Daily Archive: Tuesday, June 24, 2014

SANTO DOMINGO, (Reuters) – The percentage of cocaine flowing to the United States through the Caribbean has more than tripled in the past three years, an Obama administration official said today, adding weight to claims that criminal organizations are shifting back to a route they abandoned years ago.

Crime Chief Leslie James today confirmed that a Guyanese man who was captured in Suriname on Monday was wanted by local police on a murder charge.

Former President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo was on Monday elected as the Chairman of the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO’s) 22nd Session of the Committee on Forestry (COFO) for the period 2014-2016.

Minister of Amerindian Affairs Pauline Sukhai on Friday last handed over four pick-up trucks and nine All Terrain Vehicles (ATVs) to Region Nine communities during a toshaos conference.

The Guyana Power and Light (GPL) says history was made on Sunday evening when at 21:33hrs the transmission interconnection of the Demerara and Berbice Interconnected Systems was completed to form the Demerara Berbice Interconnected System.

(Trinidad Express) A teacher with 20 years service appeared in court yesterday charged with indecently assaulting a 16-year-old boy.

After months of impasse, the Donald Ramotar administration has signed on to the USAID-funded Leadership and Demo-cracy Project (LEAD) project, having reached an agreement with the United States government.

Darren Owen Harris, the United States-based chef who was busted along with his son with cocaine in handles of their luggage at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA), will spend the next three years in jail after admitting that he was trying to smuggle the drugs to New York.

After almost a month with no word from them, a frantic search has started for two Berbician cousins who were last heard from at 14 Mile, Issano.

The Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport will be repairing several facilities under its control including the National Cultural Centre (NCC) tarmac.

Attorney Joseph Harmon yesterday announced that he would be looking after the legal interests of the Ex-GDF Association, which comprises former members of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF), the Guyana’s People’s Militia (GPM) and the Guyana National Service (GNS), during the continuing Commission of Inquiry into the death of Dr Walter Rodney.

Twenty-one-year-old Lisa Punch nailed Whitney Houston’s “How Will I Know?” when she stepped onto the international stage with grace and poise on the new ABC series “Rising Star” and her almost breathtaking performance has seen her moving to the next round of the competition.

Armed robbery accused Keron Cummings, who fled the city magistrates’ courts complex during a breakout last month, will be spending the next four years in prison.

Chairman of the Council of Legal Education (CLE) Jacqueline Samuels-Brown has declined to be a panellist today at Moot Court Guyana’s symposium on Guyana’s legal education dilemma, but will attend the function nonetheless.

Officials in Guyana’s private sector and banking system say they have noticed no fallout from a notice posted by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of Trinidad’s Ministry of Finance and Economy last week on Guyana’s anti-money laundering and financing of terrorism legislation deficiencies.

The Guyana Olympic Association (GOA) yesterday named a 38-member squad to participate at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland.

Three motor vehicles were involved in two separate accidents on the East Coast Demerara at Ogle yesterday following some heavy rainfall.

By Staff Reporters   Top officials of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) who are currently in Guyana are expected to meet with high ranking government officials today at an unknown location to try and arrive at an agreement over the Cricket Administration Bill (CAB) recently passed in the National Assembly.

The International Cricket Council’s (ICC) Media and Communications Manager Sami Ul-Hasan says he cannot comment on the ongoing impasse between the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), an affiliate of the ICC and the Guyana government.

The National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) has delivered on its promise to fix the water pump at Enmore North after several residents had complained about flooding and stagnant water even during times of no rainfall.

An argument over whether sheep were damaging a rice field at Middlesex, Essequibo Coast has landed a 45-year-old farmer an attempted murder charge.

The People’s Progressive Party (PPP) has written to the Guyana Elections Commission (Gecom) requesting an extension on the latest cycle of continuous registration to facilitate transfers for over 8,000 persons.

Local Government Norman Whittaker yesterday said that he would have to be “dumb and stupid” to give the City Council the $500 million that had been allocated to clean up Georgetown.

Three days after being injured in a hit and run accident at Columbia, Essequibo Coast, Munera Khan and her husband Danny Latchman were on Tuesday last transferred to the Georgetown Public Hospital.

Attractive prices are being earned for Guyana’s sawn wood on the export market, according to the timber website, IBH.

RECIFE, Brazil, (Reuters) – Mexico reached the World Cup last 16 with a near-perfect display of counter-attacking football as Javier Hernandez provided the spark for a 3-1 win over Croatia yesterday that left them as Group A runners-up.

Convict Robert Allan Gates yesterday testified that during the latter part of 1980 he was locked up for 30 days by police after being accused of working with the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as well as being sympathetic towards the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) and it was only after the intervention of Hamilton Green that was he released.

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – Part-time off-spinner Kane Williamson is said to be “miffed” at having his action reported to the International Cricket Council.

Recent heavy rains in the hinterland have led to deterioration of roads and the Ministry of Public Works on Sunday invited bids for rehabilitation and maintenance of key roadways including the Linden-Lethem road.

The driver of a Route 42 minibus along with two other passengers are hospitalised following an accident on High Street yesterday involving a Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GT&T) vehicle.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Secretary of State John Kerry yesterday promised “intense and sustained” US support for Iraq, but said the divided country would only survive if its leaders took urgent steps to bring it together.

London, England – Brian Lara made a sparkling 56 as MCC cantered to a seven wicket win over Hertfordshire in their Lord’s Bicentenary Anniversary Day clash at the Home of Cricket on Sunday.

A North-East La Penitence man was discovered dead yesterday after suffering from a seizure mere hours earlier.

Guyana-born teenager Keene Chin has been awarded a full four-year scholarship to the University of Texas where he will pursue a double major in Mechanical Engineering and Asian Studies and a minor in Computer Science.

BELO HORIZONTE, Brazil, (Reuters) – Brazil’s poster-boy striker Neymar fulfilled a nation’s expectations to score twice in a 4-1 destruction of Cameroon yesterday while the Netherlands again showed their potential to win the World Cup with a third straight win.

LIMA (Reuters) – Peru’s President Ollanta Humala replaced his foreign affairs, interior and transportation ministers yesterday in a surprise cabinet shake-up as his popularity sinks to new lows.

OSLO (Reuters) – Governments should set a five-year deadline to crack down on over-fishing and pollution or parts of the oceans may have to be declared off-limits to industrial fishing, an expert commission said today.

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – A senior United Nations official yesterday urged Israel to exercise restraint in its search for three missing teenagers it accuses the Hamas Islamist group of kidnapping, while warning the Security Council that violence in the region could escalate.

Saying government’s justification for spending $4.6 billion from the Consolidated Fund without parliamentary approval doesn’t hold water, financial analyst Christopher Ram is warning that the opposition parties could end up legalising the administration’s unlawful actions.

(Trinidad Guardian) – A five-month-old baby girl survived a close brush with death on Sunday, narrowly escaping gunfire from armed men engaged in what police are calling a turf war in east Port of Spain.

The Special Organised Crime Unit (SOCU), touted as a necessary entity to investigate suspect transactions, is among various agencies set up under the architecture of the anti-laundering legislation but yet to be fully operationalized.

Dear Editor, It has been reported that 25 graduates of the class of 2014 from the University of Guyana (UG) have eventually been cleared and granted automatic placement at the Hugh Wooding Law School (HWLS), University of the West Indies (UWI) at St Augustine Campus after financial and other modalities have been negotiated and cleared by Guyana’s Attorney General.

Popular America Street money changer Wendell Liverpool who was shot by three masked men last week Friday succumbed to his injuries yesterday morning at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) Intensive Care Unit (ICU).

Beware! A wooden pallet and three tyres double as a warning and a manhole cover.

LONDON, (Reuters) – All was as it should be on the opening day of Wimbledon when returning British hero Andy Murray opened the defence of his historic title with an impressive first-round victory on Monday.

An orientation was held yesterday for contestants in the National Library’s annual Champion Reader Competition, which will begin on July 9.

The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) have confirmed that they will play a triangular ODI series against fellow ‘Big Three’ nations Australia and India in January next year, as the sides prepare for the World Cup.

Brought before a city magistrate’s court on multiple narcotics charges, an unemployed man was yesterday refused bail.

After being cleared of a burglary, Dennis Downer could not stop dancing.

Dear Editor, These days when the pages of the Guyana papers, certainly the internet versions, are filled with stories of political discord, intrigues and violence of all sorts, it is wonderful to wake up on a Sunday morning and read the heartwarming story of Jeremiah Bentham and his mother Ihebaa (‘Mother’s support reason for NGSA success,’ Sunday Stabroek, June 22).

LEEDS, England, (Reuters) – Sri Lanka captain Angelo Mathews and paceman Dhammika Prasad pushed England to the brink of defeat as the home side, set 350 to win, slumped to 57 for five on the fourth day of the second and final test yesterday.

The findings of the Ministry of Labour’s investigation into the May 20 power failure at Qualfon’s Goedverwagting call centre, are still not available, the company has said.

Mayor Hamilton Green and the Environ-mental Community Health Organization (ECHO) have expressed health concerns about the recent fogging exercises aimed at reducing the risk of Chikungunya in the city and on the coastlands.

Dear Editor, Your editorial of Saturday, June 21, 2014, ‘The circus on our roads’ was as timely as it was pointed.

VIENNA (Reuters) – Cultivation of coca bushes in Bolivia fell around 9 per cent last year to its lowest level since 2002, an annual survey in the world’s biggest cocaine producer after Peru and Colombia showed.

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – Head coach Ottis Gibson says he is hoping his three-pronged pace attack finds some pace in the Kensington Oval pitch, as West Indies chase a series victory over New Zealand in the final Test which bowls off here Thursday.

Dear Editor, The ruling regime’s ongoing indifference to the major problem of suicide continues to cost lives.

The husband and son of Donna Taylor, the woman who was allegedly murdered by ex-private Abiola Jacobs, testified yesterday when the preliminary inquiry (PI) into the murder charge against Jacobs.

SALT LAKE CITY (Reuters) – Prominent Mormon activist Kate Kelly was excommunicated by her church yesterday for violating its “laws and order” after advocating for women’s ordination, a view that leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said amounted to apostasy.

GENEVA (Reuters) – The polio virus has been found in sewage samples near Sao Paulo, one of the venues for the soccer World Cup in Brazil, but no human case of the disease has been reported so far, the World Health Organization said yesterday.

Elderly taxpayer braving the flood water as she left the City Hall compound yesterday.

This is the period during which post-CXC students await the results of their examinations, wondering as the days go by just where their school days have gone and, perhaps, just what the next, possibly more challenging phase of their lives, will bring.

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – Guyana Amazon Warriors head coach, Roger Harper expects Jamaican seamer Krishmar Santokie to play a key role in the upcoming Caribbean Premier League which bowls off next month.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – US first lady Michelle Obama will not go into politics after leaving the White House, she said yesterday, dismissing rumors she might follow in the footsteps of predecessor Hillary Clinton and run for the Senate after her husband leaves office.

Politikles

(Barbados Nation) Delta Airlines is back. The news that the North American airline was resuming flights to Barbados in December was revealed during a press conference yesterday morning held by the Barbados Tourism Authority at the Courtyard by Mariott hotel.

By Jeffrey D Sachs  NEW YORK – If the world is to solve the climate-change crisis, we will need a new approach.

Dear Editor, There is one bright spot in Guyana’s political and law-making system that must be fought for – our Parliament.

A vagrant sleeping on the doorstep of a Robb Street building a few doors from Freedom House

Matthew Jack, the A field Sophia teen who was stabbed several times by his cousin during an altercation on Friday evening is on the road to recovery, relatives said yesterday.

Winfer Gardens Primary has gained the distinction of being named the public school with the highest number of children in the top 1% at this year’s National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) and the teachers credit the success of their students to team work.

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – While Argentina notches victories in the World Cup, President Cristina Fernandez is grappling with a debt crisis and feels like a goalkeeper facing endless penalties and a biased referee.