Archive for February, 2009
Voters list still going up
(CNS): Local Registering Officers for the six electoral districts have now published their Second Quarter Revised Lists giving a final total of 15,386 people entitled to vote in the 2009 general election. Once settled by the Magistrate sitting as Revising Officer, this list will become the Official Registry of Electors on 1 April 2009 increasing the Cayman Islands electorate by 2268 people.
The total number of electors on the Revised List is in the districts is as follows: West Bay 3,772; George Town: 5,971;Bodden Town 3,484; North Side, 580; East End: 599; Cayman Brac and Little Cayman: 980
“The last minute drive to get people registered was well worth it,” said Deputy Supervisors of Elections Colford Scott who explained that they had more than 200 voters register in the last two days before it closed.
The next key dates is Nomination Day, which will take place on 25 March, the day after the dissolution of parliament by the governor on 24 March. All potential political candidates will have declared themselves and then be officially nominated to run for office in the election, which takes place on 20 May. This year theelection’s office will also have to deal with a referendum on the Cayman Islands’ future constitution setting an enormous challenge for Elections Supervisor Kearney Gomez and his team. He recently said that the office would be looking to recruit more than 600 volunteers to help them conduct this year’s election and referendum, double the usual amount of people.
“We already have a pool of people but this year we need double the usual number and we are approaching the private sector for volunteers,” said Gomez, adding that anyone who would like to participate does not have to be Caymanian but merely to have lived on the island for more than four years.
UK police accused of racism
(BBC): The UK’s police force is still institutionallyracist despite attempts to confront the issue, a review claims. The report by the Runnymede Trust criticised failures to recruit and keep black officers and the reliance on stop and search techniques. The study also said some forces were "dragging their feet" when it came to reporting racist offences. The findings come from the Trust’s review, ‘The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry 10 Years On’. Go to article
Humans and chimps genetically similar
(ScienceDaily): There may be greater genetic variation between different yeasts of the same species than between humans and chimpanzees. This is one of the findings of a study from the University of Gothenburg that is being published in the scientific journal Nature. This study heralds a new era in evolutionary genetics research — the mapping of an individual’s DNA. The mapping of the entire yeast genome in 1996 marked the beginning of a revolution in biological and medical research. Go to article
Stabbing at Next Level
(CNS): A nightclub security guard was stabbed in his chest and hand in the early hours of Saturday morning, 14 February. A 30-year-old suspect was arrested on suspicion of wounding the victim and also for two counts of assaulting police officers who attended the scene. According to the RCIPS, the 911 Emergency Communications Centre received a call at approximately 1:25 am from a staff member of Next Level nightclub reporting that a man had been injured. The victim was taken to hospital for treatment and a knife was recovered.
The suspect remains in police custody at this time. Anyone who witnessed the incident is asked to contact Acting Detective Sergeant Alric Palmer of George Town CID on 949-4222.
Other overnight arrests from the George Town district include: a 34-year-old woman arrested on suspicion of driving without a licence, taking and driving away a vehicle without the owner’s consent and driving without insurance; a 23-year-old man on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol; a 35-year-old man on suspicion of disorderly conduct; a 48-year-old man on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol following a car crash on Linford Pierson Highway; an 18-year-old man on suspicion of driving without a licence and driving without insurance; and a 53-year-old man on suspicion of disorderly conduct.
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.
Case of Dengue Confirmed
(CNS): A patient who contracted dengue fever on a visit to Curacao in January has been released from the Cayman Islands Hospital. The Public Health Department insists that there is no evidence of local transmission of dengue in the Cayman Islands and that the person is no longer infectious. Medical Officer of Health Dr Kiran Kumar confirmed that this is the first case since January 2008 and that it was contracted elsewhere. The patient is fully recovered and is no longer infectious as the virus stays in the blood of patients for only a week after they develop the fever, he said.
“Dengue is not directly transmitted from person to person, but a mosquito biting a person with dengue fever can spread the virus to another person. Hence persons, who develop symptoms within two to three weeks of having returned from countries with dengue cases, are considered imported,” Dr Kumar explained.
While the PHD had to wait two to four weeks for laboratory confirmation, it immediately informed the Mosquito Research and Control Unit (MRCU) and the Department of Environmental Health (DEH) of the suspected case, and they took measures as if it was a case of dengue fever, a government release says.
Dengue fever is caused by a virus, and the virus is transmitted to humans by the bite of an infected mosquito. The symptoms of dengue are high fever, severe headache, backache, joint pains, nausea and vomiting, eye pain, and rash. The incubation period (the time that the infection takes to develop before it shows symptoms) is usually four to seven days, but can be up to three weeks.
There is no vaccine or specific medication to treat dengue infection, and people travelling to known dengue endemic countries should take preventative measures such as using a repellent, wearing protective clothing, using air conditioning indoors or only opening screened windows and doors, and staying indoors during early dawn and dusk when mosquitoes are most active.
“The only real measure to protect ourselves is to avoid being bitten,” Dr. Kumar said, adding that irrespective of the fact that this confirmed case was imported, all members of the public need to protect themselves from mosquito bites.
“Because we have the Aedes aegyptii mosquito, which is the vector involved in the spread of dengue fever, in the Cayman Islands, we do have potential for transmission if a returning resident or a visitor has the dengue virus – and mild cases may go unnoticed.”
For more information, call the Public Health Department on 244-2648 or 244-2621, or Faith Hospital on 948-2243. For advice on mosquito control measures contact the MRCU on 949-2557 or DEH on 949-6696 in Grand Cayman or 948-2321 in Cayman Brac.
According to PHD, countries in our region who reported having dengue and dengue hemorrhagic fever are: Argentina, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, British Virgin Islands, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Curacao, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guadaloupe, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Puerto Rico, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, and Venezuela.
Microsoft offers $250,000 bounty for worm author
(The Guardian): Microsoft has put a $250,000 bounty on the head of the writer of the "Conficker/Downadup" worm that has infected millions of PCs worldwide in the past month – though past results suggest it might have limited success. The reward – for information leading to the capture and conviction of the author or authors of the software – follows similar cash incentives offered by Microsoft to catch virus writers since 2003. "The Conficker worm is a criminal attack. People who write this malware have to be held accountable," said George Stathakopoulos, of Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing Group. Go to article
Bleak forecast for fisheries
(BBC): The world’s fish stocks will soon suffer major upheaval due to climate change, scientists have warned. Changing ocean temperatures and currents will force thousands of species to migrate polewards, including cod, herring, plaice and prawns. By 2050, US fishermen may see a 50% reduction in Atlantic cod populations. The predictions of "huge changes", published in the journal Fish and Fisheries, were presented at the AAAS annual meeting in Chicago. Marine biologists used computer models to forecast the future of 1,066 commercially important species from across the globe. Go to article
Opinions and facts
(In answer to "Justifiable discrimination"): This is an interesting debate… but there is a lot of arguing here! Arguing usually arises when someone states their opinion as if it were a fact. When I state something which is my opinion, I will try to say “I think…”
Personally, I have never seen God, and I see no evidence that he exists – so my opinion is that God probably does not exist. During the course of my life, however, I have been wrong about many things, even some very simple things, so I have no reason to believe that my opinion on this matter is especially valid or important.
My good friend sees God “in everything” – so she very strongly believes that God exists. I would say she was an intelligent person… so maybe she is right about this too.
One thing is for certain, arguing opinions makes for great debates, but it never changes a fact. God does or does not exist, whatever we may think, and whether we like it or not.
Concepts and categories
Communicating with each other can be difficult sometimes. Our minds and feelings are complicated things. Few of us would claim to be able to say “exactly” how we feel about something, let alone communicate that feeling effectively to another human being.
To help us, humans generally categorize things to help structure language and facilitate communication. We refer to things as “good or evil”, “right or wrong”. However, thesethings are really just concepts and categories. They facilitate communication – they do not actually exist in the real world. There is no “right or wrong” in the world… there are simply lots of “things” in the world, and if we do not approve of these things we tend say they are “wrong”, and if we do approve of them we say they are “right”. This helps other people know our opinion regards these things.
Another way to categories things is on a scale. Rather than imagining the two options of “right” and “wrong”, we can think of a sliding scale, where something is “perfect” at one end, a “grey zone” in the middle, and “evil” at the other end. I think that, for any given fact in the world, it is unlikely that any two people would place it at exactly the same point on that scale, however, I would say that most of us are happy to make a judgment on where the “right” place on that scale should be.
This is tendency in people is why we have things like war, debates, human rights and inequality.
Rapists and abused children
There has been some interesting comparisons below; comparing the seriousness of homosexuality to pedophilia / rape etc. so I would like to comment on this… (though I don’t think it is very relevant to the news article).
“I feel sorry for rapists. Sometimes abused children should be punished.”
I think most people reading the above quote would have to read it twice, and then assume there was some awful typo here. I think few people would be able to reserve judgment on a person who made such a statement. However, this is my own opinion. Let me see if I can win you over to sharing my opinion with an argument which is only based on facts from my own life?
During my life so far, I have discovered that making a cake is generally easier if I have all the ingredients. Making a judgment, however, is different. Sometimes, the more information I have, the more difficult it becomes to make a judgment. Sometimes, it is easiest to make a judgment when I have no experience and no information. It is easy to judge from a position of ignorance.
What if I told you that the rapist who I feel sorry for brutally raped a young lady, repeatedly? (I doubt many people will share my opinion based on this information). He was caught, and the news devastated his family and friends, and sent shock-waves through a quiet community.
(I think most of us would agree that, though we feel sorry for the innocent victim and family members, it was probably best that he was caught, and he should be punished… I think probably people would vary widely in what they would think a suitable punishment for the rapist would be…)
The rapist was a young boy… still a school. He had been brutally abused by his father, since he was an infant.
Maybe now you can understand my opinion. Maybe even share it? Did you alter your initial judgment, once you understood the facts of the individual case? How “bad”, exactly, is this person? Should he be treated as an individual or simply categorized as “evil” and “rapist”?
What do you do when the abuser and the abused are the same person? How “bad” is someone who inherits a devastating legacy?
Sadly, this case is not unusual. I understand that a very significant proportion of abusers were once abused. One thing is for certain, arguing opinions makes for great debates, but it never changes a fact.
Killers
When I think about it, I know quite a lot of killers and victims.
I know a murderer who is incarcerated and dedicating himself to stopping youths from making the mistakes he made.
I have a friend whose father led a double life, with a second wife… then, when his sister discovered the truth, his father murdered his sister.
Now I think about it, I know several people involved in fatal car accidents… fatal to others, not to themselves
Maybe you think I am a policeman, or I work for a social group, or I am a prison visitor or volunteer? I am not. There is no aspect of my personal or professional life that is relevant here, what-so-ever… so I guess it must just mean that, if I stop and think about it, there is a lot of pain in the world.
Homosexuals
I think that, rather like rapists and abused children, killers and victims, old people and young people, black people and white people, people who are good at baking cakes and people who always seem to burn the edges and leave the middle bit runny, “homosexuals” and “heterosexuals” are just two more ways of categorizing people.
Personally, I am a heterosexual… but I would like to hope that these is something more to me as a human being than having sex with women.
I think that, if someone thinks that the “heterosexual” category defines me as a human being, that that would tell me more about that individual than it would tell me about myself.
Life
Someone below has described life as “ a vale of tears”. Rapists and abused children, killers and victims, homosexuals and heterosexuals have all played a part in my life.
This is a fact.
I think that for some of these people, life is probably tougher than I could ever imagine. Nonetheless, I love my life, and these people have all contributed to that life in some way. I intend to make the most of my life, and do my best not to judge anyone based on a category.
The more people I can make room for in my life, the fuller and richer my life will be.
CNS note: This Viewpoint was submitted as a comment in the ongoing debate on Gordon Barlow’s VP "Justifiable discrimination". However, we felt it stood as a commentary in itself.
Cayman used for tax dodging
(Guardian): A hoard of banking files from the Cayman Islands, described as one of the most secretive British tax havens, are being supplied to the US authorities by a whistleblower who claims they detail worldwide tax avoidance. Alastair Darling was yesterday challenged in the Commons over allegations that UK banks have been using the Caymans for massive tax avoidance schemes. Go to article.
Dubai’s economy in free fall
(New York Times): Sofia, a 34-year-old Frenchwoman, moved here a year ago to take a job in advertising, so confident about Dubai’s fast-growing economy that she bought an apartment for almost $300,000 with a 15-year mortgage. Now, like many of the foreign workers who make up 90 percent of the population here, she has been laid off and faces the prospect of being forced to leave this Persian Gulf city — or worse. “I’m really scared of what could happen, because I bought property here,” said Sofia. “If I can’t pay it off, I was told I could end up in debtors’ prison.” Go to article