Daily Archive: Friday, December 16, 2016

In a long awaited decision, the outgoing UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has decided that the Good Offices process to find a solution to the decades-old border controversy between Guyana and Venezuela will be given one more year and if by the end of 2017 “significant progress” has not been made, the case will move to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Cabinet accepted the advice of an inquiry into matters pertaining to the broadcasting authority that its Chairman Leonard Craig should be dismissed but Craig resigned today before he was sacked.

The two Heads of State shared an embrace at the Eugene F.

Tuesday, December 27th 2016 and Monday, January 2rd 2017 will be public  holidays, Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan confirmed last evening.

(Trinidad Guardian) Police have released the two men they deemed “persons of interest” in the death of Shannon Banfield, however, they are not void of a suspect, rather they are trying to avoid a media circus hampering their investigations and have vowed silence as the matter progresses.

Patricia Chase-Green has been returned to the position of Mayor of Georgetown after Sherod Duncan withdrew just before the Mayor & City Council was set to vote yesterday for a new mayor.

Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo yesterday said that while he is willing to engage with social partners such as the Private Sector Commission (PSC) and the trade unions he does not find their request to have an engagement on the budget while it is being debated in the legislature appropriate.

Opposition Leader, Bharrat Jagdeo  yesterday continued his scathing attack on the 2017 budget and said Wednesday’s revelations in parliament about the controversial D’Urban park project were scandalous and the facility could end up with a $1.2b price tag.

The police have been granted an additional 72 hours to further detain three suspects who were held in connection with Monday’s multi-million dollar robbery at the home of a Berbice cambio dealer, in which AK-47s were among the weapons used by a gang of 14.

– dynasty in the making Sparta Boss can solidify their claim to being the first dynasty in street football, by winning a fourth consecutive Guinness Championship tonight, following their 2014 and 2015 National Titles, and 2015 Georgetown Zone Title.

Superintendent of Police Linden Lord yesterday recounted conducting identification parades at which Dennis Williams and Mark Royden Williams were identified as two of the persons involved in the massacre of 12 men at Bartica in 2008.

Curtis Vasconcellos and Jason Howard have been positively identified as the gunmen who attacked and robbed Tower Suites employees on Wednesday, Commander of ‘A’ Division Clifton Hicken related last evening.

Flamingo and New Amsterdam (NA) United secured berths to the round of 16 stage, defeating Mahaicony Thunder-Hawks and Golden Stars, respectively, when the Stag Beer Nations Cup commenced on Wednesday.

Conquerors remain top of Zone B Tourney hosts Fruta Conquerors returned to their winning ways in the Turbo Energy Drink sponsored U19 Academy League, defeating Western Tigers by a 2-0 score line on Wednesday.

A US$8 million project approved by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) will help Guyana ease prison overcrowding by reducing pre-trial detentions and increasing the use of alternative sentencing, among other measures.

A 90th minute goal from Eon Pluck propelled Kwakwani Strikers to a 3-2 win over Net-rockers when the 3rd Annual Upper Demerara Football Association (UDFA)/GT Beer Championship continued on Wednesday.

Leader of the Opposition, Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday accused the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) of victimisation after five of his party’s Members of Parliament were served with letters regarding property tax.

A drug bond is to be built at Paradise, East Coast Demerara with monies allocated in the 2017 budget for Region Four, Minister of Communities Ronald Bulkan said last evening even as he shrugged off remarks from the parliamentary opposition that this is nothing more than an attempted solution to the raging Sussex Street bond controversy.

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad,  CMC – New Trinidad & Tobago Soca Warriors head coach Tom Saintfiet has appointed Russell Latapy and Jamaal Shabazz to assistant coaching positions on his technical staff.

BARCELONA, (Reuters) – Prolific striker Luis Suarez has agreed a new contract with Barcelona until 2021, the Spanish champions announced on Thursday.

Two government ministers are among 38 persons currently benefiting from government scholarships.

A fireman from Linden was brutally chopped about his body on Wednesday night by a group of men who showed up at his home.

BASSETERRE, St. Kitts, CMC – St. Kitts Patriots announced on Thursday their stunning acquisition of Twenty20 batting sensation Chris Gayle from the Jamaica Tallawahs for the next season of the Caribbean Premier League.

Whatever the relations between Guyana and Venezuela, residents of border communities remain unrestrained in their conduct of a brisk trade in whatever goods and services they can offer each other.

ZURICH, (Reuters) – Europe’s powerful football clubs have told soccer governing body FIFA that they are opposed to plans to expand the World Cup from its current 32 teams.

The City of Georgetown now has regulations which govern the specifics of parking within its boundaries, inclusive of metered parking.

Dear Editor, The just concluded elections for Mayor and Deputy Mayor of Georgetown were an absurd pretence intended to create a respectable appearance.

KINGSTON, Jamaica, CMC – Alia Atkinson described her performance at the last Olympics as “embarrassing” and said it drove her to success during the just-concluded World Short Course Swimming Championships in Windsor, Canada.

General Secretary of the Guyana Bauxite and General Workers’ Union (GB&GWU) Lincoln Lewis says that his meeting last week with two visiting officials from United Company RUSAL, which has an 80 per cent stake in the operations of the Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc (BCGI) was a “hopeful sign” that the protracted tempestuous relationship between the company’s workers and the Russian management may have entered an environment where a better rapport may be possible.

A Japanese grant will see the construction of a skills development centre in Waramadong Village in the Upper Mazaruni, Region Seven and over 650 young people in the district are expected to benefit.

Dear Editor, Reference is made to a letter from the Guyana Sugar Corporation Inc (GuySuCo) that appeared in the Guyana Chronicle on December 10, 2016.

Dear Editor, The recent downtime experienced at the Guyana Revenue Authority is unacceptable in many ways.

The name Chan-A-Sue is commonplace at Mabaruma. Inquiries as to how to get a sense of what the community was all about led to 72-year-old Godfrey Chan-A-Sue.

A Japanese grant will see the construction of a skills development centre in Waramadong Village in the Upper Mazaruni, Region Seven and over 650 young people in the district are expected to benefit.

WELLINGTON, (Reuters) – New Zealand batsman Neil Broom could play his first one-day international in six years later this month after being recalled for the three-match home series against Bangladesh.

(Reuters) – It has been all change on the equipment front for Tiger Woods on his return to competition after an absence of almost 16 months and on Thursday Bridgestone Golf announced that he has signed a multi-year agreement for exclusive use of its golf ball.

Dear Editor, I wish to extend sympathy to the family of E R Braithwaite on his passing.

Entrepreneur Managing Director, GeoTechVision Chairperson Small Business Council Entrepreneurs start businesses for a variety of different reasons including being their own boss, having a flexible work schedule, having control over the work they choose, making important decisions regarding their business, the earnings, the ability to design their lifestyle, and so on.

Drug convict Dwayne King, who was wounded in the Camp Street Prison, testified in court yesterday that the accused Calvin Bailey had wanted to kill him “long”.

Dear Editor, As a law student of the University of Guyana (UG), my colleagues and I were greeted with some devastating news recently.

(Reuters) – Boxing great Bernard Hopkins, who defended the middleweight title a record 20 times from 1995 to 2005 and has never been knocked out, intends to “overdo” himself when he ends a career of extraordinary longevity on Saturday.

A businessman was on Wednesday granted bail by a city magistrate after he was read an unlawful wounding charge.

The sky is falling! The sky is falling! But there is no need to run if the nature of the problem is understood and proven solutions applied.

Submissions were on Wednesday presented to the court by defence attorneys for the three men accused of the Kaieteur News (KN) grenade attack.

Against the backdrop of controversies and litigation linked to importation of commercial quantities of mostly foods that fail to meet the country’s food and drugs regulations, Acting Director of the Government Analyst Food and Drugs Department (GA/FDD) Marlan Cole says the situation warrants the stepping up of initiatives to stamp out the attempts to import items that might do untold damage to the health of the nation.

    (The Sports Xchange) James Harden matched the Hall of Fame center Hakeem Olajuwon’s franchise record for career triple-doubles (14) as Houston blitzed shorthanded Sacramento 132-98.

Dear Editor, People, including large swaths of supporters, are disappointed in the behaviour of all three parties and their leadership.

(Reuters) – Australia captain Steve Smith shone in the Gabba floodlights with a sparkling century to put Australia in a commanding position on day one of the first test against Pakistan on Thursday.

WASHINGTON,  (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin supervised his intelligence agencies’ hacking of the U.S.

A travel agent was yesterday granted bail after she was charged with intent to defraud a Nigerian of over $600,000 that was to be used to purchase a return plane ticket.

By John M Seeram Financial/Audit Consultant Since the presentation of proposed 2017 Budget, there have been both positive and negative statements being expressed.

Dear Editor, I feel compelled to write this letter after reading Dave Martins’ column ‘Racism cannot hide’ (Sunday Stabroek, December 11).

ALEPPO, Syria/BEIRUT,  (Reuters) – Thousands of people were evacuated yesterday from the last rebel bastion in Aleppo, the first to leave under a ceasefire deal that would end years of fighting for the city and mark a major victory for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

LONDON (Reuters) – Rupert Murdoch’s Twenty-First Century Fox has struck a $14.6 billion deal to buy European pay-TV firm Sky that unites a media empire across two continents and helps it take on rivals like Netflix in the battle for viewers.

                  GASCI (www.gasci.com/telephone

A West Ruimveldt man was remanded to prison by a city magistrate after he was charged with stealing a cellular phone and cash.

SAO PAULO, (Reuters) – Prosecutors yesterday charged former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, his wife and a former finance minister with more corruption charges in the investigation of graft at state-run oil company Petrobras.

Dear Editor, Guyanese have continuously disrespected the President since he was elected in May 2015.

CHARLESTON, S.C.,  (Reuters) – The jury in avowed white supremacist Dylann Roof’s federal hate crimes trial found him guilty on all counts yesterday for gunning down nine black parishioners at a historic church in Charleston, South Carolina, last year.

Not a great deal has been said about the brief and relatively quiet visit to Guyana late last week by two Russian functionaries of the global aluminium giant RUSAL It has to be assumed, however, that their visit here had to do with an attempt to bring an end to the crisis that had more or less been festering inside the majority RUSAL-owned Bauxite Company of Guyana Inc (BCGI) for years.

The American firm, Atlantic Tele-Network company, (ATN), is buying 80 per cent of the holdings of Guyana Telecommunication Corporation with the state retaining 20 per cent, government announced yesterday.

(Prepared by the Guyana Marketing Corporation and published by Stabroek Business as a public service)

PUNTO FIJO, Venezuela,  (Reuters) – Struggling to feed herself and her seven children, Venezuelan mother Zulay Pulgar asked a neighbour in October to take over care of her six-year-old daughter, a victim of a pummeling economic crisis.

In 2005, during an Independence Day address to the nation, then President Bharrat Jagdeo touted the modernisation of Guyana as being dependent on “the development of reliable, inexpensive telecommunication services with a sufficient band-width to allow for Information Technology related services to be developed and exported.

 –  Another plea for pensioners 2017 Fortunate still to be experiencing more months to my age and life span, I am increasingly wont to restrain my “celebration” of the Festival of Christmas.From

Sign of the times: Parking meter signs were yesterday erected on steel poles around the city indicating the time and days when the parking meters would be operational.

CHENNAI, (Reuters) – England will be without their leading wicket-taker James Anderson in the fifth and final test against India, captain Alastair Cook said on Thursday.

A 22-year-old man was granted bail on Wednesday by Chief Magistrate Ann McLennan after he was charged with being in possession of 10 grammes of ganja.

Dear Editor, I cannot disagree more with Mr Errol Hanoman, CEO of the Guyana Sugar Corporation when he reportedly said (Stabroek News, December 15) that the way forward for sugar is a scaling down of production and a significant level of diversification.

  Twenty-four participants from a number of Government Ministries and Departments on Wednesday graduated from a four-month course in Chinese Language and Culture.

The Leeward Islands Hurricanes struggled to 137 for 5, off 51 overs, against the Jamaican Scorpions at Warner Park, St.