WHAT'S INSIDE: Issue No. 5109 Nationwide coverage from the best news team in Guyana THE BEACON OF TRUTH guyanatimesgy.com PRICE $100 VAT INCLUDEDTUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2022 GBTI provides work-study opportunities for 11 youths A mother’s betrayal that has left “painful, enduring scars” – CCJ Judge Neesa Gopaul’s murder concernedauthoritiesfornotpersonsSymptomaticoptingtogettestedCOVID-19; …6 cases recorded in 24h, 2 in ICU Teen among 2 slapped with DUI custodyimmigrationescapesGuyanesemillCorentyneunearthedOverelectionexpediteAppealAPNU/AFCofftakespecialMayorchargeswantsunittovagrantscitystreetstoaskCourtto2ndpetition$3MfraudatricewomanfrominBVI…do not panic – Health Minister to population …to provide 3,500 residents with 24-hour water service …millions of dollars in development coming to island – Pres Ali $50M new well commissioned in Wakenaam; US$23M solar system in pipeline …as $1.4B modernisation project is launched …Cemetery Road to be upgraded into 4 lanes Squatters to be IndependenceremovedfromBoulevard Vice detailIDPADA-GchallengesPresidenttohowhalf-billioninstatefundingspent Guyana’s 1st monkeypox case detected Page3Page2 Page 10 See story on page 7 See story on page 12 PPPP15P811P815P1511
IDPADA-G Chairman Vincent Alexander
Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo
NEWS2 TUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2022 | GUYANATIMESGY.COM
V ice President Bharrat Jagdeo on Monday made it clear that he would not be apologising to International Decade for People of African Descent Assembly – Guyana (IDPADA-G) Chairman Vincent Alexander, go ing on to challenge him to properly account for the al most $500 million that was allocated to the organisa tion by the AlexanderState.took part in a press conference on Monday alongside oth er IDPADA-G directors, where he had defended the organisation and Jagdeo’s earlier assertions that the organisation has not been utilising State funds ade quately to benefit AfricanGuyanese.Inhissubsequent state ment, Jagdeo said that Alexander’s press confer ence left more questions than answers. Jagdeo posed the questions in his statement, such as ques tions on how much of the $100 million IDPADA-G received since 2019 was spent on salaries and de tails on those that were paid.“First off let me state that I have absolutely no intention of apologising to Vincent Alexander and he is free to take whatever course of action he wishes. Afro-Guyanese still remain in the dark as it relates to the benefits of the close to half a billion dollars uti lised. He should therefore provide details on the fol lowing.”“How much of the $100M allocated annual ly since 2019 and $68M in 2018 was spent on paying salaries, who are individ uals that were paid, what amounts were they being paid and how were they se lected? How much of that sum was spent on rent al, who owns the buildings rented, and what process was used for the selection of the buildings?” Jagdeo questioned.Jagdeoalso questioned how many persons bene fitted from capacity train ing, the types of training offered, who conducted the training, and what process was used to select both the trainers and beneficiaries of the“Whytraining.was IDPADA-G registered as a private limited liability compa ny where a number of per sons (inclusive of yourself) are listed as the beneficial owners instead of a not-forprofit organisation? These are just a few questions for the moment. I will address this matter in greater de tail shortly,” Jagdeo fur ther said in his statement. Discredit, vilify leader shipDuring the press con ference, Alexander refuted much of what Jagdeo said at a press conference last week. Among Alexander’s assertions was that he is not paid for his work with IDPADA-G, that Jagdeo is trying to vilify the or ganisation and that the organisation has been spending money in the African-Guyanese commu nity.“We are proud of the fact that we are able to fund the night schools which have brought back children into the loop of the education system. This we do in Georgetown and in the Corentyne. So that’s another instance of the outreach.”“Andmany people would know of the work that was done in the Mocha Arcadia market day, which we also funded. Many people would know of the exhibitions we have had, at Square of the Revolution and the ave nue,” Alexander said, de scribing this as physical manifestations of their work. The organisation also sent out a statement in which it further defend ed itself and detailed more of its work. While they did not deny that staff were paid $42 million in 2020 as Jagdeo had laid out, IDPADA-G explained that staff provide a myriad of services to the AfricanGuyanese projectrationservicescan“Memberscommunity.ofthepublicwalkinandbegivensuchastheprepaofbusinessplans,andgrantrequest proposals for Government and donor funding. The sum that Mr Jagdeo did not mention goes towards projects in the sphere of education and training, di saster response, public ed ucation, thefew.”velopment,facilitation,entrepreneurialandyouthdetomentiona“ExamplesincludingG$5Mexercisetoreg ister persons for flood re lief, will be provided on the work of IDPADA-G, by the next presenter. A more comprehensive fact sheet will be made avail able to you,” the organisa tion promised. (G3)
Vice President challenges IDPADA-G to detail how half-billion in state funding spent
There will be thundery showers during the day and night. Temperatures should range between 22 degrees Celsius and 29 degrees Celsius.
3 TUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2022 | GUYANATIMESGY.COM NEWS COMMODITIES Indicators US$ Change % Crude Oil $96.48/barrel -0.25 Rough Rice $309.83/ton +0.05 London Sugar $549.80/ton 0.00 Live Spot Gold USD Per Ounce Bid/Ask $1738.10 $1739.10 Low/High $1727.70 $1747.40 Change +1.20 +0.07 LOTTERY NUMBERS DAILY MILLIONSSATURDAY, AUGUST 20, 2022 DISCLAIMER: WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ERRORS IN PUBLICATION. PLEASE CALL THE HOTLINE FOR CONFIRMATION - TEL: 225-8902 LUCKY 3 FREE TICKET 02 03 07 24 25 28H 1211 14136 15 1 2130702040102 BonusBall 13 DRAW DE LINE 13 17111005 18 21161502 PAY DAY PAYSUPERDAY 10 1 7 1 Afternoon Draw Evening Draw MONDAY, AUGUST 22, 2022 99 84 Afternoon Draw Evening Draw FPFP Afternoon Draw Evening Draw SATURDAY, AUGUST 06, 2022
Winds: South-Westerly to West South-Westerly between 1.34 metres and 4.02 metres. High Tide: 14:10h reaching a maximum height of 2.11 metres. Low Tide: 07:35h and 19:58h reaching minimum heights of 1.03 metre and 1.11 metre.
BRIDGE OPENINGS
“I see our Member of Parliament and a man who has been involved in rice all his life here, (Dharamkumar) Seeraj. And he would tell you about the effect the increase in drainage and irrigation costs, the neglect of our drainage and irrigation system.”
President Dr Irfaan Ali assured the people of Wakenaam, Region Three (Essequibo IslandsWest Demerara), during a vis it on Monday to commission a new well, that under his Government, millions of dol lars in development has come and will continue to come to theirAccordingisland. to the President, this development includes plans for a 750-kilowatt so lar-powered system for Wakenaam and other devel opments that, even excluding monies disbursed to the elder ly and children, is close to $1 billion.“We are planning a 750-kilowatt solar-powered system for this island. This system will start within two months, hopefully, and cost US$2.3 million or GY$460 million. If you look now at what we’ve invested in drain age and irrigation, sea defenc es and roads, that perhaps is another $500 million. That’s close to $1 billion.” “We’ve already said to you, that we’re going to do 1 kilo metre of road in this island ev ery year, until we fix the roads completely. But I’ll go a step further and say to you that in the next three years, we’re going to complete the entire road network in this island in a phased and structured man ner,” Ali also said. Noting the island is a pre dominantly rice farming one, the President also referenced his Administration’s efforts to reverse the damage to the rice industry that was done by the actions, or lack thereof, of the former Government.
$50M new well commissioned in Wakenaam; US$23M solar system in pipeline …to provide 3,500 residents with 24-hour water service …millions of dollars in development coming to island – Pres Ali
“This includes extensive leak repairs, installation of air valves, piloting for all exist ing valves on the island and service connection upgrades. Given the significant improve ment in the water pressure, GWI’s team is closely monitor ing the distribution system for leaks,” GWI had said. “In addition, customers in areas which are receiving a good supply of water will have meters installed to reduce wa ter losses. A water treatment plant currently being designed will be constructed on the is land aback the Noitgedacht well station in order to reduce iron content, thereby provid ing a better quality of water.”
The Berbice Bridge will be closed to vehicular traffic on: Parika and Supenaam departure times – 05:00h, 10:00h-12:00h, 16:00h, 18:30h daily Tuesday, Aug 23 – 14:30h –16:00h and Wednesday, Aug 24 – 15:15h – 16:45h.
The Demerara Harbour Bridge will be closed to vehicular traffic on: Tuesday, Aug 23 – 00:30 –02:00h and Wednesday, Aug 24 – 01:00h – 02:30h.
WEATHER TODAY
President Dr Irfaan Ali, along with Housing and Water Minister Collin Croal; Minister within the Housing and Water Ministry, Susan Rodrigues; and GWI CEO Shaik Baksh, among others at the commissioning of the well
FERRY SCHEDULE
“More importantly, the specific capacity of this well, the rate at which it replenish es, is one of the highest in the country again, 27 cubic metres per hour. Whereas most of our wells in our contracts list 20 cubic feet,” Baksh said. Earlier this year, the new well at Noitgedacht was acti vated. It is providing water to the residents of Sans Souci, Belle Plaine, Noitgedacht and Good Success, where their lev el of service has more than doubled.Atthe time, however, GWI had said that residents in Caledonia, Zeelandia and Maria’s Pleasure were not yet benefitting from the new well and that an action programme would be implemented to im prove the efficiency of the dis tribution network.
missioned on Monday cost $50 million to construct, which, according to Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI) Chief Executive Officer Shaik Baksh, is half of what it would have cost to drill a similar well.He further explained that the well, which follows an other botched attempt to in stall a well on the island un der the former A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Government, is 340 feet deep and the Pounds per Square Inch (PSI) pressure is 58. Additionally, this new well will provide 3500 residents with 24-hour water supply.
“The lack of investment in research and development. And the total collapse in the agriculture system. And it is the truth. No investment and priority were placed in the ag ricultural sector. We have to reverse this,” the President further said. The well that was com
Peacemakers
Labour dispute resolution machinery, procedures
A decade ago, on the occasion of “International Day for Women” which we commemorated in May of this year, Rene Wadlow, President and Representative to the United Nations, Geneva of the Association of World Citizens, made a suggestion we believe our conflict-ridden society may benefit from. She suggested a larger role for women as peacemakers, even as they are facing the brunt of interpersonalInfluencedviolence.by Eastern thought – encapsulated by the Chinese terms “yin and yang”, men and women are thought to have complementary psychological characteristics. “Feminine” characteristics or values include intuitive, nurturing, caring, sensitive, relational traits, while “masculine” characteristics are rational, dominant, assertive, analytical and hierarchical. While as individuals, men and women alike can achieve a state of wholeness, of balance between the yin and yang, in practice “masculine” refers to men and “feminine” to women. Thus, some feminists identify the male psyche as the prime cause of the subordination of women around the world. Men are seen as having nearly a genetic coding that leads them to “seize” power, to institutionalise that power through patriarchal societal structures, and to buttress the power with masculine values and culture. One of the best-known symbols of a woman as peacemaker is Lysistrata, immortalised by Aristophanes, who mobilised women on both sides of the Athenian-Spartan War for a sexual strike in order to force men to end hostilities and avert mutual annihilation. Since Lysistrata, women, individually and in groups, have played a critical role in the struggle for justice and peace in all societies. However, when real negotiations begin, women are often relegated to the sidelines. However, a gender perspective on peace, disarmament, and conflict resolution entails a conscious and open process of examining how women and men participate in and are affected by conflict differently. It requires ensuring that the perspectives, experiences, and needs of both women and men are addressed and met in peace-building activities. Today, conflicts reach everywhere. How do these conflicts affect people in the society — women and men, girls and boys, the elderly and the young, the rich and the poor, the urban and the rural? Three elements can be the “gender” contribution to conflict transformation efforts. The first is in the domain of analysis, the contribution of the knowledge of gender relations as indicators of power. Uncovering gender differences in a given society will lead to an understanding of power relations in general in that society, and to the illumination of contradictions and injustices inherent in those relations.Thesecond contribution is to make us more fully aware of the role of women in specific conflict situations. Women should not only be seen as victims of war: they are often significantly involved in taking initiatives to promote peace. Some writers have stressed that there is an essential link between women, motherhood, and non-violence, arguing that those engaged in mothering work have distinct motives for rejecting war that run in tandem with their ability to resolve conflicts non-violently.
Editor: Tusika Martin News Hotline: 231-8063 Editorial: 231-0544, 223-7230, 223-7231, 225-7761 Marketing: 231-8064 Accounts: 225-6707 Mailing address: Queens Atlantic Investment Estate Industrial Site, Ruimveldt, Georgetown Email:marketing@guyanatimesgy.comnews@guyanatimesgy.com, 4 Views guyanatimesgy.comTUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2022 CONTINUED ON PAGE 5
Andrea King, a project manager at GTT, was crowned Miss World Guyana 2022 on Sunday at the National Cultural Centre (Miss World Guyana Org photo)
Stage 4: Failing a set tlement at Stage 3, the Grievance Committee of the Union may then refer the matter to the Permanent Secretary of the Public Service Ministry in writing. The Permanent Secretary of the Public Service Ministry shall endeavour to meet the Grievance Committee of the Union as soon as possible, but within two weeks, for the purpose of discussing the matter or matters in dispute, and shall endeavour to ef fect a satisfactory settlement with all dispatch. Failing a settlement at Stage 3, the matter may be referred by either side, within fourteen (14) working days, to the Ministry of Labour for concil iation. Stage 5: Failing settle ment at Stage 4, the mat ter may be referred by ei ther side, within fourteen (14) days, to Arbitration. The Arbitration Panel shall consist of one member nom inated by the Public Service Ministry, one member nom inated by the Union, and a Chairman agreed upon by the Public Service Ministry and Union. In event of the parties failing to reach agree ment, the Chairman shall be nominated by the Minister of Labour. Any award by the Tribunal shall be final and binding.The agreement be tween the Union and the Government also provides for other existing statuto ry machinery for arbitra tion, or other legal machin ery which may be established by the National Assembly, as set out in the words of the Agreement: “none of the above clause shall be inter preted to preclude the right of either the Ministry or the Union to make use of any existing or future national or other industrial machin ery that may be legally es tablished from time to time”. (Clause 7) The Agreement further affirms the established prin ciples and norms in the prac tice of Industrial and Labour Relations during the stages of negotiation set out above: “that there shall be no lockout by the Ministry con cerned; nor any strike, stop page of work whether of a partial or a general charac ter by the Union, refusal to work, slow down or retarding of production on the part of the Union, nor shall there be reduction of the normal level of output by any members of the Union”.
Others reject this position of a gender bias toward peace and stress rather that the same continuum of non-violence to violence is found among women as among men. In practice, it is never all women or all men who are involved in peacemaking efforts. Sometimes, it is only a few, especially at the start of peace-making efforts. The basic question is how best to use the talents, energies, and networks of both women and men for efforts at conflict resolution. The third contribution of a gender approach with its emphasis on the social construction of roles is to draw our attention to a detailed analysis of the socialisation process in a given society. Transforming gender relations requires an understanding of the socialisation process of boys and girls, and of the constraints and motivations that create gender relations. Thus, there is a need to look at patterns of socialisation, potential incitements to violence in childhood training patterns, and socially approved ways of dealing with violence. And this would also relate to anti-women violence. Let’s get women on the front lines.
Registration and enforceability of AgreementsCollective All signed collective agreements are to be pre sented to the Chief Labour Officer within three months of signing, in accordance with the Labour Act, which makes every such agreement legally enforceable, unless the agreement states that the whole agreement or any part of it is not intended to be legallyConciliation/mediationbinding.
in industrial disputes is a con sensus-based process, wheth er it is a dispute of interest or a dispute of rights. This is an essential process in the field of Industrial Relations. The conciliation process seeks to encourage disputing parties to discuss their differences with a view to assisting them to develop their own proposed solution as an extension of negotiations. The outcome is essentially the agreement of the two parties with the as sistance of the conciliator. The Department of Labour in Guyana, as in many other countries, is the principal third party deal ing with individual and col lective labour disputes, and provides a free and voluntary conciliation service under the authority of the Labour Act, enacted to regulate the rela tionship between employers and employees and the set tlement of disputes between them. Section 4 of this Act empowers the Minister to take any expedient steps to promote a settlement.
Dear Editor In the field of Industrial Relations, effective means of settlement of labour disputes are determined by the estab lished machinery through consultations, negotiations, with third-party assistance in collective bargaining pro cesses, and by statutory reg ulations. When an employ er recognises a trade union as the sole bargaining agent of the workers in any enter prise or industry, the parties usually sign and accede to a collective agreement for rec ognition and the avoidance and settlement of disputes. Embodied in that recog nition agreement is the pro cess for collective bargaining, and a grievance or repre sentation procedure which sets out the various stages through which a grievance or dispute can be processed. Generally, the procedures in clude the internal stages for dispute resolution at the en terprise or organisation lev el, with specified time frames (may be stages i-iii). Failure at the last internal stage is followed by conciliation/me diation (stage iv), and then arbitration (stage v), if there is still an impasse. In other cases, statuto ry requirements under the Labour Act and the Essential Services Act provide for adju dication by means of compul sory arbitration by an indus trial tribunal, for final and binding resolution. As an example, for the avoidance and settlement of disputes in the Civil Service, the pro cedures for dispute resolu tion in the Public Service are outlined in a Memorandum of Agreement between the Guyana Public Service Union and the Public Service Ministry as follows: When any question relat ing to conditions of service - excluding matters which fall under the purview of the Public Service Commissionwhich may give rise to a dis pute is raised by or on behalf of any member of the union, the following procedure shall be observed: Stage I: A member, indi vidually or accompanied by not more than one; or, in the case of group representation, not more than two mem bers of the Branch Grievance Committee, may approach the Supervisor/Sectional Head, in the first instance, with a view to avoiding a dispute or settling a matter in dispute. The Supervisor/ Sectional Head shall endeav our to do all he possibly can to effect a satisfactory settle ment within two (2) days. Stage 2: Failing a settle ment at Stage I, the member and/or his Branch Grievance Committee may approach the Head of the Personnel Unit of the Ministry/Department for a settlement. The Head of the Personnel Unit shall en deavour to meet the member and/or his Branch Grievance Committee as early as possi ble, but within two (2) work ing days, to effect a settle ment. Stage 3: Failing a settle ment at Stage 2, the Branch Secretary and/or the General Secretary of the Union may request, in writing, a meet ing with the settlementbringinsoontoHead,Secretary/DepartmentalPermanentwhoshallendeavourholdsuchameetingasaspossible,butwithfive(5)workingdays,toaboutasatisfactoryofthematter.
dustrialpalhasConciliation/mediationbeenoneoftheprincimeansusedtoresolveindisputes,withthe Chief Labour Officer being the chief conciliation officer. The Department of Labour, or the conciliation service, by virtue of the very nature of the ser vice provided, embodies the concept of non-political con ciliation/mediation, and must maintain a role of non-parti san conciliation/mediation if it is to enjoy the confidence of the social partners. It must function with credibility, im partiality, high profession al standards, and integrity to command the respect of social partners and state agencies. From the ILO perspective, conciliation and mediation are regarded as equivalent terms, referring essentially to the same kind of third-party in tervention to promote volun tary settlement of disputes. Technically, conciliation is limited to encouraging em ployers and unions to develop their own proposed solutions through rational discussion of their differences. Mediation, on the other hand, is a stron ger form of third-party inter vention, in which the mediator can offer to the parties propos als for settlement of any in dustrial dispute. In practice, however, the technical distinc tion is blurred or disappears, as both words are used in terchangeably to express the same process of third-party in tervention.Theuse of the conciliation service of the Department of Labour is required by a collec tive labour agreement, or at the intervention of the Chief Labour Officer; or, exception ally, by the Minister, given the fact that the Department is the sole agency which pro vides this service free to em ployers and unions. This is usually the required proce dure before resort to adjudi cation through arbitration or some other means for final settlement.
Dear Editor, The recent press confer ence given by Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo made it clear that there is a hate group fleecing the nation of its funds. The perpetration of such a fraud warrants an investiga tion and charges. The organi sation needs to be declared a hate group, and all of its as sets should be seized. Those in Government who have been aiding this anti-In dian hate group need to also be brought before the court for their roles in defrauding the Government and stealing the funds of our nation. We should have zero-tol erance for such hate groups that would dare to compare the policies of a “One Guyana” Government to apartheid. Look at the hardships that Indian South Africans suf fered under the rule of South Africans. We do not need that hatred spreading within our borders. No instigators of a civil war should be allowed to prosper in Guyana. Do not in stigate hatred and bring about the shedding of Guyanese blood.Indian-Guyanese, do not stand alone, and do not invite the wrath of our motherland. We have coexisted for cen turies, and the lust for rich es should not bring about the self-destruction of our nation. Those instigating trouble can jump on the Black Star Line and leave. Guyana is no place for you and those that think like you. Live peacefully with your neighbours from a differ ent race, or leave for your own motherland in Africa, where you can freely express your hate for Indians.
JamilSincerely,Changlee Dear Editor, Mohabir Anil Nandlall, SC, MP, Attorney-General and Minister of Legal Affairs, declared that “MY attention was drawn to an invitation to the public by an organisa tion describing itself as ‘The Cuffy 250 Committee’ to a forum that was supposed to be held on Sunday, August 21. This meeting, as we have now learned, has been pre maturely postponed or can celled”.The AG added, “The invi tation informs that it is the ‘9th annual forum on the state of African Guyanese’. (And that) “Invitees are re quested to discuss ‘Resisting the Emerging Apartheid State.’Anil Nandlall’s justified and legal wrath is centred on the actual theme (that was to be), “Resisting the Emerging Apartheid State,” as a description of condi tions in Guyana. Anil Nandlall embraced Mr. Floyd Haynes’s deci sion to refuse the invitation to participate, as he, too, is completely rejecting the odi ously untenable and falla cious phrase, ‘Resisting the Emerging Apartheid State’ to describe conditions in Guyana. Haynes seemed liv id, stating, “In my view, this statement is a disservice to all Guyanese; as such, I wish to categorically dissoci ate myself from it. More im portantly, I am a firm sup porter of His Excellency the President of Guyana, and I am absolutely convinced that it is not part of the President’s agenda to create any disparity based on race.” Now comes my take on the issue, and I hope to pro voke some serious consider ations and responses. First, it is that the AG almost be latedly came to the ‘party.’ He should have been ap prised (like ASAP) of this development. It was well advertised and promoted. So, my umbrage is that the Government media failed to pick up on it, neither did the “candid” and “independent” reporters “jump” on this distasteful and incitingly planned forum with its hor rible topic. I firmly believe that NCN, Chronicle and the DPI are simply perfuncto ry, non-combative, and illequipped. They seem to be lacking in ‘media sav vy’ and they are all failing to realise and internalise the ‘real issues’ of the day. As far as outreach goes, the Government media has the tiniest of Gettingaudiences.backto the AG, I really do welcome his er udite response on the is sue. He was succinct, terse, and most importantly, as is his wont, he took a legal stand on the issue. Noting that “Apart from the pat ent falsehood inherent in the theme, I am of the con sidered view that the entire discussion likely to ensue (for now it will not) would be proscribed not only by the ordinary laws of Guyana, but by the supreme law, the Constitution.” He quite ac curately informed all that “Apartheid” is defined by the New Oxford Dictionary of English as “A policy or system of segregation or discrimination on grounds of race.” And indeed, as he added, we all know that “Historically, this phrase is used to describe a one-time government policy in South Africa.”What was poignant is that the AG pointed out that “Where Guyana is con cerned, Article 149 of the Constitution guarantees protection to every citizen against discrimination on the grounds of race, ethnic ity, religion etc.” Also, we must internalise that “The State of Guyana has signed and ratified every major in ternational treaty in this hemisphere which outlaws racial and ethnic discrimi nation.”Ithink there should be a “call-in” show, Government sponsored too, where the AG can take calls and ed ucate the public that in deed “Many of these trea ties (he alludes to) form part of the Fourth Schedule of the Guyana Constitution… (and that) Article 154 of that Constitution binds the Executive, the Legislature, the Judiciary, and all organs and agencies of Government to respect and uphold those rights…(as) “All persons, in stitutions and political par ties are prohibited from tak ing any action, or advancing, disseminating or communi cating any idea which may result in racial or ethnic di vision among the people.”
FROM
PAGE 4 forZero-tolerancehategroups
With SamuelThanksJGoolsarran
Editor, an August 20th letter to the editor in the lo cal media “Debunking the evil of Cuffy 250” preceded the AG’s dissertation. The writer was on target and in synchrony with the AG. He invoked the Government’s clear-cut policy of no-dis crimination. He pointed to what is happening with in the country in the ar eas of land distribution/ ti tling and education. What was very timely was his re minder of the ‘Because We Care’ cash grant, where Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand, vowed that each child in the public school system would bene fit from this yearly and ev er-increasing rollout. Priya, the writer noted, emphat ically emphasised that “Whether you’re African, Chinese, Indo-Guyanese, Amerindian, Portuguese, Mixed, you will leave here with your cash grant, be cause we’re not asking forum
Labour dispute
AG’s debunking of now postponed/cancelled “Cuffy 250” malicious
TUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2022 5guyanatimesgy.com You can send your letters with pictures to: Guyana Times, Queens Atlantic Investment Estate Industrial Site, Ruimveldt, Georgetown, Guyana or letters@guyanatimesgy.com 06:00 (Sign on) Inspirational Time 06:30 Cartoons 07:00 Evening News (RB) 08:00 Stay Woke 08:30 MasterChef Junior 09:30 National Geographic 10:00 Celebrity IOU 11:00 Paternity Court 11:30 Divorce Court 11:49 Weekly Digest R/B 12:00 Movie - A Love Yarn (2021) 14:00 The Thundermans S4 E27 14:30 Liv and Maddie S2 E18 15:00 Indian Soaps 15:30 President’s Diary R/B 16:00 Henry Danger S1 E16 16:30 Inspector Gadget 17:00 The Young & The Restless 18:00 CNN 18:30 Teaching the Truth in Love 19:00 The Evening News 20:00 Stop Suffering 20:30 Brooklyn Nine-Nine S5 E17 21:00 Dynasty S2 E10 22:00 Blacklist S5 E17 23:00 The Vampire Diaries S5 E20 00:00 Sign off Tuesday, August 23, 2022
about your ethnicity. This morning, whether you are Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Rastafarian, nothing or Baháí, once your children are in school, you will leave here with the cash grant.” Again, kudos to the AG, who went full throttle in delineating that the cur rent Administration is most averse to anything discrim inatory. So let me finish off by going back to the Rodney Commission of Inquiry. I think our memo ry is fresh. It was in May 2016, and only after lots of dalliance from the then APNU/AFC Government and some three months after the Commission of Inquiry Report was received that the said APNU/AFC Government finally handed over the report to the then House Speaker Dr. Barton Scotland, to be properly laid in the National Assembly. I add that pressure from the then Opposition People’s Progressive Party (PPP) led to this, and even so, erst while Attorney General Basil Williams insisted that the Report was flawed and will be challenged. This begs the logical question, “Which Government is pro-Afri can?”The details of that saga show that even before this Report was laid out, the PNCR, the main component of the Opposition Coalition at that time, avowed re peatedly that it was not going to participate in the Commission of Inquiry into the death of Walter Rodney. So, yet again, my question looms up, “Who is really on the side of Afro-Guyanese?” And therefore, “From whence cometh the idea of an ‘Emerging Apartheid’ State’?”May I remind people, as did the AG, that this coun try is the vanguard an ti-discrimination land, as “Guyana’s Constitution establishes a broadbased Ethnic Relations Commission to which the citizenry can complain against racial, ethnic, and other forms of discrimina tion”. Also, that “The (said) Commission has a wide plenitude of powers to inves tigate those complaints, and to take remedial actions.” I challenge readers to cogitate on the reality that a total of over three de cades of rulership was in the hands of the PNC and APNU combined. In all of those years, Afro-Guyanese were left indigent, and their villages, at times, were like ghost towns. Contrast all of this with what are now the happenings in Golden Grove, Buxton, Agricola and Linden etc. I rest my case with reminders that I wish for a call-in programme with the AG leading the way, and for the Government media to be more pro-active, pro found and immediate.
resolution...
Yours Deodattruly,Singh
By The BroThers Grimm FROM MONDAY
Multiplying decimals Exercises:Multiply 1) 3.2 x 85.4 2) 1.0 x 3.3 3) 14.56 x 74.9 4) 4.5 x 90.9 5) 9.8 x 980.980 6) 2.22x 46.4 Multiplying decimals and whole numbers is exactly like multiplying whole numbers – except for one important thing. You have to count the number of total decimal places in the numbers you multiply. When you multiply decimals, you don’t have to line up the decimal points.
WORD SEARCH Page Foundation 6 TUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2022 ◄
There was a king who had twelve beautiful daughters. They slept in twelve beds all in one room; and when they went to bed, the doors were shut and locked up; but every morning their shoes were found to be quite worn through as if they had been danced in all night; and yet nobody could find out how it happened, or where they had been. Then the king made it known to all the land, that if any person could discover the secret, and find out where it was that the princesses danced in the night, he should have the one he liked best for his wife, and should be king after his death; but whoever tried and did not succeed, after three days and nights, should be put to death. A king’s son soon came. He was well entertained, and in the evening was taken to the chamber next to the one where the princesses lay in their twelve beds. There he was to sit and watch where they went to dance; and, in order that nothing might pass without his hearing it, the door of his chamber was left open. But the king’s son soon fell asleep; and when he awoke in the morning he found that the princesses had all been dancing, for the soles of their shoes were full of holes. The same thing happened the second and third night: so the king ordered his head to be cut off. After him came several others; but they had all the same luck, and all lost their lives in the same manner.
CONTINUED
Chief Medical Officer Dr Narine Singh
“Anybody presenting with typical clinical symp toms of monkeypox, those symptoms should be report ed so we have our response team go out and help with the evaluation of that pa tient. This is the protocol we have followed in this partic ular instance,” Dr Anthony furtherNowasserted.thatthere is a case, the plan is to purchase ad ditional test kits to ensure adequate supplies. It was identified that while cas es spread in different parts of the world, detection be comes of paramount impor tance for Guyana. Confidence President Irfaan Ali, during an engagement with the media on the sidelines of an event, placed his confi dence in the Health Ministry to handle this new develop ment and the monkeypox epidemic.The Head of State shared, “I’m very confident in the Ministry of Health. We have already ordered vaccines some time ago al though there is very limited supply. The system at Ocean View has already been acti vated and there has been greater monitoring.” It was communicat ed that no restrictions will be imposed. Dr Ali said the country needs better re sponsibility instead. Based on monitoring and contact tracing, vaccines will be ad ministered as he postulated that the immunisation of ev ery citizen is not feasible nor needed. Symptoms Monkeypox would ap pear as a rash. Once infect ed, a person can spend from seven to 21 days in incuba tion before the symptoms manifest.The acute skin rash may be present with mac ulopapular (flat based le sions) to vesicles (fluid-filled blisters), pustules, and sub sequent crusting affecting the face, palms of the hand, soles of the feet and the rest of the body. It may be accompanied with headache, acute onset of fever, myalgia, back pain, asthenia and lymphadenop athy.Monkeypox is transmit ted to humans through close contact with an infected per son or animal, or with ma terial contaminated with the virus. It is transmit ted from one person to an other by close contact with lesions, body fluids, respi ratory droplets and contami nated materials such as bed ding or clothing.
…do
Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony
Just this month, the Health Minister announced that Guyana’s borders and ports of entry were being monitored for any potential cases of monkeypox. The Ministry had been putting contingency plans in place, and also deploying resources to treat any cases that arise. Doctors and other medi cal staffers were also briefed on the protocols to be fol lowed should persons pres ent themselves at any health facility with symp toms associated with mon keypox. Meanwhile, persons were sent for training to support testing capacity at the National Public Health Reference Laboratory.
7 TUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2022 | GUYANATIMESGY.COM NEWS
Guyana’s 1st monkeypox case detected not panic – Health Minister to population
By Rupa SeenaRaine The global outbreak of monkeypox is raging on and Guyana offi cially declared its first case on Monday after laboratory testing confirmed the virus in a Region Four (DemeraraMahaica) male. This new epidemic has been declared a pub lic health emergency by the World Health Organisation, with detection of monkeypox in 95Healthterritories.Minister, Dr Frank Anthony addressed the country’s patient zero in a recorded statement just after reports surfaced about the infection. The in fected person is in his fifties and hails from Region Four (Mahaica-Berbice). After developing signs of mon keypox, the man visited a health facility where doctors treated the case as a sus pected one and followed es tablished protocols. The sample was taken and processed, where it con firmed to be that of monkey pox. “Over the last weekend, we had a case of suspected monkeypox. Clinically, the person had all the signs and symptoms of monkeypox and we have been able to do that by using the PCR test ing to do the confirmatory diagnosis. So, we now have our first case of monkey pox in Guyana,” the Health Minister announced. The person has been isolated at the Infectious Diseases Hospital, Liliendaal on the East Coast of Demerara (ECD), where a section of the facility had been isolated in the event of a monkeypox detection locally. Those who were in contact with him have been quarantined.“Thatpatient is stable and doing very well. The persons who the patient had been in contact with over this period, we’ve also spoken to them and they’re right now in quarantine. While we have our first case, we have been preparing and taking precautions to make sure that whenever we have a case, we would be able to detect that case properly and confirm it with labora toryUpdatinganalysis.”that the pa tient is stable, the senior health official assured the public that authorities are taking all the necessary measures, and the Health Ministry is equipped with diagnostic capabilities. Moreover, he is urging the general public not to panic.Dr Anthony expressed, “I don’t want people to pan ic because monkeypox is not something that is readily transmissible. You have to be in very, very close contact with that person and the le sions on their skin or the liq uids that come out of those lesions before you can actu ally get sick. This is some thing that as we continue managing it as we are right now, that people would be quiteFromsafe.”March to present, over 42,666 cases have sur faced globally. Across the Region, cases have been detected in countries like Cuba, Barbados, Jamaica, Bahamas and Brazil. Brazil has been plagued with over 3000 infections.
Chief Medical Officer, Dr Narine Singh advised during the update, “If you know someone is infected and have typical lesions, the idea is to stay away from them and avoid close contact. That will actually provide them from getting the transmission. That is why one of the public health measures is to isolate those who are infected to re duceShouldcontact.”a person notice such symptoms, the CMO said they can seek medical attention in both the public and private sector. Vaccines Presently, antiretroviral treatment is used but it is not widely available around the world. Guyana has made attempts to procure some smallpox vaccines through the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO). These are manufactured by Bavarian Nordic but de mand is at its peak. Providing an update on these efforts, the Health Minister shared, “We have been working with PAHO and we have been able to place an order for vaccines. The hope is that maybe in another month, we should get our first set of vaccines, specifically for monkeypox coming in to Guyana. We have taken steps to be able to manage this disease.”
The petition filed by Claudette Thorne and Heston Bostwick sought to have the results of the March 2020 national elections inval idated on the ground of seri ous non-compliance with the Constitution of Guyana and electoral laws as it relates to GECOM’s conduct over those elections.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2022 | GUYANATIMESGY.COM 8 NEWS
The views expressed in this column are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Guyana Times’ editorial policy and stance
O ne of the constants of a colonial education was captured by a poem, “Try again”: Drive the nail aright, boys; Hit it on the head; Strike with all your might, boys, While the iron's red. When you've work to do, boys, Do it with a will; They who reach the top, boys, First must climb the hill. Standing at the foot, boys, Gazing at the sky, How can you get up, boys, If you never try?” Well, Raila Odinga of Kenya had tried FOUR times to become the President of Kenya, but, sadly, he just failed in his fifth. He’s 77, so will he go for number 6 in 2027?!! He followed in the footsteps of his father Oginga Odinga, who remained in the shadow of his rival Jomo Kenyatta and only went as far as Vice President. In Kenya’s ethnicised politics, he was a Luo, one of the larger Kenyan tribes to Kenyatta’s Kikuyus. With Raila’s defeat, a Luo still hasn’t become President – not an inconsequential fact in divided societies!! He lost to William Ruto, a Kalenjin from one of the larger tribes, and a millionaire who rose from being a chicken farmer to being a Minister in several past Governments. Ruto’s seen as a master political strategist, and thought he’d hit the jackpot after teaming up with Jomo Kenyatta’s son Uhuru to defeat Raila, the eternal challenger. He and Uhuru publicly agreed that he’d support the latter 10 years and then have his turn. But before the second term was over, Uhuru did a famous “handshake” with his old rival Raila and supported him in the last elections. It was clear that having lost in a bid to allow a third term, he’d struck a deal to run the Govt with Raila as a proxy!! But Ruto reinvented himself as a “hustler”representing the majority of Kenyans who saw themselves as “hustling” to make a living - and Kenyatta and Odinga as the old deal-making “dynasty”!!
Jealous cogger!!
Readers are invited to send their comments by email to eye@guyanatimesgy.com
Police traffic ranks on the East Coast of Demerara (ECD) have arrested and charged two persons, including a teenag er for allegedly driving while they were above the pre scribed alcohol limit. They will be ar raigned this week before a Magistrate. Charged are Sachin Singh, 19, of Second Street, Belmonte, Mahaica, ECD, and 27-year-old Ryan Dabyram of Supply, Mahaica,DrivingECD.while above the prescribed alcohol limit at tracts a charge for the of fence of driving under the in fluence (DUI) which carries a fine. Persons can be charged for this traffic violation if, when tested, their blood al cohol content is found to ex ceed the prescribed limit of 35 micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath, and their blood alcohol con centration exceeds 80 milli grams of alcohol in 100 mil lilitres of blood. The Guyana Police Force (GPF) has launched country wide campaigns aimed at en couraging drivers to practice safe road Duringuse.the campaigns, Police ranks would lecture drivers on the road safety theme: “Arrive Alive, Stop Speeding, Don’t Drink & Drive”; obeying traffic offi cials, signs, and functions of the traffic light; adherence to the speed limits, and mainte nance of motor vehicles. They are also advised against using handheld de vices while driving and driv ing a vehicle under the influ ence of alcohol. Drivers were also encouraged to ensure that their driver’s licence and other documents are up to date before using a motor vehicle; and to practice the five Cs—care, caution, con sideration, common sense, and courtesy when using the roadways.Police statistics show that driving under the in fluence of alcohol and exces sive speeding are the leading causes of accidents, includ ing fatal ones, in Guyana. (G1)
Learning...
Teen among 2 slapped with DUI charges
The CCJ has reserved its ruling. (G1)
Four Elections Commissioners - appointed by Kenyatta – said the 100.01 total indicated fraud: the Chairman pointed to rounding off!! As he’d done before, Odinga’s gone to the Courts. The 2017 elections, with Uhuru winning, had been overturned on ballot-counting claims, and new elections were held after 60 days. This time Raila’s questioning the transmission of the data!! Guyana should note that Kenyan elections’ appeals gotta be resolved in FOURTEEN DAYS!! Where’s ours?? …priorities
Yep!!
As a non-Christian school kid who was forced to attend church, he yet remembers the homily “What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world yet forfeits his soul?” So, as we’re being overrun with infrastructural projects like roads, bridges, overpasses, airports, hotels (coming out of our kazoos!), he thinks, “What will it profit us Guyanese if we gain this bright new world yet forfeit our health??!! We’re a looooong way from being where we could be; say like with Singapore’s health facilities and system!! But we gotta admit there’s been some improvements, and – a Hallelujah anyone? - it was just announced that more’s on the way with an IDB loan of US$160 MILLION for “Improving Health facilities and delivery”!! That’s right, folks, our leaders are in so much of a rush to fix our health system that they aren’t waiting for the oil money to trickle in, but are willing to go out on a limb to get the funds!!Now, if that’s not getting our priorities right, what is?? Hallelujah!! …on agriculture
APNU/AFC MP Roysdale Forde, SC
The petitioners had con tended that Section 22 of the Elections Law (Amendment) Act and Order #60, also known as the Recount Order, were in violation of the Constitution.However, in dismiss ing the petition, the Chief Justice held that the peti tioners failed to present ev idence to support that the conduct of the elections con travened the Constitution and electoral laws. She ruled that neither Section 22 nor the Recount Order was ul tra vires the Constitution, adding that Article 162 of the Constitution empowered GECOM to take whatever ac tions were necessary to con clude the elections, including embarking on a recount of all ballots.Alluding to the events that occurred after the close of polls, Justice George not ed, “Given the difficulties, it does appear that it would not have been prudent for GECOM to declare the re sults in the peculiar circum stances that accompanied the completion of the process of the March 2 Elections. A combination of Article 162 (1) (b) of the Constitution and Section 22 confer the power upon GECOM to issue this [Recount] Order, if GECOM considered it necessary or expedient to ensure impar tiality, fairness, and compli ance… as regards the elec tion process.”
Sachin SinghRyan Dabyram APNU/AFC Member of Parliament (MP), Senior Counsel Roysdale Forde has decried the slow pace at which the party’s second election peti tion is moving at the Court of Appeal of Guyana and is pre paring to file an application to have the matter expedited. In June 2021, Forde ap pealed to the appellate court against Chief Justice Roxane George, SC’s April 26, 2021 decision, dismissing the coali tion’s second election petition which challenged the results of the March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections. But more than a year af ter the appeal was filed, the matter is yet to be heard. Asked on Monday what is causing the delay, Forde re lated that the record of ap peal is not prepared because the court does not have the Chief Justice’s written deci sion. In the circumstances, he said, “I am preparing to file an application asking for the matter to be expedited.”
Not in violation But coalition lawyers in their appeal contended that Justice George erred in law when she ruled that Section 22 of the Elections Law (Amendment) Act 2000 and Order #60 made thereunder were not in violation of the Constitution.According to them, by vir tue of their application for the election results to be de clared invalid, both Section 22 and Order #60 which flowed directly from Article 162 were in conflict with and or contravened Article 177 of the InConstitution.courtdocuments seen by this publication, they fur ther contended that Justice George again erred in law when she found that Order #60 was a mechanism to al low for the recount to be con ducted by expanding the recount provisions in the Representation of the People ActThe(RoPA).petitioners submit ted that Justice George erred in law when she failed to find that the mechanisms set out in Order #60 amounted to a substantial variation from the RoPA and consequent ly could not be said to have “merely modified” the said Act.Besides that, they com plained that she erred in law when she ruled that they did not produce evidence that claimed that the elections were not lawfully conducted. Like before the High Court, they have gone to the appel late court arguing that there was no need for the pro duction of any evidence ex cept the declarations by the Returning Officers and the recountThornefigures.and Bostwick, among other things, argue that the Chief Justice erred in law when she rejected the evidence before the court which established that there was a difference in the re corded figures for the polit ical parties in the Official Gazette dated August 20, 2020, in which results were declared pursuant to Order #60 from a letter by for mer Chief Elections Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield to GECOM’s Chairperson, Retired Justice Claudette Singh.
The tactic worked, and in the Aug 9 election, with 22.1 million registered Kenyans eligible, Ruto received 7,176,141 (50.49 percent) of the votes, narrowly beating his rival Raila Odinga, who managed 6,942,930 votes (48.85 percent) and other candidates 93,956 (0.6%). Talk about razor thin margins!!
And here your Eyewitness thought that Suriname’s President Santokhi was a friend of our Pres Ali. If he were, would he rush to steal the latter’s thunder by offering land to Caricom for agriculture??
APNU/AFC to ask Appeal Court to expedite 2nd election petition
…from Kenya
Thrown out Both of APNU/AFC’s elections petitions have now been dismissed by the Chief Justice. In January 2021, she dismissed the APNU/AFC’s election petition which was filed by Brennan Nurse and Monica Thomas owing to their non-compliance with ef fecting service on President DavidTheGranger.partyappealed her ruling to the Court of Appeal of Guyana, which by a ma jority decision on December 21, 2021, held that it had ju risdiction to hear an appeal against a ruling of the High Court to dismiss an election petition on the basis of proce dural impropriety. In so doing, the Court of Appeal rejected arguments by Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister Anil Nandlall, SC, that the court had no jurisdiction to hear and determine the appeal; neither from statute, the Constitution nor does it have an inherent Meanwhile,jurisdiction.ina con solidated appeal at the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) which was heard on July 19, Nandlall, and Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo, in his capacity as General Secretary of the PPP/C, ar gued that the Court of Appeal erred and therefore its deci sion should be overturned.
“Paper Shorts” murder
I’ve always said, we are a Government with trans parency. So, the questions arose about the investiga tion. I reached out to the RSS. And I’ve asked them to assess and evaluate what is taking place currently with the investigation.” “And give us their opin ion. And that is what they’ll do. We hope they’re here as we speak. Because we have definitely communicated our eagerness to have this (investigated),” President Ali Thesaid. RSS is a defence and security alliance of the Eastern Caribbean Region.
Govt asks regional security agency for investigative help
9 TUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2022 | GUYANATIMESGY.COM NEWS
Ricardo “Paper Shorts” Fagundes President Dr Irfaan Ali
RSS Headquarters are lo cated in Barbados and is the Coordinating Secretariat of the Caricom Security Assistance Mechanism. As a result, it has additional responsibilities to the wider CaricomGovernmentRegion. had pre viously sought assistance from the RSS, to aid in vestigators with the 2020 killings of the Henry cous ins, Isaiah and Joel Henry, along with Haresh Singh and Chatterpaul Harripaul which occurred in the sub sequent aftermath during a widespread unrest. The five-member team, which was led by an Assistant Commissioner of Police and comprised offi cials from countries within the Regional Investigative Management Systems (RIMS), was in Guyana for one week. It subsequent ly completed its report and handed it over to the Guyana Police Force (GPF), recommending that the Police do additional work. Ricardo “Paper Shorts” Fagundes was killed exe cution-style in March 2021 outside a popular Main Street, Georgetown night spot. Reports are the man was partying with a group of friends at the bar when his phone rang and he exit ed the club to take the call, but soon after, was shot and killed. Days after being bust ed along with others by the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) with cocaine, Sergeant Dion Bascom claimed during a Facebook Live that he was being set up and alleged that a senior Police officer is covering up the murder of Fagundes. Since making his al legations, Bascom is fac ing three lawsuits that run into several millions of dol lars. They are from Police Superintendent Mitchell Caesar, the senior cop whom he alleged is cover ing-up Fagundes’s murder; from Mark Richmond; and from Richmond’s employ er, businessman Azruddin Mohamed.Bascom, through his lawyer, has since written President Ali for witness protection after report edly being threatened. In the letter to President Ali, Bascom claimed that even though he was directed to arrest a person of interest in the case, the person had advance warning and sub sequently called to threat en him.But the Protected Disclosure Act of 2018, states “(1) Where a per son seeks to make a disclo sure in pursuance of this Act, in relation to a mat ter that would prejudice the national security, de fence, or international re lations of Guyana, the clo sure shall be made to the President, the Minster or the Ministers responsible for National Security. (2) The President, the Minister, and the Ministers responsi ble for public security shall establish and cause to be operated procedures for re ceiving, investigating or otherwise dealing with dis closures made under sub section (1).” On this note, President Ali had stated previously that he was yet to see the content of the letter, but once he has a look at it he will address the issue. Meanwhile, on Friday, Bascom and his attorney Nigel Hugues again made several statements in con nection with the case but the Guyana Police Force was quick to point out sev eralThediscrepancies.Forcereiterated that it is currently being as sisted by an international ly recognised law enforce ment agency in conducting the Ricardo Fagundes mur der probe. Further, it stated that items recovered from the crime scene were also sent overseas for analysis and are still to be returned. (G3)
T he Government has engaged the Regional Security System (RSS) to seek external as sistance in its efforts to solve the murder of Ricardo “Paper Shorts” Fagundes. This was confirmed by President Dr Irfaan Ali in an interview with the media on the sidelines of an event on Monday. According to him, the Government is ea ger to have this investiga tion move forward and be concluded.“Itsindependent.
Convicted: Bibi Shareema Gopaul
The late Neesa Gopaul would have turned 28 this yearCCJ Judge Peter Jamadar
(G1) 10 TUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2022 | GUYANATIMESGY.COM NEWS
Neesa Gopaul’s murder
M others always love their chil dren; they are sup posed to be good to them. But Neesa Lalita Gopaul’s mother, Bibi Shareema Gopaul, was not good. The 57-year-old woman be trayed her 16-year-old daughter in the worst pos sibleSheway.callously murdered her, depriving her of her right to live in a safe and nurturing environment and her chance to learn, grow and realise her full poten tial.This was the view ex pressed by Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) Judge Peter Jamadar in his writ ten judgement, in which the regional court, by a majori ty, upheld the mother’s con viction for her daughter’s 2010 murder and reduced her jail sentence from 45 to 25 years.Bibi’s lover, Jarvis Small, 44, who had been jointly tried with her and convicted of the teen’s mur der in 2015, was, howev er, freed, after the CCJ al lowed his appeal against conviction and sentence, on finding that prejudicial evi dence admitted at his trial rendered his conviction un safe.The badly decomposed body with the head bashed in of the younger Gopaul was found stuffed in a suitcase in a creek at the Emerald Tower Resort, at Madewini, Linden-Soesdyke Highway on October 2, 2010. Also discovered were her pass port, bank card, and other personal items. The suitcase was wrapped with rope and at tached to dumb-bells in an apparent effort to keep her body submerged. The straight A Queen’s College student was found days af ter she was reported miss ing from her Leonora, West Coast Demerara (WCD) home by her mother. Her cause of death was given as multiple blunt force trauma to the head. Her mother and Small were arrested the day after her remains were discov ered at a hotel where they were found by the Police sit ting next to each other. Betrayal, cruelty “We [the CCJ] cannot help but feel empathy for Neesa and all concerned for their irreparable loss and suffering,” Justice Jamadar wrote, adding that Neesa’s murder was “gruesome as it was callous and inflicted as it was by a mother on her daughter, an act of betrayal and cruelty.” Reflecting on the teen’s life, the CCJ Judge said that she was born in 1994 and would have been cel ebrating her 28th birth day this year. Shortly af ter her birth, he said her family moved from Anna Catherina, another village on the WCD to Leonora. Neesa, he shared, spent her childhood days in Leonora, attending the Leonora Nursery School and then the Leonora Primary School, where she performed outstandingly at the then Common Entrance Exams, placing in the top 15 in Guyana which earned her a spot at the prestigious Queen’s College. According to him, Neesa was a Muslim, had a younger sis ter, a grandfather, friends, and a dog named “Tiger” and was surely loved and admired by many. “No doubt, her death and the inhumane way in which she died have left painful and enduring scars in the hearts and minds of family, friends, and commu nities,” said the Judge. Prosecution’s case To convict the older Gopaul, the prosecution re lied on the testimony of its main witness, Simone De Nobrega, who was at the time awaiting trial for of fences related to obtain ing credit by false pretence. De Nobrega had testi fied to meeting Bibi in the Police lock-ups, where Bibi confessed about her and Small’s role in the girl’s mother.The witness had testi fied that Bibi told her that she and Small had an ex tra-marital affair and that he eventually encouraged her to kill her husband, Javed Gopaul, and she did by poisoning him. She fur ther related that Neesa sub sequently found out about her father’s poisoning, made a report to the Police, and later talked about pur suing that report. As a result, she said Bibi told her that she and Small made plans to kill herOndaughter.theday of the mur der, Bibi was with her two daughters and Small in a car along the LindenSoesdyke Highway. While the younger daughter was asleep, Small began stran gling Neesa in the car. Her mother then stopped the car on a trail where Small took Neesa out of the car and bludgeoned her on the head with a piece of wood before placing her body in the car’s trunk. They then left the scene of the crime, leaving Neesa’s lifeless body over night in the vehicle. The mother disclosed to her cellmate that on the ad vice of Small, she took per sonal items that belonged to her daughter from her home, such as her bank book, passport, and reli gious robe to make it ap pear as though the teen had run away. She also told her cellmate that she took a pair of dumb-bells that Small had given her and a length of rope to attach the weights to the suitcase in which they had planned to place her daughter’s body to keep it submerged. The lovers returned to the scene the next day and stuffed the girl’s body in the suitcase with the person al items before submerging it in a creek by weighing it down with dumb-bells and rope.Bibi and Small were ini tially sentenced to 106 and 96 years’ imprisonment, re spectively, after they were found unanimously guilty of Neesa’s murder follow ing a trial before Justice Navindra Singh at the Demerara High Court in March 2015. The pair short ly after lodged separate ap peals against their convic tions and sentences at the Court of Appeal of Guyana, which in August 2021, af firmed their convictions but reduced their prison term to 45 years each. Dissatisfied, they chal lenged the local appel late court’s decision at the Trinidad-based CCJ, which delivered its ruling last Friday, settling the more than a decade-old case that had sent shockwaves throughout the country. Bibi only becomes eligible for parole after the expira tion of 15 years.
A mother’s betrayal that has left “painful, enduring scars” – CCJ Judge
Freed: Jarvis Small
“Some of them are en gaging in dumping garbage within the city…we had one threatening people on Carmichael Street opposite Scotiabank. The bank had to call me to look into that. We had that person escorted to the City Constabulary and we gave them a warning,” the Mayor told media oper atives.Afew months ago, Head of the Guyana Police Force’s Traffic Department, Ramesh Ashram called for the remov al of vagrants. According to the Traffic Chief, they pose dangers not only to them selves but to other road us ers as well. In fact, Ashram had disclosed that three per sons lost their lives in 2021 as a result of being at inter sections. The Traffic Chief had fur ther opined that the Human Services Ministry needs to play a part in getting those persons off the streets, to aid in the reduction of road fa talities.Last year the Human Services and Social Security Ministry announced its aim to boost capacity at the Georgetown Night Shelter to tackle vagrants in the city. In June of 2022, a $5 million wing at the Night Shelter with capacity for 120 was commissioned by Human Services and Social Security Minister, Dr Vindhya Persaud. (G12)
Symptomatic persons opting not to get tested for COVID-19; authorities concerned …6 cases recorded in 24h, 2 in ICU in Region 10. There are fixed vaccina tion sites across the country where both paediatric and adult doses are being admin istered. With the impending reopening of schools in a few weeks, the Health Minister is advising parents to get their children immunised. “With the Ministry of Education, we have been working with them to see which schools might be ready. The Ministry, when school is in session, has been sending out letters to the parents to say that we are doing a vaccination drive. The parent would have to send back a consent form, authorising that their child take the vaccine,” Dr Anthony added. In the Region of the Americas, that is, Latin America and the Caribbean, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases has in creased to 173 million while the death toll in the region has gone up to 2.9 million. Globally, there were 590 million confirmed positives with 6.4 million deaths. If anyone is displaying any of the symptoms asso ciated with COVID-19 or needs any additional in formation, they are asked to contact the COVID-19 Hotline 231-1166, 226-7480 or 624-6674 immediately or visit www.health.gov.gy. (G12)
11 TUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2022 | GUYANATIMESGY.COM NEWS GUYANA COVID-19 DASHBOARD AUGUST 22, 2022 UPDATE GET MEDICAL ADVICE ON COVID-19 FROM MOH 24/7 HOTLINE NUMBERS: 2311166; 226 7480; 624 6674; 624 2819; 624 3067 OR 180/181. NUMBER OF NEW CASES 6 NUMBER OF PERSONS IN INSTITUTIONAL ISOLATION 13 NUMBER OF PERSONS IN HOME ISOLATION 360 NUMBER OF PERSONS IN COVID-19 ICU 2 NUMBER OF PERSONS IN INSTITUTIONAL QUARANTINE 3 TOTAL CONFIRMED CASES BY GENDER (FEMALES) 38,366 TOTAL CONFIRMED CASES BY GENDER (MALES) 32,449 TOTAL CONFIRMED CASES IN GUYANA SINCE 2020 70,815 NUMBER OF RECOVERED CASES 69,162 TOTAL 1st DOSE VACCINATED 445,650 FULLY IMMUNISED 345,342 TOTAL NUMBER OF DEATHS 1278 DISTRIBUTION OF TOTAL CONFIRMED CASES SINCE MARCH 2020 REGION 1 2684 REGION 2 3126 REGION 3 8716 REGION 4 35,228 REGION 5 2571 REGION 6 6877 REGION 7 2651 REGION 8 917 REGION 9 4331 REGION 10 3714 HERE IS HOW YOU CAN BE SAFE DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC Wear a face mask. Keep a physical distance of at least 6 Washfeet. your hands or use handIfsanitizeryouhave any symptoms, call the COVID-19 Hotline. Even when present ed with signs and symptoms of the COVID-19, persons are choosing not to get tested for the virus. This has created a blurred picture on the grav ity of infection spread in the country.Active cases account for 486 of the total coronavi rus infections recorded to date. During the COVID-19 update on Monday, Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony pointed out that there con tinues to be an underesti mate of Thisinfections.islinked to low ered daily testing because persons are not presenting themselves to be swabbed while others are not report ing their positive status to the“PeopleMinistry.are having signs and symptoms of COVID because they’re not testing. Even when some of them do self-testing, they’re not re porting it. We don’t have a very accurate picture of how many persons might have tested positive.” In Guyana, six new pos itives were reported on Monday. Confirmed cases are pegged at 70,815 – com prising of 32,449 males and 38,366Therefemales.are15 hospitalised cases, inclusive of two per sons in the Intensive Care Unit. The dashboard shows 13 persons in institutional isolation, 360 in home isola tion and three in institution al quarantine. On the other hand, 69,162 persons have recoveredDeathscompletely.haveremained at 1278. To date, Guyana has processed 685,138 tests for COVID.Abreakdown of active infections reflects two in Region Two, 15 in Region Two, 81 in Region Three, 187 in Region Four, 18 in Region Five, 34 in Region Six, 26 in Region Seven, five in Region Eight, nine in Region Nine and nine in Region 10. “COVID does not ex empt anyone. If you’re not wearing a mask and you’re around somebody that is positive for COVID, you are going to get infected. The thing is that different indi viduals would react differ ently to the virus,” warned the Health Minister. Vaccination Vaccination figures show that so far, 445,755 or 86.9 per cent of adults have tak en a first dose, while some 345,481 or 67.3 per cent of persons are fully vaccinated. For adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17, 35,552 first doses or 48.7 per cent and 26,049 or 35.7 per cent second doses have been ad ministered.Vaccination for chil dren in the five to 11 cate gory shows 7681 first doses or 7.5 per cent. Only 2818 or 2.8 per cent have returned for their second shot. In ad dition, 72,144 persons have returned for their booster shots thus far. There is an uptake of 1384 booster doses in Region One, 3232 in Region Two, 9702 in Region Three, 36,098 in Region Four, 4252 in Region Five, 11,552 in Region Six, 955 in Region Seven, 1066 in Region Eight, 3039 in Region Nine and 863
Mayor wants special unit to take vagrants off city streets Buildings
The Georgetown Mayor and City Council is advocating for the es tablishment of a special unit to rehabilitate social rejects and get them off the streets. Mayor Ubraj Narine shared at a recent press con ference that there needs to be a unit to handle the ongo ing issue of vagrants on the streets of Georgetown.
“We continue to advo cate at the level of the City Council to the Ministry and also other Government agencies, NGOs and other stakeholders, to let us come together and see how we can establish a special unit to deal with social rejects with in the city of Georgetown.” Mayor Narine said a com prehensive plan to address this issue was formulated and shared with the Human Services and Social Security Ministry. According to him, having these persons reha bilitated is in the best inter est of the “Socialcity.rejects within the city of Georgetown have been a problem for many de cades…We’re really in need to have the social rejects placed in a home, where they can get treatment and better care so that they can be off the Meanwhile,streets.”Narine add ed that some are involved in disruptive activities; one of the most recent matters led to a vagrant being escorted to the City Constabulary.
File photo: Vagrants in front of the Parliament
Squatters who are occupying land along Independence Boulevard in Albouystown, Georgetown have been asked by the Government to vacate same, which is Government- reserved, as a major urbanisation project is being geared up to begin. Continuing with the en hancements project being done within the Georgetown area, Public Works Minister Juan Edghill on Monday launched the project along Independence Boulevard and at Cemetery Road, which will see persons who have homes and businesses on Independence Boulevard beingWhilerelocated. addressing community members of Independence Boulevard and surrounding areas, Edghill pointed out that Independence Boulevard is a Government reserve, and at no point were orders giv en to the public to build on the land. As such, he said, persons who have struc tures on the reserve would have to start relocating. “As far as I know, Independence Boulevard is a Government reserve, and the Government did not give anybody permission to build on the reserve. So, whoever has structures on the reserve, I’m giving pub lic notice, because you al ready got notice: that you got to start moving,” the Public Works Minister said. “We are not here to displace anybody, even though peo ple will have to move; we are bringing value to your neighbourhood.”Asofnow,no timeline has been made clear for how long the squatters have to vacate the reserve land, but Guyana Times understands from what Minister Edghill said at the launching event that the timeline may have expired, as the project is ex pected to begin very soon. He told contractors that the Government intends for the project to begin, and that the work starts “now.” “We want this project to begin. Work begins now. I will say it again, in case the contractors didn’t hear me: work begins now,” Edghill said.However, according to Edghill, there is a system in place for persons who have establishments and houses on the Boulevard. He noted that engineers have already mapped out the area, tak ing into consideration the structures that are erected on the reserve land. He said the information was gath ered and will be addressed by the Ministry of Housing and Water to assist with the facilitation of living ar rangements.Thisannouncement was welcomed with cheers from theLennoxresidents.Gibson, who has been living in Albouystown for ten years, told this pub lication that he appreciates the effort of the Government as they are on the path to “enhancing the value” of Albouystown with the en hancement project. The enhancement proj ect will see almost $1.5 bil lion being pumped into the upgrade and transformation of roads along Independence Boulevard and at Cemetery Road. “Independence Boulevard, all the way to the end, all the way through to Cemetery Road, will be upgraded”, it has been made clear.Works at Independence Boulevard will be completed in three lots, each lot being awarded to a different con tractor to speed up the con struction process.
…Cemetery Road to be upgraded into 4 lanes
Squatters to be removed from Independence Boulevard
Additionally, the en hancement project to be done along Independence Boulevard and at Cemetery Road would create job op portunities for the residents of Albouytown.Edghillstated that he discussed with the contrac tors that they must offer construction work to the residents before they offer anyone else.
4-lane road
“All of the contractors, they have already been told, while we are develop ing and enhancing the en vironment, people from the area [Albouystown] must get work. So, while we are bringing development, we’re also creating jobs,” the Minister said. He explained that the contracts weren’t reward ed to the residents because the job requires heavy-duty construction machines, ma chines that the contractors canEdghillprovide.said the project is part of the Government’s overall plan for the develop ment of South Georgetown. “What is happening here this afternoon [Monday] is not a one-off project. It’s not a token project, but it is a part of the Government’s overall plan for the develop ment of South Georgetown,” he said.TheMinister expects the project to be completed be fore the end of 2022. Earlier this year, after 12 months of work being done on it, the much antic ipated $2.3 billion four-lane Eccles-to-Mandela Highway opened in April, providing an alternate route for cars looking to avoid the East Bank Demerara (EBD) rush hour traffic. (Shane Marks)
12 TUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2022 | GUYANATIMESGY.COM NEWS
The Public Works Minister said the upgrade of Cemetery Road would resemble that of the re cent construction of Road.Vlissingen-to-Lamahathe Job Opportunities
….as $1.4B modernisation project is launched
Public Works Minister Juan Edghill Independence Boulevard, Albouystown
Lot one will see works being done from Saffon Street to La Penitence by Rim Construction Inc. Construction will be gin from La Penitence to Garnett Street, making up lot two, by IB Contracting and Machine Rental. Lot three will be done by C&L Construction Inc from Garnett Street to Cemetery Road.According to Edghill, the project will entail a “dou ble-lane carriageway on the northern side and a sin gle-lane carriageway on the southern side.”
The enhancement project does not stop at Independence Boulevard, it continues to Cemetery Road, which will see Avinash Contracting being responsible for the transfor mation of the road into four lanes.“In Cemetery Road -- we are now upgrading it; both of the carriageways, from Princess Street all the way out to Mandela Avenue -we are ensuring that you would get traffic two lanes going and two lanes coming. So, Cemetery [would be] turning into a four-lane.”
“So, you would end up having three lanes of traffic. Between those two carriage ways, we’re going to have a promenade. It will be three metres wide. On both sides of the road, we are putting in concrete drains,” he said. He added that utility posts along the area will be replaced by concrete posts. The Minister said the en hancement that will be done to the Boulevard would ele vate Albouystown from be ing a shantytown into be ing part of the developed Georgetown city. This, he said, would make the com munity attractive, thus in creasing property value while creating job oppor tunities for persons in the community.“Albouystown must move from being a shan tytown into being part of the development of the Georgetown city as this country modernises. We are making this community at tractive, so your property value must go up. People who didn’t want to come and live in this neighbourhood, when they see how it looks: properly lit, green spaces for children to play, safe neigh bourhood, they would want to start moving in. And with oil and gas and the expan sion, some of those interna tional companies must come to Albouystown and start setting up offices and build ing office complexes right here for you to be able to get jobs,” Edghill stated.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2022 | GUYANATIMESGY.COM
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Guyana’s President Dr Irfaan Ali and Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Amor Mottley, along with their delegations, visited Frigo 10, a state-of-the-art abattoir, during a visit to Brazil. They toured a soybean processing facility in the Brazilian State of Roraima, to get a first-hand look at the operations. The visit, meetings and tour were facilitated by Governor of Roraima, Antonio Denarium, at the Governor’s Palace in Boa Vista, Brazil (OPphotos)
President Irfaan Ali at the commissioning of the new $50 million Noitgedacht well in Wakenaam, Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West De merara). He was accompanied by Housing and Water Minister Collin Croal; Minister within the Housing Ministry, Susan Rodrigues; GWI CEO Shaik Baksh, and other Government and regional officials (OPphotos)
14 TUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2022 | GUYANATIMESGY.COM NEWS
GBTI’s first batch of work-study students
“That is why it is called our budget proposal. All of us are aware of the system of preparing a budget from the time of consultation to the time of passing of the bud get.”He explained that proj ects are approved based on priority.“We all are aware that more than likely, not every thing will form a part of the final budget proposal. We as a region will be happy if all of the projects people propose will be a part of the final doc ument. One thing I can say is that over the past two years, our budget would have ca tered for projects in almost every community, Pieters added.”“Those projects which were not a part of the final budget, I am sure will be add ed to this year’s proposal.” Last year the region had proposed a $6 billion bud get for 2022 – an increase of $2 billion over the previous year.However, the region was given a $4.8 billion alloca tion from the Government’s $552.9 billion budget for 2022.Apart from the budget of the RDC that was approved, there are also projects that went directly through the Neighbourhood Democratic Councils (NDCs). “So, while they go direct ly through the NDCs, they would have constituted proj ects that would have been done in Region Five. Several Ministries and Government agencies would also have executed projects in the regions during the year.Pieters encouraged all to play a role in the develop mental agenda in the region. (G4)
Regional Chairman (ag) Rian Pieters Councillor Emerson Benjamin
Budget 2023 Opposition Councillors call for information on Region 5's proposed budget
T hree persons have been questioned af ter Police were called in to investigate an alleged fraud committed at a rice company on the Corentyne, Region Six (East BerbiceCorentyne).Thiswas after the man agement of the company had reportedly discovered 16 fraudulent transactions committed between April 18 and June 28, 2022 and totalling in excess of $3.7M. This publication under stands that credit to the tune of $3,777,526 was tak en from the company in the name of a rice farm er from Black Bush Polder. Authorisations were pre sented to the company for fertiliser and spare parts totalling that amount. Two individuals, both from Port Mourant Corentyne, claimed they were given authorisa tion letters by the farmer, and were also presented with a copy of his National Identification (ID) Card. One of the men is the own er of a lorry, and the other owns a Meanwhile,car. after staff at the Nand Persaud Group of Companies opera tions at Number 36 Village Corentyne became suspi cious, they requested that the farmer present himself, and refused to issue the re quested spare parts. When contacted, the farmer indicated he had not authorised anyone to collect fertiliser or spare parts on his Abehalf.senior manager at Nand Persaud Group of Companies explained that the Police were called in while the company conduct ed its own plicatedpartscompanythewhoMeanwhile,investigation.thetwomenhadallegedlytakenauthorisationstotheandupliftedspareandfertilizerhaveimathirdperson,indi cating that they were hired by that man. The third per son implicated is also from PortAccordingMourant. to the rice farmer, he was contacted by the ‘mastermind’, who pre tended to be a Government official who was going to assist him to get fertiliser from the $1B assistance to farmers, as announced ear lier this year. He explained that he also gave the man informa tion about his credit limit at Nand Persaud, and details on arrangements with the millingPolicecompany.have since ar rested the three men from Port Mourant, and they have been released on sta tion bail. According to an officer close to the inves tigation, the Police are waiting on a report from a handwriting export before sending a file on the mat ter to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). (G4)
Guyanese woman escapes from immigration custody in BVI
The Opposition in Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice), A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC), has request ed that regional administra tion put forward its proposed budget so that Councillors will be able to analyse the proposals against the ap provedLeadbudget.Councillor Emerson Benjamin made the request at the Regional Democratic Council (RDC) meeting, say ing that Councillors are not aware of the proposals being put forward by the Administration to form the region’s budget. His comments came as the RDC was asked to put forward projects which would form part of the region’s 2023 budget.“When these projects go down for the budget to be passed for Region Five, we would like to know what are the projects that the Administration would have put forward. So, I can say to residents what this proj ect would have passed,” Emerson appealed to the RDC. Acting Chairman Rian Pieters pointed out that there is no assurance that once a project is proposed it will find itself as part of the approved budget.
Over $3M fraud unearthed at Corentyne rice mill British Virgin Islands Deputy Chief Immigration Officer, Nadia Demming-Hodge has advised the public to be on the lookout for Guyanese national Ianna Thomas who reportedly escaped from the department’s temporary detention facility at Hotel Castle Maria, on Monday, August“According22. to Mrs. Demming-Hodge, Ms. Thomas remains at large and a search is underway to recapture the detainee. The public is urged to be on the lookout and contact the Immigration Department in the event that Ms. Thomas is sighted.” press release from Government of the Virgin Islands stated. Anyone who has infor mation on the whereabouts of Ms. Thomas is asked to contact the Immigration Department at 468-4705, 468-4717, 468-4715 or 4684754 or the RVIPF hotline at 311.The Territory contin ues to see an influx of ille gal immigrants. While they do land in the BVI, histori cally, most of the illegal im migrants are on their way to the United States; however, once they are captured by lo cal authorities, the respon sibility is on the BVI to pro vide services and eventually arrange for their repatria tion to their home country. A detention centre had been built to house immi gration detainees in the compound of Her Majesty’s Prison, Balsum’s Ghut, but the facility is now be ing used by the prison. Late last year, then Minister for Immigration, Hon. Vincent Wheatley alluded to the need to build a detention centre for illegal immi grants, pointing to cost to taxpayers.Inrecent months, the Immigration Department has had to seek the pub lic’s help as detainees have found ways to escape from local hotels where they are usually held. (bviplatinum. com)
15 TUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2022 | GUYANATIMESGY.COM NEWS
Ianna Thomas Eleven students have benefited from the Guyana Bank for Trade & Industry Ltd’s (GBTI’s) first work-study pro gramme, which commenced on July 11 and concluded on August 19. In a statement issued on Monday, GBTI said stu dents who came from the Pure Master’s Academy and Covent Garden Secondary School were given the oppor tunity to learn some of the ba sics of Thebanking.students, the release stated, were grateful for their experience, and said it taught them discipline and how to operate in a professional workingSomeenvironment.ofthemexpressed an interest in wanting to work for the bank, as they felt empowered and wanted to contribute to the success of GBTI.According to the bank, the work-study programme is the bank’s way of providing an introduction to the world of work for the students, while at the same time positioning them to be part of the Bank’s CSRTheinitiatives.GBTI Work-Study programme will become an annual feature.
GBTI provides work-study opportunities for 11 youths
Natural Resources Ministry, through the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission, is working to repair and maintain hinterland roads and associated infrastructure (Natural Resources Ministry photos)
$3B to develop roads, other infrastructure in mining communities
M
iners will benefit sig nificantly from the provision of some $3 billion which will be utilised to further develop roads and other infrastructure in min ing communities this year. Natural Resources Minister Vickram Bharrat has said the investment forms part of Government’s commitment to develop the non-oil sectors. “In 2022, we are expend ing close to $3 billion on hin terland infrastructure; that is, mining and logging roads, and we will continue to en sure that these roads are in good condition, so that you can access properties,” the Minister said at the opening of the two-day Quarrying, Mining and Exploration Conference at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre on Monday.Henoted that Government is working to make more land available to small- and medium-scale miners. The Minister said it is one of the major challenges in the in dustry.“This is something that we are looking at. A few weeks back, President (Dr Irfaan) Ali met with a group that is representing small miners in Guyana, and two of the major concerns were access to land; that is, the availability of land, and also gaining access to the lands wherever they are located,” the Minister is quoted by DPI as saying. He reiterated Government’s commitment to supporting the mining sector, noting that the production of gold, diamond, bauxite and other minerals was the high est contributor to the coun try’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) prior to the oil and gas sector.In2021, the gold mining subsector represented 8.8 per cent of the country’s GDP, representing the third largest non-oil sector of the economy and more than 60 per cent of Guyana’s total non-oil export earnings.InFebruary, President Dr Irfaan Ali disclosed that the nation’s gold reserve stood at US$35 billion.
In a social media post on Monday, the Canadian High Commission in Guyana said that the women are divid ed in two groups named af ter their favourite birds – the Curry-Curry and Gaulin groups. The High Commission noted that whilst the competition is great, so is the coopera tion among the 37 women and young girls who are on their way to starting their wiri wiri pepper agroforest ry project.
16 TUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2022 | GUYANATIMESGY.COM NEWS
“I want to reconfirm our President’s pledge, our Government’s pledge, that we will continue to build the nonoil economy, of which mining is one of such sectors that we will continue to work with, because a lot of Guyanese are employed directly in mining, and many more indirectly,” Bharrat told miners. Since August 2020, min ers have enjoyed significant support from Government. This includes the removal of Value Added Tax on All Terrain Vehicles (ATVs) and lubrication oils, which are in tegral to the daily operations in theMinerssector.are also now en joying the removal of exercise tax on fuel, the reduction of the sliding scale final tax to 2.5 per cent, and the remov al of the 10 per cent Tributors Tax.
Through the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives in partner ship with the Guyana Marine Conservation Society, the women of the Smiths Creek Community, Region One (Barima-Waini), have com menced clearing of two acres of land with the equipment which were donated recently.
Region One women clearing land for agroforestry project
Natural Resources Minister Vickram Bharrat
On Monday, his lawyers asked that a third-party at torney - known as a special master - be appointed to de termine whether the seized files are covered by execu tive privilege, which allows presidents to withhold cer tain communications from publicSpecialrelease.masters are nor mally appointed in criminal cases where there are con cerns that some evidence may be protected under at torney-client privilege, or other protections that could make it inadmissible in court."It is unreasonable to al low the prosecutorial team to review them without meaningful safeguards," the 27-page lawsuit argues. "Short of returning the seized items… only a neu tral review by a special mas ter can protect the 'great public interest' in preserv ing 'the confidentiality of conversations that take place in the president's per formance of his official du ties.'"The Department of Justice said in a brief state ment that prosecutors were aware of Mr Trump's law suit, and would respond in court. The "search warrant at Mar-a-Lago was autho rised by a federal court upon the required finding of prob able cause", said spokesman Anthony Coley. The legal action was filed in West Palm Beach, Florida, before a judge that Mr Trump nominated to the bench in 2020. It repeats Mr Trump's ar gument that the FBI search was a politically motivated effort to block his potential presidential ambitions in 2024, and the election pros pects of other Republican candidates for November's mid-term congressional rac es.
The killing comes just one week after independent journalist Juan Arjón López was found dead in the north ern border state of Sonora. Prosecutors said he died from a blow to the head. His body was found in San Luis Rio Colorado, across the bor der from Yuma, Arizona. That area has been hit by drug cartel violence in re cent years. In March, volun teer searchers found 11 bod ies in clandestine burial pits in a stretch of desert near a garbage dump in San Luis. At the beginning of August, a journalist was among four people killed inside a beer shop in the central Mexico state of Guanajuato.Authorities said it was unknown whether that at tack was related to the jour nalist’s work, his role as representative of local busi nesses in the planning of an upcoming fair or something else. (abcnews.com)
"President Donald J Trump is the clear frontrun ner in the 2024 Republican Presidential Primary and in the 2024 General Election, should he decide to run," the filing says. "Law enforcement is a shield that protects Americans," it continues. "It cannot be used as a weapon for political purposes."
deadliest ever for journalists in Mexico, which is now con sidered the most dangerous country for reporters outside a warProsecutorszone. did not im mediately offer any fur ther details on the killing of Román, who local media said had previously pub lished a newspaper under the same name and was shot inside his vehicle.
larlytesdrugumn.politics.cusedRealitystatewasMondayernProsecutorsnationwide.inthesouthstateofGuerrerosaidthatFredidRomángunneddowninthecapital,Chilpancingo.Román’sprogram,“TheofGuerrero,”foheavilyonstate-levelHealsowroteacolGuerreroisastatewheregangs,armedvigilanandothergroupsreguclash.2022hasbeenoneofthe
haveIthelpgal.andonceherehimGuardianRegionInvestigations(HBI),ofThreewhenMediametwithonSunday.“Anyonewhocomesforhelp,wehelpthemitiswithinourmeansonceitisnothingilleAlotofpeoplecomeforwithdifferentthings.isover20yearsthatwebeenhelpingpeople. We are not rich people, but we help. When we can’t help, we pass it on, as we did in this case. The cre ator has his hands over the situation,” Yasin said. After allegedly stran gling McKenzie to death at her Number 7 Road, Palo Seco home, police said the suspect called a friend from La Brea to take her to the grocery. She left home around 4 pm and asked the friend to take her to Claxton Bay to see Yasin, who assist ed her several times over the years. They arrived at the under-construction masjid around 10.20 pm, where she also ate. Later, she allegedly confessed to Yasin that she strangled McKenzie, who became un responsive. Yasin took the suspect back to the wood en and galvanised sheets 10x10 shack around 12.30 am Saturday, where he saw the child’s body cov ered with a curtain. Yasin contacted the police, and Santa Flora’s Cpl Aguillera and WPC Monsegue re sponded and confirmed seeing McKenzie lying on a dirty mattress, wear ing her pyjamas. They ob served a reddish mark on her neck and her face swol len.A team of detectives from the HBI to the scene. Officers arrested the sus pect, who remained in cus tody yesterday as investi gators await the results of an autopsy at the Forensic Science Centre to aid their investigation. (T&T Guardian)
Trump sues Justice Department over Mar-a-Lago search
T&T murder suspect ate fast food, ice-cream after allegedly killing 7 year-old girl – cops
The "shockingly aggres sive move" on Mar-a-Lago by about two dozen FBI agents took place "with no understanding of the dis tress that it would cause most Americans", said Mr Trump's lawyers. The New York Times reported on Monday that agents have so far recovered over 300 documents with classified markings from Mr Trump since he left office in JanuaryMonday's2021. legal action also says that Mr Trump and his team want the jus tice department to provide a more detailed list of what was taken during the FBI search.The lawsuit says the jus tice department "simply wanted the camel's nose un der the tent so they could rummage for either politi cally helpful documents or support efforts to thwart president Trump from run ning again". The court filing fur ther argues that Mr Trump had been co-operating with agents before the FBI turned up unannounced at his Hishome.lawyers say the warrant was overly broad and the search violated the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution, which protects Americans against unreasonable search and seizure.MrTrump's legal team says that three days after the search they contacted an FBI agent that had vis ited Mar-a-Lago in June to ask for his help in passing along a personal message from Mr Trump to Attorney General Merrick Garland. The brief message re corded in Monday's lawsuit said that Mr Trump had heard "from people around the country about the raid". "If there was one word to describe their mood, it is 'angry'," the message from Mr Trump continued. "The heat is building up. The pressure if build ing up. "Whatever I can do to take the heat down, to bring the pressure down, just let us know." The judge that approved the search warrant - an un precedented criminal in vestigation of a former US president's home - is still determining whether to release the affidavit, the sworn evidence that was presented as a justification for the inquiry. On Monday, Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart said proposed government re dactions to the affidavit were so extensive as to make it "meaningless" if disclosed, though he said he still believed it should not remain completely sealed given the public in terest in the case. (BBC)
Ajournalist who ran an online local news program was shot to death Monday in south ern Mexico, making him the 15th media worker killed so far this year
A female suspect in police custody in connection with the death of seven-year-old McKenzie Hope Rechier told investigators that she had soup, a KFC meal and ice cream mere hours after reportedly strangling the child.The 25-year-old wom an, who is a relative of the child, remained in police custody yesterday as in vestigations continue into thePolicecase. officers said as they questioned the wom an, she revealed that af ter leaving the Palo Seco house, where the little girl’s body lay on a mat tress, she had soup, a meal purchased from KFC and ice cream as she waited to see the Imam at a Claxton Bay masjid. She reported ly confessed to killing the child.Meanwhile, Imam Yasin said he did all he could after the 25-yearold woman confessed to him that she strangled the seven-year-old to death on Friday.Speaking outside his masjid in Pranz Garden, Claxton Bay, yesterday, Yasin did not want to add to the public discussion about the child’s death. He said he did his part and gave police investigators all the information. He had just finished an interview with in vestigators from the Homicide Bureau
Former US President Donald Trump has asked a judge to freeze a justice department inves tigation of files seized from his home in an FBI search. In a lawsuit, his legal team asked that an indepen dent lawyer be appointed to oversee documents that agents removed from Mar-aLago in Florida this month. Eleven sets of classified files were taken from Mr Trump's estate on 8 August, according to the FBI. Mr Trump is being inves tigated for potentially mis handling documents.
Journalist killed in Mexico is 15th to die so far this year
17 TUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2022 | GUYANATIMESGY.COM NEWS
The makeshift home where the 7-year-old child's body was found
Yet an attempt to in centivise more soy exports through a new arrangement that increases the amount of money farmers make has not yielded the desired re sults. The system, avail able until the end of August, gives producers more op tions to convert their earn ings to US dollars, as well as a better exchange rate for a portion of the sales. The Government says it needs exports to increase so that more US dollars flow into its reserves in particu lar so that it can cover the cost of importing natural gas, which has gone up in both price and consumption during the country’s winter months.Meanwhile, earlier this year, the Government hiked export taxes on soy oil and flour by two percentage points, to 33 per cent, in a bid to help stabilise domes tic prices. Wheat and corn exports are taxed at a rate of 12 per cent (Excerpt from Al Jazeera)
18 guyanatimesgy.comTUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2022
Colombia’s nation al police force will launch a training pro gramme with the help of the United States and United Nations meant to prevent abuses and human rights vi olations by cops, the head of the Force said on Monday. The plan is part of ef forts, especially by the new Government of leftist President Gustavo Petro, to change Police tactics after international criticism over excessive force during an ti-Government protests over the last several years, where dozens of civilians died. Families of some of those killed have said they face a long wait for justice when Police are implicated in deaths.“With this project we will strengthen our capac ity to define, deploy and promote institutional hu man rights policies based on international stan dards,” said General Henry Sanabria, the head of the national police. The programme, backed by the UN’s human rights and development arms, will strengthen disciplinary pro cedures, train cops through mandatory courses in inter national human rights and use of force standards and set up permanent dialogue with civil society groups, Sanabria told journalists.
J/ca: 167 teachers resign in last 2 months
Cuban entrepreneurs hope for room to grow as the Government ponders reformArgentina farmers hoard soybean in standoff with Government
Thousands protest in Haiti over crime and inflation
When asked about a free trade agreement ne gotiated between the South American trade bloc Mercosur and the European Union, which has been stalled by environmental concerns in Brussels, Lula said Brazil should be in no hurry to ratify the pact. (Excerpt from Reuters)
B razil’s InaciofrontrunnerpresidentialLuizLuladaSilva said on Monday his country did not need to cut a single tree to plant more soybeans, sugarcane or raise cattle as he vowed to restore law en forcement in the Amazon rainforest to curb deforesta tion.His remarks came as Reuters reported last week that advisors to the leftist former President were pro posing subsidised “green” farm loans to spur plant ing of soybeans and corn on open pasture and re duce deforestation in the Amazon.“Ifthe world is willing to help, keeping a tree stand ing in the Amazon may be worth more than any (oth er) investment,” Lula told foreign correspondents in SaoLulaPaulo.said he would end illegal gold mining that has surged in the Brazilian Amazon under far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who is seeking re-election in the October polls. “Brazil will look after the climate issue like nev er before. We want to be re sponsible for maintaining the climate,” he said. If elected, his Government would rein force the Federal Police and restore institutions weak ened by Bolsonaro that are needed to contain deforesta tion in the Amazon, such as environmental protection agency Ibama, he said. Lula pledged to create a Ministry for Indigenous Affairs, saying Indigenous people would do more to preserve the rainforest if they had more authority.
“If I take the numbers from June 2022, inflation has reached 29 per cent,” Dubois said in a press con ference, referring to annu alized inflation. “It’s the highest rate we’ve had in 10 years.”The demonstrations co incided with the anniversa ry of a 1791 slave uprising that triggered a long strug gle for Haiti’s independence
Jean Baden Dubois, Haiti’s central bank gover nor, said the economy would likely contract by 0.4 per cent this year, following a sharp depreciation of the gourde currency.
For those seeking proof that even modest for eign investment can help propel Cuba’s fledgeling entrepreneurs, look no fur ther than Oscar Fernandez’s Havana-based dried fruit business. Thanks to a $40,000 loan from abroad, the family-run company, registered last year after a Government rule change that authorised small businesses, upgraded antique equipment to stateof-the-art dehydrating ovens and a packaging machine. “We had ten products, now we have 50,” Fernandez told Reuters. “We are pro ducing ten times the amount we produced last year.” But Fernandez’s real dream - to partner with a foreign investor and open a full-fledged factory - is still not possible under the tight regulations of Communistrun Cuba. Like other entre preneurs, he is hoping the Government will enact fur ther reforms to stimulate the moribund economy. That hope is not without someThebasis.Government last month said it was reviewing “seven projects for foreign investment in private busi nesses,” state media report ed. The Government has not yet detailed those plans but President Miguel DiazCanel, who took charge in 2019 after six decades of rule by the Castros, has crit icised the economy’s “dog mas, obstacles and self-lim itations.”Hammered also by blan ket US sanctions and the pandemic, the economy plunged nearly 10 per cent during 2020-2021 and has struggled to revive. The government has al ready ruled out relinquish ing its monopoly on for eign commerce, dashing entrepreneur hopes that they would be able to en gage in foreign trade outside state control. It has loosened some re strictions around foreign in vestment in the wholesale and retail sectors, which the economists Reuters spoke to critiqued as too little to make a difference. (Excerpt from Reuters)
As a grain shortage fu elled by the war in Ukraine wreaks havoc in some parts of the world, Argentina, a bread basket nation, is caught in its own Presidentstandoff.
Minister of Education Fayval Williams has revealed that over the past two months some 167 teachers have migrated and left their positions in the local school “Teachers,system.like everyone else, make very personal de cisions to migrate and we are sorry to see them go but we respect their decisions... obviously resignations that would have happened in the last school year, we would have seen where many of those would have been filled and so those would not be in this number that I am quot ing to you this morning,” the Minister said. She added: “Of course, we are still getting informa tion from our school princi pals and so this number (167) could change as we move to wards the end of August and into September. The new school year begins on the 5th of September and even up to that time there may be resig nations.”Williams, who was ad dressing teacher migra tion at a press conference on Monday, went on to share that although the numbers may raise alarm, the situa tion is under control. She stated that the Ministry has implemented several strategies to mitigate any potential falling out from the mass migration. Williams also revealed that 964 special ist teachers, who have just completed their studies, are now available for employment in the national school system. The press confer ence comes on the heels of The Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) warning the country to brace for an exodus of teachers this year as already over 400 have left the island to take up lucra tive job opportunities in the United States. (Excerpt from Jamaica Observer)
US, UN back new human rights training for Colombia Police
Lula: No need to fell a single tree to boost Brazil farm output
Alberto Fernandez has accused the agricultural sector of hoard ing US$20 billion worth of products as it speculates with a volatile economy and a currency devaluation he says is not coming. “They’re not going to twist my arm,” the President said in a pub lic address last month that took aim at the “specula tors”. Inflation is expected to hit 90 per cent this year in Argentina. The coun try is on its third Economy Minister in six weeks, and the Central Bank is pulling levers intended to build up its dwindling US dollar re serves.One key place the Government has looked to is the powerful agricultur al sector.
Police clear the street as demonstrators burned tires to protest ongoing fuel shortages even as Haiti’s main fuel terminal renewed deliveries that had been suspended due to an outbreak of gang violence, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti July 14, 2022 from France in 1804. Demonstrators held ral lies in cities including CapHaitien, Petit-Goave, and Jacmel, many wearing red shirts emblazoned with the word “endepandans” or “in dependence.”Chronic gang violence has left much of the coun try’s territory out of control of Government authorities, and outbreaks of bloody turf battles between rival gangs have left hundreds dead and thousandsHaitiansdisplaced.inrecent weeks have also struggled to find fuel, which has left some un able to work. The country’s fuel stocks have run low as fuel import ers struggle to get paid for subsidies that keep fuel pric es low in Haiti, and due to difficulties in obtaining dol lars from the central bank, according to two sources with knowledge of the situ ation. (Excerpt from Reuters)
Regional
Thousands of Haitians on Monday joined rallies around the Caribbean country to pro test rampant crime and soaring consumer prices as its central bank reported that inflation had hit a 10yearProtestershigh. set up burn ing barricades in some ar eas including the capital of Port-au-Prince, some of whom said they were an gry over the growing scarci ty of gasoline and diesel that could force some businesses to close their doors.
The $3.85 million fund ing for the plan from the United States is in addition to US$8 million promised by the US in February to sup port human rights and an ti-corruption training of Colombia’s force. “This project will serve for the police to create ties of trust with all the com munities they serve,” said Todd Robinson, the US Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, adding the Police disciplinary system should meet the highest standards. (Excerpt from Reuters)
Dugina was a regular guest on Russian television news
Dr Anthony Fauci, face of US pandemic response, to step down Khan has been carrying out a series of mass rallies across the country since he was removed from power in April [K M Chaudary/AP]
The dollar index rose to a five-week high on Monday. A stronger greenback is generally bearish as it makes it more expensive for buyers with other currencies in the dollardenominated oil market. High natural gas prices exacerbated by reduced supply from Russia is strengthening oil demand, said Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank. Supply worldwide remains relatively tight, with the operator of a pipeline supplying about 1 per cent of global oil via Russia saying it will reduce output again because of damagedOPEC+equipment.produced2.892 million barrels per day (bpd) below their targets in July, two sources from the producer group said, as sanctions on some members like Russia and low investment by others stymied its ability to raise output. (Excerpt from Reuters)
Bangladesh to cut school, office hours to save power
“The near-term fundamentals seem more to the bears until we see some positive economic indications either out of the US or China, which is looking unlikely,” said Dennis Kissler, senior vice president of trading at BOK Financial. The US Federal Reserve will raise rates by 50 basis points in September amid expectations inflation has peaked and growing recession worries, according to economists in a ReutersInvestorspoll. will be paying close attention to comments by Fed Chair Jerome Powell when he addresses an annual global central banking conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on Friday.Also pressuring prices were worries over slowing fuel demand in China, the world’s largest oil importer, partly because of a power crunch in the southwest.
In his speech on Saturday, Khan promised to sue Police officers and a female Judge as he alleged that a close aide had been tortured after his arrest. He doubled down on his criticism of State institu tions at another rally on Sunday, saying the Police acted under pressure from “neutrals”, a common eu phemism for Pakistan’s mil itary“Onestablishment.May25when Police perpetrated violence against us, I was told by insiders that Police acted under or ders by above, which means they were under pressure by the neutrals to thrash PTI [Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf] workers,” he said at the ral ly inKhanRawalpindi.couldface several years in prison for the new charges, which accuse him of threatening Police officers and the Judge. However, he has not been arrest ed on other lesser charges against him during his re cent campaigning against theKhanGovernment.hasbeen grant ed protective bail until Thursday when he is like ly to appear before an an ti-terrorism court in capital Islamabad. (Excerpt from Al Jazeera)
The Police case comes a day after the country’s top media regulatory body im posed a ban on Khan’s speeches for “spreading hate speech” against “State insti tutions and officers”, esca lating political tensions in theHecountry.has been holding mass rallies across the coun try seeking to return to of fice since he was removed from power in April in a NoConfidence Motion. The crick eter-turned-politician has alleged his removal was a re sult of a “foreign conspiracy”.
Around the World
Former Pakistan PM Imran Khan charged under “anti-terror” law
Dr Anthony Fauci served as the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) for nearly four decades, and has worked in Government service for more than 50 years [Kevin Lamarque/Reuters]
Darya Dugina: Ukraine killed Putin ally’s daughter, Russia says
Oil prices bounced off session lows to trade nearly flat in a volatile session on Monday as markets weighed Saudi Arabia’s warning that OPEC+ production could cut output against the possibility of a nuclear deal that could return sanctioned Iranian oil to the market. Brent crude futures for October settled at US$96.48 per barrel, down 24 cents, or 0.25 per cent. It had fallen as much as 4.5 per cent earlier in the day, breaking a three-day streak of gains.USWest Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude for September delivery, which expired on Monday, was down 54 cents, or 0.6 per cent, at US$90.23. The more active October contract was down 4 cents, or 0.03 per cent, at US$90.41. Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said OPEC+ has the commitment, flexibility, and means to deal with challenges and provide guidance including cutting production at any time and in different forms, state news agency SPA reported.Meanwhile, the leaders of the United States, Britain, France and Germany discussed efforts to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the White House said on Sunday, which could allow sanctioned Iranian oil to return to global markets. The US State Department said a nuclear deal was closer now than it was two weeks ago. Earlier in the session, worries that aggressive US interest rate hikes may lead to a global economic slowdown and dent fuel demand had pushed down prices.
The South Asian coun try last month shut down all 10 of its diesel power plants after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine drove up the cost of imported fuel. Bangladesh began daily two-hour power cuts last month, but many parts of the country go with out electricity for much lon ger.The shut plants ac count for about 6 per cent of Bangladesh’s total power generation capacity of 23,000 megawatts. Natural gas, lo cally produced and imported, generates nearly three-quar ters of the total. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Government has decided that schools will re main closed for two days, Cabinet Secretary Khandker Anwarul Islam told report ers.Schools usually open six days a week and are closed on Fridays but the Education Ministry announced that they will now be shut on Saturdays as Governmentwell.agencies will open from 0800-1500 instead of the usual 0900-1700 while banks will open from 09001600 rather than 1000-1800, starting on Wednesday. Private offices can set their opening hours as per their requirements, Islam said. The Government will pro vide uninterrupted power to villages for irrigation from midnight to morning, he said. Earlier this month, the Government raised oil prices by as much as 51.7 per cent, sparking protests by students and opposition parties in the country of 165 million people. The Government has also announced staggered weekly holidays for factories to save power. (Excerpt from Reuters)
Oil pares losses after Saudi Oil Min says OPEC+ has options, including cuts Russia has accused Ukrainian special ser vices of killing the daughter of one of Vladimir Putin’s allies in a car bomb ing near Moscow at the week end.Journalist Darya Dugina, aged 29, died on Saturday when a vehicle she was driv ing exploded near Russia’s capital.Her prominent ultra-na tionalist father, Alexander Dugin, said to be close to Putin, may have been the in tended target of the attack. Ukrainian officials have denied any involvement in the Butexplosion.Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Monday it had solved the case and said that Ukraine was directly responsible. The FSB told Russian me dia that a Ukrainian woman had moved to Russia in July alongside her young daugh ter - but that she was in fact a Ukrainian special services contractor.Thewoman, it said, rent ed an apartment in the same building as Dugina for a month, preparing for the at tack. In that time, she al legedly followed the journal ist through Moscow in a Mini Cooper - for which she used three different licence plates. Dugina and her father were attending a festival near Moscow on Saturday evening where Dugin, a philosopher, gave a lecture. They had re portedly intended to leave in the same car, but changed their plans at the last minute. Investigators said explo sives had been planted un derneath the Toyota Land Cruiser Dugina was driving. A family friend, Konstantin Malofeev, pub lished a statement on behalf of Dugin which branded his daughter’s killing “a terrorist act by the Ukrainian Nazi re gime”.He was referencing the unfounded yet oft-repeated claim by Russian leadership of a powerful Nazi presence inside Ukraine - one of the main reasons put forward for the invasion. (Excerpt from BBC News)
Dr Anthony Fauci, the top infectious dis ease expert in the United States who emerged as the public face of the coun try’s COVID-19 pandem ic response, has announced that he will step down in December.Fauci said in a state ment on Monday that he will leave both his post as direc tor of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), as well as that of top medical adviser to President Joe Biden, to “pur sue the next phase” of his ca reer.“It has been the honour of a lifetime to have led the NIAID, an extraordinary in stitution, for so many years and through so many scien tific and public health chal lenges. I am very proud of our many accomplishments,” said Fauci, who has led the insti tute for 38 years. “While I am moving on from my current positions, I am not retiring. After more than 50 years of Government service, I plan to pursue the next phase of my career while I still have so much energy and passion for my field.” Fauci became the most rec ognisable figure from the sci entific community during the early days of the COVID-19 crisis, acting as a source of sober medical authority for many Americans while fre quently butting heads with Donald Trump over the for mer President’s pandemic re sponse.Trump verbally attacked Fauci during his 2020 presi dential campaign, hinting at one point that he would fire him if Butre-elected.thetopmedical expert enjoyed a warm relationship with Biden, who on Monday praised Fauci as a “dedicated public servant and a steady hand with wisdom and in sight honed over decades at the forefront of some of our most dangerous and chal lenging public health crises”. (Excerpt from Al Jazeera)
Bangladesh will close schools for one extra day a week and cut office timings by an hour to save power, a Government official said on Monday, as the country battles a short age after shutting down all of its diesel-run power plants.
The Pakistani Police have charged Imran Khan under anti-ter ror law, authorities said on Monday, days after the former Prime Minister at tacked the Police and a judi cial officer at a huge rally in the capital, Islamabad.
OIL NEWS
Beijing cut its benchmark lending rate on Monday as part of measures to revive an economy hobbled by a property crisis and a resurgence of COVID-19 cases.
19guyanatimesgy.com TUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2022
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Pay more attention to how you pres ent yourself. Don't let problems at home or work bring you down. Address the pros and cons in your life, and adjust what isn't working for you. A pick-meup is Refuseoverdue.tolet what others do confuse you. Don't be a follower when you should be taking the path that suits you best. Put your energy into physically taking care of Relybusiness.onyour intellect to maneuver your way through networking events and meetings. Take care of personal business that can influence your reputa tion or financial position. Gather infor mation.Double-check information before you overreact. Emotions will spin out of con trol if you act prematurely. Concentrate more on self-improvement and less on trying to change others. Doors will open if you are persistent. Do your homework and pursue a fool proof plan. Don't lose sight of what's do able, regardless of what others propose. Stick to what makes the most sense. Understanding and compassion will help you envision the results you want to achieve. Use the power of speech, not brawn, to help you get what you want. Don't hesitate to take the lead. Go over every detail thoroughly be fore verbalizing your thoughts or signing a deal. Refuse to let your emotions inter fere with your decisions or influence how you deal with people. Mull over what's important to you and make arrangements that will fit into your schedule. Don't put yourself in a dangerous position. Be careful of your health and well-being. Ask questions, address confusing is sues and look at every angle before mak ing a decision. Dedicate more time to re search and setting guidelines that will help you avoid making mistakes. You'll find information that helps you make an informed decision regarding in vestments, contracts or health issues. Open a conversation with an expert and be clear about your needs. Act fast, but don't lose sight of the truth and how you feel. Do your best to protect yourself from anyone trying to railroad you into something that isn't in your best interest. Use your imagination, and you'll de vise a plan that attracts support from someone offering something rare. Avoid a disagreement with a peer, friend or relative. Take control and avoid disap pointment.
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Casemiro felt his cycle had finished at Real Madrid
Mars has said this shows the value of structured chess education, which he believes to be the primary force need ed for Guyana as a country to close the gap between itself and the high-performing na tions.Mars lamented that Guyana still has a long way to go, but it is clear that young players, especially the young female players, have an illus trious future ahead of them, and they need only stay the course.“In the Open Section, we may not have finished as strong as we would have hoped, but our final position does not reflect how close a race it was between our fi nal position (6th) and the 1st place finishers in our catego ry. A victory in the final round against Haiti would have seen us tied for 1st place on match points, and possibly even take the paramount position on the podium if the tiebreaks were also in our favour. “We picked up victories against Seychelles, Gabon, Brunei, and Burundi. Our most critical losses were against Suriname and Cape Verde. However, draws in these rounds were very possi ble, given our match situation, and would have helped in our bid for a podium finish. Even so, it is worthwhile to consid er that changing a single re sult can also alter the entirety of a team’s following pairings, and by extension, the teams anticipated results as well,” he shared.Inrelation to what is next for Mars, he said that while he is just an instructor for the time being, he intends to direct his energies towards bringing his students to the best possible level. However, he also intends to resume per sonal training after complet ing his academic studies, as it is his desire to always compete at the highest level and win. Thus, he will keep doing ev erything he can to satisfy that desire, and to instill this same desire in his students as well.
“I’ve become a father here, I’ve spent nine years here. People who know me know it’s not because of money. If it was, I would have left much earlier, but it’s not that. “It’s my decision. The club has supported me, but people who think those things are people that don’t know me, and they are wrong. The last thing I think about [is mon ey].”During his time at Madrid, Casemiro won 18 major trophies, including three league crowns and five Champions League ti tles, and his decision to step away was a hard one.
Jamaica lead Caribbean medal tally with 24 as NACAC Championships come to an end
Relative to what he has learned, Mars noted that there were a lot of positives to take away from the expe rience, the most notable be ing the tremendous impact a high-level instructor such as Grandmaster Georg Mohr can have on the team’s per formance. He explained that Mohr worked exclusively with the Women’s Team, but had conducted sessions with both teams prior. He further relayed that the testimony of Mohr’s influence is evident in the 3rd place fin ish of the women in their cat egory. He also touted the ex perience of the women’s team, as both the Women’s and the Open team had picked up vi tal points to secure the team’s strong finish.
Guyana competed at the 44th FIDE Chess Olympiad held in Chennai, India from July 28 to August 10, 2022. The Open team, captained by Davion Mars, was able to improve its ranking from number 152 to number 148 with a total of four team wins: against Seychelles, Gabon, Brunei Darussalam and Burundi. To top it all off, Guyana’s Open team is now ranked fifth of the Caribbean chess teams. Mars has disclosed that the experience he gained while at the Olympiad was truly captivating. In an inter view he had with this publica tion, he was asked about the experience he had gained at the tournament, and he said, “From the POV (point of view) of purely a chess enthu siast amongst a congregation of the best chess talents across the globe, there are few better feelings in the world. It was truly captivating. Of course, there were many highs and lows across the entire spec trum of the event, but the overall experience was indeed a memorable one, and one I would most definitely like to experience again. “As a captain, it was very different from my previous ex periences during the 2 prior Online Olympiads, where ev erything was done remotely. There were some challenges regarding the lack of physical workspace, but much of that difficulty was offset by the ex perience of the players in the team.“We did everything as a group, and pooled our knowl edge, experience and resourc es to support each member of the team with regards to our on-the-ground preparation and match-day readiness.”
Casemiro believed his time at Real Madrid was coming to a nat ural end as the midfielder shot down suggestions his move to Manchester United is financially driven. The 30-year-old will complete his trans fer from LaLiga champi ons Madrid to the Premier League this week after he was handed a hero’s fare well at Santiago Bernabeu. Casemiro makes the switch to Old Trafford in a transfer thought to be in the region of £60million (€70m), as United splash the cash in the wake of a dismal start to Erik ten Hag’s tenure. It will see Casemiro switch from a team out to defend their Champions League title to one that might be struggling to make Europe by the end of theButseason.he is relishing the challenge, and believes it was the right moment to call time on his Madrid career. “My cycle here is fin ished,” he stated. “I am look ing for new challenges, new goals, [to] experience a new culture, [to] live in a differ ent“Icity.haven’t won anything there yet, I will be just an other player looking to help the team. The main reason is the new challenges and wanting to do something new in my life.
“I’m very happy when I think about everything I’ve done here,” he added. “I feel I did the job that I was ex pected to. I’ve always tried to give my all, [and] I’m very happy for everything that I’ve achieved here. always“It’s difficult to take such a decision, consider ing how many years I’ve spent here, how much I’m loved and how happy I was here, but I was really sure about my cy cle here being over. I’ve al ready made history here and achieved everything that I wanted to achieve, and now it’s time for me to think about newCasemirochallenges.”also revealed his decision was a long time in the making. He ex plained: “After we played the Champions League fi nal, I talked to my agent. I felt that I was finishing my cycle here. I’ve always been very honest with myself, the president, the fans and I felt that my cycle was coming to an end at Real Madrid. “I went on holiday, de ciding to relax and to see what happened, and when I was back, I still had that feeling. I’m extremely hap py because of everything I’ve done here, and I feel that I did what I had to do. History was made, and it was made in the right way.” (Sportsmax)
Davion Mars Jamaica secured 24 medals to lead all Caribbean nations at the 2022 NACAC Open Championships which con cluded on Sunday in Freeport, Bahamas. Entering Sunday’s fi nal day with 12 medals, the Jamaicans doubled their tally to finish second overall on the medal table, trailing the USA who finished with 69. Those 24 medals were split into six golds, nine sil vers and nine bronzes. Cuba was the next best placed Caribbean country with six medals, including two golds, one silver and three bronzes. Jamaica’s final day was highlighted by Andrew Hudson’s personal best 19.87 to win the 200m. Hosts The Bahamas was next with one gold, two sil vers and four bronzes for sev en medals overall. That gold medal came from hometown hero Shaunae Miller-Uibo, who ran 49.40 to win the 400m.Also registering gold med als were The British Virgin Islands through Kyron McMaster’s brilliant season’s best 47.34 in the 400m hur dles, and Dominica through Thea LaFond’s 14.49m in the tripleTrinidadjump. & Tobago got silvers in the men’s 4x100m and men’s javelin through KeshornBermudaWalcott.(one silver), St Vincent & The Grenadines (one silver), Barbados (one silver), Antigua & Barbuda (one bronze) and Puerto Rico (one bronze) also registered medals. (Sportsmax)
21TUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2022
Mars captivated by Chess Olympiad experience
The winners’ row Winners Vijay Deo (white) and Hardeo Ganpat (dark blue) LGC Club Captain Videsh Persaud Keep Your Five Alive futsal championships… Slingerz, Sparta, Swag Ent, Stabroek Ballers storm into semis
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The Lusignan Golf Club was teeming with activ ity last Saturday when a medal play format golf tour ney was played and Vijay Deo and Hardeo Ganpat emerged as victors with HC 7, Gross 74 and Net 67. The heated competition saw good play from Maxim Mangra and Patrick Prashad bringing them in second place with HC 64, Gross 74 and Net 68. Coming in at third was George Bulkan and Ronald Bulkan with a HC 8, Gross 77 and Net 69. Speaking to this publica tion at the end of that tour nament, Club Captain Videsh Persaud said, “It feels good to be back on the course, af ter about two months of not playing. It was good to see the members coming out and play, and even with the break, the competition was very in tense, as we had some close scores. Going forward, I want to say that we would want to improve the conditions, as we are well on our way to having the course to is pristine con dition.”Persaud promised lots of major tournaments coming in the future, and said the LGC was inviting members and participants to come out and “have a good time”. The format of the tourna ment was Medal Play Better Ball Scramble over 18 holes and shotgun start. For the medal play format, partner handicap calculation was 15% of higher partner’s hand icap + 35% of lower partner’s handicap.Prizes up for grabs were from first to third positions, and were in the form of vouchers.
Praetorian Executive Protection Services Inc supporting Guyana Sport Shooting Foundation’s Steel Challenge match
Handing over of sponsorship funds: GSSF Director Captain Gary Sahai receiving sponsorship funds from Praetorian’s CEO Dallas Thomas in presence of GSSF’s Directors. From left to right are Dr. Pravesh Harry, Capt. Gary Sahai, Dallas Thomas and Andrew Phang Gratitude has been ex pressed by the Directors of the GSSF to the principals of the PEPS for sponsoring this Steel Challenge tour nament. Those in atten dance at the launching of this tournament were Capt. Gary Sahai, Mr. Andrew Phang and Dr. Pravesh Harry, who all indicated they look forward to this be ing an annual event on the GSSF’s Shotting calendar. More information on the GSSF can be found on its website: GuyanaSportShooting.com.www.
The Sparta Boss outfit T he Guyana Sport Shooting Foundation (GSSF) is pleased to announce that it plans to hold a Steel Challenge match sponsored by Praetorian Executive Protection Services Inc (PEPS). The GSSF, an affili ate of the Steel Challenge Shooting Association (SCSA), continues to pro mote this simple yet ac tion-packed shooting sport to local pistol shooters by organising such matches on a regular basis. Steel Challenge is con sidered to be the fastest practical shooting competi tion in the world. All match es comply with all rules and regulations stipulated by the SCSA. Match Director Captain Gary Sahai report ed that two exciting stages are being planned, wherein competitors will be shooting at 5 steel targets which are arranged in preconfigured positions.Scoring will be done us ing a timer which records the time taken for a shoot er to complete engaging all five targets. The shooter’s time is his/her score, with time added for targets not hit. Scores are entered into a specialised software, and the shooter with the low est overall time wins the match.Participation in this Steel Challenge match would fall under three divi sions: Limited, Production and Wildcat, and prizes would be awarded to the top three shooters in each divi sion.Special medal allocation would be given to the shoot er with the fastest string/ stage for each division. At a small handing-over ceremony held at the head office of the Praetorian Executive Protection Services at Carmichael and Quamina Streets, Chief Executive Officer Dallas Thomas indicated his delight at sponsoring what promises to be an exciting match.
Deo, Ganpat emerge victors in LGC medal play tournament
Action in the Keep Your Five Alive futsal cham pionships continued on Saturday night with the quarterfinal round being held at the National Gymnasium on Mandela Avenue. In the first game of that night, the recently relaunched Slingerz FC ensured their con tinued success in the Futsal arena with a 6-4 victory over Beterverwagting (BV). Slingerz’ chief marksman Deon Alfred opened the scor ing with a goal in the first minute of the encounter. BV’s Neron Barrow equalised in the 5th, and Ian Dooker made it a 2-1 game in BV’s favour by the 6th minute. Alfred struck again in the 11th, to level the scores once again, then Delon Lanferman handed Slingerz the lead with a goal in the 14th; but the scores were again levelled in the 17th with a goal off the boots of However,Dooker.Slingerz proved to be the better second-half team by producing three ad ditional goals to run away with a semifinal berth, as Quincy Adams found the back of the net in the 25th and 29th minutes, and Darian Dickson added anoth er in the 30th for the victory. In the following fixture, Swag Entertainment roared against Future Stars 5-2. The collective effort from Swag Entertainment saw Kellon Primo (21st), Kendolph Lewis (23rd), Kocie Gentle (41st), Rene Allicock (43rd) and Deon Charter (45th) adding their names to the scoresheet with one goal each. Before Swag Entertainment found their footing, however, goals from Keron Solomon (19th) and Carl Griffith (27th) had forced the need for the game to go into extra time. Futsal favourites Sparta Boss silenced East Front Road 3-1. East Front Road, who are not to be discredited, put up a good fight in this quarterfinal match, gagging Sparta Boss for the first half of the encoun ter. It wasn’t until the second segment that Jermin Junor sent home the first goal in the 22nd. Minutes later, Marcus Wilson netted Sparta’s sec ond, and, in the 34th, Nicholas McArthur found their third and final goal. Tevin Campbell was the lone player to muster a goal for East Front Road when he found the back of the net in the 38th minute. The final game of the quarterfinal was anticlimac tic at best, as a lone goal gift ed Stabroek Ballers passage into the semifinal round. Seon Taylor was the marksman for Stabroek, evading the goal’s custodian in the 27th for the 1-0 victory. The semifinal round is expected to be hosted at the same venue, the National Gymnasium, next weekend.
While the Annual Rupununi Easter Rodeo takes place over the twoday period signalling the end of round-up and time to celebrate, the new rodeo event would take place in the early dry season, when round- ups are continuous, as ranches and villages take the opportunity presented by the ease in rainfall to check on their cattle. The Rodeo’s organisers hope to “offer a special glimpse into the life of Rupununi cowboys and cowgirls by presenting the champions from all over the Rupununi”. The aforementioned champions include those from the Rupununi Ranchers Rodeo, Sand Creek Rodeo, Aishalton Rodeo, Katoka Rodeo and Aranaputa Rodeo. In addition to the events lined up, organizers have expressed intention to get spectators involved in spectator competitions which include best dressed cowboy and cowgirl. In addition, there will be lots of other activities to be enjoyed by the entire family, among which would be Rupununi cuisine, arts, games, and a live Forro Band from neighbouring Brazil.
T he Guyana Amazon Warriors (GAW) team touched down in St. Kitts and Nevis in groups on Sunday evening and on Monday, ahead of the commencement of the 6ixty and the Hero CPL. The SKYEXCH 6ixty is set to commence on Wednesday, August 24th and the Hero Caribbean Premier League (CPL) is set for next Wednesday, August 31st. The arriving members of the team included Colin Ingram, Motie, and others who were encamped in Guyana, along with staff on Sunday. On Monday, Captain Shimron Hetmyer, Keemo Paul and those who were on West Indian duties arrived. As they settle in, spinner Gudakesh Motie related some of the team’s intentions, and even touched on his personal goals for the 2022 tournament. The Berbician spinner was the focal point of a virtual press conference on Monday, wherein he spoke of the team’s confidence heading into the extended once I get the opportunity to play. I’m looking to make and Guyana between August 31 and September 30.
Motie confident in himself & team ahead of CPL 2022
Rodeo set for November in Lethem West Indies fined for slow over-rate in ODI defeat to New Zealand
TUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2022
“In addition, as per Article 16.12.2 of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup Super League Playing Conditions, a side is penalised one point for each over short. Consequently, West Indies will lose two points from their points tally during the Super“PooranLeague.pleaded guilty to the offence and accepted the proposed sanction, so there was no need for a formal hearing.”West Indies are currently seventh in the Super League standings, having posted just nine wins from their 24 games, after New Zealand recorded successive wins over Pooran’s side. (Sportsmax)
W est Indies have been fined and hit with a World Cup Super League points deduction for maintaining a slow overrate in Sunday’s third ODI defeat to New Zealand, the International Cricket Council (ICC) has Nicholasannounced.Pooran’s side fell to a 2-1 series defeat on home soil with a narrow sixrun loss in Sunday’s decisive third meeting, as Kyle Mayers hit 105 – the second highest ODI score of his career – in vain.West Indies will also be deducted two points from their Super League tally after being adjudged by the on-field umpires to have fallen two overs short of the target.An ICC statement read: “West Indies have been fined 40 per cent of their match fee for maintaining a slow over rate against New Zealand in the third and final ODI in Barbados on Sunday.
A snippet of what to expect at the Champion of Champions Rodeo
Gudakesh Motie was instrumental for the Warriors last year, picking up 8 wickets in 6 games A first of its kind event will converge on the Rupununi in November of this year, as the Rupununi Livestock Producers Association (RLPA) and the Rodeo Committee - Lethem work to expand their line of attractions.Touted as ‘an event where the best and wildest riders, kings and queens of every rodeo held within the Rupununi converge at one location to compete for the crown’, the inaugural event has been dubbed “Champion of Champions Rodeo.” The event is scheduled for November 26th, 2022 at the Rupununi Ranchers’ Rodeo Ground at Tabatinga, Lethem. President of the Rupununi Livestock Producers Association (RLPA), Rebecca Rodrigues-Faria, expressed the board’s excitement at sharing this first-time experience with Guyanese and international patrons. She noted that the rodeo would showcase the winners in various events, including Saddle and Bareback Bronco, and in bull riding, among many other events.
Inaugural Champion of Champions
“In accordance with Article 2.22 of the ICC Code of Conduct for Players and Player Support Personnel, which relates to minimum over-rate offences, players are fined 20 per cent of their match fees for every over their side fails to bowl in the allotted time.
GUYANA TIMES - www.guyanatimesgy.com, email: news@guyanatimesgy.com, NEWS HOTLINE: 231-8063 EDITORIAL: 223-7230, 223-7231, 231-0544, 225-7761 SPORT: sport@guyanatimesgy.com SALES AND MARKETING: 231-8064 - marketing@guyanatimesgy.com - PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY GUYANA TIMES INC. Sport is no longer our game, it’s our businessTUESDAY, AUGUST 23, 2022 Motie confident in himself & team ahead of CPL 2022 Inaugural Champion of Champions Rodeo set for November in Lethem Mars captivated by Chess Olympiad experience Page 23 Page 21 Page 23 The first batch of Warriors, inclusive of Motie, arrived in St. Kitts on Sunday night Davion Mars
