Archive for August, 2008
CUC outage Wednesday evening
(CNS): A mechanical fault caused a two-hour blackout in West Bay, East End and parts of North Side and George Town yesterday evening, 13 August. Caribbean Utilities Company Ltd (CUC) said staff managed to restore power at 8:32 pm. The cause of the outage, which started at about 6:30 pm, was traced to a mechanical fault in one of its North Sound engine rooms.
The system detected the fault and components of the system were automatically shut down, safely disengaging feeders to various service areas and notifying operating staff that the problem existed. CUC expressed its appreciation for the patience of its customers during the service interruption and apologized for any inconvenience caused by the outage.
Jamaica worried about many drugs tests
(Reuters): Jamaican athletes have undergone an "extremely unusual" number of doping tests since arriving in Beijing for the Olympic Games, potentially harming their performance, the team’s chef de mission said on Wednesday. More than 32 blood and urine tests have been conducted on Jamaican athletes in the past five days alone, a number that has alarmed team officials. (Left Jamaican Olympic sprinter Asafa Powell) Go to article
Optimism in Evolution
(New York Times): When the dog days of summer come to an end, one thing we can be sure of is that the school year that follows will see more fights over the teaching of evolution and whether intelligent design, or even Biblical accounts of creation, have a place in America’s science classrooms. In these arguments, evolution is treated as an abstract subject that deals with the age of the earth or how fish first flopped onto land. Go to article
.jpg "Brett slashes previous best")
Brett slashes previous best
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(CNS): Coming close to his big goal of a 2-minute swim in the 200-metre Backstroke Wednesday, Brett Fraser (left with brother Shaune) said he was really happy with a time of 2:01.17 in his heat, finishing 29 out of 49 swimmers in this event. “This was a great swim from Brett – he dropped an awful lot of time from his best. He looked real strong and powerful in the water. He had a good time and swam real well,” Cayman Swimming Coach Dominic Ross told Cayman Islands Olympic Committee journalist Shurna Robbins.
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Brett, whose only major international experience was the Pan Am Games in Brazil last summer – a much smaller event than the Olympics – has already dropped his time from 2:07.23 since then. “He’s really starting to believe in what he’s doing and believe that he can do well and be up there with the best,” Ross said.
Brett and his brother Shaune, who both attend the University of Florida, have now completed all their events at the Beijing Olympics. This was Shaune’s second Olympics – in the 2004 Athens Games the Cayman Islands team included Andrew Mackay and Heather Roffey. (Photos Shurna Robbins)
War and weather to boost petrol prices
(thisismoney.co.uk): Motorists face another huge rise in petrol and diesel prices. There were predictions of a return to the record prices paid at the pumps last month when diesel peaked at an average of £1.33 a litre and petrol £1.19. A series of events worldwide could herald another round of escalating fuel prices in the autumn.
Cubans pass by
(CNS): Eleven Cuban migrants on a vessel passed through Cayman Islands waters Monday, 11 August, Immigration Department officials report. The migrants – four women and seven men – were spotted off East End, in Grand Cayman. They did not come ashore and officials monitored the group’s departure.
According to Cayman Islands policy, if Cuban migrants receive assistance from Cayman officials, even water, they will be repatriated to Cuba. Based on the latest figures from Immigration, the number of Cuban migrants repatriated last year was 92 while 12 have been repatriated so far this year. Some 104 were repatriated in 2006 while 122 were repatriated in 2005.
The vast majority of Cubans escaping the island now enter the US through Mexico after relatives pay thousands of dollars to organized crime networks that pick them up from Cuba’s westernmost tip in speedboats. According to official Mexican reports, more than 1,000 Cubans had been detained in Mexico by late June, compared with 1,359 in all of 2007.
Coast Guard interceptions of suspected traffickers are up this fiscal year by about 20%, with 323 encounters since Oct. 1, 2007.
Low-cost carrier set to begin service by next April
(The Jamaica Observer): AirOne Ventures Limited, which bills its yet-to-be-named airline as the Caribbean’s first low-budget carrier, says that it will begin service to nine regional and United States destinations between March to April 2009. Fares will be as low as US$10 but on average 40-70 per cent cheaper than existing airlines. Go to article
.jpg "Another best for Shaune")
Another best for Shaune
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(CNS): Cayman’s Shaune Fraser swam another personal best at the Beijing Olympics finishing his 100-metre freestyle heat in 49.56 seconds, down from 49.96 seconds from his previous best set the Pan Am Games in Brazil last summer.
Fraser placed fourth in heat five and ranked 36 out of 64 swimmers. But like his race in the 200-metre freestyle two days before. Only the top 16 swimmers made it into the semi-finals.
"It was my new personal best so I can’t be mad about that," Fraser told Cayman Islands Olympic Committee journalist Shurna Robbins. "I know a lot of these guys like to take it out really fast. I like to bring it home a little faster, so I conserve my energy in the first 50 and then give it all I have in the second 50."
"That was a great swim from Shaune," said Cayman Swimming Coach Dominic Ross. "He dropped four-tenths of a second off his best time and he looked real strong in the water, so we looked forward to the next swim."
Trinidad & Tobago’s George Bovell, who became the English-speaking Caribbean’s first swimming Olympic medallist when he won bronze in the 200-metre Individual Medley in Athens, won his heat and also produced a career-best swim of 48.83 in the 100m freestyle, chopping more than a second off his previous best of 49.95 seconds in this event. However, this was also not fast enough for a semi-final spot.
Aruba’s Jan Roodzant won the second heat in 51.69 seconds but was considerably off the qualifying range. Bermuda’s Roy-Allan Burch finished fifth in heat two in 52.65 seconds, while Barbadian Terrence Haynes (50.50) was third in heat three. The finals of the Men’s 100m Freestyle will be on Thursday.
Fraser’s next and final event is the 100-metre butterfly (heat 2) on Thursday, where he will be competing with American superstar Michael Phelps. "Obviously, Michael is going to be the greatest athlete that has ever swam, but I am definitely not intimidated by him," said Fraser. "I know that I have got to do a couple things a bit better and train a little harder. This is not one of my best events so I am just looking to have fun with it.”
Phelps became the Olympics’ all-time gold medal leader Wednesday with two more wins at the National Aquatics Center — one by himself in the 200-meter butterfly and one as part of the United States’ winning 4×200-meter freestyle relay team, making a total of five golds so far in Beijing and 11 altogether.
Black coral jewellery stolen
(CNS): A number of items of jewellery were stolen from Richard Black Coral Jewellery Store on South Church Street last week and police are appealing for information. Police were alerted to the break-in at 4:50 am on Thursday, 7 August and found that at some point overnight a forced entry had been made and a number of items of jewellery were taken.
Detectives from the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service CID would like to hear from anyone who may have found some black coral jewellery discarded or anyone who has been offered items for sale. Anyone who can assist should contact Detective Constable Angela Scarlett on 916-6592. Residents should be advised that officers will be able to identify and separate the stolen items from any items that are not connected.
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 Crimestoppers remain anonymous, and are eligible for a reward of up to $1000, should their information lead to an arrest or recovery of property/drugs.
Independence of Complaints Commissioner boosted
(CNS): New regulations of the ComplaintsCommissioner Law, which Cabinet have announced will be published Monday, 18 August, bolster the independence of the Office of the Complaints Commissioner (OCC) and allow it to complete its investigations more efficiently.
These new regulations facilitate the efficient use of powers originally granted to the Complaints Commissioner in regards to the appointment and remuneration of mediators and professional or technical advisers to assist with investigations by the OCC, according to a release from Commissioner Dr John Epp in September 2007 when the were tabled.
The regulations give the Commissioner discretion as to the manner in which people making a complaint or assisting him with his inquiries are to be compensated for wages lost from work, and the ability to grant financial allowances for expenses, such as transportation and accommodation, if they are proven by proper receipts or other documentation. The Commissioner also has the discretion to allow payment of an expense up to $50 for which no receipt is provided.
“It is essential that the investigations of the OCC are completed in a timely and just manner,” said Dr. Epp. “The discretion to offer witnesses and advisors fair compensation for their assistance without having to seek Cabinet’s approval will help to speed up the process to obtain accurate information, and therefore allow the OCC to operate more in accordance with our goals and objectives,” he added.
Under the Complaints Commissioner Law, the Governor in Cabinet may make regulations for administration of the Law.