Former President and Leader of the Opposition Bharrat Jagdeo was one of the leaders of an International Climate Conference held in Russia recently.
Jagdeo, a leading global anti-climate change activist, addressed the event alongside the Head of the United Nations Environment Programme Achim Steiner and Executive Secretary of the UN Climate Change Secretariat Christiana Figueres, commended the outreach by the Russian Government to business enterprises, civil society and the international community as part of its preparation for the upcoming Conference of the Parties
21 (COP 21) Meeting in Paris, France. Jagdeo shared his perspectives regarding the prospect for and essential components of, a
successful agreement in Paris including the need for a global agreement that is legally binding.
He also spoke of the necessity of an agree-
ment on climate financing at scale to allow developing countries to raise their ambition levels on mitigation action (as outlined in their
INDCs), adapt to climate change and transition to a green economy.
The former President will also have several bilateral meetings with various stakeholders while in Russia.
Last month, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Jagdeo joined world leaders in New York, as the international community accelerates preparations towards reaching a historic global climate agreement in Paris in December.
While there, Jagdeo emphasised how people from developing countries around the world continued to be united in their desire to provide solutions to climate change.
From November 30
to December 11, global leaders will gather at the Le Bourget site in Paris for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP) 12 Summit the Paris Agreement to conclude negotiations on an agreement to address issues of climate change
The new agreement will take the form of a protocol, another legal instrument or ‘an agreed outcome with legal force’, and will be applicable to all parties and will have to bring together the current patchwork of binding and non-binding arrangements under the UN climate convention into a single comprehensive regime.
It is expected to be implemented from 2020.
To contact: Guyana Times International
New York Office
106-15 Sutphin Blvd, Jamaica NY 11435
Email: guyanatimesnyint@gmail.com
Tel no: 718-658-6804
Fax no: 718-849-2286
Preferred method of contact via EMAIL
Guyana Office Ruimveldt, Georgetown, Guyana.
Tel no: (592) 227-0704, 227-0709. Fax (592) 225-8696, 227-0685
Email: guyanatimesint@gmail.com
In one of their latest reports on maternal mortality, two leading international bodies – the World Bank Group and the United Nations agencies – reported that maternal deaths have fallen by 44 per cent since 1990. This is quite encouraging news for Governments and international development partners who have been intimately involved in working towards reducing maternal deaths. However, the road ahead for many countries, including Guyana, is still a long one, as much more remains to be done in order to meet this specific Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target.
For example, despite global improvements, only nine countries achieved the MDG 5 target of reducing the maternal mortality ratio by at least 75 per cent between 1990 and 2015. These countries are Bhutan, Cabo Verde, Cambodia, Iran, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Maldives, Mongolia, Rwanda and Timor-Leste. Despite this important progress, the Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) in some countries remains higher than the global average.
According to the report, maternal deaths around the world dropped from about 532,000 in 1990 to an estimated 303,000 this year. This equates to an estimated global MMR of 216 maternal deaths per 100, 000 live births, down from 385 in 1990. While this could be viewed as an important achievement, the figure is still high and more strenuous efforts need to be taken by all development partners in further reducing the death rate.
A new Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health, launched by the United Nations Secretary General in September 2015, aims to help achieve the ambitious target of reducing maternal deaths to fewer than 70 per 100,000 live births globally, as included in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The authors of the report warn that reaching that goal will require more than tripling the pace of progress – from the 2.3 per cent annual improvement in MMR that was recorded between 1990 and 2015 to 7.5 per cent per year beginning next year.
The Global Strategy highlights the need to reinforce country leadership by mobilising domestic and international resources for women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health. It will be important to strengthen health systems so they can provide good quality care in all settings, promote collaboration across sectors, and support individuals and communities to make informed decisions about their health and demand the quality care they need.
The 2015 maternal mortality estimates present the tremendous progress achieved towards the MDG 5 on maternal mortality reduction. They show a strong trend of reduction over the years. At the same time, stakeholders have reported more and better data coming from various countries, enhancing the accuracy of the absolute numbers reported.
According to the report, efforts to strengthen data and accountability especially over the past years have helped fuel this improvement. However, much more needs to be done to develop complete and accurate civil and vital registration systems that include births, deaths and causes of death. Maternal death audits and reviews also need to be implemented to understand why, where and when women die and what can be done to prevent similar deaths.
In Guyana, while there is no need for alarm, the statistics are very worrisome and should cause the authorities to rethink their approach in dealing with the issue. It is clear that this country needs to do much more to reduce the number of maternal deaths taking place. For example, in 2014, a UN report ranked Guyana as second on the list for highest maternal deaths in the Caribbean after Haiti, which recorded 380 deaths between 1990 and 2013, followed by Guyana with 250. Also, it was recently reported that Guyana is likely to exceed the MDG maximum limit of 11 maternal deaths this year.
Too many of our women are dying from various complications during childbirth, and while we hear of “thorough investigations” being carried out, more often than not, very little action, if any at all is being taken against those found to be negligent.
We believe that the current procedure employed by the Public Health Ministry as safeguards against the occurrences of maternal deaths has not been very effective and must be reviewed urgently. Our hope is that the Ministry will proceed with greater strictness on this matter to ensure pregnant women and the unborn are looked after in the most professional manner by being given the best medical treatment our systems allows for.
In those days, most of the news came through the radio and some from the popular newspapers. The first reports were that hundreds were dead, but by the time the newspaper could get images of the massacre at Jonestown, the radio news had already confirmed that more than 900 had died.
With no Internet or television available, Guyanese were glued to their radio sets at midday and in the evening to listen to the updates coming out of Jonestown. It was the second most newsworthy story in Guyana; the first being that of Guyana’s Independence.
But on November 19, 1978 when the first reports hit the local media it was the number one story in the world. Nine hundred and fourteen members of the People’s Temple had been poisoned after being forced to drink Kool-Aid laced with deadly cyanide.
Today, 37 years later, it is still remembered around the world, but everything from Jonestown has been stripped in the years since the deaths.
The locals and to a lesser extent the Government made use of the machinery, the lumber of the structures, personal belongings of the individuals, educational resources from the school, utensils from the kitchen, medical supplies, the beds where people slept, the cottages and other things that made up the community.
The patch of rainforest in Guyana where Jim Jones moved his People's Temple in the 1970s has been almost entirely reclaimed by the jungle. Locals say if you search long enough, you can still find remnants of a tractor used for transport and agriculture and a filing cabinet that would have kept documents about the community. The metal drums in which Jones mixed cyanide and Kool-Aid in preparation for the mass murdersuicide which took place at the site 37 years ago are also still in place.
Reverend Jim Jones made no news when he came to Guyana and brought with
him close to 1000 followers of the People’s Temple. Most of his followers were Black Americans and most of them female. Statistics indicate that about 375 were Black American women.
Many of Jim Jones’ followers were street people; he picked them up and told them of a better life. Teri Buford O'Shea fled Jonestown three weeks before all its inhabitants all died. In her writings about Jim Jones and Jonestown, she states, “I was 19 years old when I joined the People's Temple in Redwood Valley, California. It was 1971, and I was homeless when a man pulled up alongside me in a van. He told me about the community where he lived – a place, he said, where no one had to worry about food or housing. The leader was a visionary who was building a new future. I gladly took the ride. After all, I assumed, if I didn't like the People's Temple, I could always leave.”
In her writings, O'Shea said on November 18, 1978 she had left Jonestown to visit Georgetown and her life was spared. “Nine hundred and fourteen brainwashed men, women and children died in agony after poisoning themselves on the orders of a power-crazed cult leader who convinced them he was the Second Coming. The place where they fell was Jonestown, a remote commune in north-western Guyana named after its founder, Jim Jones – the evil architect of this terrible tragedy.”
In 1978, Captain Gerry Gouveia, who worked with the Guyana Defence Force as a pilot, flew army personnel to the scene and was among the first to visit the area after the mass suicide. Gouveia, who is now a successful businessman in aviation, is of the view that Jonestown should become a tourist attraction. "What we need to do is attract people to come to Guyana, whether that attraction is Jonestown or Kaieteur Falls or birding or ecotourism or cricket, to see what a wonderful country Guyana has turned out to be," says Gouveia, who now runs
his own airline and tour company.
Carlton Daniels is the former postmaster in Port Kaituma, a mining community close to the old Jonestown compound. He's one of the few residents who remember what happened there. "Bringing in some tourist dollars could be good for development. There's a lot of gold mining right now, but minerals don't last forever," he says.
Nine years ago, the Guyana Emergency Relief Committee erected a plaque at the site which reads, ‘In Memory of the Victims of the Jonestown Tragedy’.
Meanwhile, even close to four decades after the Jonestown incident many are still baffled to know who Jones was. Why did so many believe in him so unquestioningly?
Jones was the son of an abusive, alcoholic father. James Warren Jones was born in 1931 and raised in an anonymous town in Indiana, where he is said to have killed his friends' pets so that they would pay him to dispose of them in his first business venture.
By his early 20s he and his wife, Marceline, had founded their first evangelical church, and by most accounts he appeared a well-meaning local pastor. They also became the first couple in the state to adopt a black baby; rather a departure for Jones's father, who was in the Ku Klux Klan. They later expanded their 'rainbow family' to include a Korean child.
In 1978, many of Reverend Jim Jones’ followers had started to show some level of resistance to his dictatorship style and made contact with relatives back home. This prompted Californian Congressman Leo Ryan accompanied by a group of journalists to visit Jonestown. They arrived on November 17, and Jones feigned to welcome them. He gave them food and shelter for the night and even allowed Ryan to use his PA system to remind the members of the People’s Temple that they were free to determine their continued on
BY EDWARD LAYNE
Home Affairs Minister under the People’s Progressive Party/ Civic during 2005, Gail Teixeira, has said that then Police Commissioner and now Minister of Citizenship Winston Felix, failed to act on an investigation, which revealed that there was a massive scheme at the General Registrar’s Office, where birth certificates were being issued with information of persons who did not exist.
Teixeira’s comments came in face of a “malicious” report in the State-owned daily newspaper, the Guyana Chronicle, with allegedly twisted facts about a conversation between US diplomats in Guyana and Teixeira, which was released by WikiLeaks.
The cable claimed, among other things, that Teixeira during a meeting with the then Charge d’Affairs in the US Embassy in Georgetown, Michael Thomas and several other officials expressed genuine displeasure with improper or unlawful issuance of Birth and Marriage Certificates and spoke of attempts she made to address the situation with the General Registrar’s Office (GRO), as well as the issuance for Guyana Passports with fictitious information.
Visas, immigration, false documents
She said her conversations
with Thomas was in the context of “Visas, immigration, false documents.”
“The issues that were raised in particular this occasion was referred to in the Chronicle yesterday (Tuesday), the present Minister of Citizenship was the Commissioner of Police when I was Minister of Home Affairs and we were inundated by reports from the US Embassy of fraudulent passports, fraudulent birth certificates and please remember, immigration under the law comes under the Police Force,” Teixeira explained.
She added that there were discussions over the General Registrar’s Office, which came under the Home Affairs Ministry, and the issuance of Birth Certificates.
“The American Embassy was asked by me to please provide evidence of these fake documents. The GRO ones were particularly disturbing because they were actually authentic birth certificates, with the watermark of the GRO, with the signatures of people working at the GRO, but the information on it was false. Those persons don’t exist, who were written in having birth certificates and from that false document it then created another false document, fake passports, in the sense that the passports were real, they are genuine, but the persons on it were not real and it was that evidence I asked for from
the Americans,” she explained.
The former Home Affairs Minister said this information was forwarded to the Winston Felix-led Police Force for criminal proceedings, but despite investigations, no actions were taken.
“There were several Police investigations under Mr Felix as Commissioner of Police, investigations were held and a number of persons in the GRO… recommendations were [made] to charge them and send them home, however the Police under Mr Felix stewardship did nothing, did nothing,” Teixeira revealed.
Mr Felix has since said he
has no recollection of any information passed on to him.
Another former Home Affairs Minister, Ronald Gajraj, has also reportedly filed a lawsuit against the Governmentowned Chronicle and the former Minister Teixeira, who succeeded him, for hearsay statements in the WikiLeaks cable.
The former Home Affairs Minister said too that the Americans produced fictitious marriage certificates issued by marriage officers who were performing marriages to persons who were not together in the room at the same time when they got married.
“One marriage officer was removed because he was one of those signing marriage certificates for marriages which one person or no person was in front of him and we had evidence of that… The comments that were made with regards to a number of people such as the corruption to do with the Chinese work permits and Brazilian work permits was stated in that meeting. Mr Thomas’ other comments as I said Police investigations went absolutely nowhere, because immigration falls directly under the Commissioner of Police and under the Police Act,” Teixeira lamented. Teixeira believes some of what was contained in the Guyana Chronicle report was inundated with personal as-
sessments and view of US Embassy Officials.
“Some of the things that are quoted in the Chronicle are quoted directly from what are Mr Thomas’ own views and are not quoted from what I said. The way the Chronicle article is written is as if certain things which are the Charge d’Affairs opinion is being put over as if I said that… I did not,” Teixeira declared.
Teixeira pointed out to several inaccuracies in one of the cables which alleged she had discussions with Embassy Officials on the appointment of Henry Greene as Police Commissioner.
“For example, it said we had a discussion on Henry Greene’s suitability as Commission of Police on December 23, 2005. This never took place. In 2005, December, Mr Felix was the Commission of Police and that at no point was there any discussion as his retirement will come up in June/July of 2006. The issue of the Commissioner of Police is the prerogative of the President and therefore there will be no inclination on my part unto getting into such discussions,” she further explained.
She reiterated that some of the other cables which were released had to do with the crime wave and the handing over to her of taped conversations which were given to the US embassy by Roger Khan.
Dear Editor,
Initially I was hoping that good journalism will help Guyana to follow a legal path. But I was completely wrong. The PNC never won an election in Guyana and there are still doubts about the recent elections because of the false SOPs (Statement of Polls). That is why the Gecom CEO, Dr Steve Surujbally, refused to open the ballot boxes for a recount in front of all the television stations. Desmond Hoyte asked for a recount in 1997 and got it. It does not matter who wins the elections but it must be the will of the majority of the people.
What took place at the Gecom office is a criminal act. In England, Canada and USA the Police would have intervened and charges laid on all the individuals involved in tampering with the votes and electoral processes.
And this brings me to the point because Burnham rigged all elections and the USA and the world
did not care a damned bit. It can be one or a combination of the following acts: False Overseas Voting (1968); GDF seizure of the ballot boxes (1973); referendum (1978); polling stations to be in PNC area only, and controlled by PNC party members (1968-1985); false voters list (19681985); and use of the Internet to manipulate the count. And worst of all is the PPP can do nothing about it or lacks measures to counteract these illegal actions.
They will have to walk the streets as they did between 1964 -1992.
To prevent future rigged elections, I propose that United Nations be posted at all polling stations and in the Gecom office during counting. The counting should be done in front of TV Cameras. Failure to implement these suggestions will allow the PNC to rig all future elections.
Wake up PPP/C!
Yours truly, P Singh
Dear Editor,
The long awaited GFF elections have come and gone, a winner has emerged, Wayne Forde and his team.
This was indeed a tough election because it had two formidable teams with eminently qualified individuals competing to lead this most important and popular sport in Guyana. The campaigns are over and there are no losers in this race, if all those individuals were truly genuine in their quest to lead Guyana's football into a development path.
The work to be done are insurmountable, many wrongs of the past administrations have to be corrected but most importantly the positive plans, ideas and vision of the most recent administration should be looked at with some seriousness.
The first act I believe this new administration should consider is to nullify that secretive formation of a board and its by-laws for Guyana's football. Let the supreme decision
making body of the GFF, its general council, make decisions for football and its development.
Secondly, the goal project/special project that was being proposed by the Matthias administration and the normalization committee to be executed in Linden due to the suitability of location, soil composition and economic viability should be pursued expeditiously.
Thirdly, Guyana is in need of real quality coaches and not men who are motivational and philosophical speakers. So, special emphasis should be directed to teachers of the game.
The more persons are informed the better they will be to make decisions and demand better and more from their elected leaders. For football to truly reach its development apex there is need for "unity" and men and women of "integrity".
Jermaine Figueira
President, Netrockers FC
Dear Editor,
The November 14, 2015 letter by our respected Trade Union Leader, Mr Lincoln Lewis, titled: “There must be a Ministry of Labour” appropriately calls attention to the need for respect for the provisions of our industrial relations laws and collective labour agreements. This obligation is equally placed on both the employers and the trade unions, with the Government as the neutral ‘watchdog’ through the Ministry or Department of Labour, irrespective of whatever name the Government of the day attaches to the function. While an appropriate name for the function is helpful, what is of more significance is the function per se.
A review of the plethora of strikes called by a major Union in Guyana would quickly reveal that the overwhelming majority of them were in direct contravention of the
Dear Editor,
The two recent intolerable abusive outbursts by Attorney-at-Law and APNU/AFC parliamentarian, Charandass Persaud bear testimony to the fact that this country is on the cusp of a dictatorship rule and soon that lawlessness will be condoned as the norm of leadership behaviour. These people are truly power drunk!
This custodian of the law and representative of the people threatened to throw a reputable Hindu Leader, Dr Vindhya Persaud and a learned and respected Pandit off the stage simply because they dared to differ from the imposition of the date for Diwali and they dared to stand up for their religious beliefs. They dared to show this Coalition Government that such interference will not be tolerated and the boycott by the Hindu masses clearly indicated that such dictatorial attitude by them will not be condoned!
To add insult to injury, he is now asking that his ‘ass be kissed’ before he apologises for his earlier statement. If such be the case, then we can expect to see this MP with his pants down in public! In his letter to the press, there is no ambiguity as to his intention of throwing these people off stage, so his attempt to say that he did not say so is utter rubbish! Does this man feel that he will be protected by this coalition
Government? Is this the type of ‘service’ he intends to give or receive? Is this the type of ‘social cohesion’ this Government is preaching? Is this the ‘love and unity’ they boasted about during the election campaign?
Charandass Persaud’s hypocrisy is further exposed in his letter when he concluded that Hindus have the right to choose whether they want to celebrate Diwali on the 10th or on the 11th. Therefore, where was the necessity to ‘throw them off stage’ (earlier in the same letter) when it is their right to choose? This man loves to contradict himself!
It is ‘human to err’, but it is a divine quality to apologise when we make such errors, but to demand that his ‘ass be kissed’ before such apology is made is ‘satanic’ and should never be condoned by the law-abiding citizens of this country.
A final question must be raised about this MP: Is he a misogynist or does he suffer from an inferiority complex when it comes to mature women who are more intelligent than himself?
It was my conclusion a long time ago that those in the AFC are just as corrupted as those in the PNC and it is simply ‘birds of the same feather’! The worst is still to come!
Yours sincerely,
Haseef Yusuf
Dear Editor,
With much consternation and anxiety I read Dr David Hinds’ latest piece on this blog www.guyanacaribbeanpolitics.com. As I read it, I was constrained and anxious because I seem to want to agree with the premise from which Dr Hinds wrote. But my anxiety was soon relaxed and swayed when I paused briefly to reflect on the modus operandi of the current Administration. I realised that there were inside rationalisations for how the new Government operates that Dr Hinds seemed not to have access to; and I even less.
provisions of our laws, our collective labour agreements and the conventions of the International Labour Organisation (ILO). And while these irresponsible breaches proliferate to the detriment of our economy and society, the relevant arms of the Government appear unwilling or incapable to apply available and appropriate sanctions to reverse the debilitating trend.
As a concerned Guyanese, I appeal to Mr Lewis and his colleagues to use their good offices and considerable influence to do whatever they can, and I do believe they can do quite a lot in this regard, to let good sense prevail for the progress and prosperity of our struggling nation.
Sincerely, Nowrang
Persaud
As the Granger Administration took up office there was a clarion cry for youths to be substantially represented in the Cabinet, if only because of the role they played in the APNU/AFC latest victory. That was not to be. I stood in the audience at the Congress Place, Sophia on the evening of the birth anniversary of President Granger and I heard him kinda explain why he had not acquiesced to the cries of those who wanted more young people in the Administration. He said in essence that he was 67 when he came to Parliament and now he is President at 70 and that the young people need to understand that they must wait their turn. So what we are noticing is the position-
ing of those who have waited for 23 years. Some obviously longer.
There must be some highly intellectual and politically skilled persons who are advising the current leaders to take such a gamble of asking the youths of the country to wait their turn. I would love to hear the political ploy that will be implemented to recapture the energy of the young folks to so engage them at the next polls.
Then there is the pay increase issue. Again, neither Dr Hinds nor I seem to understand the inner workings of the Government officials. Some high-powered adviser/s, with political savvy and diplomatic knowhow must have concocted a political parachute to cushion the landing of the new Administration when next it’s time to proceed to the polls.
It cannot be that the Administration would come so close to a major political blunder and not have some eureka sleight-of-hand, to pilot them out of this protracted quagmire.
Then we come to this leaked proposal of having members of the last Government be responsible for multimillion-dollar developmental projects. And again the ignorance of myself and the good doctor float to the surface. Do we really believe that the Government would refuse to place a significant
amount of youths in strategic governmental positions, tell them they should wait their turn, raise their ministerial salaries, and give the Opposition members billions to handle, without any kind of in-depth, political guidance and rational logic? Is it that the new Administration would be so frivolous as to deliberately and wantonly alienate its core supporters and those on the edges? I rather think not!
If I were to proffer a reason for such perceived political gaffes, I would want to think that the President is acting out of principle and not political expediency. The truth is that the current Opposition would have done nothing while in power to so alienate their supporters, especially if it was to the benefit of the then Opposition.
Moreover, the Opposition is smarting over the latest developments. And the Government must know how the political winds are blowing. So whether you like it or not, whether you agree with them or no, you must admit that if a political party is prepared to lose the Government over any issue, it must be because they are prepared to take the gamble of placing principle over political expediency. And for that, Dr Hinds, they must be commended.
Sincerely, Pastor WP Jeffrey
BY DEVINA SAMAROO
Bath Settlement, Region 5 residents continue to protest against what they deem the unreasonable removal of their streetlights simply because “Government cannot afford it” while the people of Linden continue to benefit tremendously from a whopping Gy$3 billion electricity subsidy.
Government is claiming that it cannot afford to inject monies to pay the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) for streetlights installed in Bath Settlement, but they can afford to award themselves super-salaries after only four months in executive office.
And, while the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) does not pay its fees to GPL for the streetlights in Georgetown, the people of Bath Settlement had their streetlights removed.
“How can you justify that? Why the assault on the people of Bath Settlement,” Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo demanded to know.
He was at the time being interviewed on the “Under the Microscope” show aired on TVG Channel 28.
“There seems to be a very partisan move and assault in PPP/C areas,” Jagdeo stated as he commented on where he saw the future of Guyana in the next five years.
“You can’t afford a few lights in Bath Settlement but you can afford a 50 per cent ministerial salary increase… Look at
Linden, they are subsidising electricity for the homes there, but you can’t afford it for a few street lights in Bath,” he stated.
The Opposition Leader blasted Government for choosing this course of action, especially since there are other ways in which the administration could have addressed the matter.
PPP/C Member of Parliament Priya Manickchand had previously pointed out that if one calculates only one Minister’s pay increase, the money would suffice for 394 streetlights whereas Bath Settlement only needs about 20.
Moreover, Jagdeo pointed out that GPL is presently saving millions of dollars as a result of the prevailingly low oil prices on the international market and that the company is just accumulating larger and larger sums of money through savings on the purchase of fuel.
He suggested that this
is an avenue Government can look into to ensure Bath residents get to keep their streetlights.
Residents of Bath took to the streets to vent their concerns over the removal of streetlights in their community. The protest commenced after the new Government made a decision that the community would now have to pay for the electricity of its streetlights.
The Region Five Private Sector Body had asked for one month to come up with a payment plan, but the lights were removed after their time had expired.
Public Infrastructure Minister David Patterson defended the decision, insisting the free streetlights to Bath residents was a mere campaign promise by the former regime during the elections period; but the Government really cannot afford to bear the cost.
Patterson firmly stated that, “GPL cannot afford to subsidise the cost.”
After this was explained
to residents, Patterson said the Private Sector Body had requested 30 days to come up with a payment plan, however the time expired and the lights were removed.
Meanwhile, Government noted that GPL is currently in discussions with Bath Settlement residents to arrive at a solution.
Linden subsidy
That aside, it must be noted that the people of Linden, Region Ten (Upper Takatu/Upper Essequibo) are paying a mere Gy$5 per kilowatt hour for electricity while the rest of Guyana are bearing the brunt of high electricity costs.
Residents of Lethem pay some Gy$80 per kilowatt hour for electricity. The residents there get the first 15 kilowatts of energy free but incrementally thereon, the next 15-50 kilowatts is at Gy$60 and for over 50 kilowatts they pay Gy$80.
Other areas in Guyana are charged a flat rate of Gy$48 per kilowatt per hour. Commercial costs are higher. (devinas@guyanatimesgy.com)
As Guyana continues to take precautionary measures against an outbreak of the H1N1 virus commonly known as “Swine Flu”, Public
tion. He explained that the swine flu was an influenza strain that could be treated systematically.
“We do have what is
Health Minister, Dr George Norton has reassured that there were adequate medical supplies on hand to treat the virus.
In an interview with Guyana Times International on Wednesday, Minister Norton said “yes, we do have drugs available” to treat any H1N1 infec-
known as a systematic treatment. You treat the fever, treat the pains; you treat the difficulty breathing. We also have somebody who is in charge of infectious diseases and, as in the case of Ebola where we would have had to isolate, we have such a ward identified,” the Health continued on page 10
By Edward LaynE
The Medical Council in Guyana has been denying former Head of the Presidential Secretariat, trained Internal Medicine Specialist and Nephrologist, Dr Roger
Luncheon a licence to practise medicine here. Dr Luncheon told Guyana Times International on Tuesday that he had written to the Medical Council of Guyana on June 15, 2015, stating his intentions of re-entering pri-
vate practice and submitting the necessary information for licensing.
He said based on a response, in mid-July he submitted the appropriate fees for licensing, but those fees were not accepted, because he did not meet the Continuous
Medical Education (CME) requirements in keeping with the Medical Practitioners Act of 1991.
The Medical Practitioners Act was amended in 2009, making provisions for waiver of the CME in certain instances. Based on legal interpretations received on Section Five of the Medical Practitioners Act which addresses the Registration of Medical Practitioners: “Sections 5.8 contemplates that a doctor, previously registered under Section 5.6 of the said act, whose other career obligations, example, Executive Government, Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Cabinet Members etc., would be eligible/entitled to be added to the annual register, without more, upon demitting office, upon payment of the prescribed fees.”
Legal luminaries say that the basis of this waiver was that it would be impractical for doctors who hold such offices to have met the CME requirements contained in Section 5.8 (3) of the Registration of Medical Practitioner Act, which states; “in order to be registered under subsec-
Shoba Gobin on a monthly basis inquiring about the status of his licences, but was still to receive a response.
In a letter to the Council dated October 28, 2015, as seen by Guyana Times International, Dr Luncheon expressed his frustration that his June application was further filed for examination by the Council in mid-November.
tion (s), a medical practitioner must submit evidence of having attended a minimum of six academic sessions recognised by the Council during the preceding year, but where a medical practitioner is being registered for the first time, he shall at that time be required to obtain a licence of annual registration on the payment to the Secretary the prescribed fee.”
Dr Luncheon was entitled to a waiver based on his circumstances.
Having returned to Guyana in 1980 and registered as a medical practitioner, Dr Luncheon worked with the Government of Guyana at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation and later in the Health Ministry until 1990, when he became a parttime consultant with the Government.
He ran his own private practice from 1990 to 1992 when he was appointed Head of the Presidential Secretariat under the Dr Cheddi Jagan People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government –a post he held until May 2015.
The Internal Medicine Specialist and Nephrologist said he had written to the Medical Council highlighting the fact that he was qualified for a waiver; however, there has been no response.
The disappointed Luncheon said he has been writing the Chair of the Medical Council. Dr
“I am incensed by the Council’s delay. I had explained how impracticable it was for a serving Head of the Presidential Secretariat and Secretary to the Cabinet of Guyana to attend CME course,” he stated in the letter.
Again on November 13, Dr Luncheon wrote the Council highlighting that he had not received any correspondence on his June application and restated that the legislation is clear on his eligibility to practice.
Dr Luncheon believes that the Council was deliberately denying him a fundamental right as a Guyanese – the right to work.
He explained that the matter was brought to the attention of the Public Health Minister Dr George Norton, as well as Minister of State and current Head of the Presidential Secretariat and Secretary to the Cabinet, Joseph Harmon but they too have not offered any assistance.
When contacted, Dr Norton said that he saw no reason to doubt the decision of the Medical Council and as such, would encourage Dr Luncheon to take legal action if he feels in any way discriminated against.
“Dr Roger Luncheon is fully aware what the law says…it is the same law that the Medical Council is using to defend their actions. What Dr Roger Luncheon will have to do is to take the Medical Council to court,” Dr Norton said.
own future.
The following day, when 16 disciples opted to follow the politician rather than the preacher, he sent his guards to shoot Ryan and the defectors as they boarded a plane at the airstrip. The Congressman, three journalists and one of the disciples were killed in a hail of gunfire.
Shortly afterwards, back at Jonestown, the
suicide order went out.
The disciples were gathered around the central pavilion and ordered to drink Kool-Aid laced with cyanide handed out by the guards.
Some were still so devoted to Jones that they went willingly to their deaths. But many hundreds more refused his order, only to be forced at gunpoint to take the poison. from page 4
BY KRISTEN MACKLINGAM
Chairman of Region Three (Essequibo Islands-West Demerara), Julius Faerber, along with a number of supporters staged a peaceful picketing exercise in front of the Regional Democratic Council (RDC) office on Wednesday to voice concerns about the “unbecoming and unacceptable” actions of the Regional Executive Officer (REO) Dennis Jaikaran.
Speaking with Guyana Times International during the picketing exercise, Faerber said that Jaikaran had pledged to work with the administration of Region Three upon assumption of duties on October 1. However, the REO has thus far refused to discuss matters with elected officials of the region.
“The exercise is one where we are trying to get the REO of Region Three Dennis Jaikaran to work with elected officials of the region. The elected official, who is manning the RDC, is saying that the administrator, who is the REO, must be able to discuss matters with the elected officials so we can progress in the region… But
the REO bluntly refused to discuss matters with myself, and the Vice Chairman,” the Regional Chairman stated.
It was noted that on numerous occasions, REO Jaikaran was invited to meetings but he “bluntly” told the officials of the RDC that he was there on “Government business” and that he does not wish to have any discussions with them.
According to Faerber, while the REO is not engaging the elected officials of Region Three in talks, he is participating in dialogues with the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) activists in the area.
“We have matters to discuss when we vis-
it communities, we have matters to address, and he is saying he doesn’t have time to address these issues that we can do whatever we feel is right,” Faerber said.
Obstruction of meetings
Faerber told this publication that every month there is a Heads of Department meeting which is held so as to deliberate and discuss on the five programmes which the region usually has on-going.
At this meeting, the officials would be able to give updates on these programmes, state difficulties they may encounter while executing them, and together as a collective team the issues can be “ironed out”.
“The REO has stopped those officials from com-
Faerber further explained that the procedure for the RDC is to have two representatives, one from the Government’s side and the other from the Opposition’s side, to sit on this Tender Board.
However, as of now, Region Three has four Government representatives sitting on the Board with the Opposition Party, the PPP/C, only having one representative.
ing out to meetings. He is the administrator of the region, the one who is to ensure that the programmes of the region are carried out so we can have development in the region. He is the one that signs on financially to matters and he is the one who is Chairman of the Tender Board to ensure that the works are given to contractors and we can have the works done to standards within a specific time,” Faerber contended.
Guyana Times International was told that on Tuesday, there was a Tender Board meeting and that REO Jaikaran invited APNU/ AFC members to sit on this board without consulting the Chairman, as the head of the region.
“These things are not right. The law constitutes that two members from the RDC must sit on the Tender Board along with heads of departments inside of the region but the REO is doing his own thing. This is a region where all of us have to work together to develop it,” the Chairman of Region Three emphatically stated.
With regards to the Chairman being prevented from executing his duties as a result of direct interventions by REO Jaikaran, this newspaper was reminded that the REO has reduced the amount of fuel which Faerber receives on a daily basis.
“He has reduced my fuel from 10 gallons per day to five gallons per day and that is ham-
pering my progress as the Regional Chairman to visit communities. Previously, I used to be given 10 gallons over the weekend to visit the communities but as of now, I am not getting any fuel,” Faerber declared.
As such, the Chairman is often left to use public transportation during the week to perform his duties to ensure that the work of the region is not stalled.
“I use public transportation to come to work because when the vehicle runs out of fuel on the road, I have my job to perform. So I have to take a minibus and come to work. In my opinion, the REO says he is here to do Government’s business, he has been given specific instructions by the Government how he should operate. And I think that is what the REO is doing, he is listening to his Minister and whoever is telling him what he should do in Region Three, so that is the problem,” the Regional Chairman added.
Meanwhile, another group of protestors were on the opposite side of the roadway, in support of the REO. They were shouting chants and held placards which read “Faerber must go!” and “The REO must stay!”
BY EDWARD LAYNE
People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Member of Parliament Juan Edghill has described the Gy$221 billion National Budget for 2015, which was passed in the National Assembly back in August, as “a failed budget”, pointing to the fact that very little of what is contained in the estimates were actually implemented.
Edghill, a former Minister within the Finance Ministry told a news conference at PPP Headquarters, Robb Street, Georgetown on Wednesday, that the current environment is one of uncertainty as it relates to the implementation of Budget 2015.
“We predict that Budget 2015 is already a failure, especially as it relates to implementation. During the budget debates we did question and we did asked that the Minister of Finance and the various sectoral Ministers outlined to us how they intend to implement such a huge budget in such a short timeframe and we were told that they have a plan. However, we are six weeks before the completion of year 2015 and I can tell you what we are seeing, what we are hearing and what we are observing does not represent any serious plan for the successful implemen-
tation of both the capital and maintenance budgets for the various sectors, but more particular for the Ministry of public Infrastructure,” Edghill told reporters.
Edghill said based on reports from his Party officials in the various regions, the country is operating in a policy-deficient environment, since “there seems to be no clear policy as it relates to the implementation and the laying out of public programmes.”
East Bank/East Coast Four Lane Highway
Turning his attending to public infrastructure, Edghill said that all the major projects which started under the former PPP/Civic Government and even those which were promised by the A Partnership for National Unity /Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Administration in the 2015 Budget seem to be at a standstill.
Speaking specifically to the East Bank and East
Coast of Demerara Four Lane Highway expansion projects, Edghill said works on these two projects are at a standstill, despite a commitment during the budget debate from the Government that works will be completed on schedule.
“Anyone traversing the East Bank corridor will see basically work on the East Bank Four Lane highway is at a standstill,” Edghill said.
He added that with regards to the East Coast Four Lane Expansion, when the PPP/C demitted office on May 20, 2015, an award was already made for this project, where local funds were used for the construction of drains and the widening of the road and as such, there should have been progress on the actual construction of the road.
“If you travel that area… the only work that has been done on the East Coast Four Lane Highway is clearing of grass from the extension and the widening that was done.”
Edghill reminded that Infrastructural development is not only critical for Guyana’s development and its expansion, but a driving force for activities within the economy, “and when these projects are on hold, you have serious difficulties.”
Timehri Access Road
Speaking on the Cheddi Jagan International Airport
Four Lane Access Road, Edghill said here again there is a halt in the works, explaining that before demitting office, his Government had completed every administrative act that should have been done for the completion for that road, including the signing of a contract with the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph (GTT) for the relocation of utilities in the area.
“Everything is done, it is now for the contractor to complete his work. The Ministry of Public Infrastructure needs to bring to the public’s attention and bring information to us as it relates to what is happening there”.
He also questioned why works have not commenced on the upgrade of roads from Linden to Kwakwani, in Region 10 (Upper DemeraraBerbice) as well as the Linden to Lethem Roads, for which huge sums were allocated in the 2015 Budget.
Edghill also alleged that many contracts which were awarded under the PPP/C Administration were placed on hold and as the now Government seeks to renegotiate these, without any proper basis for doing so.
The Public Infrastructure Ministry received a budgetary allocation of Gy$17.483 billion in the 2015 National Budget.
Minister stated. Additionally, Minister Norton pointed out that the Ministry has reinforced the Port Health Authorities at the country’s two main ports of entry, the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) and Ogle International Airport (OIA) – as well as the ports of entry at Moleson Creek, Charity and Lethem.
The Public Health Minister further disclosed that there was a task force present at the CJIA that was attached to the International Health Regulation (IHR) which monitored the various viral infections that could spread from one country to another such as the H1N1 virus.
Following the death of two persons from the virus in Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana is on high alert for signs of this fatal flu and has taken various precautionary steps against any outbreak locally.
On Sunday, Dr Norton had confirmed that there have been no reports of the virus in Guyana. This situation still stands as of Wednesday. Nevertheless, the Public Health Minister underscored the importance of persons concentrating on prevention at this point in time.
“The swine flu carries the regular symptoms of sneezing, coughing, pains, difficulties in breathing; sometimes
you get secretions from the nose and the regular flu so to speak, this belongs to the influenza group, specifically the H1N1 virus group,” Dr Norton previously explained.
He went on to say that persons who appear to have the symptoms should use a swab and have a sample of body fluid sent to the National Reference Laboratory which has already been placed on high alert.
“They will do tests to determine whether or not there are any possibilities that it might be the H1N1 flu virus. If they suspect that this is the case, then we will have it sent to the Caribbean laboratory to get it confirmed. But the people at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC), which really is our main source of referral, are aware of it; they are looking for it and our ports of entry are all active… Last week or the week before we had our national task force meeting convened and we are fully prepared and ready for it,” the Minister posited.
With regards to ensuring preventative measures are in place, he stated that persons have to ensure that they were healthy and remained that way, so as to guarantee that their immune systems were not susceptible to contracting flu-like symptoms.
BY DEVINA SAMAROO
Twenty-nine-yearold Parbatee
Ramdat of Reliance Village, Essequibo Coast, Region Two (PomeroonSupenaam) is currently in the process of taking legal actions against the Suddie Public Hospital after her newborn baby suffered a fractured shoulder and a broken hand during delivery.
The Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) is also being sued by another distraught family whose baby also suffered injuries after a nurse allegedly dropped the newborn on the ground.
Guyana Times International understands also that steps are being taken by another family to file a lawsuit against the Davis Memorial Hospital after a 33-year-old mother
and her newborn child died at the hands of negligent nurses and hospital staff.
All proceedings are being spearheaded by Attorney Anil Nandlall.
The Public Health Ministry has launched an investigation into all
three reports to determine exactly how the incidents occurred and who are to be blamed; but to date, no information has been forthcoming to any of the families involved.
Public Health Minister, Dr George
Norton had told this publication that investigations of this nature are usually lengthy given the circumstances of the incidents.
Meanwhile, baby Ameer Amarnauth, who is now three weeks old, is wrapped in a cast and his arm remains incapacitated. The troubled mother fears her child will become permanently disabled or that he will be denied the opportunity to grow up normally.
According to reports, the mother was scheduled to have a caesarean section (C-section) delivery since her baby was “too big” to be delivered naturally. However, on the date of delivery, the hospital staff did not perform the caesarean section. Ramdat said she was forced to endure two long hours of agonising pain as the nurses ripped the screaming baby from
her womb, due to several complications which arose. The force in which the baby was removed from the womb resulted in the fractured arms.
Reports indicate that the baby has developed additional abnormalities including a soft spot on his head and a lump in his throat.
The woman noted that her baby desperately needs additional medical attention but she is too afraid to take her son back at the Suddie Hospital.
Moreover, when contacted for a comment on the matter, Nandlall said he already dispatched a letter to the Medical Superintendent of the Suddie Hospital, requesting the baby’s medical information.
Thereafter, Nandlall will prepare the writ to be filed in the courts.
Asked for an update on the lawsuit against the GPHC, Nandlall reported that the institution’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) (ag) Alan Johnson is seemingly uncooperative since the medical reports of the baby who fell off the cot is yet to be provided. Nonetheless, Nandlall said he will be writing a follow-up letter and if the Hospital fails to present the requested documents, then he will move forward and file the lawsuit with the information he has at his disposal. Additionally, Nandlall said he will be lodging complaints to the Medical Council about the recent malpractices at the various hospitals which have resulted in serious injuries and deaths; and has also caused the public to lose much confidence in the country’s healthcare system.
he E-Governance
TUnit has begun rolling out WiFi networks in schools, while Hinterland and remote areas are expected to benefit from Internet access by the end of the first quarter of 2016.
This is according to E-Governance Advisor Floyd Levi, who said in a Ministry of the Presidency release that at present, the EGovernance Unit is focused on facilitating the implementation of the in-
E-Governance advisor
frastructural networks –the transmission and the data networks and the setting up of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) hubs across the country.
Levi disclosed that that the Government was focusing on having the ICT hubs and Internet access points operational by the end of 2016. The ICT hubs are especially critical for the Wi-Fi networks to become operational. These are expected to benefit all Guyanese but more so, the remote and underdeveloped communities.
The roll out of Wi-Fi in secondary schools has begun, with President’s College being the first school to benefit, following a visit by President Granger to the institution in October. Levi said that this is the first project in this category and it will be treated as a pilot to determine the exact needs and requirements for the other schools to benefit.
“What it does is that it gives them access to the E-Government network, not just for Internet access but for all Government applications that we will publish on the network. We are using this as the pilot project, to ensure that we are able to fulfil the demands and requirements and then we move on to
the other schools. We expect that this can be done within the first quarter of 2016.We have been mandated to provide internet access to all tertiary educational institutes, such as the Cyril Potter College of Education, the University of Guyana (UG), all of the Technical Institutes and Secondary schools,” he said.
Additionally, all Government Ministries, agencies and public buildings will be outfitted with Wi-Fi networks for visitors and consumers to access during their visits.
The Advisor to the E-Governance Unit assured that usage of the Wi-Fi service is monitored so as to ensure students’ safety and control.
Wi-Fi for hinterland and remote areas
Levi went on to disclose that the Unit was actively pursuing a similar project, this time to service students in the hinterland and remote areas, who have limited or no access to Internet.
To this end, he said that work has already commenced in the Paramakatoi, Region Eight (Potaro-Siparuni) area.
“Some of the subjects that are taught at the CXC levels require that School Based Assessments (SBAs) are submitted online and the students who live here are at a disadvantage with that so we are trying to fix this. The ground work is currently being done and we are working towards getting all elements in place. We have a very ambitious plan for the hinterland and remote areas,” the advisor said.
According to him, plans are also underway to consolidate Internet access and email services for Ministries, by way of an agreement, which would soon see email addresses for these agencies being moved to the gov.gy domain. Levi explained that the collaboration between the two organisations was crucial to the overall success of that Unit.
“What has happened since then is that we’ve gotten trial versions so that we can have a clear understanding of what is being offered. We will go for a central hosting of Government websites under Microsoft as well as Government emailing systems and we will be signing an agreement with them very soon on this,” he disclosed.
The Trade Union Recognition Act (TURA) has now been violated by the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) coalition Government with respect to the appointment of the workers’ representatives to the Trade Union Recognition and Certification Board (TURCB).
This is according to the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Guyana (FITUG), which during a media briefing on Tuesday, stated that this Board became functional with effect from November 1.
According to Treasurer of FITUG, Seepaul Narine, the TURCB consists of seven members, each appointed for a period of two years, but the appointment of a Chairman by the Minister should have been implemented after consultation with the ‘most representative organisations of workers’ and the most representative organisations of employers.
He maintained that consultation should have been held with FITUG for the above mentioned appointments, but this is yet to be done.
Narine further explained that three members of the Board were to be appointed by the Minister on the nomination of the most representative organisations of workers and another three members were also to be appointed by the said Minister on the nomination of the most representative organisations of employers.
It was noted that
the Chief Labour, Occupational Safety and Health Officer via a letter on Wednesday last, requested FITUG to name one representative to sit on the Board.
Govt’s decision offensive, disturbing
Secretary of FITUG, Michael Stephens, deemed this action of the APNU/AFC Administration to be ‘most disturbing’ while commenting that the Federation will do all in its power to expose this ‘offensive decision.’
“The Federation alerts the workers of Guyana and urges its affiliates to guard against the return of the days when seats and positions of the trade unions were handed down based on the Union’s loyalty to the powers-that-be.”
The allocation of one seat to FITUG and two to the Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) is a violation of the TURA, he said, adding that Government should not have engaged in such an act which is contrary to the easily understood law.
“We were promised respect for the rule of law but in reality the opposite is surfacing day
after day,” he said.
Stephens emphasised that the workers and their ‘legitimate’ organisations must be conscious of the worrying situation and “speak out and stand up” in defence of their hard won rights before it is too late.
“The appointment of the Tripartite Committee by the Cabinet is another matter of concern. That Committee, among others, comprises of six representatives of workers. The GTUC has been awarded five and FITUG has been requested to nominate one and this is another discriminatory act against the most representative organisation of workers,”
He reminded that the last Tripartite Committee headed by former Labour Minister, Dr Nanda Gopaul, comprised representatives according to the membership of the FITUG and the GTUC, four and two members respectively.
Meanwhile, President of FITUG, Carvil Duncan stated that the Federation had written the Government within the past two weeks submitting names for the positions mentioned above.
Sadly, the only response FITUG has received to date is a letter of acknowledgement from the Ministry of the Presidency.
Moving forward
Duncan explained that the media briefing on Tuesday was just the first step that FITUG has taken with regards to sensitising its workers and the public at large of the actions of the government, which are obviously in violation of the
TURA.
“The first strategy is that we have this press conference after which very shortly the FITUG Executive will meet and make a determination as to where we will go from there. We thought it best to sensitise the nation on what is going on so that at least they will know that we are not satisfied. And hence they can expect anything coming,” he added.
First Vice President of FITUG Komal Chand, posited that this move is not to ‘displease’ the GTUC but simply to speak out against a breach of the law.
“The law is supreme, the law holds sway, the law requires that consultations should be made with FITUG the most representative organisation of workers so it is not a question of displeasing the GTUC. You have the membership and it is clear, you have (1) the Chairman being selected without consultation and (2) you have the workers’ representative being selected without consultation. So you have violated the law so it is not a question of displeasing…It is strictly a violation of law,” Chand added.
The Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) has secured an agreement with the United States of America Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to engage in cooperation on civil aviation issues.
The development and modernisation of the civil aviation security infrastructure of Guyana in managerial, operational, and technical areas are included in this agreement.
This agreement was signed on Monday in the boardroom of the Public Infrastructure Ministry by subject Minister David Patterson and US Ambassador to Guyana, Perry Holloway.
Witnessing the signing was Minister within the Ministry, Annette Ferguson.
Minister Patterson explained that representation was made for technical assistance for regulatory oversight of Guyana’s aviation and maritime sectors from the TSA, after a meeting with the US Chargé d’ Affaires Bryan Hunt in June of this year.
According to Patterson, such representation was made after the Ministry was informed that the TSA, which conducted regular inspections of airport security at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA), had expressed some reservations with the pace at which aviation security matters were being handled by
the GCAA. Among the concerns raised by the TSA was the fact that there was only one security inspector.
Patterson noted that the Ministry and the Government saw aviation as a catalyst for Guyana’s economic and social growth, and to this end, the continued partnership between the US and Guyana Governments was necessary for the sector, particularly as it relates to the growth of Guyana’s international aviation activities, chiefly, connectivity between US destinations and Guyana.
Minister Patterson applauded Ambassador Holloway for securing the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which he pointed out, would provide support in developing the capacities and expertise in civil aviation security. “It is needed not only for us to satisfy your requirements, but one that will also assist us significantly in meeting [International Civil Aviation Organisation] ICAO Standards and recommended practices,” he was quoted as saying by the Government Information Agency (GINA).
Holistic approach
Minister Patterson noted that while the TSA has been working closely with the GCAA and the CJIA, the Ministry has now asked that it include Ogle International Airport in its assessment on its next visit.
The Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) has threatened to resume industrial actions over its frustration with the Government on various outstanding issues, including debunching payments.
Six months ago, the Union had taken industrial action – in the form of the “Work to Rule” process – to retaliate against Government’s non-payment of debunching money. However, the action was suspended following the General and Regional Election the same month.
pronouncement cannot be made as to when our teachers, who served this nation diligently, will be granted the debunching money,” the GTU President revealed.
Moreover, the GTU President outlined that the Union believes in dialogue and has pursued this route thus far but with no results to show. Hence, its decision to resume the industrial actions, which were suspended to allow the new Administration time to settle in following the election.
“I believe we have to have a holistic approach to the security and safety oversight of our aviation sector,” he explained.
Ambassador Holloway said the signing would keep the skies of not only Guyana, but the Region and the US safe and secure. He explained that the agreement basically opened up the line “for us to be able to share technical assistance and equipment.”
He said when TSA conducted another assessment of airport security beginning in January 2016, only then would it be able to determine what further financial support was needed, and whether it would be in the form of specialised equipment.
The MoU as it stands now, Holloway explained, enhances both Guyana’s and TSA’s security capacity for passengers, employees and other stakeholders involved in the airport transportation industry. Specifically, the agreement will provide for technical and managerial expertise to assist the GCAA in the development, improvement, and operation of its civil aviation security infrastructure, standards, procedures, policies, training and equipment, he said.
The agreement also provides for training of GCAA personnel in the US or in Guyana and for the provision of resources, logistical support and equipment for facilities.
But the GTU has stated that it will resume the action countrywide if the situation continues. Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, GTU President Mark Lyte said teachers are so frustrated over the delayed debunching payments that they have extended their support behind the Union to resume the industrial actions. “Our teachers are agitated,” he remarked.
The Union Head expressed his frustration over the fact that the GTU is being pushed around for the monies promised to teachers in the public system. He explained that they were recently told Cabinet would deal with the payment but on Monday, they received a correspondence which stated that the matter was referred back to the Permanent Secretary of the Education Ministry.
“GTU is worried that this matter is revolving, going from (different) place to place. We would like our employer partner to know that teachers across Guyana are anxiously awaiting the disbursement of the debunching funds,” he stated.
Lyte further pointed out that the calculation as to how teachers will benefit from the payment was completed a while ago and it is only for Government to approve the payments before the money can be disbursed.
“So at this point in time, a definite
“Debunching has been going on since 2006/2007, we are in 2015 and we can’t earn a dime from that agreement as yet. This is ridiculous and so the Union believes that sometimes talks do not bear the kind of fruit that we anticipate. We may want to go that route but then it’s not really materialising so the Guyana culture is that we have to take other forms of actions,” he noted, specifically mentioning the “Work to Rule” action.
This form of industrial action saw teachers within the public school system being asked to do the minimum in terms of work or return home each school day if the working environments were not conducive for the teaching/ learning process.
The payment of debunching monies was promised to teachers as part of an agreement that was inked between the GTU and the former People’s Progressive Party/Civic Administration. The multi-year agreement covered the period 2011 to 2015.
Apart from debunching, several other outstanding issues were raised during the press briefing by Executive Members of the Union. These included duty-free concessions for teachers, the house revolving fund, house lot allocations and permanent certificates for teachers doing the Associate Degree in Education (ADE programme), among others.
AGuyanese hairdresser is in custody after she was busted with over 100 pellets of cocaine in her stomach at the John F Kennedy Airport.
Reports indicate that 26-year-old Shureen Giddings has been charged for unlawfully importing cocaine into the United States.
Guyana Times International understands that Giddings was busted on November 9 after arriving on a flight from Guyana. According to court documents, as seen by this newspaper, Giddings was subjected to a Customs and Border Protection examination. The court doc-
Shureen Giddings
uments revealed that during the examination, Giddings appeared nervous, prompting the officers to conduct a ‘patdown’. However after extensive questioning,
she admitted swallowing the cocaine filled pellets and told the agents that she could no longer hold them, requesting to use the bathroom, the court documents revealed. At the airport, she excreted 17 pellets. The documents revealed that law enforcement agents then escorted her to a medical facility at the airport for an x-ray examination and it was there that it was discovered that she had more pellets in her stomach. A total of 105 pellets were expelled from her body, carrying a total weight of just over three pounds. She was immediately arrested and charged.
BY DEVINA SAMAROO
Adding to the frustration of the student population of the University of Guyana (UG) is the delayed response by the relevant stakeholders to restore the accreditation of the flagship medicine and dentistry programme.
This perceived inaction by the institution’s administration is one of the many reasons why the students are demanding a 30 per cent refund on their facilities fees for the past academic year and a 60 per cent reduction on their facilities fees for the upcoming years.
According to President of the University of Guyana Student Society (UGSS) Joshua Griffith, the loss of the accreditation is a tremendous blow to the university and its students.
He explained that moves are yet to be made to address the deplorable conditions of the facilities, noting that this tardiness is generating much unease among the student population.
On that note, Griffith urged the relevant stakeholders to work swiftly towards the re-accredita-
tion of the programme.
Public Health Minister, Dr George Norton had told Guyana Times International that the process should be completed by June 2016.
Late last month, the Minister reported that a plan was currently being drafted to address the issues which caused the educational facility to lose its accreditation in the first place.
The accreditation was lost in July 2015, following the university’s delay in submitting a report on the school’s progress to the Caribbean Accreditation Authority for Education in Medicine and other Health Professions (CAAM-HP). Temporary accredi-
tation is normally provided to the university by the regional body under specific conditions. The University’s Medical School was granted accreditation for the periods 2008-2009; 20092012 and 2013- 2015. However, the accreditation was not extended for the upcoming academic years due to failure to upgrade certain facilities.
Infrastructural developments; the review of the curriculum; and the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Public Health Ministry, the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) and the medical school for funding of the school are some of the issues needed to be addressed before the programme regains its accreditation.
Plans underway Dr Norton had disclosed that the Government retained the services of an international consultant to work on drafting a plan to address the issue. In fact, he revealed that there are plans underway to acquire funding to have the medical school in a central and conducive compound equipped
with all that is required for students to emerge as successful doctors.
“If you have a university medical school and you’re training doctors, then you must have places for the doctors where they can have proper classrooms, labs and places for relaxation while on duty, which is some of the things that the University of Guyana Medical School is lacking,” he stated.
However, the Minister cautioned that the process will take time and lots of money, but he assured that the Government will certainly play its part to ensure the programme is re-accredited as soon as possible.
Students affected
Meanwhile, those students currently enrolled in the programme run the risk of acquiring a certificate that will be unrecognised in other territories outside of Guyana.
According to the Minister, the loss of the accreditation will not hinder students from getting a job or functioning as a medical doctor but it will just lengthen the process. He noted that all they will have to do is write an addition exam to achieve the required certificate.
However, he noted that the situation is still unfortunate because the programme usually attracts a large number of international students from countries like Nigeria and Syria.
Meanwhile, former Health Minister Dr Bheri Ramsaran explained that the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) had completed some 80 per cent of the accreditation requirements but the transition period of the new Government may have interfered with the completion of the tasks.
According to Ramsaran, the regional body had given a list of tasks that needed to be
completed for the programme to become accredited and moves were immediately taken to fulfil those requests. He said he had visited UG Vice Chancellor, Professor Jacob Opadayei after he learnt that the programme’s accreditation might be retracted, to devise a plan as to what would be needed to save the accreditation, and had endeavoured to do all in his power to save the course.
The former Minister said he was shocked when he recently heard the news of the medical school’s loss of accreditation as he was expecting the new Government would continue with these tasks so that any problems may be avoided.
Former Region 10
(Upper DemeraraBerbice) Chairman
Sharma Solomon on Wednesday voiced concerns over not being granted benefits, after serving in the position of Regional Chairman for three and a half years.
Solomon brought the issue to the forefront
as the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the public service wrapped up its Linden leg of hearings on Wednesday.
A number of other witnesses also testified before Chairman, Professor Harold Lutchman and Commissioners Sandra Jones and Samuel Goolsarran during the
two-day public hearing, which commenced in Linden on Tuesday.
During his testimony, Solomon told the Commission that he was informed from the inception of his duties that had he served in the capacity of Regional Chairman for four years, he would have fulfilled the require-
ments to receive benefits as a former Regional Chairman. He further told Commissioners that he would like the issue to be reviewed, while also noting that it may be difficult for others who wish to give service and those involved in the public service who may have served under similar circumstances.
"I would like to take the opportunity to say that I find it very difficult to appreciate... when asked about my benefits after Chairmanship, I was told that there was absolutely no benefit that I would receive. I found that very disturbing," he stated.
Solomon, who served as Regional Chairman from January 2012 to 2015 said the challenges in relation to conditions
of work under the public service were many.
Using the Regional Democratic Council as an example, he said there were instances where work was significantly affected due to several health and environmental inconsistencies, and as such, staffers were advised to "go home". Solomon added that he heard numerous complaints from cleaners, for example, while he pointed out that other issues included remuneration and wages and salaries. The former Regional Chairman said while he is now working as a contract employee, he is totally against it. As such, he called for an end to contract employees.
Asked by Jones if efcontinued on page 28
Finance Minister, Winston Jordan has revealed that the spotlight is once more being place on the Amaila Falls Hydropower Project, as a study to determine its viability is being conducted.
This is after Jordan in Parliament earlier this year stated that the Government would not be pursuing the project since it “would be criminal” to do so.
At a Guyana Manufacturers Association (GMSA) event on Wednesday, November 18, the Finance Minister revealed that the Government is keen on clean energy and Amaila Falls was once again on the radar with some keen interest from Norway.
“I wish to announce that the Government is in discussions with Norway to procure yet another review of this project. Norway seems keen to finance an independent review to, once and for all, pronounce on the viability or non-viability of the project,” he stated.
In his 2015 budget presentation in the National Assembly on August 10, Jordan said that it is not only irresponsible, but “a downright criminal act of deception were we to proceed with Amaila Falls.”
He told the House that investigations conducted by the new government revealed that the Guyana Power and Light Company would be required to make annual
payments amounting to US$130M to the operators of the facility.
This he said will total US$2.6B over the 20 year period, according to the power purchase agreement and does not include Guyana’s contribution of at least US$160M comprising $45M for road, $80M through equity and $US45M that will have to be taken from the Inter -American Development Bank (IDB).
“It will be delusional to suggest that GPL has the competence to handle such a financial burden. The GPL is known to have a poor operational, financial and technical capability. The Company suffers from a high energy and technical losses…it would require not only tariff increases but guarantees that taxpayers, through the treasury will have to provide to meet its obligations,” Jordan told the National Assembly.
Leader of the Opposition, Bharrat Jagdeo told a news conference on August 11 that those examining the project are clueless.
“I believe that they are duping President Granger; I believe that they are duping him because you have a few people who have been examining the project economics that are clueless…you don’t have to be an economist to understand what this project means to Guyana and what we will lose if we don’t proceed with it,” Jagdeo had said. (iNews)
clarissa Riehl Brigadier Julian ‘Bruce’ lovell
Former Guyana Defence Force (GDF) Lieutenant Frederick Case has been identified as Guyana’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom while the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) member and attorney Clarissa Riehl has been tipped as High Commissioner to Canada.
Guyana Times International understands that Retired Brigadier Julian ‘Bruce’ Lovell is being considered as Ambassador to Brazil.
This newspaper understands that a former Political aide to President Forbes Burnham, Halim Majeed is also being considered as Guyana’s representative to Cuba.
Case will be replacing Laleshwar Singh in the UK, while Riehl will be replacing Harry Narine Nawbatt in Canada.
Majeed will be replacing attorney, Mitra Devi Ali, who was once the Permanent Secretary at the Legal Affairs Ministry.
Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission (Gecom) Dr Steve Surujbally last Thursday repeatedly insisted the elections body has been “bending over backwards” to accommodate the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) and therefore could not comprehend the attacks recently unleashed at the level of the General Secretary Clement Rohee.
In fact, Dr Surujbally blasted the General Secretary over a number of issues, including that of fuelling ethnic division during a recent meeting between the two entities.
These proclamations were made during a media conference held to update the media on Gecom’s preparations for the upcoming Local Government Elections (LGE).
thority to determine the duration of the aforementioned periods and based on their experience, the periods set were adequate. He noted too that the period of Claims and Objections far exceeds the previous periods. He explained also that there is no need for another cycle of registration because LGE structure does not cater for every elector across the spectrum but electors only in local authority areas.
Rohee, during his Party’s media conference the previous Monday, expressed complete dissatisfaction with the outcome of the said meeting, noting that Gecom was indifferent, defensive and evasive with respect to the questions and clarifications sought by the PPP/C delegation.
When prompted by media operatives for a response, Gecom’s Chairman said he strongly believes the PPP/C General Secretary is out to “embarrass” Gecom for reasons which he would not “speculate”.
He clarified that contrary to what was reported by Rohee, Gecom provided answers to the questions posed by the PPP/C delegation to the best of its ability.
“The bending over backwards is so blatant in our responses that it was very difficult to understand why these attacks were made,” Dr Surujbally stated. Relating the events that transpired on the day of the meeting, Dr Surujbally said the meeting ensued as a last-minute request by the Opposition.
Taking over from his colleague, Gecom Chief Elections Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield disclosed the respective answers Gecom provided to the questions which were posed by the PPP/C during the meeting.
The first question was in relation to the qualifying date of February 29 for persons to register. The PPP/C did not expand on their concern on this matter however; the Gecom CEO explained that the date was set to ensure that as many 18-yearsolds as possible become eligible to vote for the LGE. He noted too that he could not understand PPP/C’s concerns.
The second question was in relation to the 9th Cycle of Registration versus the period of Claims and Objections. Lowenfield said the Commission has the au-
The third question was about nonavailability of lists for each constituency for use during the Claims and Objections period. However, this was the only question which Rohee said the Party was given a satisfactory answer. Gecom had provided the Party with both a softcopy and a hardcopy of the list.
The other question was about the effectiveness of the communication strategy relative to LGE, considering that the environment will be crowded with other preparatory activities for the 50th anniversary celebrations. In response, Lowenfield said Gecom is charged with the conduct of elections and cannot get involved with the other activities. He noted that Gecom still has elections to prepare for and the works of other entities are not its concerns.
The next question was in relation to status of preparation of NDCs for local government elections. Lowenfield said Gecom is not responsible to report on the preparations of the NDCs for the LGE.
Moreover, Gecom’s CEO insisted that the other concerns which were raised by the PPP/C were genuinely addressed to the best of the Commission’s knowledge.
Meanwhile, it was revealed that Rohee raised concerns about the ethnic imbalance of persons employed by Gecom to work at the upcoming LGE polls.
Gecom Chairman Dr Surujbally explained that the Commission has a procedure which it follows when hiring to ensure the process is fair and transparent.
“If you want to change the procedure and say we must have “x” amount of this race and “y” amount of that then, Gecom will have to be under another Chairman…”
While on the topic, Dr Surujbally urged that political parties stop using the race card.
Former Natural Resources and Environment Minister Robert Persaud is among those who have been removed from the leadership of the People’s Progressive Party/ Civic (PPP/C).
The announcement was made Monday by PPP/C General Secretary Clement Rohee.
Rohee said the Party took a unanimous decision to replace several persons on its Central Committee.
According to Rohee, former Minister Persaud was replaced due to his nonattendance of CC meetings. Likewise, Office of the President Permanent Secretary, Omar Sharief was removed for similar reason. Replacement was also made for Party stalwart Navin Chanderpal who died in October 2014 from cancer.
The members filling these vacancies are Bibi Shafora Shadick, Majeed Hussain and Harrinarine Baldeo.
Further, Rohee stated that the Central Committee has reserved for consideration at a later date, the status of the seats of Hydar Ally, Chitrekha Das and Gurdat Shivperaud.
Also, there are vacant seats at the party’s Executive Committee (ExCo) with the passing of Chanderpal, the non-attendance by Persaud and the resignation of Ally. These will also be considered at a later date.
Meanwhile, Robert Persaud served in several senior positions under the former PPP/C administration. He was once the Head of the Government Information Agency (GINA) and the Agriculture Minister. His last portfolio before the May 11 Elections was as Natural Resources and Environment Minister.
In the lead-up to the Elections,
Persaud had hinted his desire to have a ‘political sabbatical’.
In a Facebook post, the former Minister stated: “I thanked all those who worked and supported me throughout my tenure. To those whom I might have missed, here are my words of appreciation as I look forward to a sabbatical from front-line politics.”
This was later confirmed by the Party which said Persaud had written them indicating his intention to go on a “sabbatical” from the politics of the PPP/C and concerns over various positions, as well as decisions the party had taken.
Recently, reports surfaced indicating that Persaud was poised for a job under the new Government however, State Minister Joseph Harmon has since dismissed the indications.
“I cannot confirm any such employment,” Harmon stated.
In addition, Sharief holds his same post at the renamed Ministry of the Presidency under the A Partnership for National Unity/ Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) government.
By Edward LaynE
Former Head of the Presidential Secretariat under the People’s Progressive Party/ Civic Administration, Dr Roger Luncheon has challenged the United States of America (USA) to provide evidence that he had instructed local law enforcement to release Shaheed “Roger” Khan and return spy equipment found in his possession.
Cables released by WikiLeaks recently highlighting communication between then US Ambassador in Georgetown Roland Bullen and Washington in 2006, said that the Embassy was convinced that the then Cabinet Secretary, Dr Roger Luncheon had links to Khan, who is currently serving a sentence in the US for drug trafficking
“[Roger] Luncheon (President Jagdeo’s deputy) is known to have intervened and ordered the authorities to release Khan and return his equipment as described in para four. Also, eyewitnesses say they have seen Khan leaving the
President’s office,” the cable said.
But, Dr Luncheon in an exclusive interview with Guyana Times International on Tuesday said that the claims contained in the cable are baseless and challenged the US Embassy officials to produce the evidence to show his involvement.
“I can state unequivocally, whether he (Roger Khan) was released or
not, I as the Secretary to the Cabinet and Head of the Presidential Secretariat (HPS) in the Office of the President gave no such instructions to anyone. I would go further to state that my position can be corroborated or not corroborated by the Embassy of the United States of America identifying the person or persons to whom I allegedly gave such instructions or even
independently that person or persons identifying themselves as having been directed by me, Dr Luncheon from the Office of the President to release Mr Khan from the detention by the security forces,” Luncheon said.
With regards the instructions to return the spy equipment to Khan, Dr Luncheon said that such a claim is spurious since then Police Commissioner Henry Greene (deceased) in 2009 addressed this matter, by producing the equipment in question.
“The second allegation about directing the return of the equipment. That matter, far as I am concerned, was dealt with conclusively when the then Commissioner of Police in Eve Leary indicated to the press and Guyanese at large that the spy equipment was in the possession of the Police, the security services and was in the Eve Leary compound. So that statement by the then Police Commission for me brought that matter to an end,” Luncheon noted.
Greene on August 5, 2009, during a news conference, unveiled the
laptop and a transmitter which he said were seized from Khan and two other men, Haroon Yahya and Sean Belfield.
Greene explained that the equipment on display were those seized by the Guyana Defence Force on December 4, 2002, at Good Hope, East Coast Demerara.
“The electronic equipment was lodged with the Guyana Police Force by Superintendent Frederick Caesar. This is the equipment lodged with the Force,” Greene said.
The items that were displayed were a Panasonic laptop and a Cellular Protocol Analyser model CSM 7806 manufactured by Smith-Meyers, as is listed in the cable.
Asked about what may have led to the then US Ambassador transmitting such a cable without hard evidence, Dr Luncheon said it is his belief that the US officials in Georgetown were being misled by some with ulterior motives.
“I suspect there was some effort by individuals or forces still unknown to link the Office of the President with this entire saga of Roger Khan and his brushes with the law. The Office of the President and I am speaking from the HPS’s perspective, was not involved in this matter and the then President (Bharrat Jagdeo) also indicated his non-involvement. But I suspect that the officials in the American Embassy in Guyana were listening to others, which form the basis for that cable to their head office,” he concluded.
Social Cohesion Minister Amna
Ally was on Friday paid a courtesy call by Special Envoy of the United Nations Secretary General in the Caribbean Region, Dr Edward Greene who was recently on a six-day official mission in Guyana.
Dr Greene was accompanied by UNAIDS Country Director to Suriname and Guyana, Dr Martin Odiit.
The purpose of this mission was to discuss with key Government officials, issues in relation to the Fast-Track of HIV Response 2015-2020 Initiative. This is part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals agenda and the UNAIDS Extended Strategy 20162021, the Government Information Agency (GINA) reported.
Meanwhile, the team also met with First Lady Sandra Granger at her Office. During that engagement, Dr Odiit assured that the UNAIDS stood ready to support the First Lady in her advocacy and efforts.
The First Lady, in an invited comment, said: “Moving forward, there is now a clear picture of what strategies can be used to aid UNAIDS work to reach their goal of ensuring that by 2030, 90 per cent of people with HIV are tested and 90 per cent of those tested are on treatment.”
The Joint UN Programme in HIV/ AIDS brings together the efforts and resources of 11 organisations to unite the world against AIDS. It is coordinated by the UNAIDS Secretariat, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.
The People’s Progressive Party/ Civic (PPP/C) has finally rejected the invitation for national unity talks with the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) and is now advocating for the scrapping of the Social Cohesion Ministry, which was established under the current administration.
During the party’s weekly media conference on Monday, PPP/C General Secretary Clement Rohee announced that the Central Committee, following ongoing consultations with its membership, concluded that, at this time, where there is continuous witch-hunting, arbitrary dismissals and brazen termination of contracts of long-standing government employees and public servants, among other reasons; the Party’s membership is not in the mood nor supportive at this time, to engage in national unity talks with APNU/AFC.
“In rejecting these overtures the Party wishes to make it clear that while it has always been open to talks with all stakeholders on the question of national unity, the current political atmosphere obtaining in Guyana at this time, is not conducive to engaging the APNU+AFC on such a highly politically-sensitive matter,” Rohee stated.
He made it clear that the responsibility rests with government to end its campaign of vilification, stigmatising and labelling of PPP leaders as “thieves”, and as “corrupt”; since only then will the Party participate in national unity talks.
In the same breath, Rohee announced that the PPP/C will be advocating for the scrapping of the Social Cohesion
Ministry, which was established with responsibility to promote unity among Guyanese.
According to Rohee, the Party is of the view that the Ministry’s genuine role is to act as a smokescreen to promote racial and political discrimination in favour of the APNU/AFC coalition.
“The Party will continue to monitor these developments and to offer support where necessary, and whenever called upon by representative religious bodies to ensure that unity prevails and that the APNU+AFC’s so-called Ministry of Social Cohesion does not succeed in its divisive manipulative, deceitful and bribe-sharing efforts to divide Guyanese socially, politically along religious lines ostensibly for electoral purposes,” Rohee said.
Rohee’s defense Rohee recently came in for harsh criticisms for allegedly promoting ethnic division in Guyana by asking the Guyana Elections Commission (Gecom) to reveal the ethnic composition its staff.
Both Social Cohesion Minister Amna Ally and Gecom Chairman Dr Steve Surujbally publicly condemned Rohee for making such an inquiry.
However, during the media conference, Rohee defended his position: “I don’t see anything with my asking as a member of the Guyanese society; born, grow in this country, for such information. I am entitled to such information… these people are being paid by public funds and what is wrong with me asking for such information, either personally or politically on behalf of the PPP/C,” he stated.
BY DEVINA SAMAROO
Amid pomp and ceremony
1558 students graduated from the University of Guyana (UG) last Saturday at the institution’s 49th convocation.
The students graduated from the faculties of Health Sciences, Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, Agriculture and Forestry, Education and Humanities, Technology, and the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences.
Decked in their seamless graduation gowns, hundreds of students excitedly assembled on the University’s tarmac as the auspicious ceremony commenced. Gleeful family and friends also flocked the compound, swollen with pride, as their loved ones made their way onto the stage to collect their certificates.
Sachin Ramsuran from the Faculty of Technology was this year’s valedictorian. Ramsuran is the only son of a Patentia, West Bank Demerara caneharvester and a seamstress, neither of whom were afford-
ed the luxury of being educated beyond primary school. He gained 56 grade ‘A’ passes out of 57 subject areas and earned himself the President’s Medal for the best graduating Bachelor’s Degree student.
They deserve to be happy, and we who have been blessed with the knowledge to make that happen and we should not fail to do so,” Ramsuran pleaded.
He underscored that, “We cannot predict the future but by making decisions which give us the highest probability of being successful, we can create the future that we want…”
The valedictorian broadly reflected on the challenges he and his colleagues faced during their studies at University.
Ramsuran told the media his parents motivated him to pursue his education, and during his valedictorian speech, the young scholar saluted his parents for the sacrifices they made to ensure he has a bright future.
has attained at least a “Pass with Credit” and has made the greatest contribution in other areas of the university’s activities.
Also awarded were Ajay Persaud of the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, who received the UG Student Society Award for the graduating student who has attained at least a “Pass with Credit” and has made an outstanding contribution in other areas of the university activities; Stephon Josiah of the Faculty of Education and Humanities who received the KA Juman Yassin Sport Award for graduating student who has participated at a consistently high standards in sports.
During his vigorous speech, Ramsuran charged his fellow colleagues to stay and develop Guyana.
“I want to encourage you, as we enter into our 50 years of Independence, to re-evaluate your goals and make a personal sacrifice and think not of yourself, but think of your country and the less fortunate.
Meanwhile, other excelling graduates are Ashley Bankay of the Faculty of Social Sciences, who received the Chancellor’s Medal for the second best graduating Bachelor’s Degree student; Tiffana Ross of the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, who received the Council of UG Prize for the graduating student who
Additionally, Sarashwattie Bharrat of Faculty of Education and Humanities received the Dennis Irvine Award for the student who has made the greatest contribution to the cultural life of the University; and Tristana Gouveia of the Faculty of Social Sciences who received the Dr Harold Drayton Alumni Award of the
“Disrespectful”, “abusive” and “irresponsible” were some of the adjectives used to describe Alliance for Change (AFC) Member of Parliament (MP) Charandass Persaud’s assault on fellow MP Dr Vindhya Persaud, when he expressed his desire to “haul her off” stage.
The AFC parliamentarian deemed it fit to write a Letter to the Editor, attacking and threatening the Hindu Leader for merely expressing her views regarding her religion.
“Dr Vindhya Persaud so disgusted me that I felt like hauling (her) off the stage,” penned the AFC leader under a letter which purported to be calling for a reconciliation of HinduGuyanese who were in disagreement over the Diwali date.
His well-thought-out sentiments generated much upheaval among women rights activists and women leaders who demanded the AFC MP make a public apology to Dr Persaud and also to all Guyanese women.
Charandass’s statement prompted much disapproval and condemnation from a number of women’s rights supporters.
People’s Progressive
Party Member of Parliament Priya Manickchand took to Facebook expressing her disgust over Charandass’s comments.
“This is outrageous and must be condemned by all, irrespective of how you voted. This is the kind of brutish thing that leads to the interpersonal and gender based violence we see. You don’t like what the woman said and your first reaction is that you should physically attack her…‘haul her off the stage’…by her hair maybe? By her sari? After you have kicked her a few times?” Manickchand posted.
In further expressing her shock, Manickchand questioned, “How could a leader of the country
and a representative of Government feel comfortable, not only entertaining such thoughts, but taking the time to send it to a newspaper for publication?”
She further added she is ashamed to call him a friend. “Apologise Charran…now…and unreservedly,” she stated.
Also lashing out at the blatant attack on Dr Persaud is PPP/C MP Africo Selman, who also called on Charandass to publicly apologise for his insensitive attack. “It’s an attack on all Guyanese women, you know, not only Guyanese women but all women in general,” Selman stated.
The former A Partnership for
National Unity/Alliance for Change (APNU/AFC) MP also demanded an explanation for the deafening silence from the Government benches over this matter.
Additionally, another PPP/C MP Gillian Burton-Persaud expressed her utter dissatisfaction with the comments made by the AFC leader. She lamented the fact that all the rights activists and women organisations have not uttered a single condemnation on his actions.
“I therefore call upon all those who preach, seek, endure and participate in the upholding of these fundamental rights, on Civil Society, on all Rights Organisations and Activists and more so,
on the Government to denounce these unwarranted acts of verbal abuse on our female political and religious leaders and indeed all women in our society,” she stated.
Moreover, Chairperson of the Gender and Equality Commission Indra Chanderpaul said the AFC MP’s behaviour is totally irresponsible.
“He ought to have known better. His behaviour is uncalled for and it is disrespectful to Dr Persaud,” Chanderpaul expressed.
She highlighted that Dr Persaud is not only
a leading advocate for women across Guyana, but is also President of
one of the largest Hindu organisations in the country and the AFC MP’s attack was completely uncalled for.
Not the most violent Karren Desouza, another women’s rights activist, expressed that the AFC parliamentarian’s behaviour is not the most “violent” or “agonising” situation from leaders of Guyana.
“This is not the most disrespectful thing I find leaders of the country doing,” she stated.
Nonetheless, she agreed that his actions were irresponsible and offensive towards women.
“I agree that his expression is unfortunate; it is an unfortunate way to express his frustration,” Desouza stated.
By Kristen MacKlingaM
Plans are already underway by management of the Ogle International Airport to have it renamed the “Eugene F. Correia International Airport” in spite of objections from key stakeholders at the airport.
Chairman of the board of directors of Ogle Airport Inc (OAI), Michael Correia Jr, told reporters on Friday that this name change requires a number of regulatory and administrative changes. As such the airport’s management team has already written to the Public Infrastructure Ministry as required by the lease
OAI Board wrote to all the shareholders on the matter with “no objection” responses being received from all of the shareholders who are not on the Board. When I then put the matter to the Board, two members initially expressed reservation before
(NATA) during a media briefing last week stated that the President had made a suggestion but that it was declined, given the disadvantages it would present to other operators.
He also suggested that President Granger may not have taken into consideration such disadvantages when he made the proposal for the airport to be renamed.
“Every single operator around this table has written a letter against the renaming of the airport,” Captain Gouveia said.
He further noted that NATA is “unanimously” against the idea of renaming the airport.
On Friday Michael
agreement and is presently awaiting Minister David Patterson’s endorsement of the process.
He reiterated that it was President David Granger who suggested that the name of the Ogle International Airport be changed to “Eugene F. Correia International Airport” while the Head of State was at the official launching ceremony of the TGA Beechcraft 1900D on September 17 last.
“Following the President’s announcement, the Secretary of the
the Board unanimously agreed to the proposed name change. The Board subsequently advised the President of its decision, after which we received a letter from Air Services Limited with a reversal of their position,” Correia explained.
He posited the fact that a “Correia” was chosen for the Airport to be named after is not the important issue.
Meanwhile, Vice President of the newly formed National Air Transport Association
Correia Jr announced that OAI is not owned by Government but rather by a private company.
According to Correia, the airport is owned by Ogle Airport Inc by virtue of a lease issued by the Lands and Surveys Department for 441 acres for a period of 25 years, which commenced on July 17, 2003.
However, according to legal opinion a “lease cannot transfer ownership”, so the Government still owns the airport. (kristenm@ guyanatimesgy.com)
People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Member of Parliament (MP) Irfaan Ali has condemned the A Partnership for National Unity/ Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) Administration for wasting more than two years on the construction of the Specialty Hospital project – which would have by now been nearing completion or already operable.
“Time is money and wasted opportunity carries a price,” Ali stated.
After wholeheartedly rejecting the idea of a specialty hospital while the PPP/C was in Government, the APNU/ AFC has backpedalled on its position and will be moving ahead with the construction of the facility.
Commenting on the situation, Ali argued that the coalition did a great injustice to Guyanese through “deceptive politics”.
“So the Government has finally agreed to the Specialty Hospital. This is not only a flip-flop but a grave injustice to the Guyanese people and more so, barefaced political dishonesty. From ‘we do not need a specialty hospital to this position’; from cutting this project out of the budget to accepting it today shows how deceptive this Government was when they denied the people of this country this project. It is this deception that has eroded political trust in our country. It is these deceptions that have robbed us of further growth and development and who suffers at the hands of such deception…
the people of this country,” Ali posited.
The former Tourism Minister also lamented the fact that Guyana is now two years behind a project which would have been a great success and a critical boost to Guyana’s health-tourism sector and which would have been of great benefit to the Guyanese people.
That aside, the parliamentarian concluded that the Government is finally coming to an understanding that the “good economy” and the “good life” has been given a serious blow due to their own slothfulness in moving the transformative agenda forward and their lack of understanding in the management of the economy.
In the face of two confirmed cases of swine flu and reports of other cases, the public is being advised that there is no need to panic. The assurance came from Medical Director of the San Fernando General Hospital (SFGH), Dr Anand Chatoorgoon, on Thursday who played down the spread of the virus.
He said there were no unique symptoms of the H1N1 virus (swine flu) which is spread by droplets from an infected patient.
“H1N1 is with us all the time. It is not that we never have it. Every now and again patients get infected with influenza viruses… There are many types of influenza and H1N1 is one. If we suspect someone has pneumonia that is galloping unusually fast and getting severe that they need to go on a ventilator, then we have a high index of suspicion this could be H1N1. So there is nothing specific about H1N1,”
he is quoted as saying in the Trinidad Guardian.
He said three patients, including the two deceased – Cherrie Ryce, who died from H1N1 on October 16 and Himraj Mungroo, 60, of Quarry Road, Quarry Village, who died earlier this month – and another case involving a security officer, being treated, are all from south Trinidad but did not indicate that the virus was confined to any particular part of the country.
He also confirmed that test results done by the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) on swabs taken from 16-year-old Shannon Nashaud came back negative for H1N1. Meanwhile, this newspaper was told that Guyana is at high risk for the virus. The local health authorities are on high alert. However no announcement has been made as to the measures that are in place to protect the outbreak of the virus here.
The Guyana Police Force (GPF) A Division last week launched its Crime Security Plan in preparation for the Christmas season.
The plan took effect from Monday 15 November and will continue until the first half of January 2016.
Giving a brief of the plan in the auditorium of the Officer Training Centre, Commander of A Division Clifton Hickens reminded that during the festive season, the incidences of crime tend to build up across the country.
The Force he said will be intensifying its presence on the streets, particularly in areas that have increased economic activities. “We will increase the foot patrol, vehicle patrol (in and around Georgetown), we will look at the Georgetown Prison, nightspots, commercial banks and post offices”, Hickens assured.
He said the force will continue its crime prevention programmes in local communities, meeting with both youth and their parents.
According to him, A Division will be divided into five sectors so it could be adequately policed. Apart from providing security for citizens, persons must themselves take every precaution to protect themselves.
“You are not going to wear lots of jewellery and walk in dark spots without any security, and you should not walk around with large sums of money to make yourself vulnerable”, the Commander said.
Hickens said the force will continue its partnership with the
Community Policing Group (CPG) and the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) to build capacity.
He said the CPG continues to work assiduously to ensure the communities are rid of criminal elements. He said during this time, their support will be greatly needed.
“We are not going to wait until something happens then the police are going to go swarming in. What we are going to do is go into the communities and find out what are some of the problems
ly those who continue to drive under the influence of alcohol, speeding, the use of mobile phones while driving, overloaded minibuses and hire cars. He said special focus is placed on persons operating hire cars, since there will be an increase in the number of persons using these modes of transportation during the season.
Meanwhile, Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum said if everything goes as planned, Christmas 2015 will be the best for citizens and the worst for criminal elements.
deployment of the SWAT team on special operations, the deployment of ranks based on temporal and special analysis and the setting up of road blocks at strategic locations.
Giving details on serious crimes, Blanhum disclosed that criminal activities were found to be high during the June to August period.
However, for 2015, from the beginning of June when he took office, the figure on serious crimes stood at some 13 per cent. However, the
so we could deal with those problems before they escalate.
Meanwhile, Traffic Chief Dion Moore stated that his department will also be upping its game during the festive season to avoid any possible traffic accidents.
“Our intention is to maintain a free flow of traffic by ensuring that traffic congestion is brought to a minimum as far as practicable in Georgetown and its environs”.
He said the traffic department will continue its zero tolerance campaign against traffic offenders, particular-
His comments came after his presentation on the successes of the GPF to tackle the crime situation. Although there has been an eight per cent increase in serious crimes, the Force has maintained that crime in Guyana is not spiralling out of control as is peddled by the media.
The crime chief said the Police Force has been working tirelessly to counter the high incidences of crime across the country. These were accomplished particularly because of the strategies used.
These included intelligence-led operations, the
Force has been able to reduce this by five per cent.
During his power point presentation, Blanhum showed that the higher percentage of criminal activities, have been occurring in A Division.
The other remaining figures were distributed among the other divisions.
According to the data shown, there had been some 126 murders by the end of October. Reports of rape showed a 14 per cent increase with 245 incidences. According to him, those figures do not show that crime is spiralling out of control”.
The Guyana Police Force (GPF) has seized 149.7 kilograms of cocaine so far for 2015. This is according to Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum who was at the time addressing Police ranks at the launching of the GPF’s Christmas Security Plan, on the overall statistics on the incidences of crime over the last year.
According to
decreased marginally, when compared to the previous year.
Last year, around this time, ranks had intercepted 155.5kg (342.1 lbs).
A breakdown of the statistics shows the majority of cocaine interceptions occurring at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport, with 131kg being seized at the end of October.
Blanhum, this figure represents a reduction in the number of seizures of drugs for 2015, when compared to the same period in 2014.
Recalling various incidences, including the seizure of cocaine in shrimp, in the walls of a suitcase and cocaine being strapped to the body of a female passenger, Blanhum related that the seizure of drugs has
“Drug enforcement activities, we had seizures at both airports, and a number of eradication efforts of 37 acres of cannabis and 30kg 746g of cannabis,” the Crime Chief said.
According to him, the cocaine seized over the past five years could be attributed to the large seizure in Bartica and the large seizure of cocaine in lumber in 2013.
UG Guild of Graduates for the graduating student who achieved the highest grade point average in three faculties.
Initiative, passion and persistence
Meanwhile, UG
Chancellor Professor Eon Nigel Harris reminded students that good grades alone will not advance them in life’s tough journey as he underscored the importance of “initiative, passion and persistence”.
“Grades may be important in landing your first job but they will probably not be enough to land your second job or third job,” he highlighted.
The Chancellor, who only occupied the post some two months ago, underlined the importance of a University education. “Getting a university education is an extremely valuable acquisition both for yourselves and the society or societies in which you live. Countless studies have shown that a uni-
from page 23
versity education provides graduates with increased life time earnings, greater chances of job mobility, a greater sense of fulfilment in life and the capacity to be better informed and socially involved citizens,” Professor Harris stated. He highlighted too that the benefits of a university education extends to the children of graduates. “Studies have shown that children of graduates are less subject to child abuse and neglect, have greater intellectual ability, lower failure rates and more likely to pursue higher education goals. Thus a university degree benefits not only graduates themselves but can extend to succeeding generations,” he noted.
Meanwhile, President David Granger, Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo and members of the diplomatic community were in attendance at the Convocation.
Public Security Minister and Attorney Khemraj Ramjattan has been sued by his former legal clerk.
Two weeks ago, Guyana Times International broke the news about Minister Ramjattan’s arbitrary termination of his legal clerk Alex Hilken. Now, in an attempt to seek justice the former employee has instructed his Attorney Charles Ramson Jr to institute legal proceedings, and a lawsuit was filed against the Minister.
On Hilken’s request, Ramson Jr wrote to the Chief Labour Officer demanding an investigation and the institution of criminal charges once the investigation determines the veracity of Hilken’s story.
Contacted for a comment on the matter, Ramson confirmed that indeed proceedings have been filed and served but said the matter is now sub judice so it would be improper and unlawful to reveal further details. Nonetheless, Ramson Jr cautioned that he does not want the situation to become a political issue.
Hilken had told this newspaper that following the May 11 Elections, Ramjattan changed and had the employees attached to his private law firm hanging in hyperspace as uncertainty loomed about their continued employment, given his appointment to the Government as a Vice President and National Security Minister.
Hilken said another Attorney was pinpoint-
of their employment.
ed to take over and had agreed to look after the affairs of the Chambers following a meeting with Ramjattan but soon after experienced severe difficulty in meeting the overhead and other operating expenses of the Chambers.
The young man, who worked as Ramjattan’s legal clerk and driver over a three-year period including throughout the elections campaign, said he turned up at the office one day to find a letter on his desk informing that as of August 3, 2015 his services were terminated as the Chambers could not afford to pay all staff, particularly him.
Hilken told this publication that his attempts to seek clarification on the matter only resulted in utter embarrassment and humiliation.
The young man had said that after much discussion he met with Ramjattan face to face to have the matter clarified as everyone was in disbelief over the status
At that meeting he enquired about his severance pay and the reasons for his dismissal but was told he was not entitled to severance pay.
The young man is claiming that he is owed over Gy$200,000 in severance.
Ramjattan denies Meanwhile, contacted for a comment on the matter, Ramjattan denied the allegations made by his former employee.
“When I handed over my Chambers, he was still fully employed,” Ramjattan declared, and made it clear he could not be responsible for the young man’s dismissal as it was the act of the new attorney.
“I cannot say if he did something and was summarily dismissed. I do not know”, Minister Ramjattan offered.
He said it was quite unfortunate that Hilken was going around making accusations against him as the young man knows fully well that he was not the one to terminate his services.
Opposition
Members of Parliament (MPs) are expected to deposit their salary increases into a bank account belonging to the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C); however, there is no monitoring system established to ensure the parliamentarians comply.
This is according to PPP General Secretary Clement Rohee, during the Party’s weekly press conference on Monday at Freedom House, Robb Street, Georgetown.
Prompted by media operatives, Rohee revealed that the Party would not be monitoring to ensure the parliamentarians fulfil the policy.
“We have taken a policy decision on the matter; every PPP/C MP knows what our position on the matter is… Therefore, they are morally obligated to do what the Party expects them to do,” he stated.
Nonetheless, Rohee assured that the Party
would eventually find out which parliamentarians were adhering to the rule.
“At some point in time, the Party will know who did and who didn’t,” he said.
Since June 1976, the PPP/C has established a bank account at the Royal Bank of Canada - now Republic Bank (Guyana) Ltd. This account was established to facilitate PPP/C parliamentarians to make part of their parliamentary salaries available as a donation to
the Party. However, this newspaper was told that parliamentarians hardly ever comply with the policy. Guyana Times International understands that during the PPP/C’s years in Government, only a few of its parliamentarians adhered to this policy. With the recent salary increases for MPs, the Party took a unanimous decision to refuse the increases. The Party then decided to donate the money to charity, however, it has not yet decided which charity.
Budget 2016 consultations continued last week with the Tourism and Hospitality Association of Guyana (THAG), where discussions were focused on strategies which can be implemented to enhance the tourism sector in Guyana.
During the meeting, THAG pressed the Government for VAT waivers and duty-free incentives which would legitimately aid in the development of the local tourism sector.
According to a statement from the Finance Ministry, THAG President Shaun McGrath related that tourism is currently the only export in Guyana that is subject to domestic tax. He pointed out too that the VAT burden on tour-
ism is not shared evenly, since VAT is waived for the entire sector in the Rupununi, Region
Nine (Upper TakatuUpper Essequibo) and this leaves the industry players in the other re-
gions at a distinct disadvantage. Consequently, McGrath recommended
that a national flat rate of no more than eight per cent be introduced for the tourism sector and for licensed tourism service providers.
Additionally, McGrath highlighted that there is a lack of a duty-free incentive scheme on vehicles for tourism which is a serious restraining factor on the development of the industry. As a result, he suggested that licensed companies be given duty-free status for up to three suitable vehicles once every five years.
Among other proposals mooted by THAG were investment incentives and concessions for tourism, including duty-free importation and waivers of VAT on supplies and building materials and equipment for construction, rehabilitation or refurbishment of tourism-related building, tax write-offs for marketing, as well as training of staff by tour owners and operators.
He also said that companies applying for concessions should be registered for VAT or exempt and compliant with all statutory requirements.
He added that companies claiming to be in the tourism industry should be subject to inspection or provide proof of involvement through
from page 14
audited accounts, physical inspection of property and or office by the relevant authorities where applicable, printed tourism-related material such as brochures and electronic material such as websites and other social media promoting their business.
In response, Finance Minister Winston Jordan gave his assurance that the proposals would be considered.
Jordan told the THAG delegation that works have begun on some of the infrastructure for the sector through the rehabilitation of two hinterland airstrips and that his Ministry is actively seeking the help of donors to refurbish the others.
Meanwhile, THAG pointed out that there is no definite figure on tourist arrivals in Guyana. McGrath stated that the data released by the various airports encompasses all the visitors to Guyana- not just genuine tourists. As such, he took the opportunity to lobby the Government to have the information disaggregated. In response, Minister Jordan conceded that such information is critical as the data on tourist arrivals are critical to the consideration of the proposals for concessions and incentives.
forts were made to address some of the issues, Solomon said a number of efforts were put forward by the Council, in the form of motions and proposed to be resolved through budgets; however, many times the efforts were unsuccessful.
Meanwhile, Region 10 Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) Representative Maurice Butters told the CoI that there are many atrocities occurring within the public service and accused the Public Service Commission of being "too politcised".
The GPSU representative also highlighted the issue of the Linden Hospital Complex (LHC) staff gratuity being cut, noting that although it had led to several protests, the matter to date has not been resolved. Additionally, Butters said meetings with relevant Ministries also failed to address the issue. He also spoke of the absence of a Regional Health Authority in the region and failure to make the LHC a corporate entity; a decision that would put an end to contract workers.
Also testifying was
teacher and former Member of Parliament Vanessa Kissoon, who made calls for the retirement age to be 60 or 65. She told the CoI that there should be proper training for ordinary security guards, in addition to petitioning for allowances, meals, and duty-free concessions for senior managers. She further raised the issue of new teachers having to wait 3 months before being granted payment.
Earl Stuart, an Executive Member of the GPSU and driver at the Linden Hospital Complex (LHC) told Commissioners that the age of retirement should be 60, citing health related reasons while he also made calls for issues regarding the CoI to be addressed and solutions implemented.
Also testifying before the Commission was Linden Interim Management Committee (IMC) Chairman Orrin Gordon, Radiologist at the Linden Hospital Complex (LHC) Brian Claxton, and lecturer at the Linden Technical Institute Gregory Parkinson, among others.
B y D mitri A llicock
Almost gone from Guyana is an age-old tradition and fashionable affection for the words and opportunity of public speaking, letter writing with prose, imperfect grammar of command, said with peculiar accentuation to words and sentences, without a trace of self-consciousness or amusement.
One letter in the 1950s, asking for employment, opened like this:
“Even though none of my applications was successful, I still nevertheless have, beyond contemplative imagination, sincerely high hopes in securing a suitable post into your beneficial highly productive staff – especially so, where all such matters lie under your most competent, influential, and altogether applaudable versatile management. There is, therefore, no doubt to the fact that one’s ambiguous hopes brightens tremendously wherever there is a man of your overwhelming personality, integrity and high prestige together with your immense popularity and most deservingly accorded you in your greatly appreciated, well acknowledged aid towards assisting others in dire need. As a result, therefore Sir, my obstinate aspiration has already found consolidation in you. My obstruent, persistent endeavors to obtain congruent employment in the rather bewildering past have been gruesomely unfortunate.”
A colorful wedding speech of the 1870s:
“My friends, it is with feelings of no ordinary nature which have
actuated my inner most heart on this present occasion, for on such festivities so full of mirth and aggrandizement, when the Bridegroom and Bride in all their splendor repair of the house of reception, and there we find familiar friends and neighbors heralding the consumption of their enterprise, it fills me with that enthusiasm which otherwise would fail to draw our congratulations.”
A letter to Magistrate Henry Kirke, 1874 British Guiana, reads: “Sir, You yourself is a mortal man that God Almighty has made, and through your dignity and wisdom Her Majesty has appointed you to assist the Governor to rool the nations. Therefore Sir, you become not only a Magistrate, but as a father for us in this Demerara River District.
out to take the first steps of the Law before Your Worship so as to make their ends right, and before I recovered my health from the beating, her husband already set up his wife before Your Worship with their compliant.
Moreover the Complainer have many witnesses that are living with her in one aboad and her husband soporting them.
They will no doubt purge themselves before Your Worship, and I having only one though a sconstable and slow speech. I hereby subject myself to Your Worship decision on Court day, and trust that the Almighty will enhance Your Worship to greater Honor for justice sake.”
A historical porknocker love letter
So Sir, I trust with all confidence that you will be hearken to my humble statement. I am obliged to inform Your Worship that on the 11th March 1874 about seven o’clock in the night I was barbarously beaten by Joseph Adonis and his wife with sticks, and inflict wounds on my body and Bloodshed. Also deprived me of the sum of twelve dollars and seventy-two cents I had brought from town with me, the very night, was tied into a handkerchief and was in my pocket.
Both parties deprived me all. I am obliged to confess to Your Worship that I was overtaken in liquor and became drunk, so that I could not defend myself. Afterwards they hit upon the results of what they had done, they planned
reads: “Most Illustrious and Venerated Madonna, I successfully yearn the right to lay first claim to your heart in preference to my vanquish rival. Matchless Damsel, as I contemplate your codigious beauty, I yearn to possess you as my eternal conductric.
Give me your benevolent agreement and before the calendar marks another year, I will contribute thee my matrimonial bride.
I would labor with ferocious energy to afford you conducialfalitsies. I would erect for you a formidable mansion to accommodate multi various progencies. I would purchase for you an enamulate quadruped-a motor car, which’s carbonatious
headlights would resume the night into day. Do not refuse this opportunity for the rejection of such an enormous titanic love could only terminate my catactlemonact affection and decrease my intense adoration.
I remain yours, Affectionate, Carrelous, Ignatius, Orrilous, Fitzpatrick Thimble.”
The same love of the uncommon words with an imposing sound also was shown in the choice of Christian names of many Guyanese of history, as the porknocker letter demonstrated.
A time of dress code, structure and propermannerism, perhaps a make-believe world of leisure and taste, now faded into memories of times to remember.
The Environmental Community Health Organization (ECHO) unites with other advocates against poor environmental practices, to protect communities, and develop Guyana in this era of climate change.
The organisation’s programmes include OnCampus “EchoClubs”, which support afterschool and classroom clubs on the campus of lower, middle and high schools, involving children in environmental projects.
The Volunteer Match programme connects schools and clubs with
The mission of ECHO is to increase the ecoconsciousness and social responsibility of members by providing them access to the natural world, state-of-the-art social media, innovative educational programmes and resources.
volunteers that support ECHO’s mission and vision. The Eco-Field Trips support and fund ecoeducational field trips for low-income schools. Additionally, the EcoSchool Projects support and fund eco-enhancing classroom and club needs. The Youth ECHO Leadership Training offers workshops, seminars, and conferences to develop and train children involved in EchoClubs nationwide,
focusing on developing the next generation of environmental leaders.
In the past, ECHO successfully held nature camps,attended by children from various regions,on the Soesdyke Highway. The camp’s objectives were to raise awareness of the importance of the natural environment to human society; to encourage children to explore and interact with nature, and to provide a forum of exchange of information on approaches to environmental issues. The camp’s activities included nature walks, constructing a nature table, swimming, outdoor and indoor nature games, and talks about the conservation of environmental resources.
sues,” King outlined.
In an interview withTimes Sunday Magazine, founder Royston King said a unique aspect of the EchoClubs is the united curriculum and integrated social media platform that will link clubs and classrooms across Guyana.
“Clubs will initiate and share information about environmental projects and events at their schools to address not only the most pressing issues in their communities, such as water conservation, habitat restoration, energy efficiency and air quality improvements, but also national and global is-
The organisation also launched 25 EchoClubs in Region Five, West Coast Berbice. Notably, the eco-clubs are increasing in number throughout Guyana. The objectives of the clubs are to raise awareness on environmental issues; to provide “Green Education” for children and young adults; to organise children in structured groups to take leadership on environmental issues; and to improve the aesthetics of school yards and local communities.
He added that the special media platform will reach and help youths to learn about ways to protect the environment. It will expand the collective environmental awareness of countless youths by giving them access to notable volunteers, scientists, conservation artists, engineers and more.
Through an informative television programme, Fun with Nature Quiz, ECHO has been educating children on protecting the environment and raising awareness on environmental issues.
Through diverse collaborative partnerships, ECHO plans to develop the next generation of leaders, who will have the knowledge, passion and skills to promote and work toward environmental sustainability.
The vision of ECHO is to be the largest and most widespread and comprehensive organisation for youth environmental education, connecting the community with youths, offering expansive programmes, and providing resources for schools nationwide.
For more information, visit ECHO Guyana on Facebook.
By PetamBer Persaud
The Management Committee of the Guyana Prize for Literature has released its 2014 Shortlist, revealing among other things that the relatively new Caribbean Press has produced two of the books appearing on that list.
Those titles, “Rasta Lyrics” by Cedric Castello, and “The Hinterlands” by Stanley Niamatali, are debut collections of poems.
“Rasta Lyrics” is described as “a first collection by a Rastafarian teacher/singer/songwriter: these rich and very readable poems range over the author's many interests and activities and celebrate Rastafarianism and its founder, Haile Selassie I.”
“The Hinterlands” is a “wonderful debut collection of poems centred around the author's haunting memories of life on a sawmill in the Berbice river. The poet,
now living in the US, straddles two cultures and his poems depict and question the values of both.”
The idea for the founding of this publishing house was sounded out in 2008 during the staging of Carifesta
X in Guyana. In the short span of its existence, it has produced an astounding number of books consisting of reprints of rare books, contemporary writing and books winning the Guyana Prize, historical texts, and speeches of past presidents of this country…
role of publishing houses
Too often we see only the end product in a long line of machinations it takes to publish a book. Publishing houses play an important role in the promotion of literature. A major aspect of the book industry/literature is publishing – book publishing.
Writers are important, so too are editors, literary agents, critics, readers, proof readers et al. Book publishing is not a consideration in the determination of the winner/s of a literary prize, but book publishing could tell a lot about the development and direction of a people’s literature. Here one example will suffice:
Peepal Tree Press (PTP) has cemented its place for its advocacy of Guyanese and Caribbean literature, having decades of experience in the field of publishing. Peepal Tree Press is responsible in a major way for the burgeoning Guyanese literature.
In fact, Peepal Tree Press has contributed to The Prize and Guyanese Literature in a major way since The Prize was initiated in 1987. A look at the shortlisted books from then to now reveal that the Peepal Tree Press produced more than 35 of those books. Another look would reveal that the Peepal Tree Press has produced more than 14 winners.
The 2014 Guyana Prize for Literature shortlist has added another set of imaginative
books/writings to our literature.
Since the first Prize award in 1987, there were more than 110 entries on shortlists; works authored by more than 60 writers. If each entry on the shortlists has the potential to be a winner, then The Prize was responsible for bringing to the fore more than 100 outstanding books/manuscripts.
Additionally, The Prize was responsible for refocusing attention on the established writers, and opening a world of opportunities for continued on page 33
Over a century ago
a group of women, comprised mostly of expatriates, with some locals, was considered the earliest movers of artistic endeavours by women during the colonial period in the-then British Guiana.
This group conducted art and craft exhibi-
tions and operated out of Main Street under the establishment known as the Women’s Self Help Association. Among the group a Barbadian woman, Golde White, took the initiative, around the late 1920s, that chartered a new course for the development of art in colonial
Guiana that still exist today. She questioned the inactiveness of general artistic activities in the colony and single-handedly organized a massive exhibition which became known as the Historic Exhibition of 1930.
This significant occasion led to the rise and fall
of many very important artistic groups, associations, exhibitions and other activities that all saw the presence of women to varying degrees of involvement throughout the decades until today. The eventual prominent involvement of women artists, of past and present Guyana, has set
the trend for many artistic establishments such as galleries, gift and craft shops. The very first private art gallery in Guyana, Malcara Art Gallery, was owned by a woman artist - a painter named Syble Douglas.
The year 1987 saw the formation of the Guyana Women Artist Association (GWAA), which was credited to Dr. Nesha Z. Hanif, who returned to Guyana into a very vibrant and active women artists’ scene.
In April 1988, she immediately tasked the group with a grand retrospective exhibition titled “60 Years of Women Artists in Guyana 1928 — 1988: A Historical
Perspective”. That acclaimed exhibition pays homage to the pioneers of the women artists and their various milestone achievements in Guyana. So successful was that exhibition that the Guyana Women Artists Association was by public demand to hold an annual exhibition to this day, against all odds. New membership to the Guyana Women Artists Association was and still is largely from the E R Burrowes School of Art graduates and sparingly the University of Guyana. Other women artists in the employ of Caricom and of
Following in notable footsteps in pursuing a career in law, recent law graduate Eleanor Luckhoo’s aim is to do whatever she can to improve the Guyana’s legal system.
Eleanor’s father is Edward Luckhoo SC, her grandfather was C. Lloyd Luckhoo and her grandfather's brother was Sir Lionel Luckhoo–all distinguished men involved with Guyana’s legal system. Sir Lionel Luckhoo is arguably the most well-known member of her family.
Interestingly though, Eleanor’s initial career path was in no way linked to becoming a lawyer.
“As a student, I have always been interested in the sciences, which culminated in me obtaining a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from UG. Mathematics also appeals to me and I enjoyed working in accounting at the Bank of Nova Scotia prior to pursuing law. Although these areas are not directly connected to law, I have found that my background has immensely assisted with the analytical skills necessary to study law,”
Eleanor said in an interview with Times Sunday Magazine. Eleanor revealed that being part of a family of lawyers, she was initially tempted to choose a career removed from the legal field – as there might be a level of expectation that she
would be required to live up to. She also mentioned that her family indicated that it was up to her to choose a career that she would enjoy doing and so she never felt pressured to pursue law. However, she later found law to be fascinating and eventually de-
cided to pursue a career in the legal profession.
The biggest challenge for the 31-yearold was abandoning her previous career path and starting over at a time when most persons were becoming settled in their careers. But Eleanor’s family was very supportive; they encouraged her to recommence her studies and supported her throughout law school.
Now, Eleanor plans to contribute to the local jurisprudence by presenting thoroughly researched submissions to the Court. She is particularly interested in Family Law and is excited by the impending introduction of the new family court rules, which she hopes, through her submissions, to assist the court with interpreting the rules and legislation behind them, in accordance with the demands of our particular society.
“I am currently in
private practice with my father at Luckhoo & Luckhoo. I am aware that there is a gap between the academic study of law and the practical aspect, so my short term plans are to gain practical experience and conduct research in as many areas of law as possible. I expect that my long term plans will evolve based on the practical experience gleaned,” she declared.
Eleanor recently graduated from Hugh Wooding Law School, where she received her Legal Education Certificate – and an impressive list of accolades already.
She was awarded Most Outstanding Student Over Two Years, Most Outstanding Year Two Student, Chairman’s Prize (Evidence & Forensic Medicine, Remedies, Civil Procedure & Practice II), the H Aubrey Fraser Memorial Prize (Best
Performance in Ethics, Rights & Obligations of the Legal Profession), the RBC Royal Bank Foundation Prize (Best Performance in Probate Practice and Procedure), the Pelham Sloan-Seale Memorial Prize (Best Performance in Conveyancing & Registration of Title), the Book Specialist’s Prize (First Outstanding Year II Student), the Guyana Government Prize (Best Performance by a student from Guyana), the Peterson, Lambert Peterson & Co. Prize (Best Performance in Evidence & Forensic Medicine), the Phelps & Co. Prize (Best Performance in Civil Procedure & Practice I), and the Book Specialist’s Prize (Second Outstanding Year I Student).
“It was an honour to receive them. As a student at Hugh Wooding one is not just seen as an individual but as a Guyanese and I was happy that Guyanese students were able to receive a number of awards. I was also humbled by the well wishes of Guyanese in attendance at the graduation who were very supportive,” she expressed. Her advice for those who want to pursue a career in law is to ensure it is something “they love to do”. She pointed out that there is a saying that “the law is a jealous mistress” and so she advises that persons intending to take a similar path must be prepared to dedicate endless hours to its study.
“I would advise them to have a thirst for knowledge and keep reading,” she urged.
When she is not engrossed in her law books, Eleanor finds joy in philanthropy work. She volunteers with the Interact Club Teaching Programme at Joshua Home.
emerging writers, bringing them to public attention and a new readership. So the Guyanese bibliography has been extended and the “Who’s Who” of men and women of letters enhanced.
Furthermore, whether you subscribe or not to The Prize for varied
reasons (and many are the reasons for seeing the machinations of The Prize unfavourably), it evokes some interest. It must if you are a writer or if you work in literature.
Another thing about a shortlist is that each work on the shortlist
has the potential to be a winner and that for at least the author of the work is exciting, raising hope, fulfilling a wish.
Another thing you can read in a shortlist is how many times a particular writer has being shortlisted for The Prize without winning. Well,
that’s another story.
And persons interested in the Prize, Guyanese literature, and literature generally can make a game of choosing a winner.
For the 2014 shortlist, as stated before, there are two books vying for the winning
position in the Best First Book of Poetry Category…take your pick. All of these things adding something to the atmosphere in the runup to the declaration of the winners.
Two more feathers in the publisher’s cap. This effort by the CP
from page 31
is only bettered by another press that produced three books to appear on the shortlist. Hats off to the Caribbean Press…
Responses to this author telephone (592) 2260065 or email: oraltradition2002@yahoo.com
The arapaima is the largest freshwater scaled fish in the world and is legally protected in Guyana. The North Rupununi District Development Board (NRDDB), in collaboration with Iwokrama and other partners, developed an Arapaima Management Plan (AMP), which is legally recognised by the Government of Guyana and has recently been revised.
The NRDDB was given a small grant from the Global Environmental Fund’s Small Grants Programme for the AMP project. This grant is called “Strengthening Capacity to Support Local Implementation of Fisheries Monitoring and Management in the North Rupununi
in the North Rupununi wetlands and started the AMP - a conservation, monitoring and management plan.
Regulations made under the 1953 Fisheries Act forbid the exploitation of arapaima in Guyana. The people of the North Rupununi did not harvest Arapaima before 1960; harvesting began with trading to Brazil in the early 1960s. The arapaima fishery developed into an important local income source because arapaima was abundant and the-then Guyana government lacked resources to enforce regulations. However, by 2001, local livelihoods and ecosystems were threatened as the population of these key wetlands predators was reduced to an esti-
Recently, two adult and 25 juvenile arapaima were safely moved from a drying pond located upstream of the Essequibo River from the Iwokrama River Lodge. The dedicated team of Iwokrama staff and community residents spent the day carefully transferring the fish to the river body.
Iwokrama management was informed of the stranded arapaima by officials from the EPA and sent a monitoring team the next day, led by the head ranger, to investigate. One adult arapaima and several juveniles were seen in the pond that was drying out and very muddy. Concerned Fair View residents,
Wetlands”.
There are 16 indigenous communities in the North Rupununi, and fishing is an extremely important activity. As such, over-harvesting because of continued illegal exploitation of arapaima has depressed fish stocks in the last four decades. Consequently, local and international scientists worked together to survey the existing population of arapaima
mated 822 individuals.
The NRDDB recognises that fisheries are a shared resource and has worked with the Ministry of Agriculture, Iwokrama, Department of Fisheries and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for co-management of fisheries resource. The National Inland Fisheries Policy has also recognised this initiative.
who reside within the Iwokrama Reserve on 22, 000 hectares of their titled land, later reported that they had seen not one, but two adults in the pond.
With the critical dry season currently being experienced in that region from the El Nino effect, the partners soon realised that if the fish were not moved from the pond, they would perish. Consultations were
quickly held with relevant partners including NRDDB community experts, Fisheries Department, EPA and researcher Dr Lesley de Souza to come up with a rescue plan.
An expert team of local fishermen from Fair View, Kwatamang and Rewa Villages and some Iwokrama staff executed the rescue mission. Special protocols were applied to ensure safe transfer to the river.
The rescue team included Micah Davis, Iwokrama head ranger (Toka Village); KevinEdwards, Iwokrama tourism coordinator (Kwaimatta Village); Lakeram Haynes, Kwatamang Sr. Council and NRDDB treasurer; Stephanu Honorio, Rewa Village Council; Dennis Edwards, Iwokrama boat captain/Fair View; Bernard Williams, Iwokrama boat captain/ Fair View; Rojas Jonas, Fair View Village; Dora Jonas, Fair View Village; Lucy Marslowe, Toshao, Fair View; Everton Allicock, Fair View Village; Ivor Ignacio, Fair View Village; Samantha James, Iwokrama, Outreach
manager/Kwatamang Village; Rockland Leo, Fair View Village; Deon Bernard, Fair View Village; and Carmella Williams, Kwatamang Village.
The NRDDB is a registered trust and an established non-governmental, non-profit, community-based organisation representing 16 communities. It is an autonomous body, initially comprising of representatives from 12 indigenous communities in the North Rupununi.
In 1996, it was legally established to link the 12 communities with the Iwokrama International Centre for Rain Forest Conservation and Development, government agencies, and other institutions, on issues relating to community development in the North Rupununi.
The NRDDB provides a mechanism for community leaders to meet, discuss, and make decisions relating to the NRDDB operation for their respective communities.
The NRDDB is recognised as one of the leading community based organisations in Guyana.
Since the formation of the NRDDB, membership has increased from 12 to 16 communities.
The NRDDB meetings are open to government, NGOs and other agencies and relevant organisations would usually be invited to attend the monthly meetings based upon the specific issues to be addressed. Membership representation of the board has been changed to 16 community leaders, one other elected community member from each village, a youth group leader, Toshao for Annai District, an elder and one woman leader. This type of decision-making structure is innovative for communities in the North Rupununi. This model allows for the sharing of ideas and experiences, problem-solving, decision-making, highlighting problems and issues to find solutions relating to their respective communities. The NRDDB is recognised locally, nationally and internationally as a legitimate body that serves the purpose of consultation and collaboration for social and economic development in the North Rupununi.
By Devina Samaroo
The recent death of 17-year-old
Nikacia Allen during childbirth sent shockwaves through the country, and as unfortunate as the case may have been, it played an important role in bringing to the fore the pressing issue that adolescent pregnancy is a serious threat to one’s life.
Public Health Minister, Dr George Norton explained that teenage pregnancy, as prevalent as the incidents may be across the globe, is an extremely risky procedure, especially when it is unplanned or unexpected.
“It endangers your baby and it endangers you,” Minister Norton stated.
Dr Norton highlighted that Guyana is not equipped with the latest technology to effectively monitor and control the risks involved in adolescents’ childbirths and very often, both mother and child are impaired with long-term complications. In some cases, situations are fatal.
The 17-year-old mother hailed from the North West District and she died after giving birth to her third child via caesarean section.
“She gave birth to her third child at 17. This
means that she gave birth to her first child at age 13. At that age, she would have had to do a caesarean section and with each caesarean section, the uterus walls weaken and complications arise,” Dr Norton explained.
Dangers to the teen mother
When a woman is pregnant, the body is programmed to direct nutrients to the foetus to aid in its development. When a teenager is pregnant, the nutrients digested would have to be divided between the mother and the baby and as a result, the underdeveloped teen would suffer from anaemia (deficiency of red blood cells). Consequently, hypertension (high blood pressure) occurs. As a result of the hypertension, the
young girl develops preeclampsia which is a condition during pregnancy often accompanied by fluid retention and kidney failure.
“The mother would then become exhausted and by the time she comes to deliver, they do not have any force left to push the baby and they end up suffering. Most often, teenage mothers do not get a smooth physiological flow of birth… they suffer,” Dr Norton stated.
Teenage mothers –due to the fact that most still have under matured bodies – would have to resort to caesarean section procedures to deliver their baby. “It is a high risk procedure,” Dr Norton warned.
He explained that when you cut the uterus to take out the baby, the tissues will now have to heal. Now, should the mother become pregnant again, it becomes more difficult to deliver without complications due to the wear and tear of the uterus walls.
“This is my advice, do not go for the third,” Dr Norton cautioned. He pointed out that by then, the uterus walls would become so battered from the three incisions that the pregnancy could very well be fatal.
“During pregnancy,
the eggs come and insert itself in the walls of the uterus but because the walls will be scarred, the placenta will penetrate much deeper than normal, it would go through walls of the uterus and affects neighbouring organs like the rectum or the bladder,” he stated, noting that this will result in severe complications which Guyana is not highly equipped to address.
“While I am aware that persons have done more than three caesarean sections with no complications, it is high risked… Sometimes, the mother will bleed profusely and result in deaths because you will start getting renal failures and heart failures,” he stated.
Baby suffers
The highest health risk to the newborn baby of a teenager mother is prematurity.
“… He is born before [his] time. This means that the baby will not be fully developed and the possibility of the baby suffering from infection and low development rate exists,” Dr Norton stated, noting if the complications are not addressed in time, the baby could die.
Sometimes, the baby will be placed in an incubator to assist in its re-
spiratory functions or to be exposed to the correct temperature. But even this is risky, Dr Norton pointed out.
“The light might sometimes affect the ba by’s eyes… or the con centration of oxygen the baby breathes in during its period in the incuba tor can be of such an in tensity to cause vessels in the eye to over grow its normal length and as a re sult it produces blindness – reti nopathy of pre maturity.
“Any form of new blood ves sels in the ret ina area where they are not sup posed to be can be considered as reti nopathy of prema turity even though it can be treated, it is a highly sophisticated form of treatment done by a highly specialised person,” he stated; noting again, that Guyana is yet to acquire such skills in its medical practice.
Additionally, the baby will be denied the necessary care she/he needs to fully develop.
fight against bacteria so you find that the baby also suffers from anaemia, meaning low blood count because the whole system has not been developed,” Dr Norton stated.
Stigma and discrimination Dr Norton highlighted too that the social consequences of teenage pregnancy often lead to health complications.
He noted that due to the immensity of the discrimination and stigmatisation attached to teenage pregnancy, the
“The premature baby might not be able to breastfeed and that will rob the baby of that opportunity to develop an immune system that will be able to
continued on page 46
…rice farmers’ money
Some folks make business more complicated than it really is. If you’re in retail, all you have to do is “buy low; sell high”. In any kind of production – whether manufacturing or agriculture or service – you have to get your costs below where the market’s at. But most of all, make sure there’s a market for your stuff and if you have a good one –do all you can to hold on to it for dear life!
If you don’t follow these simple rules, then you’ll have to drop your prices (and sometimes your pants) and take whatever you’re offered –which could even be BELOW what your costs are. That’s the iron law of supply and demand. And if you keep on doing this regardless – because of circumstances or an irresponsible government –then before you know it, you’re not only broke – but you owe everybody and their uncle who can then repossess all you THOUGHT you owned. Including your firstborn if you were careless enough to sign him away.
So here you have it – we had a market for rice with Venezuela that was TWICE THE WORLD MARKET PRICE! And what did we do? Watch it collapse and uttered not a word to save it. But we’ve already told that story on more than one occasion and you may be wondering why another retelling. Well, just to let you know, dear reader, why this lot in government will take this country right past Haiti in the “poorest in the hemisphere” sweepstakes. And not too long from now.
Can you imagine the man in charge of rice –the Minister of Agriculture – actually saying “Too much of a big thing is being made of Venezuelan rice?” And that shipments this year are ahead of last year’s? Well, sure it is. But do farmers produce rice to make profits or just to feed a hungry world? Minister Holder obviously thinks the answer is the latter. Because as opposed to the Venezuelan price of US$780 per tonne, all we’re getting now is a measly US$335-400 per tonne!
At this price rice farmers will be taking big blows since their cost of production for paddy is far above those prices – when you factor in milling costs, etc. But that is not really our focus today… what this Eyewitness wants to know is who in this government has the slightest inkling as to how business operates? Is their principle “buy high and sell low”?
Do they want rice to become like sugar where the more you produce, the more you lose? How dirty can politics get?
Past President Desmond Hoyte brought S Korean Barama to Guyana just before demitting office. In 1994, PPP’s Cheddi Jagan led a team to Asia on an all expense paid trip courtesy of Barama. The PNC of Desmond Hoyte, correctly pointed out, that no matter Jagan hadn’t changed a single paragraph of the PNC-negotiated contract with Barama, Heads of State just can’t accept such freebies.
Jagan was hauled over the coals because he’d created (at least) the perception of compromising our national sovereignty – represented by the Head of State. Your Eyewitness thought Guyanese politicians – especially the president – would’ve been taught a lesson: not only they can’t be bought by a foreign power – they mustn’t even be even PERCEIVED to have been bought.
And we arrive at President Granger – and his entourage – being flown up to Saudi Arabia, courtesy of that country.
Especially in light of no real agenda for the visit, it achieves the impression that Guyana is “easy”. …so buy the Marriott!
Before the election when the Hong Kong prospective buyer of the Mariott fell through, Badal of the Pegasus said he already had the US$8M to consummate the deal. So what’s holding him back now?
Is it the Marriott people won’t have him? Or was he just full of it?
Yupukari village, situated in Rupununi, is home of the Yupukari Crafters, a group of quintessential weavers who have created a new age in perfecting the art form to support their community’s sustainability.
The first Yupukari Crafters piece came about because seating was needed for the village library. The village woodworkers who built the Caiman House Field Station (CHFS) were drafted as furniture makers. Many prototypes, later a dining set, went on display at a local crafts fair. Orders began to come in from local eco-tourist guesthouses and visitors.
Pieces placed in a local shop sold out in two weeks.
Using local ‘moonwood’ (saplings harvested only during periods of full moon when insects depart); cowhide, wild-picked, homespun, hand-woven cotton, and a variety of reeds and woody plants, the pieces are joined without glue, screws or nails.
Precise tenons yield a
rustic, handmade chair that nonetheless packs flat and assembles with simplicity.
With the mentorship of Jocelyn Dow of Liana Cane in Georgetown, the original group of woodworkers, along with interested ‘termites’ (members of the youth woodworking group), formed Yupukari Crafters, a for-profit project to provide jobs in the village and to create an income stream for literacy in an underresourced community. Both salaried positions and a steady market for piecework have been created, with profits directed toward the building of classroom and public libraries, instruction in the teaching of reading, and librarian training.
Currently, the crafters are displaying and selling their craft in the CHFS guest house, and are looking to approach other interested sites to display and sell the functional pieces. The sale of craft creates local income, honours traditional skills, and supports conservation of natural habitats. The
crafters are pursuing indigenous knowledge programmes, where elders pass on their knowledge and links to interested university programmes also, as youths tend to become interested in the available local lessons when outsiders take an interest in them as this would provide needed exposure of their creativity.
The challenge in each community remains reaching available and interested markets. The costs associated with transporting goods, coupled with assigning true value to the crafts, create a challenge also. In each community where individuals strive to practice their art, a developing ‘craft tourism’ is creeping up behind. Current forms of ecotourism looking to complement what is on the ground are seen as a way to help support and guide this initiative.
Artist Combrencent Ernest carved out a name for himself a couple years ago. Literally
in a block of rubber stamp he carves “Made in Yupukari by Combrencent ErnestPractical Artist”. The essence of his self-assumed title and his variety of works is mirrored by other crafters in the Rupununi as one of applied art.
Pieces are pulled, cut, formed and woven from within the environment that everyone naturally negotiates, relates, and survives on. Combrencent feverishly pursues works through wood, paint and clay, as well as experimenting in other local materials. His most notable work, a collaborative effort with Yupukari artist Matthew Dorrick, is a three dimensional mural of the Kanuku Mountains serv-
ing as a gateway into Caiman House Field Station. The other entry into Caiman House is another product of Combrencent’s hands: a pair of wood carved black caimans.
Much like this acclaimed artist, many of the crafters in the Rupununi move comfortably between many different materials. That comfort perhaps developed through a trial of familial apprenticeship or self-interest. Cotton hammocks for rest, clay bricks for security, and a variety of tools borne from leaves serve as an introduction for a lengthy list of needs for life in that region. This effortlessly transitions to be artefacts of culture, local ingenuity and creativity.
Markets emerging from tourism and Lethem as the burgeoning gateway to Brazil, create new opportunities to sell these functional “canvases”, allowing today’s entrepreneurial artisans to continue the traditions passed through generations while pursuing novel forms of presentation.
When considering his next idea of artistic pieces and that people are demanding them, Combrencent usually contemplates what re-
sources are available to make something new, and that is similar to his process for creation.
So what inspires him? “When I get it I just do it. I start on the page with the pencil then I move to wood carving and rubber. Now I’ve been carving in small bone and wood,” he says.
Ernest hopes to carve larger pieces of wood and continues working on pendants, making leaves and fish bone carvings.
Combrencent and the Yupukari Crafters are but some examples of the range of loosely organised “guilds” seeking new markets, partners, and opportunities. Formed through a disparate set of talent in Yupukari and its satellite communities, the “crafters” create baskets.
Guests to Yupukari can now visit to witness the ladies spinning organically grown cotton, weaving a hammock, or take part in the magical technique of making a “fish basket” out of a single leaf.
For more information, visit Rupununi Learners on Facebook.
(Cover photos - Clay teapots from Toka , Cowhide chairs and Mini balata canteens from Katoka village)
Over the years the building at the corner of Vlissengen Road and Brickdam Street,once described as “handsome and hospitable”, was at first an orphan asylum; then the site for Queen’s College, one of the country’s premier schools, before it became the current address for Guyana’s health ministry.
The lot 1 Brickdam St. building standing today is a rebuilt edifice,after a July 2009 pre-dawn fire destroyed the original historic timber construction.
The Orphan Asylum, known officially as the Orphan Asylum and School of Industry, was established in March 1852 by the British colonial government,after the government acquired the land from an Edward Carberry in 1838.
It originally housed juvenile offenders, orphans and destitute children. In 1906 it was considered “undesirable” to mix destitute children with offenders, and of-
fenders were removed to an Industrial School. It became an Orphan Asylum, where children whose parents were either dead, too poor to provide for them, in prison for petty crimes or ill in hospital and unable to look after them, were taken in.
According to the Ordinance establishing the institution, such
children no older than 14 years who were “not idiots or lunatics” were eligible. The Ordinance also advised however that children whose parents were both dead would be given preference over those who had at least one parent.
The orphan asylum began by accepting children for six months at a time. By 1905, children
were being accepted for two years, and by the end of March 1909 there were 61 boys and 30 girls in the institution.
Upon attaining the age of 14, they were apprenticed out at the discretion of the director, for no more than five years.
The Orphan Asylum was maintained from the public treasury; it was also supported by a “two percent duty on all public sales”. In 1903 it came
under the supervision of the Chairman of the Poor Law Commissioners.
According to “The New Local Guide of British Guiana” (1862) both boys and girls were “instructed in reading, writing and arithmetic”. Boys were further taught agriculture and other trades the asylum’s director thought “proper”, while girls learned “plain sewing, cooking, washing, scouring, and all other matters of do-
mestic economy.”
The Orphan Asylum was closed in 1917 and, when a government committee on education in British Guiana recommended that same year that Queen’s College be relocated to the Orphan Asylum Buildings and Ground in Brickdam, students of Queen's College moved into the building in 1918 and remained there until 1951. It has been reported that while at Brickdam, a pavilion was erected in 1920 from funds provided by the Combined Court, but begun by the proceeds of school concerts.
Subsequently, when the school moved to its current Thomas Lands site, the building became the headquarters for the Ministry of Health (MOH) up to today.
Joseph Hadfield, a well-known architect of the time,is said to have designed the colonial block of the original building. Then Chief Justice William Arrindell is said to have founded and promoted the Orphan Asylum during his career as colony lawyer and legislator.
Celebrations for the Guyana Defence Force’s 50th anniversary continued on Wednesday with President David Granger taking the presidential salute at the Consecration and Trooping of the Colours ceremony.
The event was hosted at the Army’s Playfield at Base Camp Ayanganna and saw several members of the diplomatic community in attendance.
President Granger took the presidential salute after inspecting the five Units, who participated in the ceremony to consecrate and display the Colours associated with each of those Units.
The Units included Base Camp Ayanganna, Guard No 2, Base Camp Stephenson, One Infantry Battalion, Two Infantry Battalion and the Engineers Battalion.
During the ceremony, the Consecration of the Colours was done through prayers by representatives from the three main religions in Guyana – Christianity, Hinduism and Islam. The Hindu prayer was done by Pandit Dhanesh Prashad, the Muslim by Brother Asheel Khan, while the Christian prayer was done by Force Chaplin, Pastor George Jeffers.
'Trooping the 'Colours' is a ceremony involving parading
the Colours which identify the Units, developed initially as a means of ensuring that each soldier knew the colour of his unit and could therefore rally in battle. However, Colours are no longer carried into battle in response to the changing circumstances of war. Nonetheless, they remain the symbols of the spirits of the regiments, and the ceremonial tradition associated with them has been preserved.
The event was attended by not only military persons but there was also a large turnout of civilians who all seemed eager to get a glimpse of the precise and calculated parade of the Colours.
After some hesitation, last Wednesday, Trinidad’s Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh confirmed the deaths of two men due to Swine Flu. Swine Flu, not surprisingly, is associated with pigs; but the virus is a variant of the original one in pigs – so in reality direct transmission from pigs to humans is rather rare. And don’t worry you gourmets of the porcine, it’s not transmitted via pork.
The virus that hits us is more accurately called Influenza A/ H1N1, because it’s caused by a strain of the Influenza A Virus called H1N1. I don’t think that designation
“Thanks to evolution, our bodies have powerful ways to ward off illness and infection and enable us to live long and healthy lives. Why, then, do health costs continue to climb at unsustainable and frightening rates?” – David Suzuki
raises many eyebrows but I am sure any mention of “Swine Flu” conjures up horrible memories of the pandemic of 2009. Between 151,000575,000 souls perished worldwide.
So I can imagine it’s quite alarming to Guyana that Trinidad, just a stone’s throw away, has had several cases of death due to the dreaded Swine Flu. Just last month, the Grant Memorial Presbyterian School in South Trinidad was closed for a week because three students there contracted the virus. But at least our local Guyanese health authorities have been put on high alert, according to a report in Saturday’s edition of the Guyana Times newspaper. Normally, my urge to scoot home from Trinidad is always in high gear. Now tack on reported cases of swine flu here in Trinidad, and it’s testing all the resolve I’ve got to not
jump on a flight back to Guyana. I think the fact that we’ve been covering a lot of Microbiology this semester has me especially paranoid about every sort of infection. I keep imagining that at any moment, one of the millions of microorganisms around me is going to do me in. And just in time arrived Swine Flu and mosquito borne Zika.
But anyway, back to Swine Flu, which falls hardest on children and the elderly. What are the symptoms? Look out for fever, cough, muscle aches, and headaches that almost always occur and sometimes runny nose, red eyes, nausea and vomiting also occur. You’ll notice these symptoms are very similar to those of the regular flu.
And as with the flu, the best strategy for managing your symptoms is to rest, try to keep yourself warm and drink lots of fluid. But if further treatment is
needed, there are antivirals like Tamiflu and Zanamivir that work quite well.
However, the best way of dealing with swine flu is to prevent it. The virus is spread through droplets that come out of the nose and mouth when someone coughs or sneezes. Not enough people are aware of the proper coughing and sneezing etiquette, unfortunately, and they end up coating door handles, food, money, their friends, and basically everything around them with their virus-laden droplets. So when you touch that door handle and then place your hands near your nose or mouth, the virus gets passed on to you. Sort of like a really gross game of “It”.
To prevent getting the virus that way, you need to make sure you’re washing your hands enough and maybe don’t sit quite so close to your coworker who’s been sneezing and coughing all day. You can still communicate with a bit of “social” distance between you. At least that’s what they tried to have us do in school.
So if you’ve noticed that your flu has been going on for longer than normal and a nice robust chicken soup isn’t doing the trick, it would be advisable to head on down to your doctor.
expectant mother would try her best to hide the pregnancy or to unsafely terminate the pregnancy.
“The young lady living in Campbellville will not want to go to the health centre because everyone knows her and she will be ashamed and afraid that people will see her and start gossiping. Even the healthcare givers are often guilty of this and because of this, the child will not go to the clinic and she will not get the necessary care she needs leading up to childbirth,” Dr Norton said.
He noted too that teenage mothers will attempt to terminate their pregnancy by ingesting poisonous substances that could result in dire consequences for the mother.
the wider society also constitute the membership. Membership from the esteemed pioneers and founding members – O’Donna Allsopp, Sheila King and Denuta Radzik – continue to anchor the group.
Demanding professional lives, and for some family responsibilities, are certainly a few of the challenges for the creation of works of art by the GWAA members.
What informs the artwork of the women artists through the decades is by no means an accident, but that which exists in the visual world and the subconscious mind. A simple vase of flowers or a market scene becomes a subject and, when rendered with a certain degree of knowledge and authority, it can become a masterpiece worth keeping. For the craft makers it has always been the meticulous exploitation of motifs, designs, shapes or
Dr Norton emphasised that teenage pregnancy is a serious public health issue, as well as a serious social problem that Guyana needs to address from all angles. For starters, the Minister is urging Guyanese to recognise that mistakes happen and instead of compounding the situation, do something that is helpful.
The Minister urged, “You do not know what these girls went through; you do not know their stories. This is not to say that teenage pregnancy is acceptable. We all have to play our part. We need educational campaigns to prevent it from happening but when it does happen, we need to address the situation accordingly.” (devinas@ guyanatimesgy.com)
forms sometimes in a repetitive manner.
The staunch effort by the GWAA members to faithfully execute an annual exhibition is absolutely commendable and worthy of more than applauses. Perseverance is their guardian word since failure seemed never an option for them. Although it was felt that men were dominating the artistic scene in past and present Guyana, the presence and significant input of women have certainly impacted the course of development, which we can all now boast about today.
The 27th annual exhibition of the GWAA is currently ongoing at Castellani House, Vlissengen Road. Admission is free. Gallery hours are 10am to 5pm on Mondays-Friday and 2pm to 6pm on Saturdays; the gallery is closed Sundays and holidays. (Text by Ohene Koama, curator)
Satiricus had all but bitten his fingernails to the quick. His buddy Cappo could tell he was anxious and worried. And why not? Cappo had informed him that Guyana was suffering from its second attack of AIDS – the first being under Burnt Ham and the Pee-an-See.
“Look how much people bin dead den from AIDS under Burnt Ham!” said Cappo. “Imagine wha guh happen now!”
“Man Cappo, is what schupidness you telling me?” Satiricus complained. “AIDS didn’t get to Guyana till 1987 and by then Burnt Ham was loong dead.”
“1987?! 1987?!” Cappo was practically screaming now. “Budday! Is na me and you bin livin’ right heah? AIDS hit Guyana when Burnt Ham nationalise all dem big business and ban dhaal and flour!”
“So without big business and dhaal and flour, we get AIDS?” asked Satiricus incredulously.
“Sato, old friend, yuh get stupid or yuh playin’ stupid?” replied Cappo with more than a touch of irritation. “Is when you cyaan get job and you na gat money fuh buy food yuh does get AIDS. Dhaal and flour na CAUSE AIDS, but when you already gat AIDS, it does help fuh full yuh belly.”
Satiricus looked at Cappo closely to see if he was pulling an elaborate gag. His cane cutter buddy was known for that. But no. Cappo was actually getting upset with Satiricus.
“So tell me Cappo…and exactly how Burnt Ham give us AIDS after he took over all de businesses?” Satiricus phrased his words carefully and made sure he didn’t roll his eyes.
“Geez, Saato,” said Cappo, who did roll his eyes, “How yuh could forget how all abee father lose they job and all abee get AIDS? We use fuh get white mouth.”
“WE – me and you – had AIDS?” Satiricus couldn’t keep his voice from raising. “And how did we get rid of AIDS again?
“Bai, is na when PPCEE throw out the Pee-anSee and all abee get back wuk and we na gat AIDS na mo?” Said Cappo in a puzzled voice.
“And we getting back AIDS now?” asked Satiricus.
“Sato, yuh na see de sign all around yuh?” said Cappo exasperatedly. “People losin’ deh job, no money, white mout, even dem office people. De Pee-an-See come back. Deh cyaan run nothin’!!!”
Satiricus thought he saw a light. “Cappo what is this AIDS you talking about?”
“AIDS, na! De manager tell abee about AIDS when he seh how dem gon close de sugar estate,” Cappo explained patiently and slowly. He wanted to say the big words correctly “A…I…D…S… APNU Income Deficiency Syndrome.”
“De Pee-an-See does spread it,” he concluded proudly.
Mashramani 2016 costume and float parade has been shifted to May, to coincide with the country’s 50th independence anniversary celebrations.
The Annual Republic Lecture series will also occur in May.
According to information emanating from the Mash Secretariat, Mash 2016 will be launched on Friday, November 20, in front of the Education Ministry’s Department of Culture, Main Street, where the 2016 logo will be unveiled, following a packed programme of activities.
Drumming, masquerade, dancing, storytelling, steel band renditions, and performances by the calypso, chutney and soca monarchs will be among the activities
to which patrons will be treated.
Additionally, Music Unlimited, a local music institution, will perform several Guyanese songs.
Among the main activities for Mash 2016 are calypso, chutney
and soca competitions, children’s competitions, which are slated to be held from February 17 to 20, culminating with the children’s costume and float parade, Bright up Guyana, and steel band and masquerade competitions.
On February 23, there will be the official flag raising at Parliament Building, commencing at 07:00h. All the administrative regions are to celebrate Mash as well.
Shauna Ramdyhan, 25, on Sunday evening outshone her eight other rivals to cop the title of Miss Guyana/Universe at the pageant at the Princess Hotel, Providence, East Bank Demerara.
The newly-crowned queen is the holder of a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics and is employed with the Foreign Affairs Ministry. She speaks fluent Mandarin, which she learnt while studying in China. She grew up at Crane, West Coast Demerara and at Mahaicony, East Coast Demerara.
The queen who was somewhat surprised at capturing the title stated that she will represent Guyana confidently and to the best of her ability in the international pageant in December in Las Vegas where she will be competing with 84 other delegates.
She also plans to undergo training in the US prior to the competition. Ramdyhan won Gy$4 million in prizes including a twoyear tuition fee for studies at the University of Guyana. In the package, she also secured a round trip to the US as she participates in the Miss Universe competition.
Claiming the first runner-up spot was Diana Ahmad, 23, followed by Tricia Quail, 18, in second spot and copping the third runner-up position was 24-yearold Zena Althea Bland.
The newly-crowned queen also received the body beautiful prize, with Najuma Nelson walking away with the prize for best smile and Malika Russell was named Miss Congeniality.
The pageant got underway a bit late but the delegates definitely put on a show for the packed to capacity audience.
This year’s edition of the Miss Guyana Universe pageant started with an opening dance by Classique Dance Company followed by the delegates in the enthralling gold and black outfits for
the introduction segment.
This was followed by a fashion display by Sonia Noel which made way for the delegates in two-piece swimwear designed by Derek Moore. The crowd went wild when Ramdyhan made her appearance on the catwalk.
Also getting good reviews during the swimwear were Diana Ahmad and Kiswana Abimola Jefford. The swimwear segment was followed by another display by Sonia Noel’s collection after which the delegates took to the stage in their evening gowns.
While some of the delegates looked stunning as their gowns hugged their bodies, some were too loose and did not have the spark as was expected.
Those who shone during the evening gown competition were: Ahmad who wore a Derek Moore design, Bland sporting a piece from a London-based designer, Jefford and Quail who both wore stunning pieces.
At this point, the judging panel which included Steve Ninvalle, Kerwin Bollers, Negla Brandis and others took some time to tabulate their scores and arrived at the top four which were announced in random order.
The four finalists were then
asked the final question which stated, “If your house was on fire and you had the opportunity to save one thing, what would that be and why?”
The audience was not too pleased with the quality of the question since it did not suit a pageant of this stature. Nevertheless, the delegates answered to the best of their abilities. The queen answered that if she had the opportunity, she would save photos of her family. “I love my family and once the memories are gone, they could not be regained.”
Meanwhile, the announcement of the final results did not go down well with sections of the audience that stormed out of the ballroom. In addition, franchise holder of the pageant Odinga Lumumba also came in for some bashing as he singlehandedly selected a female from the audience as the best dressed woman.
The audience thought that she did not deserve the Gy$50,000 cash prize announced. The audience felt that there should have been a more transparent way of judging the best dresses female. All in all, a New Miss Guyana Universe was crowned and will represent Guyana in Las Vegas later in the year.
She is Abhishek Bachchan’s “little angel” and for her mother she is her “princess”, so her birthday celebration was no less than a royal fable. Actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan organised a princess-themed party as Aaradhya turned four on Monday.
The actress, who got married to Abhishek in 2007, organised a special birthday party for her daughter. The doting mother, who has always mentioned her attachment towards her daughter, arranged a special ‘princess-themed party’ after looking at Aaradhya’s love for Disney princesses, read a statement.
“Aishwarya had kept a close eye on all the arrangements for the special day. And most of Bollywood celebrities and their children were invited to be at Aaradhya’s birthday party, which was held at Pratiksha here,” the source said.
Meanwhile, her fa-
ther wished his daughter on Twitter by sharing a sketch of Aaradhya made by an Indonesian visual artist on his official Instagram account.
“Happy birthday my little angel! This beautiful sketch is made by the super talented @fifipewz thanks,” Abhishek
Dtweeted.
And megastar Amitabh posted on his blog that he will be spending time with the toddler by saying that “my presence must remain with her”, in addition to writing a meaningful poem. (Indian Express)
Rani Mukerji, who is expecting her first child with husband filmmaker Aditya Chopra was hospitalised. Her spokesperson has confirmed that she is "perfectly fine
Oscar-winning composer AR Rahman’s hit number ’Dhakka Laga Bukka’ from Mani Ratnam’s ‘Yuva’ has been recreated for music festival NH7 Weekender.
The festival’s rendition features the maestro himself, who is this year’s headliner, and Karthik on the vocals along with musicians like Vishal Dadlani and Papon, Samara Chopra
and all is well".
She was taken to the hospital on November 14.
It was reported that Rani was at a Diwali bash after which the ‘Ghulam’ actress was left thoroughly exhausted and needed medical intervention.
“Rani Mukerji was admitted to the hospital as the doctor felt that she needed to rest for a few days under medical supervision. She was discharged, but has chosen to rest it out in the hospital for a few more days as the baby’s room is being prepared at home and she wanted to be away from the dust and noise.
“She is perfectly fine and all is well,” Rani’s spokesperson said in a statement.
Rani tied the knot with Aditya last year and is expected to welcome her first child in January 2016. (Indian Express)
(The Ska Vengers), Smiti Malik (Chayan & Smiti), Abhishekh Nailwal and Alisha Pais.
Produced and arranged by renowned musician Ranjit Barot, the track also features bass baron Nucleya and rapper Naezy teaming up with Rodrigo y Gabriela on acoustic guitars, Warren Mendonsa on lead guitar, Niladri Kumar on Zitar, Mohini Dey on bass, Rahul
Hariharan and Jai Row Kavi on drums.
The music video is said to be the reflection of the untameable spirit of the festival.
The festival’s sixth edition kicked off earlier this year in Shillong and Kolkata.
The Delhi edition will take place from November 28-29, in Pune from December 4-6 and Bangalore for December 5-6. (Indian Express)
eepika Padukone, Ranbir Kapoor’s upcoming movie ‘Tamasha’ has been shot in Corsica, and the French Embassy wanted to felicitate the makers of the film for promoting the island. Latest update about the same is that the French embassy has called off the felicitation of Sajid Nadiadwala and Imtiaz Ali due to the recent Paris attacks and the emergency which was declared immediately.
All celebrations and cultural activities have been called off after the attacks.
In ‘Tamasha’, the island has been beautifully promoted as it has been shot at appealing locations which has in a way promoted tourism there.
‘Tamasha’ is one of the most anticipated films of the year as it brings ex-flames Ranbir Kapoor and Deepika Padukone back on screen after their last film ‘Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani’.
Directed by Imtiaz Ali and produced by Sajid Nadiawala, ‘Tamasha’ will release on November 27. (Indian Express)
The film’s spokesperson said, “We are sad and shocked to learn about the terrorist attacks in Paris. We extend our heartiest condolences to the people who have suffered and lost in this incident. We stand with the French embassy and tourism department.”
After directing entertainers like ‘Main Hoon Na’, ‘Om Shanti Om’ and ‘Happy New Year’, which were high on glamour and stars, choreographer-director Farah Khan is now planning to make a movie on “girl power”. She says it will be more “real” than her past films.
“I’m writing a script which is about two girls. It’s literally a ‘girl power’ movie, but it would be much more real than the movies I have made in the past. It will still be entertaining and fun. It will have humour, but it will have a message too,” Farah told IANS over phone from Mumbai.
The 50-year-old choreographer says her friend, superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s
banner Red Chillies Entertainment will produce the film.
Farah is married to editor-filmmaker Shirish Kunder and the couple has triplets. Farah Khan says she wants to “re-invent” herself now.
“I think you have to reinvent yourself at all times. So right now, I want to make this movie and after this I may want to make a ‘Happy New Year 2’ or ‘Main Hoon Na 2’… or something in the zone of those movies. I’m writing a script, and I’m working on a film which is a little more real than the movies I have made,” said the filmmaker, whose ‘Om Shanti Om’ will be screened at the 37th Cairo International Film Festival. (Indian Express)
Director Sooraj Barjatya, who is known for his high-entertaining family dramas, feels more people should be encouraged to watch more family-oriented films today.
Sooraj’s filmography includes ‘Hum Aapke Hai Kaun’, ‘Hum Saath Saath Hai’ and ‘Vivah’, among others. He is also happy with the response to his latest venture ‘Prem Ratan Dhan Payo’.
“We are happy with the love from everyone. It’s a simple film with emotions. It’s a big film for all of us. We need more people to make such films (family films). We do not have enough
people who experiment… We need to encourage people to make such films. We are thankful to all those watching the film,” Sooraj Barjatya told reporters.
‘Prem Ratan Dhan Payo’ has Salman Khan and Sonam Kapoor in lead roles. The film released on November 12 and has earned Rs 250 crore worldwide.
“Today all kinds of films are being made. I think such films (family films) should be made. May be my point of view towards these films would be different from others,” Salman said. (Indian Express)
Hollywood superstar George Clooney left about USD 1,000 to help make a difference to those who need it.
Clooney, 54, took all the glitz and glamour of Hollywood to the small sandwich cafe in Edinburgh that feeds the homeless, reported Guardian online.
The movie star and director also handed over a five pound note in order to sample a platter of sandwiches and a coffee himself.
Former ‘Two and a Half Men’ star Charlie Sheen says he has the HIV virus.
In an interview on Tuesday on NBC’s “Today,” the 50-yearold Sheen says he tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS.
The cafe allows customers to buy hot drinks or food for a homeless person – an idea Clooney praised as “fantastic”.
My
“I like what they’re doing, I think it’s a very
important cause. I think the idea that we can all participate in everyone’s difficulties is really important.” (The Indian Express)
Kim Kardashian is expecting her second child and the reality TV star says she is juggling time for both her kids and husband
Kanye West.
“My husband needs a lot of attention, each kid needs a lot of attention, I work a lot and I want to be able to give every-
one just the same amount of attention,” the ‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians’ star said.
Kardashian, 35, and West, 38, are expecting their second child together, a son, on Christmas, and the second-time mother revealed that two might just be the magic number, reported Us magazine.
“I am so over it… I am beyond over it,” she said of being pregnant, with just six weeks left in her pregnancy.
“I said this last time. I said I am done. Don’t ever make me go through that again… How miserable it is, swollen feet and heartburn. It is the worst.”
(The Indian Express)
Actress Drew Barrymore says being a mother is way more fun. The 40-year-old mother of two said her life has changed completely after having a family, reported E!Online.
“I just love having a family. I love my kids. I feel so blessed. I feel like I’ve never been completely better as a person than I am through my family,” she said.
Barrymore and husband Will Kopelman are the proud parents of two little girls: Olive, three, and Frankie, 19 months.
The actress, entrepreneur and DIY mama realises she’s lucky to have a fantastic extended family, too.
“I love my in-laws. It’s like I’m defying the clichés because we’re all so close.” (The Indian Express)
Drug and alcohol use have marred Sheen’s personal and professional life in recent years. He was kicked off CBS’ ‘Two and a Half Men’ in 2011 after an explosive meltdown that included calling the show’s producer “a contaminated little maggot.”
His escapades have
also included the revelation that he spent more than US$50,000 as a client of “Hollywood Madam” Heidi Fleiss’ prostitution ring.
‘Two and a Half Men’ debuted in 2003 and starred Sheen as womanising bachelor Charlie Harper. It made Sheen one of TV’s highest-paid actors and at its peak was TV’s most-watched sitcom. (The Indian Express)
Two months after Paul Walker’s daughter Meadow filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Porsche, the car company has revealed the actor was responsible for his own death.
Meadow, 16, brought the case against the company in September, reported People magazine.
In the documents, the car company “alleges
Athat Mr Walker knowingly and voluntarily assumed all risk, perils and danger in respect to the use of the subject 2005 Carrera GT, that the perils, risk and dangers were open and obvious and known to him, and that he chose to conduct himself in a manner as to expose himself to such perils, dangers and risks, thus assuming all the risks involved in us-
series of nude pictures of Hollywood star Cameron Diaz, when she was 26, have been released online.
Loaded magazine released a few days ago young Diaz’s nude photos, which they claimed to be the only a full-frontal photoshoot she had ever done, reported Aceshowbiz.
Diaz, now 43, did the photoshoot in a swimming pool. In the vintage pictures, the actress did not change much compared to her current look.
In an interview with the magazine back then, the ‘Bad Teacher’ actress admitted that she never considered herself beautiful. “No, I never did. I’ve got a nose that’s been broken three times and as a teenager I was so skinny at school that they nicknamed me Skeletor,” she confessed.
The publication posted on Twitter
ing the vehicle.
“Mr Walker’s voluntary assumption of the risk should bar the plaintiff’s recovery or, in the alternative, should reduce the plaintiff’s right to recovery from PCNA in an amount equivalent to Mr Walker’s fault.”
The lawsuit added that if the seatbelt were not flawed, Walker may have been able to exit the vehicle before it caught fire – which was allegedly caused by faulty “rubber fuel lines.”
The ‘Fast and Furious’ actor died in the collision in November of 2013 after his friend, Roger Rodas – who was driving – lost control of the vehicle resulting in the accident that killed both men. (The Indian Express)
By Akeem Greene
Team Guyana prevailed over a challenging Trinidad and Tobago team to become the 2015 Seaboard Marine Caribbean Motor Racing Champions. Guyana who entered the final leg in third place trailing the Trinidadians by 147 points made serious head way on their home turf as the final results show Guyana on 934 points and Trinidad on 926 points.
The Barbadians finished in third place on 660; Jamaica in fourth on 369 while Cayman Islands, 154 and Suriname, 25 rounded off the points standing.
Guyana’s late surge in the competition was certainly owed to some terrific driving and riding by all their team members.
However, two of them stood out from the pack; Kristian Jeffrey with his dominance in the powerful Group Four Category and Elliot Vieira, whose skill and desire helped him win in the Motorcycle/600 cc Super Stock.
The young Jeffrey
was totally unstoppable at the South Dakota Circuit on Sunday as he finished on 225 points. Jeffrey, who had already won the Group 4 honours before entering this final round, by no chance let his foot off the gas as he had the home fans thrilled with his superior driving ability.
In second place was Trinidad’s Kristian Boodoosingh on 152 points. It was rather unfortunate that Boodoosingh’s MITS EVO 2.2 AWD similar to Jeffrey’s, began to give him problems dur-
ing the races as he was bumper to bumper with Jeffrey in the early stages. Gerard Carrington, also of Trinidad and Tobago, finished third on 58 points.
In the Group Three category, Guyana-born Paul Vieira, who represented Trinidad and Tobago in his Mazda RX7, won the group with 169 points; Garry Barrett of the Cayman Islands was in second on 138 points, while Barbados’s Kurt Thompson was in third on 82 points. Guyana’s Danny Persaud with his Mazda Miata came
fourth with 82 points.
Group Two saw another Trinidadian representative in Marc Gill topping the group with 189 points; Kurt Thompson of Barbados was second on 118 points and Guyana’s Shiraz Roshandin who had a commendable outing was in third on 84 points.
The Motor Cycle/600 cc Super Stock saw complete dominance by the Guyanese contingent as they walked
away with the top four spots. Leading the pack was Elliot Vieira on 161 points. The young rider undoubtedly has a bright future ahead of him as he rode with precision at the South Dakota Circuit and seems to be a tactical genius, smartly taking the lead coming off of the turns. Stephen Vieira came in second place with 143 points and Matthew Vieira came third on 100 points. Matthew, who also rode
in the Super Bike category and was completely dominant at the age of 17, is another bright prospect for Guyana.
This year’s Caribbean Motor Racing Championships was simply a spectacle for all to watch and there were several outstanding performances; one can only imagine the excitement and thrills that are in store for the 2016 season.
By AvenAsh rAmzAn
Team Gillette Evolution’s Orville Hinds, and the Team Coco’s pair Jamal John and Junior Niles have emerged as the top riders for 2015 in the three major categories, after Guyana Cycling News (GCN) released the final points standing at the conclusion of the season.
After the tabulation of points, Hinds emerged as the leading Senior rider, while John was the top Junior cyclist, and Niles the leading Veteran rider.
Hinds, who recorded a chart-topping seven victories in the Senior category this year, finished the season with 203 points, 22 more than Alanzo Greaves (181 points and five wins) of Roraima Bikers Club. Greaves was one of six riders to record five or more wins in 2015.
Reigning Tour of Guyana Five-Stage champion Raul Leal of Team Gillette Evolution, who had four first place finishes, occupied third spot on 161 points, followed by Evolution’s Michael Anthony (149) and Team Coco’s Hamzah Eastman (148).
Anthony had the second most victories (six),
while Eastman was the first to the line on five occasions this season.
Four riders also notched up over 100 points, and they were Paul DeNobrega of Team Alanis (128), Jamal John of Team Coco’s (120), Geron Williams of Continental (114) and Marlon Williams of Team Gillette Evolution (109).
Raynauth Jeffrey of Team Coco’s rounded off the top 10 with 90 points. Jeffrey and Geron Williams copped five wins each.
In the Junior division, John of Team Coco’s was the runaway winner with 190 points, followed Raphael Leung of WS United on 100 points. John had 25 first place finishes, while Leung had five.
No other rider managed to accumulate 100
points, as Andrew Hicks of Trojan scored 93, followed by clubmate Romello Crawford (50); Christopher Griffith of Team Alanis (63), and his teammates Jaleel Jackson and Kemuel Moses with 21 and 11 respectively.
In the Veterans category, Junior Niles of Team Coco’s, who racked up an impressive 24 wins during the season, amassed a whopping 176 points, followed by Jaikaran Sookhai of Carlton Wheelers, way behind in second spot on 65 points.
Ian Jackson of Flying Stars finished third on 52, followed by the Carlton Wheelers pair of Shameer Baksh on 47 and Ralph Williams on 32 to round off the top five. In terms of wins, Williams was second to Niles with four.
Paul Choo Wee Nam (Team Alanis), Warren McKay (Roraima Bikers Club), Jude Bentley (Carlton Wheelers), Stephen Fernandes (Team Gillette Evolution) and Talim Shaw (Flying Stars) followed in that order to seal the top 10 positions.
The riders will be recognised for their performance later this year when GCN hosts an award ceremony.
The much anticipated year-end Doubles tournament sponsored by the Trophy Stall and organised by the Guyana Tennis Association (GTA) got under way this past weekend with some teeth-clenching matches. It featured many new faces in several categories. Ronald Murray and Leyland Leacock, who have previously made it in the top ranking of the Men’s Open, have now transitioned into the Men’s Over-35.
Playing their first match in this category, they dismantled Steven David-Longe and Harry Panday, who put up a stellar fight in the first 30 minutes of the match. However, the team collapsed to a 6-1, 6-1 defeat to the two younger
players.
Their next challengers in the round-robin format was Sandeep Chand and Sanjeev Datadin, who gave them a closer call. Nevertheless, the determined pair knuckled down at crunch time to secure the win at 6-3, 6-4.
Romario Chanderballi and Philbert Clarke then outmaneuvered Jeremiah Kalekyezi and Vadanan Resaul 6-3, 6-0 in the Men’s Open, but subsequently fell at the hands of Stephen Bailey and Oswin Coggins 6-4, 7-5.
Close points and failure to covert by Chanderballi and Clarke gave Bailey and Coggins the narrow opening to drive the final ball home for the win.
Sandeep Chand and
Sanjeev Datadin are still alive in the same category as they took on junior national players, Hemraj Resaul and Jousha Kaleyezi, who stood their grounds against the senior players, eventually exiting the competition with a 6-2, 6-4 lose.
On the Ladies half, coach Shelly DalyRamdyhan teamed up with student Fiona Bushel to defeat Kizzy Richmond and Denise Barrington 6-1, 6-0. The latter partnership then defeated newcomers Natalie Ramdyhan and Ciara Pooran 6-3, 6-3.
In the Mixed Doubles, GBTI Novice winners Jamal Goodluck and Tandy Primo fell in their first Open match to Kalyca Fraser and Jordan Beaton 6-2, 6-1.
Guyana’s senior national Women’s football side, the Lady Jags, fell to Puerto Rico 1-0 in extra time on Wednesday evening in the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Women’s Olympic Qualifiers at the Ato Boldon Stadium in Trinidad and Tobago.
After a hard-fought game, the Guyanese ended up on the wrong side of the result, despite being a dominant force during regulation time, and the opening half of extra time.
The winning goal was scored in the dying minutes of the second half of extra time when the Lady Jags conceded from
a corner and the Puerto Rican player headed home to spark jubilation among her teammates.
In the opening half of extra time, Lady Jags’ second half substitute, Otesha Charles had the closest shot at goal when she was gifted a clear path on goal by the defender, but her shot was too hard and went just inches over the cross bar.
In the opening half of regulation time, the Lady Jags created several opportunities, but the Puerto Rican defence equalled to the task. Ashley Savona, Justine Rodrigues, Ashley Rodrigues and
Mariam El Masri all made attempts at the Puerto Rican goal, but keeper Karly Gustafson was superb between the uprights. In the second half, a certain Alison Heydorn’s goal was disallowed after the referee said she handed the ball, while Savona and El Masri also made close calls on the opponent’s goal. Charles also failed to convert a pass Savona deep into the Puerto Rico area. Reports out of Trinidad and Tobago indicate that the Puerto Rico goalie Gustafson did tremendously well for her country, keeping the Lady Jags at bay.
The Rose Hall Town Youth and Sports Club (RHTY&SC) Cricket Developmental Committee, as part of its programme to develop female cricket, has started to organise weekly matches against male players for Guyana’s only female hard ball team, the RHT Metro Females.
The team, led by West Indies allrounder Shermaine Campbelle, easily defeated a Demerara Cricket Club (DCC) Under-15 Development XI by seven wickets at the DCC Ground, and then got the better of the GuySuCo Training Centre Under-19 team by five wickets at the Area H Ground.
Playing at the DCC Ground, the visitors invited the home team to take first strike and skittled them out for 113 in 23.5 of the allotted 25
overs.
B Mootoo (18) and J Jones (19) were the only
players to reach double figures, as extras contributed a healthy 36. West Indies pacer Evra Giddings claimed 4-10 and Shaunda Vanderstoop, 2-7. In response, Rose Hall Town Metro raced to 115-3 in 18 overs, with Campbelle striking an attractive unbeaten 58,
inclusive of six boundaries. Her cousin Sherica Campbelle made 26 and Vanderstoop scored 22 not out, as Dereck Greaves claimed 2-26 for DCC. On Sunday last at the Area H Ground, the GuySuCo Training Centre lads were bowled out for 101 in 20 overs,
as the Metro Female bowlers were backed by brilliant fielding.
Altaf Mohamed (21); Fizal Ali (12) and A Brijkumar (17) were the top scorers for the visitors, as Giddings claimed 2-23, medium-pacer Sherica Campbelle 3-15, Melanie Henry 2-22 and Sheneta Grimmond 2-13.
RHT Metro reached 104-5 in response, off 21.2 overs, with Shemaine Campbelle topscoring with 30. Henry (16); Sherica Campbelle (20) and Vanderstoop (15) all chipped in during the run-chase, while N Charran took 2-12 for GuySuCo Training
Centre.
Secretary/Chief
Executive Officer (CEO) of the RHTY&SC, Hilbert Foster, disclosed that the Club would be investing heavily in its female section in 2016. The section presently has 14 players and efforts would be made to attract at least another six players.
He also expressed disappointment that no other club in Guyana has a female section, and this is forcing the RHTY&SC to organise matches against males for the RHT Metro team. Present members of the RHTY&SC female team are Shemaine Campbelle, Erva Giddings, Melanie Henry, Sheneta Grimmond, Marian Samaroo, Diana Prahalad, Shaunda Vanderstoop, Jackie Singh, Niketa Toney, Aleema Arokium, Diana Pertab, P Lynch, Sherica Campbelle and Alisha Hicks.
By TreisTon Joseph
The great Aristotle once said that “it is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light” and while many may have forgotten about her, Guyana’s lone medalist in World Junior Championship history, Kadecia Baird is back and ready to take on the challenges of the 2016 season.
Riddled with injuries and some down moments in her 2015 season, while being unable to compete, was one of the hardest situations the 20-yearold has had to deal with in her athletic career thus far but credited Coach Shaun Dietz for helping her through the tough period.
“Well I have been dealing with a lot of injuries in 2015; I pulled my hamstring at conference… I was dealing with knee problems and a lot of minor stuff. It took me quite a while to get back healthy so I decided to sit out for the 2015 season,” Baird explained of her struggles during her 2015 season.
“It affected me a whole lot, I was at rock bottom, that’s when I decided to go back
home to train and go to school in New York. Being With Coach Shaun Dietz has made me a lot stronger mentally because I enjoy working with him,” Baird told this publication in an exclusive interview.
With her injuries in the past, Baird has the confidence that she will return to even better form than she was during her 2012-13 seasons that saw her capturing silver at the World Junior Championships and Gold at the CAC Championships respectively.
“Well coming back to New York and working with my high school Coach Shaun Dietz has made the process a lot better and easier for me… of course I believe that I will be back on top, training is going very well and with Shaun Dietz as my coach anything is possible… we make a dream team as athlete and coach,” Baird noted.
With 2015 almost over and 2016 quickly approaching, Baird revealed her goals for the upcoming season, “my goals are to stay healthy and have a great season, once I’m healthy I know I will accomplish a lot.
“I’m really just trying to get into the best shape possible but the Olympics is one of our biggest goals right now,” Baird mentioned.
Meanwhile, with Guyana still clamoring for that first track and field medal at the Olympics, Baird believes that she one day can achieve such a feat.
“I do feel like I have the potential to do that for my country, I’m not saying it will be easy but if I have support from the Guyanese public it will make the journey easier for
me but I don’t feel pressured because in the end I’m also doing it for myself,” Baird stated.
Speaking of support from Guyana, Baird highlighted that Guyana needs to show more concern for their athletes and was positive that she will become an Olympic athlete even if there is limited support from her homeland.
“I will reach that level regardless, the support usually comes when the athletes are doing well and winning for Guyana, when an athlete is down people never take the
time to check and see how the athlete is progressing or doing and I think that is wrong. We need the support and the positivity with everything we deal with in sports,” Baird quipped.
Nevertheless, the Carifta gold medalist hopes to thrill Guyanese on home soil during the 2016 year once she is provided with the opportunity.
“I would love to compete on local soil, I’m looking forward to that when we have the trials next year… if I have a chance to do it before the trials, I definitely will,” Baird expressed.
However, as Baird prepares for yet another season, maybe the most important part of this interview is Baird’s hunger for more success.
“I view myself right now at this moment as being very positive and humbled in this sport… I’ve accomplished a lot already and I’m still hungry to accomplish a lot more.
“I’m going to continue to stay hungry and motive while staying humble to achieve my goals,” Baird stressed.
Jean de la Bruyere, a French philosopher once said “Out of difficulties grow miracles.” Baird has already faced her difficulties.
The finals of the GTT National Indoor Hockey Championships produced some of the most exciting and entertaining hockey seen in a long time as the competition concluded on Sunday evening at the National Gymnasium, Mandela Avenue.
A single goal separated the victors from the silver medalists in two of the three competitions, with matches being held in the balance until the very end.
The highly-anticipated Men’s First-Division match-up between GCC and the Pepsi Hikers was a repeat of many finals in recent years as the two clubs, both with vociferous cheering sections, squared off yet again for the chance to win gold. The teams had played to a tense 3-3 draw in their pool round clash on the opening night and now returned in the final where an outright winner would be crowned.
GCC got off the mark first in the seventh minute when pool round topscorer Orland Semple successfully executed a penalty corner shot into the Hikers’ net. The Hikers lifted their work rate over the next few minutes and were rewarded four minutes later when Jamarj Assanah and Robert France both replied within a minute of each other to give the Hikers a 2-1 lead.
Dwayne Scott drew the match even at 2-2 in the 13th minute, then Kevin Spencer produced a remarkable goal for GCC by skilfully outwitting a plethora of defenders before sending his shot past goalkeeper Jason Hoyte to
take GCC into half-time with a 3-2 lead.
GCC seemed to settle into a comfortable defensive position as they met every Hikers challenge with astute defence and composure. The Hikers, however, would win a penalty corner three minutes into the second half and would have to rely on specialist Shane Samuels to break the deadlock. With the pressure of advancing goalkeeper Rawl Davson blocking most of the goal, Samuels produced a stunning finish that flew like a bullet into the top far corner of the GCC net.
Samuels’ goal seemed to once again awaken GCC, who enjoyed a dominant period where Dwayne Scott and Devin Hooper would swing the game 5-3 in GCC’s favour in the 26th and 28th minute with
a pair of goals. The Hikers refused to crumble to the pressure and Jamarj Assanah would respond just two minutes later to set up a crescendo by Samuels.
As the Hikers earned two penalty corners in the 34th and 37th minutes, Samuels reproduced his fine form and nailed both strikes to take his team into the lead for the final time at 6-5. GCC withdrew their goalkeeper in the dying minutes in favour of an extra field player to gain the attacking advantage, but the Hikers absorbed their attack and Devin Munroe’s counterattack saw the Hikers score their final goal just before the buzzer for the 7-5 win.
The Ladies final produced another thriller with the GCC Tigers opposing their counter-
parts the GCC Panthers. The match soon became a duel between Tigers Captain Sonia Jardine, who finished on a hat-trick and energetic Panthers striker and eventual MVP Shebiki Baptiste, who scored all four of the Panthers goals for the win.
After scoring the opening goal in the seventh minute, the Tigers would see Baptiste level the score on three occasions throughout the match before scoring the winner four minutes from fulltime, with each goal celebration eclipsing the previous one and the crowd responded in appreciation.
The Old Fort men outduelled the Hikers earlier in the evening for the Men’s Second-Division crown; while the Hikers were first on the board through
overlapping defender Rayon Branford, Old Fort’s Jason Clarke and Jael Gaskin secured the victory in the 26th and 28th minutes to claim the gold.
At the end of the evening, several individual awards were presented along with the winner’s trophies and medals by Anjanie Hackett, GTT’s Manager of Marketing and Public Relations.
The two most promising players were Omar Hopkinson and Minsodia Culpepper, while the Most Valuable Players of the three categories were Jael Gaskin (Men’s Second Division); Shebiki Baptiste (Ladies) and Shane Samuels (Men’s First Division).
The most promising goalkeepers were Michael Hing (Men’s Second Division); Sarafina Phillips (Ladies) and Medroy Scotland (Men’s First Division).
