Archive for May 6th, 2013
American visitor dies after swim on Cayman Brac
(CNS): The police have confirmed that a 75-year-old American tourist who was visiting Cayman Brac on vacation died on Friday soon after snorkelling in the ocean. The tourist was pronounced dead at around 11:30 on Friday morning (3 May) A police spokesperson said the man and his wife were snorkelling in the vicinity of the Fosters Road in the Stake Bay area, where the man collapsed after reaching the shore. Emergency services attended the scene and the victim was transported to the Faith Hospital by ambulance but he was pronounced dead. They were both staying at the Brac Reef Beach Resort.
PNA focus fight on UDP
(CNS): With just over two weeks to go before the general elections, the PNA candidates in West Bay are focusing the fight on their former UDP colleagues. Since taking to the hustings, the incumbent Cabinet members are concentrating their attack not just on the man they helped oust from office but the candidates running with him in the district, where for the first time in many years the result is far from certain. So far, both Cline Glidden and Rolston Anglin have said very littleagainst the two independent candidates or the two running on the C4C ticket or even the PPM team but instead have attacked McKeeva Bush and his running mates for cowardice.
Anglin told a crowd in West Bay of around 200 people last week that Bernie Bush had told him that he believed he and his Cabinet colleagues had done the right thing when they voted with the opposition leader to oust the former premier from the country’s top political job during last December’s no confidence motion. Anglin went on to accuse Bernie Bush of running on the UDP ticket in the belief that he could get elected that way.
The new UDP West Bay hopeful has ran in several elections as an independent but despite managing to get almost 40% of the vote in the district in 2009 and more than 36% in 2005, Bernie Bush has persistently failed to make the top four in the district as a direct result of the power of the UDP in West Bay. Following Anglin and Glidden’s decision to help oust the UDP leader from office, Bernie Bush has now joined McKeeva Bush and Capt Eugene, as well as newcomer Velma Hewitt, in the hope that the continuing popularity of the former premier in the district will finally carry him to the Legislative Assembly.
Describing Bernie Bush as “a wolf in sheep’s clothing”, Anglin said last week at the West Bay PNA meeting that the former Pirate’s Week director had admitted that he would run with his namesake as that way he could get elected. “That’s the type of person running with the UDP,” he added, telling the crowd to reject the UDP at the polls as none of them had the country’s interest at heart.
In an ironic twist, after some twelve years in the McKeeva Bush camp, Anglin accused those running on the UDP ticket of being cowards as he said Bush could only work with people who are intimidated and afraid of him. Imploring the people of the district to rid themselves of corruption and fear, he asked the people of West Bay to vote for him and Glidden and stop the “Jamaican style” intimidation that Bush and the UDP had brought to Caymanian politics.
He accused Bush’s supporters of scaring PNA supporters by coming to the meetings and writing names in books. “He has lost it,” the deputy premier said of his long-time political colleague. But headded that the people could count on him and Glidden, as well as the current premier and his Bodden Town running mates, to do the right thing when they were returned to office.
He said that all of the UDP candidates were running with Bush out of convenience and those were not the kind of people the district needed to represent them as they would not do the right thing if returned.
Accusing McKeeva Bush of refusing to follow due process while in office, which has resulted in high levels of unemployment, he said the $10 million of tax payer’s money Bush planned to spend on putting people to work clearing the roadside would do nothing more than make people dependent on him, which he said had been the UDP leader’s long time position. Anglin said that when the people were dependent on Bush, he could always count on their vote.
“We must take Cayman back,” he said, warning people not to follow the UDP call to vote straight as he said that would be voting in the people who fear Bush and line up blindly behind him. He implied other UDP members had supported the decision to remove Bush from office but at the eleventh hour were too afraid and went back to support him.
Anglin also accused Bush of dirty politics and personal attacks in an effort to maintain his West Bay stranglehold. But the West Bay incumbent warned that if it continued then he too could reveal many things about the UDP leader that he would not want public.
With the result in West Bay in real question for the first time in many years, Anglin and Glidden are hopeful that they can still keep their seats, not least because the traditional opposition vote to McKeeva Bush will be split, cancelling the PPM, C4C and independent candidates out. The question will be if Glidden and Anglin can poll enough votes without the pull of Bush, pushing out two of the UDP candidates in what looks to be a race between the new UDP and the former UDP.
Working gun made with 3D printer
(BBC): The world's first gun made with 3D printer technology has been successfully fired in the US. The controversial group which created the firearm, Defense Distributed, plans to make the blueprints available online. The group has spent a year trying to create the firearm, which was successfully tested on Saturday at a firing range south of Austin, Texas. Anti-gun campaigners have criticised the project. Europe's law enforcement agency said it was monitoring developments. Victoria Baines, from Europol's cybercrime centre, said that at present criminals were more likely to pursue traditional routes to obtain firearms.
"But as time goes on and as this technology becomes more user friendly and more cost effective, it is possible that some of these risks will emerge," she added.
Defense Distributed is headed by Cody Wilson, a 25-year-old law student at the University of Texas. "I think a lot of people weren't expecting that this could be done," he said.