Archive for March 9th, 2009
Tax havens fear ‘indiscriminate’ crackdown
(FT): A rearguard action to fend off the "action against tax and regulatory havens" threatened by Gordon Brown and other world leaders is being launched by some of Britain’s Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories. Deborah Drummond, deputy financial secretary of the Cayman Islands, says: "We fear a very indiscriminate position will be taken which owes more to protectionism and prejudice than judgment and intellectual application."
SPIT faces more legal action
(CNS): A letter from Burman Scott’s solicitors has been sent to members of the Special Police Investigation Team (SPIT) with regards to the former police inspector’s intended claim against them for his alleged unlawful arrest last year. CNS understands that SIO Martin Bridger and Richard Coy have received legal letters citing them both liable for Scott’s arrest and detention overnight in the cells of George Town Police station and have ten days to respond. The current Police Commissioner James Smith has also been named in the claim as vicariously liable.
Despite not being in post at the time of Scott’s alleged unlawful arrest, Smith has taken full responsibility for SPIT.
Campbells has confirmed that it is representing Scott. However, senior partner Shaun McCann was unavailable for comment regarding the details of the claim. McCann has recently concluded the judicial review over the unlawful arrest of Justice Alex Henderson, which resulted in the judge receiving CI$1.3 million in damages. Given that Scott was not only arrested in front of his colleagues at his workplace but held in the George Town jail overnight without bail and that the case against him was not dismissed until than three months later, some legal experts have suggested his suit will be equally as solid as that made by Henderson.
Scott was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in a public office, the same offence for which Henderson was found to have been unlawfully arrested — an offence that Henderson’s legal team demonstrated was not an arrestable offence in the Cayman Islands.
If the officers of SPIT admit their responsibility for the alleged unlawful arrest and detention then the damages claim will be negotiated directly by Campbells on behalf of Scott. However, should the officers choose to stand by the arrest and deny their liability then there is likely to be another expensive courtroom showdown, all of which will be paid for from the Cayman purse. If SPIT is again unsuccessful in defending its actions then the Treasury will be forced to find the money for legal costs as well as the higher damages that could result in the wake of a failed court case.
Scott, a Caymanian originally from Cayman Brac, served in the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service for almost thirty years with an unblemished record, rising to the level of inspector. He was arrested at his workplace on 15 May 2008 in front of his colleagues and friends. “It was a nightmare,” Scott told CNS when asked about his experiences recently. “I could never have imagined in all my life that this was happening to me. After all my years working so hard and having retired with a good name, it was a shock that is hard to explain.”
Scott was held without bail for two days, spending a night in the cells at the station where he served as a respected inspector. He explained that one of the worst humiliations for him was being taken into that station as a suspect in front of officers that he had worked with, including young men in the service whom he had trained. “I felt so embarrassed,” he added.
Scott was not named at the time of his arrest by SPIT as he was not charged with any offences, but following his two-day ordeal he was identified in the local press following the publication of his name in Cayman Net News, which is published by Desmond Seales.
Although SPIT has never disclosed the full details regarding why they arrested Scott rather than requesting an interview with him, during his arrest the officers questioned him regarding accusations they were pursuing against suspended Deputy Commissioner Rudolph Dixon, who was also arrested for the same offence.
Dixon has since been charged with two counts of misconduct in a public office and two counts of doing an act tending and intended to pervert the course of public justice, and is due to appear in court later this year. Both charges relate to Dixon on two separate occasions requesting officers to release individuals who had been arrested. On 7 April 2004 Dixon allegedly directed Scott, who was at the time an inspector at George Town Police Station, to release a man who was being held on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol.
Woman thrown from car
The Royal Cayman Islands Police Service (RCIPS) said that the 911 Emergency Communications Centre received a call at 12:25am stating that a female driver had been thrown from her car after it hit a concrete wall. Police and medics responded to the scene and found a woman with serious injuries to her face and head. Police were told that the woman had been driving a green Volkswagen west along Old Crewe Road when she lost control of the vehicle, ran off the road and crashed into the wall.
The injured woman was taken to George Town hospital where she was treated for facial injuries. She remains in hospital in a stable condition.
Scenes of Crime officers processed the scene and an accident reconstructionist is carrying out investigations. Anyone who witnessed the crash or believes they saw the vehicle prior to the crash should contact Acting Chief Inspector Derrick Elliott on 946 6254.
Anyone with information about crime taking place in the Cayman Islands should contact their local police station or Crime Stoppers on 800-8477 (TIPS). All persons calling crime stoppers remain anonymous, and are eligible for a reward of up to $1000, should their information lead to an arrest or recovery of property/drugs.
Teachers debate benefits of teenage “lie-ins”
(The Guardian): Headteachers have poured scorn today on the suggestion that all secondary schools give teenagers an extra two hours in bed by starting classes at 11am. Paul Kelley, the head of Monkseaton community high school in north Tyneside, wants to introduce a timetable where lessons begin at "about 11am" from September. The head, who is known for his groundbreaking teaching methods, including exercise sessions between short bursts of teaching, has followed the research on teenagers’ daily rhythms by Russell Foster, a professor of neuroscience at Oxford University.
Brown’s tax haven U-turn
(Guardian): Gordon Brown is preparing to unveil a blacklist of harmful tax havens to be published before the crucial London G20 meeting next month. The list is expected to include offshore centres linked to Britain, including the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. The move will be seen as a radical departure from the prime minister’s historic position of protecting the pre-eminence of Britain’s financial services industry. It will also attempt to counter growing criticism from France and Germany that the UK, like Switzerland, is an obstacle to a transparent financial system.
Women in sports awarded
(CNS): Five exceptional women in the world of sport received accolades during celebrations for International Women’s Day and the 2009 Women and Sport Awards hosted by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Olympic Family celebrated. The five continental trophies were presented to women who have made tremendous contributions to strengthening the participation of women and girls in sport on an international level. The winners of the 2009 Women and Sport Awards include former Olympic gold and silver medallists, philanthropists promoting human welfare as well as political personalities and an academic and lecturer. (Left: Lydia Nsekera of Burundi)
The official ceremony was held at The Olympic Museum in Lausanne, in the presence of IOC President Jacques Rogge, Anita DeFrantz, IOC member and Chairwoman of the IOC Women and Sport Commission, and the members of the IOC Women and Sport Commission.
National Olympic Committees (NOCs), International Federations (IFs) and Continental Associations were invited to submit candidatures and the winners were selected by the IOC Women and Sport Commission. This year the trophies were awarded as follows:
Trophy for Africa: Lydia Nsekera (Burundi)
Trophy for the Americas: María Caridad Colón Ruenes (Cuba)
Trophy for Europe: Danira Nakic Bilic (Croatia)
Trophy for Oceania: Auvita Rapilla (Papua New Guinea)
Addressing the winners and the audience, President Jacques Rogge said, “I am pleased to publicly pay tribute to five remarkable women who, through their commitment, enthusiasm, drive and courage, have helped increase the number of women taking part in sport at all levels, both on and off the field.”
Rogge also highlighted the encouraging fact that the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games was a colossal stepping stone with a new participation record of 42 per cent of competitors being women, demonstrating the inexorable march towards parity.
Speaking at the ceremony, Anita DeFrantz said: "On the field of play, we are moving closer and closer to men and women competing in even numbers on the world’s greatest sporting stage. It is still the mission of the IOC Women and Sport Commission to see more women in sport involved in decision-making and in the media. The landscape is slowly changing, and women will have a much bigger role to play in sport in the future. This year’s IOC Women and Sport Awards winners are helping to make this happen."
Information on the winners:
Lydia Nsekera
Whilst sport in Burundi has been male dominated, Lydia Nsekera, a former high jumper and basketball player, became the first female president of a national football federation in Africa and the second woman in the world to achieve this status. She also pioneered with the creation of women’s sports clubs in her country. It was under her guidance that the national under-17 men’s team came to victory in the East and Central African Football Associations Cup. Furthermore, Nsekera organised the first women’s football championship in Burundi, and in 2004 led a successful national campaign to get women involved in refereeing, sports administration and coaching. She has also raised awareness of sexual violence against women and HIV/AIDS.
María Caridad Colón Ruenes
Since María Caridad became the first Cuban woman to win an Olympic gold medal in 1980 (javelin), she has played an outstanding role in promoting sports activities at national, Pan-American and international level. She is Chairperson of the NOC’s Women and Sport Commission, and a member of the IAAF Women’s Committee as well as the PASO Women and Sport Commission. While Caridad develops youth sports clubs and trains girls and youth instructors both at home and abroad, she also contributes towards scientific texts and historical records on women, sport and the family in Cuba. In addition, she gives regular lectures on the importance of sport.
Arvin Dashjamts
As Chairperson of Mongolia’s Women and Sport Commission and the only female member of the Mongolian NOC’s Executive Committee, Arvin Dashjamts has played a crucial role in the increased participation of women and girls in all sports and physical activity in her country. A history graduate, former public relations officer and private sector CEO, Dashjamts has consistently promoted Olympians as role models for young girls and women, and has worked tirelessly for women to be elected to decision-making positions of national sports organisations. Twice appointed Chef de Mission for Mongolia, she has helped establish the Women and Sport Fund which is dedicated to the development of a coaching structure in Mongolia. She has been an elected Member of Parliament for Mongolia since 2000.
Danira Nakic Bilic
Danira Nakic Bilic, a Croatian silver medallist (basketball) in 1988, is a member of the NOC’s Women in Sport Commission. She organises Olympic-related lectures and forums in primary and secondary schools, and promotes programmes for female athletes in sports administration and other public as well as political structures. Bilic was elected as a Member of Parliament in 2004, which had a significant impact on the attitude of Croatian society towards top level female athletes in public life. She strongly promoted the development of sports facilities in Zagreb, enabling more people to participate in physical activities. Last year the government appointed her as President of the Croatian Heritage Foundation, which is dedicated to preserving and developing Croatian cultural identity, sport being one important element of it.
Auvita Rapilla
In her 14 years with the Papua New Guinea Sports Federation and Olympic Committee, where she is now Deputy Secretary General, Auvita Rapilla has been instrumental in the development of the NOC’s Women and Sport Committee. As a member of the Oceania Women and Sport body, she has become one of the driving forces behind engaging women in and for sport throughout the region. In the framework of an Executive Masters in Sport Organisation Management (MEMOS), she developed a sports planning tool which is now being used by the various NOCs across Oceania.
Listen to the critics
Sometimes it seems as though everybody’s a critic. Somebody always wants to improve something. Around election times, all the candidates want change.
Election campaigns are all about what new laws ought to be brought in and what old laws ought to be changed. When was the last time a politician said, “Everything is fine the way it is. If I am elected I won’t change a thing”?
In the earliest of days, some caveman (cavewoman, probably) must have grumbled about eating raw meat and veges. “Why don’t we toss them in some hot water and see if they taste better?” Troublemaker, expelled from the tribe, conservatives win again. Who does he think he is? Someone else showed that flint knives were better than stone ones, for cutting up dead animals and for grubbing up roots. Later, flint was replaced by metal. All credit to the critics who urged those changes; I bet they were given a tough time by their tribes’ conservatives.
Throughout history, critics have even managed to improve religions and ethical standards. A Palestinian carpenter whose native name comes down to us as “Jesus” was a fierce critic of his tribal religion. It didn’t have enough love in it, he grumbled. Who does he think he is, people asked. Some of his successors called him a god – and maybe he was: who knows? They criticized everybody who disagreed with them, and killed as many as they could get to. Even today…
Christians were (and are) no worse than the members of most other religions; historically, they haven’t been better, either. We all inherit our religions from our families, together with their contempt for allother religions. Civilisation has not yet developed a major religion that practices universal love and tolerance.
For eighteen hundred years after that Jewish-Palestinian critic pleaded for more love in religion, the folk who bought into his general message still happily involved themselves in human-trafficking. They saw no irony in preaching love in the abstract while practising cruelty in the flesh. It took an alliance of critics from within and without the Church, seven or eight generations ago, to persuade any of Europe’s governments to formally abolish human-trafficking, and slavery itself.
Most of us today would dismiss as sociopaths anybody who argued in favour of slavery. But I think it must be a very basic human instinct to want to control the lives of other humans, even to the point of owning them body and soul. Either that, or there are more sociopaths around than we think.
So 170 years after the British Government of the day abolished formal slavery, the present FCO permits the services of low-paid migrant workers to be owned by licensed employers, by way ofstate-issued indentures – at least in its Cayman Islands colony. Our system of “exploitation by licence” is a form of slavery, which deserves to be severely criticized by all persons of compassion. Our church leaders don’t object to it, and that tells us more about them than they might like. Apparently, slavery is less offensive to them than homosexuality. They are brave enough to oppose the latter, but not the former. Not even a cursory nod to the concept of compassion.
A fact overlooked in most history books is that for several generations after formal slavery was discontinued (in those places where it was discontinued), adult females remained chattels in law. “Who gives this woman…?” marriage officers ask. Only in recent times did the question become an empty ritual. Before that, the bride was her father’s to give. If he was dead, she was her father’s brother’s to give, or her own brother’s. She was quite literally not her own woman.
We in Cayman were reminded just a couple of weeks ago of the local struggle for sexual equality. A special statue of two women celebrates the victory of those who challenged the status quo. (I don’t know if the statue honours only Caymanian women, or only bloodline Caymanians, or all women. For the sake of our community’s values I hope it’s all women. Modern Caymanian society has been built on the backs of migrant domestic helpers and child-minders, and their work deserves to be honoured by those they helped raise.)
Without critics there is no change, and some situations in Cayman still need to be changed for the better. Fortunately, today’s Cayman teems with critics of all nationalities. That’s the way it should be; we should welcome them all. Laws, customs, policies – every one of them should be subjected to rigorous criticism. The right to free speech protects the critics in theory, if not in practice. Cayman would be a much lesser place if critics of the status quo had all been beaten into silence or deported. The intolerant among us need to remember that.
A community without argument is a sterile community. For all the sentimental affection lavished on the Good Old Days of smoke-pots and wompers, nobody really wants them back. We owe our present comforts to those individuals who criticized past discomforts.
The Cayman Islands are a fine place to live. But we must resist the temptation to think they are perfect, or that they are ruled perfectly. If our eventual Bill of Rights is merely a watered-down version of what it should be, we may lose our critics – and any hope of achieving genuine freedom of expression. The proposed, flawed version is not fit to be put in our Constitution. Our MLAs should listen to their critics, for once.
Church ministers deny mean-spirited sentiment
(CNS) The debate regarding the limitation of the non-discrimination right in the proposed Constitution’s Bill of Rights continued this weekend when the Cayman Minister Association (CMA) issued a statement denying that its support for the narrowing of Section 16 had been based upon unjustifiable or mean-spirited sentiment. The church representatives said that their objection was based on concerns about judicial activism.
CMA Chair Pastor Al Ebanks released a statement about the Human Rights Committee’s recent accusation that in their desire to deny rights to gays and lesbians the church representatives had also denied rights to the wider community. The religious association denied this was the case.
“CMA rejects allegations that our support for the narrowing of the BOR Section 16 (1) is based upon unjustifiable or mean-spirited sentiment. Our objection to the so called ‘free-standing clause’ reflects our understanding that a free standing right leaves open the door for wide-ranging judicial activism in the future and also for other abuses of Cayman’s legal and financial systems,” the CMA statement said.
The HRC had recently noted that the church had not put forward any justification for limiting Section 16 apart from the expression of “vague concerns” about conferring rights on gays and lesbians in our community
The HRC has however noted on several occasions that this is not the case as preferential treatment for Caymanians is protected in other areas of the bill.
“We are heartened by this promise and trust that all parties to the constitutional talks will now focus on continued meaningful education regarding the benefits of what is contained in the current draft,” CMA stated. “We have a UK approved final draft Constitution, and the government and opposition as the duly elected representatives of the people have made their decision to accept this final negotiated document and have rightfully put its final destiny in the hands of the people for a referendum vote on May 20. We therefore encourage the people of the Cayman Islands to educate themselves on its contents, ask pertinent questions, and make decisions that are well informed,” CMA added.
Scholarship for eco-student
(CNS): Local students with an interest in the environment have the chance to apply for a scholarship to study for a degree in Applied Ecology and Conservation at the School of Biological Sciences, University of Reading. The Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) has secured the funding for this scholarship for one student from one of the overseas territories (OTs) which includes tuition fees, travel to and from the territory and a monthly allowance for accommodation and living expenses.
The damage to the Earth’s ecosystems and significant biodiversity loss is a global problem, but is also very relevant to the UK Overseas Territories. The UKOTs are rich in biodiversity, but this biodiversity is under threat from a range of human activities. Reducing these losses and designing a more sustainable future requires skilled individuals who will develop evidence-based solutions. The degree in Applied Ecology and Conservation is designed to provide this training and skills development.
The University of Reading’s BSc Applied Ecology and Conservation degree programme offers The opportunity to acquire the varied skills required of applied ecologists and conservation biologists through a combination of taught courses and practical experience.
It is a hands on field-based learning: fieldwork is an important part of ecological study and the University of Reading is very fortunate in having excellent facilities. Additionally, there are field courses in both the UK and abroad.
The degree programme is designed to maximise student choice, so that you can focus on those aspects of Applied Ecology and Conservation that most interest you. Modules are taught by experts in the field; academics who are internationally recognised for their research.
The scholarship will go to a student with clear academic ability, who can show strong evidence of a commitment to a career in conservation biology and an interest in contributing to the conservation work in the Overseas Territories.
To qualify for the scholarship applicants must be 18yrs of age and over, have Overseas Territories Citizenship, or the right to live and work in an Overseas Territory and satisfy the entry requirements below. The closing date for applicationsin 30 April and entry requirements include 300 UCAS points from no more than 4 A level or AS level subjects. Points to include grade B in A level Biology; an additional A level in a Science subject or Geography is preferred. (Points exclude Key Skills and General Studies). GCSE: Grade C is required in English, Mathematics and Science.
Flexibility in these requirements will be shown for students with exceptional experience, especially for a mature student with experience of working within the environmental/conservation sector in one of the Overseas Territories.
Applicants will need to complete the standard UCAS application procedure. In addition, applicants should contact Graham Holloway with a letter expressing their interest in applying, a CV which should include the names of two referees, and a brief outline of why they think that they should be awarded the scholarship (no more than 500 words).
For more details on allowances please see the UKOTA website www.ukota.org or contact Kedell Worboys, Chair of the UKOTA Scholarship Working Group via email: shgukrep@sthelenagov.com or Tel: +44 (0) 207 031 0314 Fax +44 (0) 207 031 0315
For further information on UKOTA and details of allowances go to: www.ukota.org
For further information on modules please follow the link: http://www.rdg.ac.uk/biologicalsciences/ug/biosci-ugappliedecologyconservation.asp
For further information on the School of Biological Sciences go to www.reading.ac.uk/biologicalsciences
For further information on the University of Reading, including information on accommodation, student services, etc, go to: www.reading.ac.uk
To apply follow the links to:
CIMA signs deal with Brazil’s SEC
(CNS): The Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Brazil (CVM -Comissão de Valores Mobiliários. This is the second such agreement with a Brazilian entity and is part of the authority’s commitment to cooperating and sharing information with international regulatory counterparts.