Archive for April, 2010

Drug council issues SOS for volunteers

Cayman News | 08/04/2010 | 4 Comments

(CNS): The National Drug Council (NDC);the body responsible for the oversight of the country’s anti-drug strategy has issued an urgent call for 35 additional volunteer fieldwork assistants to help with the Cayman Islands Student Drug Use Survey (CISDUS) 2010. The work will begin on the morning of Tuesday 13 April and the NDC says it needs more hands on deck to help start the interviews with students the first of which will be at schools between 11:15am to 12:45pm.

The NDC explained that the survey will be carried out by qualified staff and professional research and information officers using statistical software and data entry apparatus. It is the 6th cycle of the Cayman Islands Student Drug Use Survey, the last of which was carried out in 2006.

The survey aims to gain a better understanding of drug use among middle and high school students in the Cayman Islands, to track changes and patterns in alcohol and drug use to inform the development and strengthening of prevention programmes.

If you would like to volunteer please contact us on 949-9000 or email info@ndc.ky

Teen arrested for murder

Cayman News | 08/04/2010 | 0 Comments

(CNS): Police confirmed this morning that a 16-year-old boy has been arrested and is currently detained on suspicion of murder following a police operation in the West Bay area earlier this morning. At About 7:20 am on Thursday 8 April the teenager was arrested in connection with the fatal shooting of Marcos Mauricio Gauman Duran who was shot and killed in West Bay, on Thursday 11 March, police stated. Duran an Ecuadorian national from George Town was killed as he was visiting an apartment on Maliwinas Way.

He was the third murder victim of 2010 and was killed on the same evening that a teenager was wounded in a shooting in the Birch Tree Hill area. Police have not yet confirmed if this murder was gang related. Police said at the time that Duran cold have been the victim of a robbery gone wrong.

Cayman teens lazy, says study

Cayman News | 08/04/2010 | 70 Comments

(CNS): According to research conducted by the World Health Organization in Geneva, in a study of more than 70,000 young teens from 34 countries, teenagers from the Cayman Islands and St. Lucia were found to be the least active kids. Some 58 percent of boys and 64 percent of girls in Cayman said they spent three hours a day in sedentary activity. The results come at a time when obesity and diabetes is on the rise among local children. Health Minster Mark Scotland said in his World Health Day message yesterday (7 April) that almost 38 percent of school students aged between 11 and 14 are overweight.

This latest study was conducted by Regina Guthold and a team from the WHO, who found that, overall, most kids aren’t getting enough exercise. Published in The Journal of Pediatrics, it looked at 13- to 15-year-old school children from North and South America, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East between 2003 and 2007.

The researchers defined adequate physical activity as at least an hour of exercise on top of gym class at least five days a week. Children who spent three or more hours watching TV, playing computer games, or chatting with friends outside of school time were classified as sedentary.

Across the 34 countries involved just one-quarter of the boys and 15 percent of the girls were getting enough exercise by their definition, the researchers found. And a quarter of boys and nearly 30 percent of girls were sedentary and didn’t get enough exercise. In every country aside from Zambia, girls were less active than boys. In more than half of the countries in the study, less than a quarter of the boys were getting enough exercise.

Uruguay had the highest percentage of active boys at 42 percent, while Zambia had the lowest at 8 percent. Girls from India were the most active with 37 percent meeting exercise recommendations, while girls from Egypt were the least active with just 4 percent getting adequate exercise. Kids in Myanmar were the least sedentary with 13 percent of boys and 8 percent of girls classified as sedentary. The most sedentary nations were St. Lucia and the Cayman Islands, with 58 percent of boys and 64 percent of girls spending at least three hours aday in sedentary activity.

While the study didn’t look at the reasons behind the lack of physical activity in various nations, Guthold speculated that urbanization could be a factor, as could the near-universal availability of cars and TVs.

Schools can help children become more active by having physical education classes and educating students about the importance of exercise, the researcher said. Adding lanes for bicycles, pedestrian crossings and other changes to promote walking and biking to and from school could help too, she added, as could giving kids space to be active wherever they live.

Studying physical activity in entire populations is difficult, Guthold noted, and any questionnaire used to measure physical activity will have limitations. However, "even with the limitations that questionnaire data (suffer) from, I guess it’s pretty safe to say that we have a huge problem with physical inactivity among schoolchildren around the globe and that we should take action," she told the international news agency Reuters.

Juries to hear clamping cases

Cayman News | 08/04/2010 | 36 Comments

(CNS): Two separate cases involving drivers who were wheel clamped by local firms will have their cases heard before juries. In one case coming before the Grand Court a defendant is accused of theft regarding a wheel clamp and in a second case a man is accused of damage to property as a result of their respective responses to having their cars disabled by the wheel clamping firm. The issue of wheel clamping is becoming increasingly controversial but these are the first two cases in which drivers who have taken action against being clamped are facing prosecution. Both defendants have elected to have their cases heard before a jury. (Photo by Dennie Warren Jr)

The issue of clamping was raised in the Legislative Assembly last month when Ezzard Miller, the independent member for North Side, questioned the legality of clamping and suggested that the firms were breaking both the Planning Law and the Road Traffic Law. In a private member’s motion, he asked government to investigate and clarify the situation.

Miller argued that having sufficient parking spaces is often mandated as part of a business’s planning permission. Consequently, clampers were unlikely to have the legal right to impose fines on drivers who are parking in the spaces designated to the building they are visiting, no matter how long they are parked.

The MLA noted that the clampers may also be breaking the Traffic Law, which states that anyone who interferes with a vehicle or any of its controls and equipment without the owner’s permission, which the clamping certainly wasn’t, was guilty of an offence.

Miller then offered advice to the victims of clampers who were visiting and parking at premises legitimately to call the police and ask them to enforce the Traffic Law 2003. He said the high fines being imposed were causing hardship and resentment in the community and he was concerned that if the issue was not addressed, someone was going to get hurt through tempers fraying and frustrations running high. The veteran politician said he believed that the parking companies were taking more and more liberties with people on this subject because they were getting away with it and no one was challenging their rights to do this to the public.

Parking fines for clamping currently range from $50 to $85, and CNS has been informed of numerous cases where the clampers have immobilized vehicles of drivers who were legitimately parked but have refused to remove the clamp without payment. In one case a driver was clamped in his own allocated parking space outside his place of work.

During the parliamentary debate the premier said government was willing to consider the motion since the planning laws were currently under review as part of government’s goal to create a national development plan. He said that he would ask the committee to add this question to the entire issue of parking restrictions in the George Town area as it needed to be addressed. McKeeva Bush said he agreed that there needed to be clarity regarding the law and what exactly the landlords could and could not do when it came to people parking on the premises under the Planning Law.

Last year, David Guilfoyle took an unorthodox approach to paying a clamping fine when he gave the parking company 7500 pennies and brought the question of parking fines into the fore. He also noted that the clamping fine was greater than the fine he would have had to pay for parking illegally on the street and, moreover, the police would not clamp his car.

See News 27 video of penny fine payment

Security adds travel time for US Air passengers

Cayman News | 08/04/2010 | 21 Comments

(CNS): The Cayman Islands Airports Authority (CIAA) is introducing new security measures at Owen Roberts International Airport today. From now on passengers travelling to the United States are asked to arrive at the airport three hours before their flights. The CIAA said the enhanced security procedures are in response to the requirements announced by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), which has implemented new measures for all air carriers with international flights to the US. The latest security procedures supersede the emergency measures put in place immediately following the attempted terrorist attack on 25 December 2009.

CIAA, confirmed that the new measures started on Thursday, 8 April, and will remain in effect until further notice.

“The measures will apply to USA bound passengers only and will not affect passengers on flights to the Sister Islands of Cayman Brac and Little Cayman or to Cuba, Montego Bay and Kingston, Honduras or the United Kingdom,” a spokesperson for the CIAA stated. “The additional security checks will include random screening throughout the check-in and boarding process utilising explosives trace detection, advanced imaging technology for baggage, canine teams, or pat downs, among other standard security measures.”

These protocols are said to be tailored to reflect the most current information available to the US government. They are part of a dynamic, threat-based aviation security system covering all passengers travelling by air to the US while focusing security measures in a more effective and efficient manner to ensure the safety and security of the travelling public.

The CIAA said it is encouraging passengers to arrive at Owen Roberts International Airport a minimum of three hours prior to their scheduled departure time in order to accommodate these additional measures and to avoid delays.

Cayman Finance to confer on local economy

Cayman News | 07/04/2010 | 0 Comments

(CNS): The industry body which represents the country’s financial sector will be holding its inaugural Cayman Finance Summit next month to provide a platform to discuss the future of the islands economy. Cayman Finance is bringing together panelists and guest speakers to discuss issues ranging from how Cayman is viewed in the international media to the findings in the recent Miller Report. The industrybody said that experts in economics, policy development, taxation, regulation, public relations and public affairs will join together to illustrate why Cayman’s low tax model is the one that will generate the most substantive results for the people here and across the globe.

Chaired by Anthony Travers, Chairman of Cayman Finance, the Cayman Finance Summit speaker list includes keynote speaker Dick Armey, former leader of the US House of Representatives, who will cover “Tax Competition – The Way Forward. Premier McKeeva Bush will open the conference and Managing Director of the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority Cindy Scotland will provide an update from the regulator.

James Miller and David Shaw will both be present to discuss their recently released “Miller Report” that calls for a dramatic decreased in government expenditure, the trimming of the civil service and the privatization of various public agencies. Richard Teather of the Bournemouth University Business School will be speaking on his recent research “The Fallacy That Low Tax Rates Contribute to Poverty and Why High Tax Rates Do.”

Jack Quinn and Jack Irvine of Quinn Gillespie & Associates and Media House International respectively will discuss “How the Cayman story plays in the International Media”, looking carefully at the media’s role in creating and perpetuating misperceptions about Cayman and how Cayman Finance is actively educating and changing the minds of these key influencers of public perception.

Matthew Jones of the Alternative Investment Management Associations (AIMA) will provide an update on the Alternative Investment Fund Manager Directive, a European initiative focusing on the investment funds industry, in his presentation entitled “Will Protectionist EU Legislation Work?”

Other speakers include Gary Hufbauer of the Peterson Institute for International Economics who will provide his insights on “The International Tax Proposals and Their Implications for Cayman; Stephen Entin, President and Executive Director at the Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation who will speak on “No More Tax Avoidance: A Territorial Approach”; and Daniel Mitchell of the CATO Institute, who will speak on “The Supra-Nationals and the Not-So-Hidden Agenda”.

The conference will be held at The Ritz Carlton, Grand Cayman on Thursday 6 May from 8:00 am – 5:00 pm with a cocktail reception immediately following. Delegate fees are US$300 for Cayman Finance members and US$350 for non-members.

For more information or to register for the conference, visit www.caymanfinance.ky or for sponsorship information, please contact Denise Gower at denise.gower@caymanfinance.ky

CIG signs deal for hospital

Cayman News | 07/04/2010 | 100 Comments

(CNS): The Cayman Islands Government has now signed an agreement with the world famous cardiac surgeon Dr Devi Shetty (left) to facilitate the development of the much talked about major medical complex on Grand Cayman. The project got the official government go-ahead and the investor’s commitment at a media conference on Wednesday morning (7 April) when the celebrated doctor and the premier signed the deal and revealed more details of what is being heralded as the beginning of the Cayman Islands third economic pillar — medical tourism. Dr Shetty will be investing billions of dollars over thenext decade to create a state-of-the-art health city and medical university set to revolutionize the provisions of tertiary health care.

Dr Shetty has already turned the health industry on its head in his native India by being able to provide state-of-the-art health care and major surgery for a fraction of the cost in the developed world at his health city, Narayana Hrudayalaya Group, in Bangalore. Dr Shetty’s next move is to build the Cayman Narayana Health University that will provide world class medical and health facilities to the North American medical tourism market at more than 50% less than is available in the United States.

Cayman Islands News, Grand Cayman Island Headline News, Dr Devi Shetty, Medical City Cayman Islands

Dr Shetty told the local media that health care was big business, which is why it dominated elections in the UK and occupied a significant part of the American political stage. He said that worldwide the industry was worth around $4.5 trillion, with some $ 2.5 trillion of that being spent in the United States alone.

Given the major changes predicted in the US as a result of health care reform, Dr Shetty said the waiting lists would drive up the already growing demand in the medical tourism market and Cayman was well placed to deliver those services. (Photo of signing by Dennie Warren Jr)

“A lot of countries understand the potential of medical tourism,” the doctor said, adding that he had been offered a lot of incentives by other countries. “But we have picked the Cayman Islands.”

He explained that Cayman was not only geographically well located and politically stable but was also a great place for people to live and work, which would mean he could attract the best medical talent in the world to the new facility. He said that when the news was revealed in the Wall Street Journal recently that he was considering the Cayman islands, he received more than 600 applications from doctors in the US wanting to be a part of the new project.

The project is set to be rolled out over several years, and while the goal is eventually to have a 2000 plus bed health complex on some 500 acres, the first phase will be the development of a 200 bed university hospital.

Although a number of locations have been examined, the exact home for what is likely to be Cayman’s biggest ever development has not yet been settled. With the agreement now signed, however, once a suitable site is worked out Dr Shetty and his investor partners hope to break ground in January 2011 and to have phase one open for business in 2012. The doctor noted that the location itself was not a major issue as patients would be coming to it from the airport, but he said that during the few days he had been in Cayman with his local partners he had seen some wonderful potential locations.

Once the first phase was completed, Dr Shetty said the people of Cayman would then have a world class health care facility in their own country, meaning they would no longer have to go overseas for tertiary and serious medical care, leaving their loved ones behind — something that Dr Shetty predicted would happen more and more as life expectancy increases. Moreover, that health care would be affordable.

Given the misconceptions about how the model works, Dr Shetty explained it was not about cutting corners or standards but that the American prices were unrealistic and medical attention did not need to be so expensive.

“The perception of cost is distorted by the cost of health care in America, which is unrealistic,” the cardiac expert said. He explained that the surgeons in his hospital in Bangalore have done more heart operations by the time they are in their thirties than many surgeons in the US do in their entire careers. He said the hospital in India was not only equal to those in the US, the standards were even higher with better outcomes — not least because of the wealth of experience his doctors gain by conducting so many procedures. The output, he said, was the key to keeping costs low.

Once the facility was built in Cayman, it would also provide a state-of-the-art medical university to train local medical professionals here that would eventually staff the facility and become the surgeons of tomorrow, he said.

Dr Shetty revealed that, in the first instance, the medical complex would be employing around 600 people, of which at least 160 would be Caymanian, but the goal eventually would be to have all local staff. His dream, he said, was that if he should ever need a heart by-pass it would be performed by a Caymanian doctor trained at the facility.

According to research commissioned by the investors involved in the project, Cayman’s existing infrastructure will not be inundated or overloaded by the project as it will be gradually developed in phases to reach the ultimate goal of the 2000 plus bed health city, giving the jurisdiction time to develop at pace.

Premier McKeeva Bush revealed that Dr Shetty and the investors had been given some work permit concessions and duty concession on medical equipment but not on the construction of the hospital. The concessions were important, he said, given the major investment being made.

Bush said the hospital would be a significant boost to the local economy in many ways. From the construction of the project in the short term, to the long term development of medical tourism as a third pillar in the local economy, the premier said the project was an extremely positive move. He urged the community not to focus on the negatives that he was sure people would come up with but to see this as a great chance for Cayman, and compared the start of medical tourism today to that of the financial services in the 1960s.

Experts predict busy storm season for Atlantic

Cayman News | 07/04/2010 | 10 Comments

(CNS): Colorado State University’s hurricane forecast team have released their latest predictions for the 2010 Atlantic season and have upped the numbers since their December forecast. William Gray and Phil Klotzbach said that 2010 will be an "above-average" season with 15 named storms and eight of those becoming hurricanes. The latest report was released this morning Wednesday (7 April) when the forecasters said that El Nino conditions will dissipate by summer and that unusually warm tropical Atlantic sea surface temperatures will persist, leading to favourable conditions for hurricanes to develop and intensify.

In December the hurricane predictors issued a range rather than a specific number forecasting 11-16 storms but have now settled on the specific figure of 15 at the very top end of the December range for their latest prediction.

Gray and Klotzbach said that they expected 8 of the named storms to become hurricanes with four of those strengthening into major hurricanes. Major hurricanes are considered to be Category 3 or higher on the Saffir-Simpson scale with sustained winds of at least 111 mph. Communities along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts now face a 69 percent risk of being buffeted by a major storm this year

Despite the cooler weather this winter in the Caribbean, the famous forecasters said the combination of a weakening El Nino with abnormally strong warming of the tropical Atlantic waters will create a busy season. "We believe that these two features will lead to favourable dynamic and thermodynamic conditions for hurricane formation and intensification," the team stated in the new report.

Gray, has been forecasting hurricanes for 27 years and the team at Colorado bases its predictions on historical data and researchers say the 2010 season shows similarities to conditions before the 1958, 1966, 1969, 1998 and 2005 active hurricane seasons.

"While patterns may change before the start of hurricane season, we believe current conditions warrant concern for an above-average season," Gray said.

The Forecasters also warned that there is a 58 percent chance of a major hurricane tracking into the Caribbean, a 45% chance that one will make landfall on the East Coast of the U.S and a 44% chance that a major hurricane will strike the Gulf Coast from the Florida Panhandle west to Brownsville, Texas.

The team will up review the forecast once again as the season starts on 2 June and then in August at the season mid way point.

See full report

Local man makes plans to “Rescue” Cayman

Cayman News | 07/04/2010 | 8 Comments

(CNS): With the worsening economic recession, Howard Ron Rivers says there are increasing numbers of people in the Cayman Islands that are slipping through society’s safety nets and who are in need in many different ways. As a result, he wants to galvanize people into helping them. Ron believes that members of the community need to come together to offer support and assistance to each other to get people on their feet, a roof over their heads, medical assistance, a much needed car back on the road or even training in a skill to help them find work. Under the umbrella name of “Rescue”, Ron is now trying to establish an official charity that can co-ordinate this support throughout the Cayman Islands.

The goal is not just to raise funds to help people financially but to attract volunteers who can offer their skills — be it a house repair for an elderly member of the community or debt advice to someone about to lose their house. Ron says that the Cayman Islands community needs to be a lot more supportive and he feels there are few if any places for those in need to go to find help.

“Child and family services turn a lot of people away and there are many people here who, with just a little bit of assistance, could turn their lives around,” said Ron, adding that by establishing this new charity he hopes to draw on the wider community’s resources to match volunteers, skills and talents as well as financial resources with the right people. “People are falling through the net but I really believe there are simple ways to help people and that’s what Rescue is all about.”

Although he recognises that he has a daunting task ahead of him, Ron told CNS that by pulling the community together and matching those in need with those who can help he believes more people will have a chance to get back on their feet and eventually help themselves.

In some cases, he explained, it may only be some advice, some hands-on help or a very small loan that someone needs to get their life back on track but at present they do not know where or who to go to, to get that help. Rescue, he says, could be that one-stop shop that will seek to find the help, support or assistance that individuals need to pick themselves back up.

Ron explained that the economic downturn has hit people really hard and spurred him on to make what has been a dream of his for some time a reality and begin recruiting volunteers and raising funds to officially launch Rescue. “This has been in my heart for a long time,” Ron said. “But now it is time to make it happen and encourage people to hold out a helping hand to their neighbours and start to rebuild our community.”

This week, Ron says, he intends to begin publicising his vision for Rescue and to begin recruiting people that can help him establish the charity, which will have a management committee to co-ordinate and match those the can help with those that need it. Ron told CNS that he will be onRadio Cayman’s Talk Today programme on Thursday to talk about Rescue and make the first moves to make it a reality.

Anyone who thinks they maybe able to help can contact Ron on 917 2812 or tune into Talk Today at noon on Thursday 8 April for more details.

Cruise business on wave of recovery

Cayman News | 07/04/2010 | 0 Comments

(Businessweek): Shares of cruise operator Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. climbed Tuesday after a competitor reported better-than-expected results and said passengers were paying more to book vacations. Shares of the company, which owns Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises and Pullmantur, rose $1.65, or 5.3 percent, to $33.08 in afternoon trading. Royal Caribbean rival Carnival Corp. on Tuesday said more travellers are booking cruise vacations and paying higher prices for their getaways.

In the past nine weeks, reservations for the next nine months climbed 8 percent at Carnival. Meanwhile, the prices passengers paid for their cruise vacations climbed 17 percent. Additionally, Carnival said its first-quarter profit fell as fuel costs dragged down results. But its revenue grew and adjusted results were better than expectations.

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Archive for April, 2010

Drug council issues SOS for volunteers

Teen arrested for murder

Cayman teens lazy, says study

Juries to hear clamping cases

Security adds travel time for US Air passengers

Cayman Finance to confer on local economy

CIG signs deal for hospital

Experts predict busy storm season for Atlantic

Local man makes plans to “Rescue” Cayman

Cruise business on wave of recovery

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