Archive for December, 2010
Cops reformed Christmas crook back in jail
(CNS): According to reports in the UK press a burglar who fronted a Greater Manchester Police campaign urging offenders to stay out of prison this Christmas has been sent back to jail. Tommy Rouse, 35 had posed earlier in the month for the police campaign holding Christmas cards with slogans such as "don’t be a pudding this Christmas". The cards were sent to repeat offenders warning them about the risks of straying from the straight and narrow. However, Rouse, a father of five, breached his own bail conditions by testing positive for drugs and was sent back to jail.
He had been convicted of a range of offences in the past 20 years, including burglary, car theft, assault and drug offences and has spent nine Christmases behind bars. He had vowed to stay out of trouble this year so he could spend Christmas at home with his children.
Supt Mark Granby from Greater Manchester Police’s Bury division said: "Tommy Rouse was given the chance to go straight, make something of his life and undo some of the pain he had inflicted on himself, his family andsociety. After 18 weeks on bail he shattered the faith people had put in him by returning to drug use.”
The senior officer said the message in the cards was clear that for people like Rouse, when they are given a chance to turn their backs on crime and become useful members of society there are conditions. "Fail to keep those conditions and you will find yourself back behind bars whether it’s Christmas or not," Granby added.
Cayman gets long weekend as royal couple ties knot
CNS): The Cayman Islands government has declared the country will join the UK in celebrating the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton in April with an additional public holiday after the Easter break. The royal couple will tie the knot on Friday, 29 April which will mean Caymanians can look forward to another long weekend. Officials said that the new holiday will officially become part of the schedule of public general holidays when a Public Holidays Order is issued next year, in accordance with the Public Holidays Law (2007 Revision). The wedding will take place at Westminster Abbey.
William and Kate announced their engagement last month when it was revealed that the prince, who is second in line to the British throne, gave his fiancé his late mother’s engagement ring.
The two have known each other for almost a decade having met at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland where they both studied. Although the relationship has attracted some controversy because Middleton does not come from royalty, the engagement reveals a slow modernisation of the royal institution and perhaps lessons learned from the ‘arranged’ marriages of the past.
With Britain experiencing a period of austerity the wedding is not expected to be as lavish as that of the prince’s parents and more like his grandmother’s ceremony in the post war year of 1947. Kate is reportedly selecting an “unkown” designer for her frock.
As William is only second in line it will not be a formal state occasion so there won’t be a long list of heads of state attending, even President Obama will be resorting to the TV along with more than 750 million viewers around the world.
Top cop points finger at US
(CNS): The Cayman Islands police commissioner has blamed the United States firearms policy for the deaths of young Caribbean men. In a presentation regarding crime in the region David Baines said that the right to bear arms there was directly contributing to the denial of the right to life for young men in the Caribbean. He also said America and western European nations were criticising the Caribbean when they themselves had failed to address the demand for drugs in their countries. Speaking at the Northern Caribbean Conference on Economic Co-operation last week Baines pointed to drugs and guns as the region’s most pressing crime problems.
The RCIP’s most senior officer told conference delegates gathered at the Ritz Carlton about the worrying proliferation of firearms in the region, which included military grade weaponry, assault rifles and heavy caliber machine guns.
“I have no interest in seeking to comment upon national politics and the laws and governance of US citizens and their constitution. However, at an international level, and specifically here in the Caribbean, the constitutional right to bear arms in the United States is directly contributing to the denial of the right to life for young men across the Caribbean,” he said.
Baines said that while every murder was a tragedy for the family, it was also a tragedy for the region, with tourism taking a bashing every time a serious crime was committed and reported in the press. He criticised an article in The Economist earlier this year which stated that Caribbean police forces were looking overseas to recruit officers. The article said: “There is good reason to import foreign managers. Caribbean police forces were set up in colonial times to catch mango thieves and quell native unrest. They are being overwhelmed bywell armed gangs, international drug traffickers and systemic corruption.”
Such commentary rankled the community, the commissioner said, adding that it failed to recognise the realities faced by the local and regional police services in small countries with limited funding and infrequent public support.
Turning the tables, he said that those countries receiving illicit drugs had not done enough to quell demand. He said the article overlooked the point that the violence in the Caribbean was down to its geography as a convenient hub for drugs originating from the South and Central Americas transiting to the main demand centres of the United States and Western Europe. Yet, those same developed countries had failed to counter their own drug problems "with a myriad of law enforcement agencies and unparalleled funding”, he noted.
The commissioner spoke about the region’s common criminal issues, which, he said, differed only in scale but pointed to the organised drugs trade as the most serious. The squeeze on organised criminals based in Jamaica meant they would "migrate to safer locales to continue their criminality", and, as a result, the importance of acting regionally to meet local threats could not be overstated.
Baines said organised crime usurped legitimate government and its criminal activity clogged up the courts. “The criminal justice system is then pressured with delays,” he said, which in turn were exploited by the criminals to intimidate or even murder witnesseses, so trials collapsed and the dangerous go free. In Jamaica, he noted, trials were still not concluded in some cases after ten years.
The situation in Tivoli Garden, Kingston, he said, showed how this organised crime undermined democracy. “The arrest and extradition of Christopher Dudas Coke to America required an operation equivalent to a military campaign to enter the area controlled by Dudas. Some 80 persons plus died during the operation to secure Dudas’ arrest and retake the area controlled by him for many years,” Baines said.
To understand the impact of how organised crime groups replaced legitimate government and law enforcements in this environment, the commissioner said that within Tivoli Gardens, 4000 homes existed, though only one percent paid utilities because the companies feared retaliation if they disconnected the supply.
Baines said crime fighting required a common approach at the regional level, including joint training initiatives and the sharing of information, assets and resources. He said that having Jamaica and FBI resources on standby, ready to deploy within an hour of request to somewhere like Cayman, when faced with a criminal threat outside of the norm was a real blessing as it was no longer sufficient to rely on a single department or unit, police or military.
“The threat is such that alignment of endeavour by government, judiciary, police, military and civil society are essential in order to exploit any opportunity to prevent organised crime gangs from establishing a base in our community,” the commissioner said.
PPM: Stimulus disappointing
(CNS): The government has offered nothing new, the opposition has said in response to the premier’s stimulus plan. With the exception of the announcement that government is talking to the banks about a possible loan moratorium, the PPM’s Alden McLaughlin said the plan was essentially a rehash of the various announcements and ideas government has made over the last year. What the country needed to stimulate the economy, the opposition MLA said, was a roll back of the massive fee increases imposed at the beginning of the year. McLaughlin also noted that in his plan the premier had again failed to appreciate the impact crime was having, especially as recent comments suggested he believed crimewas going down.
McLaughlin said that, with the exception of the issue over the East End Seaport, there was nothing bad in the plan but he suggested it was not really a stimulus package.
“It was not what it was hyped up to be,” the opposition member said. “It remains to be seen if it will have any real impact. What we have seen again is the stubborn refusal to accept that it was the hike in fees which have had the most damaging effect on the economy. If the government really wants to give investors help then it must roll back the increase in fees that took effect in January.”
McLaughlin said he was delighted that the school projects were being restarted but he noted that the year or more during which work had stopped had also had a detrimental impact on the local economy. He said that while the previous administration was condemned over the public sector projects it was clear that they had played a very important part in keeping people in work.
“When it was clear we were in for a recession it was our belief that government was obliged to keep the projects going to protect jobs,” he said. “Government has an obligation to its people, and if that means you can’t balance the budget that year well, that’s just what government has to do as we need to look out for the people.”
Although the premier has criticised Keynesian economic policy, McLaughlin said he was glad to see that the premier was still putting the principles into practice where the schools were concerned. He questioned why government had allowed the work to stop for so long and added that a lost year was lost potential trickle down and economic stimulation. As the man behind the projects, he noted that the two high schools would have been finished by now if the current government had fought as hard as the previous administration to keep the work going.
The opposition member also pointed to the continuing failure of the current government to face the crime problem, which was having a direct and negative impact on the economy. McLaughlin said that, despite the comment by the premier last week that statistics revealed a decline in crime, it was nothing short of insensitive not to recognise that the community was exceptionally concerned and fearful which it came to the day to day realities of crime in Cayman.
“These are desperate times and those who don’t appreciate that are insensitive at best,” he said. “Unless we can get some kind of check on what is perceived as the realities of crime in the community, we cannot hope to have any significant economic recovery.”
The independent member for North Side was also less than enthusiastic about the premier’s stimulus package suggesting there was “nothing in it” and wondering where the specifics were. Ezzard Miller told CNS that he was disappointed.
“I really was hoping to see more specifics and something to get the economy going over Christmas,” he said, adding that the premier could have actually made things worse. “I am concerned that the hint of duty reduction could even have a negative impact on the Christmas sales period. People who were going to buy may hold on now and wait to see if there is a significant duty reduction in the New Year instead,” he added.
Jamaicans debate translating Bible into patois dialect
(The Daily Mail): Plans to translate the Bible into patois – Jamaica’s unofficial language – have ignited a fiery debate that stretches beyond the shores of this island nation. Some Jamaicans object to the project because they say patois is an obscure dialect that dilutes the sanctity of Scripture. Others view the translation as an empowering statement that affirms their heritage. The debate continues as a Caribbean-based religious group searches for translators to help with the $1 million project. Religious leaders say the audio translation would make the Bible accessible to average churchgoers and to those who might not read it otherwise. It will take about 12 years to translate, said Rev. Courtney Stewart.
Planning hopes changes will boost development
(CNS): Although increases in planning fees passed by government earlier this year have been criticized officials are hoping that changes to the law to allow some fees to be paid on completion of the projects rather than during the process will boost development. One of the recent amendments made to the Development and Planning Law will take effect in the first quarter of 2011 and give developers additional time to boost cash flows from construction sales. Haroon Pandohie, Director of Planning in the Ministry of Finance said the initiative “would be welcomed by the development sector as it gives people more time to generate funds from sales prior to having to pay these infrastructure fees.”
He said that the planning department plays a major role in the development of business in the country so the policies and procedures that are put in place provide a framework to ensure that economic growth is stimulated and maintained.
Another change which is being well received by the construction sector is the reduction in the time-frame required to gain Certificates of Occupancies. Just last week the premier announced that these certificate are now a routine process that no longer require the Director of Planning’s signature. The task is now delegated to the Chief Building Control Officer and Assistant Building Control Officers.
Chairman of the Contractors Association, Rayal Bodden, said CCA was delighted with this decision to make it a routine process. “Time is money and the CCA believes this will speed up the process of completing a project and will thereby help to reduce construction costs. The Development industry is Cayman’s third largest industry and the Cayman Contractors Association is here to serve the community by promoting changes to existing policies and procedures that make the industry moreefficient,” he said.
The planning law amendments were broadly welcomed when they were changed this year though the fee increases were a notable exception. The decision to allow ten stories along Seven Mile Beach was also greeted with a mixed response. The first building that will pass the current seven story limit in the area will be the Watercolours development on Seven Mile Beach which will be nine stories high when it’s finished.
Thicker skin required
Now that we know that Brent Fuller won’t be getting any porridge with his Christmas Turkey this year, it’s perhaps an appropriate time to tell our local politicians that they need to stop being so sensitive when it comes to the press. For people who have chosen the most high profile profession outside premiership football and the movie industry, we in Cayman really do seem to have a bunch of sissies sitting in the LA.
During this latest debacle the foolishness of the attack on Fuller in the Legislative Assembly was compounded by the hours and hours of handwringing and ridiculous lamenting that day of the evils of the press.
They banged on (when they should have been passing and amending important legislation to get the country’s economy back on track) about how we never write the good news, how we twist their words and misquote them and paint them in a terrible light (when, of course, they perceive themselves as paragons of virtue), how the press and these upstart journalists who come from who knows where show no respect, call them by their actual names, and fail to bow and scrape anywhere near enough.
Some managed to recall every slight or misrepresentation in the kind of detailed fashion one would normally only expect from a premiership footballer or a Hollywood starlet.
In a democratic country where the press is genuinely free it is not there to big up politicians and sell their policies for them. Politicians are supposed to implement policies and do things that impact people’s lives for the better and sell their policies through positive action. The voting public is not stupid; even if we chose to write those favourable headlines that politicians dream of, if the people are not feeling it they will not be fooled by propaganda. The press, by and large, reflects the mood of the people.
Politicians in a democracy have to earn the support of voters through good policies that work. However, even when they do they will not be supported by everyone and the job of a good politician is to persuade the greatest number of people that their policies are the best. They are supposed to believe in their policies and stand by them, so when they are criticised in the press, instead of hitting out at the journalists they should be defending their policy decisions or the comments they have made about them with gusto and determination.
We in the press are supposed to record those policy positions and draw attention to the criticisms of, or alternatives to, those policies. We are not here to assist any government – UDP, PPM or any other that may emerge in the future.
Politicians are supposed to be criticised and questioned, but they in turn are supposed to be tough enough to defend what they do and stand by their convictions. After all, they have chosen a profession in which they set themselves up for a fair amount of public attention.
Our elected representatives ask us to vote for them because they tell us they are smart enough to know what’s best for us all. Every time they go to the polls they tell us thatthey know what’s going wrong and how to put it right. For better or for worse, those who choose politics do so because they think they can do a better job than the ones that came before them, that they can take charge of the situation and lead the country to success.
One would imagine that it takes a certain amount of chutzpah, brazen nerve, guts, presumption and, lets face it, a little bit of arrogance to say to your fellow countrymen “Hey, vote for me! I’ll sort it.” Surely then, one would imagine these guys and Julianna (Oops! Sorry, the honourable deputy premier and minster for a lot of stuff …) would have a thicker skin.
This berating of the press and constant criticisms of the messenger isgetting to be a little tiresome. We are doing our job and they are doing theirs, for better or for worse, and we are all at the mercy of the people. If we as journalists are rubbish, people stop reading us and we get sacked. If politicians are rubbish, they don’t get voted in again. Simple really.
In tough economic times the politicians need to stop worrying about the headlines and focus on policies. The modern press provides a forum for the politicians to deliver their message, as well as a forum for the public to tell them what they think back, and the smarter politicians know it and use it wisely.
The concept of a real free press in the Cayman Islands is still relatively young and most journalists here are very gentle on the politicians by comparison to the press corps in the United States and the UK. Despite the relatively new phenomenon of bloggers, which may be taking a little more getting used to, the politicians really need to stop fretting about the criticisms, the headlines or the angle on a story and worry more about the economy, crime and jobs.
Getting people back to work and making them feel safe is what will get politicians re-elected, not favourable headlines.
FCC is set to regulate net access
(The New York Times): The Federal Communications Commission appears poised to pass a controversial set of rules that broadly create two classes of Internet access, one for fixed-line providers and the other for the wireless Net. The proposed rules of the online road would prevent fixed-line broadband providers like Comcast and Qwest from blocking access to sites and applications. The rules, however, would allow wireless companies more latitude in putting limits on access to services and applications. Before a vote set for Tuesday, two Democratic commissioners said Monday that they would back the rules proposed by the F.C.C. chairman, Julius Genachowski, which try to satisfy both sides in the protracted debate over so-called network neutrality. But analysts said the debate would soon resume in the courts, as challenges to the rules are expected in the months to come.
Conference heralds start of a new relationships
(CNS): Canada’s former Prime Minister, Joe Clark, presided over the inaugural Northern Caribbean Conference on Economic Development held last week at The Ritz-Carlton, and said that this meeting of minds was a start of a new relationship bringing the best people together to solve issues that affected all Northern Caribbean territories.“It has the potential to be a game changer,” he said. The conference examined the key issues impacting the region and was billed as a step towards a new era of co-operation in commerce, tourism, education, migration and crime.
Organised by the Jamaica National Building Society, the conference brought together some of the most senior members of government from the region, including Bruce Golding, the Prime Minister of Jamaica; Kenneth McClintock, Secretary of State of Puerto Rico; P.J. Patterson, former Prime Minister of Jamaica; Edmund Bartlett, Jamaica’s Tourism Minister, as well as Cayman’s own Premier, McKeeva Bush and other members of the Legislative Assembly.
Golding noted that too often countries in the region were so intent on attracting the region’s nearest richest market, i.e. the US that they failed to recognise the synergies that existed among them, and spoke about the “inherent risk of insularity”.
Instead, countries of the region (which included the Cayman Islands, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic) ought to be pooling their energies and working together to compete against the rest of the world.
“We need to make partnerships where they don’t exist and strengthen those where they do exist,” he said.
Calling for the countries of the region to collectively raise their voices when it came to regional issues, Golding spoke specifically about Jamaica’s hammering by the US on the flow of drugs from his country to the US. He said Jamaica was doing everything it could to stem the supply but not enough was done to reduce the demand. He talked about reengineering partnerships and equitable burden sharing to create a framework to get on top of the drugs issue.
Strengthening the regional tourism product was a theme that ran through the conference and Golding said that promoting a package of options for visitors to the Northern Caribbean would be a great enticement for holiday-makers seeking to blend and mix their vacations. “It would give them more bang for their buck,” he said.
In a similar vein, P.J. Patterson said that the Caribbean Sea was home to half the world’s cruise fleet and yacht traffic yet that had always been for the benefit of others.
“The Caribbean does not even own one cruise liner,” he lamented.
With the Northern Caribbean home to Spanish, French as well as English speaking countries, Patterson also called for the breaking down of what he termed “the linguistic divide”, calling for the education institutions of the region to ensure that all students were fluent in the languages of the region.
Edmund Bartlett, Jamaica’s Minister of Tourism said that the Caribbean needed to offer visitors much more than simply sun, sand and sea and look to the culture of the region as a lure. He said that opportunities arose within the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) markets for potential visitors to the region, but warned that as these were long haul markets the region would have to find innovative ways to entice them. Collective marketing, he said, was essential for the region to reach such markets.
Secretary of State for Puerto Rico, Kenneth McClintock, talked about connecting Northern Caribbean countries together to create a larger single market for energy, in particular sustainable energy. He spoke about the idea of making the Northern Caribbean the first self-sufficient energy region and said that Puerto Rico was already connected to neighbours the US Virgin Islands and the Dominican Republic, and urged others to consider interconnectivity opportunities.
During a panel discussion on issues relating to immigration, climate change and regional economic policy, Dr Elizabeth Thomas-Hope, Professor of Geography and a researcher/publisher on Caribbean migration, said that small societies were afraid of immigration but that it provided opportunities and enhanced economic growth of the country.
“Immigration is very beneficial to the host country,” she confirmed, but added that the public’s view did not always agree.
Alluding to a popular Caribbean song, she said that the public oftenmoaned that immigrants “come to me party and want to take over”.
She said that migration was a major challenge in the region.
Reflections posts burglary footage on Facebook
(CNS): The owners of Reflections which has been burgled and robbed umpteen times have posted the footage of its latest break-in on Facebook and on Youtube. During the early hours of this morning burglars paid not one but two free Christmas shopping trips to the store after hours. Stealing a number of electrical items what appears to be different burglars broke into the store around 3:30 and around 5:20 on Monday morning. Police who confirmed thatthey are investigating the burglaries are asking anyone who has information to call DC McDonald at George Town CID on 949 4222 or Crime Stoppers tip-line 800 8477 (TIPS).