Daily Archive: Friday, June 22, 2012

(Trinidad Express) Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar tonight announced her administration’s second reshuffle, firing two Ministers, demoting others, and creating several new ministries.

By Emmerson Campbell “I am his stumbling block, he got some issues with accepting the fight, and I can’t say if he’s scared or not but I was confident on giving him a thrashing, He not confident of beating me, here is a big full stop and a question mark also because what is the reason he doesn’t want to fight me”?

Amid calls by the two unions on campus for him to resign, the University of Guyana today said that Professor Compton Bourne has been re-elected as Chancellor of the university for the next three years.

(WICB) West Indies player Dwayne Bravo has been fined 20 per cent of his match fee after being found guilty of breaching the ICC Code of Conduct after the One-Day International between England and the West Indies at The Oval on Tuesday.

HARARE, (Reuters) – Forty-four members of Zimbabwe’s parliament were circumcised today as part of a national HIV/AIDS awareness campaign.

LONDON, (Reuters) – Former Pakistan leg-spinner Danish Kaneria has been banned for life by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) after being found guilty of corruption, the ECB said today.

BEIRUT,  (Reuters) – Syria shot down a Turkish warplane over the Mediterranean today, risking a new crisis between Middle Eastern neighbours already at bitter odds over a 16-month-old revolt against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

(Trinidad Guardian) Police last night found the body of kidnapped soldier Nigel Sinaswee, 40, of Roystonia Gardens, Couva.

The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) today said it received 35,055 applications for new registration and 3,791 applications for change/correction during the recently concluded 3rd Cycle of Continuous Registration which commenced on March 17, 2012 and ended on June 18, 2012.

Canada’s Border Services Agency has seized 170 kgs of cocaine hidden in wooden pallets used to transport food from Guyana.

(Jamaica Gleaner) A battle of low prices is now being waged in the telecommunications sector with market leaders Digicel today set to unveil a plan which will cost 10 cents per minute less than the lowest rates offered by LIME.

(Barbados Nation) The man who has held more positions in West Indies cricket than any other is optimistic that the regional team will return to the top of the world game.

LOS ANGELES,  (Reuters) – A Los Angeles man who wrote a book about his alleged gay encounters with John Travolta filed a libel lawsuit on Thursday against the actor and his attorney.

(Barbados Nation) Give Trinidad & Tobago a dose of its own medicine if it continues to block Barbadian exports.

(Barbados Nation) Not in my church! Rector of the St Lucy’s Parish Church, Reverend Curtis Goodridge, is putting a ban on funerals with “mourning colours optional” requests.

(Trinidad Express) Fifty criminals are to be pardoned for the country’s 50th Independence anniversary.

(Trinidad Express) Government is to provide a free vaccine which prevents the infection “closely linked” with cervical, oral and anal cancers in men and women to young girls.

KARACHI,  (Reuters) – A contrite Salman Butt apologised to the Pakistan nation today and blamed himself for not alerting authorities earlier on his return home from England after serving seven months in jail for spot-fixing.

(Reuters) – The Miami Heat demolished the Oklahoma City Thunder 121-106 yesterday to win the National Basketball Association championship 4-1, sweeping the last four games of the series.

By Emmerson Campbell Back Circle Stallions (Team Guyana) trampled Team Antigua 5 goals to nil in their opening match of the three-night inaugural Guinness Caribbean Street Football Challenge last night at the National Park tarmac.

A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) wants an independent probe into the procurement procedures of the Government and the New GPC and the party signalled its intention to bring a motion to the National Assembly to this end.

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) yesterday announced the approval of loans totalling US$66.2M ($13.6B) to Guyana to finance the upgrade and maintenance of the road network.

Saying corruption has now reached “epidemic proportions,” the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) on Wednes-day called for a wide response to the situation, including a more forthright stance on the problem by the ruling party.

The AFC yesterday called on government to go back to the drawing board on its plan to increase the electricity rates for Linden and party Chairman Khemraj Ramjattan warned that it could fuel national unrest.

Professor Daizal R. Samad, Director of the University of Guyana’s Berbice Campus (UGBC) has stated that it is very important that the next Vice- Chancellor of the University of Guyana (UG) be one who has national and international experience in the academic arena as well as “true academic quality”.

Georgetown Mayor Hamilton Green is calling for three of City Hall’s top officers to be sent on leave to facilitate an investigation, in the light of the findings of a recent probe that suggest major fraud in its operations.

A day after he was brutally chopped at Barakat Backdam, Cuyuni River, a miner yesterday succumbed to his injuries.

A Stabroek Market vendor was injured yesterday when he was pinned as a result of a collision between a minibus and a RAV 4 sports utility vehicle along D’Urban Street, Lodge.

Autopsies will be performed on the bodies of the men recovered after the mishap in the Puruni River on Monday.

A human rights expert says that by virtue of Guyana keeping on its books laws that criminalise homosexual behaviour, persons from the Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual and Transgendered (LGBT) community face inequality on a higher scale than other marginalised groups.

A Venezuelan woman who entered Guyana illegally was yesterday fined $50,000 and ordered to be immediately deported when she appeared at the Georgetown Magis-trates’ Court.

GDF currently leads in the President’s Beer/GFA League Tournament with 30 points, after securing a 4-nil victory over Black Pearl on Wednesday at the GFC Ground, Bourda.

An attempt was made early yesterday morning to torch a building that was owned by slain Pest Control Plus boss Mohammed Baksh, who was gunned down in an execution-style shooting a week ago.

The Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) performed its first haemodialysis treatment on Wednesday on one of three machines that were donated to the institution.

Charges are still to be laid against the 62-year-old man accused of raping a 14-year-old girl in the backyard of his Tuschen, East Bank Essequibo home.

The AFC said its investigations into allegations of financial and administrative irregularities between two of its leading members found that the situation was due to misunderstanding and miscommunication and the matter has now been resolved.

Even as government announced last week that it had approved temporary licences to 12 unnamed persons to import chicken in an effort to ease a protracted shortage and stabilize prices on the local market, Head of the Caribbean Poultry Association (CPA) Dr Desmond Ali, has issued a call to Caricom countries to guard against the importation of “old meat” from the United States.

With packaging and promotion continuing to prove a challenge to efforts by local enterprises to expand their market share in the region as much as in North America and Europe, Associated Packers Incorporated (API) has taken a small but significant step to begin to raise standards.

This is not the first time that the Government of Guyana has intervened to address a shortage of poultry meat on the local market by granting licences for the temporary importation of limited quantities of a commodity that has long been an important part of the local diet.

A man who advanced medicinal use as his special reason in a narcotic possession charge was yesterday remanded to prison when he made his appearance before Magistrate Hazel Octave-Hamilton.

Guyana Education Trust College is through to the second round of the Digicel Schools Football Tournament after a 4-1 win over St Joseph High School.

Upper secondary school students are expected to benefit from the School Leavers Handbook which the Rotary Club of Demerara launched on Tuesday.

Dear Editor, When I joined the colonial civil service in 1950, directly out of Queen’s College, it was a requirement to be medically certified as fit for work.

Dear Editor, It was with some trepidation that I approached the Passport Office in Georgetown to apply for the new machine-readable passport as my handwritten one had expired.

LONDON, (Reuters) – Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi became only the second woman after Queen Elizabeth to address both houses of Britain’s parliament yesterday, a rare honour she used to ask for help in a once in a generation opportunity to bring democracy to her country.

Cabinet has approved the establishment of first degree programmes in pharmacy, rehabilitation medicine and optometry at the University of Guyana (UG).

Manager of Body Maxx Gym, Ashton Barker yesterday handed over an undisclosed sum of money to the Inter Ministries/Corporations’, seven-a- side football organizer, Mark Young.

Workers at the Shell Gas Station at Vlissengen Road were forced to temporarily shut down operations yesterday after smoke was seen coming from the air conditioning vents on the ceiling of the Sol Shop.

Dear Editor, It is with deep sadness that I pen these few lines to express my sincere condolences to the family and relatives of Mr Gregory Gaskin.

On Wednesday, four matches in the Inter Ministries/Corporations’ seven-a-side tournament were played at the Banks DIH Thirst Park ground and the Education Ministry whipped its counterparts at the Foreign Affairs Ministry.

Watchwords In the 2012 budget presentation, the government talked about changing the way in which Guyanese would be educated, the manner in which business would be done, the way in which government services would be delivered and the way jobs would be created. 

GALLE, (Reuters) – Sri Lanka will be looking to left-arm spinner Rangana Herath to turn their fortunes around in test cricket when the first test against Pakistan starts today.

Dear Editor, The fact that Mr Ralph Ramkarran actually used his party’s newspaper to inveigh against rampant corruption is significant.

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – The United States yesterday named three alleged leaders of the Nigerian militant group Boko Haram as “foreign terrorists”, the first time it has blacklisted members of the Islamist group blamed for attacks across Africa’s most populous nation.

The Ministry of Public Works is inviting bids for the rehabilitation of several hinterland airstrips.

LONDON,  (Reuters) – Former Pakistan captain Salman Butt was released from prison in Britain yesterday after serving seven months of a two-and-a-half year term for involvement in a match-fixing scam that sent shock waves through the world of cricket.

MONTEVIDEO,  (Reuters) – Uruguay’s government unveiled a proposal on Wednesday to legalize and monitor the marijuana market, arguing that the drug is less harmful than the black market where it is trafficked.

Dear Editor, Some time after a good run of the new format of the Lotto-Super 6, the numbers were reduced to 1-28 from 1-36.

The mangrove restoration project has not been suspended, the Ministry of Agriculture said on Wednesday, while emphasising that activities under its various components will continue to be implemented.

Starr Computers’ Mike Mohan reflects on the days when his company pioneered the assembling of computers here in Guyana and began marketing the ‘locally manufactured’ machines under its own brand – Starr.

President Donald Ramotar speaking at a side event at the Rio+20 conference currently underway in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil identified the need to reconcile two global forces that have traditionally been seen as incompatible,  protecting the environment and economic development, as a critical challenge that must be overcome by the global community.

(Reuters) – The World Boxing Organization (WBO) ruled on Wednesday that Manny Pacquiao should have won his controversial defeat to Timothy Bradley and has recommended a re-match between the fighters.

Dear Editor, Prime Minister Sam Hinds’ statement regarding the proposed electricity hike in Linden that residents “will have to manage the best way that they can manage,” speaks to the vindictive and discriminatory manner in which the PPP governs this country.

DAKAR,  (Reuters) – U.N. experts have evidence Rwanda’s defence minister and two top military officials have been backing an army mutiny in the east of neighbouring Congo, according to notes of their briefing to a closed-door U.N.

(Trinidad Express) Police are investigating reports of several mysterious fires at the home of a millionaire Central businessman.

Doris Ann Lewis couldn’t convey the persona of a hard-nosed businesswoman even if she tried.

The Caribbean is getting ready for one of the biggest summits on Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in the Americas,  Connect the America Summit, in July, and so the CARICOM Secretariat spear-headed  the third preparatory meeting in Barbados, on Tuesday, to cement the region’s plans for its participation.

DONETSK,  (Reuters) – When England face Italy in the Euro 2012 quarter-finals on Sunday they will be led by two coaches who typify the calm, modest and diplomatic style which is increasingly favoured by Europe’s top international managers.

Six nights a week, while most of the city sleeps or pursues its alternative nocturnal activities, the Georgetown ferry stelling, more particularly an area just north of the headquarters of the Guyana Fire Service, becomes a hive of commercial activity.

GDANSK, (Reuters) – Cristiano Ronaldo stooped to conquer the Czech Republic and send Portugal deservedly into the semi-finals of the European Championship yesterday as the tournament re-started after a temporary lull in proceedings.

HOUSTON,  (Reuters) – The chief investment officer of disgraced former billionaire Allen Stanford’s defunct financial firm pleaded guilty yesterday to lying to U.S.

(Jamaica Gleaner) Jamaican Reggae superstar Buju Banton yesterday lost his appeal against the 10-year prison sentence he is now serving.

Dear Editor, The further a team advances in a competition/tournament, the tougher the opponent becomes.

Dear Editor, Since the West Indies cricket team can no longer be depended on to be victorious in the game of cricket, may I suggest that the players be encouraged by the West Indies Cricket Board to wear sunblock of varying colours on the playing field, regardless of the weather conditions, in an attempt to scare the opposing team(s) into early submission(s).

ASUNCION, (Reuters) – Paraguay’s Congress moved to impeach leftist President Fernando Lugo yesterday over charges that he mishandled a land eviction in which 17 police and peasant farmers were killed last week, and the Senate will decide his fate today.

Over 50s may remember when Teófilo Stevenson won his first Olympic heavyweight boxing gold medal in Munich in 1972.

A man accused of stealing his sister’s Blackberry cell phone was yesterday admitted to bail in the sum of $20,000 when he made his appearance at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court.

(Jamaica Observer) Former Prime Minister P J Patterson says Jamaica’s trade deficit with non-Caribbean Community (Caricom) countries deserves as much attention as that being given to the imbalance with the regional bloc.

Ho-hum my friends and readers.  Especially you Guyana-born, living-in-Guyana Guyanese. This contributor tires of both local goings on and the more negative behaviours and aspects of world-wide existence, the Arab, African, European mix of conflicts, slaughter,

Last year, Netram Ramanan decided to expand his fruit juice operation by seeking markets outside Guyana.

The Ministry of Agriculture’s National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) has invited bids for the construction of a sluice at A Dam Friendship, East Bank Demerara, estimated at a cost of $88.5M.

(Reuters) – The Miami Heat demolished the Oklahoma City Thunder 121-106 yesterday to win the National Basketball Association championship 4-1, sweeping the last four games of the series.

ISLAMABAD,  (Reuters) – A court has issued an arrest warrant for the ruling party veteran poised to replace Pakistan’s ousted prime minister, local television stations reported yesterday, deepening political uncertainty in the strategic U.S.