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Pg2 AUTHORITIES TRACKING BOAT WITH DEAD BODIES AT SEA

Wedneday, February 17, 2021

Guyana’s Republic anniversary will Travellers cannot be observed but use vaccination more focus is on card to leave Independence Pg3 Pg2

Four prisoners on the run

Police Officer accused of rape Pg3

OUT OF CONTROL VENDING AND OTHER ISSUES HIGHLIGHTED DURING MAYOR’S WALKABOUT Pg3

Pg3

Guyana Post Wednesday February 17, 2021

AUTHORITIES TRACKING BOAT WITH DEAD BODIES AT SEA

Minister of Public Works, Juan Edghil

Local authorities are convinced that Guyanese are not among the unidentified bodies in a boat drifting off Guyana’s coast.

Minister of Public Works, Juan Edghill made this disclosure

during a press conference along with Minister of Home Affairs, Robertson Benn, and officials of the Maritime Administration on Tuesday night.

The Minister said this was confirmed after the authorities engaged with

operators of sea fairing vessels to ensure that there is no missing crew.

While local authorities are unable to say how many bodies have been found on the boat the Minister opined that based on images seen the

Minister of Home Affairs, Robertson Benn

bodies may have been in the vessel for some time.

Several agencies that have since formed a task force are working to get the vessel towed into Port Georgetown.

The vessel was first sighted by the crew

on another vessel who upon closer investigation made the discovery.

The authorities had requested that the vessel tow the boat to shore but weather affected the effective navigation of the vessel.

The crew eventually lost sight of the vessel but a chopper belonging to the Guyana Defence Force and a vessel from ExxonMobil have been dispatched to help track the vessel.

Guyana has started to roll out the vaccines against the virus, with front line workers getting the first jab. The Minster is reminding persons that they still need to be vaccinated once vaccines are available, “people can get infected and if

they can get affected because they have been immunized, they might get it in a mild form but that doesn’t prevent them from transmitting” Minister Anthony said.

Testing is expected to be required in the future even after two doses of vaccines until the

vaccines have proven to be 100% effective.

The Health Minister said that the government will continue to engage the WHO on this issue, but as of now travelling measures remain the same until advised differently by the WHO.

Travellers cannot use vaccination card to leave

Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony

Travellers leaving Guyana will still need to ensure they have negative results of a PCR test before they leave the country. The Ministry of Health is adamant that travellers cannot use any immunization card to info@guyanapostonline.com

travel.

“Even if you are immunized, you still would be required to do a PCR test,” Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony said as he responding to questions about the vaccine and the need for testing for

travelling, “the reason being is that we have talked about the efficacy of the vaccine….. none of the vaccines is a 100% efficacious, which means that it doesn’t prevent a 100% of the infection,” he pointed out

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Guyana Post Wednesday February 17, 2021

Guyana’s Republic anniversary will be observed but more focus is on Independence Some of the funds slated for Guyana’s 51st Republic Anniversary will be averted into Independence Day celebrations.

Minister of Culture Youth and Sport, Charles Ramson said the public should expect certain features like the ceremonial flagraising ceremony, etc but because of the pandemic, the government will now place emphasis on the Independence

Anniversary, as President Ali has a unique idea for those celebrations.

“The President is very keen…… I guess we could say ideas and programs for the May celebration, our independent celebration, so right now we are in the phase of planning for that. It’s rapidly advancing so some of that money will be deferred,” Ramson said.

The Government in

this year’s budget has allocated the $4 Billion for activities under the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports.

Guyana will be celebrating its 55th year as an independent nation. The government is hoping that with its vaccine programme public events would return to some normalcy

OUT OF CONTROL VENDING AND OTHER ISSUES HIGHLIGHTED DURING MAYOR’S WALKABOUT G e o r g e t o w n Mayor, Ubraj Narine is challenging policy enforcers to get their act together as he urges them to get things done for the city.

Describing the situation around the city as one that is “terrible” Mayor Narine is asking officers at City Hall to step out and have the city fixed.

During the walk-

about around the busy Stabroek market area, Narine registered his disappointment with several matters noting that the state of the city remains a concern.

“It’s terrible and why I say it’s terrible when you look at the drainage of the regent street, king street, the alleyways, the amount of garbage and stuff inside the drains; it’s terrible,”

Mayor Narine said “We are the policymakers, the policy body of this council. We have the prerogative to create the policy, we did so but we are not the enforcer. The enforcers; it is the officers the local Government officer, who has to enforce these policies, the guidelines given and set

out by the council,” the Mayor continued.

The Mayor said that urgent attention should be placed on the aesthetics of the city as he pointed out vending is now out of control.

Illegal tents near roadways and parkways along with the food vendors operating without the relevant certification remain

some of the burnings issues the city seems incapable of dealing with.

“We are not after anyone, at the Mayor and City Council, no officer no staff, we want betterment for the city, we want the city officials to do their work. They are being paid by taxpayers, and they have to do their

work, they have to enforce these policies,” the Mayor explained Over the years, the City of Georgetown continues to face an uphill task to maintain the city. All of this has been made even more difficult as the council faces a series of financial battles that continue to hamper its work.

Four prisoners on the run Police Officer accused of rape

Four prisoners are now on the run after they escaped from the Mazaruni Prison on Tuesday morning.

On the run are Kenrick Lyte and Imran Ramsaywack, Rayon Jones, and Samuel Gouveia.

Reports are that it was just around 7: hours on Tuesday that the men were discovered missing. info@guyanapostonline.com

Checks around the facility revealed that some bars of the prison were breached.

Authorities suspect that the four men may have cut their way through.

Lyte was sentenced to death in 2019 for the 2014 murder of 72-yearold, Osmond Fiedtkou.

Imram Ramsawack was also serving a sentence for the murder of United

States trader, Samantha Benjamin.

On the other hand, Jones was currently serving a 28 years jail sentence for the killing of Mechanic, Purand Baljit during a robbery in 2016 while Gouveia was charged for the murder of Santee Solomon, who was stabbed to death back in 2015.

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A serving member of the Guyana Police Force is being accused of raping a woman in the Kumaka Moruca, North West District.

In a release, the police said that it is investigating the report of rape committed on a 42-yearold woman.

Reports are that around 16:00 hrs on February 14th victim was at a shop in the at Kumaka Water Front area with some friends when the Officer joined them. The group then moved to another location as they were imbibing.

On 15th February 2021

about 00:10 hrs the victim alleges that she became intoxicated and was escorted to her home by the accused and a female friend who then left her alone in the company of the accused.

Later that night, the victim was left along with the accused, where she was followed to her home.

The woman told officers she was in a semiconsciousness state and she realized that the police officer was on her body.

She pushed him off and raised an alarm which alerted the household which caused the accused to leave the premises.

The Guyana Police Force is yet to say if the officer will be charged.

Guyana Post Wednesday February 17, 2021

UN ‘alarmed’ at military escalation in Yemen’s Marib

The United Nations’ humanitarian chief has said he is “very alarmed” by a Houthi rebel advance on the Yemeni government’s last northern stronghold.

Mark Lowcock, the UN undersecretarygeneral for humanitarian affairs, tweeted on Tuesday that an assault on Marib would endanger two million civilians and could cause hundreds of thousands to flee the city, which would have “unimaginable humanitarian consequences”.

The Houthis have this month resumed an offensive to seize Marib, some 120km (75 miles) east of Yemen’s rebelheld capital, Sanaa.

The city’s loss would be a major blow for Yemen’s internationally recognised government, which is backed by a Saudi-led military coalition.

“Now is the time to de-escalate, not to add even more to the misery of the Yemeni people,” Lowcock said in his

tweet.

Military officials from the Yemeni government told AFP news agency that the rebels had advanced towards the city on two fronts overnight after heavy fighting with government forces.

Dozens from both sides have been killed in the past 24 hours alone, they said. The total casualty toll from the battle for Marib is unknown but reports indicate it is now in the hundreds.

“The rebels have advanced north and west of the city after seizing al-Zor [in Sirwah district] up to the western sides of Marib dam, and tightened their grip on hills overlooking supply lines for several fronts,” one of the officials said.

The Saudi-led coalition, which intervened militarily in Yemen six years ago, has been pounding rebel positions.

The Houthi-run Al Masirah television on Tuesday reported a total

of 13 air raids in Marib – 11 on locations in the district of Sirwah, and two in the district of Madghal.

Once a sanctuary The fighting is endangering sprawling camps for internally displaced people, many of whom have fled several times before ending up in Marib, the only part of the north not under Houthi control.

Until early 2020, Marib had been spared the worst of Yemen’s long-running conflict, due to its strategic importance with its rich oil and gas reserves, and its location near the border of regional power Saudi Arabia.

It became a sanctuary for many in the early years of the war, taking in those hoping for a new start.

But that relative stability disappeared with fighting last year and – after a lull since October – residents once again risk being in the line of fire as the two sides battle for control.

“If fighting moves towards populated areas or these displacement sites, we will see people flee again and towards locations to the east and south of Marib city with even less resources,” International Organization for Migration spokeswoman Olivia Headon told AFP. “Much of this is desert area so just think about what any displacement in that direction would mean for families’ access to water.”

Headon said approximately 650 families had been forced to flee in the recent surge of fighting and that another shift in the front lines would lead to further waves of displacement.

Yemen’s grinding conflict has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions, according to international organisations, sparking what the UN calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The surge in violence comes shortly after

Washington decided to remove the rebels from its list of “terrorist” groups – a move that will come into effect on Tuesday – in order to ensure aid is unimpeded and to pave the way to restart peace talks.

The Biden administration also ended US support for Saudi offensive operations in a major policy shift from the previous Trump administration.

The US president has since appointed an envoy for Yemen in his efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict that has ravaged the poorest country in the Middle East.

Washington on Tuesday urged the rebels to halt their offensive, saying their advance on Marib threatened to undermine the Biden administration’s new drive to intensify diplomatic efforts to end the conflict.

“The Houthis’ assault on Marib is the action of a group not committed

to peace or to ending the war afflicting the people of Yemen,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement.

“Marib is controlled by the legitimate government of Yemen,” he said.

“This assault will only increase the number of internally displaced persons and exacerbate the humanitarian crisis in Yemen.”

Observers say the Houthis want to capture Marib as leverage before entering into any negotiations.

The rebels have also escalated attacks against Saudi Arabia in recent weeks.

Saudi state media said on Tuesday that another “boobytrapped drone” launched by the Houthis had been intercepted and destroyed near Abha airport, which earlier this month was struck by an attack that left an aircraft in flames.

Bitcoin soars past $50,000 for the first time

New York (CNN Business)Bitcoin topped $50,000 Tuesday, continuing a stunning rise that has sent it soaring about $20,000 this year.

The digital currency hit a record $50,602.53 before pulling back somewhat. Bitcoin is still up about 2% over the past 24 hours, and has rallied nearly 260% since the beginning of November.

Investors have sent the price of bitcoin skyrocketing during the pandemic as the Federal Reserve cut interest rates to near zero in March 2020 (and expects to info@guyanapostonline.com

keep them there for several more years), severely weakening the US dollar.

That makes bitcoin, comparatively, an attractive currency.

There’s a set limit to the number of bitcoins on the planet, and investors believe that once the supply runs out, the digital coin’s value can only increase.

As bitcoin surges to all-time highs, big, name-brand investors are stockpiling it, and huge consumer companies are embracing it, further fueling bitcoin’s soaring valuation.

MicroStrategy (MSTR), which has been a leading corporate investor in bitcoin, announced Tuesday that it would borrow $600 million from investors to buy even more bitcoin.

Tesla, (TSLA) the most valuable car company on the stock market, said last week it is holding some of its cash in bitcoin rather than traditional currency.

And it may soon accept the digital currency as payment for its cars.

On Wednesday, Mastercard (MA) announced it will support “select cryptocurrencies” directly on its network later this year. That represented a major milestone for bitcoin: Square (SQ) and PayPal (PYPL) recently began allowing customers to trade bitcoin, but Mastercard will be bitcoin’s most mainstream, major platform yet.

That’s adding a dose of validity and appeal to cryptocurrency for mainstream investors.

For example, a top executive at BlackRock said last year that bitcoin could one day replace gold. And Jay Z and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced Friday that the pair are establishing a bitcoin development fund.

Bitcoin passed $20,000 for the first time in December, and it has more than doubled in value in three months.

Appetite for risk Still, the recent cryptocurrency surge may be showing signs of a melt-up — overenthusiasm fueled by the fear of missing out, not simply market fundamentals.

Take Elon Musk’s sarcastic tweets about bitcoin rival Dogecoin in recent months: The digital coin, which itself was constructed as a

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cryptocurrency parody, shot up 50% earlier this month after Musk tweeted, only to crash over the past week.

Anthony Scaramucci, Skybridge Capital’s founder, has a big stake in bitcoin and a fund geared toward wealthy investors: The SkyBridge Bitcoin Fund LP. But even he says people need to watch out.

He told CNN Business last month that it could be a solid addition to the average investor’s portfolio, provided you have the stomach for it.

After all, bitcoin prices crashed below $4,000 shortly after reaching a previous peak of just under $20,000 in December 2017.

“This could be a blow up top bubble,” Scaramucci told CNN Business in January. “We

expect the fund to be volatile and it could lose money,” Scaramucci said bitcoin could suddenly tumble 20% to 50%.

But he also highlighted bitcoin’s staying power over the course of the past decade: If you took $1 and put 99 cents of it in cash and a penny in bitcoin, that investment strategy would have outperformed $1 invested in the S&P 500 over the last 10 years, he noted.

“The more likely trajectory is that people can make a monumental amount of money. Bitcoin is unfettered by Federal Reserve policy or gold supply issues,” he said. “There is more demand for bitcoin now than supply. The price should go up.”

SPORTS

Guyana Post Wednesday February 17, 2021

Olympic swimming medalist charged with running alleged Australia drugs syndicate (CNN)Former Australian swimming star Scott Miller was arrested on drugs charges in a dawn raid at his home Tuesday, with Sydney police alleging the Olympic medalist heads a gang supplying methamphetamine across New South Wales state, CNN affiliate Nine News reported. w A police statement on the arrests, which did not name Miller, 45, said detectives charged two men as part of ongoing investigations into the supply of more than 2 million Australian dollars (about $1.56 million) worth of meth concealed in candles.

“For all intents and purposes, they looked

like regular candles but they weren’t laced with fragrance, they were laced with death and misery,” said Detective John Watson, according to Nine News.

Miller’s arrest

is part of a larger investigation. Earlier this year, New South Wales authorities began looking into a criminal syndicate involved in the supply of illegal drugs, mostly meth, across

the state, according to the police statement.

During the bust at Miller’s home in Sydney’s Rozelle neighborhood, police officers seized one kilogram (about 2.2 pounds) of

heroin with a street value of $250,000 Australian dollars (about $195,000), the statement said. They also sized cell phones, documents, smaller amounts of drugs, and the equivalent

of nearly $60,000 in cash, which will all be taken for forensic examination.

Miller, identified in the statement only as “the Rozelle man,” was charged with supplying prohibited drugs and directing the criminal group.

“He is calling the shots, he is the head of that syndicate and others are working under his instructions,” Watson said.

Police said further charges are expected to be laid.

Miller, a Sydney native, began competing internationally in 1994, and won a silver and bronze medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics.

CNN has reached out to Miller’s lawyer for comment.

Kylian Mbappe scores a devastating hat trick as PSG thrashes Barcelona in the Champions League

(CNN)Kylian Mbappe scored a wonderful hat trick against Barcelona on Tuesday as Paris Saint-Germain secured a devastating 4-1 away win in the first leg of its Champions League round of 16 tie.

The ruthless Frenchman was a constant threat throughout as he once again showed his ability to perform on the biggest info@guyanapostonline.com

stage.

His first goal, a riffled shot into the roof of the net, had canceled out Lionel Messi’s earlier penalty and the youngster added a second after halftime as Barcelona keeper Marc-Andre Ter Stegen parried a shot into his path.

Moise Kean headed in a third for the Parisians before Mbappe completed his hat trick by finishing

off a quick counterattack in the closing stages.

The result gives PSG a huge advantage ahead of the return leg at the Parc des Princes on March 10, as Barcelona faces a mammoth task to progress to the quarterfinals.

Mbappe takes center stage Many had hoped the game between two European titans would

be good value and they weren’t disappointed.

Barcelona had seemingly turned a corner in recent weeks after what’s been a difficult season. The Catalans had been on a run of seven consecutive La Liga victories but it was simply torn apart by PSG. The hosts had taken the lead in a familiar fashion after Frenkie de Jong was accidentally tripped inside the penalty box. Messi expertly dispatched the resulting spot-kick to score in the Champions League for the 17th consecutive calendar year.

But it was all PSG from that moment on and, in the absence of Neymar, it was Mbappe who took center stage, outperforming Messi on his own turf.

The 22-year-old became only the third player in history to score

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a Champions League hat trick against Barcelona in what was his first match at the Nou Camp.

“We wanted to come here and win and we did that in style,” said the striker after the match.

“Tonight was magnificent, but we haven’t won anything yet.”

His performance also sparked a reaction online with several of his fellow professionals heaping praise on Mbappe.

“What a performance,” tweeted Manchester United forward Marcus Rashford, whilst Borussia Dortmund winger Jadon Sancho wrote: “Big player!”

Liverpool in control Elsewhere in the Champions League, Liverpool took complete control of its last 16 tie with RB Leipzig.

The English Premier

League side was worthy of its 2-0 away victory thanks to goals from Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane.

The result will come as a huge relief after a tough few weeks domestically for both the team and its manager.

“It was the game we wanted and the game we needed tonight,” Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp told BT Sport after the match.

“Leipzig can be a real monster, the way they played in the Bundesliga, they overrun teams, they are really physical, they are pretty much good in everything and tonight we controlled them in an exceptional way.”

Liverpool will host its German opponents in the second leg on March 10.

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