, MAINTENANCE BUILSING, SECURITY BOOTH, 6FT HIGH CHAINLINK FENCE & ANCILLARY FACILITES for parcel 60902/282, Leeward Going Through, Providenciales, has been submitted to the Department of Planning for consideration of Detailed Development Permission and Building Permit.

Anyone wishing to make representation(s) may do so in writing to the Director of Planning, South Base, Grand Turk or through the Department of Planning, Emily House, Leeward Highway, Providenciales, within twenty eight (28) days of publication or service of this Notice.

Notice dated: 07th April, 2017

as Training Manager, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education, and Lecturer at the Turks and Caicos Islands Community College.

He is also a former Lecturer in the Philosophy and Sociology of Education, and Educational Administration at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus.

Dr. Franklin Hoevertsz, Managing Director of Utilities Aruba, will discuss ‘Renewable Energy Integration’, citing Aruba as a case study.

Dr. Hoevertsz previously worked with the Netherlands Foreign Investment Agency, the Aruban Foreign Investment Agency and the Aruban Housing and Mortgage Institution as Managing Director, and as a private consultant for real estate development.

The conference will also highlight TCI’s efforts to attract inward investment, with a presentation by John Rutherford, CEO of Invest Turks and Caicos, the islands’ investment promotion agency.

“We are pleased to attract this distinguished roster of speakers to our first TCI Business Outlook Conference,” stated Eddinton Powell, President and CEO of FortisTCI. “With their proven credentials locally, within the Caribbean and internationally, we expect conference attendees will benefit from their though-provoking presentations, which will be germane to today’s business challenges for economies such as ours,” he added.

FortisTCI is the founding

Premier Sharlene Cartwright-Robinson

Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace

Bob Treadway

Sir Ronald Sanders

Oliver Mills

Dr. Franklin Hoevertsz

John Rutherford

Reverend Bernard Been Conference Facilitato

sponsor of the conference, which is co-sponsored by FLOW, CIBC First Caribbean, PwC, The Hartling Group, The Shore Club, Digicel, ScotiaBank and Tropical Shipping.

Premier Contracting Services is seeking suitably qualified applicants to fill the following positions: Electric Lift Truck Maintenance Engineer As the Lift truck Maintenance Engineer you will be responsible to provide proactive support to all battery/hydraulic operated lift trucks and cleaning machines. You will be required to ensure all systems are functioning and repair as necessary. Complete planned and reactive maintenance to ensure safety and reliability of equipment 24/7. Provide detailed reports for all works completed and ongoing to operations manager. Excellent communication skills are a requirement. Those with vocational college electrician’s diploma will only be considered.

Experience in the following areas is required for this position; •Diagnose malfunctioning systems, apparatus, and components of all battery operated equipment, using test equipment and hand tools, to locate the cause of a breakdown and correct the problem.

• Inspect all electrical systems and hydraulic and mechanical components to identify hazards, defects, and the need for adjustment or repair.

•Advise management on whether continued operation of equipment could be hazardous.

•Test electrical systems and continuity of circuits in electrical wiring, equipment, and fixtures, using testing devices to ensure compatibility, reliability, efficiency and safety of system.

•Working knowledge of complex battery powered electrical systems and electronic controls with ability to diagnose and resolve issues.

•Repair and maintain multiple hydraulic and mechanical components.

•Experience with welding and fabrication a must •Working knowledge of electronic lpg kitchen equipment.

•Ensure inventory of parts is kept up to date.

Salary $18,000 US to $23,000 US per annum dependant on experience. Staff accommodation option is available. If staff accommodation is not accepted no compensation will be provided.

A bonus of up to 10% is achievable dependant on manager’s review Deadline for Submission of application April 14th, 2017 Please submit applications with references and relative experience to: Ms. Edith Cox Suite 200 ‘’Graceway IGA Main Office Complex Leeward Highway or by emailing to maintenancedept@khcapital. com

Please Note: Only short- listed applicants will be contacted to attend interviews

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APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

LOCAL NEWS

Minister of Tourism attends launch of Darwin Initiative ‘Saving the Iguana Islands’

On 7th April 2017, the Minister of Tourism, Hon. Ralph Higgs joined the National Trust as they prepared for the launch of the Darwin plus Initiative entitled ‘Saving the Iguana Islands’.

tThe National Trust in partnership with other stakeholders including the Department of Environment and Coastal Resources, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds(RSPB), San Diego Global Zoo and Department of Agriculture amongst others, have, over the years diligently work to conserve the endemic Rock Iguana, and other native reptile species to secure a future for these unique and highly threatened species – which are iconic for the Turks and Caicos Islands and serves as a major attraction for both locals and visitors alike.

The project has received support

from the Darwin plus Initiative in the form of £200k with £170k matched funding by RSPB and San Diego Zoo Global for a three year period. The organizations will collectively work to improve and control alien invasive species on Little Water Cay (‘Iguana Island’), particularly rodents and feral cats which are a threat to the iguana populations. Biosecurity for Little Water Cay and Big Ambergris Cay will also be designed to ensure that these invasive species and other potential harmful species do not become established and threatened the iguanas and other native reptiles.

Minister Higgs in his remarks stated; “My love, respect and admiration for the work and successes of the National Trust is well known and documented, the

officials who attended the Darwin Initiative Darwin Initiative has the experience to make the Rock iguana project in TCI a resounding success.”

The Darwin Initiative funds projects that help countries rich in biodiversity to meet their objectives.

Projects typically address threats to biodiversity such as: over-exploitation, invasive species, habitat degradation

and loss, climate change mitigation and adaptation and pollution.

The Minister confirmed the Ministry’s and Government’s continued support to projects such as these and also indicated his desire to see the Trust and Darwin Initiative partner on future projects.

Hurricane Aircraft Reconnaissance Tour (CHAT) Providenciales

Aircraft reconnaissance plays an extremely important role in monitoring the track and intensity of tropical cyclones. Every hurricane season, the US Air Force and NOAA Reconnaissance Hurricane aircraft provides valuable meteorological data not available from any other source.

The USAF 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, known as the Hurricane Hunters of the Air Force Reserve, has been flying into tropical storms and hurricanes since 1944. It is the only operational unit in the world flying weather reconnaissance on a routine basis. The Hurricane Hunters provide surveillance of tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico and the eastern Pacific Ocean.

On 27th April, 2017, NOAA’s National Weather Service, in partnership, with the United

States Air Force, Hurricane Hunters, will be visiting the Turks and Caicos Islands as part of the 2017 Caribbean Awareness Tour (CHAT).The delegation will be led by Dr. Richard Knabb, Director of NOAA’s, National Hurricane Center.

CHAT is an annual tour which aims to raise hurricane awareness across Latin America and the Caribbean, and to maintain and expand partnerships among the NHC, U.S. Northern Command, Air Force and neighbors in the region. The tour by the aircraft to the islands and countries in the region is an excellent opportunity for the relevant authorities involved in storm/warning/disaster management and the publicat-large to see the aircraft, meet and speak to the US Air Force crew and the civilian hurricane specialists involved. This will be the first time the aircraft will be visiting the TCI.

Professional Maintenance Company seeking the following skilled technician Maintenance technician Maintain the day-to-day operations and to assume responsibility for maintaining the physical assets of the properties under the direction of Premier Contracting Services Ltd. Duties, Experience and Skill set required •Five (5) years experience in industrial refrigeration for commercial cold storage as well as commercial air conditioning systems. Must hold technical certificates for both.

•Ability to supervise and coordinate several maintenance technicians while completing numerous simultaneous jobs •Fluent in Microsoft excel, word and office •Technical knowledge in plumbing, electrical and mechanical works, certificates required.

•Installation of new equipment including refrigeration compressors, evaporators and condensers, ability to repair all large commercial cold storage •Supervision and development of daily routines of refrigeration maintenance staff.

•Development and production of maintenance budgets, including parts and equipment orders.

•Development and implementation of preventative maintenance schedules •Ability to complete tasks swiftly, good problem solving skills is a must.

•Experience in the commercial cold storage / maintenance industry preferred.

•Installing and repairing components such as Copeland discuss compressors, motors, condenser units, evaporators, switches and copper lines for 404A gas, refrigerant oil •Daily monitoring, checking and overhauling commercial cold storage refrigeration systems, diagnosing faults and repairing/replacing defective components •Experience with Danfoss refrigeration computerized controls •Required to be on call 24 hours, must be able to work nights, weekends and holidays.

Deadline for Submission of application April 14th, 2017 Please submit applications with references and relative experience to: Ms. Edith Cox Suite 200 ‘’Graceway IGA Main Office Complex Leeward Highway or by emailing to maintenancedept@khcapital.com Please Note: Only short- listed applicants will be contacted to attend interviews

During the visit, a brief Media event has been schedule by the Department of Disaster Management and Emergencies. Following, Government officials and students from the Public and Private schools on Providenciales, will be given a tour of the Aircraft Reconnaissance. The tour will allow persons to see firsthand the extremely important role in monitoring the track and intensity of tropical storms and hurricanes.

Public hurricane awareness in the region is essential for adequate hurricane preparedness and response. Ushering the commencement of DDME’s Hurricane Preparedness Month starting 1st May, 2017, CHAT will play an instrumental role in peaking public’s interest and increasing awareness in the Turks and Caicos as it relates to the hurricane threat. It also serves to strengthen national and international partnerships for storm warning and emergency response.

NOTICE

Regula.on 7 of the Physical Planning (Development Permission) Regula.ons, 1990 An Applica)on, REGISTERED PR. 13036 by Windward Development Ltd. for the development of a Residen.al, Tourism and Marina Community, has been submi8ed to the Department of Planning for considera)on of Development Permission on Ship Yard, Long Bay Hills on Providenciales. The applica.on as submiSed seeks planning considera.on for a Residen.al, Tourism and Marina Community inclusive of ameni.es including Clubhouse Building, Tennis Courts, Marina, Docks, Piers, Restaurant, Bar, Spa, Gym & overwater Structures.

Anyone wishing to make representa)on(s) may do so in wri)ng to the Director of Planning, South Base, Grand Turk or through the Department of Planning, Downtown, Town Center Mall, Providenciales, within twenty eight (28) days of publica)on of this No)ce.

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The Rt. Rev’d. Laish Zane Boyd, Sr. ADDINGTON HOUSE P.O. Box N-7107 Sands Road Nassau, N.P, Bahamas Telephone: (242) 322·3015, 6 or 7 Fax: (242) 322-4670 (Private) (242) 322-7943 (General) www.bahamas.anglican.org Email: bishopboyd@bahamasanglican.org

THE BISHOP OF THE BAHAMAS AND THE TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS EASTER MESSAGE

BY THE RT. REV’D. LAISH BOYD, BISHOP OF THE ANGLICAN DIOCESE OF THE BAHAMAS AND THE TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS 2017 I will sing of your steadfast love, O Lord, forever; … For your steadfast love was established forever. Psalm 89:1a and 2a.

As we celebrate another Easter, we note that, at its core, Easter is about a deep love that God the Father has for human beings. God gave His Son to live, to preach, to teach, to die, to rise again and to ascend to His Father to bring us all into a new relationship with the Heavenly Father.

St. John writes (3:16) that “God so LOVED the world that He gave His only Son.” It is an enduring love that has implications far beyond the date of the event.

Jesus’ dying conquered sin and death and their power over us, allowing us to have forgiveness, newness of life and a constant chance to start over whenever we stumble.

Paul writes that “God showed His great love for us in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

The Resurrection is the high point of a relationship and an intention that God had for his children. God gave His only Son for us even though we did not ASK FOR IT or DESERVE IT or REALIZE that we needed it.

This is the true nature of love, and it is symbolic of human life itself. Let us examine the three parts of God’s loving intention: 1.What we did not ask for Many of us have benefitted from things that we did not actually ask for: the kindness of a total stranger, the help of a co-worker or relative who anticipates our circumstances and does something to help us before we can ask him/her to. Have we ever heard the famous words, “Don’t worry. I already have that covered!”

2.What we did not deserve A man I once met told me his story. In his younger days, he had no time for his family and was always gone, busy doing this or that, involved in all sorts of things. He had been involved in alcohol and drug abuse, and in infidelity to the point of neglect and even abuse of his family.

His wife had to struggle and carry the full load of maintaining and sustaining the family. His children resented this deeply and were bitter, and even hostile toward him. Now, in the middle of his life, he is mature and wiser, a changed man who has reordered his priorities dramatically.

His children, now adults with their own children, are COMPLETELY devoted to him. You could not tell that there were twenty years of “Hell” in their family life.

All of us benefit from the fact that many people in our lives did things for us, the usefulness or value of which - the simple necessity for which - we had NO CONCEPTION of at the time. Only now that we are older, or that some time has passed, do we appreciate it, and thank those people again and again and again and again. I know that I had often told my mother, my teachers and mentors that I cannot thank them enough for this or that.

At the time of Jesus’ life the human race could never imagine what it is that He came to bring. Now we know, and we thank the Heavenly Father for this great Feast of the Resurrection which we celebrate.

Dr. James Allan Frances wrote the original version of a poem in 1926 that tells a powerful story of the surpassing value and world-changing nature of Jesus’ life. Here is the poem: ONE SOLITARY LIFE

A child is born in an obscure village. [His parents are peasant people.]

He is brought up in another obscure village. He works in a carpenter shop until he is thirty, and then for three brief years is an itinerant preacher, proclaiming a message and living a life. He never writes a book. He never holds an office. He never raises an army. He never has a Every one of us has received something that we felt that we did not family of his own. He never owns a home. He never goes to college. He deserve. never travels two hundred miles from the place where he was born. He gathers a little group of friends about him and teaches them his way of 3.What we did not realize that we needed life. While still a young man, the tide of popular feeling turns against him. One denies him; another betrays him. He is turned over to his In a home a child is subjected to certain rules and procedures. When a enemies. He goes through the mockery of a trial; he is nailed to a cross student goes to university to prepare for a career or when an employee between two thieves, and when dead is laid in a borrowed grave by the begins a new job “at the bottom of the ladder”, he/she has to be given the kindness of a friend. basic training, has to be taken through the ropes – and I mean this in Those are the facts of his human life. He rises from the dead. Today we its most positive and constructive sense. Sometimes that child, student look back across nineteen hundred years and ask, What kind of trail has or employee has to do things that he/she does not understand, that he/ he left across the centuries? When we try to sum up his influence, all she does not want to do, that he/she considers to be a waste of time the armies that ever marched, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the or that seems to have no connection to the goal. However, the parent, kings that ever reigned are absolutely [insignificant] in their influence the teacher, the trained professional and the supervisor know why the on mankind compared with that of this one solitary life… subordinate has to learn certain things and why things ought to be done a certain way. Often the subordinate does not know what he/she May God’s love for us inspire you this year and always. needs to learn or that he/she needs to do things a certain way to ensure wellbeing and full potential in the future.

My family joins me in wishing you and yours a happy and meaningful Easter season.

This fellow is “eternally” grateful. He told me that he DOES NOT deserve their devotion, their love and forgiveness. Yes, indeed, he is still struggling to forgive himself for those years of neglect.

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OASIS DIVERS is seeking applications from suitably

qualified candidates for the following positions. The successful applicants must: CERTIFIED DIVERS / LIFEGUARDS

-Hold a valid diving certification of Open Water Diver or higher -Be at least 25 years old -Have a clean criminal record -Have a valid passport -Hold a valid certification in CPR and First Aid -Have at least 3 years’ experience in the tourism and hospitality industry. Other experience in the tourism industry would be an asset -Must be willing and able to work flexible hours, including on weekends and Public Holidays, as necessary to meet the challenging needs of the cruise ship schedule and/or reasonable needs of the business TOUR DISPATCHER -Have at least 3 years’ experience dispatching tours -Possess the ability to remain calm in a high stress environment -Be well spoken with English as primary language -Must be willing and able to work flexible hours, including on weekends and Public Holidays, as necessary to meet the challenging needs of the cruise ship schedule and/or reasonable needs of the business -Have a valid passport -Be at least 25 years old -Have a clean criminal record TOUR GUIDES -Be at least 25 years old -Have a clean criminal record -Have a valid passport -Hold a valid certification in CPR and First Aid -Have at least 3 years’ experience in the tourism and hospitality industry. Other experience in the tourism industry would be an asset -Must be willing and able to work flexible hours, including on weekends and Public Holidays, as necessary to meet the challenging needs of the cruise ship schedule and/or reasonable needs of the business SALES ASSISTANT / LABOURER -Minimum of 3 years general sales and merchandising experience (Sales Assistant) -Proven and unblemished track record of employment -Positive and disciplined attitude toward work in a customer service oriented business (Sales Clerk) -Excellent communication, inter-personal and customer service skills -Trustworthy and reliable disposition -Must be willing and able to work flexible hours, including on weekends and Public Holidays, as necessary to meet the challenging needs of the cruise ship schedule and/or reasonable needs of the business BOAT PAINTER -Have a proven and unblemished track record of employment -Have a valid passport -Have at least 5 years’ experience in boat repair, including working with fiberglass and other dangerous chemicals -Positive and disciplined attitude toward work -Trustworthy and reliable disposition -Must be willing and able to work flexible hours, including on weekends and Public Holidays, as necessary to meet the challenging needs of the cruise ship schedule and/or reasonable needs of the business WATERSPORTS OPERATIONS COORDINATOR -Have a proven and unblemished track record of employment - High school diploma/ Bachelors -Dive Instructor or higher professional dive rating from an internationally recognized organization -Five years’ experience in a related position -C.P.R. and First Aid - Extensive knowledge of all standards and procedures with regards to international dive regulations -Ability to repair scuba equipment.

-Basic knowledge of boat engine maintenance/repair -Basic knowledge of compressor maintenance and repair -Detailed knowledge of dive shop and watersports operation, organization and recording/ logging protocol.

Must be willing and able to work flexible hours, including on weekends and Public Holidays, as necessary to meet the challenging needs of the cruise ship schedule and/or reasonable needs of the business ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OFFICER -Master’s/ Degree in Environmental Studies or Biology -Two years’ International experience in a similar position -Teaching / trainer experience -Open water PADI certification or higher -Basic accounting background -Computer literate -Excellent written and verbal communication skills -Second language is an asset -Excellent organizational skills -Possess a valid driver’s license Preference will be given to documented Turks and Caicos Islanders Written applications only and accompanying CVs/resumes must be addressed to the Manager at the following address: Cee’s Plaza, Suite No. 1 Church Folly PO Box 86 Grand Turk Turks & Caicos Islands

OASIS DIVING, LTD. c/o EPIC Corporate & Consultancy Services Ltd. Phone: 649-946-1128 Fax: 649-946-1128 Email: oasisdiv@tciway.tc

APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

Margaritaville Grand Turk seeks to identify a Bar Supervisor SUMMARY: To help oversee the running of the bar with responsibilities for staffing, employee schedule, event planning, functions and to direct, organize and control staff whilst ensuring customer satisfaction.

EDUCATION and/or EXPERIENCE: Knowledge of Food and Beverage service in Hospitality Areas with at least 5 years experience REQUIREMENTS: -Monitoring profitability and performance to ensure sales target are met.

-Responsible for maintaining the company standard for beverage and bar service and standardization of drink recipes.

-Ensure that the bar operations are complying with all legal requirements including health, safety and food hygiene regulation -Ensure that the bar staff are following the company guidelines as it relates to uniforms, punctuality, attendance, attitude and hygiene.

-Able to use Word & Excel, operate at a supervisory level, apply judgement to carry out written or oral instructions -Able to communicate with persons on all levels -Able to work flexible hours including, weekends, night shift and public holidays APPLICATION PROCESS: Application along with resume must be submitted by 28th April, 2017 to the office of : Margaritaville Grand Turk Grand Turk Cruise Center South Base, White Sands Beach Grand Turk, T.C.I. B.W.I Whilst we welcome and appreciate all applicants, only persons short-listed for an interview will be contacted. Belongers will be given preference.

NAVA JEWELERS LTD, dba JEWELRY, world renowned jewelers and retail sellers of signature brand jewelry and jewelry related products, with a chain of affiliated jewelry stores and outlets throughout North America, the Caribbean and Worldwide, is now accepting applications/resumes from suitably qualifies persons as:

ASSISTANT MANAGER, JEWELRY SALES SPECIALISTS, SUPERVISORS AND MERCHANDISERS, JEWELERS, PRECIOUS STONES BRAND QUALITY CONTROL CLERKS, SALES CLERKS, and/or ASSOCIATES At the Company’s prestigious retail Jewelry sales and Jewelry related merchandise sales Store located at the Carnival Corporation’s Grand Turk Cruise Center, South Beach, Grand Turk.

Requirements: •A sound educational background, and a minimum of five (5) years jewelry sales and general merchandising experience, in the case of Assistant Manager, Supervisors, Precious Stones and Brand Quality Control Clerks and two (2) years in the case of Sales Clerks and Associates, together with a proven and unblemished track record of employment in a highly trusted related field of employment and/or business.

•A positive and disciplined attitude and aptitude toward work in a customer service oriented business.

•Excellent communication, inter-personal and customer service skills.

•A trustworthy, dependable and honest disposition.

•Must be willing to work flexible hours including weekends and holidays and irregular cruise ship schedule.

•Clean criminal record.

•Unblemished employment history.

•All candidates must be proficient in the English written and spoken word.

Suitable candidates that do not meet the above requirements who, in the sole discretion of the Company’s management team, demonstrate a clear willingness to embrace the Company’s in-house training initiatives and established standard operating policies and procedures, may be eligible for recruitment in exceptional circumstances. Preference will be given to documented Turks and Caicos Islanders.

Interested persons may submit their applications and resumes, via e-mail to: resume@effyjewelery.com, via fax to: 2127308887, or hand deliver the same to any senior member of the company’s staff at its store, commonly known as Jewelry located at Suite No. 2, Building 1, Grand Turk Cruise Center, South Beach, Grand Turk.

APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

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TCI Turks & Caicos Islands

Meet our Speakers

Our expert speakers bring unique perspectives on the global economy and the challenges and opportunities for businesses in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Gain from their insights. Be inspired to be future ready.

Hon. Premier Sharlene Cartwright-Robinson

Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace Tourism Advisor

Bob Treadway Futurist

Sir Ronald Sanders Antigua’s Ambassador to USA

Oliver Mills Human Resources Consultant

John Rutherford OBE CEO Invest TCI

Franklyn Hoevertsz Utilities Aruba

Rev. Bernard Been Conference Facilitator

Learn more at: www.tcibusinessoutlook.com

Founding Sponsor: Co-sponsored by:

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APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

SNAPCHAT

STORY CHALLENGE

Show us how the the creative industries could be an engine of growth for Turks and Caicos Islands and the Region and win!

1st Prize: USD 1,500 2nd Prize: USD 1,250 3rd Prize: USD 1,000 People’s Choice Award: USD 250 THE CHALLENGE:

Submit a Snapchat story of no more than three minutes on the topic, “Start Up and Stand Up: Creative Enterprises as the Engine of Growth for Turks and Caicos and the Region.”

Submit entries at facebook.com/CDBVYBZING by April 30, 2017 at 11:59 p.m. Atlantic Standard Time.

This Challenge is open to youth of Turks and Caicos Islands, ages 16 to 29.

One entry is allowed per individual or team.

CONTACT: Jasmine Parker Tel: 649-941-7471| Email: jparker@gov.tc or youthdepartment@gov.tc Talia Dara Thomas Tel: 649-338-4804/4805 | Email: tdthomas@gov.tc Visit

CDBVYBZING for rules and regulations VYBZING is the Caribbean Development Bank’s flagship youth outreach programme Promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed, administered by, or associated with, Snap Inc

APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

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TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS COMMUNITY COLLEGE PROGRAMME OFFERING FOR 2017/2018 Applications are invited from suitably qualified candidates for admissions into the following programmes at the TCICC for the semester commencing Tuesday, August 29, 2017.

Faculty of Natural and Applied Sciences (NAS): 1. “A” Levels: o Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Information Technology (Grand Turk Campus) 2. Associate Degree: Two-Year Associate Degree in: o Environmental Science (Grand Turk Campus) o General Studies (Sciences) with concentration in any three of the following: Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Information Technology (Grand Turk Campus) o Marine Biology (Grand Turk Campus) 3. Special Program: o Clinical Nursing (Grand Turk Campus) Faculty of Humanities and Fine Arts (HFA): 1. “A” Levels: o Law, Psychology, Sociology (Grand Turk Campus) 2. Associate Degree: Two-Year Associate Degree in: o Criminal Justice (Grand Turk Campus) o General Studies (Humanities) with concentration in any three of the following: Economics, Govt. and Politics, Law, Sociology (Grand Turk) o Paralegal Studies (Grand Turk Campus) o Performing Arts (Music) (Grand Turk Campus) o Social Work (Grand Turk Campus) 3. Bachelor Degree: Two/Four Year Bachelor’s Degree in: o Social Work (Grand Turk Campus) Faculty of Business Administration (BAD): 1. Certificate: One-Year Certificate Program in: o Business Studies (Both Campuses) 2. “A” Levels: o Accounting, Business, Economics (Both Campuses) 3. Associate Degree: Two-Year Associate Degree in: o Business Studies (Both Campuses) o Public Sector Management (Grand Turk Campus) 4. Bachelor Degree: Two-Year Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration with concentration in: o Accounting o Finance & Management o Human Resource Management o Marketing Faculty of Computer Engineering and Mathematics (CEM): 1. “A” Levels: o Computer Science, Information Technology, Mathematics (Both Campuses) 2. Associate Degree: Two-Year Associate Degree in: o Computer Studies (Both Campuses) o Computer Electronics Engineering Technology (Grand Turk) o Electrical Engineering Technology (Grand Turk Campus) 3. Bachelor Degree: Two-Year Bachelor’s Degree with concentration in: o Information Technology o Management Information Systems Faculty of Education and Training (EDT): 1 Associate Degree: Two-Year Associate Degree in: • Early Childhood Education (Both Campuses) • Primary Education (Both Campuses) • Secondary Education: o English/Social Studies, Math/Computers, Math/Business, Computer/Business, Music English/Math/Social St. (Both Campuses) o Math/Science (Grand Turk Campus) 2 Bachelor Degree: Two-Year Bachelor’s in: o Early Childhood Education (Both Campuses) o Primary Education (Both Campuses) Faculty of Technology Education (TED): 1. Certificate: One-Year Certificate Program in: o Construction, Carpentry and Joinery (Both Campuses) 2. Associate Degree: Two-Year Associate Degree in: o Automotive Engineering Technology (Grand Turk Campus) o Architectural Design and Building Technology (Both Campuses) 3. Special Program: o Industrial Engineering Technology (Both Campuses) Faculty of Hospitality and Tourism Management (HTM): 1. Certificate: One-Year Certificate Program in: o Hospitality Studies (Both Campuses) 2. Associate Degree: Two-Year Associate Degree in: o Culinary Arts (Provo Campus) o Tourism Management (Both Campuses) 3. Bachelor Degree: Two-Year Bachelor’s Degree with concentration in: o Hospitality Management o Tourism Management and Entertainment In Collaboration with the University of the West Indies, School of Continuing Studies Two-Year Certificate (Both Campuses): Administrative Corporate Secretaryship Administrative Professional Secretaries Human Resource Management School Administration Short Technical/Vocational Programmes/Courses for skill development Duration: 6 Weeks Accounting Information System, Business Communication (Theory & Practice) Cake Decorating Conversational Spanish Customer Service, Dining Room Management English as a Second Language Introduction to Building Services, Introduction to Estimation and Costing Mixology PRC Courses (TCI Studies and English) Restaurant Operation

Team Building Duration: 60 contact hours AutoCAD, Automotive Maintenance, Surveying Students may also access one semester courses of their choice from any Associate Degree programme and obtain credits.

Applicants for the Associate Degree must satisfy the following minimum requirements: Five GCE or CXC subjects including English A and Mathematics at the General Proficiency Level with Grads I, II, and III or GCE Grades A, B, C. Students without CXC/GCE Mathematics and English must complete the College Foundation Math: MTH1110 and MTH1120, and ENG1111 and ENG1122 (at additional cost) For the Certificate Programmes, the minimum of three GCE or CXC subjects, one of which must be English at General Proficiency level 1, 11, & 111 or GCE Grades A, B, C. Students applying through the Mature Student Entry policy should be twenty one (21) years or older with relevant experience in specific areas of interest. Note that students may be required to complete a Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition (PLAR) portfolio.

For the Bachelors Degree, the minimum of an Associate Degree from the TCI Community College or another recognized institution.

The deadline for applications is May 31st 2017. Any application received after this date would be deemed as LATE. Applications should be fully completed and then submitted to the Registrar, TCI Community College, P O Box 236, Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos Islands or to TCI Community College, Providenciales Campus for the attention of the Registrar. An application fee of $25.00 should accompany the application form. Late application fee is $50.00 For further information contact: Grand Turk Providenciales Telephone: (649) 946-1163 Telephone: (649) 941-3210 Fax: (649) 946-1661 Fax: (649) 941-8380 Email: tcicomc@tciway.tc Email: pvtci@tciway.tc

TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS COMMUNITY COLLEGE PROGRAMS AND FEE STRUCTURE COST OF PROGRAMMES/COURSES OFFERED BY THE TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS COMMUNITY COLLEGE – 29th August 2017 A. SHORT COURSES Courses are for fifteen days for two hours per day (except for AutoCAD, Automotive Maintenance & Surveying). Credits earned could be transferred into the College programmes.

Students may audit the courses and not participate in the examination. Students should indicate at the commencement of the course whether or not the course is being audited. No credit will be given for those courses which are audited.

B. ONE SEMESTER COURSES Courses run from September – December, January – May; concentrated summer semester May – early July.

C. FULL TIME PROGRAMMES Two years, two semesters per year for the majority of the programmes. Some programmes are for five semesters with compulsory summer courses during the first year. Additionally students may access summer courses from May – early July.

TUITION FEES ARE AS FOLLOWS A. Short Courses Courses which require the use of laboratory facilities $400 per course Courses which do not require the use of laboratory facilities $300 per course Cake Decorating $500, Mixology $450 (these include cake tools, alcohol, etc. needed) B.

One Semester courses CXC and Upgrade Computer modules Associate Degree/GCE “A” level

$150 per course $250 per course $360 per course

C.

Full Programmes (two Semesters) Sept – Dec; Jan- May; Annual Fees TCI Nationals/ Certificate

$1,000 Resident Associate Degree/A-Level $2,000

Bachelor’s Degree $4,000 Non- Nationals Certificate $1,500

Associate Degree $2,500

Bachelor’s Degree $5,000 Overseas Students Certificate $3,000

Associate Degree $5,000

Bachelor’s Degree $8,000 Student category Courses

Semester Fees

$500 $1,000 $2,000 $750 $1,250 $2,500 $1,500 $2,500 $4,000

D. OTHER PROGRAMMES UWI Advanced Certificates $2,000 $1,000 OTHER FEES Application Fees $25.00 Late application $50.00 Registration Fees $25.00 Late registration $50.00 Transcripts $30.00 for initial transcript and 50% discount for others when applying for multiple transcripts.

Facility fee $40 (ALL STUDENTS PAY THIS ANNUAL FEE) Transportation Fee $50.00 per month (Grand Turk) Graduation Processing Fee $50.00 (prospective graduates ONLY) NB:

ALL FEES ARE PAYABLE AT THE TIME OF REGISTRATION. Fees are subject to change.

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APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

ENTERTAINMENT

Barry Manilow feared disappointing fans by coming out as gay

Barry Manilow has spoken publicly for the first time about being gay, saying he feared he would disappoint his mostly female fan base had he come out decades ago.

The “Can’t Smile Without You” singer, now 73, talked with People magazine and Entertainment Tonight about his previously secret, almost 40-year romance with husband Garry Kief.

“I thought I would be disappointing them (fans) if they knew I was gay. So I never did anything,” Manilow told People in an interview released on Wednesday.

New York-born Manilow and his manager Kief had been together for years before marrying quietly in Palm Springs, California, in 2014. A year later his close friend, actress Suzanne Somers, revealed the marriage on a TV talk show, but Manilow never confirmed or commented on it.

“When they found out that Garry and I were together, they (the fans) were so happy. The reaction was beautiful - strangers commenting ‘Great for you!’ I’m just so grateful for it,” the singer told People.

Manilow said he met Kief in 1978, just a few years after he skyrocketed to fame with romantic ballads like “Mandy” and “Looks Like We Made It”.

Manilow told TV show “Entertainment Tonight” he had never planned to make his relationship with Kief public.

“We’ve been together all these years. Everybody knows that we’re a team. Everybody that I know knows. So it never really

Barry Manilow dawned on me to say anything about it. I mean, I’m a very private guy,” he said.

However, after Somers spoke of their marriage two years ago, Manilow said he has “not read one negative response.”

Manilow gave the interviews while promoting his upcoming album “This Is My Town: Songs of New York” and a limited series of U.S. concerts.

Born Barry Alan Pincus in 1943 and raised by his single mother Edna Manilow, in Brooklyn, Manilow knew early on his first love was music. His second love was his high school sweetheart Susan Deixler. “I was in love with Susan,” says Manilow of the woman he married after graduating high school, “I just was not ready for marriage.” The star maintains he wasn’t struggling with his sexuality at the time of their one-year matrimony. “I was out making music every night, sowing my wild oats — I was too

young. I wasn’t ready to settle down.”

Indeed, Manilow’s personal life took a backseat as he pursued a career in music, writing jingles to pay the bills (State Farm, Band-Aid and others still use them today) and in 1971, taking a gig arranging music for and accompanying a young Bette Midler at the gay hotspot the Continental Baths.

He produced the diva’s first two albums and when her career took off, his followed suit.

After skyrocketing to fame in 1974 with his pop-rock ballad “Mandy,” the Brooklyn native’s star only got brighter with the release of classics like “Looks Like We Made It,” “Copacabana (At the Copa)” and “Can’t Smile Without You.” Then in 1978, he met Kief — a TV executive and Houston native — and “I knew that this was it,” says Manilow. “I was one of the lucky ones. I was pretty lonely before that.”

Soon after, Kief became Manilow’s manager, a role he still holds today, in addition to being President of Barry Manilow Productions.

“He’s the smartest person I’ve ever met in my life — and a great guy, too,” Manilow says.

Adds longtime friend Suzanne Somers: “There’s Barry Manilow the performer, and then there’s the Barry ‘machine.’

It takes enormous savvy and know-how to book and market complicated arena tours, choreograph promotion, direct the entire team and make it look effortless, and that part is Garry’s domain. A major career takes two.

Between them, there is enormous comfort and trust.”

Janet Jackson splits with husband three months after birth of son

Janet Jackson

Pop star Janet Jackson has split up with her Qatari businessman husband just three months after giving birth to her first child, according to media reports.

People magazine, Us Weekly and Entertainment Tonight all said sources had confirmed that Jackson, 50, and Wissam Al Mana had broken up after five years of marriage.

Representatives for the singer declined to confirm the split, which follows the birth in January of Jackson’s first child, a boy the couple named Eissa.

Britain’s Mail on Sunday publication, which was among the first to report the separation, quoted a source close to the singer as saying it was amicable. It was not known when the couple separated.

“They’re both busy people but determined to be good parents, even if they’re apart. It’s amicable and Eissa will stay with his mother, who is basing herself in London,” the source told the Mail on Sunday.

Jackson and Al Mana, 43, married in 2012, and a year ago the singer postponed her “Unbreakable” world tour so they could focus on starting a family.

Jackson, the fiercely private youngest child of the famed Jackson singing family, had two previous marriages: a year-long union with soul singer James DeBarge in the mid 1980s, and to dancer Rene Elizondo Jr from 1991-2000.

Caitlyn Jenner announces genital surgery

Caitlyn Jenner says she has undergone genital surgery, two years after the Olympic-winning decathlete announced she had transitioned to a woman.

Jenner, 67, one of the mosthigh profile American transgender woman, says in an upcoming memoir that she had the surgery in January, and that she decided to go public “so all of you can stop staring.”

“You want to know, so now you know. Which is why this is the first time, and the last time, I will ever speak of it,” Jenner wrote in leaked excerpts of her memoir “The Secrets of My Life.”

The excerpts were published

by RadarOnline on Monday ahead of the April 25 publication of the memoir.

Grand Central Publishing said on Tuesday it did not wish to discuss the contents ahead of the publication date and Jenner’s representative had no comment.

Jenner announced her new identity in an April 2015 TV interview and announced her change of name from Bruce to Caitlyn in a July 2015 Vanity Fair cover shoot. Jenner, the step-father of reality stars Kim, Kourtney and Khloe Kardashian, later had her own TV reality show which documented her transition.

According to the excerpts, Jenner said the surgery, which is

but liberated.”

She said having a penis had “no special gifts or use for me... I just want to have all the right parts. I am also tired of tucking the damn thing in all the time.”

Many transgender people share Jenner’s distress over being asked intrusive questions about their genitals, although most forgo gender reassignment surgery, citing the high cost.

Only 11 percent of transgender women had their testicles removed and 12 percent Caitlyn Jenner underwent vaginoplasty, according costly and complex, was successful to a 2016 U.S. survey by the National and that she feels “not only wonderful Center for Transgender Equality.

APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

TURKS & CAICOS SUN

Page 29

HEALTHY

LIFESTYLE

Activity trackers not always great for monitoring exercise heart rate

Some people who rely on decisions, the authors note in Annals fitness trackers to see how hard they of Internal Medicine. work out may want to rethink this “At any moment, the tracker approach, according to a small study could be off by a fair bit, but at most that suggests the increasingly popular moments, it won’t be,” said lead study devices may get more accurate heart author Lisa Cadmus-Bertram of the rate readings when users are at rest University of Wisconsin in Madison. than during exercise.

“This is why our paper doesn’t suggest

The study tested four popular that the commercial trackers we wristbands, each of which has a light- tested would be sufficient for medical emitting diode (LED) that measures applications where high precision is heart rate from tiny changes in skin needed during exercise,” Cadmusblood volumes by using light reflected Bertram said by email. “Yet for the from the skin. typical recreational user, they may

Participants in the study - 40 still provide feedback that’s useful and healthy adults - wore two trackers on motivational.” each wrist and compared resting and To assess the accuracy of the exercise heart rate readings on the trackers, researchers examined heart devices to the gold standard used by rate data for participants who were doctors: an electrocardiogram (ECG or 49 years old on average and slightly EKG) test. overweight.

At rest, the Fitbit Surge got First, they looked at the heart rate measurements that most amount of agreement between the closely matched the ECG results, readings from the trackers and the and the Basis Peak was furthest ECG tests. off. In tests that also included the When participants were Fitbit Charge and Mio Fuse, none of seated, researchers took readings for the trackers got exercise heart rate the trackers and the ECG tests at onereadings that came close to the ECG. minute intervals for 10 minutes.

These results suggest that The narrowest range of while the trackers may help monitor differences between the trackers daily activity, it’s not clear the heart and the ECG, indicating the most rate readouts would be accurate accuracy, was for the Fitbit Surge. enough to help patients with certain The range for this tracker ranged health problems make medical from an underestimation of 5.1 beats

per minute to an overestimation of 4.5 by email. beats per minute.

In particular, patients with

The widest range of difference the most common heart rhythm at rest was for the Basis Peak, which disorder, atrial fibrillation, shouldn’t ranged from an underestimation of 17.1 rely on the trackers to detect abnormal beats per minute to an overestimation rhythms, said Dr. Sumeet Chugh, a of 22.6 beats per minute. researcher at Cedars-Sinai Heart

When participants exercised Institute in Los Angeles who wasn’t on a treadmill, the ranges were even involved in the study. wider. The Mio Fuse ranged from “There is a lot at stake here,” an underestimation of 22.5 beats Chugh said by email. “When it comes per minute to an overestimation of to the use of wrist-worn trackers, 26 beats per minute, for example, we need to be confident of accuracy while the Fitbit Charge range from comparable to treadmill testing if we an underestimation of 41 beats per are going to use the information for minute to an overestimation of 36 patient care.” beats per minute.

A spokesperson for Fitbit told

The study is small, and Reuters Health that Fitbit trackers researchers found only limited “are not intended to be medical devices” repeatability with results for the same but instead “to give a more informed participant under the same conditions. picture” of overall health. “Extensive

Still, the findings are an internal studies . . . show that Fitbit’s important first step in understanding PurePulse technology performs to the clinical validity of wrist trackers industry standard expectations for many patients already use, said Dr. optical heart rate on the wrist,” the Daniel Cantillon, a researcher at the spokesperson said.

Cleveland Clinic in Ohio who wasn’t Mark Gorelick, Chief Science involved in the study.

Officer at Mio Global, said in a statement

“We need data testing these that the company’s technology “helps devices among patients with specific consumers understand the intensity disease states, such as heart failure, of their exercise, based on their atrial fibrillation and other chronic personal profile and heart rate data, medical problems, where it is possible and empowers them to proactively that additional variation will occur manage their health and reduce risk with physical activity,” Cantillon said of lifestyle-related diseases.”

Risk factors for heart disease and stroke also tied to Alzheimer’s

Middle-aged people with risk factors for heart attacks and stroke are also more likely to develop changes in the brain that can lead to Alzheimer’s disease, a new study suggests.

Previous research has linked so-called vascular risk factors, including obesity, diabetes, smoking, high cholesterol and elevated blood pressure, to higher odds of dementia, cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease.

But it’s been unclear whether these factors contribute indirectly by restricting blood flow in the brain, or if they directly cause a buildup of amyloid protein fragments that are linked to Alzheimer’s.

“In our study, we found an association between the number of risk factors that people without dementia had when they were middle-aged and the risk of having amyloid in their brain when they were older,” said lead study author Dr. Rebecca Gottesman of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.

“Each alone may not be enough to increase the risk of Alzheimer’s disease, but having a number of these risk factors appears to be associated with an even higher risk,” Gottesman said by email. “Although this doesn’t prove causation, it suggests that vascular risk factors might directly impact Alzheimer’s changes in the brain.”

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia among older adults. The progressive

One hemisphere of a healthy brain (left)) is pictured next to one hemisphere of a brain of a person suffering from Alzheimer disease (right) brain disorder slowly erodes memory and thinking skills and eventually leaves people unable to handle basic tasks in daily life. Scientists suspect that changes in the brain begin at least a decade before symptoms appear.

For the current study, researchers examined data from 346 adults who had been evaluated for vascular risk factors since the late 1980s, when they were 52 years old on average and none of them had dementia. More than two decades later, when participants were around 76 years old, they had brain scans that looked for evidence of Alzheimer’s.

At the start of the study, one in five participants had no vascular risk factors, while 38 percent had one and 42 percent had at least two.

A higher number of vascular risk factors in midlife, but not in late life, was associated with elevated brain amyloid, researchers report in JAMA.

Brain scans found that 31 percent of people with no vascular risk factors at the start of the study had elevated amyloid later in life, compared with 61 percent of the people who had at least two vascular risk factors in middle age.

Relationships between vascular risk factors and brain amyloid didn’t differ by race. There also wasn’t a meaningful difference based on whether people were carriers of what’s known as the ApoE4 allele, a version of a gene that’s associated with increased risk for Alzheimer’s disease.

“Brain amyloid is a risk factor that likely begins prior to the development of memory problems and thus, these findings are very intriguing,” Dr. Jeffrey Burns, codirector of the University of Kansas Alzheimer’s Disease Center in Kansas City, said by email. “We do need to be careful to recognize that amyloid in the brain does not equal Alzheimer’s disease.”

It’s possible that brain vascular disease might either lead to an increase in amyloid deposits or a decreased ability to remove amyloid that accumulates. But the study wasn’t designed to answer this question, Dr. Andrew Budson, a neurology researcher at The VA Boston Healthcare System and Boston University School of Medicine who wasn’t involved in the study, said by email.

Still, the results add to the evidence suggesting that people who focus on heart health earlier in life may also be safeguarding their brains, said Dr. Hannah Gardener, a neurology researcher at the University of Miami who wasn’t involved in the study.

“Patients and physicians need to work together to monitor and minimize the burden of vascular health factors like smoking, obesity, blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes with the goal of protecting both heart and brain health decades before Alzheimer’s disease typically manifests,” Gardener said by email.

Page 30

FUN & GAMES

TURKS & CAICOS SUN

APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 20172013 JUNE 15TH - JUNE 22ND,

APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

FUN Turks & GAMES & Caicos Sun

TURKS & CAICOS SUN November 23rd - November 30th, 2013

Page 31

Page 32

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APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

CARIBBEAN WORLD

TURKS & CAICOS SUN

Page 33

CARIBBEAN NEWS

NEWS NEWS

Elections in The Bahamas on May 10th

Prime Minister Perry Christie officially announced that the 2017 General Elections will be held on Wednesday May 10th, 2017.

Christie made the announcement at the Office of the Prime Minister, signaling the official countdown to the hotly contested race.

In a very short statement made at the Office of the Prime Minister, Mr. Christie said following the dissolution of Parliament, all seats in the House of Assembly were made vacant.

The address came minutes after Commissioner of Police Ellison Greenslade, acting in his capacity as provost marshal, read a proclamation from Governor General Dame Marguerite Pindling dissolving Parliament.

Greenslade also read a second proclamation revealing that Parliament will reconvene on May 24.

In his address, the prime minister said, “It is now left to you, the citizenry of our beloved nation, to decide who will fill those seats in the next House of Assembly.

“In doing so, you will also be deciding who will form the government of The Bahamas for the next five years.

“You will make that

Prime Minister and leader of the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) Perry Christie

Leader of the Free National Movement (FNM) Dr. Hubert Minnis

momentous decision in what I’m “I have confidence that we shall.” confident will be free and fair elections Just moments before following a spirited, but peaceful Mr. Christie made his statement, campaign.

Commissioner of Police Ellison

“Let us contest the Greenslade, in his capacity as Provost forthcoming elections will all the Marshal, read two proclamations from vigor at our command. Let us do so, the Governor General on the steps of however, with respect for the human the House of Assembly shortly after dignity of our opponents and with 9:30am. respect for the traditions we all hold

The first proclamation was to dear. officially announce the dissolution of

“We are one of the oldest Parliament, while the second was to democracies in the hemisphere. Our reveal the date for Parliament to hold Parliament traces its history back its first session. hundreds of years.

The proclamation read: “I

“Let us by our conduct in the Dame Marguerite Pindling, Governor general election campaign continue to General of the Commonwealth of prove ourselves worthy of the great the Bahamas hereby proclaim that democratic traditions of free, fair and parliament shall be and is hereby peaceful elections that have made our dissolved on the 11th day of April country the marvel of nations around 2017,” he said. the world.

“Now therefore, I Dame

Leader of the Democratic National Alliance (DNA) Branville McCartney Marguerite Pindling Governor General of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, acting in accordance with advice of the Prime Minister hereby proclaim that the next session of Parliament shall be held in the city of Nassau in the island of New Providence on Wednesday the 24th day of May, 2017.”

This past Monday it was announced that most of the major parties agreed to suspend campaigning this week to commemorate Holy Week.

However, on Easter Monday the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) will officially kick off the campaigning season with a motorcade, Family Fun Day and concert at Arawak Cay.

Meantime the Free National Movement (FNM) is set to hold its first major rally on Tuesday April 18th, 2017 at R.M Bailey Park.

Cayman Islands investigation helps shut down child pornography sites

A Cayman Islands police investigation led to two international child pornography websites being shut down and prompted criminal investigations as far away as France and Russia.

According to the Caymanain Compass newspaper, detectives in Grand Cayman uncovered a cache of indecent images of children on the cellphone of a man who was convicted of a string of sexual offenses.

The images were traced, through a new partnership with the U.K.-based Internet Watch Foundation, to previously undetected sites hosted in Europe. The intelligence enabled internet watchdogs in those countries to remove the material from the web and prompted law enforcement to begin investigations into those creating the images.

One of the sites, hosted in France, contained category A images, the most serious offense category, involving children between 7 and 10 years old.

The international

investigation began with the discovery cooperation can have,” said Pete of the images on the cellphone of Lansdown, detective superintendent Michell Anderson Gambao Garcia, a with the RCIPS. “The IWF’s assistance Colombian air conditioning repairman not only saves us valuable investigative time, it enables law enforcement working in Grand Cayman.

Garcia was jailed for 12 globally to work together much more years in September 2016 for sexually effectively to stop the circulation of assaulting a 5-year-old girl and for these images. This contributes toward raping a teenager who was unconscious. stopping the crimes of sexual abuse He was also charged with possession of they depict.” more than 1,000 pornographic images.

The case was highlighted The Royal Cayman Islands Police in the Internet Watch Foundation’s Service analyst who worked on the case annual report published this week. It sought assistance from the Internet was also noteworthy because of the Watch Foundation after discovering use of a “gateway site” – a seemingly multiple websites and other material innocuous internet “storefront” used on the suspect’s phone, according to a to disguise the real purpose of the web police statement this week. page.

In its report, the IWF

The foundation used its connections to have one of those sites, highlights its support of Cayman’s previously unknown to international intelligence analysts during the investigators, removed from the investigation and confirms that the internet within four days. Another 16 investigation led to the discovery of of the sites reported by the RCIPS had two new websites. already been closed down as a result of “Some of the sites showed child sexual abuse material and included other reports.

“This is the type of speed ‘disguised websites’ … [which] can look and impact that good international like legal adult content unless you’ve

followed a specific and predetermined pathway to access the site. People use this method to make it difficult to find and investigate the criminal images,” the report notes.

Joanne Delaney, the RCIPS intelligence analyst who worked on the case, said the partnership with the foundation helped police to have an impact beyond Cayman’s borders.

“By reporting that website, we were able to stop that site being used as a ‘gateway’ site. It has been incredibly satisfying for me to know that this referral had such a result.”

On June 1 last year, police in Cayman launched an initiative with the IWF and local media and community partners to host IWF reporting portals on various local websites, through which referrals about child sexual abuse imagery could be made. Since then, 56 reports from Cayman have been received. The reports have been submitted primarily by the police following investigations.

However, there have been four reports made anonymously by the public.

䘀伀刀 䄀䰀䰀 夀伀唀刀 䄀䐀嘀䔀刀吀䤀匀䤀一䜀 一䔀䔀䐀匀 䌀伀一吀䄀䌀吀 ⠀㘀㐀㤀⤀ⴀ㌀㌀㤀ⴀ㔀㠀㜀㤀 漀爀 䔀䴀䄀䤀䰀㨀 猀甀渀䀀猀甀渀琀挀椀⸀挀漀洀 䄀昀昀漀爀搀愀戀氀攀 刀愀琀攀猀 簀 䠀椀最栀 瘀漀氀甀洀攀 琀爀愀昀昀椀挀 簀 刀攀氀椀愀戀氀攀

Page 34

TURKS & CAICOS SUN

APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

CARIBBEAN NEWS

Expedia Group announces Caribbean luxury travel demand on the rise

The Expedia group, the world’s largest online travel agency, is reporting that travel demand to luxury properties throughout the Caribbean increased in 2016. When compared to 2015, overall demand for four and five-star rated properties throughout the Caribbean increased by nearly 20 percent in 2016. Likewise, the Caribbean’s leading destinations also experienced luxury demand growth including the Dominican Republic (15 percent), Puerto Rico (5 percent), Jamaica (nearly 30 percent), Aruba (nearly 20 percent), the Bahamas (10 percent) and Turks and Caicos (35 percent) in 2016 when compared to the previous year.

Per a recent report by the Caribbean Tourism Organization, Caribbean tourism accounted for nearly 30 million arrivals to the region in 2016 with visitor spending hitting new heights, representing a unique opportunity for Caribbean hoteliers specializing in luxury travel.

In 2016, the Caribbean

destination with the highest luxury inventory was Paradise Island, with more than 80 percent of the Bahamian island’s hotels being four and fivestar property. Additional destinations where the majority of hotel inventory was comprised of four to five-star rated resorts included St. Martin (nearly 80 percent), Punta Cana (nearly 80 percent), Turks and Caicos (more than 75 percent) and St. John Virgin Islands (nearly 75 percent).

With four and five star properties representing more than 50 percent of Expedia group’s travel demand throughout the Caribbean, the company proudly offers hotel partners insights on mobile travel searches and booking patterns, how luxury travelers book, and how they shop and choose hotels. The Expedia market management teams partner with hoteliers to effectively engage the luxury market across devices and throughout the entire travel planning process. This valuable information is readily available to partners to ensure

that their strategy targets this niche market.

While the Caribbean’s various destinations attract a diverse range of travelers from around the world, according to Expedia group data the United States represented the largest market for the region’s luxury segment followed by Canada, the United Kingdom, Brazil and France in 2016. The Caribbean’s luxury segment received a significant influx of Swiss travelers in 2016, who attributed to an increase of nearly 175 percent when compared to 2015. Additional international markets with noteworthy year over year increases in demand in 2016 include the Netherlands with nearly 50 percent growth and Germany with more than 40 percent growth.

“We’ve seen luxury travel continue to thrive throughout the world, including the Caribbean,” said Demetrius Canton, Director of Market Management for the Caribbean, the Expedia group. “Expedia works closely with hotel partners seeking to tap into

new and growing markets, including the luxury segment, by utilizing the company’s innovative technology and global marketing strategies.”

Expedia group can also report that in addition to boasting higher average daily rates in 2016, luxury properties represented an opportunity for hoteliers in the Caribbean as four and five-star resorts featured longer booking windows (average of 55 day) and lengths of stays (4.3 days) when compared to one to three-star hotels which saw an average booking window of 37 days out and an average length of stay of 3.2 days.

By working with the Expedia group, luxury hotels throughout the Caribbean gain exposure from the more than 200 travel booking sites in more than 75 countries in 35 languages, in addition to a myriad of mobile sites and apps, from brands such as Expedia®, Hotels.com®, Travelocity®, Orbitz®, Hotwire®, Egencia®, Expedia® Affiliate Network and others.

UN votes to end to Haiti peacekeeping mission in mid-October

UNITED NATIONS — The Security Council voted unanimously Thursday to end the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti in mid-October after 13 years, sending a strong signal that the international community believes the impoverished Caribbean nation is stabilizing after successful elections.

The peacekeepers helped normalize a country in chaos after political upheaval in 2004 and a devastating 2010 earthquake that killed as many as 300,000 people — including the head of the U.N. mission itself — as well as Hurricane Matthew, which caused widespread devastation in October.

But they also leave under a A Brazilian U.N. peacekeeper opens a gate at the U.N. base in the Cite Soleil slum of Port-au-Prince, cloud. U.N. troops from Nepal are Haiti. According to an AP investigation, some 150 allegations of abuse and exploitation were reported widely blamed for introducing cholera in Haiti between 2004 and 2016 that has killed at least 9,500 people in close or transform to focus on other down a peacekeeping mission.”

Haiti since 2010. And some troops also challenges.

With the new mission, she have been implicated in sexual abuse, “We are at the end of an said, “the Haitian people will be set including of hungry young children, an important phase in Haiti,” he on the path of independence and selfissue reported on Wednesday by The said. “What we now need is a newly sufficiency.”

Associated Press. configured mission which is focused on But citing the AP story, Haley

The resolution approved by rule of law and human rights.” said after the vote that while the the U.N.’s most powerful body extends The United Nations has been departure of the peacekeepers “is the mandate of the mission, known as involved in Haiti on and off since 1990. seen as a success, unfortunately it’s a MINUSTAH, for a final six months A 2004 rebellion had the country on the nightmare for many in Haiti who will during which the 2,370 military brink of collapse, leading to deployment never be able to forget and live with personnel will gradually leave. of the U.N. force, and Haiti has been brutal scars.”

It creates a follow-on trying to get its shaky democracy on a At least 134 Sri Lankan peacekeeping mission for an initial firmer foundation ever since. peacekeepers exploited nine Haitian period of six months comprising 1,275 A political crisis and ensuing children in a sex ring from 2004 to 2007, police who will continue training the street protests stemming from a according to an internal U.N. report . It national police force. The new mission repeatedly derailed 2015 electoral was part of a larger AP investigation will also assist the government in cycle again threatened the stability of of U.N. missions during the past strengthening judicial and legal the country but an elected president 12 years that found an estimated institutions “and engage in human and lawmakers are now in place.

2,000 allegations of sexual abuse and rights monitoring, reporting and The United States has launched exploitation by peacekeepers and U.N. analysis.” a review of all 16 peacekeeping missions personnel around the world.

Britain’s U.N. Ambassador to assess costs and effectiveness, and “These peacekeepers are sent Matthew Rycrof said the resolution U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley told into vulnerable communities to protect sends a signal that once peacekeepers the Security Council that Haiti is “a the innocent, not to exploit or rape aren’t needed, U.N. missions should success story when it comes to drawing them,” Haley said. “Countries that

$135

refuse to hold their soldiers accountable must recognize that this either stops or their troops will go home and their financial compensation will end.”

She said the United States and the international community are committed to Haiti’s “democratic development, independence and economic growth” and will also continue to push for accountability of U.N. peacekeeping missions accused of sexual abuse.

The council’s decision was met with conflicting emotions in Haiti, where many fear that dark days of instability will return after the foreign soldiers depart.

“The reason why we don’t have a lot of trouble these days is because the U.N. people are still around. But once they take off, opportunities will open up for Haitians with guns to make things crazy again,” said Gary Guerre, a 27-year-old bank clerk.

Some Haitians are anxious that the chronically dismal economy will get even worse.

“All I know is that having the U.N. people around helps Haiti’s economy a little bit. They buy stuff and it makes the foreigners feel like there’s order here,” said Jivenson Arisme, a 24-year-old entrepreneur who set up a small roadside business selling kites and other items for the Easter holiday.

But many Haitian citizens have always seen the multinational peacekeepers as an occupying force and an affront to national sovereignty.

“They should have been out of here a long time ago. I don’t see how they’ve been helping Haiti at all. I just see them drive by here like they are on a holiday,” said Jean Wilnive, who sells live poultry from a perch near a bustling Port-au-Prince intersection.

APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

TURKS & CAICOS SUN

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CARIBBEAN NEWS

26 charged with trafficking cocaine at Puerto Rico airport

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — operations to a grinding halt,” said Federal law enforcement has broken U.S. Attorney Rosa Emilia Rodriguez. up a $4 million drug-trafficking ring Among the items seized from at Puerto Rico’s main international the suspects were jewelry, property airport that relied on bathrooms and and a tiger that authorities said garbage chutes to smuggle cocaine to the alleged drug leader kept as a the U.S. mainland, authorities said pet. Rodriguez said federal agents Tuesday. nicknamed him “Tony the Tiger.”

She said the suspects

Indicted in the case are 26 suspects including airline employees, smuggled drugs aboard flights headed airport staff and restaurant workers. to New York, Miami, Philadelphia The majority were arrested before and Orlando. Among the planes dawn at the Luis Munoz Marin targeted were those operated by airport in the capital of San Juan American, JetBlue and Southwest that authorities said serves as the airlines. biggest drug distribution center in Authorities said mules would pick up the cocaine in bathroom stalls the Caribbean.

“Today we have brought their after going through TSA checkpoints.

The drugs also were smuggled aboard DHL planes and by American Airline employees who would place stickers on luggage indicating it had been cleared by TSA when it hadn’t been, officials said. American Airline employees also would send the drugs as cargo themselves free of cost, they added.

American Airlines said in a statement that it was cooperating with authorities.

“We take this matter very seriously,” the company said. “Our top priority is the safety and security of our customers and employees.”

A spokeswoman for DHL did not respond to a request for comment.

Flow airs Library of Caribbean Focused Content

For the first time, Flow TV customers across the Caribbean will be able to see Caribbean themed content at their convenience via Flow’s on Demand platform. Through a partnership with CaribbeanTales Worldwide Distribution (CTWD), customers will be able to access a variety of Caribbean films, from an extensive library every month on Flow On Demand in eight (8) Flow TV markets.

John Reid, CEO of Cable & Wireless, the operator of the consumer brand Flow, said: “This is certainly a historic moment for Cable & Wireless/Flow and our partners CaribbeanTales, as together we will deliver high quality, relevant Caribbean content that gives audience a refreshing perspective on Caribbean life.”

CEO and Founder of CaribbeanTales, Frances-Anne Solomon, said, “We are delighted to extend our relationship with Flow to a wide regional audience who will now enjoy the best films from the greatest filmmakers across the Caribbean.”

In 2013, CTWD launched its own VOD platform,

CaribbeanTales-TV, with ongoing Lela-Rolingson’s Positive and global streaming of its Catalogue. Pregnant, a seminal film about Now, with Flow’s extensive VOD a woman who becomes pregnant reach across eight (8) countries, and is HIV positive. this new partnership makes April’s theme centers on the Catalogue’s content more the iconic Caribbean instrument widely accessible to Caribbean developed in the backyard and audiences. streets of Port of Spain -- the

The VOD partnership steel pan. This month’s titles are: was launched in February with Atiba Williams – Pan Prodigy, four compelling films celebrating Trinidad and Tobagonian Trinidad’s iconic Carnival. In director Christopher Laird’s March the spotlight was on film about the youngest person International Women’s Day ever to arrange for a steelband; (March 8th), with four award- Panomundo Part 1 – The winning films by and about Evolution of Steel Pan, the first Caribbean women. There were two of a two-part documentary by feature films: What My Mother Charysse Tia Harper about the Told Me, the ground-breaking, history of the steelpan and its multi-award winning, dramatic global influence; Let’s Play Pan narrative by CaribbeanTales by Canadian director Ian Jones, CEO Frances-Anne Solomon -- which explores the evolution from one of the few films directed by the skin drum to the steel drum a Trinidadian woman that deals and its introduction to Toronto; with the survival strategies of and also the Frances-Anne middle-class Caribbean women. Solomon-directed Heartbeat The other feature is Bahamian Season 1 Episode 9 – Ian Jones, filmmaker Maria Govan’s Rain, where Jones talks about “How a young woman’s coming-of-age The Steel Pan Is Changing Lives.” story. The two documentaries are: Each month, Flow plans The Solitary Alchemist, directed to release more CaribbeanTales

by Mariel Brown, chronicling the films via Flow on Demand – life and work of Trinidadian artist including one film for free!

Barbara Jardine; and Candice

University student among six killed in western Jamaica

KINGSTON, Jamaica – A university and a 16-year-old student were among six people shot and killed in western Jamaica over the last weekend as the murder toll in the country climbed to 360 since the start of the year.

The police have not yet released the names of the students from the University of Technology

(UTECH) and the Muschette High School.

In addition, the authorities have confirmed that a Canadian visitor, who was shot is in a critical condition at hospital.

So far this year, 360 people have been killed as compared to 290 for the corresponding period last year.

Acting Police Commissioner Novelette Grant

and members of the High Command toured western Jamaica on Sunday to meet with divisional commanders to discuss crime prevention plans.

The acting police commissioner later told RJR radio that the law enforcement authorities are determined to stem the violence in western Jamaica.

Cuba and Portugal sign cooperation agreement on tourism

HAVANA, Cuba – A protocol of cooperation agreement has been signed between Cuba and Portugal that will boost work on key issues for the joint development of the industry in both countries.

The agreement was signed on Friday by Cuba’s head of tourism Manuel Marrero and Portugal’s Secretary of State for Tourism, Ana Mendes Godinho,.

According to Mendes Godinho, the agreement is a

historical one as Portuguese businessmen are interested in investing in Cuba and accompanying its development, adding that the positive political relations between the two countries, “were increasingly strengthened in the last year.”

Mendes Godinho , who was here on a two day visit, argued that the legal document will also enable the formation of students and the exchange of experiences between the two nations.

Her Cuban counterpart noted that Portugal has 12 public tourism schools, considered among the best in Europe, which can contribute to the training of Cuban personnel.

Marrero said that this step creates a new stage for joint work on issues such as the use of the Portuguese experience in the sector, useful at a time when Cuba is experiencing a remarkable growth in the so-called leisure industry.

Authorities said workers at the Air Margaritaville restaurant inside the airport also smuggled the cocaine via garbage chutes. They said the suspects would retrieve the cocaine from the garbage, place it inside their locker, take it to the dishwashing area and then deliver it to mules inside coffee bags, with up to 9 pounds (4 kilograms) of cocaine stashed per bag.

The arrests come just months after security screeners and airport workers at the same airport were charged with helping smuggle 20 tons (18 metric tons) of cocaine through Puerto Rico during an 18year operation that ended last year.

US says withdrawing UN military from Haiti is good example

UN military soldiers

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley said that U.N. peacekeeping has made “a great contribution” to Haiti and the Security Council’s expected vote to withdraw all troops from the Caribbean nation by mid-October is an example of how peacekeeping missions should change as a country’s political situation changes.

The United States is currently reviewing the U.N.’s 16 far-flung peacekeeping operations to assess costs and effectiveness and Haley told the Security Council that thanks to recent elections in Haiti “the political context is right” for a new and smaller mission.

She strongly backed the transformation of Haiti’s U.N. mission from military patrols to focusing on developing the country’s police force, supporting the rule of law and protecting human rights.

The Security Council is scheduled to vote Thursday on a resolution to withdraw the 2,370 military personnel by Oct. 15.

Sandra Honore, the U.N. envoy for Haiti, told the council that as a result of successful presidential and legislative elections on Nov. 20 and Jan. 29 “Haiti’s political outlook for 2017 and beyond has significantly improved.”

She said this has opened “a crucial window of opportunity to address the root causes of the political crisis” that preceded the elections and address “the many pressing challenges facing the country.”

“A relatively stable security situation prevails, despite continuous signs of fragility,” Honore said.

She said international support, including from the United Nations, will be needed to enable the national police “to eventually provide security for all Haitian citizens.”

Honore said she has called on the government to make further professionalization of the police and the preservation of its “apolitical character” a priority. The new government must also improve the administration of justice and human rights “to truly anchor the rule of law,” she said.

This is essential, Honore said, to make policing more effective and create conditions for foreign and domestic investment and job creation.

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APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

NEWS

Canada introduces legislation to legalize marijuana

TORONTO — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government introduced legislation Thursday to let adults possess 30 grams of marijuana in public — a measure that would make Canada the largest developed country to end a nationwide prohibition on recreational marijuana.

Trudeau has long promised to legalize recreational pot use and sales. U.S voters in California, Massachusetts, Maine and Nevada voted last year to approve the use of recreational marijuana, joining Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Alaska.

The South American nation of Uruguay is the only nation to legalize recreational pot.

The proposed law allows four plants to be grown at home. Those under 18 found with less than five grams of marijuana would not face criminal charges but those who sell it or give to youth could face up to 14

years in jail.

“It’s too easy for our kids to get marijuana. We’re going to change that,” Trudeau said.

Officials said Canadians should be able to smoke marijuana legally by July 1, 2018. The federal government set the age at 18, but is allowing each of Canada’s provinces to determine if it should be higher.

The provinces will also decide how the drug will be distributed and sold.

The law also defines the amount of THC in a driver’s blood, as detected by a roadside saliva test, that would be illegal. Marijuana taxes will be announced at a later date.

The Canadian government closely followed the advice of a marijuana task force headed by former Liberal Health Minister Anne McLellan. That panel’s report noted public health experts tend to favor a minimum age of 21 as the brain continues to develop to about 25, but

said setting the minimum age too high would preserve the illicit market.

Canadian youth have higher rates of cannabis use than their peers worldwide.

“If your objective is to protect public health and safety and keep cannabis out of the hands of minors, and stop the flow of profits to organized crime, then the law as it stands today has been an abject failure,” Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale told a news conference. “Police forces spend between $2 billion and $3 billion every year trying to deal with cannabis, and yet Canadian teenagers are among the heaviest users in the western world ...

We simply have to do better.”

Goodale said they’ve been close touch with the U.S. government on the proposed law and noted exporting and importing marijuana will continue to be illegal.

“The regime we are setting up in Canada will protect our kids better

and stop the flow of illegal dollars to organized crime. Our system will actually be the better one,” Goodale said

Former Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair, who is the parliamentary secretary to the justice minister, said officials learned from the experiences from other jurisdictions like Colorado and Washington state.

While the government moves to legalize marijuana, retail outlets selling pot for recreational use have already been set up. Trudeau has emphasized current laws should be respected. Police in Toronto, Vancouver and other cities raided stores earlier last month and made arrests.

The news that Canada was soon going to announce the law was noticed online last month by Snoop Dogg , who tweeted “Oh Canada!”

Canadian folk singer Pat Robitaille released a “Weed song” to coincide with the government’s announcement.

Police believe New York judge found in Hudson River committed suicide

Family tragedy surrounded floating in the river by the shore near Judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam. About West 132nd Street. three years ago, law enforcement The judge was wearing a gray officials said, her brother committed zippered sweater, black sweatpants, suicide. Last year around this time, a gray T-shirt and New Balance sneakers, the official said. She also her mother died.

On Wednesday, after had a white watch on her wrist and a responding to an emergency call, MetroCard in her pocket. Investigators officers with the New York Police do not believe that she had been in the Department’s Harbor Unit found the river long.

Judge Abdus-Salaam was body of Judge Abdus-Salaam, the first black woman to serve on New York last seen leaving her office on State’s highest court, in the Hudson Monday evening, and investigators River in Harlem with no apparent tracked her to the subway — the No. signs of trauma and no indications 6 line — at about 8 p.m., the official Judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam was the first black of foul play. The police are treating said. Investigators found the judge’s woman to serve on New York State’s highest her death as a suicide, although an cellphone in her apartment, another court investigation is continuing. official said, and the door had been on the State Court of Appeals. Before

According to one law locked with keys from the outside. that, she served for about four years enforcement official, Judge Abdus- Both officials spoke on the condition of as an associate justice on the First Salaam called her Midtown Manhattan anonymity because the investigation Appellate Division of the State chambers on Tuesday morning to say is continuing.

Supreme Court, and for 15 years as “She was a lovely, genteel a State Supreme Court justice in she would not be coming in because she was not feeling well. When the judge lady,” Jonathan Lippman, a former Manhattan. She was previously a failed to appear on Wednesday, her chief judge of New York State, said. lawyer in the New York State attorney assistant sent a text to her husband “We’re all just shocked. No one has any general’s office. of eight months, who called 911 to idea what happened.”

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said in Since 2013, Judge Abdus- a statement on Wednesday that Judge report her missing a short time later.

Abdus-Salaam was a pioneer with Her body was found that afternoon, Salaam had been one of seven judges

an “unshakable moral compass.” He added, “Justice Sheila Abdus-Salaam was a trailblazing jurist whose life in public service was in pursuit of a more fair and more just New York for all.”

In nominating her to the highest court in 2013, Mr. Cuomo praised her “working-class roots” and her “deep understanding of the everyday issues facing New Yorkers.”

Her nomination was part of a push

by Mr. Cuomo to diversify the court.

When another judge, Rowan D. Wilson, joined the court this year, it was the first time the Court of Appeals had two African-American judges in its 169-year history.

On the court, Judge AbdusSalaam was among the most reliable and steadfast liberal voices, regularly siding with vulnerable parties — the poor, impoverished immigrants and people with mental illnesses, for instance — against more powerful and established interests. She also tended to lean toward injured parties who brought claims of misconduct, fraud or breach of contract against wealthy corporations.

Misdirected US strike killed 18 allied fighters in Syria

BEIRUT — A misdirected airstrike by the U.S.-led coalition earlier this week killed 18 allied fighters battling the Islamic State group in northern Syria, the U.S. military said Thursday.

U.S. Central Command said coalition aircraft were given the wrong coordinates by their partner forces, the predominantly-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces, for a strike intended to target IS militants south of their Tabqa stronghold, near the extremists’ de facto capital, Raqqa.

The strike hit an SDF position instead, killing 18. Central Command said the strike was launched Tuesday.

Several nations have lent

Fighters from the predominantly-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces carrying the coffins of their comrades, who were killed Tuesday by a misdirected airstrike by the U.S.-led coalition their air power to the U.S.-led coalition to defeat the Islamic State group. It was not clear which air force was behind the strike.

The SDF acknowledged the strike on Thursday, saying a number of its fighters were killed and wounded.

The SDF-linked Hawar News Agency reported the group was holding funerals for 17 of its fighters in the border town of Tal al-Abyad, though it did not link them to the strike. An activist-run group, Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, says three days

of mourning have been declared for the town. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 25 SDF fighters were killed in the last two days of battle.

The SDF meanwhile announced the launch of a fourth phase of their campaign to capture Raqqa, a Euphrates River city that is home to 300,000 people.

The SDF, with U.S.-led air and ground support, has surrounded Tabqa, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) southwest of Raqqa. They say they are working to clear Islamic State militants out of Jalab Valley, north of Raqqa.

APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

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WORLD NEWS

Secretary of State Tillerson made $27.4 million last year at Exxon

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson received compensation worth $27.4 million last year when he was chief executive of Exxon Mobil Corp, the world’s largest publicly traded oil producer, regulatory filings showed on Thursday.

He and other senior executives got raises even though Exxon’s net income fell more than 50 percent in 2016 as the company, like many of its peers, tried to cut costs and weather a period of low oil prices.

The value of Tillerson’s compensation package last year rose about 0.5 percent largely due to a 4 percent boost in his salary to $3.2 million and an 8 percent jump in the value of stock awards to $19.7 million, an Exxon filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission showed.

The value of perquisites

annual salary T i l l e r s o n of $207,800, received from according to the Exxon last federal Office year, including p e r s o n a l of Personnel security and a Management tables. life insurance

As part of an policy, rose ethics agreement 7 percent to $575,850. when Tillerson

assumed his Tillerson, 65, government post, Tillerson forfeited was nominated unvested Exxon by then President-elect stock worth U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson $2.8 million and Donald Trump to be secretary potential for a of state in December. Tillerson retired bonus of $3.9 million. He also waived from Exxon at the end of the year. He his right to retiree health benefits.

Tillerson’s vested Exxon was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in stock was put into a trust worth about early February.

His current post carries an $180 million at the time, the proceeds

of which will be paid out over the next decade, much in the same way proceeds are paid out to all Exxon retirees. The trust is prohibited from investing in Exxon.

Tillerson will not be allowed to work anywhere in the oil and gas industry for the next decade. If he does, the entire trust’s value would be donated to a charity that neither he nor Exxon chooses, according to the regulatory filings.

Darren Woods, Exxon’s CEO as of January, saw his compensation rise 64 percent last year, when he was Exxon’s president, to $16.8 million.

Woods saw his base salary rise 36 percent to $1 million and the value of stock and stock option awards, his pension and company perquisites, including the cost of a home security system, rise as well.

US drops ‘mother of all bombs’ on Islamic State in Afghanistan

Condom-clogged pipe provides police clue in cracking Texas brothel

Hundreds of condoms that clogged a city sewer pipe led police to raid a massage parlor in Texas and arrest two people for prostitution and other crimes, police documents released on Tuesday showed.

A real estate agent who had just taken over the property notified police of the blockage at Jade Massage Therapy in the Texas capital of Austin. He told them other tenants believed the business was a front for prostitution, a police arrest affidavit said.

Austin police then launched their probe that culminated in a raid about six weeks later where a woman who co-managed the business “was found in a massage room with a completely nude and uncovered male,” the document said.

Juan Wang and her husband Joseph Emery were arrested on suspicion of managing “a prostitution enterprise that used two or more prostitutes,” it said.

No lawyer was listed on the arrest affidavit and the company’s phone went to voicemail. Neither person could be immediately reached for comment.

Police also discovered more than $60,000 in cash at the woman’s home. She and her husband were arrested in March and charged with engaging in organized criminal activity to promote prostitution and money laundering, court documents filed in April showed.

The United States Nangarhar province, close to the dropped a massive GBU-43 bomb, border with Pakistan, Pentagon the largest non-nuclear bomb spokesman Adam Stump said.

Also known as the it has ever used in combat, in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday “mother of all bombs,” the GBUagainst a series of caves used 43 is a 21,600 pound (9,797 kg)

by Islamic State militants, the GPS-guided munition and was military said. first tested in March 2003, just

It was the first time days before the start of the Iraq the United States has used this war. size of bomb in a conflict. It General John Nicholson, was dropped from a MC-130 the head of U.S. and international aircraft in the Achin district of forces in Afghanistan, said the

bomb was used against caves and bunkers housing fighters of the Islamic State in Afghanistan, also known as ISIS-K.

“This is the right munition to reduce these obstacles and maintain the momentum of our offensive against ISIS-K,” Nicholson said in a statement.

It was not immediately clear how much damage the bomb did.

North Korea may be capable of sarin-tipped missiles

North Korea may have the capacity to deliver missiles equipped with sarin nerve gas, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Thursday, amid concerns that the reclusive state could soon conduct its sixth nuclear test or more missile launches.

“There is a possibility that North Korea already has a capability to deliver missiles with sarin as warheads,” Abe told a parliamentary session.

Members of a Japanese

doomsday cult killed 12 people and made thousands ill in 1995 in simultaneous attacks with sarin nerve gas on five Tokyo rush-hour subway trains.

Tensions on the Korean peninsula have escalated over Pyongyang’s continued nuclear and missile testing program, with the United States warning it could take unilateral action and sending a navy carrier group to near the Korean peninsula in a show of force aimed at deterring more tests.

North Korea marks the 105th anniversary of the birth of state founder Kim Il Sung on Saturday, North Korea’s biggest national day called “Day of the Sun”. Leaders have in the past used the date to carry out weapons tests.

North Korea has launched several missile tests this year, the latest on April 5 when it fired a ballistic missile into the sea off its east coast. It conducted its fifth nuclear test on Sept. 9, 2016.

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APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

WORLD NEWS

Improperly stored raw meat among violations found at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago

violations found at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago

Restaurant inspectors found 13 violations at Mar-a-Lago, the exclusive Florida resort owned by President Donald Trump, the Miami Herald reported.

Undercooled meat, potentially dangerous raw fish and two broken coolers were among the problems found at the private club that charges $200,000 in initiation fees and has become known as the Southern White House, the newspaper reported late on Wednesday.

Neither Mar-a-Lago nor the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation, which last inspected the club on Jan. 26, immediately responded to Reuters requests for comment on Thursday.

Trump bought Mar-a-Lago in 1985. This weekend he is to make his seventh trip to the Palm Beach property as the 45th president of the

United States.

Violations found just days before the state visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe included failure to use proper parasite destruction on fish intended to be served raw or undercooked, the Herald reported, quoting the inspection report.

Inspectors ordered that the fish be cooked immediately or tossed out.

Inside the broken coolers, inspectors found raw meats meant to be stored at 41 degrees that were potentially dangerously warm, including ham at 57 degrees, raw beef at 50 degrees, duck at 50 degrees and chicken at 49 degrees, the newspaper said.

Other violations included sinks with water too cold to sanitize hands and rusty shelves inside walk-in coolers.

Three were “high priority” violations, meaning they could allow for illness-causing bacteria in

Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump’s exclusive Florida resort meals served in the dining room, the publicity since his November 2016 election. The restaurant in the lobby newspaper said.

Mar-a-Lago was issued a of Trump Tower in New York City was citation for the broken coolers, which reviewed by Vanity Fair in December the club was ordered to empty and 2016 under the headline “Trump Grill repair.

Could Be The Worst Restaurant in

It was not the first time a America.”

Trump eatery has gotten negative

South Sudan famine could spread

AWEIL, South Sudan — Two months after the world’s youngest nation declared a famine amid its civil war, hunger has become more widespread than expected, aid workers say.

South Sudan’s Northern Bahr el Ghazal region is on the brink of starvation, with 290,000 people at risk of dying without sustained food assistance. Humanitarian workers say conditions will only deteriorate as the lean season approaches.

In February, South Sudan and the United Nations formally declared a famine in two counties in Unity State. Northern Bahr el Ghazal’s five counties now face the same fate.

In this photo taken Wednesday, April 5, 2017, Abuk Garang, right, holds her 7-month-old son William

“All five counties are sliding Deng, and Adel Bol, 20, left, holds her 10-month-old daughter Akir Mayen, as they and others walk to into catastrophe,” said an aid worker a food distribution site in Malualkuel, in the Northern Bahr el Ghazal region of South Sudan who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak hobbled through the bush on one good 5 percent in the number of people in publicly on the issue. “If it wasn’t for leg, while others had walked for hours Northern Bahr el Ghazal who will face food assistance, this place would be at with bloody feet under the sweltering extreme hunger in the coming months. a level five famine.” sun.

“The region requires

Northern Bahr el Ghazal A steady stream of women sustained humanitarian support,” and its 1.4 million residents have with weak children strapped to their said George Fominyen, spokesman remained relatively peaceful during backs and babies attempting to nurse for the World Food Program in South South Sudan’s three-year civil war. could be seen for miles.

Sudan. “Without that, and without But due to soaring inflation fueled by World Vision last week rolled the improvement in the conditions of the conflict, harsh climate conditions out the first phase of a program to people there, you’re going to find those and its remoteness, this region has provide 65,000 people in Aweil East with the threat of moving into phase become severely affected by hunger. county with food during the month of five.” Level five in global food security

“I’m worried that one day I’ll April. The aim is to start with 17,000 classification is famine. die with my children because we can’t of the most severely malnourished and The U.N.’s refugee agency get food,” said Abuk Garang. The young vulnerable people. said Tuesday the “risk of mass deaths mother stared at her son’s emaciated Aid workers said they weren’t from starvation” is growing in South legs while he anxiously tugged at her prepared for the level of despair.

Sudan. breasts.

“I was shocked by the number With the onset of the lean

The boy, William Deng, was of malnourished kids here,” said the aid season in June and July, the fear is born in September, yet he looks more group’s South Sudan communications there won’t be enough food to meet the like a newborn. Unable to draw any manager, Rose Ogola. “And the looks growing demand. Local community milk, the child chokes back tears and of desperation on the mothers.” leaders said 200,000 metric tons of begins gnawing on his fist.

In the small town of food is still needed for Northern Bahr

Garang tries to console him, Malualkuel alone, where the food was el Ghazal. but she knows he’s famished. distributed, local leaders said 4,000 “Yesterday we didn’t eat

“We’ve only eaten leaves for out of the town’s 6,000 people are anything at all,” said 20-year-old Adel three days,” she said. “If there’s no facing extreme starvation.

Bol. Like so many others, she had food, he’ll die.”

“It’s the worst I’ve ever seen it heard there was food and quickly came

When Garang heard that food in 12 years in terms of food security and running. was being distributed in a nearby town, hunger-related deaths,” said James Cradling her 10-month-old she and thousands of others flocked Maywien Aror, Aweil East county’s daughter, she lifted the baby’s shirt there in desperation. After hours of relief and rehabilitation commissioner. to reveal her protruding ribs. Akir waiting, she beamed and pointed to her “I feel sad. I’m not happy to see people Mayen’s bald head is twice the size of new bag of sorghum, then shielded her die.” her skeletal body. She flailed her arms, face, embarrassed by her excitement.

During a food and security trying to clutch at her mother’s chest.

One by one, others staggered review meeting last week in Aweil “If she dies,” Bol said, “I’ll into aid group World Vision’s food town, aid workers and government never give birth again.” distribution compound. Some had officials estimated an increase of 3 to

Assad says chemical attack a ‘fabrication’

Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview

Syrian President Bashar alAssad said an alleged poison gas attack blamed on his government last week in Idlib province was “100 percent fabrication” used to justify a U.S. air strike, news agency AFP reported on Thursday.

Syria’s military had given up all its chemical weapons in 2013 after an agreement made at the time, and would not have used them anyway, AFP quoted Assad as saying in an interview.

The United States and its allies say the Syrian military carried out the Idlib attack, something Syria has already denied.

The April 4 attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun killed scores of people and prompted the United States to launch a cruise missile strike on a Syrian air base in response, its first direct assault on the Assad government in the six-year-old conflict.

Assad said Syria would only allow an “impartial” investigation into the poison gas incident. On Wednesday Damascus ally Russia vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution to condemn the attack and push the Syrian government to cooperate with investigators.

Russia said the gas was part of rebel stockpiles, which the rebels have denied.

It was the deadliest such incident since a sarin gas attack killed hundreds of people in a rebelheld suburb of Damascus in 2013, prompting threats of U.S. military action.

Samples taken from Khan Sheikhoun last week tested positive for the nerve agent sarin, the British delegation at the global chemical weapons watchdog OPCW said on Thursday.

APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

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WORLD NEWS

Pig organs could be transplantedin humans

Smithfield Foods, the world’s Therapeutics Corp. largest pork producer, has established Transplants are used for a separate bioscience unit to expand people diagnosed with organ failure its role in supplying pig parts for and who have no other treatment medical uses, with the ultimate goal of options. Transplants from animals selling pig organs for transplantation could help close a critical gap to help into humans. those in need. The United Network

Routine pig-human organ for Organ Sharing estimates that, on transplants are years away, but recent average, 22 people die each day while scientific advances are breaking waiting for a transplant. down barriers that frustrated prior Smithfield already harvests attempts to use pigs as a ready supply materials for medical use from the of replacement parts for sick or injured 16 million hogs it slaughters each people, making it an attractive new year. The company owns more than market.

51 percent of its farms and hopes to

“Our bread and butter has sell directly to researchers and healthalways been the bacon, sausage, care companies, which now typically fresh pork - very much a food- buy from third parties. focused operation,” Courtney Stanton, Stanton said the U.S. market vice president of Smithfield’s new for pork byproducts used for medical, bioscience unit, told Reuters in an pet food and non-food purposes stands exclusive interview. at more than $100 billion, and that

“We want to signal to excludes any potential market for the medical device and science animal-to-human transplants, known communities that this is an area we’re as xenotransplants. focused on - that we’re not strictly Smithfield has deals in the packers,” she said. works to supply pig organs to two

Smithfield, the $14 billion entities, though Stanton would not subsidiary of China’s WH Group, in its disclose the names. first move has joined a public-private “It’s just a huge potential tissue engineering consortium funded space, and to be at the leading by an $80 million grant from the U.S. edge and focused on building those Department of Defense. Smithfield is relationships is critical,” she said. the only pork producer, joining health- HOG HEARTS care companies including Abbott Pigs have long been a tantalizing Laboratories , Medtronic and United source of transplants because their

organs are so similar to humans. A hog heart at the time of slaughter, for example, is about the size of an adult human heart.

Other organs from pigs being researched for transplantation into humans include kidney, liver and lungs.

Prior efforts at pig-to-human transplants have failed because of genetic differences that caused organ rejection or viruses that posed an infection risk. Swiss drugmaker Novartis AG folded its $1 billion xenotransplantation effort in 2001 because of safety concerns about pig viruses that could be passed to humans.

George Church, a Harvard Medical School genetics professor and researcher, tackled that problem two years ago, using a new gene-editing tool known as CRISPR to trim away potentially harmful virus genes that have impeded the use of pig organs for transplants in humans.

Church has since formed a company named eGenesis Bio to develop humanized pigs that do not provoke a rejection response or transfer viruses to people. The company last month raised $38 million in venture funding.

Eventually, Church said, the process could enable researchers to harvest a dozen different organs and tissues

from a single pig.

Church estimates the first transplants involving humanized pig organs could occur in a clinical trial later this year, but these would only be used on people too sick to receive human organs.

Genome pioneer Craig J. Venter’s Synthetic Genomics Inc has been working for two years with United Therapeutics on editing the pig genome and mixing in human cells to overcome the complex issues involved in immune rejection. “It’s not like changing a couple genes and you’ve got it solved,” Venter said.

Stanton would not rule out breeding genetically modified animals, but said Smithfield’s first ventures will likely involve whole pig organs that go through decellularization - a process in which existing cells are washed away and replaced with human cells.

Miromatrix Medical Inc, of Eden Prairie, Minnesota, for example, is using whole pig livers to make a surgical mesh used in hernia repair and breast reconstruction, and it is working toward developing replacement livers, hearts and kidneys.

Church welcomes the involvement of a big pork producer. “Even though we’ve got companies like eGenesis that would make the first pigs, you still need someone who will breed them and do it to scale,” he said.

Q&A: Why unseating Assad risks unleashing even more chaos

The statement by U.S. attack that killed more than 80 people fear reprisals by extremists in case Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that in an opposition-held town in northern they take over the country. Many in the reign of President Bashar Assad’s Syria appears to have completely the powerful business community family “is coming to an end” suggests altered Trump’s calculus, triggering also support Assad and see him as a the U.S. is taking a much more the first direct U.S. airstrike on source of stability compared to other, aggressive approach about the Syrian Assad’s forces in the conflict. opposition-held parts of Syria that leader.

The Trump administration are run by scores of rebel factions and

The remark Tuesday came continues to offer mixed messages warlords. Syria’s powerful security after a U.S. airstrike in Syria and about its ultimate goal in Syria and agencies, notorious for human rights threats of more punitive action. whether Assad must surrender power abuses, also will back Assad until the

Any attempt to unseat — and when. end.

Assad faces huge hurdles and risks “It is clear to all of us that unleashing chaos. It could also relieve the reign of the Assad family is WHAT ARE THE the suffering of nearly 1 million coming to an end,” Tillerson said.

ALTERNATIVES TO ASSAD? Syrians living under constant siege “But the question of how that ends and bombardment. and the transition itself could be very There is no obvious replacement.

Despite six years of civil war, important in our view to the durability, Assad’s term has been an extension of Assad is firmly entrenched in his seat the stability inside of a unified Syria.” the rule by his father and his father’s of power, Damascus, largely thanks to predecessor, both of which stifled any powerful allies Russia and Iran who WHAT IS THE ASSAD FAMILY’S form of dissent for decades. Following continue to prop up his government POWER BASE? the uprising, which began in March politically and militarily.

2011, opposition figures have either

Taking him out of the equation The Assad family has ruled been jailed, exiled or killed. Some without a clear transition plan would Syria for nearly five decades. So analysts say the only replacement be a major gamble with consequences entrenched is the dynasty that die- could be an Alawite army general, that would likely resonate far beyond hard supporters label the country as since the presence of such a leader the Syrian borders and raises the “Assad’s Syria.” In battle zones, loyal would serve as a guarantee to Syria’s following questions: fighters have sprayed “Assad, or we minorities. burn the country.”

Such a figure is not apparent WHAT IS THE U.S. POSITION

Despite the spectacular for the time being. Thus, finding an ON ASSAD? devastation he has presided over, alternative to Assad has bedeviled Assad has managed to retain a level foreign policy experts for years. More The past week has brought about of support. He maintained, from the recently, as Russia helped reverse an almost seismic shift in the U.S. beginning, that his war is one against his military fortunes and left him in administration’s position on Syria. terrorism, and through a deft policy control of most of the country’s major Only weeks earlier, U.S. officials, of divide and conquer, he has made population centers, much of the West including President Donald Trump, the war a choice between him and the had appeared to come to terms with were signaling a willingness to work Islamic extremists. the conclusion that Assad could stay with Russia and saying that Assad’s Among his supporters are on for the time being. status was not a priority for the time members of his Alawite sect, as being. well as other minority sects such COULD ASSAD BE REMOVED

The April 4 chemical weapons as the Christians and Druze who

BY FORCE?

The U.S. can take any number of measures against Assad to degrade and ultimately remove him from power. That includes bombing command and control centers, grounding his warplanes and significantly increasing weapons support for rebels fighting to topple him.

Any such action risks a igniting a confrontation with Russia and Iran. Such flagrant action may also become counterintuitive and risk a backlash from rebel factions who may not welcome U.S. bombing of Syria even though they want Assad out.

WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF HE WAS OUSTED?

Europeans and the previous U.S. administration have been very clear that they don’t want a collapse of the regime similar to what happened elsewhere, including neighboring Iraq.

The concern is that a sudden unseating of Assad would lead to a collapse of state institutions, unleashing sectarian massacres and facilitating the spread of militant groups, such as the Islamic State group, al-Qaida and the Shiite militias who have fueled violence in Iraq.

Russian officials often cite the U.S. failures in Iraq and Libya, where state institutions disintegrated following Western military intervention, to illustrate the perils of forced regime change in Syria.

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APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

TURKS & CAICOS SUN

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BUSINESS &

TECHNOLOGY

US tells companies not to overlook qualified Americans

WASHINGTON — The appeared to be a first-of-its kind signal Trump administration has issued a to employers not to put American stern warning to U.S. companies as workers at a disadvantage. they begin applying for coveted skilled- U.S. Citizenship and worker visas, cautioning that it would Immigration Services also announced investigate and prosecute those who that it would step up its reviews of overlook qualified American workers employers that use H-1B visas, saying for jobs. “too many American workers who are

The message came on the qualified, willing and deserving to opening day of applications for work in these fields have been ignored American employers seeking visas or unfairly disadvantaged.” known as H-1B, which are used mostly The statements were the by technology companies to bring in latest indication that even legal programmers and other specialized immigration will be scrutinized under workers from other countries. the Trump administration.

“U.S. workers should not be While enforcement of visa placed in a disfavored status, and abuses is not new, the aggressive the department is wholeheartedly position on the H-1B program is a committed to investigating and different approach. White House vigorously prosecuting these claims,” spokesman Sean Spicer also Tom Wheeler, acting head of the addressed the issue at the beginning Justice Department’s Civil Rights of his daily press briefing, saying the Division, said in a statement. administration will crack down on

The Obama administration businesses that discriminate against sued companies for violating the U.S. workers by using the visa Immigration and Nationality Act’s program to hire foreigners. anti-discrimination provisions, Yet, the crackdown comes as including businesses that favored no surprise. President Donald Trump foreigners over U.S. workers. But promised as a candidate for office to Monday’s warning in a news release “end forever the use of the H-1B as a at the start of the visa process cheap labor program.” A draft proposal

Thimble, wheelbarrow, boot kicked out of Monopoly board game

The newest roster of Monopoly tokens

If you have ever wanted to rampage through a game of Monopoly like a dinosaur, you’re in luck.

The popular U.S. board game is changing out three of its playing tokens, swapping in a penguin, T-Rex and rubber ducky in for the thimble, wheelbarrow and boot, Pawtucket, Rhode Islandbased toymaker Hasbro Inc HAS.N said Friday.

The move is part of a broader campaign to update the board game based in part on votes by consumers during a promotional period earlier this year.

The updated version of the game will be released in August, according to the company. Four classic pieces survived the voting: the Scottie dog, car, top hat and battleship, some of which date as far back as the Great Depression. Rounding out the new lineup will be a cat token, added to the game in 2013 as a replacement for the flatiron.

Players worried that the game’s rules may also have changed can relax. They haven’t.

The traditional aim of dominating cardboard real estate, and ruining your competition, remains the same.

Anyone considering Tyrannosaurusinspired mayhem should think twice, however.

Even a dinosaur can still go directly to jail.

circulated in January promised to review existing regulations, find ways to allocate visas more efficiently and ensure that beneficiaries are “the best and the brightest.”

Trump has yet to issue that order; the enforcement effort announced Monday could be an interim measure while a broader overhaul is worked out.

The H-1B program is open to a broad range of occupations, including architects, professors and even fashion models. Companies must affirm that the job requires a specialty skill that cannot be filled by a U.S. worker, but critics say safeguards are weak. They argue the program routinely lets in foreign workers with minimal skills, even though these visas are supposed to be reserved for highly specialized jobs that are difficult to fill with U.S. workers.

The tech industry insists the H1-B program is vital. Proponents say the program encourages students to stay in the U.S. after getting their degrees in high-tech specialties. He said many of them go on to start companies and hire U.S. workers.

Critics called the announcement and

increased enforcement a step toward reform.

“While the laws/regs are chock full of major loopholes, the U.S. government hasn’t vigorously enforced them,” longtime critic Ron Hira, a Howard University professor, said in an email. “I suspect that many H-1B dependent firms are not complying with good faith recruiting promises. DHS investigations would help shed light on this.”

The crackdown didn’t surprise the Computing Technology Industry Association, a trade group that represents Apple, Google, Microsoft and other major companies. Critics say that many of the available H-1B spots go to lower-paid foreign workers employed by consulting firms that let U.S. companies contract out their tech departments.

“If it helps preserve the program and frees up more spots for truly exceptional people to continue innovation in this country, then it’s a good thing,” said Todd Thibodeaux, the association’s CEO. “And if it squeezes out people out at the bottom, then so be it.”

Tesla edges out GM as most valuable US car maker

For the first time in the era of the modern automobile, the most valuable U.S. car maker is not based in Detroit.

Silicon Valley’s Tesla Inc overtook General Motors to become the U.S. car maker with the largest market capitalization as the century-old automobile industry increases its reliance on software and cutting-edge energy technology.

That milestone is likely to be on the minds of Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk and GM Chief Executive Mary Barra as they and other CEOs visit the White House on Tuesday to discuss tax reform and infrastructure with President Donald Trump.

Helped by an analyst’s recommendation, Tesla rose 3.26 percent to a record high of $312.39 on Monday. Its market value of $50.887 billion exceeded GM’s by about $1 million.

Over the past month, the luxury electric car maker has surged 35 percent as investors bet that Musk will revolutionize the automobile and energy industries.

That compares to a declining share performance by GM in recent years that recently led billionaire investor David Einhorn to propose splitting the stock into two classes to help boost its price.

Tesla’s market capitalization is losing solar panel installer now equivalent to $102,000 for SolarCity and Tesla’s Nevada every car it plans to make in 2018, battery cell plant aimed at or $667,000 per car sold last year. driving down manufacturing By comparison, GM’s market costs. capitalization is equivalent to $5,000 per car it sold in 2016.

ANALYST ENTHUSIASTIC

The Palo Alto, California company is rushing to launch After driving a Tesla its mass-market Model 3 sedan for seven months, Piper Jaffray in the second half of 2017 and analyst Alexander Potter on quickly ramp up its factory to Monday upgraded the stock reach a production target of to “overweight” from “neutral”, 500,000 cars per year in 2018. describing Tesla’s products as Last year it sold 76,230, missing “captivating”. its target of at least 80,000 “Tesla isn’t just another vehicles. By comparison, GM sold company. More so than any stock 10 million cars and Ford sold 6.7 we’ve covered, Tesla engenders million. optimism, freedom, defiance, and

With its stock down a host of other emotions that, nearly 20 percent since 2013, in our view, other companies GM has scaled back operations cannot replicate,” Potter wrote in outside the United States a report. while pushing to improve its Skeptics believe Tesla’s profitability. It announced in growth targets are unrealistic March it would sell its European and that the company risks being operations. overtaken by GM, Ford and other

Reflecting Wall Street’s deep-pocketed manufacturers worries, GM’s stock trades at ramping up their own electric6 times its expected earnings, vehicle offerings. the lowest multiple among Its market capitalization companies in the S&P 500. remains smaller than Japan’s Proponents believe Toyota Motor Corp, at $173 Tesla, which is not profitable, billion. argue its stock price is justified Tesla’s rich valuation based on long-term expectations has made it a target of short for Tesla’s growth. sellers, who so far in 2017 have

They also point to suffered over $2 billion in paper opportunities from Tesla’s losses as the stock rallied. acquisition last year of money-

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APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

WORLD NEWS BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY

Facebook launches resource to help spot misleading news

NEW YORK — Facebook gained outsized attention in the false news as such. And once they is launching a resource to help you months leading up to the 2016 U.S. are identified, Facebook is trying to dry up the “economic incentives” of spot false news and misleading presidential election.

False news, of course, was false news sites by making it difficult information that spreads on its around long before the election. for them to buy ads on Facebook. service.

Mosseri said most of the

The resource, similar to But supermarket tabloids peddling previous efforts around privacy and stories about aliens and celebrity false news content on Facebook is security, is basically a notification miracles are less insidious than, say, from spammers trying to seek a that pops up for a few days. Clicking “Pizzagate,” a false internet rumor profit and not, for example, political on it takes you to tips and other that led a gunman to fire an assault propaganda. This is apparent as the information on how to spot false weapon inside a Washington pizzeria sites often flip-flop around opposing in December. political candidates or ideologies, for news and what to do about it.

Tips to spot false news Facebook has been “working example, or have multiple pages that include looking closely at website very hard to figure out how to get support different candidates. addresses to see if they are trying to their arms wrapped around this,” Facebook’s other efforts spoof real news sites, and checking said Lucy Dalglish, journalism include the creation, with other websites’ “about” sections for more dean at the University of Maryland. companies, groups and tech leaders, information. Some sites might look “Facebook was always very interested of a “news integrity” nonprofit to like real news at first glance, but technology but not the social and promote news literacy and increase their “about” sections inform the civic implications of technology. It’s the public’s trust in journalism.

A nascent Facebook Journalism like they have become citizens.” visitor that they are in fact satire.

Adam Mosseri, vice She praised the company for Project , meanwhile, is a lofty effort president of News Feed at Facebook, seeking help from outside experts, to work with news organizations to said he hopes people will become including academics, researchers and develop products, provide tools for journalists and generally promote “more discerning consumers” of news. nonprofit journalism organizations.

The company, for instance, trust in news.

The new feature is part of a broader plan by Facebook to clamp is working with outside fact-checking The new feature will be available down false news stories, which and media organizations to identify in 14 countries, including the U.S.,

Germany, France, Italy, the U.K., Philippines, Taiwan and Brazil.

Also on Thursday, Facebook said that its messaging app, Messenger, will soon start showing users suggestions from a virtual assistant to users in the U.S. The artificial intelligence-powered assistant, called M, will suggest things it deems might be helpful to users based on the conversations they are having. This can include sending stickers, sharing your location with a friend to meet up, hailing a ride or sending money to friends.

The more someone uses M, the “smarter” it gets — and if the suggestions are routinely ignored, it will stop providing them. While having a virtual assistant monitor your private messages can sound creepy, Facebook stresses that there is no advertising component to the move.

Facebook unveiled M in 2015, but until now it’s only been testing out the suggestions with a small percentage of Messenger users.

United Airlines passenger dragged from plane likely to sue

The passenger dragged from a United Airlines plane in Chicago in an incident that sparked international outrage and turned into a public relations nightmare for the carrier, will likely sue the company, his attorney said on Thursday.

“For a long time airlines, United in particular, have bullied us,” Thomas Demetrio told reporters at a press conference in Chicago.

“Will there be a lawsuit? Yeah, probably.”

He said the law stated that passengers could not be ejected from planes with unreasonable force.

David Dao, a 69-year-old Vietnamese-American doctor, was hospitalized after Chicago aviation police dragged him from the plane as the airline sought to make space on a flight from the city’s O’Hare International Airport to Louisville, Kentucky.

Dao, who was discharged from the hospital on Wednesday night, suffered a significant concussion, a broken nose and lost two front teeth in the incident, and he will need to undergo reconstructive surgery, Demetrio said.

Video of Sunday’s incident taken by other passengers and showing Dao being dragged up the plane aisle and with a bloodied mouth circulated rapidly, causing public outrage that was not calmed by the airline’s initial response to the case.

Dao’s daughter, Crystal Dao Pepper, told the news conference that the family was “horrified, shocked and sickened” by what happened to her father. She is one of Dao’s five children.

Demetrio said Dao had told him

that being dragged down the plane aisle was more terrifying than his experience fleeing Vietnam in the 1970s.

Demetrio and a second attorney, Stephen Golan, said neither they nor the family had heard from United yet.

The lawyers filed an emergency request with an Illinois state court on Wednesday to require United Continental Holdings Inc and the City of Chicago to preserve video recordings and other evidence related to Sunday’s incident, which would be a precursor to a lawsuit.

United Chief Executive Oscar Munoz is under pressure to contain a torrent of bad publicity and calls for boycotts against United, including in China, where people have been angered because Dao was an AsianAmerican passenger.

United shares have lost about 1 percent of their value since Monday.

PRESSURE ON UNITED

Given the wide public outrage over the incident, Dao is in a strong position as he prepares to launch a legal action, lawyers who represent airlines and passengers said.

“United is looking at a legal claim, but they’re also looking at a huge public relations and business problem,” said Justin Green, a partner at the law firm Kreindler & Kreindler in New York who represents airline passengers.

“I think United, if they’re smart, will quickly and quietly settle the case.”

Paul Callan, a civil and criminal trial lawyer in New York, said Dao has at least two potential claims against

the airline: a personal injury claim for assault and battery, which could also target the police; and a contract claim.

Callan said he had reviewed United’s contract of carriage, the fine print that passengers agree to when they buy tickets. He said that while the contract allows United to deny passengers boarding, it says nothing about removing a passenger from a plane unless the passenger is disruptive.

On Wednesday, Munoz apologized to Dao, his family and United customers in an ABC News interview, saying the company would no longer use law enforcement officers to remove passengers from overbooked flights.

Kenneth Quinn, a partner at the law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman in Washington who represents airlines, disputed that Dao

had a case.

Quinn said that under the passenger contract, removing Dao from the plane while it was still at the gate was no different from denying him boarding. And once Dao refused to leave, Quinn said, the airline had a reason to use force.

But Quinn said that even without a strong case, Dao would probably walk away with a hefty settlement.

“I think United is likely to be found on legally solid ground, but has already lost in the court of public opinion, and will pay dearly for it,” Quinn said.

Chicago’s Aviation Department said on Wednesday that two more officers had been placed on leave in connection with the incident.

One officer was placed on leave on Tuesday.

APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

TURKS & CAICOS SUN

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CARIBBEAN

SPORTS

Bahamian dancers to join Beach Soccer cheerleaders at FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup

Nassau, The Bahamas – Bahamian talent and culture will be on full display during the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup Bahamas 2017 thanks to a new and exciting addition to the tournament’s entertainment lineup.

Local dancers from the Host Country will take to the sand with the professional beach soccer cheerleaders.

A special casting was held in Nassau in February during the CONCACAF Championship, and eight talented Bahamian dancers got the chance to audition for the opportunity of a lifetime.

Cheerleaders Coordinator that she was pleasantly surprised by Idaira Rodriguez conducted the casting the talent. in two parts. For the first part, the “First because of the level they Bahamian dancers were taught a short have and also because we saw different choreographed piece. To complete the styles that can add a special touch and auditions, the dancers were asked to enrich the whole crew,” Plasencia said. “freestyle” and show off their unique Cheerleader Giovanna Lee styles and Bahamian rhythm. added: “I think that it will make for

“I was highly surprised by an explosive combination since the the outcome of the casting. I am very Bahamian girls obviously have a happy with the result, and I am looking different look and a different dancing forward to working with the girls. It culture. I’m sure we will learn a lot will be a great experience for everyone. from them.”

I can’t wait for the FIFA Beach Soccer Bahamian Dancers Kieasha World Cup to begin!” Rodriquez said.

Adderley and Myrkeeva Johnson were

Cheerleader Marta Plasencia, chosen on the spot. Two additional who taught the choreography, noted dancers will be surprised in the coming

weeks when they are added to the anything like this. To audition for dance team that will compete during something as big as this, I’m just the tournament scheduled for April very ecstatic about the opportunity,” 27 - May 7. The performances will Adderley added. broadcast live to millions of viewers Locals now have even more all over the world. reasons to attend; to enjoy the most

“It was wonderful. I am so exciting beach soccer festival in the excited to have this type of opportunity world; to experience the highest level because it doesn’t come around that of talent and fancy tricks by the best often since we are from such a small 16 teams in the world; and now to country. To be chosen for something cheer on the Bahamian dancers. big and international like this and to Admission to the FIFA Beach be chosen right on the spot is amazing,” Soccer World Cup Bahamas 2017 Johnson said. is free for the entire competition.

“It was a wonderful experience! VIP packages are also available for I’ve been dancing for so long and I purchase. haven’t had a chance to experience

WICB have done a ‘lousy job’ - Viv Richards

Former West Indies captain feature in domestic T20 leagues like Viv Richards has blamed the the Big Bash, which clash with the “arrogance of administrators” involved Super50, they have refused to sign the in West Indies cricket for the failure to binding WICB contract.

Richards insisted that the ensure the best players in the region remain available for international situation has come to pass only because duty. Several big ticket players members of the WICB have done a including Chris Gayle, Sunil Narine, “lousy job” in creating an environment Lendl Simmons, Carlos Brathwaite, where players feel treasured by the Kieron Pollard, Darren Sammy and national set-up. “When you have Darren Bravo are currently in India to an arrogant administrative unit, participate in the IPL even as a three- guys are going to pick and choose,” told ESPNcricinfo in match ODI series against Pakistan Richards Mumbai on Wednesday. “We must gets underway on Friday in Guyana.

In the last few years a number remember that many of the players of high profile Caribbean players come from humble backgrounds. I declined central contracts from the have no qualms in saying this, some West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), of these administrators think they are leaving them under no compulsion as important as the players on the to appear for national duty. One of field. They are not. It is all about the the diktats of the WICB that has attraction of the environment that the irked the players is being asked to players on the field would have created play the Regional Super50 in order for them to be in an administrative to qualify for selection for ODI squad. position.

“I think it is a bigger issue Considering the aforesaid players all

Sir Vivian Richards than about the guys playing in our domestic competition. Most of the guys played there when they first started out, that’s what they wanted to do.

But when you get an administration who thinks that they are the most important entity where West Indies cricket is concerned, they better wake

up. The players have done their bit in terms of their representation. We lost a series in the UAE recently [in 2016 against Pakistan], now we have lost the T20 series in West Indies to Pakistan. All this after winning the last World T20. That sends a message in my opinion that all is not well with all the players who are representing West Indies at this stage.”

Having failed to qualify for the Champions Trophy in June, West Indies are currently lying ninth in the ODI rankings and face the prospect of missing out on direct qualification for the 2019 World Cup. The cut-off date for the World Cup, which will be held in England, is September 30 this year.

Other than the hosts England, the top seven in the ODI rankings will get a direct berth in the World Cup. West Indies, Pakistan and Bangladesh are vying to take the seventh position to avoid being forced to play the qualifiers.

Elaine Thompson heads Jamaica World Relays squad

Olympic sprint champion Elaine Thompson heads Jamaica’s 41-member team to the April 22-23 IAAF World Relays 2017 in the Bahamas.

Thompson, who copped gold in the 100 and 200 metres in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil last year, will be joined in the women’s 4x100 metres squad by Gayon Evans, Simone Facey, Sashalee Forbes, Natasha Morrison, and Christania Williams.

In the 4x200 metres squad, Thompson is accompanied by Samantha Henry-Robinson, Anastacia Le-Roy, Jura Levy, Dawnalee Loney and Audra Segree.

The members of the women’s 4x400m squad are Verone Chambers, Christine Day, Shericka

Jackson, Anneisha McLaughlin-Whilby, Stephenie Ann McPherson and Janieve Russell.

There will also be a mixed (men and women) 4x400m squad and this includes Natoya Goule, Jaheel Hyde, Tiffany James, Martin Manley, Jamari Rose and Ristananna Tracey.

TOP NAMES

Former world 100 metres record holder Asafa Powell and 2011 World 100m champion Yohan Blake are the top names on the men’s team which will also compete in the 4x100m, 4x200 and 4x400m.

4x100m: Kemar Bailey-Cole, Yohan Blake, Everton

Clarke, Julian Forte, Jevaughn Minzie and Asafa Powell.

4x200m: Nickel Ashmeade, Oshane Bailey, Rasheed Dwyer, Nigel Ellis, Chadic Hinds and Warren Weir.

4x400m: Javere Bell, Javon Francis, Demish Gaye, Steven Gayle, Peter Matthews and Rusheen McDonald.

Officials - manager: Marie Tavares; assistant manager: Alan Beckford; technical director: Maurice Wilson. Coaches: Paul Francis, Jerry Holness, Michael Clarke, Renardo Walcott and Patrick Dawson.

Team doctor: Paul Auden.

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LOCAL SPORTS

TURKS & CAICOS SUN

APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

TCI Sailors Mixing It Up At The KPMG regatta

Group shot

By Keir Clarke

A team of 10 young sailors, 1 coach, and 4 Adult team mums and dads from TCI travelled to Nassau Bahamas last weekend to compete in their annual KPMG Championships, at the Nassau Yacht Club.

There were a total of 32 sailors competing in the event, and the results were great. In the young Optimist Division, our 6 sailors showed real skill & finished between 6th & 12th place in the highly competitive fleet, going up against the top Bahamian sailors, many of whom have competed in international championships for years. Notable performances were from Maya Lopes Wilson (Our Youth Americas Cup representative) , & TristanGrandsire on day two of the regatta, who sailed

many results inside the top 5 boats.

Day one sailor of the day was handed to our youngest sailor, Grace reaston Brown, who sailed excellently, and managed to score a second place in race 3. Coach Keir Clarke said, “It was amazing watching Grace in the third race. She sailed with such intelligence and maturity, it was like watching myself 20 years ago when I was competing in the same boat! It just goes to show that all of our young sailors are more than capable of scoring the same results, with a bit more practice & time spent on the water”

In the Olympic Laser Class, our young team of Rori Bywater, Cam Rennie, Oliver Downes and Grace Mann sailed a good regatta. 13 year old Rori, who was competing in her first ever Laser 4.7 event finished

in the medals, in 3rd place overall, which was a very proud moment for her and the team! Grace, Oliver(our ale Americas Cup Rep) & cameron sailed brilliantly in the Olympic Laser radial Class to finish 7h, 8th & 9th place respectively.

It was a very positive regatta, with huge improvements from the last time we visited. Coach Clarke added “We still have a lot to work on, if we are going to challenge for a podium position, but as the youngest & most inexperienced team, we have a lot in our favour.

Regattas like these carry quite heavy costs, with flights, accommodation, entry fees and meals out to factor in, so in future we would love to seek out a specific Regatta sponsor : Someone who we represent abroad, and wear their corporate clothing on our gear and equipment, and provide them with added publicity & the knowledge that they are helping

Rori collecting trophy

to spread the word that TCI Sailing is a force to be reckoned with!

On home turf, the Provo Sailing Club is entering their regatta season. This weekend on Easter Sunday & Monday sees the first annual Easter Regatta in Blue Hills, which is set to be a fantastic family sailing heritage celebration & festival. In May they are organising the “Spring Fling” regatta. In June, the infamous Fool’s Regatta returns for the 26th Year on June 17th, and in July 8th will be the School’s Out Cooper Cup Regatta.

There will also be summer sailing camps, and for anyone interested in getting in to sailing, attending a camp, volunteering their time to assist at the club or becoming a valued sponsor, please do get in touch with head Coach & manager Keir Clarke on keir@tcisailing.com or call 244-9906.

APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

TURKS & CAICOS SUN

Page 45

LOCAL SPORTS

SURFside Ocean Academy hosted their 3rd annual Spring Sprint

Sunday, April 2nd SURFside Ocean Academy hosted their 3rd annual Spring Sprint, an open water swim event that challenges swimmers to push themselves while having fun.

The event was the largest and most successful since its inauguration with over 40 participants. The proceeds from this year’s Spring Sprint are being donated to the swimmers who are competing and representing TCI in this year’s CARIFTA games in the Bahamas next week. The event raised $2000 to help cover the costs for the 6 swimmers, 4 of whom are members of the SURFside Swim Team, to travel and participate in the prestigious event from April 13-19th.

Swimmers at the Spring Sprint had 4 races to choose from: 2000m, 800m, 400m, and 100m.

The 100m was split between rookie swimmers who had never competed

before and veterans who had much more experience. The rookie race saw nearly 15 swimmers try their hand at their first open water swim race!

Swimmers battled a rough sea with waves taller than most of them.

In the longest event, the 2km, Dan Redmond came first overall with an impressive time of 27:30. Redmond is an extremely accomplished and decorated swimmer on the island which makes it even more impressive that Luke Haywood, one of the swimmers who will be representing TCI in the Bahamas next week, finished only 18 seconds behind Redmond. Although Haywood is only 13 years old, he gave the veteran a swim for his money keeping up with him for the first 3 out of 5 laps of the race. Haywood also came first overall in both the 400m and 100m veterans events. Alex Maclaren, who will also be representing TCI at

next week’s CARIFTA Games, not only came first in the Female 13-16 age group, she came first overall in the 800m with a time of 12:45. In her first ever race, Thais Burgess took the title in the 100m rookie event!

Competitive swimming has taken some incredible leaps in the past year with 11 swimmers traveling to the Bahamas this March to compete in their first international swim meet for SURFside Ocean Academy.

Head Coach, Jen Martel, had this to say:

“Our swimmers have been incredibly dedicated and determined this year with many of them increasing their practices from 1 per week to 4 or 5 per week.

Their drive has propelled them to the level they are at now, and with more training, they will only continue to excel.”

She said that their improvement is evident when comparing times from last year’s event to this year’s.

“The difference in their times is humbling. While many of our swimmers improved their times from last year, the two most notable were Sophie Taylor and Lilly Taylor who both improved their 800m time by over 10 minutes.”

Martel says that she attributes their phenomenal improvement to their increased dedication to swimming as both of them were in the group who increased their practices to 4-5 times per week.

As the event and the sport of competitive swimming continue to grow in TCI we look forward to seeing swimmers leave it all in the ocean in the future.

Annual TCIFA Gordon’s Supply Walk Run Ride

The Turks and Caicos Islands Football Association (TCIFA), throughout it’s history, has played a very active role in supporting and promoting the development of youth through football in the Turks & Caicos Islands. On Saturday, April 8th, 2017, the 5th annual “Walk Run Ride” endorsed by Gordon’s Plumbing & Electrical Supply, was held at the TCIFA National Academy.

Cars lined the fencing along the grass pitch, and hands were grabbing t-shirts in search for the right size.

Candace Hanchell, TCIFA Executive Director responsible for Women’s Football, commenced the morning’s event with an announcement that served as a reminder to all that raising a child involves community effort and that the benefits of sports reach beyond the physical well-being during his/her developmental process.

Pastor Wayde Colby followed the introduction with a prayer, then Fitness Instructor Adina Cuirar with a pre-event warmup session. The atmosphere was completely lit with energy and excitement.

“Walk Run Ride” is an annual initiative dedicated to raising funds in partnership with stakeholders and to increase the awareness of youth

development through sport. All proceeds go toward the youth development football programmes ran throughout the country. Every year TCIFA aims to not only accomplish fund raising goals, but to increase participation. TCIFA strives to provide quality youth programmes, all whilst in creating a welcoming, safe and healthy environment for players, coaches, referees, and all its members.

Once the participants returned to the Academy from their respective routes, they were invited to complimentary snacks and a brief prize giving ceremony. The following persons were recognized: 1st place male cyclist Shanwell Gardiner 2nd place male cyclist Anthony Plunkett 1st place female cyclist GabRielia Hegeolus 1st place male walker/runner Dan Redmond 2nd place male walker/runner Adelfir Pareds

1st place female walker/runner Lynn Robinson 2nd place female walker/runner Stacy Vorwek 1st place male youth Joshua Lewis 1st place female youth Sydney Campbell 2nd place female youth Alyna Ayer

Most supportive corporate group Grace Bay Club 3 Consolation prizes were given.

“Walk Run Ride” could not have been made possible without the generous support of headline sponsor, Gordon’s Plumbing & Electrical Supply, and co-sponsors, Coca Cola, Gracebay Pharmacy, Flamingo Pharmacy, Walkin Marine, Graceway Sports Center, Perto Plus, Conservative Architects, Missick’s Contracting, Grace Bay Club, Marsha Lightbourne, Willard Williams, Jermaine Malcolm, Paul Cox, Roy Williams, Adina Cuirar, Pastor Wayde Colby and the Turks & Caicos Islands Royal Police Force representatives. Thank you to these organizations and persons, the local media, and persons who registered and participated in the event, for encouraging TCIFA to continue muchneeded progress.

The Turks and Caicos Islands Football Association (TCIFA) is a non-profit organization in the business of football development throughout the Turks and Caicos Islands. The TCIFA has been in operation since 1996, and a member of FIFA since 1998.

Page 46

WORLD

TURKS & CAICOS SUN

APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

SPORTS

FIFA sees widening losses this year after corruption scandal

FIFA expects widening losses in 2017, world soccer’s ruling body said on Friday, as costs linked to its biggest ever corruption scandal and failed investments contributed to a $391 million pretax shortfall in 2016.

The 2016 loss, up from a restated $117 million shortfall for 2015, was blamed on increased legal costs and the extraordinary general congress called to elect a new president after Sepp Blatter resigned after graft allegations emerged in 2015.

Legal costs more than doubled to $50 million during 2015, but FIFA expects these to go down considerably in future.

What FIFA called “ill-considered previous investments,” like its struggling football museum and hotel in Zurich as well as a new accounting standard were also behind the shortfall.

It also increased its spending on what it calls education and development to $428 million during 2016 from $187 million a year earlier.

As a result of the losses, disclosed in FIFA’s annual

financial report, the organization’s reserves fell to $1.048 billion from $1.41 billion in 2015.

FIFA said it expects a $489 million loss in 2017 but should turn a $1.07 billion profit in 2018 when the World Cup is held in Russia, pushing its financial result for the 2014 to 2018 period into a $100 million profit.

Despite the shortfall, FIFA President Gianni Infantino said he would stick to his plans to increase the payout to soccer associations around the world to develop the sport.

“We need to ensure that every bit of revenue is well invested in the game,” he said in a statement. “The FIFA Forward Development Programme is an embodiment of this commitment.”

Infantino’s salary was confirmed at $1.5 million, less than half the 3.53 million Swiss francs paid to Blatter, who was banned for six years for ethics violations.

Infantino, former head of the European soccer organization UEFA, was elected president in 2016 promising to lead FIFA into

a new era. As part of his campaign, he pledged more money to the 211 soccer associations around the world.

He had promised to distribute $5 million every four years for football development for every country, from rich large members like Germany to tiny ones like the Cook Islands. He also promised to deliver $40 million to each of the six continental associations over the same period.

FIFA kept its projected revenue at $5.65 billion, saying it had already contracted 76 per cent of the revenue.

It gets money from sponsors on three levels, with the top FIFA partners, which include Coca-Cola, Gazprom, Chinese conglomerate Wanda Group, Adidas, Visa and Hyundai, paying an estimated $100 million to $300 million every four years to support the World Cup.

FIFA expects to sign up more sponsors in the coming months. It also expects its legal expenses to decrease due to the end of its internal investigations into corruption.

Garcia no favorite for U.S. Open, despite Masters win

Sergio Garcia’s victory at the U.S. Masters on Sunday was received with delight throughout the golf world, but it seems unlikely to lead to a subsequent flood of major titles for the Spaniard.

That is not to say 37-year-old Garcia will fail to add to his first major win, but the best players are too evenly matched in the post-Tiger Woods era to realistically expect him to suddenly run up his major tally in his late 30s.

The top 20 or so players are all eminently capable of winning when in top form. Woods may have been capable of winning with his “B” game, but no-one else is, not even current number one Dustin Johnson.

Since Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth combined to win four consecutive majors at the end of 2014 and start of 2015, seven players have shared the spoils in the past seven majors, much as it used to be before Woods.

Garcia and Masters runner-up Justin Rose were ranked 11th and 14th respectively in the world last week, but it was hardly a surprise they ended up separating themselves from the field, especially in the absence of Johnson, who pulled out at the last minute with a back injury.

A little luck is often required to win, and if Rose’s seven-foot birdie putt at the 72nd hole had toppled in instead of grazing the cup, the Englishman probably would be celebrating getting halfway to the career

Sergio Garcia of Spain points to the sky as he holds the Masters trophy after winning the 2017 Masters golf tournament at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia, U.S., April 9, 2017 grand slam, after winning the misses). He’s an emotional person.

2013 U.S. Open.

I know how much it hurts him.”

Indeed, Garcia’s victory It seemed as though most hardly elevated him to the top of the gallery at Augusta felt the echelon of favorites in betting for same way, as the Garcia who the next major, the U.S. Open at made a rude hand gesture to a Erin Hills in Wisconsin in June. spectator who heckled him at the Betting website 2002 U.S. Open was transformed Centrebet on Monday had Dustin into an almost beloved figure who Johnson a 7/1 favorite, followed seemed to feed off the crowd’s at 8/1 by McIlroy and Jason Day, affection. with Jordan Spieth at 9/1.

“Sergio often feels like

Garcia was 33/1, similar he’s not supported the way he to his pre-Masters odds. would like to be here in America,”

But he will not care as said the vanquished Rose. he celebrates an occasion that he “It was encouraging to thought might never come. He see the crowd get behind him. I was not the only one. think they realized that he paid

Former European Ryder his dues, he’s been close so many Cup captain Paul McGinley times and they probably were struggled to retain his composure pulling for him to pull through on during the live television this occasion.” commentary on Sky Sports.

McGinley, meanwhile,

“It was kind of difficult,” admitted that he was starting to McGinley said on Golf Channel on wonder whether Garcia would Monday. “To be honest I had a big ever close the deal. lump in my throat.

“I think his career

“I was so happy for him deserved a major and we were all I can’t tell you how happy. I’ve worried his career wasn’t going to been through so much with him. I end with one,” the Irishman said. felt his pain (after previous near-

Fight over motive as ex-NFL star Hernandez’s murder trial ends

Former NFL player Aaron Hernandez

The double murder trial of former New England Patriots star Aaron Hernandez ended on Thursday with the prosecution and his defense attorneys locking horns over whether he had argued with, or even noticed, the men he is charged with gunning down outside a nightclub.

Prosecutors contend Hernandez hunted down Cape Verdean nationals Daniel Abreu and Safiro Furtado and shot them dead after flying into a rage because one of them had inadvertently spilled a drink on him while partying at a Boston club in July 2012.

Their star witness, convicted drug dealer Alexander Bradley, testified that he left the club with Hernandez and was sitting next to him in a car when he yelled to get the men’s attention and then shot them dead.

Defense attorney Jose Baez disputed that claim, noting that no video evidence had been presented showing Hernandez interacting with the men during the 9 minutes he spent in the club and that he does not appear wet in surveillance video taken outside.

“It’s an absolute lie,” Baez said. He repeatedly emphasized that Bradley had been given immunity to testify and said that Bradley, not Hernandez, may have been the gunman.

Assistant District Attorney Patrick Haggan stuck by Bradley’s testimony and showed video from outside the club that depicted Bradley gesturing to Hernandez in a way he said backed up the man’s testimony that he was trying to calm his angry friend.

“We’re not asking you to speculate,” Haggan told the jury. “Alexander Bradley told you what’s being said, he told you that he told him, ‘Listen, you’re a professional athlete, you have to stop getting so mad at things, people aren’t trying to test you.’”

Hernandez was convicted in 2015 of fatally shooting an acquaintance, Odin Lloyd, in an industrial park near his North Attleboro, Massachusetts, home two years earlier. He is serving a life prison term for that murder.

Bradley said Hernandez shot him in the face while the two were on a 2013 trip to Florida after Bradley mentioned the Boston shooting.

Bradley, who lost an eye in that incident, initially denied knowing who had fired at him but later identified Hernandez as the alleged shooter in a civil lawsuit seeking monetary damages.

Hernandez, 27, is charged with witness intimidation for that alleged shooting. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

The additional murder charges also carry potential life sentences.

APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

WORLD SPORTS

Page 47

Westbrook sets triple-double record

Russell Westbrook

DENVER -- First, Russell Westbrook broke Oscar Robertson’s record for most triple-doubles in a season. Then, he broke the Denver Nuggets’ hearts.

Westbrook’s 36foot dagger at the buzzer gave Oklahoma City a 106105 victory, eliminating the Nuggets from playoff contention and capping an historic Sunday afternoon in which he scored 50 points to go with 15 rebounds and 10 assists.

Westbrook’s 42nd triple-double is one more than the “Big O” had for the Cincinnati Royals in 1961-62, a mark that many in the NBA had considered unbreakable

TURKS & CAICOS SUN

until Westbrook’s incredible run.

The crowd gave Westbrook a standing ovation after he broke Robertson’s record with his 10th assist with 4:17 remaining.

Then, those same fans stood in stunned silence after watching Westbrook score his team’s final 15 points, including the gamewinner after Steven Adams took the inbounds pass from Kyle Single with 2.9 seconds left and dished to Westbrook, whose long jumper ringed through the iron as the horn sounded.

“It was a good defense,” lamented Nuggets guard Gary Harris. “He’s had a hell of a

season. I think he might have a flagrant foul and a technical just locked up the MVP with -- then added another layup.

“It was like a video that one right there.”

Westbrook insisted game,” Christon said. “I loved his buzzer beater wasn’t a low- watching it.”

Westbrook’s biggest bucket percentage prayer.

“I practice that shot was his last.

“Pure adrenaline, everyday pregame,” he said.

Same spot. And, he emotions running high, gamewinning shot, it is something said, usually the same result.

“So, I definitely feel you dream about as a little confident in shooting that kid to be able to do that on the road especially from that shot,” he said.

Westbrook had a distance,” Westbrook said. “It double-double by halftime is something you definitely but didn’t get his triple- will never forget.” scored double until feeding Semaj Westbrook Christon in the right corner the game’s final eight points for a 3-pointer that pulled the overall as Denver’s shooters Thunder to 101-91 with more went cold when one more bucket would have iced it. than four minutes left.

“I give him credit, he

With his 10th assist and his record in the books is a hell of a player and an -- after four tries at that final MVP candidate,” Nuggets assist -- Westbrook took care coach Michael Malone said. of the scoring himself the rest “(But) I really feel that we lost of the way. this game. Our turnovers in

He followed a pair of the fourth quarter, we had six layups with six free throws turnovers for 10 points. Down -- half of them coming after the stretch, we had a lack of Nikola Jokic was whistled for poise, lack of execution, we

picked up a technical foul.

Everything that could go wrong went wrong.”

Westbrook nearly had his 10th assist with two minutes left in the third quarter but Enes Kanter lost the handle going up for the basket and Westbrook took a seat until the fourth quarter.

Upon his return, Westbrook again fed Kanter, who took several steps on his way to the basket and was whistled for traveling with 8:20 left.

With the crowd again on its feet anticipating history, Westbrook passed to Domatas Sabonis, whose jumper rimmed out at 7:16. Sabonis missed another short jumper with 5:39 left that would have given Westbrook the record.

Finally, Westbrook fed Christon for the 3-pointer to put Roberton’s record to rest.

“He always tells us, if you’re open, shoot the ball,” Christon said of Westbrook. “I was open and let it go.”

Rio Olympic marathon champion Sumgong fails drugs test

Jemima Sumgong, who “This was part of an enhanced last year became the first Kenyan IAAF out-of-competition testing woman to win Olympic gold in the program dedicated to elite marathon marathon, has tested positive for the runners which is supported by the banned blood-booster EPO in an out- Abbott World Marathon Majors of-competition test carried out by the group.”

IAAF, the sport’s governing body said If Sumgong’s B sample is on Thursday. confirmed as positive and she is

“The IAAF can confirm that subsequently banned it will be a an anti-doping rule violation case massive blow for African distance concerning Jemima Sumgong (Kenya) powerhouse Kenya, where her Rio has commenced this week, the victory was greeted with nearInternational Association of Athletics delirium after such a long and Federations said in a statement. inexplicable barren spell over the

“The athlete tested positive classic distance at the Olympics. for EPO (Erythropoietin) following a Kenya took silver in the no-notice test conducted by the IAAF women’s marathon at the three in Kenya. previous Games and a bronze in 2000

having failed to medal before that after the race was introduced to the Games in 1984.

Sumgong, 32, had a stellar 2016, winning the London Marathon in April then claiming the elusive Olympic gold in Rio despite being disturbed by a protester on the course.

Sumgong’s former compatriot Eunice Jepkirui, who switched allegiance to Bahrain in 2013, took silver.

Eliud Kipchoge won the men’s race to complete a Kenyan double.

Thursday’s news comes in the wake of a four-year ban handed to Kenya’s multi-marathon champion Rita Jeptoo, Sumgong’s former

training partner, after she tested positive for EPO in 2014.

Kenya’s middle and long distance success has been marred by doping cases involving elite athletes.

Officials estimate the number of positive tests at about 50 in the past four years.

The latest cases will be seen by observers as evidence of how the IAAF is making progress in the region after previous official criticism of anti-doping regimes in Kenya and Ethiopia.

Both countries have in the past been deemed non-compliant with the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) code.

Lingard signs new long-term Man United contract

Manchester United winger Jesse Lingard has signed a new contract that will keep him at Old Trafford until 2021, the Premier League club said in a statement on Thursday.

Lingard, who will earn up to 100,000 pounds ($124,650) a week according to British media reports, has an option to extend the deal by a further year.

“Manchester United has always been a big part of my life,” Lingard said in a club statement.

“I have been with the club since the age of seven and I feel great pride every time I pull the shirt on.”

The 24-year-old

broke into the United first team under previous manager Louis van Gaal and has gone on to make 70 appearances for the club, scoring 11 goals.

Three of those have come at Wembley, with the winger netting the winner in last season’s FA Cup final. He also scored against Leicester in the Community Shield and against Southampton as United won the League Cup in February.

“He has good intelligence which, when combined with his energy and ability, makes for a player with a great future ahead of him,” United manager Jose Manchester United’s Jesse Lingard celebrates a goal Mourinho said.

Page 48

TURKS & CAICOS SUN

APRIL 15TH, 2017 – APRIL 22TH, 2017

Published by SUN MEDIA GROUP, Turks and Caicos Islands | Tel:649 339 5879 | Fax: 649 941 3281