11232022 NEWS, SPORT AND BUSINESS

Court documents reveal valuation of real estate spree

By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A BAHAMIAN real tor yesterday estimated that the collapsed FTX crypto currency exchange spent $250m and “prob ably more” on acquiring New Providence real estate, adding: “It was great while it lasted.”

Ryan Knowles, of Maison Bahamas Real Estate, told Tribune Business the company’s spectacular implosion in little more than a week had not cost

local realtors “any deals” because what some have described as a $300m buying spree had finished.

The latter valuation was placed on FTX’s Bahamas real estate purchases during yesterday’s Delaware Bank ruptcy Court proceedings, although no documents or other evidence were pro vided to support this figure.

An earlier Reuters report said the crypto exchange had spent $121m on 19 New Providence property acqui sitions in 14 months.

CONTRACT AWARDED ‘SOON’ FOR CHILDREN’S WARD WORK

A CONTRACT for renovation works on the Children’s Ward at Prin cess Margaret Hospital is expected to be awarded before the end of the month.

Photos showing miss ing ceiling tiles, cracked floors and hospital sup plies piled up on each other were recently sent to this newspaper, highlighting the desperate need for reno vations at the Children’s Ward.

Upon seeing these photos, The Tribune con tacted Health and Wellness Minister Dr Michael Dar ville, who confirmed that the sights depicted in the photographs were sections of the paediatric ward.

He said upon assuming office last year, he found portions of the ward in a bad state and blamed the Minnis administration for not addressing the problem.

By JADE RUSSELL jrussell@tribunemedia.net

THE father of a Baha mian woman killed in a car crash in Minnesota on Friday is struggling to bear the loss of his daughter.

“I have this hole in my heart that’s never going to be filled,” Kermit Miller told The Tribune yesterday.

He said 24-year-old Ebony Miller was his “eve rything”, adding she was the best child anyone could ask for.

FATHER OF CRASH VICTIM: SHE WAS MY EVERYTHING

Mr Miller said his daugh ter was killed in a car crash on Friday morning while she was on her way home from her second job as a scribe at one of the major hospitals. She died at the scene of the accident.

“I am just distraught that there are no words. I lost everything when I lost Ebony, she was my future, hope, and my dreams,” her father said.

“I sent her away for a better life to make a better life for herself and even

for her family. She has a brother that adores her and it’s just tragic.

“When people drive with out paying attention, then innocent lives are lost. The good ones are always the ones that are taken away,” Mr Miller said.

Holding back tears, he described his daughter as “brilliant” and someone who dreamt of making a change in the world by becoming a medical doctor one day.

S&P SAYS FTX IMPLOSION WILL NOT HURT NATION

By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

STANDARD & Poor’s (S&P) yesterday gave The Bahamas “breathing room” by maintaining its exist ing sovereign credit rating while predicting that FTX’s implosion will have “no material adverse impact” for the country.

Simon Wilson, the Min istry of Finance’s financial secretary, told Tribune Business that the credit rating agency’s verdict in electing not to follow last month’s Moody’s down grade “creates a platform for us to go forward” and space for the Davis admin istration to prove it can execute its fiscal goals and targets.

GROUPS IN COUNTDOWN TO JUNKANOO

By LETRE SWEETING lsweeting@tribunemedia.net

WITH practices for the upcoming Boxing Day and New Year’s Day Junkanoo parades underway, two group representatives are already claiming victory of the parades.

After a more than twoyear hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, public relations director of the Saxons Superstars Kendenique CampbellMoss said practice for the upcoming parades has been very rewarding.

“The Saxon Superstars practice has been going immensely well, and I say immensely well, because we’ve been on hiatus for about 2.5 years because of COVID.”

ALICIA WALLACE: ANOTHER YEAR OF GOVT FAILING TO ADVANCE WOMEN

EBONY MILLER, who died aged 24 in a car crash on Friday morning in Minnesota on her way home from her job working at a hospital.

FATHER OF CRASH VICTIM: SHE WAS MY EVERYTHING

from page one

Mr Miller said Ebony was a researcher at the Pancre atic Research Department at the University of Minnesota.

“She has published four articles already on pancre atic cancer. She was about to do a big fifth article. She also worked as a scribe at one of the major hospitals here as well.”

Mr Miller told this news paper that he wanted everyone to know how gifted and exceptionally tal ented his daughter was.

He noted that his daugh ter aspired to help others in any way she could, which is why it was troubling that her life was taken away so tragically. “There’s no words to explain,” he said.

“A mother should never have to bury her daughter and a father should never have to bury his daughter. No parent should ever have to bury their child.”

He said he hopes to get justice for his daughter as he believed her life was

taken from her unfairly.

“I have to get justice for Ebony, I just want to get justice for her. She was taken senselessly by a driver that was not paying attention and was pre sumed to be impaired in some form or fashion. So excessive speed, running a traffic light, driving without paying attention.

“All that played a part in Ebony’s death. They took away somebody senselessly and my daughter was killed senselessly.”

The grieving father encouraged parents to appreciate their chil dren because life is so short.

“I just wanted to say just love your kids and love one another. Because your time here is short, we all have an appointed time to go. But when someone is taken sud denly it is so terrifying.

“And heart-wrenching to those left behind, you know. I have this hole in my heart that’s never going to be filled, there’s nothing that can fill it. There’s nobody to me like Ebony, she was my everything.”

FOOD COSTS DRI IN RICES FOR THANKS I IN EALS

By JADE RUSSELL jrussell@tribunemedia.net

SOME local restaurant owners say inflation and the high cost of food in gro cery stores have led them to increase prices of their Thanksgiving meals.

Others are trying to keep prices down while not sacri ficing quality.

Anita Ferguson, owner of Anita’s Café, said she had to increase her Thanks giving special of ham and turkey by $5 due to food being increasingly highpriced, adding her dinner plates will now be priced at $20 rather than the usual price of $15.

Ms Ferguson explained

that food prices have become gradually more expensive over time as she suggested that shopping in the grocery store is not as affordable as it used to be.

When asked if she believed it was a neces sary decision to increase her menu items, Ms Fergu son said: “It is necessary, you have to do it. I went out today and the price of Romaine lettuce is $15.99 and iceberg lettuce is $6.99.

So, as you can see there’s a big trend for the price. Last year I was paying $3.49 for the Romaine lettuce and today’s price is $15.99.”

Ms Ferguson said she only has a restaurant open a few days of the week in

order to cut back on the expenses of maintaining her business.

“I cut back... because like you said the price of food items have gone up tremen dously, it’s very expensive for anything that you use such as pork chop, fish, and seafood in general. And my niche is crab and seafood, so I am at the expensive part of the spectrum when it comes to food.”

Although Ms Ferguson had to raise her prices, she said her customers have been receptive to the change, adding they said her prices were still more affordable compared to other businesses.

owner of Le Petit

Gourmet, who identified herself as Ms Knowles, shared similar sentiments. She said food has become very costly for restaurant owners and also highlighted the high cost of Romaine lettuce.

However, she said she still is trying to provide quality food for customers at a reasonable price this Thanksgiving.

“Turkey is more expen sive, I could tell you that. But, as I said, I’m trying to offer the same good qual ity product for about the same price. So, I’m the one at the end of the day that has to compromise,” she said.

She added that over the

past three months her res taurant has noticed the skyrocketing prices of food.

Bernard Linden, owner of Healthy Lifestyle Center and Deli, said the restau rant has taken steps to help in reducing their menu prices from going up.

“What we do is make a lot of our own products from scratch. So that helps balance the costs. We are making an effort not to go up despite the inflation so the more products we make, the less expensive it is for us at the store.

“Like we make our own drinks, that’s a plus for us and we make our own vegetarian meat which is

another plus.”

Another owner of Healthy Lifestyle Center and Deli added there has been a big contrast in cost when stocking up on items for the restaurant.

“I do see a difference with my suppliers with their prices going up. Foodwise we try to get as local as possible because some of them haven’t gone up as yet on local produce,” the coowner said.

In October, Prime Min ister Philip “Brave” Davis revealed that 38 new items will be subject to price con trols as Bahamians continue to grapple with the high cost of living compounded by inflation.

CONTRACT AWARDED ‘SOON’ FOR CHILDREN’S WARD WORK

from page one

“We have structural issues with that section of the hospital and a contract will be awarded before the end of the month to start renovation from the foun dation up. That is how they left the hospital upon leav ing office. We will do our part to fix it,” he told The Tribune recently.

The Tribune understands that when the former administration was in office, several conversations were held about the need for extensive renovations at the paediatric ward.

Various proposals were even submitted to the then Minnis-led government by the Disney corporation, who wanted to fund as well as manage the actual renovation project at a cost of some $5m under a Disney-centred theme, this newspaper was told.

However, those plans never materialised.

Sources familiar with the situation said it fell through because a decision was made by the former govern ment to not proceed with Disney’s proposal.

They could not say why when asked by this newspaper.

When contacted, former Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis said he was advised that Disney wanted to inject some $5m into the ward’s redevelopment, but said those monies “never

materialised” and gave no reason why.

He also blamed Hurri cane Matthew for leaving the ward in a bad state, adding that total costs of repairs would be in the mil lions of dollars.

“What happened is the PLP had experienced a

hurricane in 2016 - I think it was Matthew. Matthew had blown out all windows on that ward and totally destroyed that area. When we came, we recognised that it needed millions of dollars of work to repair and bring it up to what we would call international

standards,” Dr Minnis said in a recent interview with The Tribune

“We subsequently con tacted the Beck Group out of Texas and the Beck Group had volunteered one of the architects to complete the design. If the govern ment is interested, they can

contact the Beck Group. The design is finished and they can proceed. Disney also toured the facility and Disney, I am advised, (that) they would infuse about $5 million, but - that monies never materialised.”

He also said: “But the design, a volunteer design

was done by the Beck Group. Now the Beck Group is the same group that designed the Critical Care Block and the Beck Group is the same group that had designed phase two moving forward.”

Former Health Minis ter Dr Duane Sands also gave some insight on the situation, saying when the former government was in office, there was a “signifi cant amount of discussion” about the role Disney would play on the redevelopment of the paediatric ward.

However, he said while Disney had expressed inter est to assist with renovation works, he didn’t believe there was an actual written commitment from them.

“There was a significant amount of discussion about the technical, the assistance of Disney in the renova tion of the children’s ward, the method by which that would happen and the foundations that would do it, which terms and so on and so forth and I think it required a kind of expres sion of interest okay,” Dr Sands said yesterday.

“So, in terms of an actual written commitment, I don’t think it would be cor rect or accurate to say that they had made a commit ment. What they did do was to express a sincere interest in assisting and I don’t think that they got the kind of supportive response to allow them to move further.”

The

EBONY MILLER, who hoped to become a doctor. She died in a car crash on Friday in Minnesota.

LAST month, another improvement for children at Princess Margaret Hospital was unveiled, with the opening of the Kids Corner at the Oncology Centre. Governor General CA Smith is pictured at the unveiling.

PM tours GoldWynn site

PRIME Minister Philip “Brave” Davis and other government officials toured the construction site of the multi-million-dollar Gold Wynn hotel and residences project on Cable Beach last week to view the develop ment’s progress.

He was accompanied by Works and Utilities Minis ter Alfred Sears and other officials.

“It’s very impressive,” Prime Minister Davis said following a tour of the

development.

He spoke in a video released by the Office of the Prime Minister yesterday.

“I remember when it was just a mere house there, two houses that were situ ated on this property and to see what the property has been converted to. It’s just a wonderful display of what I call Bahamian inge nuity and I like to see the amount of Bahamians that are here working and at one time, there was a lot of

doubts as to whether or not this could’ve happened and behold it has happened.”

Mr Davis went on to praise the project’s devel oper, Paul Wynn, and his team, adding: “They have done a wonderful job.”

He continued: “The workmanship is impecca ble, exquisite and I’m sure the residents here will have an exquisite experience.”

The Prime Minister also described the project as a true demonstration of the

growing investors’ confi dence in The Bahamas.

“It will all go well for our economy because I’m advised that they will be hiring at least 200 plus workers here on the prop erty. They are about to start another phase of this next door so this is another boom for the economy and for that, I would like to thank the investors and the developer for their con tinued confidence in this country,” he said.

John Adams, the proper ty’s chief operating officer, spoke about the make-up of the condo hotel.

“We’re referred to as a condo hotel so we’re 81 keys on the hotel, mean ing we have 81 residential suites. We have studios, one-bedroom, two-bed room and some luxurious three-bedroom suites and on the residential side, we have 79 residential suites for owners to live in full time to be residents here in The Bahamas,” he said.

He also revealed that offi cials intend to “go live” for the property’s first paying guests next February.

It’s core market, he added, will mostly be US citizens along with Canadians.

“Starting February, we’re looking to ramp up slowly,” he said when asked about their forecasted occupancy levels.

“We want to make sure that we do it right and that we find our stride. We want to create a truly

not have seen, because of COVID. And, of course, the camaraderie that has been built around the prac tices and getting ready for the return to Bay (Street), you know, it’s an absolutely phenomenal experience,” she said.

Ms Campbell-Moss added, “We have more participants. As a group we are about maybe 10,000 strong. We cannot take 10,000 people to Bay Street. But our group numbers are astronomical.

“We had practice Sunday night, that Sunday practice had Arawak Cay blocked up for hours and hours on end, the music was melodi ous, the tempo, the energy, the feverish anticipation of what is to come,” she said.

When asked about the group’s competition this year, she said, “Well, we really don’t see any com petition. So, I have no choice words. But if you are coming for the parade, you have to come to beat us. We are in fact the champions. And it’s not champion by one or two points. So who are my competitors? Who is competing with me? I am the best. There’s nothing else to say.”

However, Valley Boys

chairman Brian Adderley said the Junkanoo group will be separating them selves in the upcoming parades and “annihilating” any and all competition.

“I’d like to share just two things, and the watchwords for these two parades are dominance and annihila tion. And the Valley Boys will clearly separate them selves. And we will once again show the Junkanoo world that we’re the jugger nauts of Junkanoo and we will just simply annihilate the competition,” he said.

“When you see us line up, you will see a vast dif ference between the Valley Boys and the second place, whoever that may be,” Mr Adderley said.

He added that with the vast increase in those par ticipating in the upcoming parades, the group has set up new marshalling strate gies to better manage the numbers.

“The Valley Boys would have I would imagine, I guess five to 800 people, we’re gonna try our best to manage them. Not try our best, we will manage that because we’ve even embarked on a new mar shalling endeavour,” Mr Adderley said.

“We anticipate that with this hiatus from Junkanoo, that we’re going to have that increased member ship, if you will. And so we have already put plans in motion, formulated a new marshal strategy. And we have already begun to implement that. Even at the practices,” he said.

“If you attend Potter’s Cay dock, the Sunday prac tice, you will see a new marshalling plan and strat egy in place to mitigate against this increase in the numbers,” Mr Adderley said.

In 2019, the Saxon Superstars emerged as the official winner of the 2019 Boxing Day parade after a penalty reversal. Then JCNP chairman Silbert Ferguson cited errors in the allocation of penalties as the reason.

This pushed the Valley Boys, the original winner, into second place. Ques tions had swirled at the time across social media about the shifting in the results.

The Saxons had placed second in the unofficial tally, followed by Genesis, One Family and the Roots.

The Saxons also won the following 2020 New Year’s Day Junkanoo parade.

customer centric experi ence so we’re going to be a little bit apprehensive to just go guns a blazing, but we’re going to target for an overall average for year, we

want to target about 65 per cent occupancy.” The location of the property is across from the Office of the Prime Minister.

“And with the recent

resurgence of Junkanoo practices for us, it’s been a monumental task,” Ms Campbell-Moss said.

“It’s been overwhelm ing, it’s been unifying, it’s been an opportunity for us to see persons that we may

GoldWynn

HONOURING VOLUNTEERS

TWO ACCUSED OF ENDANGERING LIVES

By PAVEL BAILEY Tribune Court Reporter pbailey@tribunemedia.net

TWO Exuma men were charged in Magis trate’s Court yesterday with endangering the lives of four people with a handgun.

Elton Bain, 27, and Robin Ferguson, 26, stood before Magistrate Kendra Kelly charged with three counts of possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life. Bain faced an additional charge of posses sion of a firearm with intent to endanger life as well as

a solo charge of causing damage.

On November 14 in Roker’s Point, the two accused are said to have threatened the lives of Dereck Nottage, Brian Sawyer and Riaheem Swan with a handgun.

On the same day in Farmer’s Hill, it is alleged that Bain endangered the life of Cari Smith with a handgun. He also report edly caused $1,500 damage to Kraunein Nixon’s Cadil lac Escalade after allegedly firing his weapon.

Because of the nature of the offences, neither

accused was required to enter a plea. They were informed that their case would proceed to the Supreme Court by a volun tary bill of indictment (VBI).

They were further informed that as the mag istrate did not have the jurisdiction to grant them bail, they could apply for bail in the higher court.

Until bail is granted they will be sent to the Bahamas Department of Correc tional Services.

They are expected to receive their VBIs on February 27, 2023 before Magistrate Kelly.

A NUMBER of outstanding volunteers were honoured by Governor General Sir Cornelius A Smith at an awards ceremony at SuperClubs Breezes last night. The Governor General’s Volunteer Baha mas Awards is part of a series of events planned for Volunteer Month.

Photos: Austin Fernander

GOVERNONR General CA Smith and Social Services Minister Obie Wilchcombe with Daliyah Culmer and her parents.

KELLY HANNA, Anastacia Johnson,Kenneth Sweeting, Stacy Mackey, and Christine King of the Ki wanis Club.

HONOREES, clockwise from top left, Bishop Walter Hanchell, Omar Stubbs, Ricardo Deveaux, Harold McPhee, Kendal Rolle and Henrylee Butler.

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War-torn

states may struggle for climate funds

IN CONFLICT-RAVAGED nations like Yemen and Somalia, devastating floods and droughts kill hundreds of people and uproot tens of thousands from their homes.

These countries and many others in the Middle East and Africa have been plunged into turmoil and wars for sev eral years. Now climate change is an added disaster for those already strug gling for survival.

The United Nations’ climate confer ence, which wrapped up last weekend in Egypt, established a new fund to help poor, vulnerable countries hit hard by climate change. Countries like Yemen and Somalia are among the world’s poorest and more vulnerable to climate change impacts as they are less able to adapt to weather extremes.

But they have little or no access to cli mate financing.

Conflict-hit countries are unlikely to receive funds because they lack stable governments, said Nisreen el-Saim, chair of the UN Secretary-General Youth Advisory Group.

“They don’t have institutions in order to have climate finance,” she said. “You have to have strong institutions, which don’t exist in many countries.”

Robert Mardini, the director gen eral of the International Committee for the Red Cross, said that “close to zero amount of climate finance” is reach ing conflict-affected nations “because decision makers who decide to allocate those funds consider that it is too risky to invest” there.

He warned that the worst is yet to come for Yemenis and Somalis amid worsening food shortages.

Those decision makers “need to reconsider the risk appetite because there are also big risks in not investing in these countries and huge (human) costs that should be avoided,” he said.

In Yemen, a third of the population — 19 million people — are not able to find sufficient food in 2022, up from 15 million last year. Those include 161,000 living in famine-like conditions, accord ing to the UN food agency.

Children and women are the most affected, with 1.3 million pregnant and breastfeeding women and 2.2 million children under five years acutely mal nourished. Of those, 538,000 children suffer from severe acute malnutrition, said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Yemen has endured a brutal civil war since 2014, when the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels seized the capital, Sanaa, forcing the government into exile. A Saudi-led coalition entered the war in early 2015 to try restore the internation ally recognised government to power.

The conflict devastated the country, created one of the world’s worst human itarian crises and over the years, turned into a regional proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. More than 150,000 people have been killed, including over 14,500 civilians.

The country has also suffered from droughts, soil erosion and yet worsening floods every year. According to the UN agriculture agency, this year’s rainfall was 45% higher compared to 2021.

At least 72 people were killed in flooding this year, and some 74,000 fami lies in 19 of the country’s 22 provinces were affected, with those living in dis placement camps bearing the brunt of the deluge. There are 4.3 million people displaced, most made homelss by the raging conflict, according to UN figures.

To meet the increasing humanitarian needs, the World Food Program says it needs more than $1 billion until March 2023.

The situation is worse in Somalia. The country is inching towards famine, the UN says. Prolonged drought has brought hunger and death to hundreds of thousands.

The country experienced its fifth con secutive failed rainy season this year, forcing at least 700,000 people from their homes, said Mohamed Osman, an economic advisor to the Somali president.

He said Somalia needs $55.5 billion in investment and assistance in the next 10 years to be able to recover from climatic shocks.

“Somalia is paying the price already,” he said. “We have received so far noth ing and in total, Africa has received less.”

In the past two months alone, more than 55,000 Somalis fled drought and conflict to neighboring Kenya, and the number is expected to reach 120,000 in the next few months, according to the International Rescue Committee.

“Hundreds of thousands of Somali refugees will struggle to find life-saving assistance by fleeing to Kenya this year unless urgent steps are taken,” said IRC’s director in Kenya, Mohamed El Montassir Hussein.

Somalia descended into chaos follow ing the 1991 ousting of longtime dictator Siad Barre by warlords who then turned on each other. The al-Shabab militants, who are affiliated with al-Qaida, are also active in the country which occupied a strategically important position in the Horn of Africa.

In Nigeria, seasonal rainfall and flooding killed more than 55 people in extreme weather scientists say was made 80 times more likely because of climate change. Around 20 million people in the country are estimated to face acute food insecurity amid crop losses and lower yields, according to official figures.

The ICRC has warned about an outbreak of cholera and other water borne diseases amid dire a shortage of live-saving aid, including shelter, water, sanitation, food, and emergency healthcare.

The country’s northeastern regions where yearslong fighting against Islamic insurgency are centered were the worst hit.

“With more than 440,000 hectares of land already impacted by this flood, the magnitude of its effect on food security can be better imagined,” said Benson Agbro, head of the Nigerian Red Cross Society’s disaster response.

Agbro added they urgently need more than $13.5m to address dire humanitar ian conditions in the most hard hit areas.

“But longer term, we also need to build resilience to climate shocks as we know that communities affected by con flict are among the most vulnerable to climate change,” he said.

The Russian war in Ukraine has also doubled the challenges and costs of living for people in conflict-hit countries, according Mardini of the Red Cross.

“There is a knock-on effect of the Ukraine international armed conflict,” he said, pointing to the skyrocketing prices of food, energy, fertilizers and the straining supply chain.

“So doing the same thing in a place like Somalia or Mali is more costly for us, and we need to mobilize more funds from our donors to do the same type of project that we used to do a year ago,” he said.

Osman, the Somali official, said greater efforts are also needed for conflict-hit countries to access funds beyond the new proposed compensation deal. The package is just one part of a proposed “mosaic of funding arrange ments” for climate vulnerable nations.

He called for “innovative ways” to receive funds, including initiatives on debt relief and help to build government institutions.

“No country should be left behind,” he said.

By SAMY MAGDY Associated Press

Remember our brave volunteers

EDITOR, The Tribune.

AS USUAL, the second Sunday in November was observed in the Bahamas as Remembrance Day.

This is when we remem ber and honour the Bahamian Men and Women who stepped forward and joined the British Armed Forces.

They volunteered to put their lives on the line to rebuff the efforts of a Despot to dominate the World.

Regrettably only four of the veterans are alive today.

LETTERS

We will forever be grate ful to them, their families and the British Legion –Bahamas Branch which is doing a fantastic job in remembering them.

As a part of the Obser vation, the traditional religious service was held at Christ Church Cathedral where it has been held for many, many years.

While this Service was always appreciated it is not

a national service, but a ser vice of the Cathedral.

It is most appropriate that Bahamians should come together in a National Ecumenical Service under the auspices of the Baha mas Christian Council to express our national appreciation.

We owe so much to these brave men and women that it is only fitting that all faiths join together in thanking God for them.

REV CB MOSS Nassau, November 22, 2022

Readers have say on issues

AFTER the question was raised in Monday’s Insight piece by Malcolm Strachan of whether the House of Assembly had been misled over BPL’s hedging strategy decisions, readers had their input on the subject.

ThisIsOurs said: “It’s a bit deeper than whether they misled the house.

“The questions I have, how does a cabinet paper get written? Who requests it? Was it this one started before or after the new govt came in? Then after its com pleted what process does it go through? Addressing a letter to a minister or the Prime Minister doesnt nec essarily mean the minister or Prime Minister reads it. Someone at the gate deter mines what they do and do not see. So Id like to see the journey of a generic cabinet paper and then the journey that this paper took.

“The bigger question I have in light of the debacle on price control, minimum wage, BPL and FTX is who is really running the country, or corunning the country. I get the impression that Brave Davis just read what was put in front of

him, he did not even known that 38 products he spoke of were actually 38 categories translating into 3000+ items, the basics of the analysis.

I’m not suggesting that Mr Davis isnt working there are a thousand issues other than these 4 that he has to attend to, but these were big ones with a huge impact. So who made these decisions? Was it Fitzgerald or Wilson or someone else? That’s the danger, and it always was, the man who has the lead ers ear, the man behind the curtain.”

Birdiestrachan added:

“There seems to be some confusion, Mr Pintard is also confused he will do well to address the domes and the food programme he is running over with advise it is to bad he had none when doc was in power stra chan comes to his rescue.

“As for Mr Sears resign ing Mr Pintard should stop talking foolish if he con tinues he will be labelled a great big fool he is coming close he should take note.”

letters@tribunemedia.net

A YOUNG and rising star - Daliyah Culmer receiving her volunteer award from Governor General CA Smith last night.

Photo: Austin Fernander

US donation to help in disasters

THE United States government is committed to helping The Baha mas prepare for future disasters.

US Major General Connie Jen kins, the director of logistics and engineering from the US Depart ment of Defense’s Northern Command (USNORTHCOM), visited Nassau from Nov 15-18 to participate in a recognition cere mony of recently donated supplies. Donated material included a field hospital, temporary shelters, communication equipment, trans portable armories, generators, and flood-water rescue boats valued at approximately $5m. This equip ment gives The Bahamas the ability to rapidly deploy necessary supplies from New Providence to the Family Islands for humanitarian and disas ter response.

“One of the things that we focus extensively on with our partner nations is working on different avenues within logistics and engi neering to make everyone more resilient, especially when it comes to things like crises, storms and

disaster response operations and humanitarian assistance. Both USNORTHCOM and the Royal Bahamas Defence Force (RBDF) have made significant efforts to increase gender equity within their respective forces. As Major General Jenkins mentioned in her meetings with the RBDF and the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), empowering women benefits everyone in a society: “The rising tide lifts all boats.”

The equipment donations represent half of the $10m USNORTHCOM has given The Bahamas in 2022 as part of thea tre security cooperation efforts. During the pandemic, USNORTH COM provided The Bahamas with diagnostic systems, ventilators, and ultra-low temperature freezers. This assistance from the United States demonstrates its ongo ing commitment to bolster The Bahamas’ disaster response and humanitarian assistance capabilities.

WANTED MAN BROUGHT TO BAHAMAS

POLICE said

effort

them and the United States Homeland Security has resulted in a wanted suspect being deported back to the Bahamas.

Juvin Eric Sawyer, 36, also known as Juvin Eric Stra chan, of Bimini was arrested in South Florida on June 9, 2022 by Border Patrol and Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE).

At 9.20am yesterday, Strachan arrived in New Providence accompanied by ICE officers and will be flown into Grand Bahama. Police want his help with several ongoing investigations.

MAN FACES COURT OVER FIREARM

By PAVEL BAILEY Tribune Court Reporter pbailey@tribunemedia.net

A MAN was impris oned yesterday after allegedly being found with a firearm and live ammunition.

Deangelo Major, 23, faced Magistrate Kendra Kelly on charges of pos session of an unlicensed firearm and possession of ammunition.

On November 20, author ities reportedly found Major with a black Spring field 9mm pistol. At the time of his arrest, he was also accused of having five live rounds of 9mm ammunition.

In court, Major pleaded not guilty to both charges. However, Major’s bail hearing was deferred to November 25 for the prosecution to review his case.

He was remanded to the Bahamas Department of Correctional Ser vices until his next court appearance.

a col laborative

between

climate issues,” said Maj Gen Jenkins. During her visit, she discussed with Bahamian military leaders ways to address gender-related challenges and disparities in

A FIELD hospital donated by the United States.

MAJOR General Connie Jenkins enjoys a demonstration of the Royal Bahamas Defence Force’s maritime simulator.

Another year - another govt failure to advance women

WE ARE rapidly coming to the end of another year that our government has not made the necessary changes to legislation toward gender equality or for the advance ment of women. Marital rape has still not been crim inalised, though it has been discussed for months and months and a symposium that was a complete failure was held to discuss the draft bill. Women still do not pass on citizenship to children or spouses. We have known that there are critical issues that need to be address for years. Still, it is all stalled.

The government blames us for its lack of progress. It says it will only do what we want it to do. It says it needs to consult, but that only seems to be true when it comes to issues of women’s human rights, and not when it comes to, say, the removal of the statue of enslaver and genocidal murder Christo pher Columbus. There is no guidebook to help us pin point which issues depend on us and which can be addressed with no contribu tions or feedback from us. It seems, in fact, that “con sultation” has become an excuse, a stalling tactic, and a way to eschew respon sibility. Yes, Members of Parliament represent us and ought to engage us on a regular basis and under stand our positions as individual and as a collec tive. In addition to that, the government has obligations it must meet, that it under stands, and that cannot be superseded by the the whims of particular groups of people who prefer power imbalances and the ability to oppress other people.

This week, three sexual assault incidents were reported in the news. The response, as usual, was one of shock, sadness, and a very temporary anger. This is the way it goes. An issue exists. We may or may not know that it is rooted in some other issues, usually systemic. People largely choose to focus on

By Alicia Wallace

the single incident. They express that they are upset. “Something must be done!” It is the talk of the town for one or two days. Then something else comes up, and attention shifts. Before anything is ever done, the focus is placed on the more recent incident, and that too is forgotten in less than one week.

It is not often mentioned that sexual assault is not just an issue on its own. It does not come from nowhere. It is often discussed in a reductive way and people are distracted by their ten dency to blame victims. They must have done some thing to attract the rapists, the ignorant say. Not only is rape not sex, but rape is not the result of sexual attrac tion or a desire for sex. Sexual violence is about power and control, much like the oppression and hatred of women. Sexual violence is connected to the systems that degrade and dehumanise women, includ ing patriarchy.

Patriarchy is a system in which the father or the oldest man is the head of a family and men hold the power in societies and governments. This is demonstrated in the way men are asked for their daughters’ hands in mar riage, fathers “give” their daughters to grooms at weddings, and boys are the preferred inheritors. Yes, it exists in some practices that people romanticize and enjoy. People find ways to “explain” patriarchy and the practices that uphold it. They say that men are “providers” and must earn the money to take care of households, but we all know

that women work, and Black women have always worked, and one income has never been enough to sustain a household. They also say men have to take care of families, and this is why they should inherit the property rather than the women in the family. Our reality today, however, dis proves these excuses. The only functions of patriarchy are to concentrate power in the hands of men and prevent women from being able to make their own decisions.

Patriarchy is used to control women while allowing men to get away with anything, including sexual violence. Patriar chy says that women must be protected. This is why they must be under the rule of their fathers until their fathers decide there is a suitable man to take over that role. For many women, brothers must step in at some point as pro tectors. Women without this protection are seen to have no value. Notice the way a woman can say she is not interested, but many men will only leave her alone once she says she is married.

There is no interest in addressing the factors that create a world where women need to be pro tected. This is advantageous for men. They benefit from women being in need of protection and, even more than that, afraid. If women are afraid to venture out alone, they will stay in and everything they do can be closely monitored because their “protectors” are also supervisors, spies, and rein forcers of the patriarchy.

Patriarchy shows up in our government, where only seven of 39 seats are held by women. How, then, can we address patriarchy in the government? How might political parties be keeping women out to maintain this system?

Patriarchy goes hand in hand with misogyny. This is the hatred of and prejudice against women. This may sound harsh, but know that the reality is even worse. When there is a report of sexual assault, people come up with justifications for violence. They find ways to place the blame on the victims. Even people who claim to love and support women say things like, “Women need to be more

Recommendations

1. The School for Good Moth ers by Jessamine Chan. This novel is bewildering. It is far enough from our reality that it is strange, and maybe even absurd, but close enough that it is unnerving and can feel like prophecy. Frida is a single mother with an 18-month old baby that she is just learning to under stand. Harriet cries a lot and keeps Frida awake just about all night. Frida has one very bad day, and it leads to many other terrible days, away from her baby, trying to prove to everyone, including herself, that she can be a good mother. This novel exposes the reader to the truth about society and the way it views women (as subhuman) and sets ridiculous expectations of mothers (as though they are superhuman). It suggests that there is one way to mother, and any mother who does not meet the exact requirements as set out is not only a failure, but must be punished. Frida is punished, and she forces herself to prove her ability to meet the expectations and become a good mother by those standards, all while surrounded by other women like her, some of whom are ready to give up.

2. Spirituals by Santigold. San tigold has always defied genre, and her music has informed and shaped R&B and pop in many ways. It is no surprise that she brings electronica, punk, and funk to Spirituals. Her first album in six years, Santigold told NPR that making Spirituals was her salvation. It was a way to move

beyond her circumstances and to find joy and freedom in her own creativ ity. For example, she spoke candidly about “My Horror” which was about losing balance when motherhood took up all of her time and energy during the pandemic, having no one else to cook, clean, or attend to the other needs of her six-year-old and her two-year-old twins. In the music video, she looks like a housewife on the run, literally, on the street in a suburb. Interestingly, the music is not at all depressing and does not give an overwhelming feeling of desperation one might imagine. My Horror is like looking at someone with a layer peeled back. My current favorites from the album are Shake and No Paradise.

This novel is bewildering. It is far enough from our reality that it is strange, and maybe even absurd, but close enough that it is unnerv ing and can feel like prophecy. Frida is a single mother with an 18-month old baby that she is just learning to understand. Harriet cries a lot and keeps Frida awake just about all night. Frida has one very bad day, and it leads to many other terrible days, away from her baby, trying to prove to everyone, including herself, that she can be a good mother. This novel exposes the reader to the truth about society and the way it views women (as subhuman) and sets ridic ulous expectations of mothers (as though they are superhuman). It sug gests that there is one way to mother,

and any mother who does not meet the exact requirements as set out is not only a failure, but must be pun ished. Frida is punished, and she forces herself to prove her ability to meet the expectations and become a good mother by those standards, all while surrounded by other women like her, some of whom are ready to give up.

2. Spirituals by Santigold. San tigold has always defied genre, and her music has informed and shaped R&B and pop in many ways. It is no surprise that she brings electronica, punk, and funk to Spirituals. Her first album in six years, Santigold told NPR that making Spirituals was her salvation. It was a way to move beyond her circumstances and to find joy and freedom in her own creativity. For example, she spoke candidly about “My Horror” which was about losing balance when motherhood took up all of her time and energy during the pandemic, having no one else to cook, clean, or attend to the other needs of her six-year-old and her two-year-old twins. In the music video, she looks like a housewife on the run, literally, on the street in a suburb. Interestingly, the music is not at all depressing and does not give an overwhelming feeling of desperation one might imagine.

NOTICE

NOTICE

careful”. Whatever the intentions may be, what they are doing is reinforcing patriarchy. They are saying that women are respon sible for their own safety, particularly when they do not have the protection of a visibly present man who is in relationship to her. They are saying that women can prevent violations against them, just by being “care ful”. This is not true. There are no locks, cameras, nail polishes, hair clips, or buildings that completely protect against people who are determined to commit acts of violence. People are violated in their homes every day, some of them by their own husbands. The problem is not women. It is rapists. It is the patriar chal system that portrays women as weak and con vincing everyone — women and men — that women are subhuman and deserving of less than men. Less money, less freedom, less power, less control over their own lives.

If a woman chooses to go somewhere or do some thing without a man, there are rules to follow, and even then, she must know what she is risking. She needs to be extremely alert. She should wear shoes that are comfortable for running. She should avoid darkness at all costs. She needs to have some kind of weapon, whether it is mace or a makeshift tool. She needs to do the right thing with her phone, whatever that is. Maybe it is not using it at all, maybe it is having the line open with someone on the other end who can hear what is going on. Maybe it is using the app that tracks her, the one that will set off an alarm if she doesn’t tap it in five minutes, or the one that automatically sends her location to her three selected contacts. Maybe it is using the camera to record everything. Maybe it is not having a phone at all. This is the other thing. The rules are not always clear, and they often change.

Technology changes too, and it, too, puts the onus on women to protect

themselves. All of this, in a world where relationships are sold to women partly on the basis that men are protectors. Men, though, are also the predators. The violators. The rapists. So women need men to protect them. Against men?

Patriarchy is not a solu tion. It is the problem. Rapists are the problem. Victim-blaming is the prob lem. When sexual violence make the news and people angrily talk about punish ment, and not prevention, that is the problem. By the time we get to punishment, a terrible violation has already occurred. What are we going to do about sexual violence now to prevent it from happening tomor row? How does the way the government treats women — by failing to follow through with legal reform — uphold patriarchy and endanger women? How do the people convince the government that this coun try needs gender equality, and its laws need to prove that it is an irrefutable fact that women are human beings with human rights? When will the government meet its obligations and stop blaming the people for its failure to act?

The Global 16 Days Campaign starts on Friday, November 25 with Inter national Day to End Violence Against Women, and Equality Bahamas has planned a series of events for its annual participation in the campaign. The theme for the 2022 campaign is “Let’s End Femicide” and the organisation will host events focused on the killing of women and girls because of their sex or gender. It begins with the CEDAW (Conven tion on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimi nation against Women) Speaker Series session on nationality rights with Vice Chair and Rapporteur of the CEDAW Committee Aruna Narain on Saturday at 10am, and you can reg ister at tiny.cc/cedaw9. The full lineup will be available on its social media channels (equality242) this week.

My Horror is like looking at someone with a layer peeled back. My cur rent favorites from the album are Shake and No Paradise.

THE ZONTA Club has renewed its Orange the World campaign to draw attention to violence against women, with the Global 16 Days Campaign due to start on Friday.

NOTICE is hereby given that DANILO RULLI of 6 Gunport Blvd ,Grand Bahama The Bahamas is applying to the Minister responsible for Nationality and Citizenship, for registration/naturalization as a citizen of The Bahamas, and that any person who knows any reason why registration/naturalization should not be granted, should send a written and signed statement of the facts within twenty-eight days from the 16th day of November, 2022 to the Minister responsible for nationality and Citizenship, P.O. Box N-7147, Nassau, Bahamas.

NOTICE is hereby given that MARVENS DELHOMME of Central Pines, Dundas Town, Abaco, The Bahamas is applying to the Minister responsible for Nationality and Citizenship, for registration/naturalization as a citizen of The Bahamas, and that any person who knows any reason why registration/naturalization should not be granted, should send a written and signed statement of the facts within twenty-eight days from the 16th day of November, to the Minister responsible for nationality and Citizenship, P.O. Box N-7147, Nassau, Bahamas.

is hereby given that ALEXANDER ZAGO of Grand Bahama, The Bahamas is applying to the Minister responsible for Nationality and Citizenship, for registration/naturalization as a citizen of The Bahamas, and that any person who knows any reason why registration/naturalization should not be granted, should send a written and signed statement of the facts within twenty-eight days from the 16th day of November, 2022 to the Minister responsible for nationality and Citizenship, P.O. Box N-7147, Nassau, Bahamas.

Court dismisses appeal in incest and assault case

THE Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal and reaffirmed the nine-year and three-year sentences a man received for com mitting incest and indecent assault on his six-year-old niece.

The man, sometime in December 2019, had unlawful sexual inter course and indecently assaulted the child. Later, on August 31, 2021, after a trial in the Supreme Court, the appellant was found guilty on both counts. He received nine years on the incest charge and three years on the charge of indecent assault minus his time on remand and both sentences were to run concurrently.

It was alleged that the appellant rubbed his penis on his niece’s vagina and on another occasion, inde cently assaulted her.

Initially he was charged only with incest, but the indictment was amended at the commencement of his trial to include the indecent assault charge.

The appellant, whose name is being withheld to protect the child, sought to appeal his conviction arguing good character – meaning he had no previ ous convictions or cautions against him – and that the sentences were unduly unfair.

According to the Court of Appeal’s judgement, the appellant also based

his appeal on: “Grounds relative to a good charac ter direction, the judge’s rejection of his no case submission, admission of hearsay evidence, the judge’s failure to give a Turnbull warning, and the judge’s direction on the appellant’s confession,” among other reasons.

The appellant also argued that his sentence was “unduly severe”.

On April 1, he lodged a notice of appeal; but on July 17 he filed an amended notice of appeal outlining the grounds.

“A defendant must distinctly raise his good character either through his own evidence, on oath or affirmation, or by

witnesses called on his own behalf; and that evidence must disclose that he has a good character in the ‘legal sense’,” the judgement read.

“The court is satisfied that the appellant was not entitled to a good character direction on both limbs of credibility and propensity even though he went into the witness box and testified during the trial. In relation to the complaint on the Mushtaq direction, in the court’s view, the judge gave an adequate direction on the issue of voluntariness of the record of interview.

“The court is satisfied that the judge did not err when she did not accede to the no case to answer submission

TEENS ACCUSED OF ARMED ROBBERIES

By PAVEL BAILEY Tribune Court Reporter pbailey@tribunemedia.net

THREE teens were charged in Magistrate’s Court yesterday in separate incidents of armed robbery.

A 14-year-old boy stood before Magistrate Kara Turnquest-Deveaux on two counts of armed robbery and one of receiving.

On November 16 in New Providence, the accused, being concerned with another while armed with a handgun, is alleged to have robbed Ordeaha Pierre of a $200 blue Guess handbag containing $100 cash. It is further said that at this time an undetermined amount of cash was stolen from Maxxi’s bar on Montagu Beach.

The accused is also alleged on the same day to have robbed Berthony

Joseph of one rose gold Samsung cellphone valued at $300.

As these allegations are indictable offences, the juvenile was not required to enter a plea in court. He was informed that his case would be fast tracked to the Supreme Court.

The accused was also told that while the magistrate lacked the jurisdiction to grant him bail, he had the right to apply for it through the higher court.

Until bail is granted the teen will be remanded to the Simpson Penn Centre for Boys. He is expected to be served his Voluntary Bill of Indictment (VBI) on February 16, 2023.

The other two males, Miguel Barr, 18, and a 16-year-old, who was accompanied by his mother, faced a shared

charge of armed robbery before Magistrate Kendra Kelly. While Barr faced additional charges of pos session of an unlicensed firearm and possession of ammunition, the 16-yearold alone stood accused of receiving.

On November 16 in New Providence, the two, while armed with a handgun, are accused of robbing Davon Coleby of $65 cash.

It is further alleged that on the same day at around 9.55pm, they were found by authorities with a Taurus G2C pistol with the serial number erased. At the time of his arrest, Barr is also said to have had seven unfired rounds of .9mm ammunition.

Neither defendant was required to enter a plea for the armed robbery charge. Barr pleaded not guilty to his remaining charges.

However his co-accused pleaded guilty to the receiv ing charge relating to the stolen cash.

Although the accused are to be remanded to the Bahamas Department of Cor rectional Services and Simpson Penn respectively until they are granted bail by the Supreme Court, the bail for their remaining charges was also set.

Bail for the defend ants’ lesser charges is set at $3,000 each. Under the conditions of this bail both defendants are expected to sign in at the Grove Police Station every Friday by 6pm. A 9pm to 6am resi dential curfew is also to be enforced.

Service of their VBIs, sentencing, service of a pro bation report and the start of Barr’s trial is set for Jan uary 13, 2023.

made on the appellant’s behalf; nor did she err when she did not remove the first count, incest, from the jury’s consideration because sufficient evidence had been adduced for the jury to consider.

“Regarding the appel lant’s claim of admission of hearsay evidence, the court is of the view that Dr Carroll used her report merely as an aide memoire.

Relative to the Turnbull warning, there was evidence that the appellant admitted to placing his penis on the virtual complainant’s belly and leg.

“This was sufficient evidence for the jury to conclude that the appel lant was the person who

had done acts to the virtual complainant. Further, the appellant did not challenge the identification of himself as the ‘uncle’ mentioned by the virtual complainant as being mistakenly made. Considering the appellant’s complaint on sentence, the court is of the view that the judge did not take into consideration anything she ought not to have, nor did she fail to consider anything she should have. It cannot be said that the appellant’s sentences are unduly severe or harsh.”

However, after several considerations, Justices Jon Isaacs, Maureen CraneScott and Sir Brian Moree dismissed the appeal and reaffirmed the sentences.

THREE IN COURT OVER STABBING

By PAVEL BAILEY Tribune Court Reporter pbailey@tribunemedia.net

THREE Exuma men were granted bail in Mag istrate’s Court yesterday after allegedly stabbing a man at the Fish Fry in George Town.

Brian Sawyer, 47, Derek Nottage, 47, and Eric Nottage, 20, all of Roker’s Point, faced Magistrate Kendra Kelly on a charge of grievous harm.

It is alleged that on November 14 at the local Fish Fry, the trio got into an argument with Bobby McPhee which reportedly ended with McPhee being

stabbed. Mr McPhee suf fered injuries to his back and right elbow in rela tion to this incident.

In court, all three accused pleaded not guilty to the offence. They were each granted $4,000 bail with one or two sureties. The conditions of their bail are that they are to be fitted with an electronic moni toring device and are expected to sign in at their local police sta tion the first and third Sunday of every month.

The trial in this matter will begin on February 8, 2023.

TOYOTA SHOWS NEW PRIUS HYBRID WITH MORE POWER, RANGE, STYLE

By YURI KAGEYAMA and TOM KRISHER AP Business Writers

TOKYO (AP) — The new Toyota gas-electric Prius hybrid not only comes with more power, acceleration and driving range. It’s also more styl ish, scrapping the rather stodgy angular body for a sleekly futuristic look.

Simon Humphries, senior general manager of Global Toyota design who unveiled the car in Tokyo and Los Angeles last week, stressed that the company was still defying the skep tics who keep asking how much longer the Japanese automaker will stick with hybrids in a rapidly electri fying industry.

“Simply because the Prius is an eco-car within everyone’s reach. In order to achieve carbon neutral ity, everyone in the world must participate,” he told reporters. “We need eco logical solutions within reach of the many. And it needs to start today, not tomorrow.”

The fifth-generation Prius hybrid models will go on sale this winter first in Japan then the U.S. A plug-in version will hit the market next year, accord ing to Toyota Motor Corp. Prices were not announced.

The automaker swapped an older nickel-metalhydride battery for a smaller, lighter lithium-ion battery that puts out 15% more energy. The engine grows from 1.8 liters to 2, and the horsepower rises from 121 to above 190. As a result, zero to 60 mph

(97 kilometres per hour) acceleration drops from over 10 seconds to around 7 seconds depending on the Prius version.

“That really will make for more confident driv ing,” said Stephanie Brinley, principal automo tive analyst for S&P Global Mobility.

The Prius, which first went on sale in 1997, switches back and forth between a gasoline engine and electric motor to deliver a cleaner drive than the models with regular combustion engines.

Toyota estimates the 2023 Prius will get 57 mpg in combined city and high way driving, calling it the most efficient Prius ever.

Electric cars are zeroemissions but need recharging. Some con sumers are worried about running out of juice on the

PARIS (AP) — France, Ger many and Italy announced an agreement Tuesday for a newgeneration European space launcher project as part of appar ent efforts to better compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and other rocket programmes in the U.S. and China.

A statement from the three governments announced an unspecified amount of public funding for the plan, saying it

would be based on market prices and economic conditions for each element of the project.

The Euro pean Space Agency would award contracts to the compa nies involved.

The next-generation

roads. A hybrid always has the gas engine as backup.

Toyota has cumulatively sold more than 20.3 million hybrid vehicles, includ ing Prius cars, around the world so far. The Prius, which means “pioneer” or “first” in Latin, has defined Toyota as a brand as much as its Lexus luxury models.

Still, Toyota has some times been criticised by

environmentalists as dragging its feet on elec trification, although some analysts say that’s a bit unfair given that other automakers also have few electric cars in their line ups, and many others have developed various hybrid models.

“The sale of more hybrid vehicles, including the Prius, drags us further into

the climate crisis,” said Daniel Read of Green peace East Asia, based in Tokyo.

Read said electric vehi cles and fuel-cell models are better solutions against climate change than hybrids.

Humphries said the new Prius was styled to be more stable, with a lower centre of gravity, bigger tires, cur vaceous lines for its overall design and a fancy interior.

“We really believed the next step for Prius was to become a ‘car without compromises’ in order to increase its appeal to the customer,” said Humphries.

The Prius, with its revamped styling and effi ciency, will compete better not only with other hybrid models but also with the available generation of fully electric vehicles.

The Prius models have always served as a kind of bridge to a time when there are more charging stations for EVs, said Brinley, who believes the new Prius stacks up better against hybrids and plug-ins from Hyundai, Kia, Ford and Jeep.

By adding 50% to the battery range, which trans lates to around 38 miles (61 kilometres), it can go far enough to cover the average U.S. driver’s com mute and errands around town. The hybrid power train allows for road trips without worrying about a charging network that’s not yet complete, Brinley said.

GM CEO BARRA SAYS ELECTRIC VEHICLES TO BE PROFITABLE BY 2025

By TOM KRISHER AP Auto Writer

GENERAL Motors says it expects its portfolio of electric vehicles to turn a profit in North America by 2025 as it boosts battery and assembly plant capacity to build over 1 million EVs per year.

CEO Mary Barra used the pledge to kick off the company’s investor day event last week in New York.

The profit figure includes vehicle sales revenue, ben efits from emissions tax credits, and revenue from software and parts sales, she said.

Barra said the company’s EV portfolio appeals to a broader range of customers than the competition, in a lineup that includes a small SUV for around $30,000, plus a luxury SUV, pickup trucks, and Hummer SUVs in the next two years.

The Detroit automaker has a goal of selling only electric passenger vehicles by 2035.

GM is sticking by a pledge made by Barra to sell more EVs in the U.S. than market leader Tesla by the middle of the decade.

“Our commitment is to lead the industry,” Chief Financial Officer Paul Jacobson told reporters ahead on the investor day event. “We believe that with the infrastructure that we put in place and the vehicles that you’ll see today, we’ll be able to get there.”

The 2025 profit predic tion is on a pretax basis that includes the capital costs of building battery facto ries and converting internal combustion plants to elec tric vehicles.

Jacobson said it will take time for individual electric vehicles to get to “low- to mid-single digit” profit margins in 2025 as costs are spread over more vehicles. EV profit margins will go higher once clean energy tax credits from the federal Inflation Reduction Act are applied, Jacobson said.

GM customers, he said, should be able to get half the $7,500 federal EV tax credit next year, reaching the full credit by mid-dec ade. To get the credits, EVs and batteries must be built in North America, with bat tery minerals sourced on the continent.

Europe’s

The

Despite economic vola tility and the possibility of a downturn, GM appeared more confident in this year’s financial results, saying last week it expects full-year pretax income to be $13.5 billion to $14.5 billion. That’s within the previous guidance range of $13 billion to $15 billion.

Ariane and Vega launchers will be used to boost

role in the commercial and government satellite mar kets, the French Finance Ministry said.

governments also agreed to sup port development of

European-made mini and micro rocket launch systems.

European government min isters are meeting with ESA in Paris this week.

The agency is scheduled to announce its first new team of astronauts in more than a decade on Wednesday, with a focus on more diversity and what are expected to be the first disabled astronauts.

NEW Toyota gas-electric Prius hybrid models. The new Toyota gas-electric Prius hybrid not only comes with more power, acceleration and driving range. It’s also more stylish, scrapping the rather stodgy angular body for a sleekly futuristic look. (Toyota Motor Corporation via AP)

JASON ALLAN, a writer with Kelley Blue Book, looks at the interior of the 2023 Toyota Prius in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

268 dead in Indonesian quake

CIANJUR, Indonesia Associated Press

INDONESIAN rescuers used jackhammers, circular saws and sometimes their bare hands yesterday to shift the rubble of flattened buildings as they searched for the dead and missing from an earthquake that killed at least 268 people.

With many missing, some remote areas still unreachable and more than 1,000 people injured in the 5.6 magnitude quake, the death toll was likely to rise. Hospitals near the epicenter on the densely populated island of Java were already over whelmed, and patients hooked up to IV drips lay on stretchers and cots in tents set up outside, await ing further treatment.

Indonesia is frequently hit by earthquakes, many much stronger than Mon day’s whose magnitude would typically be expected to cause light damage.

BOLSONARO CONTESTS BRAZIL VOTE

MORE than three weeks after losing a reelection bid, President Jair Bolsonaro yesterday blamed a soft ware bug and demanded the electoral authority annul votes cast on most of Brazil’s nation’s electronic voting machines, though independent experts say the bug doesn’t affect the reli ability of results.

Such an action would leave Bolsonaro with 51 percent of the remaining valid votes — and a reelec tion victory, said Marcelo de Bessa, the lawyer who filed the 33-page request on behalf of the president and his Liberal Party.

The electoral authority has already declared victory for Bolsonaro’s nemesis, leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and even many of the presi dent’s allies have accepted the results. Protesters across the country have steadfastly refused to do the same, par ticularly with Bolsonaro declining to concede.

Liberal Party leader Val demar Costa and an auditor hired by the party told report ers that their evaluation found all machines dating from before 2020 — nearly 280,000, or about 59 per cent of the total used in the October 30 runoff — lacked individual identification num bers in internal logs.

Neither explained how that might have affected results, but said they were asking the electoral author ity to invalidate all votes cast on those machines.

But experts said the shal lowness of the quake and inadequate infrastructure contributed to the severe damage, including cavedin roofs and large piles of bricks, concrete, and corru gated metal.

The quake was centred on the rural, mountain ous Cianjur district, where one woman said her home started “shaking like it was dancing”.

“I was crying and immediately grabbed my husband and children,” said Partinem, who like many Indonesians only goes by only one name. The house collapsed shortly after she escaped with her family.

“If I didn’t pull them out, we might have also been victims,” she said, gazing over the pile of broken con crete and timber.

More than 2.5 million people live in Cianjur district, including about 175,000 in the main town of the same name.

The quake struck at a depth of 6.2 miles and also caused panic in the capital of Jakarta, about a three hour-drive away, where high-rises swayed and some people evacuated.

National Disaster Miti gation Agency head Suharyanto, who uses one name, told reporters that 1,083 people were injured and at least 151 missing. But not all of the dead have been identified, so it’s possible some the bodies pulled from the rubble are of people on the missing list.

Rescue operations were focused on about a dozen locations in Cian jur, where people are still believed trapped, said Endra Atmawidjaja, the public works and housing spokesperson.

“We are racing against time to rescue people,” Atmawidjaja said.

Initial rescue attempts were hampered by dam aged roads and bridges

and power outages, and a lack of equipment to help move the heavy rubble. By yesterday, power supplies and phone com munications had begun to improve, and Atmawidjaja said that seven excava tors and ten large trucks had been deployed from neighboring areas to clear roads.

In the village of Cijedil, the quake triggered a land slide that blocked streets and buried several houses, said Henri Alfiandi, chief of the National Search and Rescue Agency.

“We are maximizing operations at several points where it is suspected that there are still casualties. Our team is also trying to reach remote areas,” he said.

Many of the dead were public school students who had finished their classes for the day and were taking extra lessons at Islamic schools when the buildings collapsed, West Java Gov.

Ridwan Kamil said.

More than 13,000 people whose homes were heav ily damaged were taken to evacuation centers, Kamil said, though thousands spent the night in the open fearing aftershocks.

Cargo trucks carrying food, tents, blankets and other supplies from the capital, Jakarta arrived early Tuesday in temporary shelters.

Outside the Cianjur Regional Hospital, hun dreds waited for treatment.

“I was working inside my office building. The build ing was not damaged, but as the quake shook very strongly, many things fell.

My leg was hit by heavy stuff,” said Dwi Sarmadi, who works for an Islamic educational foundation in a neighboring district.

He was waiting near a tent outside the hospital after some overwhelmed clinics were unable to see him. Many people were arriving in worse shape. “I

KRAINIANS WARNED TO ‘STOCK ON LANKETS’ FOR HORRIFIC WINTER

KYIV, Ukraine Associated Press

UKRAINIANS could face rolling blackouts from now through March in frigid, snowy weather because Rus sian airstrikes have caused “colossal” damage to the power grid, officials said. To cope, authorities are urging people to stock up on supplies and evacuate hard-hit areas.

Sergey Kovalenko, the CEO of pri vate energy provider DTEK Yasno, said the company is under instructions from Ukraine’s state grid operator to resume emergency blackouts in the areas it covers, including the capital, Kyiv, and the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region.

“Although there are fewer black outs now, I want everyone to understand: Most likely, Ukrainians will have to live with blackouts until at least the end of March,” Kovalenko warned on Facebook.

“We need to be prepared for dif ferent options, even the worst ones. Stock up on warm clothes and blan kets. Think about what will help you wait out a long shutdown,” he told Ukrainian residents.

Russia has launched six massive aerial attacks against Ukraine’s power grid and other infrastructure since Oct 10, as the war approaches its ninemonth mark. That targeted onslaught has caused widespread blackouts and deprived millions of Ukrainians of electricity, heat and water.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said yesterday in a video speech to a French municipal group that Russian missile strikes have destroyed nearly half of the country’s energy facilities “to turn the cold of winter into a weapon of mass destruc tion”. Later, in his nightly video address, he announced the estab lishment of “Points of Invincibility” where people can gather for electricity,

mobile communications, internet access, heat, water, and first aid.

Temperatures commonly stay below freezing in Ukraine in the winter, and snow has already fallen in many areas, including Kyiv. Ukrainian authorities are evacuating civilians from recently liberated sections of the southern Kherson and Mykolaiv regions out of fear the winter will be too hard to survive.

Heeding the call, women and chil dren — including a little red-headed boy whose shirt read in English “Made with Love” — carried their limited belongings, along with dogs and cats, onto trains departing from the newly liberated city of Kherson.

“We are leaving now because it’s scary to sleep at night,” departing resident Tetyana Stadnik said on a cramped night sleeper train Monday as a dog wandered around. “Shells are flying over our heads and exploding. It’s too much. We will wait until the situation gets better. And then we will come back home.”

Another resident said leaving was the right thing to do to help the country. “No one wants to leave their homes. But they’re even advising (to leave). They’d have to warm us up, when it’s needed for other people. If we have an opportunity to leave, we can at least help Ukraine with some thing,” Alexandra Barzenkova said as she sat on a train bunk bed.

More hardship was in store for those remaining. The repeated Russian attacks — with the most severe on Nov 15 involving 100 heavy rockets — have damaged practically every thermal and hydroelectric power plant, and “the scale of destruction is colossal,” Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, the CEO of Ukrenergo, the state-owned power grid operator, said yesterday. In addi tion, electric substations have been damaged, while nuclear power plants

have largely been spared, he said.

Kyiv regional authorities said that more than 150 settlements were enduring emergency blackouts because of snowfall and high winds.

Slowed by the weather, Ukrainian forces are pressing a counteroffensive while Moscow’s troops maintain artil lery shelling and missile strikes.

In a key battlefield development, Natalia Humeniuk of the Ukrainian army’s Operational Command South said on Ukrainian television that Kyiv’s forces are attacking Russian positions on the Kinburn Spit, a gate way to the Black Sea basin, as well as parts of the southern Kherson region still under Russian control.

The Kinburn Spit is Russia’s last outpost in Ukraine’s southern Mykolayiv region, directly west of Kherson. Ukrainian forces recently liberated other parts of the Kherson and Mykolaiv regions. Moscow has used the Kinburn Spit as a staging ground for missile and artillery strikes on Ukrainian positions in the Mykolaiv province, and elsewhere along the Ukrainian-controlled Black Sea coast.

Recapturing the Kinburn Spit could help Ukrainian forces push into Russian-held territory in the Kher son region “under significantly less Russian artillery fire” than if they directly crossed the Dnieper River, a Washington-based think tank said.

The Institute for the Study of War added that control of the area would help Kyiv alleviate Russian strikes on Ukraine’s southern seaports and allow it to increase its naval activity in the Black Sea.

In the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s headquarters city of Sevastopol, Russian-installed Gov Mikhail Raz vozhaev said air defence systems intercepted at least two drones, including those targeting a power station.

really hope they can handle me soon,” he said.

Hasan, a construc tion worker who uses one name, was also taken to the hospital.

“I fainted. It was very strong,” Hasan recalled. “I saw my friends running to escape from the building. But it was too late to get out, and I was hit by the wall.”

President Joko Widodo visited Cianjur on Tues day and pledged to rebuild infrastructure, including the main bridge connect ing Cianjur to other cities, and to provide government assistance up to 50 million rupiah ($3,180) to each resident whose house was damaged.

“On behalf of myself and on behalf of the gov ernment, I would like to express my deep condo lences to the victims and their families in this Cianjur earthquake,” he said after visiting survivors in shelters on a soccer field.

COURT ALLOWS HANDOVER OF TRUMP TAXES

THE Supreme Court yes terday cleared the way for the imminent handover of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns to a congressional committee after a three-year legal fight. The court rejected Trump’s plea for an order that would have prevented the Treasury Department from giving six years of tax returns for Trump and some of his businesses to the Democratic-controlled House Ways and Means Committee.

Trump refused to release his tax returns either during his successful 2016 cam paign or his four years in the White House, citing what an ongoing audit by the IRS. Last week, Trump announced he would run again in 2024.

It was the former presi dent’s second loss at the Supreme Court in as many months, and third this year. In October, the court refused to step into the legal fight surrounding the FBI search of Trump’s Flor ida estate that turned up classified documents.

In January, the court refused to stop the National Archives from turning over documents to the House committee investigating the Jan 6 insurrection at the Capitol. Justice Clarence Thomas was the only vote in Trump’s favor.

In the dispute over his tax returns, the Treasury Department had refused to provide the records during Trump’s presidency.

RESCUERS carry the body of a victim recovered from under the rubble at a village affected by an earthquake-triggered landslide in Cianjur, West Java, Indonesia, yesterday.

Photo: Rangga Firmansyah/AP

Best-of-3 championship series to begin today

By BRENT STUBBS Senior Sports Reporter bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

The Govern ment Secondary Schools Sports Association will begin its best-of-three softball and baseball cham pionship series today at the Baillou Hills Sporting Complex, although there’s still some unfinished busi ness to be completed before it all unfolds.

The GSSSA still has some matches in the sudden death playoffs to be com pleted today just before the finals get underway. Those games not completed had

to be delayed because time expired before they were finished yesterday.

Senior Boys Baseball Finals

RM Bailey vs CR Walker

After losing their only game of the season by default, the Pacers earned the rights to avenge the defeat at the hands of the undefeated Knights when they clash in the finals.

RM Bailey, behind the clutch pitching of ace Ladarian McKenzie, held off the CV Bethel Stingrays 4-3 in their sudden playoff yesterday to secure their much-anticipated show down against CR Walker.

“Today, we came out and performed. We were miss ing one of our key players, Tajarie Wilson, but the guys stepped it up,” said Clifton Carey, the head coach for the Pacers.

“Everyone counted us out at the beginning of the season. But we came together and we did it today to get into the cham pionship. We’re looking forward to playing CR Walker. Red vs red.”

McKenzie, a 15-year-old 10th grader, said he was willing and ready to carry the team.

“We just need to make some adjustments for CR Walker, but we feel we

can beat them,” he said. “I know I will be ready. I’m looking forward to the championship.”

The Knights blanked the CC Sweeting Cobras 8-0 to earn their berth in the final. They started the game on Friday when they took a 6-0 lead, but it was delayed until Monday when they finished it off.

Coach Tia Rolle said just as they did during the regu lar season, they are hoping to remain undefeated, having not lost a title in the past nine years.

“We don’t know what RM Bailey has to bring. We know that they are a pretty good defensive team

with a good pitcher,” Rolle said. “I have a deep line-up with pitchers. Out of my nine players on the field, six of them can go on the field and pitch. We’re wait ing for RM Bailey.”

Senior girls softball CR Walker vs Doris Johnson

The Knights pulled off a 1-0 win over CV Bethel in their playoff yesterday, but Aikia Rose, who has been coaching the Knights since 2018, said if CR Walker wins another title, they will have to play much better than they did. “We had a pretty good start off,

McPhee-McCuin delighted Rhema joining Ole Miss Rebels next year

By BRENT STUBBS Senior Sports Reporter bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

HEAD coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin said she’s delighted to have another Bahamian joining her University of Missis sippi women’s basketball team with Rhema Collins becoming the latest plsyer to commit to play with the Rebels next year.

McPhee-McCuin, here in town with the Rebels for the Baha Mar Hoops Pink Flamingo Championship, said Collins comes in when Ole Miss are tipped to return to the Bahamas next Thanksgiving to participate in the Battle 4 Atlantis on Paradise Island.

“It’s another prideful moment. I’m just really excited to be able to con tinue to go after the best talent in the Bahamas and to bring them to us at Ole Miss,” said McPheeMcCuin. “Rhema said to me ‘Coach, I’m coming to you because I trust you.’

“It’s a Bahamian connec tion. That kid is going to be a star and I’m excited to be able to help her in her development.”

Just two years ago, McPhee-McCuin had the

services

Collins, at 17 years old, is a senior at Webb School in Bell Buckle, Tennessee.

At the age of 14, Collins represented the Bahamas on the junior girls’ national basketball team, coached by Varel Davis, that won the CentroBasket Under17 Championship title in 2019. She averaged 11 points and 10.8 rebounds in the five games played.

Collins and Webb School girls’ basketball team are the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Associa tion’s Division II-A State champions.

But having achieved all of that, McPhee-McCuin said the 6-foot, 2-inch Col lins is still raw when it comes to the NCAA Divi sion One play.

“We’re going to just rely on her athleticism and rebounding first,” McPheeMcCuin said.

“But this kid has a chance to be a pro (profes sional basketball player) and so we’re going to develop her skills so that

Australia reaches Davis Cup semis by beating Netherlands

MALAGA, Spain (AP)

— Alex de Minaur and Jordan Thompson won their singles matches to help Australia qualify for the Davis Cup semifi nals for the first time since 2017 at the expense of the Netherlands.

De Minaur beat Botic van de Zandschulp 5-7, 6-3, 6-4 to clinch the series 2-0 and set up a semifinal tie against either Spain or Croatia.

“We’ve got a great team, a lot of belief and a lot of passion,” De Minaur said. “I’m very happy to win today. “Every single one of these players on our team is going to play their heart out. We’ll do everything we can for our country.”

Australia is the second most successful nation in the team competition with

28 titles but the last triumph dates to 2003.

De Minaur completed his rally with a break in the 10th game of the final set by building a 40-0 lead and converting the first match point on an indoor hardcourt in the southern Spanish city of Malaga.

He started his comeback by breaking Van de Zand schulp in the first and last games of the second set.

The Dutch player took the first set with a break in the 12th game. He recorded three victories in the group stage, including a win over American Taylor Fritz.

Earlier, Jordan Thomp son also came from a set down to defeat Tallon Griekspoor 4-6, 7-5, 6-3 and give Australia a 1-0 lead. The Australian hit 16 aces to overcome his Dutch

TRANSFER PORTAL PUTS MORE VALUE ON EARLY BASKETBALL TOURNEYS

By AARON BEARD AP Basketball Writer

PARADISE ISLAND, Bahamas (AP) — North Carolina State coach Kevin Keatts knows he needs to work fast to bring along a team that added four trans fers this season in key roles.

For coaches across col lege basketball in the transfer-portal era, playing in an early season tour nament offers a boost in finding the right rotations, establishing roles and forg ing a team’s identity. Those chances come this week with holiday events like the Maui Invitational and the Phil Knight tournaments in Oregon.

For Keatts, it’s the Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas opening today with No. 3 Kansas, No. 22 Tennes see, Wisconsin, Southern

ANALYSIS: AS NBA’S FIRST QUARTER ENDS, THE CONTENDERS EMERGE

By TIM REYNOLDS AP Basketball Writer

He’s right. And after 20 games, title contenders are usually known as well.

Think of this as the end of the season’s first quar ter. That’s basically where the NBA is right now, with teams starting to approach the 20-game mark. There’s much basketball left to be played, but 20 games has proven — almost with out fail — to be more than enough of a sample size when determining which teams have a legitimate shot at a championship. The numbers show it. The teams know it, too.

“We look at 20 games,” Phoenix coach Monty

opponent in a hard-fought match that took almost three hours.

“Davis Cup is some thing special, you feel extra

pressure, so I was a little bit bit tight to start with,” Thompson said.

“He was playing great tennis but I hung in there, got a bit more aggressive as the match went on. It means the world.”

Thompson got the deci sive break to jump to a 4-2 lead in the final set and held on.

After losing the opening set, the Australian came back with a break in the 12th game of the second set.

The quarterfinal tie between the 2019 champion Spain and 2021 runner-up Croatia is today.

The quarterfinals wrap up Thursday, when the U.S. meets Italy, and Canada plays Germany.

The semifinals are Friday and Saturday, and the title will be decided Sunday.

Tiger Woods wins $15m in PGA Tour’s Player Impact Programme

By DOUG FERGUSON AP Golf Writer

TIGER Woods is making a bigger impact off the course than inside the ropes, and he was rewarded with a $15 mil lion bonus from the PGA Tour’s Player Impact Programme.

Woods won the award for the second straight year while playing slightly more often.

He was recovering from a car crash in 2021 and played only two rounds of the PNC Championship with his son, Charlie. This

year, he played in three majors, making it to the weekend in two of them, finishing 72 holes only in the Masters.

Woods still ranked No. 1 in four of the five PIP categories. The exception was “TV Sponsor Expo sure,” which is the length of time a player’s spon sor logos appear on the screen during weekend rounds. He played only three of those.

Rory McIlroy finished second, as reported by The Associated Press two

of point guard Valerie Nesbitt on her Ole Miss roster. Collins is set to become the next Bahamian to star for the Rebels.

MIAMI Heat President Pat Riley has a longstand ing belief: After 20 games, a team knows its identity.

AUSTRALIA’s Jordan Thomp son returns the ball to Nether land’s Tallon Griekspoor during their Davis Cup quarter-final tennis match yesterday.

(AP Photo/Joan Monfort)

SEE PAGE 13

OLE Miss Rebels head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin and Rhema Collins (left).

Ole Miss Rebels visit St Francis/ Joseph on fun-filled day off

By BRENT STUBBS Senior Sports Reporter bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

AFTER winning their opening game of the Baha Mar Hoops Pink Flamingo Championship on Monday night at the Baha Mar resort, the University of Mississippi Rebels wom en’s basketball team had a fun day yesterday.

The team, coached by Grand Bahamian Yolett McPhee-McCuin, visited St Francis/Joseph Catholic Primary School and inter acted with the Catholic Diocesan Primary Schools basketball champions Shockers boys and girls basketball teams.

Principal Tiffany Glass said they were delighted to entertain the undefeated 5-0 Rebels, who were coming off the 63-50 win over the Dayton Flyers, coached by Tamika Wil liams-Jeter, who remained winless at 0-5.

Glass said the visit by the Rebels will serve as an inspiration to her boys and girls teams, who are gear ing up for the completion of the Catholic Diocesan Primary Schools’ postsea son at Loyola Hall.

McPhee-McCuin, who was thrilled to have her former principal, Claudette Rolle, now the Director of Education for the Catho lic Diocesan, to be present for the visit at St Francis/ Joseph.

After delivering a speech about how she made it from the Bahamas to the United States on a basket ball scholarship to coaching one of the most prestigious universities in the NCAA, McPhee-McCuin allowed her players to introduce themselves and spend some time playing and sharing their experiences with the students, who got to ask a lot of formal and informal questions.

“The Bahamas is beau tiful. This is my first time being here. Coach is actu ally from the Bahamas, so it’s just amazing that we can come here and meet the culture of the people, so it’s so inspiring for us,” said Ole Miss senior guard Myah Taylor.

On their victory on Monday night, Taylor said it was just what they needed to get ready for their big matchup against

TIGER

weeks ago, and received a $12 million bonus. Jordan Spieth narrowly beat out Justin Thomas for third place — Spieth got $9 mil lion, Thomas $7.5 million — with Jon Rahm ($6 mil lion) in fifth.

Masters champion Scot tie Scheffler was sixth ($5.5 million). The next four each received $5 mil lion — Xander Schauffele, U.S. Open champion Matt Fitzpatrick, Will Zalatoris and Tony Finau.

Utah at 7pm tonight as the tournament comes to a close at Baha Mar.

“At one point, Dayton tied the game and that was when we went on a run and our defence and our togetherness was able to pull us through,” she said.

“For game two, we just have to go out and play hard to the best of our abil ity. That is something that we usually hold our head to, our defence.”

The 5-foot, 7-inch guard, like the rest of her teammates and the rest of the coaching staff, seemed to have enjoyed themselves as they interacted with the students.

But for McPhee-McCuin, there was no better place than to be able to give back to the community.

“This has been a dream come true for me. To be able to come home on my soil and show the Baha mian people that there’s no ceiling if you want to accomplish anything,” she said. “I don’t think a lot of people understand what I do. I’m just a coach, but I am a CEO running a programme.

“Hopefully at the least, it would inspire our people that if they keep focused, keep God first, they too can do it for the 242.”

Collin Morikawa won the British Open and a World Golf Championship last year and finished out of the money at No. 11 when the programme rewarded only 10 players.

Now the bonus pool has doubled to $100 million and expanded to 20 players. He didn’t win this year and still finished 11th.

The pool was $106 mil lion this year because the PGA Tour used two sets of criteria — the one used last year, and the new one going forward that uses “general population awareness” and “golf fan awareness” to replace Q-rating and social media.

For those who missed their opener against Dayton, McPhee-McCuin encouraged them to be present tonight when they take on Utah in the finale of the tournament.

“They will get to watch 15 young women play at the highest level and that is important,” she said.

“Utah is a great opponent. They play at a high level.

“They are going to run a lot of complicated plays.

We’re going to have to be locked in defensively, but I know if we win, it could put in the conversation nation ally, so they are ranked No.16 in the country, so this is a great opportunity for us.”

Win, lose or draw against Utah, McPhee-McCuin said the Rebels will remain behind for an extra day just to relax and take in some of the sights of the island before they head back

would have been in the top 20 using the new model and were awarded $2 million. In all, 23 players received bonuses.

According to a tour memo to players obtained by the AP, those who won PIP money must play in a designated tournament agreed upon by the tour, take part in a PIP service event and play 15 times, 12 of them in elevated events.

Woods is an exception as he plays a limited schedule because of his bad legs.

The commissioner has discretion to waive playing requirements for anyone dealing with a serious injury or family emergency.

to continue their regular season.

McPhee-McCuin said her players were so shocked when they heard they were coming to the Bahamas, especially because she’s from here.

“I’ve just been hitting them with some fun facts. They’ve been asking about conch, but I had to correct them about the pronuncia tion of the word. So they have been enjoying it.”

Baha Hoops, according to McPhee-McCuin, has done a wonderful job in hosting them and the rest of the teams and so they will enjoy Thanksgiving Day here in the Bahamas with a meal provided by Showman.

“We are utilising all of the Bahamian talent by purchasing their merchandise,” said McPhee-McCuin, whose coaching staff wore tops made by vendors at the Straw Market. “We are totally engrossed in the cul ture here because I am a part of this culture.”

McPhee-McCuin and her Rebels hope to take that Bahamian culture back to Ole Miss when they return home to play their next game against Texas Southern Tigers at 8pm on Monday, November 28.

The 2023 PIP programme began in October and will run through August when the season ends. Woods is playing next week in his Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas.

Players who signed with Saudi-funded LIV Golf were not eligible for the award because they were suspended by the PGA Tour if they didn’t resign their membership. That includes Phil Mickelson, who finished second to Woods last year after send ing out a tweet that he had won.

After Morikawa at No. 11, the next four players who also receive $3 million

DENIKA SCORES WINNING BASKET

PLAYING in the second game of the Jackson EMC Thanksgiving Tournament at Jefferson, #9-ranked Tal lulah Falls led for nearly the entire game before the host team mounted a big comeback.

Still, Denika Light bourne’s shot with three seconds to go lifted TFS to the 61-60 thrilling win.

Tallulah Falls edged Jef ferson 13-11 through the first quarter, and kept that pace to the tune of a 29-25 halftime advantage.

In the third quarter, the Lady Indians went ahead 48-38 heading into the final quarter. Jefferson began to chip away at the lead and brought it back to a 59-59 tie with 40 seconds to go and heading to the charity stripe.

There, Jefferson got one to go up 60-59, taking its first lead of the game.

Lightbourne drilled a basket with three sec onds remaining to give the newly-ranked top-10 Lady Indians the victory.

Lightbourne led in scor ing with 29 points, while Tanisha Seymour added 10. Allie Phasavang and Molly Mitchell had seven apiece, Haygen James had six and Breelyn Wood two.

The Lady Indians now have a pair of wins in a row and stand at 2-1 on the season.

she can become the player we know she can be.”

At Ole Miss, McPheeMcCuin said she expects that Collins will fit in as a small and power forward, but she’s expecting that she will join the other four freshmen they have signed to be a part of the nucleus of the returning 10 players from this year’s squad.

“We’re going to be pretty talented next year and the Bahamas will not only get to see the Rebels, but Ole Miss will have another Bahamian in the line-up when we come back for the Battle 4 Atlantis next year.”

Although their trip here for the Baha Mar Hoops does not count as a foreign tour, McPhee-McCuin said they won’t have to wait on the NCAA policy to travel every four years, so they will be back with Collins in the line-up as they compete over at Atlantis.

“Right now, I can’t think about what will happen next year,” she summed up.

“My only thoughts are on getting this team ready to play Utah (tonight). We are trying to get a win over them and get a chance to move up in the ranking,” added McPhee McCuin.

are Shane Lowry, Kevin Kisner, Max Homa and Billy Horschel. Rounding out the top 20, worth $2 million, are Rickie Fowler, Adam Scott, Jason Day, Patrick Cantlay and Viktor Hovland.

The memo indicates that 25% of the PIP bonus will be paid with whatever players make at the Sentry Tournament of Champions at Kapalua, and the rest of it will be paid when play ers complete their three obligations.

It was not clear when Lowry, Kisner, Fowler and Day will be paid the first installment; they did not qualify for Kapalua.

DENIKA Lightbourne

Hideki Matsuyama, Cam eron Young and Sam Burns

TIGER

OLE Miss Rebels head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin speaks to the media yesterday.

Photos: Moises Amisial/Tribune Staff

ABOVE: The University of Mississippi Rebels women’s basketball team had fun day yesterday as the team, coached by Grand Baha mian Yolett McPhee-McCuin, visited St Francis/Joseph Catholic Primary School and interacted with the Catholic Diocesan Primary Schools basketball champions Shockers boys and girls basketball teams.

Argentines shocked, saddened by loss to Saudis at World Cup

By DANIEL POLITI Associated Press

BUENOS

AIRES,

Argentina (AP) —

Tears welled in the eyes of Oscar López as he washed the windows of the Buenos Aires build ing where he works as the superintendent.

A devoted fan of Argen tina, the 67-year-old was visibly upset as he reflected on the bitter 2-1 loss by the national team, delivered by upstart Saudi Arabia on Monday at the World Cup in Qatar.

But the fact that Argen tina was favored over the Saudis is no excuse, Lopez said.

“If they’re in the World Cup, no team is easy,” López said. “You always have to be careful.”

Most of Argentina got up early to watch the 7 a.m. match and the longawaited debut of Lionel Messi’s team. Many walked to bakeries in Buenos Aires wearing the lightblue-and-white jerseys to grab snacks.

Sounds of cheering were heard in the streets at the kickoff. More noise fol lowed when Messi scored early in the game, and the din of air horns penetrated the morning air.

But an eerie silence then set in, as what was sup posed to be an easy match turned challenging. Saudi Arabia rallied with two second-half goals, and one of World Cup’s favorites instead suffered one of its biggest upsets.

“The truth is, this is a disappointment, a big disappointment,” said

Alejandro Pintos, a 36-year-old locksmith who opened his shop later than usual to watch the game. “This was the match that we had no choice but to win.”

Pintos said the national team was “very disorgan ized” — something he found particularly frus trating, given its 36-match unbeaten streak leading up to the tournament.

Local media quoted Messi as saying he was just as shocked as the fans on how things had turned out.

“It’s a very strong blow,” Messi said. “We didn’t expect to begin this way.”

Other fans took to social media to complain about three potential Argentina goals ruled out on offside calls.

Argentines were count ing on the World Cup to bring a glimmer of a hope to a country that has been economically stagnant for years, suffering a nearly 100% inflation rate and where close to four in 10 live in poverty.

“I’m really quite bitter,” said Josefina Licera, a 27-year-old social worker, as she waited to take a bus to work.

“I was really sure we were going to win, and it was a big surprise.”

Susana Leguizamón, 55, woke up early, put on her blue-and-white-striped Argentina jersey and was ready to celebrate.

“I was very, very, very surprised,” she said. “The truth is, we underestimated our rival.”

But Santiago Babarro, 40, said he wasn’t too shocked by the loss.

“The same thing always happens to Argentina,” the retail worker said.

“We say, ‘This is an easy match, we can win it easily,’ and then, bam! They put us in our place. We always believe we’re more than what we are.”

Sebastián Fabre said he woke up with an uneasy feeling and was worried about what he said was overconfidence by Argen tina’s fans. “There was way too much unfounded optimism. I didn’t want to say anything but I think we were all way too overconfi dent,” he said.

Leguizamón, who walked to her job at a res taurant still wearing her Argentina jersey, said she could feel the suffering of those around her.

“Everyone is very sad, very sad,” she said.

“We all woke up with lots of hope.”

Some fans saw a silver lining in suffering adver sity at the outset of the tournament.

Argentina next plays Mexico on Saturday in the second Group C match.

“Really, it’s better that this happened in the first match and not in the

quarterfinals,” Fabre said. “That’s the positive side to this.”

Leguizamón agreed.

“A trip is not a fall, as we say here,” she said, using a common Argentine expression.

“I’m a big fan of the national team and I get in a really bad mood when it loses but my hope is intact.”

The saddest part, said 21-year-old retail worker Florencia Folgoso, “is having to go to work after watching a match that we lost. You already start the day with the left foot.”

MEXICO AND POLAND PLAY OUT 0-0 DRAW

By ANNE M PETERSON AP Sports Writer

Poland’s all-time lead ing scorer with 76 goals remains without one at the World Cup.

Lewandowski was awarded the penalty fol lowing a VAR review after Hector Moreno got hold of his shirt and pulled him down.

Ochoa, playing in his fifth World Cup, came up yelling in celebration after his stop, sending the crowd into chants of “Memo!”a

While Mexico domi nated possession, Poland goalkeeper Wojciech Szcz esny turned away all three of El Tri’s shots on goal.

The scoreless draw was a good result for Argentina, which was upset by Saudi Arabia 2-1 in an earlier Group C match.

The Argentines, led by Lionel Messi, were widely considered to be the favorites to advance.

Mexico has made it to the knockout round in the last seven World Cups, but the “quinto partido,” or fifth game, has eluded the team.

El Tri’s best showing at the World Cup was reach ing the quarterfinals in 1970 and 1986 as hosts.

Poland was making its second straight World Cup appearance.

The team was eliminated in the group stage in 2018.

Jorge Sanchez had a good chance for Mexico in the 44th minute but Szczesny, who plays for Juventus, pushed it over the crossbar.

It was Ochoa’s denial of Lewandowski, who moved from Bayern Munich to Barcelona this season and has 13 goals in 14 appear ances, that brought the stadium filled with mostly green jerseys to their feet.

It wasn’t the first time Ochoa had come up big on soccer’s biggest stage.

In 2014 he made six saves in a scoreless draw with Brazil, which was among the favourites as the tournament’s host.

He even denied Brazil striker Neymar on a header and afterward called it the “game of a lifetime.”

El Tri has been dogged by criticism heading into the World Cup.

Mexico’s all-time leading scorer, Javier “Chicharito” Hernandez, was left off the roster for Qatar by coach Gerardo “Tata” Martino.

Hernandez, who cur rently plays for the LA Galaxy, had played in the last three World Cups, but hasn’t appeared with the national team since 2019. Martino was also criticised

for including Wolverhamp ton Wanderers striker Raul Jimenez, who has strug gled with a groin injury. Replaced by Henty Martin to start, Jimenez came in as a substitute in the second half. The match was played at 974 Stadium, named after Qatar’s country code. The stadium was built from old shipping contain ers and will be eventually dismantled — Qatar’s solu tion to the “white

elephant” stadiums that went largely unused after other World Cups.

There was also history made. Stephanie Frappart of France became the first woman to officiate a men’s World Cup match, serving as the fourth official.

Frappart joins Japan’s Yamashita Yoshimi and Rwanda’s Salima Mukan sanga among the 36 referees selected for the tournament.

GIROUD, MBAPPE HELP FRANCE DEFEAT AUSTRALIA 4-1

By JEROME PUGMIRE AP Sports Writer

AL WAKRAH, Qatar (AP) — France showed it can cope without its star striker at the World Cup.

In Karim Benzema’s absence, Kylian Mbappe scored one and set up the second of Olivier Gir oud’s two goals to help the defending champions beat Australia 4-1 yesterday.

Giroud equalled Thierry Henry’s national record of 51 goals with a header from Mbappe’s cross in the 71st minute. Giroud, who failed to score at the last World Cup but did find the net at the 2014 tournament, can break Henry’s record when France faces Denmark on Saturday.

“It’s not just about chas ing records but what he always does on the field,” France coach Didier Des champs said. “He’s a very important player for us.”

Moments before that strike, Mbappe headed in Ousmane Dembele’s cross from the right to start this World Cup as he finished the last — with a goal. He knelt with one hand behind his back and his finger on his forehead in a new celebration.

Deschamps joked that Mbappe could now become even more lethal.

“He always dreams about scoring headers, so if he starts doing that he’ll be even more dangerous,” Deschamps said, cracking a smile. “I knew he would be ready tonight because this is his competition.”

Craig Goodwin gave Australia the lead when he turned in winger Mathew Leckie’s cross in the ninth minute.

France midfielder Adrien Rabiot equalised with a powerful header in the 27th and set up Giroud’s first goal shortly after.

“It’s great for our momen tum and confidence to have turned things around,” Giroud said.

“Even though we could have scored more we com bined well.”

France was playing with out the injured Benzema, who was ruled out of the World Cup last week.

The Socceroos were pumped up and the greenand-gold Aussie fans were loving it. They even mocked Mbappe with chants of “Who are ya? Who are ya?” after he lost the ball drib bling down the left.

That’s as good as it got for them.

Theo Hernandez curled in a cross for Rabiot to score his first World Cup goal — four years after refusing to go on France’s standby list in case of injuries.

He even emailed France coach Didier Deschamps to be taken off the list and was dropped from the national team for two years.

TUNISIA HOLDS DENMARK 0-0 AS ARAB TEAMS IMPRESS

By ANDREW DAMPF AP Sports Writer

AL RAYYAN, Qatar (AP) — Arab teams are making an impact at the first World Cup in the Middle East.

Tunisia held European Championship semifinal ist Denmark to a 0-0 draw yesterday, three hours after Saudi Arabia beat Argen tina in a shocking upset.

“It’s amazing what (Saudi Arabia) did,” Tunisia defender Montassar Talbi said.

“We watched a bit of the game in the dressing room. We saw the results.

“It gave us maybe a little power. We are proud of

them. For the Arab coun tries, too.”

Before a stadium filled almost entirely with Tuni sia’s red-clad supporters, midfielder Aïssa Laïdouni set the tone in the very first minute when he stripped emblematic Denmark play maker Christian Eriksen of the ball with an aggressive sliding tackle — then stood up and pumped his arms menacingly, gesturing to the crowd to get even more fired up.

“I’m always proud to represent Tunisia and we always go on the pitch 100% committed,” Laïdouni said through a translator.

Tunisia likely deserved more but an expert save

shortly before halftime by goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel helped Den mark preserve the draw.

Having already gone down to the grass after Tunisia broke through the defense, Schmeichel stuck his hand up to deflect a shot from Issam Jebali, who plays his club ball in Den mark for Odense.

It was just the sort of save that the keeper’s father, former Manchester United great Peter Schmeichel, used to pull off. “We didn’t come to get a draw. We wanted to get the win, and I think we did have chances for that, but at the end of the day we’re happy with the draw,” Laïdouni said.

The match marked Erik sen’s return to a major tournament less than a year and a half after his cardiac arrest with Denmark at Euro 2020.

Assuming his customary playmaker position, Erik sen produced a dangerous long-distance shot on goal in the second half that Tunisia goalkeeper Aymen Dahmen had to bat away. And on the ensuing corner, Denmark hit the post.

Tunisia also survived the chance of a last-minute penalty for Denmark but the referee ruled to play on after a video review for a possible handball.

Denmark has been one of the most outspoken

critics of the tournament in Qatar and during the prematch warmup its players wore all black long-sleeve shirts over their red game jerseys to mourn migrant workers who died building infrastructure for soccer’s biggest event.

Denmark was also plan ning on wearing the “One Love” anti-discrimination armband along with other European teams before the campaign was dropped when FIFA threatened to hand out yellow cards.

However, former Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, who is now chair of the Danish soccer federation’s gov ernance and development

committee, was at the stadium wearing a coat with some subtle rainbow colouring. Denmark has lofty goals following its performance at last year’s Euro 2020 and a near-per fect qualifying campaign, while Tunisia is seeking to advance from the group stage for the first time in its sixth World Cup appear ance. The huge number of Tunisian fans inside Educa tion City Stadium made it feel like a home match for the North African team.

Tunisia fans chanted, banged drums and blew air horns when their squad had the ball — then hissed and whistled loudly whenever Denmark had possession.

DOHA, Qatar (AP)

— Robert Lewan dowski’s second-half penalty attempt was saved by Mexico goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa, leav ing Poland to settle for a 0-0 draw yesterday at the World Cup.

ARGENTINA’s Lionel Messi reacts during the World Cup group C soccer match against Saudi Arabia at the Lusail Stadium in Lusail, Qatar, yesterday.

(AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

FANS of Mexico cheer during a World Cup group C soccer match against Poland at the Stadium 974 in Doha, Qatar, yesterday.

(AP Photo/Martin Meissner)

Celtics have the NBA’s best record despite offseason strife

By KYLE HIGHTOWER AP Sports Writer

BOSTON (AP) — The Celtics entered the season with a built-in reason to underachieve.

Ime Udoka, the man who had changed so much about their culture and led them to the NBA Finals as a first-year coach last season, was given a year long suspension prior to training camp for having an inappropriate relation ship with a woman in the organisation.

But nearly a quarter into its schedule, Boston has emerged from that preseason cloud with an NBA-best 13-4 record and looks like a team that’s still capable of capitalising on its championship window.

Interim coach Joe Maz zulla has excelled after initially being looked at as a placeholder while the front office figured out when or if Udoka could return.

Jayson Tatum has played like he’s out to prove last season’s playoff shortcom ings were an anomaly. And he’s gotten plenty of help from his supporting cast, rounding out a team

that so far hasn’t been as susceptible to some of the late-game issues that befell it last season.

“It’s night and day the way we’re playing the start of this season, compared to the start of last season,” Tatum said recently. “But whenever we made that change, I feel like we haven’t looked back.”

The Celtics’ seasonbest, nine-game win streak ended Monday at Chi cago. But they’ll be back in the spotlight tonight for a clash with Dallas and the league’s top scorer, Luka Doncic.

The Mavericks’ marks man has been mostly unstoppable, averaging 33.5 points per game.

Tatum isn’t far behind, leading Boston and rank ing sixth in the NBA at 30.2 points per game. He’s getting to the free throw line a career-high 8.5 times per game, which he attrib utes to an offseason plan designed to help him play more physically.

He’s also gotten even better playing alongside Jaylen Brown, who is aver aging 25.3 points. They are pacing an offence that is second in the

NBA in efficiency behind Sacramento.

“For the most part we’ve got the same group. One or two new guys, but they really know how to play the game,” Tatum said. “So, from the first day of train ing camp, just trusting each other that whenever you move the ball that it’s going to come back. That’s just how we continue to play and knock down shots.”

One of the new faces making an impact has been point guard Malcolm Brog don. The free-agent pickup is leading an improved second unit and providing structure late in games that

was sometimes missing last season.

Mazzulla credits the work his players have done taking the coaching they’ve received into games.

“It’s guys understand ing what we’re trying to do with our organisation, with our game manage ment,” Mazzulla said. “The shots that we’re trying to get. The spacing that we’re trying to have and the matchups that we’re trying to attack. It’s organised, it’s really smart.”

The coach is also trusting his team.

Unlike Udoka or even former coach Brad Stevens,

Mazzulla often has shown a hands-off approach when his team has gotten into trouble. He has been slow to call timeouts when opponents go on runs.

The response from his players has been positive.

“It challenges us not only for the situation at hand in front of us, but also chal lenges us to be better down the line,” Brown said. “We’ve got a poised team. So that’s a lot of trust from our head coach that he instills in his players and to us to figure it out.”

And they’re doing it all without big man Robert Williams, who is working his way back from pre season knee surgery. He could return soon, adding another dimension to a thriving team.

“I think, overall, offence is just better,” Tatum said. “And then our attention to detail in watching film, managing those late-game offensive situations and kind of being intentional about what we want to do and who we’re trying to put in the action and things like that. It may look random, but we talk about it and know what we’re trying to do.”

N TS’ SI NS B S S IN I IN

By DAN GELSTON AP Sports Writer

PHILADELPHIA (AP) —

Tobias Harris scored 24 points and a spirited Philadelphia 76ers team playing without Joel Embiid and James Harden spoiled Ben Sim mons’ homecoming with a 115-106 win over the Brooklyn Nets last night.

Simmons had 11 points, 11 assists and seven rebounds to the tune of steady boos. Kyrie Irving scored 23 points and Kevin Durant had 20 before coach Jacque Vaughn pulled his starting lineup with 3 minutes left in the game. The expected marquee matchup

was dimmed with Embiid out with a sprained left foot, Harden still out with a tendon strain in his right foot and starting guard Tyrese Maxey also out with a broken left foot.

Embiid vs. Simmons will have to wait. Simmons vs. 76ers fans was pretty good.

Simmons was heckled, drew a flagrant foul, shushed the crowd on a layup, and even Jordanshrugged after hitting free throws. Of most importance for a player who has battled mental health issues, Simmons played with poise as boos rained on him for the bulk of his 32 minutes.He already had three assists when he went to the

in the NBA through 20 games; the Bulls looked bored and were 12-8.

free-throw line early in the game. Simmons was booed but never looked rattled and sank both bas kets. Simmons had a reverse layup minutes later for his first bucket.

Sixers fans were mostly wellbehaved — save for a couple of short-lived “(expletive) Ben Sim mons!” chants — and mostly saved the four-letter words for tape on the back of their old No. 25 jerseys.

Simmons and second-year Sixer Georges Niang tussled late in the first half and Niang gave his former teammate a light stiff-arm to the body that earned a technical foul. Harden couldn’t believe the call from the bench. Sixers owner Josh Harris looked appalled.

Simmons missed the technical free throw and the crowd roared as much as it did all game. Simmons, though, hit the court for a steal and knocked the loose ball to Durant for a bucket. The Sixers still took a 63-57 lead into the break.

It wasn’t all jeers, all game. Sim mons did make 76ers fans go wild over him when he missed con secutive free throws in the second half and triggered a free fast-food chicken promotion.

Simmons averaged 15.9 points, 8.1 rebounds and 7.7 assists over four seasons with Philadelphia, which drafted him out of LSU, where he played only one season.

KINGS BEAT GRIZZLIES FOR 7TH STRAIGHT VICTORY

By CLAY BAILEY Associated Press

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP)

— De’Aaron Fox had 32 points and eight rebounds, Harrison Barnes added 26 points and the Sacramento Kings won their seventh straight, 113-109 over the Memphis Grizzlies last night.

Kevin Huerter scored 18 points, hitting 6 of 10 from the field, including 4 of 7 from 3-point range.

Malik Monk finished with 14 points as the Kings managed to hold on after leading by 14 midway through the fourth quarter.

Ja Morant led Memphis with 34 points, six assists and seven rebounds.

Jaren Jackson Jr added 22 points and five blocks.

And Dillon Brooks fin ished with 14 points as the Grizzlies lost their fourth of five.

Memphis forced turno vers with tough defence to make the game close late.

Morant’s three-point play with 5.3 seconds left cut the Kings’ advantage to 109108, but two free throws by Monk and Morant missing two of three free throws with 1.7 seconds left pre served the Kings’ victory.

Grizzlies guard Desmond Bane continued to be side lined because of a sprained right big toe. Morant started after suf fering a left ankle injury Friday against Oklahoma City.

The game was close in the first half until the Kings built an eight-point lead with a second-quarter burst. Sacramento led 64-59 at the break.

Fox, named Western Conference player of the week on Monday, got rolling in the third, scor ing 13 points as the Kings extended the lead to 88-76 entering the fourth.

Williams said. “It can get stretched out a bit if you have injuries, but for the most part, your identity and who you are is pretty much set. You’ve gone through the league to a degree. ... You kind of have an idea of who you are, where you need to improve, your strengths from a numbers standpoint, and then the players pretty much have an idea of what kind of team you’re going to be.”

In 2005-06, Miami had the league’s 13th-best record through 20 games; the Heat were just 10-10, though few knew at the time Riley was about to return as coach. In 1997-98, Chicago — then winners of five of the league’s last seven titles— was 11th-best

PORTAL

FROM PAGE 12

California, Dayton, BYU and Butler. “For us, it’s trying to figure out, ‘All right, where do we go from here? What steps?’” Keatts said yesterday. “Obviously with transfers, you’re trying to get as much chemistry as you can. And it’s really hard to do it in practice situations. So you’re kind of thrown into the fire of the game.”

It’s a challenge facing coaches across the sport, first in the offseason with issues of roster manage ment as players come and go while putting their names in the portal.

From there, it’s about fully integrating those play ers and building cohesion.

“That’s the world of transfers,” Massachu setts coach Frank Martin said last week before win ning the Myrtle Beach Invitational.

“That’s the hardest thing we as coaches deal with. Everyone’s brand new. The beginning of the season, it’s a get-to-know ceremony for lack of a better word.”

Those are the only two instances of an eventual NBA champion not being in the top 10 in terms of record that deep into a season.

(In fairness, there were a few seasons without 10 teams back in the early days, but play along.) That’s bad news for a lot of teams right now.

Each of the last 16 cham pions have had no worse than the fifth-best record through 20 games.

Golden State last season, best record through 20 games. The 2018-19 Toronto Raptors and 201920 Los Angeles Lakers, best record through 20 games. The 2014-15 and 201617 Warriors, best record through 20 games.

They all won titles.

Kansas coach Bill Self sees it, too.

His reigning national champions brought in 6-foot-6 wing Kevin McC ullar from Texas Tech, and McCullar has started all four games for the Jayhawks entering Wednes day’s Atlantis opener against N.C. State.

“Whether it be transfers or incoming freshmen, I think that a lot of people get a false sense that you can actually become a team a heck of a lot earlier in the season than you actu ally can,” said Self, who will make his season debut on the bench after serving a four-game suspension tied to an NCAA infractions case.

“There’s not one team here yet. Everybody will become a team at some point in time this season, but it usually doesn’t happen in early November. We didn’t become a team last year until February.”

That’s why Dayton coach Anthony Grant, who brought in forward Tyrone Baker from Georgia, says teams are “still in that dis covery stage.”

That’s good news for the Boston Celtics, who are well on their way to having the best record in the NBA at the 20-game mark this season. That’s not great news for the Warriors, who are 8-10 and 11th in the West — but are still well within striking distance of everyone. That’s also not great news for the Heat, who finished with the best regular-season record in the Eastern Conference last season and are 7-11 now with a slew of key players hurt.

“We need to figure out what it’s going to take to win and figure out what everybody needs to do differently, more con sistently,” Golden State guard Stephen Curry said.

“Forget the road record, you can’t even find a sus tainable period of success when habits start to form

and we’re in a position where we’re feeling good about ourselves. We’re still searching and chasing a little bit.”

The Celtics aren’t chas ing. They’re among those being chased. The team with the best record through 20 games has won the title 34 times in the league’s first 76 seasons.

“You have to be able to make each other better whether you have the ball or not,” said Celtics interim coach Joe Mazzulla, who in the span of less than two months has gone from being an assistant coach, to the person in charge after the Ime Udoka suspension, to the coach of a team that’s a popular pick to win the NBA title. “And our guys are bought into making each other better if they have the ball or not. It’s cool to watch.”

The Celtics should be the first team not to write off anyone. They were 10-10 through 20 games last season and wound up in the NBA Finals, where they fell to Golden State in six games.

Besides, rallies from near the middle to the top have happened before.

The 2002-03 San Anto nio Spurs were ninth-best after 20 games; the 1998-99 Spurs were eighth-best, and both those clubs went on to win titles. During Michael Jordan’s first championship season, 1990-91, the Bulls were 10th in the league after 20 games.

And in the NBA’s initial two seasons, the first two champions got off to slow starts.

The 1946-47 Philadelphia Warriors were fifth-best out of 11 teams through 20 games; a year later,

Mark Pope said. “So many more programs are dealing with new rosters and new kinds of fits. So kind of this race towards understanding your team is even bigger.”

Rudi Williams played last season at Coastal Caro lina and also had stops at Kansas State and North eastern Oklahoma A&M dating to the 2018-19 season. Now he’s starting for Pope’s Cougars.

the Baltimore Bulls were fourth-best out of eight teams.

And this year, let’s face it, mediocrity reigns. It’s still early. Not enough time has passed for anyone to truly separate themselves.

A five-game winning streak could send some clubs vaulting up the stand ings. A five-game slide could send some teams into a freefall.

So, maybe this will be the season when a team can buck the trend, shake off a slower-than-anticipated start and become a con tender after all.

But in games, the team that leads after the first quarter usually wins.

In seasons, it tends to go the same way. And the first quarter is about to end. If a team is going to get into the race, this would be a good time to get into gear.

being treated for a pulmo nary embolism — as new additions.

“I think a big part of this move, this transfer for me, was being able to have patience,” Hunter said.

“Because you kind of make a decision like that to go get results. It’s just the natural human aspect of that. Just know it’s just like everything else — you’ve got to have patience.”

These tournaments have long been part of the early stages of forging a team’s identity, though it was typically with new recruits joining returning veterans. Now, though, there’s far more roster turnover and upheaval with players able to move freely from school to school. And that means even experienced players are still learning their way at new programs.

It takes months of pickup games for new players to understand how their teammates play, down to

precisely where they want the ball thrown for a catchand-shoot call. Or a long series of practice reps to better understand new sys tems and terminologies.

But ultimately, nothing pushes that forward more than playing in full arenas with national TV broad casts. And at the Atlantis resort, that means three games in three potentially revealing days.

“They’re necessary because there’s a really important set of data points that you need,” BYU coach

“It takes time, and you have to understand that,” he said. “So far, I’ve been understanding that really well because I’m an older guy and this is not my first time moving around. So I understand there’s going to be some rough patches with a new team, new setting, new style, new pace — all that stuff.”

Eric Hunter Jr. has seen those challenges now that he’s moved to Butler, which is in the first season of a second stint under veteran coach Thad Matta.

The Purdue gradu ate transfer joins former N.C. State big man Manny Bates and Georgia State transfer Jalen Thomas — who has yet to play while

That applies for coaches and fans alike.

“I would say this tourna ment is a big deal because it helps you grow as a team with the transfers,” Wil liams said, adding: “When we come back from this trip, we’ll know if we got better or we’ll know what we have to work on.”

KANSAS guard Kevin McCullar Jr. (15) celebrates a score against Duke during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game, on Tuesday, November 15, 2022, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

BOSTON Celtics’ Jayson Tatum drives to the basket past Chi cago Bulls’ Andre Drummond during the first half of an NBA basketball game Monday, Nov. 21, 2022, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

Fourth annual Caribbean Baseball Cup is coming to The Bahamas

WITHIN days, the pres tigious Caribbean Baseball Cup will stage its fourth annual competition on Bahamian soil, thanks to the Bahamas Baseball Association.

Senior league baseball action returns to Nassau in a big way on Sunday, December 4 when Team Bahamas faces Caribbean power-house teams from Cuba, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands and Cura cao, the tournament’s defending champions.

During the week-long competition, there will be three games a day at the new Andre Rodgers National Baseball Stadium in Oakes Field. This is the 4th annual Caribbean Baseball Cup, but it’s the first time being held in the Bahamas.

After addressing the press at the Office of Prime Minister’s weekly briefing, members of the Bahamas Baseball Association’s local organising committee (LOC) paid a courtesy call on His Excellency Gover nor General Sir Cornelius Smith, who expressed appreciation for their vol untary work to the success of the Caribbean Baseball Cup.

Led by BBA president Sam Rodgers and its sec retary general Theodore Sweeting, the LOC mem bers included Lyrone Burrows, Jennifer Isaacs,

Burrows.

The courtesy call was organised by Tommy Stubbs, member of the Governor General Volun

Bahamas committee who is also spearheading the promotions for the upcoming baseball tourna ment. GG VB members in attendance were

Smith

He said he envisions baseball returning as the No.1 sport in the Bahamas.

Making up Team Baha mas will be some of the finest Bahamian players assigned to Major League Baseball’s (MLB) minor system and attending US colleges. The team man ager is Geron Sands.

When the tournament ends in Nassau on Sunday,

December 11, two teams will qualify to compete at next year’s Central Ameri can and Caribbean (CAC) Games in El Salvador.

To which the Governor General asked: “Who will be the other team” advanc ing to the 2023 CAC Games.

He expects Team Baha mas to be one of the teams qualifying.

NL CHAMP PHILLIES EXTEND PRESIDENT DOMBROWSKI THROUGH 2027

By DAN GELSTON AP Sports Writer

PHILADELPHIA (AP)

— The National League champion Philadelphia Phillies gave team President Dave Dombrowski a threeyear contract extension that takes him through the 2027 season.

“This is a great organiza tion and I feel so fortunate to be surrounded by such tremendous personnel. We have made significant strides in many areas of baseball operations over the last couple of years, and I am committed to building upon them to form a cham pionship organization for the city and our incredible fan base,” Dombrowski said Tuesday.

Dombrowski made the pivotal decision to fire manager Joe Girardi with the team scuffling in June and replace him with bench coach Rob Thom son. Behind sluggers Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber and Rhys Hoskins, Thom son helped lead the Phillies to their first playoff appear ance since 2011 and their eighth NL pennant.

The Phillies finished the regular season 87-75 and earned the third NL wildcard spot. They beat the NL Central champion St. Louis Cardinals and the NL East champion Atlanta Braves in the first two rounds of the postseason and the San Diego Padres in the NL Championship Series.

The Houston Astros beat the Phillies in six games to win the World Series.

The 66-year-old Dom browski was hired in December 2020 following stints in the front office with Montreal, the Florida Mar lins, Boston and Detroit. His clubs have won five pennants and two World Series titles. He is the only head of a baseball opera tions department to lead four different franchises to the World Series and only one of five general manag ers to have won a World Series title with two differ ent teams.

GOVERNMENT SECONDARY SCHOOLS SPORTS ASSOCIATION SOFTBALL & BASEBALL

Best-of-3 championship series begins today

FROM PAGE 12

but we had a few errors.

If we can get these errors together, we can win the championship,” Rose said. “We have to come with a strategy against them. I can’t tell my strategy out loud, but we will be ready for them.”

The Mystic Marlins knocked off CC Sweeting 4-1 to get into the final.

Junior boys baseball final

AF Adderley waiting

While the Fighting Tigers remained undefeated to get

into the final, they are wait ing on their opponents, who will come from the matchup between SC McPherson and HO Nash that will be completed today.

The Sharks took a 4-0 lead into the bottom of the second when the game was halted due to dark ness on Tuesday. For AF Adderley, head coach Vin cent Sullivan said they are on a mission and it doesn’t matter who they get to face.

“We are a pretty good team. We had a pretty

decent season,” he pointed out.

“We accomplished our first goal that we set at the beginning of the season, which was to win the pen nant. We did that and now we’re set for the champion ship and the work begins.”

Considering this as a new season after going 7-0 during the regular season, Sullivan said they will have to continue to play up to par, or they could lose it all against either the Sharks or the Lions.

Junior girls softball HO

After

CH Reeves and LW Young played to a 4-4 tie until the game was halted due to darkness.

For HO Nash, after win ning the pennant with a 7-0 undefeated regular season, coach April Styles-Rolle

said they have been prepar ing for the long haul and should be in good condition to go after the title.

“We have a lot of clean ing up to do before we start the championship, but I know my girls are capable of doing it,” Styles-Rolle said.

“I know what we are capable of doing and I’ve seen the other teams.

“Once we can keep our head in the game, we can come out victorious. We have an outstanding pitcher

and she will be a star in the future. So I want to the public to look out for her.”

Jerniah Frazer, a 14-yearold ninth grader at HO Nash, said she’s looking for ward to taking the Lions to the promised land.

“I am very pleased and very happy that I was able to pitch against every team and still come out victori ous,” Frazer said.

“I’ve been practicing with my team, making sure that I am in shape. I know we can win it all this year.”

Nash waiting

demolishing TA Thompson 15-3 in their playoff game yesterday, the Lions will have to wait until today to see who their opponents in the final will be.

Mario Ford, Judy Charlton and chief umpire Martin “Pork”

teer

Arthurnique Jones, Anthony “Ace” Newbold and Sandena Neely, also of the Ministry of Youth, Sports & Culture.

told the group that the Bahamas can never compensate them for their contributions to this and other efforts over the years, and encourage them to train the youth to follow in their footsteps.

SHOWN, from left to right, at the Governor General’s Office are Mario Ford, Lyrone Burrows, Theodore Sweeting, Governor General CA Smith, Sam Rodgers Sr, Jennifer Isaacs and Martin Burrows.

Photos courtesy of AF Photography

SHOWN, from left to right, at the Office of the Prime Minister, are Tommy Stubbs, Mario Ford, Jennifer Isaacs, Martin Burrows, Theodore Sweeting, Sam Rodgers Sr, Judy Charlton and Lyrone Burrows.

COURTESY CALL - Shown, from left to right, at the Governor General’s Office are Tommy Stubbs, Sandena Neely, Mario Ford, Lyrone Burrows, Theodore Sweeting, Governor General CA Smith, Sam Rodgers Sr, Jennifer Isaacs, Martin Burrows and Anthony Newbold.

compared with that of others at a similar level of development.” S&P’s assess ment reflects the increasing global economic headwinds that are buffeting this nation through the cost of living crisis and other impacts.

And, noting that digital assets represented a key part of the Davis adminis tration’s strategy to grow and diversify the Bahamian economy, S&P said FTX’s collapse could derail or hinder these objectives due to the reputational fall-out for the jurisdiction.

While asserting that the FTX failure will have “no material adverse impact” for the overall economy and sovereign credit rating, the rating agency added: “To foster the local Fintech (financial technology) sector and open the country to opportunities in the digital asset space, the Government recently introduced the Dig ital Assets and Registered Exchange (DARE) Act.

“The local economy ben efited from the activities of a digital exchange over the past year. However, this sector may face set backs as FTX, a digital asset exchange headquartered in The Bahamas, recently filed for bankruptcy.” S&P also suggested that the Davis

administration is unlikely to undertake “significant public finance reforms in the next one to two years”, with economic recovery set to be the main driver of lower def icits and increased revenues.

It argued, though, that “material new revenue” sources, meaning new and/ or increased taxes, will be needed if the Government is to meet its fiscal targets - something the Prime Min ister has repeatedly pledged will only be a last resort option given the administra tion’s focus on monetising blue carbon credits.

“The Bahamas has faced two large negative shocks in three years, placing significant pressure on gov ernment finances and testing the Government’s resolve to put the nation’s finances on a sustainable path,” S&P said.

“The rapid increase in debt over the past few years means The Bahamas’ pre vious fiscal consolidation plans will likely be insuffi cient to meet the country’s debt targets without mate rial new revenues, significant cost cutting or economic growth well above historical averages. Furthermore, the country remains vulnerable to environmental risks.

“We believe the country’s track record of slow pro gress in reforming public

finances and key sectors of the economy has contrib uted to the weakening of its financial profile over many years and hurt its economic performance. Most notably, failure to advance public financial reform has led to a marked increase in the sov ereign’s debt burden.”

The economy’s postCOVID reflation, S&P added, was slowing increases in The Bahamas’ gross sovereign debt but the Gov ernment still has “significant financing and refinancing needs. External borrowing and high current account deficits will continue to pres sure The Bahamas’ external position”.

“The growing economy is helping to reduce the Gov ernment’s fiscal deficits to levels more consistent with those seen pre-pandemic. We expect the deficit this fiscal year (ending June 30, 2023) will be 2.8 per cent of GDP, and that the change in general govern ment net debt will average 2.4 percent of GDP during 2022-2024,” S&P said.

“In the short-term, we do not anticipate material new revenue-generating tax measures. Instead, we expect the Government will continue pursuing improve ments to tax collections via a dedicated Revenue Enhancement Unit, among

other initiatives. In the past fiscal year, the Government rolled out its updated real property tax roll, which added new properties, and it expects it will generate $120m per year.”

Asserting that the Gov ernment’s bid to achieve a 25 percent revenue-toGDP ratio by 2025-2026 will be a tough ask without new and/or increased taxes and spending cuts, S&P said: “The Government has announced its inten tion to collect revenue of 25 percent of GDP, while shrinking expenses and capital spending to 20 per cent and 3.5 percent of GDP, respectively, by fiscal 2025-2026.

“This would result in a fiscal surplus. However, we

believe the Government’s goals will be hard to achieve absent new taxes or material spending cuts. The Govern ment has announced two new committees to review revenue policies and public debt strategy. Any rec ommendations and new policies arising from these committees will take sev eral years before they have a meaningful impact on public finances.”

With The Govern ment’s net debt burden and financing needs set to decline slowly, S&P argued it “remains vulnerable to refinancing risks” with 24 percent of its debt due to mature over the next yearalbeit the majority of this is held by domestic investors

and denominated in Baha mian dollars.

“We expect The Baha mas will refinance existing domestic debt internally, but will rely on external sources to meet its incremental borrowing needs. We under stand the Government plans to avoid external bond mar kets in 2023. Instead it will use a combination of bank loans and multilateral fund ing to meet its external financing needs,” the rating agency added.

“The country’s exter nal debt has risen in recent years, and foreign cur rency-denominated debt is now 46 percent of total debt, underscoring the importance of generating sufficient foreign exchange to meet debt service needs.”

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STANDARD & POOR’S HEADQUARTERS

OECD FORECAST: HIGH RATES, INFLATION TO SLOW WORLD GROWTH

By PAUL WISEMAN AND DAVID MCHUGH AP Business Writers

HOBBLED by high interest rates, punishing inflation and Russia’s war against Ukraine, the world economy is expected to eke out only modest growth this year and to expand even more tepidly in 2023.

That was the sobering forecast issued Tuesday by the Paris-based Organi zation for Economic Cooperation and Devel opment. In the OECD’s estimation, the world econ omy will grow just 3.1% this year, down sharply from a robust 5.9% in 2021.

Next year, the OECD predicts, would be even worse: The international economy would expand only 2.2%.

“It is true we are not pre dicting a global recession,” OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann said at a news conference. “But this is a very, very challenging outlook, and I don’t think that anyone will take great comfort from the projection of 2.2% global growth.”

The OECD, made up of 38 member countries, works to promote international trade and prosperity and issues periodic reports and analyses. Figures from the organization showed fully

NOTICE

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN as follows:

(a) KAAT OCEAN LIMITED is in dissolution under the provisions of the International Business Companies Act 2000.

(b) The Dissolution of said Company commenced on November 22, 2022 when its Articles of Dissolution were submitted and registered by the Registrar General.

(c) The Liquidator of the said company is Zakrit Services Ltd. of 2nd Terrace West, Centreville, Nassau, Bahamas.

(d) All persons having Claims against the above-named Company are required on or before December 22, 2022 to send their names and addresses and particulars of their debts or claims to the Liquidator of the company or, in default thereof, they may be excluded from the beneft of any distribution made before such debts are proved.

November 22, 2022

ZAKRIT SERVICES LTD.

LIQUIDATOR OF THE ABOVE-NAMED COMPANY

PUBLIC NOTICE

INTENT TO CHANGE NAME BY DEED POLL

The Public is hereby advised that I, Jeilaine Rolle née Rodriquez Medina of Jacaranda Street, #65 Pinewood Gardens, mother of ALESSIA PAUMIER RODRIQUEZ a minor intend to change her name to ALESSIA RODRIQUEZ ROLLE. If there are any objections to this change of name by Deed Poll, you may write such objections to the Chief Passport Offcer, P.O. Box N-742, Nassau, New Providence, Bahamas no later than thirty (30) days after the date of publication of this notice.

18% of economic output in member countries being spent on energy after Rus sia’s invasion of Ukraine helped drive up prices for oil and natural gas. That has confronted the world with an energy crisis on the scale of the two historic energy price spikes in the 1970s that also slowed growth and fueled inflation.

Inflation — largely fueled by high energy prices — “has become broad-based and persistent,” Cormann said, while “real house hold incomes across many countries have weakened despite support measures that many governments have been rolling out.”

In its latest forecast, OECD predicts that the U.S. Federal Reserve’s

NOTICE

NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN as follows:

(a) FREYCINET CORPORATE SERVICES (BAHAMAS) LIMITED is in dissolution under the provisions of the International Business Companies Act 2000.

(b) The Dissolution of said Company commenced on November 22, 2022 when its Articles of Dissolution were submitted and registered by the Registrar General.

(c) The Liquidator of the said company is Zakrit Services Ltd. of 2nd Terrace West, Centreville, Nassau, Bahamas.

(d) All persons having Claims against the above-named Company are required on or before December 22, 2022 to send their names and addresses and particulars of their debts or claims to the Liquidator of the company or, in default thereof, they may be excluded from the beneft of any distribution made before such debts are proved.

November 22, 2022

ZAKRIT SERVICES LTD.

LIQUIDATOR OF THE ABOVE-NAMED COMPANY

N O T I C E

PROMISED LAND ASSETS LIMITED

N O T I C E IS HEREBY GIVEN as follows:

(a) PROMISED LAND ASSETS LIMITED is in voluntary dissolution under the provisions of Section 138 (4) of the International Business Companies Act 2000.

(b) The dissolution of the said company commenced on the 16th November, 2022 when the Articles of Dissolution were submitted to and registered by the Registrar General.

(c) The Liquidator of the said company is Bukit Merah Limited, The Bahamas Financial Centre, Shirley & Charlotte Streets, P.O. Box N-3023, Nassau, Bahamas.

Dated this 23rd day of November, 2022.

Bukit Merah Limited Liquidator

aggressive drive to tame inflation with higher inter est rates — it’s raised its benchmark rate six times this year, in substantial increments — will grind the U.S. economy to a nearhalt. It expects the United States, the world’s largest economy, to grow just 1.8% this year (down drastically from 5.9% in 2021), 0.5% in 2023 and 1% in 2024.

That grim outlook is widely shared. Most econ omists expect the United States to enter at least a mild recession next year, though the OECD did not specifically predict one.

N O T I C E

TRIM BAY LIMITED

N O T I C E IS HEREBY GIVEN as follows:

(b) The dissolution of the said company commenced on the 16th November, 2022 when the Articles of Dissolution were submitted to and registered by the Registrar General.

(c) The Liquidator of the said company is Leeward Nominees Limited, Vistra Corporate Services Centre, Wickhams Cay II, Road Town, Tortola, British Virgin Islands.

Dated this 23rd day of November, A. D. 2022.

Leeward Nominees Limited Liquidator

www.bisxbahamas.com

(242)323-2330 (242) 323-2320

39.95 39.950.00 0.9321.26042.93.15% 2.761.60Benchmark

18.10 18.100.00 0.8160.54022.22.98% 4.003.50Focol

FCL

1.001.00Bahamas

JSJ CFAL Global Equity Fund Leno Financial Conservative Fund Leno Financial Aggressive Fund Leno Financial Balanced Fund Leno Financial Global Bond Fund RF Bahamas Opportunities Fund - Secured Balanced Fund RF Bahamas Opportunities Fund - Targeted Equity Fund RF Bahamas Opportunities Fund - Prime Income Fund RF Bahamas International Investment Fund Limited - Equities Sub Fund RF Bahamas International Investment Fund Limited - High Yield Income Fund RF Bahamas International Investment Fund Limited - Alternative Strategies Fund

1.000.00 0.0000.0000.0000.00%

1000.001000.000.00 0.0000.0000.0000.00%

2.46 2.460.00 0.1400.08017.63.25% 2.852.25Bank Prime +

INTEREST

1.75%

6.25% 4.50% 6.25% 4.25%

5.50%

5.69%

2.552.11 2.552.24%4.01% 4.833.30 4.833.42%7.26% 2.241.68 2.241.70%2.82% 207.86164.74 197.44-2.97%-2.35% 212.41116.70 202.39-4.72%6.04% 1.761.71 1.762.49%2.79% 1.941.78 1.935.71%7.96% 1.881.79 1.863.39%3.91% 1.030.93 0.93-8.94%-9.55% 9.376.41 9.37-0.02%10.36% 11.837.62 11.79-0.33%18.23% 7.545.66 7.540.22%3.05% 16.648.65 15.94-3.89%14.76% 12.8410.54 12.47-1.04%-2.57% 10.779.57 10.740.81%4.20% 10.009.88 N/AN/AN/A 10.438.45 10.433.00%25.60% 14.8911.20 14.897.90%48.70%

MATURITY 19-Oct-2022 20-Nov-2029 31-Jul-2022 31-Jul-2022

31-Oct-2022 31-Oct-2022

31-Oct-2022 31-Jan-2022 31-Jan-2022 31-Jan-2022 31-Jan-2022

31-Jan-2022 31-Jan-2022

31-Mar-2021 31-Mar-2021

15-Jan-2049 15-Oct-2049 31-Mar-2021

S&P: ‘No material effect’ for Bahamas from FTX

getting its creditworthiness upgraded and escaping the ‘junk’ status it still holds with both rating agencies, Mr Wilson told this news paper: “It does provide breathing room. It cre ates a platform for us to go forward.”

The negative conse quences of any further S&P downgrade, which have been avoided for likely at least another year, would have been a potential increase in the Govern ment’s borrowing costs on the international capital markets - which it is seeking to avoid tapping during the 2023-2024 fiscal year.

Investors would have likely sought higher interest rates on Bahamian sover eign debt to compensate for the extra risk due to the Government’s further loss of creditworthiness. And this, in turn, would have led to higher debt servicing

costs ultimately paid by the Bahamian taxpayer.

But, when asked whether S&P’s actions would lead to an easing of The Baha mas’ borrowing costs, Mr Wilson said no - because the discounts and higher yields being demanded by international investors have already begun to ease.

“Our bond costs have been going down because of things we have been doing in terms if outreach,” he disclosed. “We did a market outreach in October, but there’s still more work to be done.” Mr Wilson said The Bahamas’ foreign cur rency bond that was due to mature in 2024, and which had been “causing the most trouble and inverted the yield curve”, had improved by 680 basis points (6.8 percentage points) since that October reach-out to investors.

The improvement, when measured from that bond’s August 2022 low, was 1,270

ARGAU INC.

LIQUIDATOR’S NOTICE

Pursuant to Section 138(6) of the International Business Companies Act

NOTICE is hereby given that ARGAU INC., a company registered under the International Business Companies Act, has been dissolved and struck off the Register as of the 14th day of November 2022.

Dated this 22nd day of November 2022

Sterling (Bahamas) Limited Liquidator

basis points (12.7 per centage points). Tribune Business research showed that this was mirrored by other long-term Bahamas government bonds which are traded on global stock exchanges.

The $825m bond, due to mature in 2032 and priced at 8.95 percent at when it was placed at COVID’ peak in 2020, closed yes terday at just a 28.8 percent discount to its face value on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. It had been trading at around a 45 percent discount in midAugust 2022, and the yields demanded by investors have dropped from a peak of around 18-19 percent to 15.05 percent.

Similarly, the $300m bond placed at 6.95 per cent pre-Dorian, and due to mature in 2029, closed yesterday at a 34.5 per cent discount to face value having dropped by close to 50 percent in August. The

yield being sought by inves tors has also reduced from the 18-19 percent range to 15.684 percent, indicating there is improved inves tor sentiment towards The Bahamas after its bonds were recently trading at dis tressed debt levels.

“It’s a significant decline,” Mr Wilson told Tribune Business of the 2024 bond. He added that S&P’s action, in maintaining its existing rating and outlook on The Bahamas, will further boost investor sentiment towards the country. “I think from a confidence perspective it’s very important,” he said. “It’s the start. There’s more work to be done, and we can’t sit here and celebrate. We have to maintain it.”

S&P’s verdict provides a timely, albeit, modest boost for both The Bahamas and the Davis adminis tration. Having last week announced what the Prime Minister termed as the lowest first quarter deficit

in more than a decade for the 2022-2023 fiscal year, the Government will likely seize on it as vindication that its economic and fiscal policies are on the right track and that it is starting to rebuild investor confi dence and credibility.

Tribune Business under stands that government officials last week hinted at a briefing for brokers, com mercial banks and major Bahamas-based holders of the Government’s debt that S&P was unlikely to follow Moody’s in downgrading the country’s credit stand ing. Moody’s decision was based on concerns that the Government’s access to borrowing was being squeezed by rising global interest rates and the coun try’s own increasing debt costs.

S&P, though, focused more on The Bahamas’ economic fundamentals and said the FTX crypto currency exchange’s implosion will not create “material” negative effects for the Bahamian economy. “The stable outlook reflects our view that economic growth will support govern ment revenues and reduce pressure on government expenditures, leading to smaller fiscal deficits over the next 12 months,” the rating agency said.

“The stable outlook also assumes no material adverse impact on The Bahamas, including to the local banking sector, from the recent bankruptcy of FTX, a crypto currency exchange with a presence in the country. We expect continued, but decelerating, growth in the national debt. We expect the country’s

relatively large financing needs will be met by the domestic market and multi lateral lenders.”

Turning to the bigger picture, S&P added: “The Bahamas economy is recov ering after two successive exogenous shocks, led by a strong rebound in tourism and the Government’s fiscal balances are returning to pre-pandemic levels.

“Nevertheless,the coun try faces challenges as global growth slows, which could delay the Govern ment’s realisation of its fiscal and debt targets. Furthermore, external financing risks remain ele vated for The Bahamas, but a large domestic finan cial sector and multilateral external funding should mitigate this risk.”

And, looking at what could improve The Baha mas’ creditworthiness as well as spark further down grades, S&P analysts said: “We could lower the ratings over the next 12 months should economic perfor mance lag, pointing to GDP per capita remaining below our expectations. We could also lower the ratings if we believe that The Bahamas’ access to external liquidity will deteriorate sharply and suddenly.

“We could raise the ratings over the next 12 months if the Government advances faster than we expect to establish a track record of enacting mean ingful financial reform, demonstrating an abil ity to raise revenues and leading to sustained nearbalanced financial results and improved economic prospects.”

By DAMIAN J. TROISE AND ALEX VEIGA AP Business Writers

STOCKS on Wall Street closed broadly higher Tuesday, as solid company

U.S.

The S&P 500 rose 1.4%, more than making up for its losses last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.2% and the Nasdaq composite gained 1.4%.

All the company sectors in the benchmark S&P 500 index rose, with technology stocks driving much of the rally. Chipmaker Nvidia rose 4.7%.

Financial and health care stocks also helped lift the market. Charles Schwab rose 1.6% and Pfizer added 1.9%.

Energy stocks notched the biggest gain as the price of U.S. crude oil rose 1.5%. Chevron rose 2.6%.

“Yesterday’s slow sell-off of energy was over done,” said Jay Hatfield, CEO of Infrastructure Capital Advisors. “So you’re getting a bounce back in energy and that’s really leading the market.”

Long-term Treasury yields fell. The yield on the 10-year Treasury, which influences mortgage rates, fell to 3.76% from 3.84% late Monday.

“When rates go down it’s great for all stocks,” Hat field said.

The S&P 500 rose 53.64 points to 4,003.58. The Dow gained 397.82 points to 34,098.10. The techheavy Nasdaq climbed 149.90 points to 11,174.41.

Smaller company stocks also got a boost. The Rus sell 2000 rose 21.20 points, or 1.2%, to 1,860.44.

Investors have very little news to review this week, but several retailers and technology companies are closing out the latest round of corporate earnings with their financial results. Best Buy surged 12.8% after the electronics retailer did better than analysts expected and said a decline in sales for the year will not be as bad as it had pro jected earlier.

Dell Technologies rose 6.8% after the computer maker reported strong third-quarter profit and revenue. Zoom Video slumped 3.9% after giving investors a weak profit and revenue forecast.

earnings helped lift sev eral retailers ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday in the

district to Delaware. The latter state is where 134 other entities that made up the crypto exchange’s group have been placed into Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The transfer does not yet impact efforts by Brian Simms KC, the Lennox Paton senior partner, and PricewaterhouseCoop ers (PwC) accounting duo Kevin Cambridge and Peter Greaves, to obtain Chapter 15 recognition as a “foreign main” insolvency proceed ing from the US courts or their application for “emer gency relief”.

The battle as to who controls and leads FTX’s winding-up, and the efforts to secure and realise assets - whether it is The Baha mas or Delaware - will have to be determined at future court hearings. The provi sional liquidators could not be reached for comment before press deadline last night.

Meanwhile, Mr Knowles said FTX ‘s presence had provided a major activ ity boost for the high-end residential and corporate markets in western New Providence despite its rela tively short existence here. “They had a very significant impact based on how much they spent and how quickly they spent it,” he told Trib une Business

“It wasn’t just the total dollar amount, but it was the velocity at which they were spending money to acquire properties in prime communities and also select communities. All that money was concentrated in two or three select commu nities. Albany and Old Fort Bay were the main ones. They bought the property where they were going to do the headquarters [Bay side Executive Park], and they bought some units in One Cable Beach.

“It was all in the west, and 80 percent of it was in the communities you just named [Albany and Old Fort Bay]. They were defi nitely a large player in the market. Two hundred and fifty million dollars was the number they invested; that was the number out there. It’s probably going to be more than that,” Mr Knowles continued.

“You’re going to have a major impact on an island as small as New Providence. Not only were they buying; they were leasing a lot of places, so there will be fallout on the lease side as well. They leased a number of units in One Cable Beach, which I’m personally famil iar with. They were leasing a house on Love Beach as well, a house I look after. They leased that for a while at a very high rate.

“The money was flowing. It was great for the market while it lasted and we’ll have to see how it shakes out. Hopefully there won’t be too much fall-out. The fundamentals of our market are still very strong and there’s huge demand from all over the world. Crypto is a small piece of the econ omy. Maybe there will be some opportunities on the rental side seeing that some properties will come back on the market because they were leased.”

Mr Knowles’ assessment was echoed by fellow real tor Matt Sweeting, broker at 1 OAK Bahamas, who told Tribune Business that FTX’s Bahamian real estate acquisitions were “merely a drop in the luxury market bucket” when compared to its overall size.

“I don’t think it’s going to have a substantial effect when you look at the kind of real estate that is,” he said of the crypto exchange’s travails. “It’s at the high end. This is a market that most realtors don’t get to play in. There were some condos at One Cable Beach, multi-mil lion properties at Albany. Again, this isn’t like this is going to have a consider able effect on the local real estate market.

“It’s merely a drop in the luxury market bucket. I

don’t think we’re going to see any considerable effect on high-end real estate, and it’s highly likely those properties will be tied up in the liquidation for a long period of time. If we do see some effects, they’re likely to be delayed due to the liquidation.”

Tribune Business was previously shown a report, which checks confirmed was genuine and had been wellresearched, disclosing that FTX has acquired some $74.23m in west New Provi dence real estate during 2022 alone. Most of these purchases involved prop erty in the high-end Albany community, along with the acquisition of units in the Veridian Corporate Centre, which was developed by Island Luck gaming tycoon, Sebas Bastian.

The acquisitions by FTX Property Holdings, the crypto exchange’s real estate arm, ranged in value from a high of $30m to $8.9m, $7.479m, $7.311m, $7m and $6.75m at Albany, according to the report, which was being widely circulated on social media.

Some $4.5m was also spent to acquire the Bayside Executive Park site for its planned $60m headquar ters, which is now almost certain not to proceed.

The report also showed a $2.29m purchase at the Veridian Corporate Centre.

“The corporate offices for FTX are currently housed at the Veridian Corpo rate Centre, which was originally built and sold by Sebas Bastian,” the document said. “These are not rentals or leases.

FTX has purchased these units outright. Addition ally, there is one purchase of a condominium at One Cable Beach for $2m made by Sam Bankman-Fried directly in late 2021.”

Robert J. Ray, the chief executive for FTX Trading and the entities covered by the Delaware Chap ter 11 filings, alleged last week that corporate funds belonging to the crypto exchange were used to fund Bahamian real estate pur chases by its executives who then put the properties in their own, personal names rather than the company’s.

“In The Bahamas, I understand that corporate funds of the FTX group were used to purchase homes and other personal items for employees and advisors. I understand that there does not appear to be documentation for cer tain of these transactions as loans, and that certain real estate was recorded in the personal name of these employees and advisors on the records of The Baha mas,” Mr Ray asserted.

Mr Knowles, meanwhile, said the greatest Bahamian impact from FTX’s implo sion will be felt by its 40 local staff who will likely have to seek fresh employ ment. Besides the loss of potential opportunities and reputation damage for the jurisdiction, others who will be hurt include Bahamian suppliers of goods and ser vices to the crypto exchange who will either have lost a valuable revenue source, be owed monies they cannot fully recover, or both.

“The impact is more on the investments side of things,” the realtor said. “They were going to build a hotel, big com mercial centre, invest a lot more money in the local economy; not necessarily real estate because they’d bought all the real estate they needed.

“The jobs impact is the biggest I can see so far. All the good young Bahami ans working for FTX in the crypto space will be unem ployed. They may have had a good career ahead at FTX and now will have to regroup and figure things out. For us it’s a big shock, but to them it’s an even bigger shock for sure. The biggest fall-out from this is the loss of opportunities and jobs.

“The real estate market will be fine,” added Mr Knowles. “It’ll absorb whatever comes on the

market, but that has to go through liquidation and the courts and it may be years before that happens. Who knows what the condition of the market will be then?

As far as I can see, all is not lost. People want to buy, be here and put down roots. People forget there’s so much legacy wealth not affected by events such as this......

“I don’t think we lost any deals. They [FTX] had bought as much as they were going to buy. They’d stopped buying, and on the leasing side it’s an oppor tunity for folks to get units they couldn’t get previ ously because there was no inventory for a while. We might see some cooling-off of rents because they were pushed to an all-time high, definitely helped by FTX.”

Mr Knowles said rental rates were also increased by persons coming to The Bahamas to stay for one to two years during the COVID-19 pandemic, as they sought to escape more crowded city destinations in their home countries.

Meanwhile, Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX’s co-founder and chief executive who steered the crypto exchange to its col lapse, was yesterday said to have run the operation as his “personal fiefdom” with virtually no checks and balances to his powers, minimal corporate govern ance practices and little to no internal controls on cash management and other aspects critical to the opera tion of an entity once said to have been worth $32bn.

A “substantial amount” of FTX’s assets “have either been stolen or are missing”, James Bromley, co-head of the restructuring prac tice at law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, told Judge John Dorsey at yesterday’s Dela ware Bankruptcy Court hearing. “FTX was in the control of inexperienced and unsophisticated indi viduals, and some or all of them were compromised individuals.”

Mr Bankman-Fried remains holed up in his Albany marina penthouse, no doubt hoping to evade media interest, with his parents - both professors at Stanford University - said to be present with him. The Securities Commission, FTX’s primary Bahamian regulator, meanwhile said it had obtained a Supreme Court Order allowing it to recover the costs it incurred in securing FTX Digital Markets’ remaining assets.

Fearing these were about to be hacked, the regulator had previously obtained the Supreme Court’s per mission to transfer them to a digital wallet under its control for safekeep ing. “On November 21, 2022, the Securities Com mission obtained an order from the Supreme Court to secure a right of indemnity and right to be reimbursed for expenses reasonably incurred by the Commis sion in connection with the regulatory action taken to safeguard the digital assets of FTX Digital Markets,” it confirmed in a statement.

The Securities Commis sion said it “determined urgent action to safeguard the digital assets of FTX Digital Markets for the benefit of its customers and creditors was needed, and directed the transfer of certain digital assets to a digital wallet controlled by the Commission.

“The Order secured today confirms the Com mission is entitled to be indemnified under the law, and FTX Digital Markets [the liquidation estate and creditors] shall ultimately bear the costs the Commis sion incurs in safeguarding those assets for the benefit of FTX Digital Markets’ customers and creditors in a manner similar to other normal costs of administer ing FTX Digital Markets’ assets for the benefit of its customers and creditors.”

The Supreme Court, though, will have to approve any costs payment.

DIGITAL PROVIDER FACILITATES OVER $200M IN PAYMENTS

By YOURI KEMP Tribune Business Reporter ykemp@tribunemedia.net

A BAHAMIAN digi tal payments provider yesterday said it has pro cessed more than $200m in transactions since its launch after expanding to a 35,000strong user base.

Jevon Butler, Kanoo’s chief sales officer, speaking at a forum organised by the Small Business Development

Centre (SBDC), said: “When I checked this number yesterday morn ing, we are almost at 35,000 active users in the Kanoo ecosystem, which will be 10 percent of the population or just less than that.

“We have over 400 active merchants throughout the entire Bahamas, and these merchants also include agents in New Providence, Grand Bahama, Exuma, Long Island, Andros and I think we even have an agent in Inagua.”

The “agency model” is featuring prominently in Kanoo’s roll-out because it allows recipients of pay ments and cash transfers to collect physical currency from a partner merchant on his or her respective island.

With the Central Bank digital currency, the Sand Dollar, making this pro cess easier, Mr Butler said: “I’m always proud as a Bahamian that Sand Dollar was the first Central Bank digital currency in the world…

“The Central Bank digital currency is legal tender. There is no differ ence between you having physical cash in your wallet or purse and having the Central Bank digital cur rency stored in one of the mobile wallet providers’ platforms. The digital cur rencies allow you to move funds between peers at the speed of light, and then transact with any of those merchants who accept those funds.”

Kanoo was launched in Freeport in 2018, and

is licensed by the Grand Bahama Port Authority (GBPA). For customers it offers an “integrated digital wallet, integrated payment framework, inte grated point of sale system along with integrated mes sage board communication capabilities”.

Mr Butler added: “We have three components to our platform. There is the Kanoo wallet. Then we have the Kanoo arm account, what we call the audience relationship man ager account. That will

ELE THERA’S ECONO ARISIN FRO ‘COCOON’

By YOURI KEMP Tribune Business Reporter ykemp@tribunemedia.net

THE ELEUTHERA Chamber of Commerce’s president yesterday said the island’s economy is expand ing faster than it can handle after emerging from its “cocoon”

Thomas Sands told a forum organised by the Small Business Development Centre (SBDC) that Eleuthera is going through a “positive evolution”, adding: “Some of the things that we would

have said worked against us in terms of a negative economy has almost kept us in a cocoon. The recession had kept us in a cocoon for a while and, really, a lot of people suffered as a result. A lot of people went out of business and a lot of people moved.

“At the same time, the realisation is that Eleuthera is positioning itself natu rally as a green island. A space in this country that is not only developed and has some basic infrastruc ture, but essentially a visitor to Eleuthera, an investor in Eleuthera, someone moving from Nassau, sees

Eleuthera and some of the Family Islands as a relief, an escape and a new oppor tunity. That is very much important for that energy to move back into the Family Islands.”

The lack of sufficient accommodation remains one obstacle to Eleuthera’s growth, with Mr Sands saying: “With, again, the foreign direct investment taking place, it creates a number of opportunities across the board. So, for example, one of the dis cussions this morning with a major investor group here was: Where’s the accommodation?

“So we have, essen tially, as we look at the capital investment that is taking place, we have 1,500 people that moved to Eleuthera in the last 12 months and we don’t have the accommodation readily available to accommodate those persons. It is very, very challenging.

“We have a develop ment that says: ‘I’ve had to build a man camp of 300 and I have to expand that’. We have groups that are coming to deliver ser vices, and they are trying to figure out where do I place my people.” Eleuthera and its infrastructure

were ill-prepared to handle the economic develop ment opportunities that have opened up for the island, leading Mr Sands to call for a “strategic plan for growth and development in the Family Islands”.

He added: “There are many opportunities. I think that an entrepreneur has to analyse, and very carefully figure out where the access to capital will be and how they can execute. We speak about areas again like farm ing and fishing. So through an operation, I’ve entered the farming business with a partner and am learning a

‘ EETIN OF INDS’ NEEDED ON DISTRESSED HO SIN DRA

FROM PAGE A24

focus should be on finding new owners for existing properties rather than building more homes. Doing so, he added, would “free up cash flow for the banks to take a more aggressive approach

to mortgages. As long as we have a lingering expo sure on the mortgage portfolio we will always have that challenge”. The Central Bank’s latest pub lished monthly economic report, for September 2022, showed that some $392.6m worth of mortgage loans

NOTICE

IN THE ESTATE OF JAMES HAROLD BRADLEY late of 502 Covebrook Lane, Knoxville in the state of Tennessee in The United States of America.

Deceased.

NOTICE is hereby given that all persons having any claims against the above-named Estate are required on or before the 16th day of December A. D., 2022 to send their names and addresses and particulars of their debts or claims to the undersigned in writing or in default thereof they will be excluded from the beneft of any distribution AND all persons indebted to the said Estate are hereby requested to pay their respective debts to the undersigned on or before the date above mentioned.

AND NOTICE is hereby also given that at the expiration of the time period above mentioned, the assets of the late JAMES HAROLD BRADLEY will be distributed among the persons entitled thereto having regard only to the claims of which the Executors shall then have had notice in writing.

Dated this 16th day of November, A. D. 2022

Roberts, Isaacs & Ward, Unit No.2, Cable Beach Court Professional Centre, 400 West Bay Street, Nassau, Bahamas.

NOTICE

were in arrears at that point, meaning the borrow ers are behind on their loan repayments.

Bahamian commercial banks have increasingly shied away from the mort gage market since the 2008-2009 recession, which saw many borrowers default and left them with a huge pile of distressed assets they were unable to easily - and quickly - offload to new owners due to a lack of qualified applicants.

They are increasingly demanding borrowers put up greater equity, around 10-15 percent of the pur chase price, which has made qualifying difficult for many, with the addition of closing costs often requiring home buyers to come up with a significant five-figure sun to complete their purchases. Several commercial banks, including Fidelity and Bank of The Bahamas, have also followed Commonwealth

Bank’s lead by increas ingly focusing on consumer loans, which are perceived as less risky because they can be secured via salary deductions.

Roger Archer, Sco tiabank (Bahamas) managing director, told the same webinar that he was “encouraged” by the fact loan delinquencies have reduced despite the twin shocks of COVID-19 and Hurricane Dorian. Noting increasingly grim predic tions that a US recession is coming, if not already here, he acknowledged: “There’s a possibility of increased delinquencies.

“The one thing that’s encouraging for me is that we’ve been through COVID and Dorian, and delinquencies over that period have actu ally reduced. It speaks to the quality of customer we have, and also speaks to commitments in the

economy to honour their debts. Even though the risk is there, and the risk is ele vated if there is a recession, as an industry we are wellpositioned to navigate that.

“We are still well-cap italised, still liquid, and I am confident we are able to navigate any recession that comes. Capital gen eration is likely to slow, but we all go through cycles. It will not be unique to us as businesses or an industry. My view is if we invest now we will position ourselves to get through any shocks likely to come our way,” Mr Archer added.

“We have been prepar ing for these risks for some time, and I’m confident that as an industry and economy we will get through any challenges in front of us. A key piece is investing now to lower costs and create value for consumers.”

The Scotiabank (Baha mas) chief also warned

be the merchant’s online account. That accessibil ity is only granted at the merchant, just like having an online commercial bank account.

“You are able to log into that account, look into transactions to move funds from your digital wallet to the bank account of record that you provided us upon signing up, as well as use the marketing platforms and the marketing compo nents that are offered in our ecosystem. Then we also have payment processing.”

lot of the inadequacies, the challenges and so forth.

“Because I am an operator of an existing supermarket, I have an existing distribution net work. So production of the farm to the existing distri bution network make sense, but the process of building up that farm has been a learning curve and a huge, a huge challenge, although it is not intended to be.

“So that’s why I invite entrepreneurs to really get to understand with those who are in exist ing operations throughout The Bahamas, who have the knowledge, partner ship with those who have executed in these remote locations.”

Bahamians to “be very mindful” that the nation now has a credit bureau compiling data on their creditworthiness for banks and other lenders, so that the latter can better assess the risk involved in lend ing to them. Given that refinancing, and access to new loans, could be critical should a recession strike, Mr Archer urged house holds and businesses to act now to address any delin quencies and improve their rating.

“As we go into a very uncertain period, manag ing your credit score and having access to credit when you want it is criti cal,” he said. “Get a copy of your credit report, see where you are now, see if it’s accurate and manage your credit score. With uncertainty in front of us, you need to make sure you are managing your house hold and managing your business to get through any challenging times we may face in the future.”

AHA AS FACES HI H RISK ECONO IC ‘ROLLER COASTER’

FROM PAGE A24

Mr Bowe, meanwhile, said The Bahamas must do better at “pooling resources” and find ways to invest the more than-$2.2bn in surplus commercial banking system liquidity in productive activities if it is

to grow and build a more resilient national economy.

“If we have surplus liquidity, it’s an opportunity that presents itself, notwith standing the slowdown in the economy, to use some of that cash flow for pro ductive use,” he added,

pointing out that these funds belong to deposi tors and not the banks themselves.

“If the private sector can find ways to provide resources, and provide goods and services, in a more efficient and effective

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manner than the Govern ment, not only will it be a boost to reserves but it will be profitable and allow us to expand into other areas that attract foreign cur rency income.”

To all our patrons and clients:

Effective Monday 28th November, 2022, all fles for which Bazard & Co. has carriage, will be transferred to the attention of Ms. C V. Hope Strachan of Hope Strachan & Co., Chambers, Equity House, Mount Royal Avenue, Nassau, The Bahamas.

Should you not wish for your fle to be so transferred, please contact Bazard & Co. at 326-0126 on or before the 26th November, 2022.

We apologize for any inconvenience caused and thank you for your patronage.

Cheryl E. Bazard

INTAKE DOUBLES FOR SECOND GBPA/ALIV CODING SESSION

THE GRAND Bahama Port Authority (GBPA) and Aliv have partnered to launch a second coding workshop focused on boosting science, technol ogy, engineering and maths (STEM) competencies among students.

The GBPA, in a state ment on the STEM Empowerment & Edu cational Development (SEED) programme, said the initial two-day coding workshop held in April focused on all high schools across Grand Bahama and aimed to advance the

island as a technology and innovation hub. It was also designed to strengthen its robust industrial sector.

The coding workshop took place at The Baha mas Technical & Vocational Institute (BTVI), featuring 70 junior high-level stu dents from three schools including Sister Mary Patri cia Junior High School, Jack Hayward Junior High School and Eight Mile Rick High School.

coding kits were used by the students to create a sensor, commonly used in autonomous vehicles such as Tesla and other brands.

Derek Newbold, the GBPA’s chief investment officer, said the programme not only generated suffi cient interest from other schools and sponsors but participation in the second intake nearly doubled com pared to the first.

students demonstrated an eagerness to embrace and apply the concepts learned during training and, as facil itators, we were encouraged and inspired by their willingness.

educational institutions, and other private sector partners.

how excited they were about the workshops,” added Trevor Simmons, SEED programme coordinator and business development and market ing officer at GBPA.

“We were excited about the interest expressed by both teachers and stu dents in the programme,” Mr Newbold said. “The

“To have had Aliv join us again as a sponsor for this past cohort added tremen dous value to our initiative. Their support enabled us to reach even more students than the initial cohort.” The pilot STEM coding work shop held in April unveiled numerous synergies and opportunities for collabo ration between the GBPA,

“We believe in the power of collaboration,” said Jecholiah Braynen, trade marketing co-ordinator at Aliv. “The purpose of our support for this partnership was to inspire and equip future innovators with the skills and tools necessary to compete in a growing global economy. We look forward to future collabora tions with GBPA.”

STEMLINGO

Students were engaged in interactive, hands-on expe riences to learn the basics of coding.

“As we planned and coordinated with the teachers, it was invigorating to see

BTC develops fresh talent with graduates

THE BAHAMAS Tel ecommunications Company (BTC) has graduated 17 students from its ‘Future Tech Stars’ initiative while also hiring the first recruit from its parent’s graduate programme as it bids to develop top talent.

Darron Turnquest, BTC’s people director, said: “We are proud of our Future Tech Stars, and we also welcome Nicholas Hudson to the team as our first par ticipant in the LLA (Liberty Latin America) graduate programme. Earlier this year, we shared some star tling statistics citing that women only make up 25

percent of the current global workforce in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).

“Men still predominantly major in STEM fields in col lege, which represent some of the fastest-growing, and highest-paid, jobs of the future. We are proud of the admirable stance that our parent company has taken to ensure that more stu dents across the Caribbean have access to the tools and training through Future Tech Stars to ensure their success.”

The all-expense paid, 20-week Future Tech Stars initiative included more

than 800 participants from the Caribbean and Latin America. Students were immersed in digital and crypto currency literacy, web development and pro gramming in python.

Besides the courses, stu dents were also exposed to a mentorship programme, where they had the chance to learn more about tech nology from staffers within Liberty Latin America and Cable & Wireless Com munications (CWC). The programme began in April, following International Women’s Day.

Nyah Seymour, 14, said: “I wanted to learn more

about the IT field. I’ve learned the different coding languages and many entre preneurs that have made an impact on the world with their inventions.” Denalyia Thompson, 13, added: “To learn more about HTML & CSS, and to have more opportunities to choose from in the tech field in the future, I recommend this programme to other young ladies so they can learn more about tech and think about getting into the field.”

Nicholas Hudson, a recent graduate of Oak wood University in Huntsville, Alabama, is a

part of Liberty Latin Amer ica’s graduate initiative which recently launched at its Panama headquar ters with an onboarding exercise. Mr Hudson, a Bahamian student, is part of the initial group of 15 graduates.

The graduate programme provides mentorship and support, and places the graduates in a rotation to gain insights into core business areas. In return, the company will be able to build a group of lead ers to take on management roles, also positioning Liberty Latin America as

“We experienced a sensa tional two days of learning. Seeing how much ground we covered with the pilot and SEED 1.2 workshops, we hope that the oppor tunities, partnerships and synergies created will lead to a new level of excitement for the future of SEED.”

the employer of choice in the telecommunications market. Mr Hudson is presently on rotation with BTC’s small and mediumsized business team.

“I am excited to be working with BTC in the commercial side of the business,” Mr Hudson said. “I can attribute this excitement to the wonder ful onboarding process at Liberty Latin America in Panama. The team in Panama made sure that all the graduates knew what to expect when we began working, and although many of us were anxious and a little worried, we were also inspired and excited to take advantage of this won derful opportunity.”

By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

STANDARD & Poor’s (S&P) yester day gave The Bahamas “breathing room” by maintaining its existing sovereign credit rating while predicting that FTX’s implosion will have “no material adverse impact” for the country.

Simon Wilson, the Ministry of Finance’s financial secretary, told Tribune Business that the credit rating agency’s verdict in electing not to follow last month’s Moody’s downgrade “creates a platform for us to go forward” and space for the Davis administra tion to prove it can execute its fiscal goals and targets.

S&P, in upholding The Bahamas’ exist ing ‘B+’ credit rating and ‘stable’ outlook, justified its action based on the strength of

tourism’s post-COVID rebound and the increased economic growth and tax revenues this will drive. The latter, combined with the end to COVID-related spending, is antici pated to produce “smaller fiscal deficits over the next 12 months”.

This, S&P added, will produce continued but “decelerated” growth in The Bahamas’ $11bn-plus national debt. However, echoing Prime Minister Philip Davis’ warning that the country “is not out of the woods yet”, the rating agency cautioned that slowing global growth could impact the Government’s achievement of its fiscal deficit and debt reduction targets.

Mr Wilson last night said the S&P action was merely “the start” of efforts to reverse rising deficits and debt, with the former peak ing at more than $1bn during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. While the Govern ment “can’t sit here and celebrate”, the rating agency’s decision represents some modest positive news and at least halts the cycle of consistent annual sovereign creditworthiness downgrades from both S&P and Moody’s.

Describing the development as “OK news”, given that The Bahamas now has to focus on

S&P slashes Bahamas ‘23 growth to just 1.1%

By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

STANDARD & Poor’s (S&P) yesterday slashed its 2023 economic growth forecast for The Bahamas to just 1.1 percent despite giving the country a break on repeated annual credit worthiness downgrades.

The rating agency, which maintained its existing ‘B+’ credit rating and ‘stable’ outlook for the country (see other article on Page 1B), based its prediction on growing global risks and headwinds from con tinued inflationary shocks, a likely US recession and persistent post-COVID supply chain challenges.

And it also warned that The Bahamas’ ambitions to become a major digi tal assets hub “may face setbacks” due to the FTX crypto currency exchange’s collapse.

S&P’s forecast, which represents almost a threequarters or 75 percent cut to the latest International Monetary Fund (IMF) esti mate of 4.1 percent gross domestic product (GDP) growth for The Bahamas in 2023, also comes as the nation’s tourism indus try enjoys the momentum from a strong post-pan demic rebound.

“The economy is expected to increase by 8 percent in 2022, with slower growth expected

in 2023,” S&P said yester day. “As expected, The Bahamas is experiencing a strong recovery in the tour ism sector. The country is benefiting from its prox imity to its largest tourism source market and pent-up demand.

“Stayover arrivals for 2022 are expected to exceed 80 percent of 2019 levels. Furthermore, we understand there is a pipe line of tourism-related projects planned and under way over the next few years. Although we expect these projects will continue to support growth, they reinforce the economy’s dependence on the volatile tourism sector. The Baha mas’ economy remains

‘Meeting of minds’ needed on distressed housing drag

By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

THE GOVERNMENT and commercial bank ing industry must have “a meeting of the minds” so the latter can “clean up” its backlog of distressed properties and resume aggressive mortgage lend ing again, a senior banker urged yesterday.

Gowon Bowe, Fidel ity Bank (Bahamas) chief executive, told an “eco nomic resilience” webinar organised by TCL Group

that the Government was taking “a contradictory position” by focusing on new housing developments rather than directing per sons to distressed homes that could be acquired at much-reduced prices.

He said the backlog of delinquent mortgage prop erties, where borrowers have defaulted on their repayments, was tying up bank capital and deter ring new lending in the domestic Bahamian hous ing market for properties worth $1m or less.

“If things continue to be tight in the domestic environment, the availabil ity of qualified borrowers and mortgages is going to remain restricted. There’s underlying factors to that,” Mr Bowe told the webi nar. “There’s a significant inventory of distressed properties that exists in our populace today.

“Unfortunately, we have the contradictory position by the Government in that we see the build-out of new housing development. There needs to be a meet ing of the minds as we need

concentrated in tourism, which typically contributes at least 40 percent of GDP.

“We expect global eco nomic challenges in 2023 will slow The Bahamas’ real GDP growth next year to 1.1 percent. We expect GDP per capita will be $33,740 in 2023. The pandemic, low historical growth and repeated natu ral disasters have weighed on the country’s econ omy,” the rating agency continued.

“Despite good growth over the next two to three years, our assessment of the sovereign’s cred itworthiness reflects its below-average longterm growth performance

‘Great while it lasted’: FTX in $250m real estate spree

first

By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A BAHAMIAN real tor yesterday estimated that the collapsed FTX crypto currency exchange spent $250m and “prob ably more” on acquiring New Providence real estate, adding: “It was great while it lasted.”

Ryan Knowles, of Maison Bahamas Real Estate, told Tribune Business the company’s spectacular implosion in little more than a week had not cost local realtors “any deals” because what some have described as a $300m buying spree had already finished.

The latter valuation was placed on FTX’s Bahamas real estate purchases during yesterday’s Delaware Bank ruptcy Court proceedings, although no documents or other evidence were pro vided to support this figure. An earlier Reuters report said the crypto exchange had spent $121m on 19 separate New Providence property acquisitions in the 14 months since it first arrived in The Bahamas.

The first court hearing into FTX’s collapse also saw the Bahamian pro visional liquidators for its local subsidiary, FTX Digital Markets, agree to transfer their bid for legal recognition in the US from the southern New York

Bahamas faces high risk economic ‘roller coaster’

By NEIL HARTNELL Tribune Business Editor nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

THE BAHAMAS will be on an economic “roller coaster for a significant period of time” as the US Federal Reserve and other central banks take swift action to combat inflation, a local banker warned yesterday.

Gowon Bowe, Fidel ity Bank (Bahamas) chief executive, told a webinar on “economic resilience” organised by the TCL Group that the US central bank’s swift and aggres sive interest rate hikes in a bid to suppress consumer demand represent “a very big risk for our country as we have no control over it”.

The Federal Reserve’s actions will impact con sumer and business confidence, plus spend ing and investment, in the country that produces 90

percent of The Bahamas’ tourist base as well as serv ing as its major supplier of goods and other services.

He suggested that the US central bank was seeking to achieve a “rapid slow down” to bring inflation under control, then a swift bounce back - a strategy that will be hard to pull-off.

“The Bahamas has been buoyant over the last 12 months due to an influx of persons unable to travel for a long period of time,” Mr Bowe said. “But unemployment will be substantially higher until we get consistent growth coming out of the recession.

“We still have a signifi cant period of time where The Bahamas will be going through a roller coaster, ups and downs, and we need to prepare ourselves for not just a recession but a change of mindset to prepare ourselves for all events in the future.”

K. Karlos Mackey, president of MoneyMaxx Company & principal of Prime Financing & Con sulting, the event’s host, urged Bahamians not to “bury our heads in the sand” or “curl up in the foetal position” over fears of an impending recession but instead “take the bull by the horns, and the bear by the ears”, and prepare as best they can for all eventualities.

Meanwhile, Molly Mac Intosh, general manager of the Bluff House Beach Resort & Marina on Aba co’s Green Turtle Cay, said she and other tourism operators have “seen an increase in room revenue, marina revenue across the board” in 2022 which has proven to be an even better year than the preDorian part of 2019.

Noting that the benefits were trickling down to all tourism operators, includ ing golf cart rentals, boat

rentals and taxi drivers, she added: “Our 2019 was probably the best year ever [pre-Dorian] and we’ve gone above 2019 revenue levels. I am optimistic that people who want to travel are going to. I believe they will put off big ticket pur chases like homes, cars and electronics, but it seems to me they are not going to give up their vacation time.”

Ms MacIntosh said inflation, and escalat ing costs, have “hit us hard”. She added: “Costs have increased in huge increments, the cost of electricity, the cost of shipping. Our staff costs have gone up. I have to give them a living wage. Our costs have increased, and we’ve had to increase prices to consumers, which is never welcome, but something we have to do.”

to

clean up the inven tory that remains.” Mr Bowe was likely referring to the latest presentation of keys to homeowners in the newly-constructed Pinecrest subdivision, his argument being that the

RYAN KNOWLES

MATT SWEETING

SIMON WILSON

GOWON BOWE