Kaieteur News

Monday November 11, 2013

Kaieteur News

Cocaine in sweets…

CMO expresses concern about children exposed to narcotics Chief Medical Officer of the Ministry of Health, Dr. Shamdeo Persaud has expressed concern about the recent findings of cocaine laced sweets which were accessed by small children in the Mabaruma, NWD, on Wednesday.

Persaud told Kaieteur News on Thursday that the Ministry of Health’s Food and Drugs Department has already been informed about the situation and will be on the alert for any similar cases that may arise as a result of Wednesday’s mishap.

“I am very concerned that a substance like this is available and easily accessible by children in our country…” Persaud said.

He added that the response to these events are critical because when persons fall sick, there is a need to identify what they were exposed to, so as to provide adequate care and treatment.

“As far as we understand the packages were appropriately labeled, packaged and displayed for sale, so we need to investigate and I so hope by now that they have already issued an order to restrict the further sale of that batch of

Dr. Shamdeo Persaud contaminated sweets,” the CMO said.

The CMO also said that with the involvement of the police there should be a quick response to have the batch of contaminated candy recalled.

Dr. Persaud added that there is still need for more stringent sampling and testing of foods.

“I don’t know how you can track those batches of sweets. Maybe if they were on the larger packs they might have been a batch number but I will have to find out that,” the CMO said.

He added that last week, the Ministry of Health, in

collaboration with the Caribbean Public Health Agency, conducted a training exercise for food inspectors to improve food sampling.

“We have found that in this area they are very weak so occasionally the ministry will actually provide funding for our inspectors to buy different forms of foods so they can sample and test and that is the biggest action we can take,” Dr. Persaud noted.

Police in a press statement on Wednesday said that a number of the sweets that were seized by the police from a vendor and children at White Water, North West District two Sundays ago, following reports that three children who had eaten the sweets had shown unusual reactions, have tested positive for the presence of cocaine.

According to a police source, 88 of the sweets tested positive for the addictive substance. The sweets were wrapped in paper that bore the brand of a popular local sweet manufacturer.

Police had already taken a statement from the shopkeeper who claimed that he had purchased the sweets in a sealed packet from another distributor.

Deadly Canje River dispute…

Survivor remains hospitalised as cops hunt for killer Police were yesterday still hunting for a farm employee who shot 53-year-old Titus Sutton dead and wounded his colleague on Friday at Barakara, some 60 miles up the Canje River.

It is understood that the fugitive is well known to the authorities.

Titus Sutton, called “Franky,” or “Preso”, of Melanie Damishana, East Coast Demerara was shot dead and a colleague, Sherwin Mc Almont, 34, called ‘Shut’, also of Melanie Damishana, was shot in the leg at the home of the man with whom they had a dispute.

According to information, Sutton, who had lived overseas for a number of years, returned home a few years ago and decided to go into cash crop farming, choosing the Canje River for this purpose.

It is understood that the shooter and the victims were acquaintances and the suspect would frequent the Melanie Damishana area. He reportedly worked for Sutton at his farm and was entrusted with running the business whenever Sutton and his

colleague were not around.

He was provided with a boat and engine, foodstuff and finance.

However, Sutton was reportedly dissatisfied with the farm hand’s performance and a dispute broke out between the men.

They reportedly demanded that the employee return their engine and leave the farm. However the dispute heightened over payment and monies owed. It is also understood that the employee went to the farm and destroyed some of the crops before leaving.

The men, upon their return to the Canje River area, went to the worker’s home at Barakara. An argument ensued and Sutton was shot in the face at close range, reportedly with an improvised shotgun.

He collapsed on the steps of the small house where his body remained until Saturday, when it was removed by police and relatives who had journeyed all the way up the Canje River.

The body was brought out of the river and taken to the New Amsterdam Hospital

Mortuary where it is awaiting a post mortem examination.

Mc Almont, 34, was shot in the leg as he tried to escape with the others. He was rushed to the New Amsterdam Hospital where he was admitted and spent Friday night, before being transferred to the Georgetown Public Hospital.

Titus Sutton was the brother of the late popular Melanie Damishana resident, Mark Sutton, who collapsed a few years ago while playing football on the community’s playfield.

Only a few months ago he lost his sister, Shelly, who collapsed suddenly at her home in Melanie.

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Ramroop admits to having items recorded as already delivered to GPHC Bharrat Jagdeo’s best friend Dr. Ranjisinghi ‘Bobby’Ramroop, who owns New Guyana Pharmaceutical Corporation (GPC), has lashed out at the Auditor General of Guyana over the discrepancies raised in his 2012 reports.

Ramroop yesterday accused the Audit Office of “sloppy fieldwork by junior officials in the Office of the Auditor General.”

But the Auditor General found among other things that there were several million dollars worth of drugs still to be supplied by Ramroop.

These drugs were part of the more than US$15M worth of drug contracts Ramroop received from the Ministry of Health and the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC).

Ramroop admitted this and called on the Ministry of Health and GPHC, “to remove its goods from the corporation warehouses as soon as possible.”

In seeking to explain the non supply of the drugs, Ramroop has also conceded that the New GPC is still currently storing a very large volume of items for the Ministry and GPHC which New GPC recorded as delivered.

Ramroop said that Contracts, particularly the larger orders, sometimes overlap from a consumption point of view into the following financial year.

Hence, it is not unusual that some items are not collected by the Ministry at the end of the fiscal year. However, it is unusual that these items would be recorded by New GPC as delivered.

He said that national budgets are approved some time between March and July and hence the quantities being ordered sometimes cater for this overlap.

But for more than a decade the budget has been presented in February.

Ramroop said that the Ministry receives goods based on their own predetermined consumption pattern and that means deliveries are staggered throughout the year.

Ramroop also claims that

Auditor General Deodat Sharma

Dr. Ranjisinghi ‘Bobby’ Ramroop

contracts are signed at different times during the year, and so for those signed in the later months, deliveries are actually intended to roll over into the following year.

On the matter of bank guarantees raised by the Auditor General, Ramroop claims that they are not meant to be valid for the original sum throughout the life of the contract.

“As deliveries are made, the risk is obviously decreasing and hence a bank guarantee can be, and is, often renewed for a lesser amount.”

In attempting to discredit the Auditor General, Ramroop said that the report appears to have been compiled on the basis of simplistic interactions with junior and non-technical personnel within the Ministry and GPHC administrations and does not take full cognisance of the nature of the supply chain process for pharmaceuticals and related products and the environment in which we operate.

Speaker of the National Assembly, Raphael Trotman, made the report public this past week and it has revealed

that Ramroop’s New GPC received in excess of $3B to supply drugs to the Ministry of Health and the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC).

Another $1B was spread across more than a dozen local and international companies.

Ramroop received the largest chunk of the drugs purchased by Government last year and according to the Auditor General, this was done based on the fact that he was pre-qualified since 2010.

This means that in 2010, Ramroop’s New GPC would have been selected to supply drugs to Government without having to go to public tender until that prequalification status expires.

Between the Ministry of Health and GPHC, the government spent just over $4B in drug purchases last year.

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Kaieteur News

KAIETEUR NEWS Printed and Published by National Media & Publishing Company Ltd. 24 Saffon Street, Charlestown, Georgetown, Guyana.

Publisher: GLENN LALL Editor: ADAM HARRIS Tel: 225-8465, 225-8491 Fax: 225-8473, 226-8210

Editorial

Confronting abuse of females Everyone should be extremely concerned about the persistence of violent abuse of females in our society, despite numerous strategies developed by government and various social organisations to combat this problem.

This is not a problem that suffers from a lack of public awareness and action. There are almost daily media reports of cases involving every sickening variety of violence against females in Guyana. The nation has responded with several measures, including the strengthening of women’s rights in the nation’s constitution, justice system reforms, increased penalties for perpetrators and the establishment of services to help women who are victims of violence.

Generally speaking, despite many years of such initiatives, Guyana still lacks the type of knowledge and understanding of the nature, causes and effects of violent abuse of females that are necessary to deal effectively with the problem. Consequently, strategies aimed at prevention seem to have had only minimal impact, while female victims of violence and abuse continue to have only very limited access to legal and psychological assistance.

Programmes aimed at preventing the abuse of females in Guyana tend to be undermined by the pervasiveness and inflexibility of cultural norms that socialise women into submissive roles from early childhood. The perception that men are superior to women and the notion that violence and virility go hand in hand, are manifest in several communities and social groups in Guyana. Since being masculine is basically understood as being dominant and tough, men’s subjugation of women by violence is often tolerated by the victims themselves as well as their communities.

Also, programmes aimed at helping survivors of such abuse to recover are simply too resource-deficient to provide comprehensive, professional assistance. Places that provide professional help for abused women and girls are far too few to meet the needs – in most regions of Guyana, there are none at all. Shelters where victims can seek refuge are almost non-existent. Those that do exist literally have to beg victims to step forward and try to end their suffering. The vast majority of victims seem to get little or no professional help in self-healing, coping and survival skills.

Surmounting these obstacles in Guyana is not going to be easy. The slow progress of action concerning violence against women and weaknesses in implementation suggest that the male-dominated society still does not recognise the gravity of abuse against females.

Guyanese women cannot depend on actions taken by government and a handful of social organisations on their behalf. They need to get organised, develop their own alternative programs, and undertake to be the driving force behind these.

This should seriously focus on what appropriate actions they can take by themselves – as mothers, wives and community activists – to break down detrimental cultural stereotypes that provoke all forms of abuse against females, and try to decrease labelling and marginalisation of victims.

They need to develop and undertake campaigns and information programs to explain the overall impact of violence against women, and exert social pressure to seek adequate assistance to the victims of abuse.

Guyanese women must increase their active participation in solving the problem of violence against females. More women need to start influencing society through actions in their own homes. Women also need to establish female support networks in their communities, so that victims would not have to face perpetrators of such abuse alone. The abuse of any female in a community diminishes every female in that community.

The long-term success will depend on men’s involvement, but dealing with the problem’s underlying social issues will be much easier if there are sufficiently empowered, self-assured women working with men towards a solution.

Many persons duly regard women as the vertebrae of Guyanese society and there is absolutely no doubt that in

Monday November 11, 2013

Letters... Where your views make the news

Freddie Kissoon disagrees with Mr. Sanders’ depiction DEAR EDITOR, I took issue with some of Mr. Ron Sanders columns in February and May in the election year of 2011. It is unnecessary to reproduce those sections of Mr. Sanders’ thoughts that in my opinion were an evaluation of the excellent (my word) state Guyana’s economy was in under Mr. Jagdeo.

The issue was not Mr. Sanders at all, and nothing personal was said about Mr. Sanders. But I replied because I felt in an election year, I had an obligation as an academic to correct a flattering picture of Guyana’s economy which the statistics and realities in Guyana did not substantiate. I would not have replied if it was not an election year.

After all, Mr. Sanders is entitled to write and express his judgements like I do in this newspaper. And for the record, Mr. Sanders’ columns are interesting, needed in Guyana and I believe welcomed by readers.

I replied because I was of the belief that in an election year, votes could be influenced by what people write. In my case, people were responding to my columns that were critical of the PPP in an election year. And they had every right to.

We seem to be heading to an election again either nationwide local government polls or a general election before its due date of 2016.

In his last Sunday column in Kaieteur News, Mr. Sanders holds the view that CARICOM countries are facing disastrous economic uncertainties. He includes the Bahamas and exempts Trinidad and Guyana. In relation to Guyana, he wrote; “With the exception of Trinidad and Tobago…and Guyana with its broad agricultural and mineral base.”

I graciously beg to

disagree with Mr. Sanders and I hope he accepts my innocent response in good faith. In comparison with our CARICOM neighbours, we have always been a large country with a large agricultural and natural wealth base including bauxite, minerals, aqua-culture etc.

But Guyana’s economic future has eluded it since selfgovernment to the point where in the past thirty three years in terms of GDP and GNP, we stand only above Haiti.

Now surely, we should have surpassed our CARICOM neighbours at least ten years ago, including Trinidad that is a mere 1, 980 square miles. But when you live in Guyana then you see how those uncertain economies in CARICOM have a more certain future than Guyana. If you break it down by sectors then you will see the large size and the large sectors of wealth are a mirage.

In terms of welfare, most CARICOM states have a better delivery system than Guyana. Barbados has free health care and its Queen Elizabeth Hospital is a first rate institution compared to the Georgetown Hospital.

The Georgetown Hospital offers the very basic and if

you have complications, find a private hospital or die. I will just give one example.

Decades ago, hospitals and private eye doctors discard the use of the tonometer to measure your eye pressure.

They use a tonopen, which is less dangerous because it does not touch your eyes.

Even the special ophthalmology hospital in Port Morant does not have a tonopen, which cost less than two hundred American dollars.

In little Barbados, university education is free.

Contrary to what is being peddled in Guyana that at UG, tuition is $G127, 000; that is not true. Fees begin from $180, 000 rising to half a million in some degree programs at a university that most Guyanese and Caribbean people and academics worldwide know has become moribund. For all the economic crises CARICOM nations are in and for all the wealth Guyana has, UWI’s three campuses are top class institutions that can be compared worldwide.

Guyana has the highest rate of electricity throughout South and North America and the Caribbean. Guyana has the lowest levels of wages in CARICOM. Guyana’s old age

pensions are the lowest in the Caribbean. Guyanese police personnel from Constable up are the lowest paid in CARICOM. In Barbados, Jamaica and the Bahamas that Mr. Sanders identified as facing bleak futures, teachers’ income are higher than in Guyana. Guyana has the largest migration rate in the world per capita. Black Bush Polder is the suicide capital of the world per capita.

Guyana’s poverty situation is far more depressing than any other CARICOM country.

Income disparities are greater in Guyana than in the rest of CARICOM. In a column recently, I wrote that a very well placed political authority told me that sixty percent of gold extraction is illegally removed without declaration.

Mr. Sanders must know by now that the sugar industry has collapsed (I prefer that word). I close with the opinion that yes, Mr. Sanders is right, CARICOM states are in crisis but ten years from now they would have picked themselves up and start on the track again while we will still be looking for the track.

Frederick Kissoon

Incompetence following Sheik Baksh wherever he goes DEAR EDITOR, It seems that everywhere Sheik Baksh goes he is followed by incompetence.

He was at the Ministry of Housing, presiding over an entity that was in the news everyday for all the wrong reasons. Then he took over the Ministry of Education and the same thing happened; who can forget the “No child left behind” policy,

many cases they are the driving force behind families and communities. They are the primary care-givers to the very young and very old, and tend to expertly marshall the resources of many families.

One clear indicator that women continue to endure an uphill struggle for full social appreciation in Guyana is the fact that despite hard-earned progress in every area of life, women’s accomplishments often remain underestimated.

This nation has enshrined women’s rights in the Constitution and strengthened laws to protect them. Yet gender-based discrimination and violence against women pervade almost every aspect of life and are perennial threats to peace and security in our society. We all need to operate pro-actively and fearlessly promote women’s advancement and bring gender issues to wider attention.

We must quickly and forcefully promote legal and policy reforms to further empower women.

Women in Guyana, even those in positions of authority, still tend to face major legal, social and political barriers and biases. At this crucial time, confronting abuse of our females is of utmost importance.

which was rightly overturned by his successor.

Now he heads the Guyana Water Inc. and despite government’s boasts of increased provision of potable water to citizens, the water situation in Guyana is getting worse with every passing day. Let’s take my community of Melanie Damishana on the East Coast of Demerara for example.

I’ve lived there since the early 1990s and have never experienced been subjected to the poor service that I am currently experiencing. A few months ago, the GWI carried out a disconnection campaign in the area, cutting off supply to several households for non payment of water rates. I have no problem with that; but what I have a problem with is that after paying to have the water supply restored, GWI customers are now receiving a lower water pressure than they enjoyed before their water supply was cut off. We now have to fetch water I buckets even into our single flat homes. It is as if we are being punished twice. And to

make matters worse, for the past two weeks we are now only receiving water for a few hours a day. Previously the pump at Melanie was turned on a little before six 0’clock in the mornings, giving workers enough time to have a bath before they leave for work. On a normal basis the water supply will cut off at eight giving us day workers enough time to get things done.

Now within the past two weeks, the water comes on at seven in the mornings if at all and then it goes off after an hour.

Is this the 21st century?

No one is telling us what the problem is or how long we will have to live like we are back in the 1980s. Now the water company will want to blame the GPL, but I am not buying that! The GWI has been blaming GPL for decades now.

Can’t the GWI get it right? I made several queries at the Melanie Damishana GWI office and no one could give me a proper explanation; it’s as if the workers there are doing us a favour. Come on GWI, unlike in the 1980s, we are paying for water now!

Angry Resident

Monday November 11, 2013

Kaieteur News

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Letters... Where your views make the news... Letters... Where your views make the news

The wise always change their minds but fools do not DEAR EDITOR, Mr. Harry Hergash’s response to our letter in Kaieteur News dated November 2, 2013 shows how confused he is about the facts. He says that he agrees with Dr. Rose for switching parties but yet he accuses him of being hollow.

Either something is definitely wrong with Hergash’s thinking or he is being told what to do by his masters in the PPP. Mr. Hergash should be honest with himself. He should not let the PPP cabal commission him to spread their propaganda, distortions and untruths. He is bent on attacking and criticizing my good friend Dr. Rose not because he wanted to but because he is not an independent individual and has to be told what to do.

But unlike him, Dr. Rose is an independent and progressive thinker who will not be told what to do, when to do it and how to do it. Dr. Rose is an academic who makes decisions based on facts, circumstances and the changing environment.

Again, we ask; who this dictator is and why he is so fascinated with what Dr. Rose

does?

He should take heed to the fact that the wise change their minds all the time, but fools do not. Where do you fit in Mr. Hergash? Mr. Hergash is presumptuous to question the credibility of someone whom he does not even know.

As a good friend of Dr. Rose, I can safely say that he does not know this man and has never met or communicated directly with him. But based on what he writes, he is clearly one of the mouth pieces of the corrupt PPP cabal.

Instead of questioning my best friend’s credibility, Harry Hergash should question the credibility of his boss who refuses to establish the Procurement Commission, who refuses to assent to Bills passed by Parliament, and who refuses to stamp out corruption.

He should question the credibility of his PPP cabal who continues to use the state resources to enrich themselves, their relatives and rich friends at the expense of the poor and who continue to spread their propaganda and distort the truth that the PNC has done

absolutely nothing for Guyana. Mr. Hergash should be more concerned about the high crime rate and the murder of innocent law abiding citizens, which his party does not have the ability to solve.

Mr. Hergash has said, “Let us look at the facts.

Despite what he is now touting, in 2011 he is the one who did not think Mr. Granger’s experience and the PNC’s achievements merited support.”

On behalf of my pal, Dr. Rose, I want to say that Harry Hergash is a true PPP propagandist and a stranger to the truth who conjures up falsehood in his mind. He is a fabricator in that he makes up stories that are not true. Dr. Rose never said anything about Mr. Granger’s experience and has never spoken to Hergash about it, so his above statement is not only false but also a true reflection of his character.

Finally, we want Mr. Hergash to know that we will not waste any more of our precious time responding to his fibs because unlike him, we have more important things to do.

Dr. Rose and Chandra Deollal, Esq.

Bob Marley’s spiritual song should not be used in advertising DEAR EDITOR, Yesterday on the radio, I was stunned to hear Bob Marley’s classic song of African identity and resistance, ‘Buffalo Soldier,’ being used for the tawdry purpose of advertising an energy drink.

With that song, Brother Marley crafted a wonderful gift for us Caribbean people, about the struggles of the black man, “stolen from Africa, brought to America fighting on arrival, fighting for survival.”

Black men recently freed from slavery joined the US Army, forming their own unit to fight for the same America that enslaved them.

They were nicknamed ‘the Buffalo Soldiers’ because of their wooly hair and they became one of the most effective fighting units while continuing to live in a racist society that could not accept them.

M a r l e y ’s s o n g i s spiritual and philosophical, pondering the meaning of dignity and freedom and how people make the best of t h e choices they have in life.

It is a somber song sung

w i t h s o r r o w, d e f i a n c e and a hint of anger.

How can you take a song about the historic fight to be free and use it to sell drinks?

A song that talks about people being sold into slavery?

I’ll let Bob Marley speak for himself, with his words

from ‘Buffalo Soldier.’

“If you know your history, then you would know where I’m coming from.”

It is clear to me that the energy drink people, and the people who play their advertisements, need to know their history better.

Imam Baksh

THESE THIEVES HAVE A STRATEGY

DEAR EDITOR, I am frustrated. In 2011 thieves broke into my home and the case is still open. I told the investigating police officer about the person I suspected and he told me that he heard “those persons have gun” so he has to wait on the Tactical Services Unit to back him up before he can go out because it is dangerous for him. Well three weeks later, he finally went to look for “my suspects”.

In addition, I had to use my aunt’s vehicle to drive around the Detective because the police do not have vehicles available.

The only persons who are protected are the President, Prime Minister and Ministers. It is my belief that they fail to realize that the citizens are more valuable because without some of our votes (or stolen votes) they cannot sit in those comfortable seats.

Tw o m o n t h s a g o I found a pair of slippers at my back step which is not owned me by me or my four

year old son. I took that unclaimed slipper to the Beterverwagting Police Station to be dusted for footprints and or fingerprints.

Guess what, I am still waiting on the results.

This morning before “bird wife wake”, I was awoken by an unusual sound. I knew something was wrong and I started to panic.

Eventually I took a few deep breaths to calm down not knowing that I will be greeted by a bold face petty thief. These nowadays thieves are acrobats; he climbed the front of my house, which is about 13 feet off the ground.

I am a single parent. I am working part-time and attending the University of Guyana full time. On the last successful afternoon visit by the thieves in my area, they relieved me of my laptop, clothing and money. I can’t afford for them to take a grain of rice from me, much less.

The Ministry of Home Affairs needs to have a copy the electronic existing data

available at GECOM and customize a programme so that they can use it as reference to get these criminals away from civilization. Maybe, it is rocket science and I am missing a few pieces.

These thieves have a strategy, on motorcade night last, they had a blast and visited the neighbours behind me.

In addition, sometimes I’ve been receiving disturbing phone calls and I make reports and submitted the phone number to the police.

Two years have passed and I’m still waiting to get a response from the Commissioner of Police regarding these malicious phone calls. I really need to protect myself.

How can I protect myself? The police cannot respond to my calls because they do not have a patrol available. It just rain so whatever little evidence that was on the gate and window probably washed away.

H. Joseph

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Kaieteur News

Monday November 11, 2013

Are Guyanese losing their cultural identity?

By Kiana Wilburg With its wonderful blend of six races, Guyana has a rich history and a culture that is still virtually untapped and still to be fully exploited.

However, we have now drifted to an era where we seem to be struggling, more than ever, to hold on to our personal identity, partly due to a flood of foreign influences that reach us mainly through television and the internet. And partly, due, it also seems, to a feeling that ‘our thing’ is somehow inferior.

Artist Dave Martins has long commented, in his unashamedly Guyanese way, on the West Indian man’s penchant to ‘copy-cat’ everything foreign, whether good or nonsensical, while failing to honour his own. (‘Where are your heroes, Caribbean?’ he laments in one song).

Sadly, we seem to have taken our ‘copycatting’ to an even more nauseating level.

Local advertisements feature announcers with American accents. Our deejays and even some singers try to sound Jamaican. The abundance of local plays at the National Cultural Centre seems to be a thing of the distant past.

How did we come to this sorry state? Some have heaped the blame on a Government that seems to be indifferent to things ‘cultural’ or ‘local.’

Is this accusation valid?

Have we really become, the undisputed ‘mimic men of the New World?’

Minister of Culture Youth and Sport, Dr. Frank Anthony doesn’t think so.

The Minister said that contrary to what many believe, his Ministry is doing a lot to educate the Guyanese populace on the importance of our culture. But he

- “We mimic men of the New World...” V.S Naipaul

Artist and writer Barrington Braithwaite: “We have become the land of the great mimic men...”

Guyana Prize winning playwright and Communications Specialist Dr. Paloma Mohamed

regrettably expressed that this is not readily accepted or welcomed by many.

The Minister said that the fact that foreign holidays and cultures like Halloween seem to be taking over is not surprising. But this, he said can be attributed to globalization and strong western influences through various media.

“In the end, regardless of the influences, we can’t ignore our own and people need to understand how important it is to hold on to our culture, but sadly, people are not too attached to it.

“For example; masquerade bands are very rare in Guyana at this point. There were hardly any bands for the past three years and due to this we were unable to hold these competitions. But to change this, we have the National Dance School going out to schools and teaching the history of the dance, its moves and the meaning of the techniques involved.”

Dr. Anthony also said that the big issue is getting people to be receptive and that is the challenge that his Ministry faces. He said that

there are a lot of cultural workshops and, “we hardly have people coming to them and that says something. We also partnered last year with the Guyana Cultural Association Inc. of New York and it was a beautiful symposium which dealt with the history and importance of masquerade and it was free and not a lot of people came.

“Folklore concerts are being held every year which teach the stories of our history. I wouldn’t say that we have lost our identity but the society is being influenced by the western culture but in spite of this, we are doing a lot in our power to ensure that our identity, our history is preserved. I acknowledge that there is room for improvement, but it should be noted that we are working on it.”

Regarding the country’s apparently lax copyright laws, Dr. Anthony said that people simply want to “pick and choose which part of the legislation must be enforced.”

He said that there are measures in place for anyone to be tried before the court if they violate the exclusive rights someone may have to

A bit of Guyanese drama

Mimicking a foreign culture? Guyanese celebrating Halloween their work.

“The copyrighting law is a very complex piece of legislation. There have been extensive discussions. But people cherry pick too much by saying that they want this part of the law and not that part and that is not right. We have to accept it in its entirety and while we have a comprehensive piece of draft people are simply divided over the issue.”

Nonetheless, Dr. Anthony believes that one way to help curb this perception that our culture is dying is by incorporating cultural programmes into the education system.

Others see things differently. Barrington Braithwaite, artist, cultural activist and creator of the ‘Jaguar’ graphic series firmly believes that Guyana has lost touch with its cultural identity and that “we have become the land of the great mimic men.”

To support his claim, he made reference to the fact that research shows that more than two thousand citizens countrywide celebrated the adopted western holiday “Halloween” this year.

Braithwaite, who has a wealth of folklore knowledge, said that Halloween in its present state in Guyana is simply a costume festival. “It is exciting and it’s taking us over but nobody cares that we are not lending the same attention towards celebrating our own.

He even made reference to the way Mashramani has become a complete duplicate of “Carnival” which is celebrated in Trinidad and Tobago.

“We have an imbalance in this area and it is not that we don’t have the resources, but we have a lot of political obstacles in the way. There is a need to encourage our local writers to document our history as Guyana is on the brink of losing its cultural identity.”

Guyana Prize-winning playwright and Director of the Centre for Communication Studies, Dr. Paloma Mohamed, also shared her thoughts on the topic. “I don’t share the hysteria of

many traditionalists about what can be seen as the loss of culture.”

“This is because of my own conception of culture as the normative ways people negotiate their lives in relation to their environments and histories. I see culture as dynamic and responsive to changes in the general environment.”

In fact, Dr. Mohamed believes that, “societies which do not demonstrate this high adaptability tend to fall or decay. But alternatively, if we lose the connection to our roots and history, we lose the understanding of why and how we do what we do. This is important to strengthening of practices and institutions.

What we want is really, a balance between reverence and mindfulness of history and being adaptive to changes in life.

“I don’t think that we are losing our culture but I think we can do a lot more to record, preserve and propagate those things that are distinctly ours. We can do more through training, provision of grants to practitioners, media programmes, competitions, festivals, documentation, etc.

In particular, the formal and informal education sectors are critical.”

“I am in favour of an infusion model. This is to apply and relate cultural content in a conscious way in all subject areas in the education system.”

Monday November 11, 2013

Kaieteur News

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Thousands thrilled as Leguan Night ends on high note

By Rehana Ashley Ahamad High compliments are in order for the committee members responsible for pulling off a splendid inaugural Leguan Night staged last Saturday at the Community Centre Ground.

As the sun went down, the party vibes went up a few notches. Tempting music filled the cool air as dozens of visitors and hundreds of islanders, adorned with their finest, flocked the streets of small Leguan as they proceeded to the venue.

Some walked to the centre ground while others were transported by cars, buses, and even trucks, to the event which included the much anticipated Miss Leguan Pageant.

This, the major highlight of the night, saw nine beautiful young ladies vying for the much coveted crown.

After five segments, including a Talent piece, an Evening Gown, and the most important, Question and Answer Segment, 20-year-old Indranie Rumpatie was named the queen of Leguan.

The ecstatic young lady managed to win the hearts of the judging panel not only by the way she presented herself, but by her introduction, and the answer she gave to the question as well.

Copping the first and official title of Miss Leguan, Rumpatie won herself$100,000 as well as a trip for two to the majestic Kaieteur Falls, compliments of the Ministry of Tourism.

The Queen was followed by first runner-up, Tejwantie Rampersaud, second runnerup Adeola Austin, third runner-up Tabitha Persaud, and fourth runner-up Serika

Parasram.

The other contestants were Taramattie Oudit, Devika Mahase, Natasha Sookraj, and Roxanne St. Hill.

Special prizes were also awarded, with Adeola Austin copping those for Best Smile, Best Evening Gown, and Best Talent Piece.

Miss Congeniality went to Taramattie Oudit, while the Best Introduction and Best Cultural Wear went to the newly crowned queen, Indranie Rumpatie.

As part of the night’s activities, there was also a mini-expo which showcased agricultural produce, clothing, as well as a variety of culinary delights, including the island’s famous Iguana dish.

The thousands in the crowd were entertained by the energetic members of the Shakti Strings Band which is

led by one of Guyana’s heartthrobs, and a genius with the keyboard, Avinash Roopchand.

The entertainment was notably fantastic. The talented dancers and lead singers Joel ‘Prince JP’ Pharous, Pooran Seeraj, and Steven Ramphal succeeded in leaving no space for boredom, and no stone unturned when it came to getting patrons to their feet.

Their performance even had His Excellency President Donald Ramotar and Minister of Tourism (ag) Irfaan Ali dancing and singing.

From shaking in their seats, both the President and the Minister, accompanied

by Dharamkumar Seeraj of the Guyana Rice Development Board, took their talents to the stage, making the crowd go wild.

While their dance moves

Seven in custody as police recover millions in cash and gold after staged robbery Police have rounded up at least seven persons who were involved in a staged robbery, in which millions of dollars in cash and raw gold were stolen from a local gold buyer.

The police have also recovered the loot which comprised about $40M cash and 90 ounces of raw gold in what has been described as excellent investigative work.

The heist reportedly took place on Friday at Port Kaituma in the North West District and was reportedly masterminded by an employee of the gold buyer.

According to reports reaching this newspaper, the employee was entrusted by the gold buyer to conduct his business in the gold mining area of the North West District.

However, the employee betrayed the trust by first converting some of the money he was given to his own use.

He then had to find a way to recover it and in order to do so, he hatched a plan.

According to a source, he arranged with a well known convict called “Roland” from Blairmont, Berbice, to carry out his plan which was to stage an attack on the camp he and other workers were staying in at Port Kaituma and steal the gold.

The source said that the convict hired his crew, including a boatman, to transport him to Port Kaituma through the Pomeroon River.

It is alleged that the mastermind somehow managed to administer sleeping tablets to his

colleagues in the camp to facilitate the heist; so when “Roland” and his crew turned up it was easy pickings for them.

They proceeded to tie up the employees who by then were very groggy; they even lashed one of them in his head and also tied up the mastermind to make the ‘robbery’ appear to be ‘legit’.

After this was done, they emptied a safe containing the cash and raw gold before making good their escape, heading back to Charity on the Essequibo Coast.

However, about five minutes from their destination, the boat captain demanded his share of the loot and after collecting it he transferred “Roland” and his crew to another boat for them to continue their journey.

They did not get too far, for by this time the police at Port Kaituma had been informed about the heist and had begun some intense investigations there.

Kaieteur News understands that during their investigations, the mastermind of the whole scheme cracked under pressure.

He reportedly confessed to planning the heist and gave detectives a detailed account of the staged robbery, including the names of all the players involved.

Armed with the information provided, the police at Port Kaituma quickly alerted their counterparts on the Essequibo Coast who managed to apprehend the escaping crew members with most of the loot.

The ecstatic Queen Indranie Rumpatie being handed her prizes by Minister of Tourism (ag) Irfaan Ali. were somewhat “okay” a major highlight was the President singing “Leguan Baboo;” it was surely considered a treat.

Leguan Island is a small island situated in the delta of the Essequibo River, nine miles (14 km) long and two miles (3.2 km) wide. It is roughly twelve square miles in area.

This paradise has an estimated population of 4,200 living in 27 demarcated villages. The population has declined fairly rapidly during the past decade as residents leave to settle in more urban parts of Guyana or migrate.

Leguan is primarily rice farming and cattle rearing

community, other employment revolves mostly around government offices, teaching, health care, and policing.

Given the sometimes overlooked beauty of the Island, the Minister of Tourism (ag) Irfaan Ali said that he found it necessary to host such events in order to promote the island and increase its tourism.

Apart from the very hospitable people and tasty foods, I will always remember Leguan for its breathtaking beach.

However, it does need some amount of maintenance, nonetheless, I had a great swim. Until next time Leguan!

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Kaieteur News

Monday November 11, 2013

Monday November 11, 2013

Kaieteur News

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SEND THE MONEY EARLY! The word “bonus” is one all workers look forward to at Christmas. It is that time of the year when employers show their gratitude to their workers by giving them an extra payout.

Many workers in the developed world look forward to this payout and actually make detailed plans as to how they will spend it because it is invariably very substantial.

At this time also there are many families in Guyana who like to remind their relatives working in the developed countries about the need to share their good fortune.

And many Guyanese overseas actually feel that it is their moral duty to send back some of what they receive to their needy relatives in Guyana.

It is not just the relatives overseas who look forward to receiving their bonuses at Christmas.

The extended families

from Guyana also look forward to their foreign based relatives receiving the bonuses because they know that something will be coming their way in time for the holidays.

Many Guyanese are hoping that their relatives overseas receive their annual Christmas bonus a little early this year so that they can send some of the money back home, as they usually do, for those who depend on these remittances to enjoy the Christmas holidays.

There are many nonworking millionaires in Guyana who look forward to receiving that couple of hundred US dollars each Christmas. The relatives overseas can afford to send because these relatives usually enjoy a hefty bonus from their employers.

The remittances from these Christmas bonuses usually flow like a thundering waterfall after December 15.

This is when the money transfer companies do brisk business.

With the non-passage of the amendments to the Antimoney laundering and the Countering of Terrorism Act, there are many families in Guyana who are now extremely anxious about the possibilities of financial sanctions being placed on Guyana before December 15 which is when most remittances from relatives begin to roll in.

These relatives usually wait until they are paid their Christmas bonuses before sending some of it back home so that their relatives can enjoy a nice Christmas.

These relatives are worried that if sanctions take effect, it could affect money transfers just at the time when they look forward to receiving the money that is sent from abroad for them. Many families are therefore worried and would be hoping that

Parliamentary Committee wants to increase Members of ERC Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Appoints, Dr. George Norton has tabled a motion in the National Assembly that, if passed by the House, will see an increase in the number of members appointed to the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC).

Dr. Norton’s motion was tabled at the last sitting of the National Assembly.

In giving constitutional support for his motion, Norton cited several articles from the constitution.

He said that in accordance with article 212 B (1) of the constitution, the Ethnic Relations Commission shall consist of “Not less than five, or more than 15 members, nominated by entities by a consensual mechanism determined by the National Assembly, including entities, representative of religious bodies, the labour movement, the private business sector, youth and women, after the entities are determined by the votes not less than two thirds of all elected members of the National Assembly.”

Dr. Norton quoted as well that “A member shall be a nominee, without the right to vote, chosen by and from each of the following commissions under this constitution, Indigenous Peoples’ Commission, Women and Gender Equality Commission , Commission of the Rights of the Child and Human Rights Commission.”

Dr. Norton said that the Committee on Appointments

Dr. George Norton (COA) examined the list of entities to nominate members to the Ethnic Relations Commission in accordance with article 212 B(1) (a) of the constitution, and the Resolution No. 62 of 2000 with regard to the number of members on the said Commission.

He said that the Committee, for which he is the Chairman, recommends that the number of members on the Ethnic Relations Commission be increased to ten and the categories or groups include the representatives of the Christian, Hindu and Muslim bodies, the labour movement,

the private business sector, youth and women and new category “Cultural/Ethnic” with one nominee each from the three largest ethnic groups: Indo- Guyanese, Afro Guyanese and Indigenous Guyanese.

Should the motion be passed in the National Assembly, there will be an increase in the number of members on the Ethnic Relations Commission from seven to 10 as proposed by the Committee on Appointments.

The Motion also calls for the National Assembly to approve of the inclusion of the new category “Cultural/ Ethnic” with the right to have three members, one representative each of the three largest ethnic groups.

The National Assembly’s approval is also being sought for the Christian, Hindu and Muslim Religion, the Labour Movement, Private Sector Organizations, youth and women organizations to have one Member each.

The motion is also calling for Cultural/ Ethnic Organizations representing Indo, Afro and Indigenous Guyanese to have one member each.

their families send the little Christmas tiding before any sanction takes effect.

It is almost clear that a decision will have to be taken by the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force against Guyana. The non- passage of the amendments means that Guyana is in default of its international obligations and therefore stands at risk of being blacklisted.

But it is doubtful that any sanctions will take effect before Christmas. Even the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force does blacklist Guyana there is a usually a lag between that decision and the time it takes for

international money transfer agencies, banks and reinsurers to refuse to do business with the country.

But Guyanese should not take any chances. The worst thing that can happen to any Guyanese is to not have sufficient money to take care of one’s needs at Christmas.

No one likes to be short of cash to buy the nice things that are usually bought at Christmas and in order to do this many families depend on the money transfers from overseas.

As such, if you are one of those relatives who live overseas and are reading this mail, you should seriously

consider ensuring that you send whatever you have to send for your family a little early because you can never predict what can happen within the international financial system.

It would be a tragedy if days before Christmas, Guyanese were to find themselves unable to receive money transfers because of the failure of the country to implement reforms to the Antimoney Laundering and the Countering of Terrorism Act.

Dem boys seh

Rohee sickness is not natural Rohee lef de Slave House good, good, good and go home. Normally he does stop fuh tek a drink all about de place like a typical rumee. Dem boys stay suh too. Dem does tek dem li’l quarter at all dem rum shop.

Rohee go straight home this day because he feel feverish. Dem boys didn’t want to talk de story but now dem got to talk. De Bar Rat wha don’t go in rum shop fix Rohee.

He does go to Palm Court wheh dem does plan everything. That is de new meeting house. Dem boys want know why he don’t carry dem kavakamites at he house.

De Rat did want de General Secretary wuk. He try to cut a deal before he lef

office. He tell Donald that he gun mek him president but Donald got to mek him General Secretary. Knowing Donald, anything at that stage is yes, wid a firm look.

That is how Donald tell him ‘yes.’

Donald, like a typical con man, tun president and gie de Rat piece of he own medicine, not dem wha Barbie does mek. Donald hold on pun de General Secretary wuk too.

De biting, bickering and barking start and continue till do de day of Congress. Up to then de Rat think that he gun get de General Secretary wuk. Up to de morning of de Congress dem boys hear de conversation between Donald and De Rat because dem was talking hard.

Inside de Congress Dem boys seh when de Donald was to nominate de Rat fuh de GS wuk, he nominate Rohee and nobody ain’t seh a word.

Was total silence.

Dem boys seh that de Rat get up and spit through de window and is from that minute Rohee start fuh feel sick.

Dem boys like Rohee and dem got a nice piece of advice fuh him—get somebody fuh taste you food because you know who you dealing wid.

You sickness ain’t natural and a lot of people know wha dem do you.

Talk half and pray may de good Lord put he hand pun him to get rid of wha de Rat throw pun he.

Monday November 11, 2013

One of my journalist friends suggested that I should be honoured for my writing. “You have a vast body of work,” he said. I looked him straight in the eye and said, “At my age I would prefer to have a vast body that works.”

There was a time I thought I did but, alas, I was lulling myself into a false sense of security. I found out that I had become a sound sleeper. In other words, I snored loudly but only when I slept. I did not only disturb those next to me but also those in the next room to me and even those in the next apartment. One hotel thought of building a special soundproofed room for me. I was like the man who so terrorized his houseguests that one of the ladies said, “You haven’t slept until you sleep with Tom.” And he

Kaieteur News

quickly responded, “That’s what all the ladies say.”

There is a story about a man who went to the doctor for help. He complained, “Doctor, as soon as I fall asleep I start snoring?” The doctor asked, “Is your snoring loud?” After the man said that in fact it was very, very loud the doctor enquired, “Does it bother your wife?” The man replied that he was not married. “So what’s the problem then?” the doctor asked. The man shook his head sadly, “I’ve lost five jobs because of it.”

In England people lose their spouses because of snoring. While some call it “sheet music” it strikes such a discordant note it topped the list of bedtime annoyances. Last month The Daily Mail reported that snoring is the most irritating habit in Britain’s bedrooms:

“It might not seem a lot to ask from a loved one. But a good night’s sleep, it appears, is one of the things we find most difficult to offer each other.

Millions of Britons are losing vital hours of shut-eye because of a partner ’s disturbances.

Not surprisingly, the number one complaint is snoring. Despite their groaning, 44 per cent of people admit to snoring themselves. In some cases our partner’s bed etiquette is so bad that 74 per cent of Brits claim they lose seven hours of shut eye a week.”

The situation is not as bad in the United States (US).

In a survey related to a restful night’s sleep, forty seven percent of respondents who share a bed indicated that they sleep with someone who snores. What makes it worse is what I call the first law of somnolence, “The one who

Page 15

snores will fall asleep first.”

However, snoring is only one aspect of what seems to be a very severe situation.

The Better Sleep Council (BSC), the consumer arm of the International Sleep Products Association, conducted a survey which reveals that more than half of Americans—over 157 million people—don’t get enough sleep and this can have dire physical and mental consequences. The BSC says, it’s a “sleepocalypse.”

The BSC survey revealed that 61% of Americans and nearly four out of five women would rather get a good night’s sleep than have sex.

The survey also found that nearly half of Americans fall asleep somewhere other than their bed at least once a week and about 11% fall asleep somewhere other than their bed every day.

Domestic violence fugitives have...

(From page 2) stepfather, Shawn Fordyce, and her mother, Dorothy Blackman-Fordyce, erupted in bloodshed.

At around 21:00 hrs on Thursday, August 1, 2013, ‘D’ Field Sophia resident Dorothy Blackman-Fordyce indicated that she was going out with another female relative.

However, she reportedly changed her mind after her husband objected.

Ms. Fordyce then left to buy a phone card. According to relatives, believing that his spouse was still going out, Shawn Fordyce, an ex-policeman, reportedly threw a handful of muddy water on her.

Latoya Wilson, one of the man’s step-children pleaded with the man to stop, which he did. But Fordyce, it is alleged, then ran inside the house, picked up a cutlass and chopped his wife and step-daughters Attorney-atLaw Wanda Fortune; Latoya Wilson, 20; and 12-year-old Donette Fordyce. The attack reportedly only ceased when the suspect’s cutlass slipped from his hands.

Three months after the near-deadly attack, Fordyce has somehow managed to avoid capture.

“Everyone is on edge; he’s still out there (and) the children are still traumatized,” Mrs. Fortune told Kaieteur News recently.

“It does not seem as if the police are keen to arrest anyone. There were positive sightings of him and the police from Berbice say that they have to get word from Georgetown (to arrest the suspect), and Georgetown would say that they radioed for him to be arrested.”

Ms. Fortune believes that some of her stepfather’s rela-

tives are assisting him, a claim that relatives of the fugitive have repeatedly denied. She says he has connections in Paradise, West Coast Berbice; Guyhoc Park; Sophia, both B and D Field; D’Urban Street and Middle Road, La Penitence.

The attorney is convinced that her stepfather meant to kill them, and that they will all be in danger as long as he remains on the run.

A police bulletin described Shawn Fordyce as being dark in complexion and of medium build. His last known addresses are Lot 132 ‘D’ Field Sophia, East Coast Demerara and Paradise Village, West Coast Berbice.

Trials of a peace-loving man Unlike Shawn Fordyce, ‘C’ Field, Sophia resident Clarence De Florimonte is a peace-loving man. But the same could not be said about the man with whom his reputed wife, Shanta Devi Chanderpaul, was having an affair.

The other man in Shanta Chanderpaul’s life lived a short distance from the home in which she lived with her reputed husband and seven children.

Violent and extremely possessive, the lover constantly beat Chanderpaul and even stabbed her once, while also injuring her hapless reputed husband. Despite this ill treatment, Chanderpaul refused to sever the relationship, and reportedly even sided with the lover against one of her sons in an assault matter in court.

That affair ended tragically.

Late last October, the 36-yearold woman and her 13-yearold daughter had just exited a bus in ‘C’ Field, Sophia at around 19:00 hrs, when the

suspect, who was armed with a knife, ran out of a shop and confronted her mother.

According to the daughter, the man said, ‘Look how long I want jook yuh and kill yuh’. He then stabbed her mother in the chest and abdomen, slashed her face and then fled.

Chanderpaul was admitted to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation’s Intensive Care Unit. She took her own discharge last Sunday, but was readmitted after her condition worsened. She succumbed last Thursday.

The suspect, identified as Ricardo Van Sertima, remains at large. Meanwhile, peaceloving Clarence De Florimonte has taken the unusual step of leaving the family’s ‘C’ Field, Sophia home, since he fears that the fugitive would try to harm him and his children. He has also taken his 13-year-old daughter, who witnessed the attack on her mother, to a safer location.

“Right now I can’t sleep in my house. This man is at death’s door (is desperate) and he would harm my family,” Mr. De Florimonte told Kaieteur News. According to Mr. De Florimonte, he will only return home when the alleged killer is apprehended.

The suspect has reportedly been spotted in Sophia

and is said to have even contacted some of the slain woman’s relatives.

Recently released police statistics show that there were 16 domestic related murders last October. Sadly, the toll has risen since then.

Last Friday, 16-year-old Mulchand Murilall was stabbed to death at Cane Grove, Mahaica, while trying to protect his sister from a man, with whom she had recently severed a relationship.

The suspect, who was captured at Springlands, had been remanded to prison for allegedly assaulting Murilall’s sister and was only released from prison last Thursday.

Then on Saturday, 55-yearold Vinod Narine consumed a mixture of rat poison and gramaxone after burning down his wife’s Lot 85 Industry, East Coast Demerara house.

Members of social organizations and other individuals have expressed alarm at the apparent surge in domestic violence. One well-known female community leader called for the setting up of more organizations that would allow men to speak about their frustrations and enable them to be counseled.

She also appealed for couples to learn to sit down and discuss their differences.

BSC Director of Communications, Karen Mahoney, admitted, “We were stunned by some of the survey responses. One man fell asleep on a rooftop.

Another man fell asleep while interviewing a job candidate.

There was a teacher who fell asleep at the podium in front of her class. Clearly, people are sleeping just about everywhere except where they should be—in their own beds.”

The British might hate snoring but the same survey that confirmed snoring as the most annoying bedroom habit (with hogging the coverlet, sleeping naked and fidgeting as other major issues) found that “pillow talk” topped the list of the ten most pleasurable bedtime activities. The Urban Dictionary defines pillow talk as, “The conversation that happens after making out/sex.

It’s infinitely better than normal conversation because there’s touching involved.”

Wikipedia is more explicit, “Pillow talk is the relaxed, intimate conversation that often occurs between two sexual partners after the act of coitus, usually accompanied by cuddling, caresses, and other physical intimacy. It is associated with honesty, sexual afterglow, and bonding and is distinguished from dirty talk which usually

forms part of foreplay.” It is not the situation where a couple is lying in bed and the woman says, “‘I am going to make you the happiest man in the world.” And the man replies, “I’ll miss you.”

In some cases women may not be involved in the pillow talk at all. The survey revealed ten per cent of UK couples would rather share their bed with a pet over their other half, and sixteen percent of men prefer a three-in-a-bed snooze. However, the ménage à trois comprises not another man or woman but their favourite cuddly toy. I suppose in such a case the partner has to grin and bear it or, if irritated, yell, “Stuff it!”

The most interesting sleep research findings are from Canada where a national survey found that people who are well-off and have a University education get more sleep than those in the lowest income-earning range with limited education. I believe the research is consistent with the definition of a University lecturer, “Someone who talks in other people’s sleep.” *Tony Deyal was last seen saying that when he told his doctor that he snored so loudly he woke himself up, the doctor suggested that he should try sleeping in another room.

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Kaieteur News

Monday November 11, 2013

Barber killed in hit and Mabaruma power woes run accident, driver leaves raised in Parliament number plate behind

Gopaulram Das and his family

Even as the police are trying to implement more stringent laws for road users, a barber has become the latest road fatality following a hit and run accident on the Vryheid’s Lust, East Coast Demerara (ECD) Public Road early yesterday.

Dead is 35-year-old Gopaulram Das of Lot 77 Better Hope, East Coast Demerara (ECD). The accident occurred sometime before 02:00 hours yesterday in front of a sports bar at Vryheid’s Lust.

According to information received, Das was crossing the public road to get to his car, which was parked opposite the sports bar, when the speeding car struck him down. He was pronounced

dead on arrival at a private hospital in the city.

The police in a statement, said that Das, a father of one, was struck down as he was allegedly attempting to cross the public road.

The driver fled the scene.

However, a number plate from the vehicle fell off on impact and has been collected by the Police.

Yesterday, the dead man’s father, Tullahram Das said he was at home when his neighbour informed him that his son had met with an accident. He claimed that he went to the scene but was told that his son was already taken to the hospital.

“I went to the Georgetown Hospital but he wasn’t there so I went to Woodlands but

he was already dead. At the scene, people say that the driver didn’t stop after he hit my son,” the older Das said.

He said that the last time he saw his son was 07:45 hours on Saturday when he left home for work. “He left work at 09:30pm last night (Saturday) and he went out with his friends at the sports bar.”

“Before he crossed the road, he called his wife and tell her that he was coming home and he asked her to open the gate. After he end the call, he told his friends that he was leaving to go home and that’s when he met with the accident,” Das said.

Investigations into Gopaulram Das death are ongoing.

Persistent power outages at Mabaruma and its surrounding communities have given cause for the matter to be raised even at the highest level of decision making in the country.

The question was put to Prime Minister Samuel Hinds who was also Energy Minister at the last National Assembly sitting, where he was required to provide an answer as to why residents of Mabaruma and its environs only enjoy electricity supply for six hours, between the hours of 17:00 hours to 23:00 hours daily.

To this, the answer was provided that the government has been pursuing a policy of improving the electricity supply in such hinterland areas in a step by step and sustainable way. According to the Energy Minister, the policy was to stay in line with the resources available to the government, the level of development and other circumstances of the community, inclusive of what the community could be expected to and was ready to pay.

Asked whether there was any consideration for twenty-four hours of electricity supply to residents in Mabaruma, the Minister answered saying that in line with Government’s policy to improve electricity supply in the hinterland, and its desire to supply electricity in a sustainable way, works are in progress to upgrade and extend the electricity network.

It was noted too that a minielectricity utility is to be established.

As for the question of when this will be possible, however, the Energy Minister was unable to state. “I cannot say now how soon a twentyfour hour electricity supply

Prime Minister and Minister of Energy Samuel Hinds

will be available in Mabaruma, not until after we would have discussed with residents the requirements for such a service and learnt of what they would be ready to support.”

It was unclear though at which time this discussion with residents will be facilitated. According to one disgruntled resident who has been stationed in Mabaruma for the past 53 years, the situation is such that residents are becoming “very annoyed”.

The resident said that while the standard six-hour supply of electricity was considered very limited, at the moment the communities are getting no electricity at all.

“For about two weeks now we are not getting power and no one is saying anything,” the man noted.

He said that what was further worrying was the fact that there are rumours that the communities would be out of electricity until next year.

According to him, the reason for the non-supply is due to “a part in the generator not functioning.”

Just over a year ago, a 750 kva generator was sent into the region to supply electricity to villages in

proximity to Mabaruma.

However, according to the resident, the machine has over time been experiencing mechanical difficulty and would have to be repaired regularly.

“There is always a problem with a part,” he said.

It was noted that the new generator was expected to function alongside the old generator that provided electricity to Mabaruma prior to the procurement of the new one. Unfortunately the functioning of the old generator ceased after it started “acting up”.

The resident said that he was of the opinion that once the old generator was functioning, it could have been used to interchange with the new one. Now since neither of the two generators is in operation, the residents of Mabaruma are forced to depend on use of personal generators.

“Right now it is very costly to use the generator.

Sometimes we can’t use the generator both day and night because fuel is very expensive. But we need electricity because we need to work our fridge, charge our phones and so on,” the resident lamented.

Monday November 11, 2013

Kaieteur News

Page 17

N/A Multilateral takes home National LCDS quiz competition trophy The winning team with their teachers.

The New Amsterdam Multilateral School has won the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) trophy in the National Quiz Competition held recently in Georgetown.

Each of the four winners, Eion Jotis, Naomi Ramotar, Danielle Cameron and

Saphira Ghanie won a trip to Bagannara Resort; trophies and $10,000 Giftland OfficeMax vouchers, as well as trophies and medals.

Berbice’s premier secondary institution won by eight points against St. Joseph High.

Other schools that

participated were Mahdia Secondary; St. Rose’s High; Rosignol Secondary, and Diamond Secondary. Their manager was Head of the Science Department, Mr. Leon Thomas assisted by Ms. Jeanne Jeffery who worked with the students on Social Studies.

Monday November 11, 2013 ARIES (March 21 - April 19): Try to just chill out today, as much as you can. You don't have the right kind of energy to exert your will on the world, but you can at least rest, heal up and get ready for the exciting times to come! ******************* TAURUS (April 20 - May 20): Try not to go it alone today -- things are just weird enough that you require backup. That could mean anything from asking a friend to chaperone a date to throwing a spontaneous party. ****************** GEMINI (May 21 - June 20): You've got too much going on today -- so make sure that you can cut some stuff out of your busy schedule at some point. ******************** CANCER (June 21 - July 22): You've got to use today's influx of potent energy to dig into the hidden machinations that affect your daily life. ********************* LEO (July 23 - Aug. 22): It's way too easy for you to go berserk today -- even at the smallest provocation! Try to just take deep breaths and wait for others to fill in the gap. ******************* VIRGO (Aug. 23 - Sept.

22): Not a lot of tasks get crossed off your list today -but take heart! You don't have to be a powerhouse of efficiency every day, and if you play your cards right, you could find some great new people at your side.

********************* LIBRA (Sept. 23 - Oct. 22): Try not to worry too much if things don't go your way -- you need to ensure that your energy is spent on the right projects. ********************* SCORPIO (Oct. 23 Nov. 21): You've got an ace or two up your sleeve -- so draw them out and use them quickly! You can make a lot of progress in an unexpected direction if you are willing to pull out all the stops. ******************** SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22 Dec. 21): You need to go beyond your past barriers -which is easier said than done, of course. Things may get uncomfortable while you get used to your new surroundings, but it's well worth it! .********************* CAPRICORN (Dec. 22 Jan. 19): Whether you're a musician at heart or completely tuneless, today is all about rhythm and melody. ******************** AQUARIUS (Jan. 20 Feb. 18): Something's not quite right today -- so rethink how you feel about it. If you adjust your attitude, you can actually make it better without having to exert any force on the outside world at all! ********************* PISCE S ( F e b . 1 9 March 20): Your amazing personal energy doesn't do anyone any good if you don't direct some portion of it internally.

Deputy HM Ms. Phillips also shares in the moment of victory Quacey Bowry, the teacher who coached the students, said that she was confident that her team would have emerged winners.

“I am very proud of them, and to have been working with them, I knew they had the ability to win the competition because they studied their work. My job was made easier because they study the material on the

LCDS and the Low Carbon Initiative.”

Young Eon Jotis, the team leader, scored 21 points and he said that he felt very good “because I worked very hard to achieve this goal.” The students had to attend school on Saturdays just to push in the work and studying for the competition.

The school recently resuscitated its Community

Day programme, which will now be featured at least once per term on the school calendar of activities. Planner and Coordinator of the event, Deputy Principal, Ms. Shaundell Phillips, said that the multilateral programme is aimed at shaping multitalented individuals for the society and that the school’s curriculum is not all about academics and gaining multiple CXC subjects.

“We wanted to take the ‘multi’ spirit into the community,” she said.

“Judging from today’s activity, it has its permanent place on the multilateral programme.” Groups of students of the school visited several nursery schools, including Smythfield, Savannah Park, St. Mary’s, Hibiscus, Mt. Sinai, and Trinity Street Nursery Schools.

They also visited the Dharam Shala, Berbice Anjuman Orphanage, Alpha Children’s Home; Viola Nursery; National Psychiatric Hospital (NPH) and Angoy’s Avenue. They also made little donations at the various places they visited.

“What was very, very rewarding was that none of the children returned to school the same way they left.

Some of them even shed tears after realizing how fortunate many of them were and they expressed the desire to do this activity every month.”

“We do this so that we can let the students understand that being educated is not only bearing 10,11,12,15 or 16 subjects— education is supposed to focus on the whole person and we’re aiming to develop—as the school name suggests—a multi- talented, multi- ability individual,” the Deputy- Principal stated. The school, established in 1975, held its first Community Day on February 20, 1976.

Page 18

Kaieteur News

Monday November 11, 2013

Probe launched into non-completion of hospital in Region Six (From page 19) EDUCATIONAL CXC/CAPE classes for students and adults. Highly qualified teachers & CXC examiners - Call: 683-3887

VACANCY Pump Attendant at Shell Service Station Providence, E.B.D. Must be able to work shift (5am-3pm & 3pm12pm)- Call:265-7305

SERVICES Professional and affordable landscaping and tree trimming services. Budram’s Landscaping ServicesCall:656-1326/678-0058

Canter Drivers & Porters from East Coast & EBD, Male Security Guards for Land of Canaan location.

266 4427

Repairs, sales & spares air conditioning, microwaves, washer, fridges & stoves. Ultra Cool, call:2259032,647-2943

Vacancy exists for 1 experienced Accountant & Accounts clerk with 5 years experience. Apply @ Alabamba Trading, Georgetown Ferry Stelling.

We repair fridge, freezer, AC, washer, dryer call:2310655,683-8734 Omar

Vacancy exist for one experienced cosmetologist on the EBD ( Grove) Contact: Ms Rashrie call:652-5800 Garden maintenance staff needed for Landscape Company 18-28 years. No education necessary - Tel: 648-1821

Repairs to Fridge, Freezer, AC, Washers, Stoves: Call 683-1312,627-3206 (Nick)

Nehemiah Comprehensive School; evening classes: Integrated Science, Human and Social Biology - Call: 226-0847 for more details.

Register now for CAPE Physics, Chemistry & Mathematics classes – Call:683-3887 Christmas Computer Courses Deal: 9 courses (Diploma in Technology) $30,000. Micrographics Technology, Vreed-En-Hoop – Tel:264-3057 Now open! Christmas Shopping just got easier.

Shop online, cheap shipping. Cybertron VreedEn-Hoop Tel:264-3057

HOUSE PLAN DRAFTING FOR ONLY $10,000CALL:694-9843/227-2766 Permanent & Visitors Visa Applications, Professional Immigration Consultant Room D5 Maraj Building Call:225-6496,6626045,223-8115

Skilled carpenters & apprentice, salesboys & girls. Apply: In person to Avinash Water St.

Christmas cleaning! Power washing for residential & commercial properties - Call: 648-1544

Canter Drivers & Porters fromECD&EBD,MaleSecurity Guards for Land of Canaan location, accommodation available. 266 4427

Professional and affordable landscaping and tree trimming services. BUDRAM’S LANDSCAPING SERVICES - Call: 656-1326; 678-0058

Gardener/ handyman$20,000 per week to work in New Providence must know to operate weeding machine - Contact: 265-7550

North East Taxi Service – For best rates, 24hrs Service, 280 Savage Street, North East La Penitence – Tel:227-8856; 231-3567

Domestic /cook with Carnegie training - $2,500 per day to work in New Providence Contact: 265-7550

We Refill HP cartridges for $1800 call: 650-7699

PENPAL Businessman in Trinidad seeks Guyanese woman for friendship & marriage between ages 30-40; email:ramphal mahadeo@ live.com – Tel:0011-868-7243155; 0011-868-4681075

FOR RENT Furnished short term apartments - Tel: 687-3017 Furnished top flat house, Queenstown, generator, A/ C, Grille & parking. Tel: 2271218 or kpthomas7@gmail. com

CAR RENTAL Premio, vitz call: 679-7139

TOUR Suriname pre-Christmas trip returned tour etc. Nov 28th - Dec 1st – Tel:644-0185; 6392663; 665-5171; 227-8290

Dolly’s Car Rental- Call: 2257126/ 226-3693- dollysauto rental@yahoo.com/ www.dollysautorental.com

Untouchable Car Rental Tel:621-6827; 226-9668 Fab’s Rental: Cars to RentCall: 671-6051/609-6890

Executive property in gated community at Houston D’ Aguiar’s Park, fully furnished. Tel: 609-2876 or 623-0425 One 2 bedrooms house for rent in Tuschen E.B.E - Tel: 216-0644 or 684-3195

Aidan’s Car Rental & PickupCall: 645-7981/ 698-7807 First Choice Car Rental: Cars as low as $5,000 per dayCall: 668-0306/ 694-7817/ 2256337

Ground Floor Office space, Queenstown, generator, A/ C, grille & parking - Tel: 2271218 or kpthomas7@gmail. com

MASSAGE American Style massage services- Call:678-7499 The Gent’s Spa: Let beautiful sophisticated masseuse pamper you: New masseuse available- Call:657-5979

Executive houses & apartments - $75,000 upward – Contact:223-8479; 6473768; www.spaceseek.gy One mobile canteen - call: 693-8322 Diamond - $70,000, $60,000, $80,000 & $150,000 – Tel:6610180

— supervising consultant over-valued completed work — project behind schedule by 16 months — contractor liable for liquated damages Despite moves by the Ministry of Health to expend more than $91 million by the end of last year to construct an Acute Psychiatric Hospital in Region Six, works have still not been completed. In fact, works on the health facility appear to have been abandoned for a prolonged period of time.

This state of affairs has been detailed in the 2012 Report of the Auditor General, which was presented to the National Assembly on Thursday last.

According to the Report, a contract for the construction of the Psychiatric Hospital was awarded in 2011 to the lowest responsive bidder in the sum of $112.739 million.

However, at the end of 2011 the contractor, who was not named in the Report, was paid sums amounting to $80.168 million while other amounts totaling $11.755 million were paid in 2012.

Moreover, total payments that were made under the contract to date amount to

$91.923 million. The Report outlines that during physical verification of the works, a number of unsatisfactory features were detected.

In addition to the reality that the work on the hospital has been stalled so much so that the site has become overgrown with vegetation, the Report highlights that currently there are “no personnel or equipment from the contractor on the site.”

Added to this, the Report notes that termite nests were evident at various sections of the incomplete structure.

Based on the Report, the completion date for the works was stated as May 18, 2012.

However, at the time of physical verification on September 4, 2013, the Report disclosed that the works were incomplete. At this date, a total of 16 months had elapsed from the contractual completion date. Of note too is the fact that “no approvals for extensions of time were noted and therefore the contractor is liable for

liquidated damages…”

It was explained that the value of the measured works completed at the time of physical verification was $92.079 million, based on payment certificate Number 8, dated July 30, 2012, which was prepared by the supervising consultant.

However, an examination of the works revealed 34 instances where amounts totaling $15.722 million were paid in relation to unexecuted works. It was however ascertained by the Audit Office that the consultant had in fact overstated the actual value of works completed by the contractor.”

The Health Ministry, in response to the state of affairs, has disclosed that the Head of Budget Agency has indicated that an investigation has since been launched.

Moreover, the Audit Office has recommended that the investigation be done with a view to recovering any overpayment.

Contractor in court for failing to supply millions in Education Ministry equipment Failure to supply millions of dollars worth of equipment for Technical/Vocational Projects to the Ministry of Education has landed a contractor in court.

In 2008, the Ministry entered into a contract valued at $18.470 million for the supply of the equipment but the contractor failed to honour the terms of the agreement. This was in spite of the fact that the Ministry has paid over the full contract sum to the contractor.

According to the 2012 Auditor General Report, which was presented to the National Assembly on Thursday last, at the time of the preparation of the Report equipment valued at $10.545 million had not been received.

Four years have elapsed LAND FOR SALE House lot for sale on the West Bank of Demerara Harbour bridge in Harbourville contact # 6500402 Citrus farm at Yarrowkabra with over 300 bearing trees and creek running through - Call Paul at: 602-7740 Diamond / Grove: $3M, $4.5M, $7.5M, $10M, $9.5M, Samatta Point Land100x200 $4.5M Land with Foundation $5M Tel:661-0180

since the signing of the agreement and payment of the contract price.

Moreover, the Ministry has since taken the supplier to court for a total refund of the remaining sum of $10.545 million. The Audit Office has therefore recommended that the Ministry continue to monitor the proceedings in the ongoing matter.

Another unresolved issue detailed in the Report is that the Ministry is still to provide records to validate spending to the tune of $6.715 million for the year 2007. The sum, according to the Report, was expended on behalf of the University of Guyana (Berbice Campus) for the purchase of library books, computers and accessories, completion of science laboratory and payment of retention.

It has been recommended by the Audit Officer that the Ministry must take appropriate measures to provide the relevant documentation for audit scrutiny. Moreover, the Head of Budget Agency within the Ministry said efforts are still ongoing to locate the outstanding vouchers to be presented for audit scrutiny/ examination.

The Ministry is also currently faced with a dilemma whereby it is still to recover overpayments

totalling $1.528 million.

Among the projects which had suffered overpayment as a result of measured works are: the IT Laboratory at Charity Secondary School ($398,000), IT Laboratory at Aurora Secondary School ($245,000) and the New Wing to Patentia Secondary School ($885,000).

According to the Report, “Noteworthy were the facts that the personnel and/or Consultants nominated by the Ministry were integrally involved in the examination of the projects and the related findings discussed and agreed upon with the team headed by the Special Projects Officer of the Ministry.” Nevertheless, there was a failure to recover the amounts overpaid.

The Ministry has acknowledged the finding and has since written the Regional Executive Officer of Region Two seeking his indulgence in the matter. With regards to Patentia Secondary, a third and final letter has been sent to the contractor.

And according to the Report, “The Audit Office once again recommends that the Head of Budget Agency aggressively follow-up these matters so as to ensure all overpayments are recovered.”

Monday November 11, 2013

WANTED Contract cars- Contact City Taxi Service- 660-1100/ 2267150 Live in female domestic 4045 years old – Tel:610-2978; 613-3091 One driver for the interior must have bus license – Contact:681-6044 GREENHEART AND PURPLE HEART LUMBER - TEL: 653-9752 Labourer, Arc/Acetylene welder - skilled in Grill work.

Driving an asset, Georgetown area Tel: 6102978; 613-3091 One Cummings and Perkins mechanic to work in interior contact:681-6044 Experienced counter servers, roti/puri cooks, curry cooks, pastry makers & handyboys Apply Hack’s Halaal, 5 Commerce St. One experienced female to work in the interior free meal and accommodation.

Age 25-30 – Contact:6971164 Urgently upholsters, joiners, spray painters ( Furniture) handyman Contact S. Khan: 225-6810 Office Clerk: CXC English/ Mathematics- Call:225-0188/ 225-6070 One domestic, live in & live out babysitter from 12pm8pm- Call:225-4492 One waitress. Age 18-25 years. Contact: 650-3680; 233-5450 (Between 8am3pm)

Kaieteur News

PROPERTY FOR SALE VERSAILLES: Furnished 5 bedrooms, self-contained rooms, modern facilities, generator, beautiful landscape, gated community- Call:592-6248704/592-684-9203

Security guard/ gardener.

Age: 35-40, preferable from: Triumph/ Mon Repos ECD area- Call:623-1387

One - two storey 3 bedrooms house @ Montrose ECD, Price negotiable. Serious enquiries only! - Tel: 619-6005 Diamond - $6.2M, Alberttown - $35M, Kitty - $30M, AA Eccles - $60M - Call Diana: 227-2256; 626-9382

1 Toyota RAV 4; Excellent Condition – Contact:6269582

Prime 2- storey concrete building dimensions 80x23, 6 bedrooms, 2 master bedrooms @ Leonora opposite to Primary School Tel: 652-0709; 268-3572 Large two flat 6 bedrooms house - $14M negotiable Tel:604-4174; 619-5332 Light St Front Property in good condition & parking $25M. 5 Bedrooms house @ South & parking – $30M – Call Diana: 227-2256; 626-9382 Property for sale- Call:6275416 Benn Street - $5.5M, Highway – 50 acres from road to river – Call Diana: 227-2256; 626-9382 Incomplete transported property @ Diamond Housing Scheme - Call: 6093426; 683-6920 1st Bridge Grove $14.5M, 6th Street Diamond - $28M, Public Rd Lenora - $58M, Parafait – $19M, Mon-repos - $14M Tel:661-0180

LEARN TO DRIVE Soman & Sons Driving School , First Federation Building Call 225-4858, 6445166,622-2872,615-0964

Attractive live in waitressCall: 327-0252; 674-4665 One hairdresser for salon - Call: 684-3384; 231-8735 Male and female to work at wash bay in G/TownTel:669-4676 PORTERSAND DELIVERY PERSON, ALSOSALESGIRL WITH COSMETICS EXPERIENCE. REFFERENCE REQUIRED. BUILDING MATERIAL DEPOT - TEL: 231-8529 1 Labourer – Call:226-3736 One live in domestic – Contact:658-9495; 627-2550

1 Toyota Carina (212) excellent Condition – Contact:629-9511; 625-9511 1 AE100 Carolla: Alarm, AC, mags & crystal lights, HID $800,000- 1 AT170 EFI fully powered: mags & CD $580,000 – Tel:619-1047

Land to buy @ Non-Pareil, Eccles & Herstelling – Tel:675-7292; 218-5591 One gasoline mechanic for interior must know to fix RZ, solid deff pick-up: Contact: 681-6044

VEHICLE FOR SALE 2007 Toyota BB, fully loaded, unregistered special price $2.350M – 617-2891

SALON Make Up Courses, Artist Trained & Certified in Trinidad. Call: 660-5257, 647-1773 Celebrity Look Beauty Salon: hair and nail stations to rent.

Hair - $6,500 and nail - $4,000.

Contact Leoita: 602-2337 Enroll today @ Nalini’s School of Cosmetology.

Classes starting January 2014.

Full course only - $80,000 – Call:614-6655; 226-6705

Smart Choice Auto: Premio, Allion, IST, Runx, FielderCall:652-3820/665-4529

Page 19

VEHICLE FOR SALE One fully loaded Toyota Hilux Vigo - Tel: 638-8930; 653-8226 One Toyota MK 2 GX81 – Tel:626-0329; 684-7633 F150 Tundra, chevy cargo van – Tel:227-8519; 653-4287 1.5 & 2 Tonne open back canter, power gate $2.4M, unregistered – Tel:6172891 2008 Fielder – $2.7M, Premio$2.5M, Spacio $2.1M, Unregistered – Tel:617-2891

1 Suzuki 600 GSX-R, 1 Nissan Virgo Mini Van, PKK series Tel: 644-5096, 697-1453 Norpan Auto: Premio, Raum, Fielder & Vitz, never registered. Tel: 269-0432; 686-0323 One Toyota RZ mini-bus BJJ series – Call:678-5887 3-Ton Canter excellent condition – Model M.Bush truck for interior – Tel:2318417; 231-6560; 231-1238; 624-0443

One AT192 PLL966 $1.1M; with DVD player – Tel:6399528 Toyota Primo Late PNN Series – Tel:624-6471; 2254741 GRR 573, long base RZ minibus, automatic. Excellent Condition - Tel:687-5657; 652-0709 1 Honda Fit PMM 4223; with rims and CD player; Immaculate Condition $1.3M Negotiable – Tel:6101818, 618-5140 Mitsubishi Galant Car, fully loaded – Tel: 227-7544; 6122542, 614-6011.

AT212 - $1.050M, AE100 Corolla wagon - $875,000 – Call:611-6632 1 Toyota Caldina & fielder wagon, IST, fun cargo, AT212, AT192, AT170, Ceres, Hilux pick up 4x4 – Tel:644-5096; 697-1453

LARGE QUANTITIES OF HIGH PURITY MERCURY (QUICK SILVER) 99.99995% PURITY $19,000 PER POUND CALL: 592-227-4754.

Cheapest Online Vehicles!!!

- Tel:626-2771

Honda welders; 270 amps 15,000 watts generator Tel:611-5114/220-4495

Whole sale: Pluck Chicken - Tel:676-0931

FOR SALE One registered Yamaha R1 motorcycle. In immaculate condition. Price:$1,100,000 – Tel:600-3177 Complete 50" fishing boat with two 48Hp Yamaha engine, 450 LB 2¾ in sain & ice box – Contact:220-0410; 695-9860 Games PS2 $900, PSP $900, X-Box 360 $2600 & PS3 $2600- Call:672-2566

Two Toyota Hilux 4x4 left hand drive, 22R engine.

Never registered - $2.7M each - Call: 671-1512 ALYEA’S AUTO SALE: PREMIO 2003/2004. ALL PRICES ARE NEG. 40 CROAL STREET STABROEK- TEL:2317284/622-3823

FOR SALE

1- Caterpillar D5 Bulldozer and 1- Caterpillar engine 3406 Contact number 650-0402

First Class Auto: Premio, Axio, Passo, Runx, Allex, IST, Fielder, Raum – Call:609-8188; 602-6307 Two Toyota Tacoma 2006 unregistered: 4wd $3.9M & 2wd $3.1M- Call:662-1396/ 678-0573

FOR SALE

TO LET Self contained rooms in Prashad Nagar; contact: 2272993 O n e F u r n i s h e d Tw o bedrooms bottom flat @ Uitvlugt - Contact: 6804990 Harmony Inn: Apartments fully furnished, airconditioned apartments: As low as $5000 per nightCall: 668-0306/602-8769/ 694-7817 Fully furnished short term apartments, Eccles call: 679-7139 Fully furnished Vacation home with all amenities- Call during working hours- 2271218

One caterpillar 317 excavator.

New engine and hydraulics Tel: 687-0077 (Gregory); 6613671; 602-0036 1- 5705 John Deere tractor, 1Rome plough 20 dish, 1- 1630 Bedford truck articulated with 2 trailer- Call:693-4596 2- M132 Lavarda Combine, 122RB Dragline, 3- Pressure pump 4x3 for gold field, 12640MF tractor 4WD, 1385MF tractor- Call:627-0447 1 CAT standby 3306, 194 KVA 3 phase 60 cycleCall:641-8472 Creole birds, chicks, eggs @ Lot 1 L’ Oratoire Canal No.1 WBD – Tel:655-1284 Ladies boutique closing down have dresses, tops, etc for sale, made in USA. Going cheap! – Tel:624-7333 Pure breed pit-bull 5 months fully vaccinated and dewormed, also pure 7 weeks pit-bull pups – Contact: 6565412; 234-1460; 661-4112.

Generators, welding sets, compressors, power washers, drill - migrating, must see! - Tel:227-8519 Clearance Sale: greenheart lumber, slabs, strips & firewood. Toolsie Persaud Ltd, Lombard St. Georgetown - Tel: 226-4920; 226-4071-5 Original Games- Call:6722566 1 Raum PMM - $1.4M, 2006 Hyundai Tuscon Jeep $3.5M, negotiable - Tel: 6716051

Fully secured concrete bond 87x31ft (private compound) @ Mc Doom public road back of Police OutpostCall:233-0570

1 TATA Truck GEE 9962 – Contact:629-9286; 219-2395 2-50 Feet fishing boats complete with 400 LBS bangamary nets, 2-48 Yamaha engines. Call:2202259; 220-9325; 220-3133

Kitty - $65,000 & $120,000, Kingston – US900, Atlanic Gardens – US900, Providence – US1300. Call Diana – 227-2256; 626-9382

Pups for sale – mixed with French and Tibetian Terrier – Call:696-7467 Cheapest Iphones!!! – Tel: 626-2771

Potting soil, top soil and quality cow mould – Call:656-1326; 678-0058 Tundra ‘Woman Driven’ Tel:627-1983 Large vacuum cleaner wet & dry (for cleaning or car wash), stereo sets& speakers. Tel:227-8519 One 8000 Ford tractor & one Ford 450 2005 Towing truck – Call: 689-1864 (Guru) / 6945599 (Floyd).

Spare for washing machine, microwaves,fridges, stoves, timers, gearbox, pumps, etc call:225-9032,647-2943 Hifi Sound Connection: Car Audio, Pro Audio, complete sound system generator.Call:610-1230/673-5828 Honda ATV 500 4X4 DBL shocks - Tel: 688-6274; 6913851 Massey Ferguson 6140 4X4 Turbo – Call:688-6274/6913851 One stall @ La Penitance Market; $600,000 – Tel:6900437 Original door mirrors for 212, AT192, Allion, Premio, Runx, Alex, AT110 sprinter, AT170 Sprinter, NZE - Tel:654-6401 Happy Acres - $66,000,000, Ogle- $65,000,000, Hotel$2,000,000 USD - Contact: 223-8479; 647-3768 www.spaceseek.gy Houses in East Ruimveldt $10,000,000 – Mon-Repo $16,000,000 to $30,000,000, Diamond - $34,000,000.

Contact: 223-8479; 647-3768 - www.spaceseek.gy Imported 6 weeks blood line pit-bull pup.

Fully vaccinated & De-wormed, nice colours – Call Anil: 6254583; 225-6801 One pure bred female Rottweiler pup - Call: 2206879 Live/pluck chicken call:6504421, 220-9203 2 white female and 1 brown male fluffy dogs - contact: 699-6006 SAWMILL COMPLEX design to produce 40,000 BM per week export & local market. Wanted log Kabakallie, etc. Tel:684-5868 (Continued on page 18)

Page 20

Kaieteur News

Monday November 11, 2013

Philippines storm leaves estimated 10,000 dead, destruction hampers rescue efforts T A C L O B A N , Philippines (Reuters) Rescue workers were struggling to reach ravaged towns and villages in the central Philippines today to deliver aid to survivors of a powerful typhoon that killed an estimated 10,000 people.

The United Nations said an unknown number of survivors had no food, water or medicine. Relief operations were hampered because roads, airports and bridges had been destroyed or were covered in wreckage, it said.

Super typhoon Haiyan destroyed about 70 to 80 percent of structures in its path as it tore through Leyte province on Friday, said police chief superintendent Elmer Soria. After weakening, the massive storm headed west towards Vietnam.

Huge waves from one of the strongest storms ever recorded swept away coastal villages and devastated Tacloban, a main city in the region. Some officials likened the destruction to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.

“From a helicopter, you can see the extent of devastation. From the shore and moving a kilometer inland, there are no structures standing. It was like a tsunami,” said Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas, who was in Tacloban before the typhoon struck the city.

“I don’t know how to describe what I saw. It’s horrific.” The Philippines government and disaster agency have not confirmed the latest estimate of the number of deaths from the storm, whose sustained winds reached 195 miles per hour (313 km per hour) with gusts of up to 235 mph.

Soria, quoting local officials, said the estimated death toll so far was 10,000.

That could climb once rescuers reach remote villages along the coast.

About 300 people died in neighboring Samar province, where Haiyan first hit land on Friday as a category 5 typhoon. Some 2,000 people are missing, said an official of the provincial disaster

Residents try to salvage belongings yesterday. AP Photo agency. About 90 U.S. Marines and sailors headed to the Philippines as part of a

first wave of promised military assistance for relief efforts, U.S. officials said.

U.S. aid groups also launched a multimillion-dollar relief campaign. One group, World Vision, said a shipment of blankets and plastic tarpaulins would arrive from Germany today as a first step in its plan to help 400,000 people. An official of World Vision based in Cebu

Province said there were early reports that as much as 90 percent of northern Cebu was destroyed by the storm.

The United Nations children’s agency, UNICEF, said it was rushing emergency supplies to the Philippines. “Reaching the worst affected areas is very difficult, with limited access due to the damage caused by the typhoon to infrastructure

and communications,” UNICEF Philippines Representative Tomoo Hozumi said in a statement.

International aid agencies said relief efforts in the Philippines were stretched thin after a 7.2 magnitude quake in central Bohol province last month and displacement caused by a conflict with Muslim rebels in southern Zamboanga province.

Syrian opposition wants rebel backing for Geneva talks ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Syria’s opposition is edging towards agreeing to international peace talks in Geneva but wants approval from fighters inside the country first to give the process more legitimacy, its spokesman said at talks in Istanbul.

The leadership of the Syrian National Coalition is meeting to agree its stance on the “Geneva 2” talks, which aim to end Syria’s two-and-a-half year civil war by creating a transitional governing body.

A draft resolution reaffirms the coalition’s commitment to a political solution to the conflict and echoes a declaration in London last month by the Friends of Syria proopposition alliance ruling out any role for President Bashar al-Assad in a transitional administration, opposition sources said.

The 108-member coalition is to due vote on the resolution, with 50 percent plus one vote needed for it to pass.

But the opposition said coalition members want to seek the backing of rebel fighting units, community leaders and activists inside Syria for the resolution, to counter criticism that they are out of touch with those battling on the ground. A team will be sent into Syria to gather views.

Major Islamist rebel brigades have declared their opposition to the Geneva process if the conference does not result in Assad’s removal and some have said they

would charge anyone who attended the planned international talks with treason.

“One delegation will actually be going down to Syria. It’s going to be meeting with different FSA (Free Syrian Army) brigades, having a discussion with them around Geneva,” said National Coalition spokesman Khaled Saleh.

“If we’re going to be in Geneva, they are going to be part of that delegation,” he said of the rebel units. The delegation will also meet with civilian groups.

One member of the Syrian National Council, a grouping within the coalition, said that a draft resolution already contained tough conditions for participation in the conference, but those on the ground might want to tighten them further. That could mean a delay.

While some sources said that a final decision could take up to two weeks, Saleh said it was a “quick process”.

“We already started this over the last two weeks. Quite a few of us have been travelling back and forth. A few of these representatives will be coming in the next couple of days,” he said.

U.S. envoy Robert Ford met the coalition’s senior leadership in Istanbul before their meeting to push them to approve the Geneva talks, coalition members said, and diplomats and other foreign officials said they were optimistic.

Monday November 11, 2013

Talks seek modest U.N. climate deal for 2015, to raise aid (Reuters) - World governments meeting in Poland from today are likely to make only modest progress in reaching a 2015 deal to fight climate change, with concern over economic growth at least partially eclipsing scientists’ warnings of rising temperatures.

“We can’t expect a grand agreement that solves the problems in one fell swoop,” said Elliot Diringer, executive director of the Centre for Climate and Energy Solutions, a U.S. think-tank. The best hope, he said, was for a 2015 accord in which countries would agree limits on emissions of greenhouse gases with a mechanism to compare and strengthen them over time.

The outline of a deal, to be discussed by negotiators in Warsaw from November 11-22, is emerging that will not halt a creeping rise in temperatures but might be a guide for tougher measures in later years.

Environmentalists warned about the dangers of delaying action to avert more floods, heatwaves and rising sea levels.

They point to super typhoon Haiyan, which killed more than 10,000 people in the Philippines last week, as a reminder of the risks of extreme weather. A U.N. scientific panel says cyclones may become more intense in some regions by 2100 as the planet warms. Global average temperatures have risen by 0.8 degrees Celsius (1.4 Fahrenheit) since the Industrial Revolution and are set to exceed 2C - a target ceiling agreed at a previous U.N. summit - on current trends, despite a hiatus in the pace of warming so far this century.

In September, the U.N. panel of climate experts raised the probability that mankind is the main cause of recent warming to 95 percent or “extremely likely” from 90 percent “very likely”.

The World Meteorological Organisation said this month atmospheric volumes of greenhouse gases reached a new record in 2012, driven up by growth in emerging economies led by China.

Kaieteur News

Page 21

Early Obamacare data to signal how many still waiting to enroll (Reuters) - The Obama administration will release healthcare enrollment numbers for Obamacare’s rocky October rollout this week that could be more important for what they fail to say, than for what they do.

President Barack Obama’s Democratic administration, which is under intense pressure from Republicans to release the data, has signaled that the total will be low after weeks of technical problems with the federal website, HealthCare.gov.

But that will only underscore the huge number of people believed to be waiting for a chance to obtain benefits, according to policy experts and congressional aides.

The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or ACA, aims to provide health benefits to millions of uninsured Americans. It mandates that most Americans at least be enrolled for health insurance

by March 31 or pay a fine.

Analysts say the October number should offer an early

President Barack Obama indication of whether Obama’s landmark health initiative is proving more popular with poor people who qualify for Medicaid or with working-class families eligible for subsidized private insurance through new online marketplaces that have been set up in all 50 states.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told the Senate Finance Committee last week that the early tally would be “very low,”

and that the data would break out the numbers for states and show how many enrolled in private insurance plans versus expanded Medicaid programs.

But administration officials have not said whether the data will provide clues to other important questions, including whether young healthy adults, needed by insurers to offset older people with higher health costs, are eager to obtain coverage.

A small sign-up number, particularly one dominated

by Medicaid enrollment, would be seized upon by Republican critics as evidence that the law is a failure that must be delayed or overhauled before it leads to wider problems within the $2.9 trillion U.S. healthcare system.

The administration is racing to make the federal enrollment website HealthCare.gov work smoothly by the end of November.

“There’s going to be a

huge crunch. It’s a big choke point. The risk is people having lapses in coverage because the system can’t handle the volume, which would be a huge political problem for the administration,” said James Capretta of the conservative Ethics & Public Policy Center.

Prior to the launch troubles, as many as 7 million Americans were expected to sign up for private health insurance offered through the online marketplaces for 2014.

An additional 9 million were expected to enroll in an expanded Medicaid program for the poor by March 31, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Before the October 1 website launch became a debacle, internal administration memos anticipated 494,620 enrollees in October and 706,000 in November nationwide, according to congressional investigators. Administration officials declined to confirm the numbers, saying projections are subject to rapid change.

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Jack: ILP councillor offered $5m bribe Trinidad Express - The 23-year-old Independent Liberal Party (ILP) councillor for Monroe Road/Caroni Savannah Road, Simeon Mahabir, has allegedly been offered a bribe amounting to more than $5 million to cross the floor to the United National Congress (UNC), interim leader of the Independent Liberal Party (ILP) Jack Warner said Saturday.

Speaking at a media conference at the ILP’s headquarters in Chaguanas, Warner played what was described as a voice recording of the alleged bribe, Warner said Mahabir was under a lot of stress since the bribe was made last Friday afternoon.

“As a party we won’t allow ourselves to fall victims to bribes and this young man—you have no idea the pressure he is under. If it had not been for a meeting on Tuesday I would have asked him to take a holiday overseas because they are coming after him.

He has been offered more than $5 million in bribes; he has been offered land and house, he has been offered any other job that he wants including he will get back his

Simeon Mahabir CEPEP contract and for his family as well. He has a blank cheque and he has refused because he has said he remains committed to the people who voted for him,” Warner said.

He told the media that he intends to take the voice recording to the police because the ILP has the evidence of what is being contemplated as far as Mahabir is concerned.

“I will have much more to say on this matter in less than 48 hours because this here is merely the tip of the iceberg.

There are other issues that involve me as well because they are coming after me in a particular way.

As far as they are concerned I am the obstacle between them and seeing another term in government.

This government can build two highways to heaven they will not be re-elected, so why they have to go to this extreme,” he said. Mahabir— who was said to have been contacted by an unnamed person who described himself as the “messenger” around 11.10 a.m. last Friday—told the media although he was not fearful for his life, he was fearful for the politics and the future of the country.

“To see that the leaders of a country could go down this low especially to attack young people that are now entering politics, what precedent are they setting for us? But I decided to take a stand against all of that for the future of this nation,” he said.

Warner added that the ILP as a party remains committed to all and will not fall into the trap of letting some carrots that are being handed to them veer them away from their objective as the Congress of the People has done.

“We in the ILP are not for that as you see yesterday, we were offered chairmanship of the Borough of Chaguanas.

We said no and therefore I am going to see that the three members we have on the Council of the Chaguanas Borough Corporation are standing strong and committed as ILP members.

We will of course do what is best for the burgesses of the Chaguanas Borough Corporation and ultimately the country, but we will not succumb to the bribes that are being offered,” he said.

Monday November 11, 2013

Cuba rolled out master plan for food production and distribution HAVANA, (Reuters) – Cuba rolled out a master plan this week to reform food production and sales that definitively ends the state’s monopoly on distribution and replaces many rules that hamper farmers and consumers.

A decree, which puts the management of most food distribution in non-state hands, will be applied on an experimental basis in Havana and the adjoining provinces of Artemisa and Mayabeque before going nationwide beginning in 2015. With the country importing around 60 percent of its food and private farmers outperforming state farms on a fraction of the land, authorities are gradually deregulating the sector and leasing fallow land to wouldbe farmers.

It is slow going, with farm

output up just a few percentage points since President Raul Castro, who replaced his ailing brother Fidel in 2008, began agricultural reforms as part of a broader effort to “modernize” the Soviet-style economy.

Many aspects of the new law bring together reforms already in place or activities that have spontaneously developed and been tolerated by authorities even if technically illegal, including the renting and selling of trucks to farmers and allowing them to contract private hauling of crops instead of relying on the state.

The decree allows farmers, cooperatives and state farms to sell produce in any quantity and to anyone they please after meeting state contracts, instead of being

Raul Castro mired in regulations as to how much they can sell, to whom and how.

Large consumers, including state entities and private eateries, can purchase produce wholesale from private farms and cooperatives, instead of just the state.

Ex-prime minister wins vote to remain Jamaican opposition leader (Reuters) - Jamaica’s opposition leader fended off a challenge from his party’s chief economic spokesman to retain his job yesterday in an internal party election.

Andrew Holness, 41, leader of the centre-right Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and a former prime minister, defeated Audley Shaw, one of his deputy leaders, party officials announced.

The vote came as the JLP eyes the next general election scheduled for December 2016. The campaign in this north Caribbean island of 2.8 million inhabitants had left the 70-year-old party bitterly divided, with some observers questioning how easy it will be to heal the internal wounds after the vote. “This is a great day for the Jamaica Labour Party,” Holness told thousands of cheering supporters after his victory

Andrew Holness was announced by JLP Chairman Robert Montague at Kingston’s National Arena.

“I will do everything within my power to make sure that the party is reunited. We have proven that this party has the political talent that is better than any other political party in Jamaica,” Holness said. Holness captured 2,704

votes compared to 2,012 for Shaw. About 5,100 delegates were eligible to vote.

Shaw, 61, a former minister of finance, accepted defeat and pledged to work with Holness to rebuild the party that lost the December 2011 general election to the People’s National Party of current Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller.

“I am ready and willing to join with you,” Shaw told Holness. “This race has made the party stronger, we are energized and we can now move to work to form the next government of Jamaica,” Shaw said.

Party members faced a choice between two men with different styles. Holness has faced criticism he has not been aggressive enough in taking on Simpson-Miller, while Shaw was viewed as more of an outspoken critic.

Monday November 11, 2013

Kaieteur News

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Mexican plane downed in Tourism Minister refutes claim of Venezuela ‘had cocaine’ lack of evidence on impact of APD Caracas (AFP) - A Mexican plane forced down and destroyed in Venezuelan territory earlier last week was full of cocaine, President Nicolas Maduro said.

Maduro said he was surprised that Mexico had asked for an explanation of the November 4 incident through diplomatic channels.

“That was a plane that we found full of drugs,” said Maduro, speaking during his weekly radio and television nationally broadcast address.

He said that he told Foreign Minister Elias Jaua “to give all the necessary explanations” to Mexico, but should “try to make the Mexican president know that he is standing up for an airplane that was full of cocaine.”

On Monday Venezuelan air force warplanes forced a small executive jet with a Mexican license number to land in the state of Apure, near the border with Colombia.

Two days later Mexico formally asked Venezuela to explain the events “in strict accordance with international law.”

“We are not going to accept that Venezuelan air space continues being used for narcotrafficking,” Maduro said.

Nicolas Maduro “Let it be known, we are not going to be stopped, neither with international campaigns nor blackmail,” he said, in response to criticism over the drastic action.

A few hours after Maduro spoke, angry officials in Mexico City said they would summon Venezuela’s ambassador on Monday to demand an explanation.

Up to now Venezuela had not said that there were drugs aboard the plane, a statement from Mexico’s foreign ministry read.

Venezuela did tell Mexico that the plane entered Venezuelan air space without authorization, and that it was chased for 40 minutes, all the time ignoring radio warnings, the Mexican statement read.

The Venezuelans also said the plane landed on a remote landing strip and that there was no trace of the people aboard, the statement added.

Mexican officials said Friday that the seven people aboard the plane — two crew members and five passengers — flew from the central Mexican state of Queretaro under false identities.

Venezuela’s air force on Monday released images of the plane fuselage still in flames. Since May 2012, when a new airspace protection law came into effect, 30 airplanes have been brought down, according to Maduro. But this is the first time a plane registration number was released.

Venezuela’s military say they conduct land, air and sea anti-narcotics operations along the border, where drug trafficking is rife.

Cocaine is processed from coca leaves grown in other South American countries like Colombia, Peru and Bolivia.

Venezuela does not produce cocaine, but drug traffickers — including members of Mexico’s powerful crime syndicates — are increasingly using its territory to smuggle drugs into other nations.

Health experts to examine link between mental illness and criminal behaviour CASTRIES, St Lucia CMC – Health professionals from across the region and representatives of agencies involved promoting health care will meet here today to explore links between mental illness and criminal behaviour.

Participants at the seminar, organised by the International American University (IAU) College of Medicine and the St Lucia

National Mental Wellness Centre (SLMWC), will seek to develop collaborations with health professionals currently working in clinical medicine, nursing and public health by engaging in a participatory learning environment.

“Many of the mentally ill interface with the criminal justice system as either alleged perpetrators or victims of crime,” said Dr. Timothy Allen, an associate

professor and director of forensic services in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Kentucky.

The SLMWC, as the national psychiatric facility, has been charged with responsibility of evaluating/ assessing individual patients’ competency to stand trial and provide sentencing recommendations when necessary in order to facilitate the adjudicative process.

KINGSTON, Jamaica CMC – Jamaica’s Minister of Tourism, Dr Wykeham McNeil, has dismissed suggestions that the Caribbean has not presented sufficient evidence that the Air Passenger Duty (APD) is hurting regional tourist arrivals.

McNeil was responding to British Undersecretary, Mark Simmonds,who told journalists here that he has not seen the negative impact of the APD on tourism arrivals. But according to McNeil other Caribbean tourism ministers presented evidence in the form of two reports to the British Treasury which stated that the APD is hurting both the UK and Caribbean economies.

“Most of the islands, some of which have been most severely affected over the past three to four years would have been Antigua, Barbados , Grenada and I think anyone of them is between 15 and 20%, Jamaica is also in that bracket. So what you have had over a period

of time is a decrease in arrivals from a high that we had sometime ago and it coincides also with the period of the APD.” He said the region will continue in the fight to get what is deemed a “fairer treatment” in the administration of the tax.

Simmonds, during his first visit to Jamaica last week said if there is a direct correlation between the APD and a reduction of tourist travelers to the region – “I will feed straight into Her Majesty’s Treasury and they will then feed it into their policy development and review process.”

The APD, which is particularly high for long-haul travel, has been criticised as an additional financial burden for travelers and a disincentive to make the trip to the Caribbean.

Tourism interests in the region have been lobbying for the duty to be reduced.

The APD is an excise duty for persons travelling on any airplane that has more than 20 seats for passengers or

Dr Wykeham McNeil exceeding an official take-off weight of more than ten tonnes from an airport anywhere in the United Kingdom.

It has been a major source of contention, particularly within the Caribbean where it is believed that the tax has been unfairly applied and tax bands should be revised.

Last month, during a parliamentary debate Labour MPs Diane Abbott and David Lammy expressed concerns that the travel tax was preventing citizens of Caribbean heritage from returning home to visit family.

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Monday November 11, 2013

Ramlogan: PNM media agents against me Trinidad Express Attorney General Anand Ramlogan in responding to questions posed by the Sunday Express said the PCR 2 Range Rover was in fact sold “sometime ago” to businessman Dev Debideen.

He said; “It will be transferred to the new owner in accordance with the terms and conditions of the agreement for sale at the relevant time.”

Following is the list of questions e-mailed by the Sunday Express to Ramlogan and his responses: 1) Your vehicle PCR 2, a Range Rover TDV Vogue, are you in possession of it?

Your colleague, Ms Anika Gumbs-Sandiford has already interviewed the owner Mr Dev Debideen in connection with this article so, as you well know, I am not in possession of same as it was sold to him sometime ago. She was invited to take a picture of the vehicle by Mr Debideen and did so. It will be transferred to the new owner in accordance with the terms and conditions of the agreement for sale at the relevant time.

Mr Debideen also owns another Range Rover along with other high-end luxury vehicles. This is also not the first time that he has purchased a vehicle from a government Minister as he

had purchased former Minister Brian Kuei Tung’s Mercedes. My vehicle was publicly advertised for sale in the daily newspapers and various car websites online.

2) Fixin TnT issued a release seeking clarity on two Range Rovers you purchased. Can you comment on documents obtained from Licensing which show both your Range Rovers as having the same engine numbers— (Engine Number 0439516368DT) I am equally perplexed and concerned about the alleged (and obviously mistake) recording of the same engine number for two different vehicles. No two new vehicles can ever carry the same engine number. That is impossible. I would not have been involved in the preparation of these documents though and have therefore written the Transport Commissioner Mr Ruben Cato to get some explanation and clarification.

Licensing officers are supposed to check and verify the chassis and engine number on a vehicle before they register and license a vehicle and it is clear that there was some mistake on the part of the licensing office here. In the circumstances, I intend to have both vehicles re-inspected to prove that they do not in fact carry the

same engine number.

I cannot respond to queries from “Fixin TnT” as I am not familiar with this organisation. I would be happy to do so if I can be provided with a copy of its constitution, the names of its executive members and some details as to how its leader was appointed as there are allegations that it is really an arm of the PNM in disguise funded by the PNM. The public does not know who the members of this organisation are but it is well financed and regularly runs full page ads against the government.

3) Where did you purchase your Range Rover TD Vogue and what was the price paid?

As you are aware, Senator Hinds has publicly indicated that he has reported this very matter to the Integrity Commission and I will be happy to co-operate with any investigation. The details of these transactions were fully disclosed in my declarations to the Commission. I therefore await my day before the Integrity Commission so that I can be vindicated and establish my innocence.

As indicated before, I was not involved in or responsible for the preparation of the documents relating to the importation of these vehicles.

My predecessor, Mr John Jeremie exercised the same

option to purchase tax free personal vehicles. He had purchased and registered BMW 2124, Range Rover PBZ 5831 and a BMW X5. I am certain that he can confirm that he was similarly not involved in the preparation of the relevant documents.

(Strange that no similar investigation was done by the media).

I am advised by the general manager of Navarros Brokerage Mr Mark Navarro that you contacted him with respect to this matter. He indicated that he offered to meet to clarify some other questions your article raised and you claimed that you could not meet him until next Tuesday. I am concerned that you may have deliberately delayed this meeting to facilitate the publication of yet another biased Sunday Express front page story against me by the team of undercover PNM media agents (Irene Medina, Anika Gumbs-Sandiford, Denyse Renne and Sheila Rampersad).

Last week, you made the false and mischievous statement that I was contacted “for clarification on the conflicting documents” (Ramlogan: A Fishing Expedition). Permit me to record my grave concern about this incorrect assertion.

As the exchange of e-mails will show, you posed certain abstract questions in isolation to any facts and I answered. Further questions were asked. It was clear that you were investigating something and I pointedly asked that I be told what the allegation was so that I could properly respond to same.

This was never done.

As you know, I am of the view that you are part of the PNM brigade at the Express and have a personal and political vendetta against me.

In the past, you have misrepresented my statements so I will not speak to you. Your previous editor at the Guardian was forced to publish numerous corrections after my complaints. I therefore always ask that you communicate via e-mail.

I therefore challenge you to show the e-mail you sent informing me of the allegations that you were clearly investigating which formed the basis for the front page story last week. It is unethical and unfair for you to write a story on the basis that I was informed about the allegations when this was not in fact so. It gives the impression that I had no defence or explanation to the

allegation. Had I been so informed, I would have sent this e-mail to you last week instead because I would have known what the allegations were and been able to respond to them. Instead, I read about them when the story was published.

Mr Navarro is a respected University of Texas graduate who has been working in the field of Customs brokerage for many years now. Navarros has managed to ferret out the file in this matter and would be happy to clarify any misconceptions and address any concerns without breaching client confidentiality.

My Range Rover was imported from an authorised Range Rover dealer in London. I paid the market price which was disclosed to the Integrity Commission.

I doubt very much if this will be published but am copying it to your Editors in the hope that it might.

Editor’s Note: Express Investigative reporter Anika Gumbs never met nor engaged in any communication with businessman Dev Debideen.

Express investigative reporter Denyse Renne did received a call from Mark Navarro on November 8, at 4.17 p.m.

Navarro told Renne he had documentation pertaining to PCR 2—the TDV Vogue—and asked for a meeting to clear up inconsistencies.

Ms Renne suggested Tuesday morning and Mr Navarro agreed.

Navarro and Renne agreed that due to pressing prior engagements, the best time to meet would have been on November 12.

The Sunday Express did in fact give Ramlogan ample opportunity to respond to questions posed last week.

When contacted by the Sunday Express on October 25 for clarification on the conflicting documents related to the Range Rover vehicles, the AG asked that the questions be e-mailed to him.

The Sunday Express complied and in responding, Ramlogan confirmed he was the owner of the Range Rover Autobiography.

He said the vehicle carries the licence registration PCX 2 and was registered on January 10, 2013.

He was also asked on October 25 at 5.19 p.m. if he received tax exemptions on this vehicle and who authorised them.

He responded: “I would assume so, as all ministers are entitled to such exemptions in

Anand Ramlogan accordance with the terms and conditions of their employment with the State.”

The AG was also asked who approved the exemptions and what date such approval came.

His response: “The relevant documents are prepared and dealt with by the shipping brokers and public officers in the various departments in the public service including the Customs and Excise department and Board of Inland Revenue.”

Ramlogan added that a minister is not involved in the process and said such documentation are public from relevant State departments.

“I can request the relevant files next week from my ministry if necessary,” he said.

The Sunday Express took Ramlogan up on his offer on October 26 but he did not respond until October 31, at 1.02 a.m.

The AG said: “In the circumstances I can see no need to facilitate what is clearly a ‘fishing’ expedition.

If there is a specific issue or allegation concerning the purchase of my vehicle, I would happily consider same and respond if necessary.

“In the meantime, I simply cannot waste time to find documents that would be located in various departments in the public service. “I have no further comment on the matter raised.”

On October 26, at 6.11 p.m., additional questions were sent to Ramlogan. The Sunday Express asked Ramlogan, whether his PCR 2, a Range Rover TDV Vogue was given approval for a tax exemption and if so, by whom and what date approval was given.

The Sunday Express had e-mailed Ramlogan on October 27, 28, 29 and 30 at 5.22 p.m., 11.06 p.m., 1.37 p.m. and 12.24 p.m. respectively, but no response came until October 31.

Monday November 11, 2013

Kaieteur News

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U.S. lawmakers seek tighter Iran sanctions before any deal WA S H I N G T O N / GENEVA (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers said yesterday they aimed to tighten sanctions on Iran to prevent Washington giving away too much in a deal on Tehran’s nuclear program that diplomats said was still possible despite the failure of high-level weekend talks.

Their comments reflected widespread Congressional skepticism about a rapprochement between Iran and world powers and coincided with renewed lobbying from Israel against a proposal it sees as leaving open a danger Iran could build a nuclear bomb. Tehran denies harboring any such ambition.

Negotiators from world powers will resume talks with Iran in 10 days after failing late on Saturday to reach agreement on an initial proposal to ease international sanctions against Tehran in return for some restraints on its nuclear program. The new talks will be at a lower level than the foreign ministers who gathered in Geneva at the weekend, but Britain and Russia both said the chances for a deal were fairly high.

The sides seemed on the verge of a breakthrough before cracks materialized among U.S. and European allies as French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius dismissed the plans as a “fool’s game” of one-sided concessions.

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton ® and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif arrive at a news conference yesterday. REUTERS The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will move ahead with additional sanctions this week to keep the pressure on Iran as talks continue, said Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, the committee’s Democratic chairman.

“My concern here is that we seem to want the deal almost more than the Iranians,” Menendez said on ABC’s “This Week.”

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who joined the Geneva negotiations unexpectedly on Friday to help bridge differences, defended the administration’s position.

“We are not blind, and I don’t think we’re stupid,” he said on U.S. television. “I think we have a pretty strong sense of how to measure whether or not we are acting in the interests of our country and of the globe.”

For his part, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani sought to win hardliners in parliament over to his diplomatic opening to world powers, said it had “red lines”.

“We will not answer to any threat, sanction, humiliation or discrimination,” was the message Iranian negotiators had told their big power interlocutors in Geneva,

Pakistani private schools ban Malala’s book ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistani education officials said yesterday that they have banned teenage activist Malala Yousafzai’s book from private schools across the country, claiming it doesn’t show enough respect for Islam and calling her a tool of the West.

Malala attracted global attention last year when the Taliban shot her in the head in northwest Pakistan for criticizing the group’s interpretation of Islam, which limits girls’ access to education. Her profile has risen steadily since then, and she released a memoir in October, “I Am Malala,” that was co-written with British journalist Christina Lamb.

While Malala has become a hero to many across the world for opposing the Taliban and standing up for girls’ education, conspiracy theories have flourished in Pakistan that her shooting was staged to create a hero for the West to embrace.

Adeeb Javedani, president of the All Pakistan Private Schools Management Association, said his group banned Malala’s book from

Malala Yousafzai the libraries of its 40,000 affiliated schools and called on the government to bar it from school curriculums.

“Everything about Malala is now becoming clear,” Javedani said. “To me, she is representing the West, not us.”

Kashif Mirza, the chairman of the All Pakistan Private Schools Federation, said his group also has banned Malala’s book in its affiliated schools.

Malala “was a role model for children, but this book has made her controversial,” Mirza said. “Through this book, she became a tool in

the hands of the Western powers.”

He said the book did not show enough respect for Islam because it mentioned Prophet Muhammad’s name without using the abbreviation PUH — “peace be upon him” — as is customary in many parts of the Muslim world. He also said it spoke favorably of author Salman Rushdie, who angered many Muslims with his book “The Satanic Verses,” and Ahmadis, members of a minority sect that have been declared nonMuslims under Pakistani law.

In her reference to Rushdie, Malala said in the book that her father saw “The Satanic Verses” as “offensive to Islam but believes strongly in the freedom of speech.”

“First, let’s read the book and then why not respond with our own book,” the book quoted her father as saying.

Malala mentioned in the book that Pakistan’s population of 180 million people includes more than 2 million Ahmadis, “who say they are Muslim though our government says they are not.”

Rouhani said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose country is widely believed to be the Middle East’s only nuclear-armed power, reiterated a veiled threat to take military action if it deems diplomacy to restrain Iran’s nuclear ambitions a dead end.

Rouhani may also have been alluding to pressure from U.S. and Israeli hawks for Iran to scrap its whole nuclear program.

Diplomats said France wanted any deal to require a shutdown of Iran’s Arak heavy-water reactor - of potential use in making bomb-grade plutonium - and the removal of Iran’s stockpile of higher-enriched uranium.

Another stubborn issue was the extent and sequencing of relief from sanctions demanded by Tehran.

Netanyahu said yesterday it was good that no deal with Iran was clinched at the weekend and that he had lobbied against scaling back sanctions by telling leaders: “What’s the rush?”

He said he recognized there was still “a strong desire” to reach an accord with Iran and pledged an allout Israeli effort to prevent “a bad agreement”.

The right-wing Israeli premier took his case straight

to the American public, appearing on network television to decry “a very bad deal” he feared was in the making.

That any deal might be feasible after a decade of increasingly heated confrontation between Iran and Western powers, shows the striking shift in the tone of Iranian foreign policy since Rouhani’s landslide election victory in June.

Rouhani, a relative moderate, opened diplomatic windows to a nuclear deal in order to alleviate sanctions that have throttled OPEC giant Iran’s lifeblood oil industry and cut it off from the international banking system. He has won crucial public backing from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s ultimate authority, who - despite his profound suspicion of Washington - has warned hardline loyalists not to discredit the negotiating path.

Rouhani has repeated Iran’s longtime insistence on a right to sovereign nuclear energy for peaceful purposes as a member of the NonProliferation Treaty.

Most diplomats acknowledge that, since Tehran has expanded its nuclear capacity exponentially since 2006 and

publicly equated the program with national pride and progress, the time for demanding its total shutdown - although enshrined in several U.N. Security Council resolutions - has now passed.

The powers remain concerned that Iran is continuing to amass enriched uranium not for future nuclear power stations, as Tehran says, but as potential fuel for nuclear warheads.

They are searching for a preliminary agreement that would cap Iran’s nuclear capacity and open up the program to U.N. antiproliferation inspectors. In exchange, they have offered phased, limited and reversible relief from sanctions. Iran, however, wants an early end to oil and banking sanctions.

Under discussion is a temporary deal entailing a freeze to higher-grade uranium enrichment - which Iran bills as fuel for a medical research reactor but which is also potential material for bombs - lasting about six months.

During that time, Iran and the six powers would negotiate a permanent agreement aimed at ensuring that none of Iran’s nuclear activities could be diverted towards bomb-making.

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Trophy Stall are Guyana Softball Cup3 champs NY BETTER HOPE TAKE MASTERS TITLE

By Zaheer Mohamed Trophy Stall won the Guyana Softball Cup3 by defeating Wolf’s Warriors by 9 wickets in the final last evening at the Georgetown Cricket Club ground, Bourda.

Trophy Stall successfully chased 126 on a disappointing night for Wolf Warrior’s of West Coast of Demerara.

Wolf’s Warriors batted first in front of a fair size crowd and were bowled out in 17.3 overs with Ameer Nizamudin top scoring with 29 (1x4,2x6) , Greg Singh supported with 28 (1x4) and Azaad Azeez 18 (1x6). Martin Dutchin grabbed 3-14 and Fazal Rafiek 3-15.

Trophy Stall replied with 130-1 in 15.4 overs. Rafiek returned to stroke 59 inclusive of three fours and five sixes, while Surajpaul Deosarran smashed 45 (3x4,2x6).

Deosarran received the manof-the-match award, while Rafiek collected one gold bracelet for being the competition’s MVP. Wolf’s Warriors received a trophy and $200,000, while Trophy Stall took home a trophy and $800,000; members of both teams were given medals.

New York Better Hope overcame Industry Super Kings by 5 wickets in the over-45 final. Industry took first strike and managed 117 all out in 19.3 overs. S. Persaud scored 23 as Ronald Evelyn captured 3-15 and R. Gafoor 2-19.

NY Better Hope replied with 120-5 in 19.1 overs. Gus Gordon led with 47 (4x6) and K. Sanichar made 28 (1x4); David Harper and Gerald Prashad picked up 2 wickets each.

Trophy Stall trounced

Mike’s Wellwoman by 9 wickets in the female final.

Mike’s Wellwoman were restricted to 85-5 in their allotted 10 overs after taking first strike. Zola Telford scored 37 and Amanda Bobb made 21; Alana Allen snared 3-18 and Anisa Persaud 2-15.

Trophy Stall knocked off the required target in 8 overs, ending on 86-1 with Kavita Yadram leading the way with 40 (3x4,2x6) and June Ogle supported with 26.

NY Better Hope received a trophy and $600,000 while Industry collected a trophy and $150,000. Jagdish Persaud of Industry was given 1 gold bracelet for being the MVP; members of both teams received medals.

Mike’s Wellwoman took $25,000 and a trophy while Trophy Stall collected a trophy and $50,000. Yadram was the MVP.

Man City suffer another shock loss at Sunderland (Reuters) - Gus Poyet’s struggling Sunderland jolted the Premier League with an electrifying 1-0 win over bigspending Manchester City at the Stadium of Light on Sunday.

On a great afternoon for the creaking giants of northeast football, local rivals Newcastle United won by the same scoreline at Tottenham Hotspur to move into the top half of the league.

The unexpected scorelines came as a welcome bonus for leaders Arsenal as the North Londoners prepared for the big match of the day against champions Manchester United at Old Trafford.

Sunderland, second from bottom with just four points from 10 games before Sunday, chalked up a fourth successive 1-0 home win over City thanks to a 21st-minute goal from Phil Bardsley on the left side of the box.

With Uruguayan manager Poyet pacing around nervously on the touchline, Sunderland held on for their first clean sheet in 15 matches and a stunning win over a side who hammered Norwich City 7-0 last weekend.

City stayed seventh in the league, still six points adrift of Arsenal and in danger of being leapfrogged by their Manchester rivals later on Sunday.

Manchester completed that leapfrog with

a 1-0 win over Arsenal compliments of a Robin van Persie strike.

Arsenal will stay top, with Arsene Wenger’s men on 25 points and with a game in hand over second-placed Liverpool (on 23) who thrashed Fulham 4-0 on Saturday. Newcastle United goalkeeper Tim Krul performed the heroics with 14 saves at White Hart Lane to deny Tottenham a chance to move level with Liverpool.

The focus was on both goalkeepers from the start, with Hugo Lloris left out of the Tottenham squad on medical advice after the French international had been knocked unconscious at Everton last week. The 42year-old Brad Friedel had to make a couple of saves early on but was powerless to prevent the livewire Loic Remy firing Newcastle in front after 13 minutes on a crisp but sunny afternoon.

The Frenchman picked up a beautifully-measured POS. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

TEAM Arsenal Liverpool Southampton Chelsea Man Utd Everton Tottenham Man City Newcastle West Brom

pass from Yoan Gouffran to beat the offside trap, dart around the goalkeeper and stab home for his seventh league goal of the season.

Shola Ameobi could have made it 2-0 when he had the ball in the net after 38 minutes but was ruled offside while Krul had earlier made a flying save to keep out a goalbound Roberto Soldado header.

Krul said that first crucial save was probably the best, with the sun low in the sky and making it hard to see clearly. He made a string of stops after the break as well, including somehow getting his hand to a deflected free kick by Gylfi Sigurdsson, with the rebound scrambled off the line by Mapou YangaMbiwa.

Using hands, arms, body and legs to keep the clean sheet, Krul’s was without question the performance of the afternoon as Newcastle went ninth with 17 points from 11 games.

PLAYED GD 11 12 11 11 11 10 11 8 11 5 11 4 11 3 11 16 11 -1 11 0

POINTS 25 23 22 21 20 20 20 19 17 14

Monday November 11, 2013

NBA ROUNDUP:

Pacers beat Nets to improve NBA-best start to 7-0 NEW YORK (AP) — Paul George scored 24 points and the Indiana Pacers improved the NBA’s only undefeated record and the best start in franchise history to 7-0 by beating the Brooklyn Nets 96-91 Saturday night.

David West added 18 points and hit the clinching free throws for the Pacers, who had won their first six games in 1970-71, when they played in the ABA. They have the longest winning streak to open an NBA season since both the Lakers and New Orleans were 8-0 in 2010-11, according to STATS. Roy Hibbert finished with 15 points and 11 rebounds, and Lance Stephenson also scored 15 points.

Deron Williams and Joe Johnson each had 17 points for the Nets, who fell to 2-4 and lost at home for the first time this season. Brook Lopez scored 16 and Paul Pierce had 15.

Brooklyn trailed by 10 midway through the fourth quarter but got a 3-pointer from Pierce that bounced on the rim at least four times during a spurt that cut it to 94-91, and they got the ball back after George threw away a pass with 20 seconds left. But Johnson was just long on a 3-point attempt with about 11 seconds to go and West grabbed the rebound and hit both free throws after being fouled.

The Pacers opened an early nine-point lead that the Nets wiped away thanks to a strong performance by their reserves. Brooklyn already had nine players score midway through the second quarter and took a 46-44 lead into halftime after Lopez’s jumper with 11 seconds left. Indiana, which has trailed at halftime in six of its seven games, then outscored Brooklyn 28-21 in the third quarter.

RAPTORS 115, JAZZ 91 TORONTO (AP) — Tyler Hansbrough scored a season-high 23 points, DeMar DeRozan added 18 and the Toronto Raptors snapped a seven-game home losing streak against Utah, routing the winless Jazz 115-91 Saturday night. Jonas Valanciunas scored 14 points and Rudy Gay had 11 as the Raptors earned their first home victory over the Jazz since Dec. 22, 2004.

Raptors guard Kyle Lowry sprained his right ankle on the final play of the first half and did not return. He finished with nine points. Playing for the fourth time in five days, struggling Utah was no match for a Raptors team that had lost four of its previous five, including three straight. Gordon Hayward scored 24 points and Derrick Favors had 17 for the Jazz.

Utah wrapped up a four-game road trip with its seventh straight defeat to begin the season, extending the team’s worst start since its debut NBA season in New Orleans in 197475, when the Jazz lost their first 11 games.

Utah came in having won 14 of 15 in the series but never led in this one. When Gay hit

Indiana Pacers power forward David West (21) shoots the ball against Brooklyn Nets power forward Kevin Garnett (2).

(AP Photo/John Minchillo) a jumper at 8:33 of the second, putting Toronto up 41-20, it marked the fourth straight game the Jazz have trailed by 20 points or more. Utah, whose 97-73 loss at Chicago on Friday was their biggest margin of defeat this season, wasted no time matching that dubious mark against Toronto.

Enes Kanter had 14 points for the Jazz, who’ll try for their first win of the season when they host Denver on Monday.

HAWKS 104, MAGIC 94 ATLANTA (AP) — Jeff Teague had 19 points and 13 assists, Paul Millsap scored 18 points with 11 rebounds and the Atlanta Hawks beat the Orlando Magic 104-94 on Saturday night. Arron Afflalo finished with 21 points for Orlando, which has dropped 15 straight on the road dating to last March 4.

Mike Scott had 17 points in a reserve role and Al Horford scored 15 and Kyle Korver added 14 for Atlanta. Korver made a 3 in his 79th consecutive game to surpass Dennis Scott and tie Michael Adams for second place on the NBA career list. After Korver hit a 3 on a fast break late in the fourth, Teague’s fastbreak layup made it 97-88 with 1:41 remaining. The Hawks have won nine straight over the Magic at Philips Arena.

Jameer Nelson and Andrew Nicholson each finished with 13 points for Orlando.

Atkinson cops gold yet...

From page 27 half of the race saw tour rival, Russian Iulia Efimova, making a huge move to try to catch the three-time Jamaican Olympian.

But it would be a case of different city same result as the 24-year-old, who has come back to the tour rejuvenated, would not yield and took the race in 1:02 .99 minutes. Atkinson swam just .09 outside of her personal

best set in Dubai. Efimova, who has not been able to beat the irrepressible Jamaican on the Asian cluster of this leg, finished second in a personal best of 1:03.02 minutes.

Mio Motegi of Japan was third in 1:05.02 minutes.

Atkinson, though missing the world record yesterday, has proven a force on the tour and will be aiming to put her name among the world record holders when she enters the

50-metre breaststroke today.

Atkinson missed the world record in the 50-metre breaststroke in Singapore by a mere .14 of a second when she posted a time of 28.94 seconds.

Atkinson’s last four 100metre breaststroke results DUBAI GOLD 1:02.91 DOHA GOLD 1:03.38 SINGAPORE GOLD 1:03.48 TOKYO GOLD 1:02.99

Monday November 11, 2013

Kaieteur News

Page 27

14th DMW 55-Mile Cycle Road Race

Marquez is crowned Warren McKay topples filed; youngest world champion Hamza Eastman takes junior title

(Reuters) - Spanish rookie Marc Marquez held his nerve became the youngest MotoGP world champion at the age of 20 when he finished third in the final race of the season in Valencia on Sunday.

The Honda rider, who started from his ninth pole position of the year, played it safe by avoiding a thrilling tussle between defending champion Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa, who went on to finish the race first and second.

Marquez secured the title with 334 championship points, four ahead of twice former winner and Yamaha rider Lorenzo, and 34 in front of Pedrosa. He passed Freddie Spencer’s 30-year-old record from when the American won his maiden crown at the age of 21, also on a Honda, pipping compatriot Kenny Roberts in the final race of the year at Imola in 1983.

“Congratulations Marc to you and the team! I couldn’t be happier for you! Enjoy this moment!,” the 51-year-old Spencer said on his Twitter feed.

The Catalan-born Marquez also became only the fourth rider in the 65-year history of Grand Prix racing to win world titles in three different categories, along with Mike Hailwood, Phil Read and Valentino Rossi.

“It was the longest race of the year for me,” Marquez told Spanish broadcaster Telecinco with a grin from ear to ear. “I was very nervous at the start. I know I had said I wasn’t, but I was. Jorge

Marc Marquez celebrates his championship victory.

Hour 25 Minutes 02 Seconds. Clyde Jacobs and Michael Holder followed in that order.

Toshwanna Doris was the first female to cross the line while the oldest competitor was Walter Isaacs.

Esau won the veteran segment of the race with Mark Sonoram second and Linden Blackman, third. Yesterday’s contest was the last competitive warm-up race before this week’s five-stage showdown which pedals off on Thursday in the Ancient county of Berbice.

Demerara Distillers Limited Marketing Assistants led by Trish Doodnauth assisted with the presentation of trophies and other prizes to the category winners and others, while National Coach Hassan Mohamed thanked the sponsor and competitors along with the ranks of the Guyana Police Force, West Demerara Division for combining efforts to make the event another success. Over 50 cyclists competed. (Franklin Wilson)

NATI win Wilbur Hope Memorial schools football competition started very well and I wasn’t sure quite what to do. “The first 10 laps were the worst with Jorge and Dani in front and the others right behind, but I settled into it after that.

“It has been a great year.

This has arrived earlier than I expected. Maybe too early, but I want to thank everyone from my team and the fans.”

Lorenzo, who had cranked up the pressure on Marquez by winning the last two races in Australia and Japan, flew off the grid to hit the front at the first bend with Spanish compatriot Pedrosa in second, and Marquez third.

Pedrosa and Lorenzo went on to delight the fans with a battle for first place with Marquez watching from third, as the two rivals in front of him swapped positions with

Atkinson cops gold yet again Jamaica Observer JAMAICA’S Alia Atkinson has made it four wins from her last four outings on the FINA World Cup Tour.

She collected her fourth consecutive gold medal in the 100-metre breaststroke at the Japan leg in Tokyo.

With her sights set on the world record of 1:02.36 minutes set by Lithuanian Ruta Meilutyte, Atkinson took off like a rocket.

With a reaction time of .65 she set about challenging the world standard and by the 50metre mark the Jamaican speedster had left the field for dead with a lead of more than half-a-second.

Atkinson was also at this

Warren ‘Forty’ Mc Kay toppled an experienced field on the West Demerara yesterday to come out victor of the senior category when the 14th annual Diamond Mineral Water 55-Mile Cycle Road Race was held. The Roraima Bikers Club (RBC) member went on an early break along with the top four finishers early in the race and they were never caught, McKay’s winning time was One Hour 54 Minutes 08 Seconds.

He was trailed to the line by Akeem Wilkinson, Hamza Eastman, Mark Harris, Delroy Hinds and Geron Williams. McKay also won three of the prime prizes on offer with two each taken by Wilkinson and Eastman, the other went to Harris. Eastman in finishing third also topped the junior field, finishing well ahead of Mario King and Stephano Husbands.

The Mountain bike category was ruled yet again by Ozia Macullay who was timed at One

Alia Atkinson point .02 ahead of world record pace with her split of 29.54 seconds. The second Continued on page 26

breath-taking passes over the opening laps.

With 10 laps gone Marquez hit the front, cutting inside the bend as the front two came together and Pedrosa was forced wide, dropping down to fifth.

Race officials said they would investigate the incident on the MotoGP’s official Twitter feed.

DESERVED WINNER The 26-year-old Lorenzo muscled his way back to the front a lap later and the title rivals pulled away from the rest of the field, while Pedrosa recovered ground to pressure his Honda team mate in second.

Marquez appeared to let Pedrosa pass him with five laps remaining and cruised across the line, Lorenzo’s third successive victory being too little, too late.

Marquez went over to where his fans were massed, waving red flags emblazoned with his number 93, climbed on a barrier and threw his gloves into the crowd as he punched the air before bowing to them all.

In Moto2, newlycrowned world champion Pol Espargaro crashed, leaving Spanish compatriot Nico Terol to win followed by Jordi Torres and Johann Zarco.

Another Spaniard, Maverick Vinales, was crowned world champion on a KTM in the Moto3 race, hitting the front on the final lap to finish ahead of Jonas Folger and Alex Rins who was runner-up in the championship.

Spaniard Luis Salom, who had led the rankings going into the final race, crashed out and limped home in 14th place.

New Amsterdam Technical Institute (NATI) used their height and size advantage to get the better of Berbice High School as the secured a 2-0 win in the final to emerge winners of the second Wilbur Hope Memorial Inter Secondary School Football Competition which was played on Friday at the All Saints Scots Church Ground in New Amsterdam.

The lads from NATI could have won by a bigger margin, but missed a number of chances and were thwarted by a resilient BHS who fought gamely until late in the second half when two goalkeeping blunders gave NATI their goals.

A Steffon Hinds cross from the right wing in the 51st minute accounted for the first goal. The keeper fail to cover his last post or intercept the ball, which seemed to be going aimlessly across the goal area, until it took a sudden diversion and hit the last post and bounced into the goal. The second goal resulted from a corner from the right. The keeper did not come out to intercept the ball which was slotted into the far corner by Jermaine Samuels in the 57th minute. The BHS lads gave it their all as they fought relentlessly, but the game ended soon after relegating them to the runner up spot for the second time.

Earlier in the third place play off, defending champion Tutorial Academy Secondary School (TASS) had to battle to the end against surprise package Vryman’s Erven Secondary School (VESS) as they won on sudden dead penalty kicks after the game ended 0-0 at full time.

At the presentation ceremony that followed,

The winning NATI captain David Denny collects the Hope Memorial trophy from VP Mark Adams.

NATI were presented with the beautiful Wilbur Hope Memorial trophy, BHS took the runner up trophy with TASS also receiving a trophy.

The MVP award went to Steffon Hinds of NATI, while the best striker and most goals awards (six) went to Steffon Boucher of NATI. Renson Mitchell also of NATI was awarded the best midfielder prize. The best defender was Randy Arendell of BHS. The tournament attracted eight schools, two more than last year, with Berbice Educational Institute (BEI), New Amsterdam Multilateral School (NAMS Canje Secondary School (CSS), and School of the Nations (SON) also participating.

Speaking at the presentation ceremony- Vice President of sponsors, Hope Foundation, Mark Adams, expressed gratitude on behalf of President, Kevin Henry to the schools, teachers and staff that participated in the competition. He also thanked the Hearts of Oak Masters

Football club for organising the competition.

In comments, coordinator Neil ‘Grizzly’ Humphrey expressed his disappointment with the standard of play and some schools attitude towards playing the game.

Wilbur Hope was a national footballer and athlete and accomplished cricketer, coach and referee was hailed as a mentor and one who made tremendous contributions to the development to youths, sports and community activities Berbice.

Hope’s relatives had also handed over a Pavilion which was constructed in the Tucber Park ball field in honour and memory of his 10th death anniversary to the people of the Tucber Park Community.

The competition, which was sponsored by US Army Solider and former New Amsterdam resident, Kevin Henry, also had support from among others some of his former school mates and friends. (Samuel Whyte)

Page 28

Kaieteur News

Fitness Express power-up GAPF Senior C/ship set for Sunday - registration closes on Thursday

Mr. Jamie Mc Donald (left), Owner/Manager of Fitness Express hands over the cheque to GAPF’s Denroy Livan.

Continuing to live true to its mandate of tangibly partnering with national associations for the real development of sports in Guyana, Owner/Manager of Fitness express Jamie Mc Donald has once again exhibited this virtue when he handed over a cheque to the Guyana Amateur Powerlifting Federation (GAPF) for the staging of their senior championships this Sunday at the National Gymnasium.

Receiving on behalf of the GAPF was Organising Secretary/ Public Relations Officer Denroy Livan who expressed thanks to Mc Donald for his entity’s continued support.

The federation in a release stated that registration will not be done at the venue on competition day as obtained in the past, this process will conclude on Thursday. On

competition day, weigh-in will commence at 07:30hrs and will last until 09:00hrs with competing getting underway at 10:00hrs.

A number of spectacular performances are anticipated come Sunday when all the big guns, including the likes of Randolph ‘TheAccomplisher’ Morgan, Vijai Rahim, Colin ‘Mr. Clean’ Chesney Anis Ade-Thomas, Dr. Osmond Mack and Paul Adams among others, take to the stage.

Sunday’s performances by athletes will be critical to their participation at regional and international competitions which means they will have to bring their A-Plus game.

The GAPF has enjoyed a great year at every level and this year ending event is expected to be no different, a number of records are anticipated to be re-written.

Demerara Trials slated for November 12 and 13

The Demerara Cricket Board will be hosting a 2-Day Trial match on November 12 and 13 at the Georgetown Cricket Club ground, Bourda to select their team for the upcoming Guyana Cricket Board Senior Inter-County 4Day Competition. Leon Johnson and Christopher Barnwell will lead the teams and action gets underway at 09:00 hours each day; players are asked to be on time.

Surprisingly omitted from the trials are GCC left handed opener Robin Bacchus and Trevon Griffith of DCC. Both players have been in fine from recently. Bacchus was lately selected to the Guyana senior T\20 team, while Griffith represented the Guyana Amazon Warriors in the LCPL. Both players showed that they are also capable batsmen in the longer version of the game.

Teams; Leon Johnson (Captain), Tagenarine Chanderpaul, Shemroy

Bacchus, Griffith omitted

Monday November 11, 2013

Gibson demands more from batsmen ESPNcricinfo - Ottis Gibson, the West Indies coach, was expecting to spend Sunday watching his team fight in front of a full house at Eden Gardens, as the first Test went into the fifth day. Instead, he was overlooking a three-hour training session under a harsh sun at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. The innings-and51-run defeat in Kolkata was West Indies’ first inside three days during Gibson’s tenure.

He was unimpressed.

“There is only so much talking any coach can do,” Gibson said, after his batsmen had wasted starts in both innings of the first Test.

“When you play five batsmen, and you sit down and stress the importance of those five batsmen, and you set yourself a challenge of batting a day and a half in the first innings, it is then up to those five batsmen to negotiate whatever the opposition bowlers throw at them and hang around for five days. “(But) When you have a run-out and a couple of soft dismissals within those five batsmen then it puts pressure on everybody else. That is exactly what happened. We have to get better. We have to learn those mistakes and try not to repeat them.”

Marlon Samuels scored the only half-century for West Indies in the first Test. He was also the only batsman with a valid reason for his dismissals.

In the first innings, Samuels was bowled by Mohammad Shami after the ball was changed and suddenly began to reverse swing. In the second, he was hit on the pad by another reverse-swinging delivery from Shami and was given lbw by umpire Nigel Llong, though the ball appeared to

Darren Sammy was one of several West Indian batsmen who failed to apply themselves in Kolkata. (BCCI) be going down leg side. The other batsmen had no such excuses.

The top-order batsmen Kieran Powell, Chris Gayle and Darren Bravo paid for playing loose shots.

Shivnarine Chanderpaul was ineffective in the absence of stable partners. As for Denesh Ramdin, did he even turn up in Kolkata?

“Try and bat three days,” Gibson responded, when asked how the West Indies batting could improve. “We won the toss in good batting conditions and we batted 70odd overs. That is just not good enough. We know in India you have to bat long, put runs on the board, 400 minimum in the first innings really. So the 234 that we made was pretty average.

“We were little bit rusty coming in but we are not going to use that as an excuse. We still had our

opportunities to make scores - we had six or seven guys who got starts and did not carry on. Only one guy got a half-century. When India batted only one or two of those guys got starts and made hundreds. And that was the difference.”

According to Gibson, the five-batsman strategy is a recent one and it has worked for West Indies. Its success, however, depended on every player sticking to the plan, Gibson said. “When you look at the result you sort of want to think that way (whether the five-batsmen plan works).

That line-up is the one with which we have played the last three or four Test matches.

We backed those guys and they did not perform as well as they did in the past. It is a two-match series so we have to look at the combination to make sure we still believe strongly that we can win here.”

Nadal overpowers Federer to reach year-ending final

Robin Bacchus

Trevon Griffith

Barrington, Balbinder Shivpersaud, Zaheer Mohamed, Vishal Singh, Amir Khan, Joseph Perry, Randy Knights, Shaquille Williams, Andre Stoll, Paul Wintz and Totaram Bishun.

Christopher Barnwell (Captain), Rajendra

Chandrika, Chandrapaul Hemraj, Yatesh Dhanpaul, Steven Jacobs, Arvin Seepersaud, Kemol Savory, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Chris Pattadin, Carl Rambarose, Trevor Benn, Kelon Carmichael and Anthony Atwell.

(Reuters) - Rafa Nadal’s growing domination of great rival Roger Federer continued with a comprehensive 7-5 6-3 victory in the semi-finals of the ATP World Tour Finals on Sunday.

The mid-afternoon clash was not one of the best in their 32-match series as Federer faded badly in the second set to hand Nadal his first victory over him on an indoor court.

Nadal was thrashed 6-3 6-0 by Federer at the o2 Arena two years ago but after a tight first proved too strong for the 32-year-old Swiss who looked weary after his three-set victory over Juan Martin Del Potro on Saturday.

The year could now have a mouthwatering grand finale with Nadal up against defending champion and world number two Novak Djokovic on Monday although Swiss Stansilas Wawrinka will be hoping to ruin the

script in the second semi-final later.

Federer had the first chance on Sunday when he put the world number one in trouble on serve in the sixth game but Nadal held firm and broke Federer’s serve to lead 5-4.

The Swiss played a scintillating point at 15-30 in the next game, ending an exhausting baseline exchange when he rifled a forehand down the line and Nadal ballooned out a forehand to hand Federer the break back.

However, a third consecutive break of serve gave Nadal a second chance to take the opener and this time he made no mistake with a clinical love game. When a Federer forehand nose-dived into the net on break point at 2-2 the belief seemed to drain out of the 32-yearold and the end came quickly as Nadal extended his career record over the 17-times grand slam champion to 22-10.