Archive for September 29th, 2010
Women under and misrepresented by news media
(CNS): Women are still significantly underrepresented and misrepresented in news media coverage according to new research by Global Media Monitoring Project. Despite significant change since the project began 15 years ago 76% of the people heard or read about in the world’s news are male the organisation said on Wednesday. The research covered 108 countries, 1,365 newspapers, television and radio stations and Internet news sites, 17,795 news stories and 38,253 persons in the news and found that female representation in the news had only increase by 7% since 1995. However 44% of people providing popular opinion in news stories were female compared to 34% in 2005.
Kurt says Mac has no plan
(CNS): The government does not have any real plans to improve the country’s economic fortunes and “is floundering hopelessly” as it tries to work out what to do, the opposition leader told the country on Wednesday night. In response to a recent address to the nation by Premier McKeeva Bush, the leader of the opposition, Kurt Tibbetts, says that despite the premier’s globe trotting endeavours he had achieved little in his 500 days in office and the country’s fortunes have continued to decline under the new administration. Speaking on Radio Cayman and Cayman 27 the PPM leader said the premier has not put forward one meaningful solution to stimulate the economy since he was elected
All clear issued for Cayman
(CNS): Updated 5pm — Education officials have confirmed that all government schools will open at their usual time tomorrow (Thursday 30 September) unless weather conditions deteriorate overnight. The decision comes in the wake of the discontinuation of the Tropical Storm Nicole warning by Hazard Management Cayman Islands. HMCI discontinued the tropical storm warning at 3pm on the advice of the National Weather Service and the ‘All Clear’ was declared. The broad Area of low pressure will persist however, over the Northwest Caribbean leading to continued poor weather over the Cayman area for the next 24 to 48 hours. Boating interests should continue to remain in safe harbor as strong southwest to west winds will persist, reaching tropical storm force at times.
Rough seas, with wave heights of 8 to 10 feet are expected to continue over our area for at least another 24 hours. The south and west coasts of our Islands will continue to experience heavy wave action and some beach erosion.
Crews working on flooded roads
(CNS): The National Roads Authority currently has six crews dealing withthe flood waters associated with Tropical Storm Nicole, across Grand Cayman. According to Hazard Management Cayman Islands early assessments although a number of roads have been flooded, flood waters have not caused damage to homes. HMCI and the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) Shelter Operations are currently working with the NRA to alleviate areas where flooding has occurred. Areas in George Town, Prospect and Newlands have been flooded but officials said that the Cumber Avenue area of Bodden Town had escaped this time.
Bakery robbed in rain
(CNS): Updated 4:45pm — Despite the inclement weather conditions it appears local robbers were not put off by the downpours and squally conditions. Police have now confirmed reports that Caribbean Bakery on Mount Pleasant in West Bay was robbed just before noon today. Two armed assailants escaped with a small amount of cash after threatening a female member of staff. One of the men was armed with a hand gun but no shots were fired and no one was hurt. Detectives are now appealing for witnesses and say that both men are described as approximately 5"7 in height, slim build, both wearing blue jeans and long light coloured shirts with their faces covered. (Photos Dennie Warren Jr)
The police helicopter was deployed in the wake of the armed robbery and police confirmed on Thursday morning that three teenagers had been arrested in the West Bay area soon after the robbery. Officers were seen arresting two young men close to the entrance of The Shores along Batabano Road. A third suspect was then apprehended along Mount Pleasant Road. All three men are now in police custody.
Detective Constable Marcia Myles of West Bay CID is appealing for anyone who has information regarding this crime to come forward. The public can phone West Bay CID on 949 3999 or Crime Stoppers on 800-8477 (TIPS)
CUC and CBP&L battling to keep power on
(CNS): Update 2:32pm Wednesday – A 30 minute power outage on Cayman Brac was cause by a tree falling off the Bluff, CB Power & Light Co General Manager Jonathan Tibbetts said. P&L staff are working in the rain to keep the system up but Tibbetts said that there were many weather related problems appearing and if there were too many for the crews to handle they might have to close down the power later today to protect the system. Electricity consumers in certain areas of Grand Cayman have been experiencing sporadic power outages as a result of the ongoing inclement weather, the local power company said this morning. However CUC said it was working to ensure power was restored as quickly as possible on each occasion.
Power interruptions have been ongoing throughout Wednesday morning in certain areas such as Prospect and Spotts/Newlands but outages have usually been limited to less than 30 minutes a spokesperson for the firm stated. At 11:00pm last night customers in the Breakers, Frank Sound and East End areas were without power due to an electrical fault on the distribution lines also as a result of the severe weather conditions.
Hews to redevelop Dorcy Drive site with FedEx
(CNS): After almost ten years a locally owned family business has finalized its plans to help improve the look of one corner of George Town’s dusty industrial park area. Close to a decade after developing a plan for the land at the corner of Dorcy Drive and Portland Road, the Hew family will be using the site to provide a new home for FedEx as well as their own offices. The first plan was derailed by the evens of 9-11 in the US, then again by the impact of Ivan in 2004 but now they have found a solid partner with the international courier service and hope to have the project complete before early next year.
Some Thought for Food
Here is some food for thought and at the same time some thought for food. Lately we all seem to be ranting about politicians, corruption, crime, unemployment, just to mention a few of the seemingly urgent problems facing us in Cayman. However, none of these issues can be properly addressed without first considering our most pressing problem as outlined here.
It is the penultimate problem we are facing which will eventually render all other problems as insignificant.
Cayman’s current population (not counting tourists and visitors) is about 50,000 men women and children who represent the complete spectrum of class structure from the very wealthy to the poorest of the poor.
We all have one thing in common in that each of us wants and needs to eat 3 meals a day. It is estimated that the AVERAGE cost per person per day for food is CI$20.00. The math shows that 50,000 times $20 = 1 million dollars per day for all of us to eat each and every day. That translates to $365 million per year. It is probably more since this does not take into account the restaurants and hotel food service facilities catering to tourists.
So each day we all eat about 1 million dollars worth of food. Since very little is produced or grown here, most of the money will be sent to the USA to buy more food for tomorrow and the next day, etc. The money keeps flowing out and the food flows in. But wait! If the money keeps flowing out without being returned, won’t we eventually run out of money? The answer is YES. In fact, we have already run out. We are on our second loan from the UK and have a half billion dollar debt load. Why? Because the money is flowing out faster than it is flowing in.
The money can only return here if it is brought by tourists, investors or the financial industry. Of course, there is one other way, which is in the form of the Cayman Government seeking loans from Great Britain to help keep us afloat. So in essence we already have run out of money. When we are finished spending the latest money loaned to us by the UK, what then? There are not enough tourists to make a dent in our debt situation.
The financial industry is leaving for greener pastures where other governments offer little or no fees and taxes. In trying to remedy this massive debt problem the government has decided to try the "quick-fix" solution of raising duties and fees in order to get the badly needed capital to pay off past due loans and to make the civil service payroll. All government fees and taxes are the reason for the increase in the cost of living; such fees also act as a dam or blockage which prevents money from flowing to Cayman.
The real solution to our financial crisis is to lower or eliminate government fees and duties for a time in order to allow the economy to make a recovery. Lower prices mean more tourists and investors. It appears that the current government, for whatever reason, does not see the big picture and is destined to make the same mistakes that have been repeated many times throughout history.
Two things are noteworthy about all of this. First of all, you will notice that it does not take someone with a degree in economics to exercise some common sense and use some simple math to see that we are headed for certain disaster. Secondly, the above million dollar a day scenario is only for food. It does not take into account our other daily needs such as gasoline, electricity, water, clothing, mortgages, cars, furnishings, dishes, toothpaste, shampoo, soap etc (you get the idea).
All in all, we import about a billion dollars worth of stuff each year. The money flows out but it’s not coming back. We need to lower government duties and fees NOW (yesterday would be even better) because no matter what causes or organisations people are a part of, their causes will be dwarfed by the need to find something to eat.
Defenders of the government’s policies will show you that our cost of living is on a par with other similar places to Cayman. But Cayman does not grow sugar cane, or coffee or have anything to export. We are unique in this way and cannot be compared to other places. Such explanations are obviously hollow or we wouldn’t be in this negative spiral that we find ourselves. It is also silly for the UK or the government to consider a system of direct taxation since if the money going out is greater than money coming in, there will be an ever decreasing amount of money you can tax.
Equally silly is that the "quick-fix" of raising duties on fuel and electricity in order to get some quick cash to rescue the economy for the near term is the government taxing itself. Government is the biggest user of fuel and electricity in Cayman so by increasing the cost of these items means the cost of running government went up as well which causes the need for even more money than before. The tragic part of this logic is that now, by making everything even more expensive than before when it was already too expensive in the first place, we have further deterred visitors from coming here and bringing back the money we need to survive.
My only hope is that you read and understand this, email it and share it with as many people as you can. Shout it from the mountaintops!
FOI ‘ID’ing’ will be costly
(CNS): The information commissioner has pointed out that removing the right for the public to make freedom of information requests anonymously could be a difficult and costly exercise. Following comments by the premier on a number of occasions that he does not think that it is right for people to withhold their identity when applying for information, Jennifer Dilbert has said that trying to verify who people are would require even more work on the part of government information managers. Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, which was Right to Know Day, Dilbert said while government had the ability to remove the right to anonymity it would not necessarily be in its interests to do so and would be both expensive and impractical.
TS Nicole redefined
(CNS): Updated 11:30am — Tropical Depression #16 turned into Tropical Storm Nicole at 10:00 am local time as the NHC redefined the centre of the system. The south east bands of Nicole continued to drench the Cayman Islands with more and more rains as yesterday’s forecasts that conditions were expected to improve today (Wednesday 29 September) proved incorrect. Cayman Islands Weather Services said the newly formed Tropical Storm was now closer to the Cayman Islands than previously forecast with an area of TS winds over the sister Islands. A report from Cayman Brac at 10:15am indicated sustained winds of 30 knots with a gust to 44 knots. All three islands will continue to experience overcast skies with frequent heavy showers.