Archive for July 8th, 2010
Cuba agrees to release 52 political prisoners
(BBC): Cuba has agreed to free 52 political prisoners in the largest prisoner release by the communist authorities for decades. The move follows talks in Havana which involved officials from Spain and the Roman Catholic Church. Five prisoners are expected to leave jail soon, while the rest will be freed in the next few months. Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said the move "opens a new era in Cuba". Mr Moratinos, who took part in the talks, also expressed hopes that it could help to put "aside differences once and for all on matters of prisoners". The Cuban government has been under pressure to free dissidents since Orlando Zapata Tamayo (left), a prisoner on hunger strike, died in February: a second is said to be close to death.
Applications open for access to new ship wreck
(CNS): The Cayman Islands Tourism Association (CITA) is now accepting licensing applications for boat operators as well as individual residents who wish to dive and snorkel on Cayman’s newest artificial reef following the sinking later this month. The USS Kittiwake will be sunk in waters off the coast of West Bay on Tuesday, 27 July creating a new attraction for underwater fans. CITA will be managing the new dive site and all vessels going to the Kittiwake Marine Park must be licensed with the association. Individual medallions will be sold for divers at US$10 each and wristbands for snorkelers at US$5 each.
Thrifty shoppers check CNS
(CNS): With the prices of just about everything on the rise, the need to shop wisely is more important than ever for many households in the Cayman Islands. To help people find the best bargains on necessary goods, Cayman News Service has introduced a “CNS Price Check” feature in CNSclassifieds.com. Participating grocery stores will be listing a selection of items each week to help shoppers get the most out of their pay cheques. The online answer to supermarket inserts in print news is just one of a number of new features in the Classifieds section, including an unique way to get all the latest hurricane information whenever needed and to post messages and press releases during an emergency.
To find the supermarket price lists, click on the link to the CNS Classifieds section on the main menu bar in 
the News section (see picture right) or go to www.CNSclassifieds.com. Under the menu bar in the Classifieds section, there is a “CNS Price Check” heading, and under that a set of rotating banners for the various supermarkets (Fosters, Cost-U-Less and Kirk Supermarket). Click on each banner to find the price list for that grocery store. For each store there will be a number of pages; to check all the pages, click on the 
numbers right above the price lists (see picture left).
“Everyone is used to the price list inserts in the printed news, but now that more and more people are getting their news online there needs to be a way for shoppers to check prices online too. As the number one online news service for the Cayman Islands, CNS is perfectly poised to offer this feature in our classifieds,” said CNS General Manager Nicky Watson. This advertising feature is open to all supermarkets on Grand Cayman and Cayman Brac (read Special offer for supermarkets or call Doreen 916-5579).
“CNS Price Check” is one of several new features offered in CNSclassifieds.com. “Like all news outlets, we receive far more press releases than we have time to post. The result is that many people take time to write releases that are either never published or take weeks to appear,” Watson said. “So we are now encouraging businesses, organisations and individuals to post their own press releases and PSAs, which can be easily accessed and read by finding the correct categories on the left hand side column in our Classifieds or using the quick links on the menu bar, such as ‘Biz News’, ‘Wha’ Happenin’ and ‘Notice Board’.”
“The press releases appear instantly and the person posting the release will have the ability to change, update or delete it,” Watson said. “Please don’t stop sending us press releases as we will continue to publish a selection in our news pages. But we hope that the ‘Post your Own’ function in CNSclassifeds.com will become a useful tool for the Cayman community to tell everyone what’s going on in our islands.”
Perhaps the most important new feature in the CNS Classifieds is ‘Storm Watch’, which has a quick link on the main menu bar in Classifieds to the latest updates about hurricanes and storms under the sub-categories ‘Be Prepared’, ‘Business Update’, ‘Official News’ and ‘Personal Messages’. We have also moved our link to the Cayman Islands Weather site to the Classifieds menu bar so that if there a storm watch all the necessary hurricane information is easily accessible in one place.
Another feature recently introduced is a quick link to the CNS Calendar in both the News and Classifieds sections. This is a regular gmail calendar so it has the added advantage for anyone who has a gmail account that events can easily be added to personal email account calendars. All events, whether they are one-off or regular functions, can be listed on the CNS calendar – just email calendar@caymannewsservice.com if you would like an event posted.
“From the start, Wendy and I have strived to combine a reliable, credible news organization with an interactive online community. The new features onCNS add new ways to deliver information to the right people. But Cayman News Service has always been, and will continue to be, a work in progress, and we will continue to look for needs within the community and see what we can do to fill them,” Watson said.