Daily Archive: Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Guyanese-born, Dr. Ivelaw Lloyd Griffith, ninth president of Fort Valley State University, author and Caribbean security expert, today paid a courtesy call on President Donald Ramotar at the Office of the President.

Former beauty queen Carolan Lynch who is wanted for the murder of her husband today turned herself over to the police after being on the run for more than three years and according to one of her lawyers she will be appearing in court tomorrow morning.

MELBOURNE, (Reuters) – Stanislas Wawrinka brought a dramatic end to Novak Djokovic’s quest for a fourth successive Australian Open title in the quarter-finals today when he finally found a way to beat the Serbian in a grand slam five-setter.

(Barbados Nation) A Guyanese has been charged with a number of drug offences.

The Guyana-registered General Cargo Vessel ‘STOLLIE 1”, which was bound for Port Kaituma, North West District, sank between the entrance of the Pomeroon and Waini Rivers on Saturday and this is now being investigated by the Maritime Administration Department (MARAD).

(Trinidad Express) The United States’ Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has targeted several local businessmen of interest in their probe into the TT$644 million cocaine drug bust in Norfolk, Virginia, USA in December.

(Trinidad Express) National Security Minister Gary Griffith stated yesterday that the days of catching the petty criminals while allowing the ‘big fish’ free rein are over.

Blake Slater and Dwayne Newton-Jacobs, the pilot and cargo handler from the Trans Guyana Airways (TGA) plane that crashed in the Middle Mazaruni jungle on Saturday, were confirmed dead yesterday and up to last evening soldiers were working to extract their bodies from the wreckage.

Gun toting men yesterday attacked an Antiguan registered vessel owned by Trinidadian shipping company, Coastal Shipping, damaging Global Positioning System (GPS), navigational and radio equipment and according to Dr Grantley Waldron who operates the sand mining concession where the attack occurred, it was a deliberate attack to immobilise the vessel.

City magistrates’ courts resumed operations yesterday at the refurbished complex along the Avenue of the Republic, which was reopened after an almost three-year-long closure for renovations.

Two more witnesses are supporting the allegations that Colwyn Harding was brutalised while in custody at the Timehri Police Station.

A spanking new post office is in the future for the Kitty community as its current building located at Alexander and Pike streets Kitty is up for sale and removal.

Bejorie Limited is yet to make contact with the Maritime Administration Department (Marad) to have 17 abandoned vessels removed from Trinidadian waters.

New attorney Keisha Hiles was admitted to the Guyana Bar on January 3 before Justice Roxane George with her petition was presented by Christine McGowan-Grant and witnessed by family and friends. 

Minister of Local Government Ganga Persaud yesterday acknowledged that substandard work was done on the approach to a $43 million bridge at Moruca and said that as soon as there is fair weather, the ministry expects that the work will be completed.

Even as the Justice Institute Guyana yesterday condemned the alleged baton rape committed on Colwyn Harding and the PNCR made a monetary donation, Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee urged all to await the facts before rushing to judgment.

Chairman of the national selectors Rayon Griffith yesterday said that despite the vast improvement shown by members of the national team during the camp, the latter week of training will be the most crucial ahead of next week’s 2014 Nagico Super50 tournament which bowls off on January 30 in Trinidad.

Two men have been arrested in connection with the murder of Saresh Gobardhan, whose body was found at the corner of the road at Dochfour, East Coast Demerara on Friday.

The construction worker who was injured by a pile of zinc sheets, he was meant to replace at the Gafoor’s Complex in Houston, East Bank Demerara, on the 12th January, sustained an injured spine and fractured skull and left upper cheekbone.

Accused of concealing 33 pounds of cocaine in 15 packets of powdered milk, American-born Jermaine Lowe was refused bail and remanded to prison when he appeared yesterday in court.

Alpha United head coach Wayne Dover said yesterday that he is the most experienced and qualified person to be named head coach of the National football team known as the Golden Jaguars.

(Reuters) – Azhar Ali hit a belligerent century on the final day as Pakistan pulled off a dramatic five-wicket victory in the final test against Sri Lanka to level the three-match series 1-1 yesterday.

Audwin Amsterdam, a young police constable who was attacked by his neighbour on Sunday, yesterday underwent surgery at the Georgetown Public Hospital for a severed right knee.

MELBOURNE, (Reuters) – Rafa Nadal came through his first proper test to storm into the quarter-finals of the Australian Open yesterday but Maria Sharapova was ushered to the exit after a second big shock in as many days in the women’s draw.

GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands, CMC-Trinidad and Tobago’s dream of becoming the first team to represent the Caribbean at the FIFA Under-20 Women’s World Cup came to a bitter end in the Cayman Islands on Sunday.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) yesterday chastised Education Ministry Permanent Secretary Delma Nedd for continuously failing to sanction officers who approve payments to contractors for substandard and/or incomplete work.

MELBOURNE, Australia,  CMC- West Indies T20 captain Dwayne Bravo performed brilliantly with bat and ball but his efforts could not prevent the Melbourne Renegades from a narrow two run loss to Sydney Sixers in a semi-final match of Australia’s Big Bash over the weekend.

ChildLink yesterday signed an agreement with the European Union (EU) for a €200,000 grant for its ‘Empowering Children in Difficult Circumstances’ project.

ST GEORGE’S, CMC – Former West Indies cricketers Courtney Walsh and Rawl Lewis have been confirmed to participate in the inaugural Junior Murray/Made In Grenada Celebrity Cricket Match next month.

The Guyanese Organisa-tion of Indigenous Peoples (GOIP) in a release has deemed the deafening silence by state funded groups such as the Indigenous Peoples Com-mission, Women’s and Gender Commission, Rights of  the Child Commission and National Toshaos’ Council on the recent murder of 17-year-old Theiana Andrews as most appalling.

The Public Accounts Committee Sub-Committee on the Public Procurement Commission (PPC) has received around 20 nominations for the PPC, including that of Mayor Hamilton Green.

(The Sports Xchange) – Kevin Durant scored 30 points and handed out nine assists to lead the Oklahoma City Thunder to a 108-93 victory over the Sacramento Kings.

The $50 million Harold B Davis Special School was yesterday commissioned at the Ptolemy Reid Rehabil-itation Centre (PRRC) during a simple ceremony, at which Rehabilitation Offi-cer Cynthia Massay announced that the name was chosen to honour former chairman, Harold B Davis, who was the longest serving chairman of the school board.

The National Assembly last Thursday passed legislation which is intended to create a steady flow of adequately trained and certified surveyors and establish a board which will regulate the profession.

Grove Hi-Tech won the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport/East Bank Football Association (EDFA) knockout tournament after they defeated Kuru-Kuru Warriors 3-1 in the final at the Grove Community Centre ground on Sunday.

An allegedly handicapped man, accused of robbing a man while armed with an ice pick, was granted $150,000 when he appeared at the reopened Georgetown Magistrates’ Court on Avenue of the Republic and Brickdam yesterday.

NEW YORK,  (Reuters) – The Denver Broncos and the Seattle Seahawks won their National Football League conference championships in brilliant style on Sunday to set up a historic Super Bowl between the top two ranked teams in the United States.

Trevor Parks, accused of attempting to traffic over 4 kilogrammes of cocaine out of the country through the Cheddi Jagan International Airport, Timehri (CJIA) last Friday, was remanded to prison when he made an appearance at a city court yesterday.

The Guyana Table Tennis Association (GTTA) will kick off their 2014 activities with a teams league tournament which is expected to get underway early next month at a venue to be decided.

Police Constable Kirk Profitt who was shot early Saturday morning by two men is recovering in the Male Surgical Ward at the Georgetown Public Hospital after undergoing surgery.

Dear Editor, I join with others in welcoming the appointment of Justice Winston Moore as Ombudsman. 

(Cricinfo) Cricket South Africa has become the first national board to call for the ICC to withdraw the draft proposal that would put power in international cricket in the hands of India, England and Australia.

Dear Editor, I write to publicly thank one of Guyana’s medical officers, Medex Gouveia, for the kindness and professionalism he showed me when I needed his help on Monday, January 14.

The question of the late payment of prize money to winners of last year’s National Drama Festival (NDF) has to be answered by the festival director, the Ministry of Culture said, charging that there were discrepancies in the budgetary submissions.

Dear Editor, With respect to the doctors who have studied in Cuba and have since returned to practise here, mainly to fulfil contractual obligations, if and when any of them have to leave Guyana, even if it is to go to neighbouring Suriname, they have to go through the process of getting a release from the Ministry of Health or the Public Service Ministry. 

Guyana Power and Light Inc (GPL) is looking to have its 26-megawatt power plant at Vreed-en-Hoop, West Coast Demerara commence commercial operations by the end of July after unprecedented civil works pushed the cost of the project up an additional US$6 million – US$9 million.

(Reuters) – New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick called it a key play in Sunday’s 26-16 loss to the Broncos in Denver and said receiver Wes Welker’s injury-causing hit on cornerback Aqib Talib was one of the “worst he’s ever seen”.

VIENNA/BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Iran has halted its most sensitive nuclear operations under a preliminary deal with world powers, winning some relief from economic sanctions yesterday in a ground-breaking exchange that could ease a threat of war.

Dear Editor, At the Kitty-Campbellville bus park just next to Demico House runs a drain between the road and the pavement parallel to the St Andrew’s Kirk fence that every commuter knows about, an area where a hive of activities go on daily. 

State TV, National Communica-tions Network (NCN) registered a profit of $75.9M for 2011 mainly on the back of its government subvention of $70M but its annual accounts for that year earned a qualified opinion over a whopping $913m in non-current assets which could not be verified.

The mother of four-year-old Jaden Mars is waiting for the investigation results from the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation into the child’s death.

UNITED NATIONS/ ANKARA (Reuters) – UN chief Ban Ki-moon withdrew a last-minute invitation to Iran to attend peace talks on Syria yesterday after the Syrian opposition threatened to boycott this week’s conference if President Bashar al-Assad’s main sponsor took part.

Dear Editor, The failure by the Charity police to enforce the law by prosecuting perpetrators of noise nuisance emanating from business places just under the nose of the station, is responsible for an escalation of the problem of which we are the victims.

KARACHI, (Reuters) – The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) will oppose any structural overhaul of world cricket’s administration that will effectively hand power over to India, England and Australia, it said yesterday.

CARACAS (Reuters) – President Nicolas Maduro is urging representatives of Venezuela’s television stations yesterday to change what he calls a culture of violence glamorized by the media.

BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazil’s leftist President Dilma Rousseff will try to convince the world’s business elite in Davos this week that her country is still a good investment despite three years of mediocre growth.

KARACHI, (Reuters) – All-rounder Abdur Razzaq was the only notable omission when Pakistan named their 30-man preliminary squad yesterday for the Twenty20 World Cup in Bangladesh.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper told Israel’s parliament yesterday any comparison between the Jewish state and apartheid South Africa was “sickening”, drawing a standing ovation – and an angry walkout by two Arab legislators.

Dear Editor, In a week that has hopefully clarified the good Minister of Culture’s unfortunate misconception that I am his “lone critic,” it seems that Dr Frank Anthony has disappeared from the public eye. 

The conclusion of a paper committal at the Charity Magistrate’s Court yesterday saw an Essequibo man committed to stand trial in the High Court for the rape of a child under the age of 16.

Additional material resources allocated to the Guyana Police Force (GPF) ‒ including additional ranks, arms and ammunition, vehicles, computers and police stations – are unlikely to yield any commensurate improvement in the quality of policing unless, somehow, the allocation of those resources can be accompanied by a corresponding enhancement of the Force’s public image.

Dear Editor, My landline residential telephone has not been working since the start of the New Year.

A 52-year-old man was yesterday placed on $10,000 bail when he appeared before Magistrate Sunil Scarce at the Charity Magistrate’s Court charged with using abusive language.

LONDON (Reuters) – Which investment takes your fancy: BRIC, MINT or CIVETS?

Politikles

(Reuters) – Australia’s Ashes hero Mitchell Johnson denied Michael Clarke a hat-trick when the paceman edged his skipper in a tight vote to pick up a maiden Allan Border medal yesterday.