Archive for December 13th, 2010
UK Team claims fastest crossing of Antartica
(BBC): A British expedition to Antarctica says it has succeeded in establishing a new record – the fastest land crossing of the southernmost continent. The Moon Regan Transantarctic Expedition said the 10-man team (which included Andrew Moon a resident of the Cayman Islands) had completed the crossing in under 13 days, smashing all previous records. The total distance covered was 1,945.9km (1209 miles) in 303 hours. The team set off from the Union Glacier airstrip on 25 November and arrived on the Ross Ice Shelf earlier on Thursday.
"The team has crossed the continent! The Moon Regan Transantarctic Expedition team have just completed the fastest ever vehicle crossing of the Antarctic continent,” the group said.
"The team will now retrace their tracks to the South Pole, and back to the west coast at Union Glacier. They hope to complete the return trip in around nine days; they will then be the only vehicle-based expedition ever to complete the there-and-back journey."
The team – explorers, mechanics and scientists – travelled in convoy led by a propeller-driven biofuelled scout vehicle. Two large "monster" trucks followed behind carrying most of the crew and equipment.
Ice-penetrating radar was used to avoid crevasses. The expedition had planned to conduct several scientific tests en route. These included testing the efficiency of biofuels at extreme temperatures and wireless health monitoring equipment carried by the crew.
Bermudian minister sells car to government for $1
(Royal Gazette): Former Premier Dame Jennifer Smith was paid $1 when Government purchased her private car, Works Minister Derrick Burgess stated. The Education Minister had her Peugeot 206 sprayed dark blue and converted into a GP vehicle instead of Government buying a new one when she returned to Cabinet last month. Responding to written parliamentary questions from Shadow Works Minister Patricia Gordon-Pamplin in the House of Assembly Burgess announced the full cost of the deal. “Dame Jennifer graciously agreed to accept a nominal payment of $1 for her vehicle upon it becoming part of the Government fleet,” stated the Minister.
Race on to attract shipping business
(New York Times): Port officials in Georgia are racing to dig six feet of mud from the bottom of the Savannah River by 2014. In the world of major waterway expansions, that is an impossibly tight timeline. Without the $625 million deepening project, a breed of huge ships loaded with foreign-made iPods, furniture and other goods that will soon be able to traverse a newly widened Panama Canal will head elsewhere. And with them would go potentially billions of dollars in business. Like Savannah, other East Coast ports from New York to Miami are scrambling like shoppers at a post-thanksgiving door-buster sale, trying to become the go-to port once the canal is widened.
“Everyone’s lined up, and the door is about to open,” said Bob Pertierra, vice president of supply chaindevelopment for the Metro Atlanta Chamber.
But the battle is especially fierce in the South, where several ports are competing to become the region’s top destination for the superships. They hope to cash in on the biggest shift in the freight business since the 1950s, when oceangoing ships began carrying goods in uniform metal containers.
MLA to fight for Constitution
(CNS): Following a dispute over the language used in an amendment to a piece of legislation, an opposition MLA has vowed to fight to protect the changes made in the new Constitution. The question of the power of the governor versus elected officials was at the heart of the arguments made by Alden McLaughlin during the committee stage amendments of the Tax Concessions Amendment Bil in the Legislative Assembly on Thursday. The PPM member said the use of the term “Governor in Cabinet” in laws going forward is undermining the gains made in the 2009 constitution, which separated the governor from the elected officials when it came to policy decisions outside his areas of interest. The continued use of the term in laws and amendments was to “do violence to the existing constitution”, McLaughlin stated.
Following an adjournment on Monday over the issue first raised by the independent member for North Side Ezzard Miller and argued by McLaughlin, lawmakers returned to hear the AG’s position that there was nothing “constitutionally unacceptable” about the term.
He admitted it was not an easy issue to resolve and that it was not the end of the matter, as the term did not appear anywhere in the new Constitution. Going forward, the AG said, it was important to find language that could describe the policy decision making process of Cabinet, but in the meantime, advice from the Foreign and Commonwealth office was that there was nothing legally objectionable about the phrase.
However, McLaughlin, who was one of the main architects of the new Constitution that came into affect last November, pointed out that the changes to the balance of power made in it were important advances. He warned these were being rolled back by continuing to use a phrase which implied the governor still controlled government policy.
“It may be that the UK is remorseful about this but the reality is that the new Constitution created a sea change in proceedings that relate to the structure of government,” McLaughlin said, adding that he would be writing to the FCO about the situation. “The governor is not a part of Cabinet; he is a separate component.”
McLaughlin pointed out that under the new Constitution it is the Cabinet — the elected members — for better of for worse, that now have responsibility for policy, except for areas such as national security, which remain in the governor’s remit. The opposition MLA pointed out that it is now “inconceivable” that the governor would be held responsible for the policy decisions of elected members.
“We fought to get responsibility for policy to be the discreet remit of elected officials,” McLaughlin added, explaining that it was a deliberate act as a result of policy decisions made by past governors that were not in the interests of the Caymanian people. “We wanted to move away from a position where the governor was responsible for policy,” he said.
McLaughlin added that it was essential that, as elected members of the legislature, they all resisted the attempts by the UK and its representatives to push back the gains made inthe new Constitution. “These were hard fought changes and we must not allow those from the UK to tell us things have not changed,” McLaughlin implored the government benches. “If government wants to challenge this or not, I will not let this rest.”
He said that letting the UK go back on the concessions that had been made would be a disaster, given all of the effort, time and money spent on creating a modern constitution. “It would all be for nought,” he warned.
The AG said that the gains in the Constitution would not be affected by the use of the term but pointed out that compromise language must be found to better reflect the new situation. “The UK advisor did not issue an edict or a decree, she just said it was constitutionally acceptable,” the AG told McLaughlin.
The premier said that as the AG had found the language was not unconstitutional he would keep the term as he believed there was still a “Governor in Cabinet”, and as he pointed out, “all the world knew he had not voted for this constitution,” as among other objectionable things there were too many areas where there were contradictions.
McKeeva Bush told members that, at the end of the day, the governor still had veto powers and while he would challenge them if the governor tried to use them, he was still in the Cabinet and the premier only chairs if he is away.
“Let us not fool ourselves. We don’t have the authority we think we have,” Bush said, adding that if the opposition was going to go around suggesting the elected government had more power than it really had and was not using it, he would have to do say something. “The governor has the powers to stop anything he so desires,” the premier said.
Mac’s office defies FOI law
(CNS): The Ministry of Finance is the latest public authority to break the Freedom of information law, the Information Commissioner’s Office has found. Examining two separate applications to the premier’s ministry, the ICO found it had broken six sections of the law and breached one of the regulations in the handling of an FOI request by CNS regarding the premier’s travel costs and one by a member of the public concerning a report about the fire service. The ICO found a catalogue of failures by the ministry, not least the failure to appoint an information manager. The ministry has been given until next Monday to comply with the commissioner’s ruling in both cases.
This is the second time the ICO has made a ruling regarding the ministry’s failure to follow the process, and despite requests to meet with the chief officer and information manager to address the problems the ministry appears to behaving with FOI, the ICO has revealed that those invitations have gone unanswered.
CNS made an FOI request back in May of this year asking for a break down of the premier’s travelling costs over the previous twelve month (since he took office) for both himself and the delegates travelling with him on government business – a request that seven months later has still not been answered in full.
On Thursday evening, in a televised address to the nation the premier revealed that since taking office he has spent some $400,000 travelling.
“Government, including myself, has had to travel extensively to promote and convince the international community that these islands are open for business,” he told the people. “This has cost approximately $400,000 and involved 14 individuals, including myself, since June of 2009, or roughly $22,000 per month, but the cost is small in comparison to the benefits brought through the financial services and tourism industries to these islands.”
As a result of considerable public interest in the premier’s travels, CNS had decided to make the request in order to answer the many questions raised by readers and commenter’s on the website. Throughout the process staff in the ministry offered to release the information but stated that the work was “onerous” and “difficult” as it appeared records were not being kept of the exact details of what was being spent and staff was forced to sift through credit card bills by hand.
In its ruling the ICO pointed out that if records do not exist the public authority does not have to create them but because it had agreed to disclose information it is obliged to do so in a timely manner. The ICO’s office noted that if it is as difficult as the ministry staff suggested to access the financial records relating to travel it would need “corrective action” by the chief officer on the maintenance of those records.
The ICO had become involved in the request in August and had made attempts to move it forward but the problems continued. Not only were records of travelling expenses not collated properly, there was no information manager in place. “Despite making numerous attempts over a prolonged period of time to do so, both the applicants and the ICO staff found it impossible to determine who the responsible information manager was at the minister,” Jan Liebaers, wrote in his ruling as Acting Information Commissioner.
Liebaers further noted that, while the lack of information manager at the Ministry of Finance, Tourism, Planning and Development for several months had contributed to the problems, it did not excuse nor fully account for the “inordinately lengthy period of non-communication” despite continued requests by CNS and what the ICO described “as extraordinary flexibility” shown by the applicant regarding simplification of the request.
In the case of the report regarding a complaint by a fire officer, the ministry failed to acknowledge the request in ten days as required by law and then failed to respond for some four months. When the applicant chased the request, the ministry refused the information as it said it related to a legal case but did not formulate the refusal under the law or treat the FOI request properly.
The ruling by the acting information commissioner comes in the wake of one made by Information Commissioner Jennifer Dilbert last month in connection with a previous investigation where the office found further breaches of the FOI law in connection with the failure of information managers in four government ministries to acknowledge requests, respond in time or in the correct way.
Woman escapes fire attack
(CNS): Update 2:00pm – A man has been arrested for arson and DUI after he threw gasoline over a woman and then attempted to set her ablaze, police have reported. Calling the incident an arson attack, the RCIPS said that at 10:12am, Sunday 12 December, they received a report that someone was trying to set the Plantation Village, located in Seven Mile Beach off West Bay Road, on fire. Police and Fire personnel attended and a man was arrested. Investigations reveal that the suspect went to the customer service office at Plantation Village and sprayed a woman with gasoline. She managed to lock the office door, at which time the offender used a van to drive into the front glass door to the building.
(CNS): Update 2:00pm – A man has been arrested for arson and DUI after he threw gasoline over a woman and then attempted to set her ablaze, police have reported. Calling the incident an arson attack, the RCIPS said that at 10:12am, Sunday 12 December, they received a report that someone was trying to set the Plantation Village, located in Seven Mile Beach off West Bay Road, on fire. Police and Fire personnel attended and a man was arrested. Investigations reveal that the suspect went to the customer service office at Plantation Village and sprayed a woman with gasoline. She managed to lock the office door, at which time the offender used a van to drive into the front glass door to the building.
The woman and two other employees remained locked in the office for safety. The man then threw a gallon bottle filled with gasoline into the building and used a lighter to start a fire. Police said the victims managed to escape through a rear door whilst the building was on fire. The vehicle and the office building were extensively damaged.
The man was arrested at the scene and taken to George Town Police Station where he remains in custody. A police spokesperson said he has been arrested for arson and DUI. The entire circumstances are under investigation and in due course specific charge(s) may be laid, he said.
One of the victims was taken to the George Town Hospital, treated for smoke inhalation and then released. CID investigations are continuing.
The police are appealing for any witnesses to contact George town CID on 949-4222 or Crime Stoppers on 800-8477
A chance to rethink Kittiwake
The recent announcement that the sinking of the Kittiwake has been postponed yet again offers an opportunity to rethink this project. I am totally against the sinking of this old war ship in our beautiful, pristine waters. After all, our ocean is not a dumping ground for marine scrap metal.
It is not uncommon with these ships that, once that are decommissioned, because they cannot be disposed of in their own country’s waters as a result of environmental laws, they seek out tourism dependent locations such as our own islands that don’t have environmental protection. They then give them to us “for free” to dump in our waters — or to put it another way, we are disposing of someone else’s junk for the sake of a few divers.
I understand that the wreck off Cayman Brac does not see the number of divers that were expected to visit, not least because people are becoming more environmentally conscious or eco-friendly and are no longer interested in diving man made wrecks.
If the Cayman Islands Tourism Association (CITA) is really interested in doing something good for tourism then perhaps they should cut their losses with this particular ship, which has been on and off since the day it was first announced, and divert their attention to encouraging divers to travel to Cayman Brac to dive the wreck that’s already there.
This would help to boost the Sister Islands’ economy, which is almost always forgotten about. Divers can get package deals to include day trips as it is safe to dive and fly under 10,000 feet, and I understand that the CAL Express flies at 7,500 feet. Additionally, we do not need to create more marine environments that will promote breeding grounds for the invasive pest, the lion fish.
As an environmental activist, I hope that this sinking is stopped because it is not in any way benefiting our marine environment and seems to be for the sake of only a handful of divers.
We have clean, clear waters and that in itself should be the attraction for those who want to dive and enjoy Mother Nature’s marine environment without being subjected to man made sites that offer nothing in return but future devastation to our eco-system.