Archive for December, 2011
Two hospitalized following West Bay Road smash
(CNS): Police and emergency services were called to another major road smash on Wednesday evening after two cars collided on the West Bay Road by the Silver Sands condominiums at around 6:50pm. According to witnesses at the scene, a red SUV travelling west smashed into the side of a white car pulling out of the condo complex after the vehicle had overtaken traffic at speed. A man and a woman who were the individual occupants of the two cars involved in the smash were both taken to the Cayman Islands Hospital but officials have not yet confirmed the status of either driver.
The collision caused long tailbacks as the accident blocked the westbound side of the West Bay Road.
Cop cells bulge with DUI arrests
(CNS): Senior police officers say they are outraged at the number of people who are still ignoring the drink-driving laws and finding themselves in the local police cells. The RCIPS revealed Wednesday that over 40 people have been locked up on suspicion of drinking and driving since the start of this year’s festive safety campaign. “Forty-four people who thought that the traffic Law did not apply to them are facing court in the New Year,” said Chief inspector Angelique Howell. “We have already locked up more people this year for DUI than we did during the complete safety campaign period last year.”
Outraged by the disregard for road safety, CI Howell added, “The figure is deplorable and a sad indictment on the behaviour of drivers in the Cayman Islands.”
According to the latest statistics 44 drivers have been arrested since the start of Operation Christmas Cracker on 28 November. CI Howell warned that many more could be locked up and be facing charges in the New Year if drivers fail to heed police warnings.
“New Year’s Eve will soon be here and again people will be attending parties, or drinking in their homes. Once again we will be targeting drink drivers and taking those selfish and irresponsible people who continue to put their own lives and the lives of other road users at risk, off the streets. So if you really want to have a happy and safe New Year, take a cab, designate a driver or use the NDC purple ribbon bus,” she added.
Driver badly hurt in crash
(CNS): An early morning single vehicle collision placed two men in hospital Wednesday with one in a serious condition officials have said. The smash occurred at around 2.20am this morning on Linford Pierson Highway when the Honda Civic which the men were in left the road and collided with a tree, near to the riding stables. The driver, who is aged 26, and his 24-year-old passenger were both taken to the Cayman Islands Hospital where they are currently being treated. The driver is described as being in a serious condition and the passenger stable. The smash comes just days after Cayman roads claimed the seventh life of the year.
Richard Alutaya Rivera (39) of East End was killed on the Shamrock Road in the early hours of Friday morning (23 December) when the Honda Civic that he was driving also smashed into a tree after leaving the road at speed.
As a result of this morning’s smash police said a section of the Linford Pierson Highway was closed to allow traffic investigations to take place but the road is now open and inquiries into the crash are ongoing. Anyone with any information is asked to contact PC Athelston Watts at the RCIPS Traffic Management Department on 946-6254.
Tubby teens tied to poor toddler-mom relations
(Reuters): Toddlers who have poor relationships with their mother are more likely to pack on extra weight as they grow up, according to a study. Researchers who followed nearly 1,000 children into their teens found that more than 25 percent of those who scored lowest on mother-child relationship tests as toddlers went on to become obese at age 15, findings in Pediatrics said. By contrast, only 13 percent of the children who had a good relationship with their mother became obese. While that doesn't prove cause and effect, researchers say other work has shown links between children's emotional and intellectual development and how they interact with their mother at a young age.
It's possible that a stressful childhood could makea lasting impression on children's brains, said Sarah Anderson, who worked on the study. "There is an overlap in the brain between the areas that govern stress and energy balance," said Anderson, at the Ohio State University College of Public Health in Columbus. "This stress response could be related to obesity through appetite regulation."
The study was based on 977 children who were videotaped while playing with their mother at about one, two and three years of age.
Go to article
Insurance firm backs free NYE bus service
(CNS): Final bus schedule now attached— The National Drug Council has managed to secure sponsorship for the free Purple Ribbon Bus which it says will run from 10pm to 3am on New Year’s Eve. This year locally based insurance firm Greenlight RE has donated the cash for the initiative which has been running for over ten years. The NDC has also partnered with local businesses and restaurants to coordinate the Designated Driver Programme giving free soft drinks to designated drivers. “We continue to be extremely grateful for the private sector donors who support initiatives such as this one,” said Executive Director Joan West-Dacres.
“We were able to increase the buses from five in 2010 to eight buses in 2011!! There is really no excuse for drinking and driving this New Year’s Eve,” she added.
The free NYE bus service established to assist in reducing the number of drinking and driving incidents has always been well received and has made a significant contribution to making the roads much safer on the annual holiday. The eight Reid's Premier Tours buses will be travelling a regular route at regular intervals from West Bay to Bodden Town and will carry the Purple Ribbons and magnets. The buses will pick-up passengers at all major restaurants, bars, night-clubs and at regular bus stops along the route and will also operate to and from East End and North Side.
See more details below
Local businessman files suit over bar room threats
(CNS): Updated 10 January 2012 — A George Town businessman has filed a law suit against another local businessman whom he claims threatened and insulted him in a West Bay Road bar last month. Aldo Gianne has filed a law suit in the Grand Court against Lee Webb claiming damages for slander as he says the incident caused serious injury to his personal and business reputation. According to the statement of claim Gianne accuses Webb of insulting and threatening him while he was discussing business with a potential client in the bar causing him “considerable embarrassment, hurt and distress,” the writ states.
Describing himself as a businessman with “various interests” in Cayman Gianne states that while he was sitting at the bar at Havana Club Cigar Lounge on Saturday 26 November, Webb approached him and his business associate swearing and issuing threats to him which Gianne says were heard by the bar tender and an undisclosed number of other witnesses in the bar. In the writ he claims that Webb, who owns Elite Marble & Granite and Piccolos Deli was deliberately attempting to disparage him. Gianne says Webb also spoke to his business associate telling him not to do business with him.
Fearing that Webb will continue in his threats Gianne has asked the court to restrain the defendant as well as financial recompense.
In the Statement of Claim attached it is reported that Natalie Henry was a witness to the threat being made against Aldo Gianne by another person at the Havana Club. However, Henry categorically denies witnessing any such assault on Gianne and has said that she is dismayed that without speaking to her or obtaining a statement from her in regards to this incident, he and his lawyers nonetheless named her in the suit.
Electricity sparks new life into Indonesia’s corals
(Discovery): A weak, harmless voltage run through metallic structures underwater is reviving near-dead reefs. Cyanide fishing and rising water temperatures had decimated corals off Bali until a diver inspired by a German scientist's pioneering work onorganic architecture helped develop a project now replicated worldwide. Based on ""Biorock" technology, it is implemented in 20 countries, mainly in Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, Indian Ocean and Pacific. In the turquoise waters of Pemuteran off the north coast of Bali where the project was launched in 2000, a metal frame known as "the crab" is covered with huge corals in shimmering colours where hundreds of fish have made their homes.
TCI begins reduction of civil service
(CNS): The Turks and Caicos government, currently under the control of the UK has begun reducing the islands civil service with the distribution of 697 voluntary severance package quotations. According to the governor’s office the quotations outline the compensation available to those public sector workers willing to step down from their jobs. The workers have three weeks to consider government’s offer which official said also includes financial advice, CV and interview skills advice as well as assistance on identifying private sector job opportunities, vocational and academic training and skills courses.
Meanwhile, as the government seeks to slash the more than 2000 public sector head count it is seeking deputy secretaries to work under the new permanent secretaries in five new ministries. Part of the ongoing reform of the civil service the existing nine ministries will be reduced to five with new permanent secretaries for each.
According to the island’s chief financial officer despite still having a deficit of almost $15million double the amount predicted, the islands’ fiscal position is progressing. Hugh McGarel-Groves said the reason for his optimism was a 34% rise in the second quarter results, above the same period last year, in government revenues to $80.7m. At the end of September 2011 the net of revenue and expenditure showed a cumulative deficit of $14.9m. The finance boss said this increase in the half year deficit was caused by the government settling a total $8.2m of mostly unbudgeted historic liabilities including.
“The detailed results from the second quarter of this financial year reveal that there are real reasons for cautious optimism about the Government’s financial position, despite some setbacks on unbudgeted historic liabilities, as we work towards the milestones of providing a stable economic environment and reaching a financial surplus next year,” McGarel-Groves said.
In his year end review the governor said the islands prospects for 2012 were improving and he said the interim government was working hard to remedy the country’s difficulties caused by the global recession and “previous mismanagement” for which he said the people of the TCI were still paying the price.
“Despite these present difficulties and challenges, there are grounds for growing optimism in 2012,” Ric Todd said. “The latest detailed account of the TCIG finances shows that our reforms are, can and will have a positive effect.”
He said with a clear way forward elections could be held before the end of next year if the milestones were met which he admitted were still challenging. “Returning to fiscal surplus in 2012/13 is perhaps our most challenging milestone. “
Todd added that the civil recovery programme had won back 800 acres of Crown Land worth $150million, for the people, which had been misappropriated and nearly a million dollars in cash.
“I am confident that more dishonestly acquired land and cash will be returned to its rightful owners, the people of TCI,” he said.
Amazon Kindle releases the Queen’s speech
(BBC): The Queen's Christmas speech has been released as a free download for Amazon's Kindle e-book reader following its broadcast. The retailer secured access to the transcript after approaching the Royal Household with the proposal. The arrangement is an e-book exclusive although the text was also made available at Facebook, the BBC and the Royal Household's official website. Book industry watchers described the move as a "coup" for Amazon. In addition to this year's speech Kindle owners are able to download the Queen's previous Christmas messages dating back to 1952, the year of her accession to the throne.
See Queen's Christmas Speech in full here
Word of God gets patois translation
(BBC): The Bible is, for the first time, being translated into Jamaican patois. It's a move welcomed by those Jamaicans who want their mother tongue enshrined as the national language – but opposed by others, who think learning and speaking English should be the priority. In the Spanish Town Tabernacle near the capital, Kingston, the congregation is hearing the word of God in the language of the street. At the front of the concrete-block church, a young man and woman read alternate lines from the Bible. This is the Gospel of St Luke in Jamaican patois – or more precisely, "Jiizas – di buk we Luuk rait bout im".
The sound of the creole, developed from English by West African slaves in Jamaica's sugar plantations 400 years ago, has an electrifying effect on those listening.
Several women rise to testify, in patois, to what it means to hear the Bible in their mother tongue. "It's almost as if you are seeing it," says a woman, referring to the moment when Jesus is tempted by the Devil.