Archive for June, 2011
Peaceful protest in East End
(CNS): Some 500 people gathered at Lovers’ Wall in East End Saturday morning in a public display of protest against the proposed East End sea port. The event began with a rendition of the National Song, and then the protesters, most of whom were wearing a white top, followed Pastor Marquis McLaughlin's prayer with a recital of the "Walk Lightly Prayer". Afterwards they marched eastward, hand in hand, to span the entire wall. Meanwhile, an online petition to raise international as well as local support for the campaign against the sea port is gathering pace and has now collected 30,000 signatures.
Leader of the Opposition Alden McLaughlin, PPM representatives Arden McLean and Independent MLA for North Side, Ezzard Miller, all addressed the crowd about their opposition to the project. MLAs Kurt Tibbetts, Moses Kirkconnell, and Anthony Eden were also present, as well as former MLAs, Charles Clifford and Osbourne Bodden.
The development, which has been proposed by Joseph Imparato, would include at least five different types of marine based commercial activities and a selection of complementaryland based activities.
These would be constructed on privately owned land and would be funded by the developer, who has said he would recoup his investment from the sale of fill which would be extracted from the site during the development. Part of the commercial site will be handed over to the Cayman Islands Port Authority to run as a cargo port. The other facilities it is understod will be managed through private sector joint ventures with the developer, Imparato has stated.
Howeve, it is not clear how much of the upland infrastructure would be undertaken by the developer and what would be the responsibility of government in order to make the port operable.
Imparato's proposal has met with a considerable amount of opposition from the people of East End and North Side and the wider community. Both the political representatives for those districts strongly oppose the project for a variety of reasons — environmental concerns as well as the impact on the lives of people living in the district — with what they say will little benefit in return to most local residents.
The Department of Environment, the Cayman Islands Tourism Association and WI Marine, a local marine engineering firm, have also raised the concern about the environmental and social impact of the development. (See EE port faces more critics.)
This weekend's protest, aimed specifically at this propsed project, will be followed on Tuesday by a march through George Town to the Legislative Assembly as a demonstration of public concernover a number of developments proposed or supported by government, including the oil refinery, the closure of part of the West Bay Road, the fear that proposals to dredge the North Sound may reappear, as well as the proposed seaport at East End.
Protesters will be gathering at the George Town Cricket Pitch from 10am and will begin marching at noon. It is expected that they will arrive at the Legislative Assembly at 12:45pm.
See video footage of Saturday's event here.
Rescued boater dies
(CNS): Police have confirmed that one of the four adults who were rescued after their 18-foot vessel overturned in the sea off South Sound Saturday afternoon has died. Yesterday the RCIPSreported that one of the people on board was critically injured and was transported to George Town hospital, but he apparently succumbed to his injuries. A police spokesperson said that more details would be released later. After the RCIPS received the report at around 3:53pm Saturday, 25 June, the police Air Operations Unit and the Joint Marine Unit were deployed to the area and all four from the vessel were rescued. (Photo courtesy Cayman27)
Child knocked down on North Sound Road
(CNS): Update 8:45pm Saturday — The RCIPS has confirmed that a young female pedestrian was injured when she was knocked down by a vehicle Saturday morning, 25 June, in the vicinity of The Humane Society, North Sound Way. CNS understands that the child was walking one of the dogs from the Humane Society, which was unharmed. Police say the incident was reported at 10:47amand that the child was injured in the collision and was taken by medics to the Cayman Islands Hospital in George Town, where she was admitted. No one else was injured in the collision. At 8:00pm Saturday night her condition was listed as stable with no fractures or any life threatening injuries.
Any witnesses to the collision should contact the investigating officer PC 347 Kenville Holder on 946-6254 or George Town police station on 949-4222.
MLAs will stand by ‘pioneers’
(CNS): Many people have expressed fear of retaliation if they participate in the demonstrations today and Tuesday in opposition to a number of major developments supported by government, three backbench MLAs have said. Pledging their support for what they call pioneers, Leader of the Opposition Alden McLaughlin and PPM MLA Arden McLean, along with Independent MLA Ezzard Miller promised to stand by victims even though, as they point out, there are limits to their protection under the law. A peaceful protest and prayer will take place this morning in East End, and a march through George Town to the steps of the Legislative Assembly is planned for Tuesday lunchtime. (Photo by Dennie Warren Jr)
In a release, the MLAs state that no one, not even them, can offer any guarantees in respect to jobs or possible discrimination caused by the participation in these demonstrations. Each of them has pledged to stand by victims of such retaliation and help to fight alongside them, although they did not say what form such support would take.
“The truth is that, unfortunately, there are limits to the protection which is provided by law to the citizens of this country who wish to exercise their democratic right to demonstrate,” explained East End representative McLean.
“Within our context, the threat to livelihood is just as powerful as the threat to one’s life or liberty in other places, and it cannot be ignored or downplayed,” George Town member and PPM Leader McLaughlin added.
“While it may be of no comfort to the victim of such action to know that there are no guarantees or protections for this kind of occurrence, at the very least we pledge our support to advocate for these pioneers. For that is what they are: it is not a glamorous position, and it is one that comes with tremendous hardships and sacrifices. Even in the 21st century, however, that is what it will take to move this country forward as a democracy,” Ezzard Miller, the independent MLA for North Side.
The protest and prayer started this morning at 9:30 at Lovers’ Wall (the proposed development site entrance, on Seaview Road in East End, to protest the East End sea port project specifically.
Meanwhile, the premier is holding his own rally to protest the protests today at the Public Beach where he will be inviting the unemployed heavy equipment operators and everyone who needs work to come out Saturday afternoon and show their support for the need for development.
A march through George Town to the Legislative Assembly on Tuesday 28 June at non is to be a public demonstration of concern about the choices the premier is making and the direction heis choosing in his efforts to stimulate economic growth. The dependence on mega developments such as the proposed East End Seaport, the recent decision to sign an MOU for an oil refinery, the closure of part of the West Bay Road, the fear that proposals to dredge the North Sound may reappear are just some of the concerns raised by the opposition and other groups that are taking part.
The RCIPS has announced that on Tuesday, 28 June, between 11:30am and 3pm the following South bound lane will be closed to all vehicular traffic: the junction of Smith Road and Huldah Avenue (by the traffic lights) the junction of Elgin Avenue and Hospital Road; the junction of Goring Avenue and Elgin Avenue, Shedden Road near Anderson Square, Cardinal Avenue and Edward Street, Fort Street by the Town Clock and Fort Street and North Church Street by the traffic lights.
All road users are urged to be vigilant and take care while using the roadways.
“Island Watch”
On behalf of a friend of mine I am trying to drum up some interest in an imaginative new crime-fighting idea. He believes the concept of “Neighbourhood Watch” could be extended to an Island-wide community-alert initiative that he calls “Island Watch”.
The plan is to take advantage of the fact that almost everybody in Cayman has a mobile phone of some sort, which they carry with them at all times (especially while dealing with supermarket cashiers and bank tellers, unfortunately, but never mind…) Those phones could be the means of mobilising the carriers to help deter or catch criminals – robbers and muggers in particular.
Victims or eye-witnesses of robberies and muggings can’t do much besides call 9-1-1. The people at the other end authenticate each call as best they can, and then pass the caller on to the police. End of story, pretty much. The police react as best they can, using their own resources. An “Island Watch” program would, on receipt of a similar report, immediately send a text message to every cellphone in Cayman with a description of the suspects and their getaway vehicle and the direction they took off in.
With luck, and ideally, the suspects and their car would be tracked wherever they went. Follow-up reports would keep the communications base informed, and the base would pass the news on to all the cellphones. Allowing for authentication delays, feedback would be very, very quick.
Nobody would be urged to be a hero and chase after the bad guys shouting “Not today, bo-bo!” They would let their cellphones do the chasing. The Watchers would do what the police don’t have the manpower to do. You get the picture, I hope.
There are three major problems that I can see standing between the vision and the achievement. Those are authentication, anonymity and defamation. I invite readers now to suggest how each might be dealt with.
Authentication: How could Island Watch’s communications base (HQ) quickly ensure that all reports it receives and sends (by text, not by voice) were reliable?
Defamation: How could Island Watch best protect innocent parties from defamation either deliberate or accidental? And, protect itself from lawsuits, of course!
Anonymity: All Watchers might be interested in receiving crime-alerts, but if only a couple of brave souls ever texted in reports to HQ the whole Island Watch program would be futile. Cellphones are famously easy to trace – at least according to all the TV shows. Portable computers might be more difficult, though not impossible; and anyway not everybody carries them.
The general public regularly expresses its dissatisfaction of existing crime-prevention procedures and programs; an “Island Watch” might succeed in filling a gap. I hope everyone reading this will help turn the idea into reality.
$10m spent on nation building
(CNS): The premier was very reluctant to give details on how $10 million which has been appropriated to his ministry over the last three budgets has been spent. The money has been allocated to a new line item termed ‘nation building’, which the country’s leader says covers a number of different things. When the opposition leader pressed for some transparency on how the public cash had been spent over the last two years and how it would be spent in the coming year, McKeeva Bush accused Alden McLaughlin of wantingto know so he could embarrass people. The premier said the money was being spent on churches, scholarships, leadership programmes and various other projects defined as nation building.
The money, Bush said, was being processed through the finance department and was all above board and it wasn’t him “that was writing out the cheques”.
The premier explained that the ‘nation building’ financial allocation was created to finance programmes that would help to promote leadership among young people, foster talent, build on the country’s moral values, help those in need, support volunteer organisations, to encourage those who may be at risk to raise themselves above difficult circumstances and many other worthwhile projects for the betterment of Cayman.
It is about enhancing positive social growth and providing a flexible response system for the government to help those in need of assistance in special circumstances when they presented a worthy case, the premier added.
Bush described the money as a grant system that was being allocated by his office on a case by case basis depending on merit. However, he refused to be drawn on exactly how the substantial sum of money had been spent, despite questions from the opposition leader.
Alden McLaughlin noted that the amount which the Finance Committee was being asked to vote on for this fiscal year was over $3 million, in the last financial year it was $4million and in the first year when the premier introduced the new allocation around $2.8 million had been appropriated. He said there had, however, been no transparency or accountability regarding the money, which was coming from the public purse.
McLaughlin said that normally the kind of payments the premier was describing were allocated under ownership or purchase agreements where the recipient programmes, church groups or volunteers were held accountable for how they used taxpayers' money and explained in detail the goals and ambitions of the various projects.
He also queried why the scholarships that the premier said were being funded under the allocation were not being handled through the normal channels. Bush stated that 27 people were receiving scholarships through the nation building programme as they had not qualified through the usual routes because the students in question had special talents but not necessarily the academic grades. He said two of the recipients were very talented musicians.
The opposition leader pointed out that the scholarship secretariat normally provides vocational scholarships for gifted students no matter their academic situation, as he pressed the premier to explain exactly where the $10 million was being spent and offer the public some transparency and accountability.
The premier said that aside from helping churches with their buildings, after school programmes and scholarships, some of the money had also been spent on Barkers national park.
Despite the leader of the opposition’s persistence, the premier refused to detail the names of the organisations and the amounts given and said he had already explained where the money was going and that it was being handled properly.
McLaughlin suggested that the premier supply Finance Committee members with a detailed report breaking down the grants and awards. “Given the amount of the allocation, can the committee be provided with a report so we can perform our proper function of scrutinizing how money is being spent?” the opposition leader asked.
The premier insisted it was not normal to detail all of these kinds of grants and he would check how things were usually handled. “I’ve told you what it’s being spent on,” Bush said, adding that it was going through the accountants at the ministry. He accused the opposition leader of not liking the creation of the programme and him being in the position to do what he could, but Bush said that as long as he was in a position to help people he would.
The opposition leader noted, however, that what he didn’t like was the fact that he, the Finance Committee and the public could not see how public money was being spent.
For details of government'sspending plans go to www.bmu.gov.ky or click here
OT secure prison in review
(CNS): The proposal to send Cayman's high risk prisoners off-shore and remove the pressure from Northward is currently being discussed by members of the Overseas Territories Council, the governor has revealed. Duncan Taylor said that the UK is considering the possibility of creating a high security facility which would be used to house all of the regional OT's serious offenders but the problem is finding a territory willing to host the prison. One of the suggestions put forward in the national crime prevention strategy, unveiled this week, to send high risk prisoners overseas would enable the local prison to focus on rehabilitation rather than security and get to grips with the high recidivism rates.
Premier McKeeva Bush first raised the idea last year at a public meeting in West Bay in the wake of a spate of shootings in the district but he had suggested housing the facility in another country. Bush said at the time that because of human rights he didn’t think people were afraid to go to Northward Prison and Cayman needed somewhere else to send its serious criminals.
“I am going to propose to my colleagues that we develop … a regional prison for serious crime that will be in a country outside of the territories,” he said. “All of us would put our funds in to get an outside prison … a place where human rights don’t bother them so much.”
Speaking about idea on Wednesday, Taylor said the UK was considering having a single facility in one of the Caribbean territories but aside from the location another stumbling block was the rights of family members to visit their incarcerated relatives and having the prison offshore would make that difficult.
The governor did, however, note the possible advantages for the current prison system as he said much of the prisons time and resources are directed at security issues because of the dangerous prisoners currently housed there. He explained that the much needed rehabilitation programmes are sacrificed because of the need to maintain security levels due to the category A prisoners being housed in the same prison as category D offenders.
“The Overseas Territories Council is exploring the idea of a regional high security prison for the OTS,” Taylor stated. “I see some benefits in that, if Northward didn't have such high risk prisoners in there, it would be a lot easier to implement programmes. If it were a low-to-medium secure prison, the environment can switch from a security punitive one to one of rehabilitation.”
One of the major criticisms by the working group which researched the crime prevention strategy was the failure of the prison to offer rehabilitation for its offenders. The strategy pointed to the need for drug and alcohol counselling to be reintroduced at the prison. “This should be part of mandatory sentence planning, which is at the heart of the rehabilitative process,” the document states.
Over 70% of prisoners have a drug and or alcohol problem but none are receiving help and with budget cuts all rehabilitation programmes have diminished significantly, the report found. Sentence planning, which is at the heart of the rehabilitative process, is not mandatory.
As a result of security taking priority over rehab and reform of prisoners, they leave HMP Northward under license because of good behaviour without any comprehensive assessment of changes in attitudes and beliefs following their participation in programmes like anger management, sexual offenders therapy or addiction treatment.
Gore condemns Obama for lack of action on climate
(CP): President Obama has been fiercely criticized by former Vice President Al Gore for his lack of progress on climate change in a magazine article set to be published Friday. gore criticized Obama saying that he had failed to act decisively to make any significant changes to the country’s climate change and energy policies. The rebuke came as Gore wrote for “Rolling Stone” magazine, where he said: “President Obama has never presented to the American people the magnitude of the climate crisis. He has simply not made the case for action. “He has not defended the science against the ongoing, withering and dishonest attacks,” Gore said.
“Nor has he provided a presidential venue for the scientific community – including our own National Academy – to bring the reality of the science before the public.”
Gore explained that Obama has failed to stand up for “bold action” on global warming and has made inadequate progress on the problem since the days of Republican President George W. Bush.
FIFA report reveals compelling evidence
(AP): FIFA's ethics committee says a report reveals "compelling" evidence that Mohamed bin Hammam and Jack Warner conspired to bribe presidential election voters before they were suspended from soccer. The committee concludes that bin Hammam's alleged actions in offering $40,000 cash payments to Caribbean officials "constitute prima facie an act of bribery." The report, seen by The Associated Press, says Warner was an accessory to bribery who offered "mere self-serving declarations" at a hearing last month. The 17-page document was sent last week to Warner, a FIFA vice president before he resigned his soccer positions.
FIFA dropped its investigation of Warner on Monday after he resigned, saying he maintains "the presumption of innocence."
US hedge fund regulation pushed back to 2012
(MarketWatch): The US securities regulator delayed a long-awaited rule bringing US hedge funds under its purview, Wednesday as the agency struggles to implement a mountain of new rules after the banking crisis. The Securities and Exchange Commission pushed back a plan to have the new funds register by July 21, until the first quarter of 2012. SEC members adopted a proposal they introduced in November that requires hedge-fund and private-equity managers with more than $150 million in assets, or with 15 or more clients in the United States, to register with the agency.
Roughly 750 big funds will now be subject to the new regulations, a rule that the Dodd-Frank bank reform legislation allowed the agency to write.
The SEC also will conduct surprise examinations of these managers, who will be required to file reports about their funds and on any conflicts of interest starting in 2012.