Moontown

SALT FISH RICE; PEAS AND RICE

MACARONI PIE; BAKED PORK

BAKED CHICKEN; GRILLED FISH

FRIED FISH; BEEF STEW

FISH GRAVY; STEAMED VEGS

GARDEN SALADS

ROSEAU, Dominica – Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said despite the recent approval of a US$5.1 million grant, Dominica is not headed back down the route of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) austerity programme.

He said there were “no strings attached” to the funds recently approved under the IMF’s Rapid Response Facility and which are in keeping with a commitment given by the G8 grouping of the world’s most industrialised countries to help developing nations, such as Dominica, deal with the global financial crisis.

The Prime Minister has praised to IMF for “keeping to its mandate and releasing those funds rapidly”.

“We applied and within a few days the IMF responded to us in the affirmative and incidentally we intend to use those 5.1 million dollars to do a tourism project possibly the construction of some hotel rooms,” Skerrit told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) in an interview on Tuesday.

He added that a marina for the northern town of Portsmouth was also being considered and that talks would be held with the Invest Dominica Authority and a local development bank with a view to forging a partnership in the tourism venture.

Skerrit, who is also the Minister for Finance, strongly denied opposition claims that Dominica, which underwent a structural adjustment programme with the IMF in 2003 to close the country’s growing fiscal gap and reverse economic decline, would be engaging the IMF in another structural programme.

SANTIAGO, Chile – The United Nation’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) has predicted that the region’s gross domestic product (GDP) will contract nearly two per cent this year.

But ECLAC said Wednesday that the regional GDP will grow 3.1 per cent in 2010.

In its annual economic survey of Latin America and the Caribbean, the Commission reported that exports fell 30 per cent in value and seven per cent in volume in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same period the previous year.

The survey attributed the decline to the significant drop in external demand.

It also said remittances to the region contracted between five and 10 per cent in the last quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009. ECLAC Executive Secretary Alicia Barcena said while the region would contract this year, the effects of the global financial crisis would not be as negative as originally expected.

The contraction will not be “as bad as the Great Depression like some economists originally thought”, she said at ECLAC’s headquarters in Santiago, Chile, disclosing that the region will post a current account deficit of 2.3 per cent this year, up from a deficit of 0.6 per cent of GDP last year.

Bishop Errol Brooks, head of the Anglican Church in the Province of the West Indies, stated that the United States’ decision to ordain gay priests and allow gay marriages will have no affect on the beliefs of the rest of the Anglican community.

On Tuesday, at the Church’s General Convention in California, Bishops of the Anglican Church in the United States voted to overturn a three-year ban on the appointment of gay bishops.

On Wednesday, they gave permission to their priests to bless same-sex unions although stopping short of developing a liturgy for the process.

This goes against the 1998 Lambeth Conference decision (a 10-yearly meeting of bishops worldwide) said that homosexuality was not compatible with scripture.

Bishop Brooks told the AntiguaSun that the Anglican Church in the West Indies retains it position on not knowingly ordaining homosexual preachers or performing same sex marriage ceremonies.

He pointed out that the 38 provinces of the Church worldwide are autonomous with their own governing bodies and what happens in one does not necessarily filter out to the others.

Bishop Brooks also said the Anglican Communion has been trying to put together a covenant that would lay down certain fundamentals of the church in the interest of moving forward as one church in the future, including a view on homosexuality.

He said, “We are hoping that in the next couple of years, those who would live with that covenant would sign it and those that don’t want to live with it just won’t sign it.”

He said those provinces that don’t sign on with the covenant would not be considered to be a part of the Anglican Communion. He said that it might come into being by 2012.

Some believe that this week’s decision could lead to the Episcopal Church’s eventual exit from the worldwide Anglican Communion. At the very least, Arch Deacon Peter Daley thinks sanctions might be placed on the Episcopal Church for breaking the moratorium on consecrating gay bishops.

Daley likened the autonomous nature of the church to a household of grown-ups. He said that if one wants to live by one’s own rules against the consensus of the rest of the group, one is free to leave and make one’s own way in the world. If they want to stay, there will be consequences.

The Communion has been fighting to avoid disintegration since the Episcopal Church consecrated the openly gay bishop Gene Robinson in 2003. His election is thought to have created a rift between liberal and traditional Anglicans.

The Church in the Province of the West Indies is made up of two mainland dioceses and six island dioceses, including Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, Nassau and the Bahamas, Tobago, Trinidad, and the Windward Islands.

Kaieteur News

By Gary Eleazar
Dennis Baksh, a farmer from Ann’s Grove, East Coast Demerara, knew that he had stumbled on to something valuable last Friday whilst on the Hope Beach.
Baksh had found what is believed to be a part of the fuselage and a component believed to be the first piece of sensory equipment recovered from Air France Airbus A330-200 that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean after leaving neighbouring Brazil en route to France on June 1.
According to Baksh, he immediately realized that what he had found was not a part of a boat and as such made arrangements to have a tractor haul the piece of debris to his home, some distance inland.
“I see it pun deh seawall and when a go and check I say that this got to be a part of a plane,” said Baksh, yesterday.

A close up of the sensory equipment

The man who made the important discovery said that he did not see any other piece of debris in the area.
The sensory component that was attached to the fuselage is a three-axis Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) which is cylindrical in shape and is mounted on a flat base with electrical wiring protruding from within it. It bears the trademark ‘Sensorex.’
Baksh attempted to open the device but only managed to break into the cylindrical case; the cube within was impenetrable to Baksh.
A GCAA official said that he noted the numbers on the fuselage and on the equipment marked Sensorex and that he would be forwarding these to the relevant authorities.
Another aviation official explained that the piece of equipment marked Sensorex might be the first piece of sensory equipment retrieved from the crashed plane. He explained that it sends signals to the flight panel and this might be the piece of malfunctioning equipment that caused the crash.
An Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) is the main component of inertial guidance systems used in air, space, and watercraft, including guided missiles.
An IMU works by sensing motion including the type, rate, and direction of that motion using a combination of accelerometers and gyroscopes.
The data collected from these sensors allows a computer to track a craft’s position, using a method known as dead reckoning.
The IMU works by detecting the current rate of acceleration, as well as changes in rotational attributes, including pitch, roll and yaw.
The data is then fed into a computer, which calculates the current speed and position, given a known initial speed and position.
For example, if an IMU installed in an airplane were to detect that the craft accelerated westward, resulting in a calculated, constant speed of 500 miles per hour, and detected no other accelerations for one hour, then the guidance computer would deduce that the plane must be 500 miles west of its initial position.
When combined with a computerized system of maps, the guidance system could use this method to show a pilot where the plane is located geographically, similar to a GPS navigation system but without the need to communicate with any outside components, such as satellites.
The term IMU is widely used to refer to a box containing three accelerometers and three gyroscopes. The accelerometers are placed such that their measuring axes are orthogonal to each other. They measure inertial acceleration, also known as G-forces.
Three gyroscopes are placed in a similar orthogonal pattern, measuring rotational position in reference to an arbitrarily chosen coordinate system.
IMUs are primarily used in vehicle-installed inertial guidance systems. Today almost every commercial or military water-going vessel has one.
Most aircraft are also equipped with IMUs.

Dennis Baksh displays the sensory component alongside the fuselage believed to be that from the Air France Airbus A330-200 that crashed in the Atlantic Ocean on June 1 last.

When Baksh found the piece of fuselage, he said that there was also a thick foam-like material attached to the inside of the piece of fuselage but this he removed given that while it was water soaked it made the already heavy piece of debris almost immovable.
The Police and the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority were subsequently contacted with the latter confirming that the piece of debris was definitely from a large aircraft and that the component bearing the trademark Sensorex was indeed a piece of sensory equipment used on aircrafts.
The Brazilian Embassy was also contacted.
At present, it is still unclear what caused the crash that killed 228 persons aboard.
The aircraft was flying in turbulent weather at the time but some international analysts have said it is unlikely that the weather contributed to the crash but are not ruling it out completely.
Chief Air France spokesman Francois Brousse had suggested the plane could have been struck by lightning but most experts say lightning doesn’t usually bring down a modern airliner, unless it coincides with other factors that contribute to the accident.
“Planes are built with lightning strikes in mind and are struck reasonably frequently,” according to Patrick Smith, a U.S. commercial pilot and aviation writer.
Aviation safety statistics indicate that each large passenger jet such as the Airbus A330 is struck by lightning about once every three years on average.

Searching for any markings on the fuselage.

Regional aircraft, however, which fly at lower altitudes, are hit more frequently, about once a year.
About seven hours after taking off and flying through the night over the mid-Atlantic, the pilots of the Air France Airbus reported that they had encountered an area of intense cumulonimbus activity, part of the massive thunderstorms that regularly batter the region
Air France reported that the aircraft’s ACARS (Aircraft Communications and Addressing System) a digital datalink that automatically transmits service messages from the aircraft to ground stations messaged the company’s headquarters regarding a problem with the aircraft’s electrical and pressurization systems.
The French aircraft accident investigation agency, the Bureau d’Enquetes et d’Analyses (BEA) had announced that an examination of structural components of the aircraft recovered from the surface of the ocean revealed that they were deformed from the bottom to the top.
This according BEA suggests that the aircraft hit the sea “in the direction of flight and with a sharp vertical acceleration”. This, in turn, indicates that the aircraft was “not destroyed in flight”. The aeroplane’s speed sensors were “a factor but not the cause” of the disaster.
The investigators had also determined that no distress call was made, either to air traffic control or to other aircraft.
The most direct evidence of the cause of the accident is the presence of suspected aircraft debris on the ocean surface and a series of 24 automatically generated maintenance messages that were transmitted from the plane shortly before the crash.
Investigators also said that messages indicated that cabin pressure was lost and there was some kind of electrical system failure.
Following the crash a massive search was launched by the Brazilian Military as well as from France.

WICB writes individually to players
Office of the President Press Officer Kwame McCoy has confirmed to Stabroek Sport that President Bharrat Jagdeo is in receipt of the letter sent by the West Indies Players Association (WIPA) requesting  him to arbitrate in their ongoing dispute with the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) and that he is prepared to meet.The letter from WIPA President Dinanath Ramnarine was directed to President Jagdeo in his capacity as Chairman of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).
According to McCoy, President Jagdeo sees the matter as one of urgency because of the importance of cricket in the Caribbean.

McCoy said, however, that although the CARICOM chairman did say he would meet with representatives of both the WICB and the WIPA, a date and venue for the meeting had not been set but it would be as soon as possible so that the sport can return to some normalcy in the region.

Meanwhile, on the first occasion on which the WICB has communicated formally with players on the strike matter, the Board wrote individually yesterday to all players involved in the WIPA strike action.

That would include those who boycotted the ticket launch for ICC WT20 2010 and/or those who refused to play in the first Test versus Bangladesh after being selected to the West Indies squad, according to a media release yesterday from WICB Media Officer Philip Spooner.

The Board has also informed players that their actions were in breach of Rule 6 of the WICB Code of Conduct which states: “Players and team officials must not at any time engage in behaviour unbecoming that could bring the game of cricket into disrepute or be harmful to the interests of cricket.”

Each letter also noted that “in accordance with Section 3, Rule 2.1 (e) of the Code of Conduct” the said player is required to submit a response within ten days. Breaches alleged by the Board are as follows and have been cited where relevant to a player’s participation in the strike action:

Bharrat Jagdeo, Chairman of CARICOM

(i) On July 4, 2009 failure to attend the Official Ticket Launch of ICC WT20 2010 at the Beausejour Indoor Facility in St. Lucia;
(ii) On July 7, 2009 refusal to travel to St. Vincent from St. Lucia for the 1st Test Match between the West Indies and Bangladesh on July 9, 2009;
(iii) Refusal to make yourself available to represent the West Indies team as per your selection, for the 1st Test Match between the West Indies and Bangladesh on July 9, 2009.
Additionally, the release stated, those players on retainer have been informed that their action breached that contract and therefore those payments have been “suspended immediately…until such time as you indicate in writing to the WICB your resumption of obligations under the contract.”

And the Board has also written to WIPA asserting that the strike action breaches the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the two entities, and has requested that the ongoing dispute be referred to immediate mediation.

Meanwhile, the release concluded, payments are currently in progress to all players who represented the West Indies in the recent tour to England; the ICC WT20 2009; and the four One-Day Internationals versus India.

In the past CARICOM had played a major role on several occasions in similar situations when Dr. Keith Mitchell, then  Prime Minister of Grenada,  was instrumental in resolving some of the issues.

In the WIPA letter it was pointed out that the association felt  confident that the Heads of Government through its Chairman would find a mechanism to resolve the matters.

Ramnarine, in his letter to President Jagdeo, had stated that they were fully conscious of the importance of cricket to the economy and unity of the region, and the psyche of its peoples— “matters in which you and other Heads of Governments are continuously and intrinsically involved.”

It stated also that the  players were deeply mindful of the responsibility they shoulder on behalf of this important group of stakeholders and it was  therefore in that context that they wished  to have a speedy resolution to the issues.

The actions of the West Indies team against the WICB and its policies commenced during the dying stages of the tour of India in the Caribbean.
At first they  refused to attend the ticket launching of the International Cricket Council (ICC) WT20 2010 in St Lucia last weekend for the event which will be held in the Caribbean next year.

Following that, they refused to appear for the presentation at the conclusion of their India series with only captain Chris Gayle attending.
A day after, WIPA announced that the first-string players such as Gayle, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Dwayne Bravo and Jerome Taylor would not be playing in the present series against Bangladesh.

Their actions left the WICB hastily putting  together a squad of mostly debutants to play against Bangladesh in the first test which they lost by 95 runs.
In the meantime, the second test starts today and with the issues between the WIPA and the WICB not yet resolved, the same players with the inclusion of Ryan Hinds will wear the maroon cap on the field.