Daily Archive: Thursday, December 22, 2016

The Pattensen woman, who was charged with trafficking a young woman, was today found guilty, sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay $2 million restitution to the complainant.

MUMBAI, (Reuters) – India off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin was named the International Cricket Council (ICC) Cricketer of the Year on Thursday for taking 48 wickets and scoring 336 runs in eight tests during the voting period.

The two union groupings in the country, the TUC and FITUG today called on Minister in the Ministry of Social Protection.

(Trinidad Guardian) Government allocations for Carnival 2017 have suffered yet another cut.

Leader of the Opposition Bharrat Jagdeo yesterday submitted a list of six names to President David Granger from which he could possibly choose the next chairman of the Guyana Elections Com-mission (GECOM).

The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) yesterday advised that drug charges be laid against the two police constables who were held in Berbice on Monday afternoon following the discovery of five kilogrammes of marijuana.

Executive Member of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) Bharrat Jagdeo has not ruled out contesting for the position of General Secretary of the party.

Commissioner of Police Seelall Persaud yesterday urged 225 new law enforcement officers to remember their oath of office throughout their careers as it is the most effective guide in providing service to society.

A Canje family’s holiday season took a turn for the worse, as a father and son will now have to be laid to rest together, since they were discovered dead one day apart.

Smart City Solutions (SCS) yesterday launched its first meter on Regent Street however, citizens will not be required to pay for the service until January 7.

A Grove, New Scheme woman was yesterday placed on $100,000 bail by a city court, after she denied embezzling nearly $4 million from Gafsons Industries Limited, where she was employed.

Controversy continues to envelop the Sussex Street Drug Bond, as the Ministry of Public Health has budgeted $150M for the full year’s rent for  2017 when it was expected that the government would negotiate a lower rental and eventually exit the much criticised arrangement.

The $250B budget presented to the National Assembly on November 28, 2016 by Finance Minister Winston Jordan was passed yesterday after a week of speeches and another of gruelling scrutiny of the estimates.

Charlestown woman, Angela Vigilance, was yesterday sentenced to three years in prison at the end of a trial that found her guilty of being in possession of 120 grammes of cannabis.

Visitors to the Giftland Mall will be expected to pay a $1,000 “redeemable concession fee” upon entry on December 23 and 24 respectively.

President David Granger yesterday said that Guyana is prepared to prove its border case against  Venezuela at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, according to a release from the Ministry of the Presidency.

A 78-year-old Guyanese man living in a stable in Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) may just get his wish to return to Guyana before Christmas with the help of the Trinidad-based Guyana Agency for Development Affairs (GADA).

Juman-Yassin was re-elected unopposed as President of the Guyana Olympic Association (GOA) for another four-year term when the body held its Annual General Meeting (AGM) yesterday at Liliendaal.

The driver of a motorcar was yesterday arrested by the police at the Aroaima checkpoint in Region 10 while two others managed to escape following the discovery of a revolver and a quantity of narcotics in the vehicle.

All passengers who were destined for Guyana and New York via Dynamic Airways over the past weekend have successfully been transported to their destinations, spokesman for the airline, Gerry Gouveia related last evening.

Defending men’s champion Paloma secured a hard-fought win while women’s titlist Silver Sands were held to a draw when the seventh annual Atkinson Brothers five-a-side football tournament commenced Tuesday.

Minister of Public Security Khemraj Ramjattan on Tuesday expressed confidence in having the 911 Emergency numbers fully functioning by the end of January 2017.

Four months after a protest was filed by Demerara Distillers Limited (DDL) to the Bid Protest Committee (BPC) over the award of a contract for the supply of juice for government’s school feeding programme, sources say a decision is expected by tomorrow.

Frank Tucker recently became a certified International Federation of Bodybuilding and Fitness (IFBB) International Judge, the only one on local soil but Guyana Bodybuilding Fitness Federation (GBBFF) President, Keavon Bess and the local fraternity could not be more proud.

The Guyana Beach Football Association has selected its final squad to participate in the CONCACAF Beach Soccer Championships to be held in Nassau, Bahamas next February.

The Guyana Power and Light (GPL) and the National Association of Agricultural, Commercial and Industrial Employees (NAACIE) came to an agreement on Tuesday for the workers to take home a 5% increase, a day after they protested the initial proposal of 2%.

The $43.1 billion budgeted for the education sector was yesterday approved by the Committee of Supply with Minister within the Ministry of Education Nicolette Henry being grilled by opposition members on among other things, the controversial Kato Secondary School and why teachers of Region 9 had not been paid as of yesterday for the month of December.

LONDON, (Reuters) – Audacious coups by Andy Murray and Angelique Kerber have transformed the tennis landscape and they will begin 2017 eyeing the kind of domination that few would have thought possible at the start of a seismic year.

LONDON,  (Reuters) – Irresistible Chelsea go into the Christmas round of fixtures knowing they can end the year by re-writing the record books.

The International Centre for Parliamentary Studies (ICPS), has chosen Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM),  Dr Steve Surujbally to be this year’s recipient of the ICPS Award for Sustained Achievement in the Field of Elections Management, a release from GECOM said yesterday.

KINGSTON, Jamaica,  CMC  – Jamaica Scorpions captain Nikita Miller hailed the performances of Brandon King and Damion Jacobs in their side’s recent victory over Leeward Islands Hurricanes in the WICB Regional Four-Day Tournament.

In order to bring into effect the various new tax measures included in the 2017 Budget, Minister of Finance, Winston Jordan on Tuesday took 11 new bills to the National Assembly and had them read for the first time, along with six new papers.

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – Re-gional Twenty20 star Dwayne Smith will return to the Barbados Tridents side in the second big transfer move ahead of the next season of the Caribbean Premier League.

SYDNEY, Australia, CMC – Three players with ties to the Caribbean failed to make a big impact on the latest game in the Big Bash League yesterday.

NEW DELHI, (Reuters) – Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s crackdown on the cash economy has shattered the consensus needed for a new national sales tax, plunging his boldest reform into limbo and threatening to entrench an economic slowdown.

RALEIGH, N.C., (Reuters) – North Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature yesterday defeated a bipartisan bid to repeal a controversial law restricting bathroom access in the state for transgender people, which has seen months of protests and boycotts by opponents decrying the measure as discriminatory.

ROSEAU, Dominica, CMC – Windward Islands Volcanoes will be under new direction, when the Regional Super50 Tournament begins next month in Antigua and Barbados.

Dear Editor, The future Guyana is seeking happened years ago in some countries of the world.

Dear Editor, Please permit me a partial response to your editorial of Dec 20 on the future of the sugar industry.

MUMBAI, (Reuters) – The emergence of youngsters Lokesh Rahul and Karun Nair will increase the pressure on India’s established batsmen to be more consistent as the world’s top-ranked test side look to dominate next year.

LIMA,  (Reuters) – The government of Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski said it was helping the attorney general’s office obtain information from prosecutors abroad after Brazil-based Odebrecht said in a global plea deal that it doled out $29 million in bribes to local officials over three presidencies.

Mayoral walkabout: City Mayor Patricia Chase-Green (second from left) and Deputy Mayor elected/Chairman of the Markets Committee Lionel Jaikarran (third from left) during a visit yesterday to Regent Street and the Stabroek Market assessing the vending situation during the Christmas season.

(Reuters) – South Africa captain Faf du Plessis has lost his appeal against a ball-tampering conviction but will be free to play in the first test against Sri Lanka starting on Boxing Day.

Dear Editor, The Guyana Police Force is responding to a letter in yesterday’s edition of the Stabroek News under the caption ‘Linden funeral home treated disrespectfully by police.’

NEW YORK,  (Reuters) – A Florida construction equipment exporter’s owners were arrested yesterday on charges they illegally transferred over $100 million from businesses largely in Venezuela to U.S.

Dear Editor, I wonder if readers of SN noticed the recent death of the American Whitney Smith at the age of 76?

NEW YORK, (Reuters) – Delta Air Lines Inc removed two men from a plane at London’s Heathrow Airport before takeoff yesterday, and one of the men accused the airline of acting on passenger complaints that he had been speaking on a phone in Arabic.

Giftland donations: The Giftland Mall yesterday presented 10 local charities with donations of $51,200 each from a total of $512,000 raised through a promotion that saw customers making contributions to the cause.

CAPE TOWN, (Reuters) – Former South Africa batsman Alviro Petersen has been banned from cricket for two years after admitting sitting in on meetings where plans were hatched to fix matches in the domestic Twenty20 competition.

Sink hole: After a galvanized pipe burst near to the seawall and Vlissengen Road on Wednesday, a sink hole opened up which caught the attention of the Ministry of Public Infrastructure (MPI).

Dear Editor, The last person in this country to speak about lack of professionalism and recklessness should be Valmikki Singh.

(Reuters) – Dutch scientists have developed an artificial leaf that can act as a mini-factory for producing drugs, an advance that could allow medicines to be produced anywhere there is sunlight.

MUMBAI, (Reuters) – England’s humiliating series defeat in India painfully exposed an alarming paucity in the side’s slow bowling options and drove home the fact they will continue to struggle in South Asia until they unearth some world class spinners.

NEW YORK, (Reuters) – Brazil-based construction colossus Odebrecht SA and affiliated petrochemical company Braskem SA agreed yesterday to pay at least $3.5 billion, the largest penalty ever in a foreign bribery case, to resolve international charges involving payoffs to Brazil’s state oil company and others.

Dear Editor, It was yet another sad state of affairs for the remaining old age pensioners who had to go on the second given date at the Amerindian hostel in Suddie to collect their pension books for next year.

(The Sports Xchange) – DeMarcus Cousins scored a season-high 55 points, and his three-point play after an apparent ejection with 35 seconds left in the game lifted the Sacramento Kings to a 126-121 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers on Tuesday.

 KINGSTON, Jamaica, CMC – Former Jamaica captain Tamar Lambert will head to Australia shortly to play club matches there.

(Barbados Nation) Questions are being raised about the financial health of Digicel, which is a major player in the telecommunications sector in Barbados and the Caribbean.

Dear Editor, As someone who was instrumental in engineering the formation and victory of the PNCR-led administration, I have over the term of the new government had cause for reflection on its conduct and the policy positions it has adopted. 

(Reuters) – The U.S. government spent more than a decade preparing responses to malicious hacking by a foreign power but had no clear strategy when Russia launched a disinformation campaign over the internet during the U.S.

Christmas is mere days away. This week, the city is abuzz with throngs of people, particularly in the main shopping areas, fetching the ubiquitous black shopping bag, rolled-up rugs and vinyl for floors, Christmas trees, et al.

BUENOS AIRES, (Reuters) – Argentina’s opposition-dominated Congress helped center-right President Mauricio Macri pass market-friendly reforms in his first year in office, but legislators are growing more hostile as they gear up for mid-term elections in 2017.

Dear Editor, A letter written by me was published in the Stabroek News on December 10, in which I mentioned the slow or no response to reports of crime made at the Aurora Police Station (‘Increase in crime in Good Hope-Supenaam area’). 

Editors agree to avoid invasion of privacy THE editors of the Mir­ror, Stabroek News, Chronicle and Catholic Standard met this week to consider a complaint by the Mirror that a recent Chronicle report on the suicide of the wife of a prominent politician was insensitive and un­professional in that it referred to an unnamed illness from which she believed she suffered giving rise to an innuen­do that she had a fatal contagious disease and thus smearing herself and her family.

My Auntie Daro’s black Christmas cake was heavy, smoky and heavenly.

 PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – Officials said Tuesday a case of misconduct by a national coach will be referred to the disciplinary committee of the Trinidad & Tobago Cricket Board.