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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 7, 2021
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Cay staff ‘anxious’ on cruise return
By YOURI KEMP Tribune Business Reporter ykemp@tribunemedia.net GREAT Stirrup Cay management are “anxious” for Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) to return to the cay after the cruise company announced it was resuming sailings in the Caribbean. Natalia Koulikowsky, human resources director at Great Stirrup Cay management, told Tribune Business yesterday they have been preparing for Norwegian’s resumption of sailing and eventual return to the cay for “quite some time now”. Ms Koulikowsky said: “While I can’t verify when NCL will be returning to the cay as it is way above my pay grade. We have been preparing for some months now so we are very anxious to start.” NCL announced in a statement to the media that they will return to sailing on July 25 from Athens, Greece and then from Montego Bay, Jamaica on August 7 and then on August 15 from Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. There was no mention of a return to the port of Nassau in their release. Messages from the Tribune Business yesterday to NCL on confirmation of their return to Nassau went unanswered up to press time. Ms Koulikowsky also said, however, “I do understand that NCL made a proposal to the CDC and as I understand the date in that proposal was July 4, but to tell you the truth I am unable to make that confirmation.” “We have been trying to get our facility in tip top shape so that we can be ready. We have 40 staff members and many of them are already back to work, but at this moment we have zero cash flow.” Lena Roberts, general manager of Cooliemae’s Sunset by the Sea, said that once NCL follows the safety protocols then their return would be “great”. Ms Roberts also said that while Great Stirrup Cay hires a lot of people, more people work at CoCo Cay but that with Great Stirrup coming back soon it will be a much needed boost for the island. Wilmalee Bastian, general manager of Crum’s Rentals, said: “I don’t know if NCL coming back will be a good thing. I’m a frightful person and I’m not benefitting from them because I’m in the tourism industry and they mainly come to the Cay.” Ms Bastian also said: “It will be a benefit for the persons who work there. It’s good for them, they will have their jobs back and that’s a plus. But I’m wondering if they are ready for it as far as this pandemic is concerned, this is my only setback with this. I think we need to bounce back to reality.” Acknowledging comments made by Ms Kuoulikowsky on the Cay’s arduous months of preparation, Ms Bastian said that while she is on the mainland and doesn’t have much access to the Cay, she said: “I heard that some of the vendors have had some things put in place for them. I don’t know what it’s all about with regard to all of the protocols they have in
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IMF upgrades forecast for 2021 global growth to a record 6% By PAUL WISEMAN Associated Press
By YOURI KEMP Tribune Business Reporter ykemp@tribunemedia.net
accord, opting for what he called a maximum-pressure campaign involving restored and additional American sanctions.
A LOCAL technology provider said the launch of the Computer Incident Response Team (CIRT) would allow the country to follow “global best practice” on cyber security. Scott MacKenzie, chief executive of Cloud Carib, told Tribune Business that while he has not been invited to any of the CIRT sessions he feels the government moving forward on CIRT development is a “great thing”. He said: “Setting up a CIRT is very beneficial for every nation state. At the end of the day the initiative is led by the ITU (Information Technology Unit) with the department of digitization and transformation and I think it is an amazing opportunity for the country to follow global best practice to have a cyber incident response team and cyber emergency management response team.” Mr Mackenzie added: “This is basically programmatically developing what you do as a nation state in the event of a cyber incident. “Depending on the type of compromise, there’s different things that they’re going to want to do. So if there’s a bad actor still on the system, the police may want to actually go and try to get onto the system and trace the individual that’s compromised the system. If it’s something that’s still continuing, and it’s malicious activity, usually they have to terminate the connection. “This is where a CIRT programme and structuring it becomes beneficial because now the nation as a whole knows what to do
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INTERNATIONAL Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva attends the Paris Peace Forum at The Elysee Palace in Paris. Georgieva said yesterday that when the IMF releases its updated economic forecast next week, it will show the global economy growing at a faster pace than the 5.5% gain it projected at the start of the year. Photo: Ludovic Marin/Pool/AP economy shrank 3.3% in 2020 after the devastating recession that followed the coronavirus’ eruption across the world early last spring. That is the worst annual figure in the IMF’s database, though not as severe as the 3.5% drop it had estimated
three months ago. Without $16tn in global government aid that helped sustain companies and consumers during COVID-19 lockdowns, IMF forecasters say, last year’s downturn could have been three times worse. The US economy, the
world’s biggest, is now forecast to expand 6.4% in 2021 — its fastest growth since 1984 — and 3.5% in 2022. The US growth is being supported by President Joe Biden’s $1.9tn relief package,
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World powers seek to bring US back into Iran nuclear deal Associated Press OFFICIALS from five world powers began a new effort yesterday to try to bring the United States back into the foundering 2015 nuclear deal they signed with Iran, a delicate diplomatic dance that needs to balance the concerns and interests of both Washington and Tehran. The meeting in Vienna of envoys from Russia, China, Germany, France, Britain and Iran came as the US was due to start its own indirect talks with Iran. It would be one of the first signs of tangible progress in efforts to return both nations to the accord, which restricted Iran’s nuclear programme in return for relief from US and international sanctions. Following the closed meetings of the signatories to the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Russia’s delegate, Mikhail Ulyanov, tweeted that the initial talks were “successful”.
SCOTT MACKENZIE
Govt’s CIRT launch in cyber security ‘best practice’
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HE rollout of COVID-19 vaccines and vast sums of government aid will accelerate global economic growth to a record high this year in a powerful rebound from the pandemic recession, the International Monetary Fund says in its latest forecast. The 190-country lending agency said yesterday that it expects the world economy to expand 6% in 2021, up from the 5.5% it had forecast in January. It would be the fastest expansion for the global economy in IMF records dating back to 1980. In 2022, the IMF predicts, international economic growth will decelerate to a still strong 4.4%, up from its January forecast of 4.2%. “A way out of this health and economic crisis is increasingly visible,’’ IMF chief economist Gita Gopinath told reporters. The agency’s economists now estimate that the global
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POLITICAL deputy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran, Abbas Araghchi, right, arrives at the Grand Hotel Wien where closed-door nuclear talks with Iran take place in Vienna, Austria, yesterday. Foreign ministry officials from the countries still in the accord, the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, are meeting in Vienna to push forward efforts to bring the United States back into the 2015 deal on Iran’s nuclear programme. Photo: Florian Schroetter/AP “The restoration of JCPOA will not happen immediately. It will take some time. How long? Nobody knows,” he wrote. “The most important thing after today’s meeting of
the Joint Commission is that practical work towards achieving this goal has started.” In 2018, then-President Donald Trump pulled the US unilaterally out of the
Hotels chief: US quarantine drop ‘step in right direction’
By YOURI KEMP Tribune Business Reporter ykemp@tribunemedia.net
BAHAMAS Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA) president said the US dropping its quarantine policy for vaccinated Americans returning from abroad is a “step in the right direction”. Robert Sands, told Tribune Business yesterday: “Well, it is certainly a move in the right direction for travellers and for the general population. It is also a move towards a more normal existence, which I think is very important and there’s no question that certainly the United States is aggressively trying to vaccinate its population.” The CDC announced in February that American citizens who have been vaccinated upon return to the US there will be no mandatory quarantine. The two week quarantine had been labelled an industry killer as the US sought to rebound from the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. “I looked at the latest statistic that maybe the US is close to having 70m
ROBERT SANDS vaccinated, so at this point and time they’re getting to maybe about 20 percent of their population,” said Mr Sands. “The US is vaccinating 2m-3m people a day, which is a good pace, and I think that’s a good thing for the continued rebound of tourism certainly for The Bahamas.” To move forward itself Mr Sands said The Bahamas should continually work towards sourcing tourists from other markets while getting as many Bahamians
vaccinated as possible. Numerous voices in the tourism industry have expressed anxiety over the need to vaccinate and the pace at which those in the tourism sector are being immunised. Some argue hotel workers should be a priority to stimulate a quick rebound to the Bahamian tourism sector. “I think that the government will be addressing this particular issue of vaccinations for people in the tourism sector. The Prime Minister alluded to it more
than one occasion, so I think should star tuned,” said Mr Sands. Aashwin Bali, general manager of the Holiday Inn Express, was less enthusiastic about the US government announcing new quarantine guidance to vaccinated Americans. He said: “The thing is you can still catch COVID-19 even after you have been vaccinated and you can still spread COVID19. Vaccinations will not stop the spread of COVID-19. “Vaccinations will save you as it will make you more
immune towards COVID19, but you can still spread the disease if you don’t follow the COVID-19 protocols that we have. “So vaccination is just for your personal safety and boosts your immune system, so by saying that you don’t have to quarantine after you have travelled is not 100 percent right. In my opinion, you still should have a test when you travel in from somewhere and you have to quarantine in terms of the quarantine protocol as well.” Mr Bali cautioned that despite the increase in vaccinations taking place in key source markets for The Bahamas, the virus is “still spreading”. “As I said, it is just immune boosters and boosting the human body’s immune system,” added Mr Bali. Notwithstanding that COVID-19 is still looming over the country, Mr Bali said he had a 50 percent occupancy over the Easter holiday and that Holiday Inn Express is “slowly gathering momentum”. Offers to local tourists that he has been giving offers too, gave the hotel the boost it needed during the Easter break.