Daily Archive: Sunday, February 26, 2012

The police say they are investigating a fatal accident that occurred at about 0100h today along the Maria’s Lodge Public Road, Essequibo Coast, and which resulted in the death of Michael Persaud, 19 years of Johanna Cecilia, Essequibo.

There will no elephant for the zoo just yet. And it will be expensive to modernize the facility.

The Transparency Institute of Guyana Inc (TIGI) has condemned the conduct of Police Commissioner Henry Greene who has admitted sexual relations with a potential criminal defendant and called on him to resign saying that he was unfit to hold public office.

The Caribbean Community (Caricom) is at risk of being “brought down quickly” if the international financial situation worsens, according to recent review that also warns of the real possibility that member states could walk away over the movement’s slow progress.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – At least 31 Syrian civilians and soldiers were killed today in fighting over Syria’s future that coincided with a vote on a new constitution that could keep President Bashar al-Assad in power until 2028.

(Barbados Nation) A fabrication! That’s how a special Barbados report has described allegations by Jamaican Shanique Myrie.

(Barbados Nation) Forensic auditors Deloitte Canada have called for another probe of CLICO International Life (CIL), in the face of numerous unanswered questions and missing documents to support CIL’s money trail.

(Trinidad Express) Patrons attending the regional four-day match between Trinidad and Tobago and the Windward Islands would have noticed a piece of Queen’s Park Oval history gone missing–the Sir Errol Dos Santos Stand is no more.

(Trinidad Express) Gita Sakal, former corporate secretary of failed conglomerate CL Financial and the woman who will best be remembered as the high flying executive who kept a US$5 million cheque tucked away in a desk drawer for close to two months, has been called back to the witness stand in the ongoing CL Financial Commission of Enquiry.

(Trinidad Express) Nicole Patrick resigned her post as corporate secretary of insurance giant CLICO because she was being asked to sign questionable legal documents.

(Trinidad Express) Billionaire businessman Lawrence Duprey believed failed insurance giant CLICO was a cash fund which was easily accessible to finance investments for its parent company CL Financial.

The strike at the University of Guyana (UG) is over and classes will resume tomorrow at 7 am.

The secret biofuels agreement with the Trinidadian conglomerate, Ansa McAl entered into by the previous Bharrat Jagdeo administration is another that should be added to the list for review, Leader of the Opposition, David Granger says.

Digicel secured the top spot in several categories of this year’s Mashramani costume and float parade while local songster Adrian Dutchin is the winner of the Road March competition.

Speaker of the National Assembly Raphael Trotman says he intends to meet with representatives from both government and opposition, in an effort to avert potential gridlock in the consideration of the PPP/C’s outstanding extra-budgetary spending from last year.

The parents of a trainee teacher who was brutally stabbed to death in 2010 are convinced that there are deliberate attempts to cover up the case as evidence of the person involved has been shoved aside and ignored.

By Emmerson Campbell Robin Persaud yesterday sped off with the feature 35-lap Invitational race when national cycling coach Hassan Mohammed and R&R International staged an 11-race cycling meet at the National Park circuit, Thomas Lands.

Odinga Lumumba is having his cake and eating it too. The President of Alpha United Football Club seems to know how to wheel and deal in local football circles.

The recent Mashramani Swim Meet/National Swimming Championships at the National Aquatic Center (NAC) saw the introduction of Guyana’s first ever Long Course (LC) swimming competition.

Mash clean up

More than two years after Llewelyn Fitzgerald Campbell was found on the Kingston seawall with his throat slashed and head bashed in, police are yet to find the person(s) he was going to meet there; a vital piece of the puzzle that could crack the case wide open.

Relatives of 38-year-old Ramcumar Bandhoo who murdered his girlfriend, 47, at Mynderse Street, Schenectady, United States acknowledged that the two were having a rocky relationship and said he wanted to move on.

By Iva Wharton The Guyana Darts Association (GDA) would be focusing on reviving the sport in communities outside the city and introducing it into the education system, according to President of the GDA Grantley Culbard.

A mentally ill patient of the Georgetown Hospital was injured last night after he jumped off a balcony in a bid to escape from nurses.

Guyana’s Golden Jaguars football team, ranked 91st in World in the FIFA rankings, will take on Guatemala, one of the best football teams in Central America ranked 84th in the World, at the Guyana National Stadium on Wednesday from 8.00pm.

Isaiah Berlin was in my view the most distinguished political philosopher and historian of ideas of the 20th century.

Leader of A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) David Granger said the OAS Electoral Observer Mission (EOM) failed to effectively capture the gravity of the malpractices that took place on November 28, 2011.

Miners have not heard back from the government on the outcome of Cabinet’s consideration of the report of the Special Land Use Committee (SLUC) the Guyana Gold and Diamond Miners Association administrative coordinator, Colin Sparman says.

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – Resolute batting from Sulieman Benn and Kemar Roach lifted Barbados out of the depths of trouble against Combined Campuses & Colleges in the Regional 4-Day Tournament on Friday night.

By Iva Wharton President of Alpha United Football Club Odinga Lumumba yesterday sought to clear the air on his club’s decision to withdraw itself from under the umbrella of the Georgetown Football Association (GFA).

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad,  CMC  Denesh Ramdin stroked his ninth first class century to power Trinidad and Tobago to a handy total but Windward Islands were making a strong reply at the close on the second day of their Regional Four-Day match here yesterday.

The Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) is in the process of implementing a computerized system of processing drivers’ licences which will be introduced in the third quarter of this year, the GRA’s Public Relations Unit said in a press release.

Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee caused hilarity in Parliament on February 10 when he suggested that during the period around elections 2011, there had been an increase in the number of juvenile inmates at the Sophia holding facility and there had been a consequent rise in the cost of feeding them.

Up to now Europe has promoted the idea that the trading of permits to emit carbon is the best way to cap greenhouse gas emissions by aircraft and maritime transport.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez’s admission that he will undergo new cancer surgery raises a whole set of new questions about the viability of his narcissist-Leninist “revolution” both at home and throughout Latin America.

An excavator was deployed recently to the Seven Miles, Mahdia area where works commenced immediately to clear the existing drain and excavate additional areas to allow for  more rapid drainage with a significantly larger amount of water being discharged into the Mahdia Creek.

The Thomas United FC 52nd anniversary Mashramani Challenge Cup football club tournament will resume  on Tuesday in Linden with some four Upper Demerara teams vying for two spots to showcase their skills in Georgetown.

KATERINI, Greece (Reuters) – Struggling to cope with austerity, hundreds of Greeks in the town of Katerini at the foot of Mount Olympus have turned to a cheap way to do groceries: ordering potatoes on the Internet and picking them up in a parking lot.

A bandit who robbed a fish vendor yesterday morning of his day’s sales at Bell Vue, East Bank Berbice was apprehended following diligent efforts by the victim, an ex-police officer and another man.

There was likely to have been as much steam and pungent hot air during the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) directors meeting in Castries, over the last two days, as from the nearby Soufriere sulphur springs.

Calypso is once again under the lens in a fine unravelling by Raymon Cummings in a recent letter to this newspaper where he expressed urgent concern for the declines in standard, in quality of judging, in song topics, and in marketability of the material.

KABUL (Reuters) – Two American officers were shot dead at close range in Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry yesterday, a US official said, as rage gripped the country for a fifth day over the burning of the Muslim holy book at a NATO base.

BRASILIA (Reuters) – A fire broke out at Brazil’s research station in Antarctica yesterday, killing two navy personnel and forcing the evacuation by helicopter of about 40 other people, the government said.

MADRID (Reuters) – Coins worth nearly half a billion dollars finally arrived in Spain yesterday after lying in a sunken warship for more than 200 years and following a five-year legal battle between the Spanish government and a salvage company.

Introduction So serious are the defects in our tax regime I do not believe that Guyanese will be fobbed with anaemic or banal recommendations from the Tax Reform Committee.

SANAA/ADEN (Reuters) – A suicide bombing claimed by al Qaeda killed at least 26 people outside a presidential palace in southern Yemen yesterday, hours after the newly-elected president was sworn in and said the battle against the Islamists was a “national duty”.

Mash clean up

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea threatened today to wage a “sacred war” in response to joint military exercises planned by its arch-rival South Korea and the United States, saying it was determined to keep Washington from imposing its political will on it.

Introduction I do not share the excitement of the media and the public about the revelations in the Auditor General’s 2010 report supplying further evidence of the excesses, mismanagement and improprieties which have become routine under Dr Ashni Singh’s stewardship of the Ministry of Finance.

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syria holds a referendum yesterday on a new constitution, dismissed by the opposition as a charade amid an intensifying crackdown on the 11-month-old revolt against President Bashar al-Assad.

Dear Editor, On February 15 last, in an act of civility and public spiritedness too rare in Guyana of late, Minister Robert Persaud called to tell me that his ministry had in fact been gazetted.

The Uitvlugt Community Centre ground will be the venue for the final two matches of the GFF Super League preliminary competition today with the first game set to start at 13:00 hours.The

Fifty-three-year-old Ann Charles has been a miner for almost 30 years and for many of those years she has carried a heavy burden, one which grew heavier as the years went by.

Mash clean up

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistani forces began demolishing the house where al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed by US special forces last May, in an unexplained move carried out in the dark of night.

(Trinidad Express) Geoffrey Leid on Friday described his decision to assume the role of CLICO’s corporate secretary as “probably the biggest mistake” of his life.

Dear Editor, In most developing countries, the socio-economic needs of rapidly increasing populations are the main driving force in the allocation of land resources to various kinds of uses, with food production as the primary land use.

Mash clean up

The semi-finals of the NAMILCO football tournament will be played off this evening with a double header at the Tucville ground.

(Trinidad Express) the 2006 kidnapping and subsequent murder of businesswoman Vindra Naipaul-Coolman, the audit committee of CLICO never met, the insurance giant’s former corporate secretary Geoffrey Leid stated on Friday.

West Indian literature or the literature of the Caribbean provides an excellent illustration of the currently accepted understanding of what literature means. 

MILAN (Reuters) – Italian judges yesterday ended former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s trial on charges of bribing British lawyer David Mills, saying the statute of limitations had run out and a verdict could not be reached.

Clear progress is being made on the widening of the East Coast Highway

Dear Editor, Kudos to Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller for taking a stand on the Chris Gayle-West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) issue and the incompetence of those who run West Indies cricket.

Overseas-based Kelvin `Fathead’ Duesbury will headline the men’s singles of the National Sports Commission annual Mashramani tournament which climaxes today at the National Gymnasium.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – Former South African president Nelson Mandela was comfortable in hospital yesterday after undergoing a “diagnostic procedure” for abdominal pains, the government said, telling people not to panic about the health of the 93-year-old anti-apartheid leader.

(Reuters) – As Hugo Chavez heads to Cuba to have surgery on a second lesion in his pelvis, medical experts say the Venezuelan president still has a chance to be cured, but he may have  battle fatigue as he campaigns for re-election in October.

victims of domestic violence on how to speak out, where to go for help Victims of domestic violence are expected to receive much needed assistance following the formation of an organisation which aims to educate them on how to speak out on the issue by conducting “empowerment sessions.”

The Georgetown Zoo, which many parents once visited with their children to see the animals from Guyana’s own rainforest, as well as more exotic species from outside, has been deteriorating for years with little action being taken to improve it.

DHAKA, Bangladesh,  CMC ? Kieron Pollard?s frenetic, unbeaten 35 lifted Dhaka Gladiators to a five-wicket win over Barisal Burners  yesterday and put them in line for a semi-final spot in the Bangladesh Premier League.

Dear Editor, The pandemic of domestic violence has swarmed across societies in many parts of the world, including Guyana.

It was Ms Nadia Ragnauth in a letter to this newspaper published on February 14, who reminded everybody that the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) was reported to be funding the importation of an elephant. 

(OneIndia) The rumours of Deepika Padukone and Siddharth Mallya’s split have been proved true, when the duo were seen avoiding each other at an award function.

(Trinidad Express) An unnecessary level of muscle was used in the two police raids on media houses, particularly the one on Newsday, given the nature of the complaint, chairman of the Police Service Commission (PSC) Dr Ramesh Deosaran said on Friday.

The Vermilion Flycatcher (Pyrocephalus rubinus) is tiny but aptly named and can be seen sitting and marking its territory in open savannah areas of the North Rupununi.

Following on from last week’s topic on torn knee ligaments, let us now focus on the symptoms.

ST JOHN’S, Antigua, CMC – Jamaica, replying to Guyana’s 294 all out, reached 63 for one in their first innings at tea on

Two days after Guyanese celebrated Mashramani, several streets and canals have not been cleaned and Mayor of Georgetown Hamilton Green, said this can be blamed on the financial constraints of the council which cannot afford to pay its cleaning crews overtime.

Dear Editor, Further to my letter captioned ‘The processing of driver’s licences is manual, but will be automated later this year,’ which was published in the February 23 edition of the Stabroek News, I wish to state clearly that the interim system referred to is not in relation to the automated system that is scheduled to come on stream later this year.

Sunday’s Cartoon

(Trinidad Express) The Police Service Commission (PSC) on Friday gave Police Commissioner Dwayne Gibbs a damning report.