16 News
friday, july 3, 2015| guyanatimesGY.com
Dominican Republic agrees to Woman shot in legs OAS migration inquiry during minibus robbery T A passenger in a Route 42 minibus is nursing gunshot injuries to both of her legs following a robbery in the vicinity of the Flour Mill Road, Eccles, East Bank Demerara (EBD) on Thursday afternoon about 12:50h. Sharon Baldeo, 42, of Section C Golden Grove, EBD, was treated at the Georgetown Public Hospital and sent away. Based on reports gathered, Baldeo and her daughter were on their way to Georgetown and the suspect who was sitting in the back seat of the minibus asked to be put off at Flour Mill Road, Eccles. As he disembarked the minibus, he reportedly grabbed Baldeo’s hand bag containing $245,000, an iPhone and personal documents but she put up a fight. In retaliation, the man whipped out a gun that he had in his pocket and discharged about three rounds hitting the woman in her legs. He then made good his escape on foot through the Flour Mill Road. Baldeo, when contacted, told Guyana Times that she went to the Republic Bank Branch in Diamond where she withdrew the money. She and her daughter then boarded the minibus which heading to the city. As they entered the minibus, the other seats were
filled hence they were forced to occupy the back passenger seat where the suspect was. The injured woman noted that as they continued their journey, she opened her bag and took out $1000 to pay the conductor. After a few minutes, she added that the suspect requested to be put off at the Flour Mill Road. As the minibus stopped, she turned her legs to the side to allow the passenger to pass but as he passed, he grabbed her bag and started to pull it. “I didn’t let go easily: as he pulled, I pulled and it continued for a good couple seconds … then he pulled out the gun and the driver, the conductor and the passengers run out of the bus … he continue to pull the bag and the handle burst, but I nah lose … is then the gun went off,” she explained.
One arrested
The suspect then relieved Basdeo of her bag and ran into the Agricola Area. The Police in a statement revealed that they have arrested one man who was positively identified as the perpetrator, but Baldeo claimed that she was never called to identify the man. After receiving treatment, she visited the Ruimveldt Police Station where she saw four men sitting on a bench, but none of them was the
perpetrator. She was later made to understand that another man was arrested and was being kept at Grove Police Station, but, up to late Thursday afternoon, she was not asked to identify him. The Police stated that they are continuing their investigations into the shooting incident. In May, Hardat Kissoon, a rice farmer of Cane Grove, East Coast Demerara, who was a passenger in a Route 44 minibus was shot dead during a robbery along the Rupert Craig Highway. It was reported that the man had just left a city bank after changing a cheque and was followed by one man who posed as a passenger. As the journey continued, the man requested the bus to stop in the vicinity of the University of Guyana access road where he attempted to take Kissoon’s bag containing over $500,000, but Kissoon held onto it. The man then pulled out a handgun and discharged a round at Kissoon hitting him to his chest. The bandit then relieved the man of the bag and threw it through the window to an accomplice. Kissoon was pronounced dead on arrival at the Georgetown Public Hospital. Thus far, one of the alleged suspects, Sherwin Trotman was arraigned for his murder.
IMF warns of huge financial hole as Greek vote looms
T
he International Monetary Fund (IMF) delivered a stark warning on Thursday of the huge financial hole facing Greece as angry and uncertain voters prepare for a referendum that could decide their country’s future in Europe. Days after Greece defaulted on part of its IMF debt, the Fund, part of the lenders’ “troika” behind successive international bailouts, said Greece needed an extra 50 billion euros over the next three years, including 36 billion from its European partners, to stay afloat. It also needed significant debt relief. The assessment, in a preliminary draft of the Fund’s latest debt sustainability report, underlines the scale of the problems facing Athens, whatever the result of Sunday’s referendum on the bailout offered by creditors last month. Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’ rejection of what he terms the “blackmail” of EU and IMF creditors demanding spending cuts and tax hikes has so angered Greece’s partners that there
he Dominican Republic says it will cooperate with an Organisation of American States (OAS) inquiry into its migration policies. The OAS is sending a team to Santo Domingo after thousands of migrants left for Haiti in recent weeks. The Dominican authorities say they left voluntarily after a registration programme for undocumented migrants expired. But Haitian officials have accused the authorities of using force. Speaking after the OAS announcement, Interior Minister Ramon Fadul said: “We have nothing to hide because what we are doing is
applying our laws on migration as every country in the world does and to do this we have done what was needed.” But there have been international concerns about the number of Haitians being sent across the border, estimated to be some 17,000. Many of them are Dominicans of Haitian descent. Jose Miguel Vivanco, the Director of Human Rights Watch’s Americas division, said: “People are being detained and shoved across the border.” Caribbean nations in the 15-member bloc known as Caricom called on the Dominican Republic to stop
what it said was a “planned mass deportation of people of Haitian descent”. The current crisis has its roots in a 2013 High Court ruling in the Dominican Republic. It said that people born there between 1929 and 2010 had Dominican citizenship as a birthright, but those born to undocumented migrants at the time of their birth were not covered by this protection and were not citizens. “The Dominican Republic is denying tens of thousands of citizens their rights to a nationality,” said Vivanco. As a result, he said, they have become stateless. (Excerpt from BBC News)
BP agrees to historic settlement over oil spill
Eleven people died and millions of barrels of oil were spilled into the Gulf in 2010 [EPA]
B
ritish energy company BP has announced it had agreed to settle US federal and state claims worth up to US$18.7 billion over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Thursday’s agreement increases the pre-tax cost of the disaster to BP by an estimated US$10 billion to US$53.8 billion, its Chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg, said. The company is expected to release a final figure in its second quarter results in late July. “For BP, this agreement will resolve the largest lia-
bilities remaining from the tragic accident and enable BP to focus on safely delivering the energy the world needs,” said BP group chief Bob Dudley in a statement. Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the head of the US Justice Department, hailed what she said was a record deal. “If approved by the court, this settlement would be the largest settlement with a single entity in American history; it would help repair the damage done to the Gulf economy, fisheries, wetlands and wildlife; and it would
bring lasting benefits to the Gulf region for generations to come,” she said in a statement. The deal has been struck with the US Federal Government and five Gulf Coast states – Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas – affected by the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. Eleven people died and millions of barrels of oil were spilled into the Gulf, decimating wildlife and devastating the ecology of a region dependent on the seafood and tourism industries.
(Excerpt from Al Jazeera)
New Bill on Presidents’... The future of the left-wing Government hangs on the result, given the angry mood of voters in Greece, torn between resentment of the lenders and scorn for their own politicians (BBC News)
is no hope of reconciliation before Sunday. With banks closed for a fourth day and capital controls in place, the future of the left-wing Government hangs on the result, given the angry mood of voters in Greece, torn between resentment of the lenders and scorn for their own politicians. “People have lost it com-
pletely. And it’s all the fault, one 100 per cent, of all the politicians. They are to blame for the situation we are in now,” said pensioner Thanos Stamou. On Sunday, it will fall to the Greek people to decide an issue that their Government was unable to settle in months of acrimonious negotiations with their European partners. (Excerpt from
Reuters)
Commenting on President Granger’s position, Nandlall outlined that the current President assumed office while the 2009 Act is in force, and as such, he is guaranteed certain facilities and benefits which will accrue to him when he ceases to hold the Office of President. “Article 222(3) protects those facilities and benefits from any alteration to his detriment. The 2015 Bill cannot and does not affect those facilities and benefits,” the former AG positioned. He further outlined
that the courts, both in Guyana and throughout the Commonwealth, have given varied possible definition to the term “property” to include: money, rent charges, mortgages, easements, shares, or anything that has economic value. Nandlall went onto say that every single entitlement listed in the 2009 Act as a benefit or facility to a former President, is capable of being converted into monetary or economic value. These entitlements he said, therefore, are the legal property of those to whom they statu-
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torily accrue and Article 142 of the Constitution prevents the repeal of the Act by this 2015 Bill from having the effect of compulsorily acquiring the property which the 2009 Act confers, without prompt and adequate compensation. Having established that the 2015 Bill will only apply to Presidents post Granger, Nandlall believes that some of its clauses are infected with the virus of unconstitutionality and are accordingly liable to be struck down by a court for want of constitutionality.