Miranda La Rose

Chinese contractors now aiming for handing over by month-end The Chinese contractors currently in the commissioning stages for the Skeldon sugar factory are hoping that the production of sugar could begin by this weekend and stabilized so that the turnkey project could be handed over to the Guyana Sugar Corporation by the end of this month.

Many Guyanese in New York have been hit hard by the US economic meltdown, losing homes, jobs and pensions due to bad mortgages and risky investments that did not pay off.

-captain tells SN The MV Lady Chandra I was virtually at the Skeldon wharf on Tuesday when it was intercepted by a Surinamese gunboat with eight soldiers which then called for back-up boats and forced the sugar transport vessel to Nickerie.

Guyana insisting on rights to Corentyne River The captain of the MV Chandra 1, seized on Tuesday by the Suriname navy on the Corentyne River, was released from jail yesterday and the seven- member crew and the vessel are due to leave Nickerie to return to Guyana this morning.

‘Rupununi uprising’ hostage remembers the siege Almost 40 years after the Rupununi uprising, the bloody insurrection in which six people were killed when armed ranchers overran Lethem, Steve Sagar can still remember the heat of the sun on his face as he lay on the road, uncertain whether the men pointing shotguns at him would shoot.

– time not right for new hotels, official says With occupancy rates possibly the lowest they have been in a decade and other negative impacts pointing to a slump in the tourism industry, a leading industry official believes that this would not be a good time to build new hotels.

A local construction engineer has expressed concern over whether the foundation of the 103 ft, 178-year-old Kingston Lighthouse could withstand the heavy pile driving that would be required for the building of a hotel.

The Zoom Inn Hotel, located at 109 Croal Street, Georgetown is on the market, only a year and a half after it was opened to business during the  Cricket World Cup hype with high expectations.

Says GuySuCo making too many excuses Amid a start-up fiasco with the new Skeldon sugar factory, Agriculture Minister Robert Persaud says that the latest industry output figures are depressing and the excuses being offered by GuySuCo are not good enough.

Agri Minister signals displeasure GuySuCo is likely to lose substantial revenue as the commissioning problems with the new Skeldon factory mean that little grinding for this crop will be done and the Agriculture Minister yesterday signalled his government’s displeasure at the situation.

–former democratic party chair As the US presidential election draws nearer, former National Chairman of the Democratic Party Dr Donald Fowler says that race is close enough that the winner will be determined by how effective senators John McCain and Barack Obama ran their campaigns.

The awesome complexity of Caribbean life and culture, which ranges from language and religion to artistic manifestation in the literary, performing and visual arts, is more than “the binary syndrome of Europe suggests,” University of the West Indies Professor Rex Nettleford has said.

– McDonald and Nettleford It was a credit to Guyana and the Caribbean that Guyanese Sir Shridath Ramphal distinguished himself as the longest serving Commonwealth Secretary-General as well as on five world commissions dealing with development and security issues.

International civil servant and former central executive committee member of the PNCR, Dr Richard Van West Charles proceeds on pre-retirement leave early next year and is making preparations for a return to an active community and political life within the party.

-Carifesta symposium hears Legislation creating institutions and building systems to develop cultural industries should be seen as a joint public and private sector task.

As Trinidadian Prime Minister Patrick Manning discusses economic and political integration with some of his colleagues, President Bharrat Jagdeo has said that Guyana would have to see the model being proposed and consultations held before any commitment is made.

Parliament sitting put off after opposition concerns Following the PNCR-1G’s and the AFC’s opposition to an extension of the parliamentary session into the recess, the sitting of the National Assembly scheduled for Thursday for debate on five important bills has been postponed.

-Brussels source As Guyana prepares to hold a series of national focus groups consultations on the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) that Cariforum countries are scheduled to seal with the European Union in the near future there are signals that there may be a deferral of the signing.

Nagamootoo surprised PPP Central Committee Member and Speaker of the National Assembly Ralph Ramkarran is disappointed at the low vote tally he received for his seat on the Central Committee of the PPP at its recent congress and cited a lobby against him as the reason for his decline in the party rankings.

‘Legislation requires profound consideration’ The PNCR-1G and the AFC are opposing an extension of the parliamentary session for five bills which they say require careful analysis and for which no special reasons have been advanced by the government.