Moontown

Trinidad Express

Aabida Allaham

Carnival bandleaders are gearing up to negotiate with the relevant stakeholders on the proposed ban on “wee wee trucks” tomorrow.

According to the bandleaders, thousands of masqueraders have already paid for the service as part of their Carnival all-inclusive package and they were obligated to provide a service that met the requirements of their customers.

In a letter to Port of Spain Mayor Murchison Brown, the bandleaders stated that they “do not support a ban on the mobile facilities as a first course of action, especially without prior consultation” on the matter.

Dated October 8 and signed by the bandleaders of Pulse 8, Harts, Tribe, Spice, Island People, Ronnie and Caro, Evolution and Kaotic, the letter states that they agreed with “the establishment and the enforcement of public health standards as this is in the best interest of our masqueraders”.

The bandleaders said that the mobile rest-room facilities, which on average can rake up a price tag of $65,000 each, were borne out a need for masqueraders’ safety and security.

Johnny Quan of Johnny Q Equipment Rentals, approximately provides 80 per cent of these trucks and told the Express yesterday that while he always keeps his toilet trucks clean, the facilities themselves are outfitted with flush-type toilets, toilet paper, sinks, liquid soap, hand sanitisers, safety pins, security guards and attendants.

“In addition to that, we do not leave those facilities to full up, we pump them two to three times a day and they are always sanitised,” he said.

The mayor has decided not to respond to the letter since the bandleaders, the Public Health Department, the National Carnival Commission and the National Carnival Bandleaders Association are scheduled to meet tomorrow. “They will decide on what they want and come up with ideas to deal with the matter,” he said.

Government is throwing the business community to the wolves, according to Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday.

Panday, in a statement yesterday, stepped up his criticism of the government over its failure to protect the business community and other citizens from criminals. He said that many of the business people were now clamouring for firearm licences “having lost faith in the ability of the government, the Minister of National Security and the Police Service to protect them. Instead of treating with what is obviously a serious problem, their applications are turned down without explanation.”

National Security Minister Martin Joseph said in the Senate last week that over 40,000 people applied by firearm users licences during 2002-2009 but only 2,198 were givens.

Panday said the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report 2009-2010 has identified crime and theft as the “most problematic factor in doing business in Trinidad and Tobago. When compared to the rest of the world this country was ranked at the bottom of the table at 128th out of 133 countries surveyed in terms of the business costs of crime and violence.”

Panday pointed out that the crime of extortion has also become prevalent over the last few years.

“Many would recall when the Opposition UNC raised the issue in the Parliament the Minister of National Security expressed surprise and suspicion that Chaguanas businessmen were being forced to pay protection money to criminals in order to prevent their families and customers from being robbed, assaulted or killed. The crime of extortion has now taken a national perspective with businessmen from Sangre Grande, San Juan and elsewhere being confronted with demands by criminals for ‘protection money’,” Panday stated.

Rescue crews on scene transfer a 23-year-old man Sunday at the Aguadilla golf course after he was rescued by the crew of a Coast Guard HH-65 Dolphin helicopter, Puerto Rico Joint Forces of Rapid Action Police, and state and local Emergency Management crews, from a beach at the bottom of a 200-foot cliff in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. (Photo: Lt. Cmdr. Walter Chubrick, Coast Guard Sector San Juan Command Center supervisor)

Rescued is a 23-year-old man resident of Aguadilla, reportedly missing from his home since Saturday.

Coast Guard Watchstanders at Sector San Juan received a call from an Aguadilla Municipal police officer, who reported that the missing man had been located in a small beach off the cliffs by the Aguadilla lighthouse.

A Puerto Rico police officer aboard a Joint Forces of Rapid Action (FURA) marine unit on scene was able to swim to the beach and provide assistance to the stranded man, while a Puerto Rico Emergency Management rescue crew rapelled down to the beach to assist.

Coast Guard Watchstanders diverted an Air Station Borinquen HH-65 Dolphin helicopter to the scene. The Coast Guard helicopter crew arrived on scene, deployed their rescue swimmer and hoisted the stranded man to the helicopter while hovering 20 to 30 feet away from the cliff.

The Coast Guard helicopter crew transferred the man in stable condition to awaiting Emergency Medical Services personnel at the Aguadilla golf course, who in turn, transported the patient to the Good Samaritan Hospital in Aguadilla to receive further medical care.

CASTRIES, St Lucia — The Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) in collaboration with the St Lucia Ministry of Agriculture, Lands, Forestry and Fisheries and partners will be hosting an Exhibition in commemoration of International Day of Rural Women which will be celebrated on October 15, 2009.

Sweet potato farmer

The exhibition will be held under the theme: “Valuing the Contribution of Rural Women to the Development of St Lucia” and will showcase a wide variety of products and other areas in which rural women contribute to the growth and development of the Saint Lucian Society.

The event which will be held at the Micoud Multi-purpose Center will be opened to the all sectors of the society.

World Rural Women’s Day takes place each year on the October 15. It was launched by several international NGO’s during the 4th UN World Conference on Women in Beijing 1995. A worldwide empowerment and educational campaign is organized annually by the Women’s World Summit Foundation. Celebrations and events take place in more than 100 countries around the world.

It was suggested that 15 October be celebrated as “World Rural Women’s Day,” the eve of World Food Day, in order to highlight the role played by rural women in food production and food security. “World Rural Women’s Day” has been celebrated, primarily by civil society, across the world for over a decade.

The fugitive, Luis Armando Pena Soltren, was taken into custody on arrival at JFK Airport on Sunday, the US attorney’s office for Manhattan and the Federal Bureau of Investigaton said.

“It was made clear to Pena Soltren by US officials that he would be arrested and prosecuted upon his return to the United States,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

“The Cuban government was aware of Pena Soltren’s desire to return voluntarily to the United States and authorized his departure.”

Pena Soltren, 66, was due to appear in court on Tuesday, the prosecutor’s office said.

He is accused of hijacking PanAm flight 281 out of New York on November 24, 1968, and diverting the Puerto Rico-bound plane to Havana.

Pena Soltren and two accomplices allegedly used pistols and large knives to force their way into the cockpit and take control, the prosecutor’s office said.

The two other suspects, Jose Rafael Rios Cruz and Miguel Castro were apprehended in 1975 and 1976 and sentenced to 15 and 12 years in prison respectively.

Pena Soltren is charged with conspiracy to commit air piracy and kidnapping, interference with flight crew members, aircraft piracy, and kidnapping. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

“This is yet another example of how justice delayed is not justice denied. It is an example of the principle that, for the FBI, fugitive cases don’t become closed cases until the fugitive is brought to justice,” said Joseph Demarest, an FBI official in New York, in a statement.

The prosecutor’s office would not comment on why Pena Soltren surrendered after four decades. The New York Times quoted FBI sources saying that the fugitive wanted to see his family. Other reports suggested he had health problems.

Updating the media here on Monday, Jagdeo said at the meeting he advocated strongly for more immediate financing for Caribbean states that have suffered significantly from the economic crisis.

Guyana President Bharrat Jagdeo. AFP PHOTO

“I also spoke about the need to ensure that these countries have some form of multilateral debt relief, it’s a message that I have consistently taken to many others. I have spoken to Hillary Clinton about this and also the Secretary General of the United Nations, so the meeting with the World Bank was more advocating on behalf of CARICOM, my role as chairman of CARICOM and as chairman of the economic task force,” Jagdeo told reporters.

When asked about the bank’s commitment to the region, Jagdeo said, while there was no direct debt write off, the World Bank president has promised to work with the Caribbean to ensure that these countries get some relief.

He noted, however, that one of the major problems with the debt write off is the fact that many of the debts in the region are owed by the private sector, an area the CARICOM heads economic task force, which he chairs, did not consider initially.

“When we met in Jamaica, the deficiency of the document that we considered is that it dealt largely with debt to multilateral and public agencies, not to the private sector and a significant number of countries have a debt profile where the bulk of the debt is to the private sector. Now the solution has to be crafted based on the debt profile of each country because you asked for multilateral debt relief for all countries across the board but in some countries they only have a small multilateral debt,” he said.

As such he noted that these have to be re-examined and the region has to come up with a mechanism to approach the international financial institutions to argue debt relief

He noted that clearly if these countries were to qualify for multilateral debt relief debt write off on a classification that there needs to be a new model of development that looks sat mall vulnerable middle income countries that are different than larger developing country.

“Unless you tackle the model of development first of all, you won’t be able to create a viable medium and long term strategy for these countries… so debt relief has to be situated there; the president of the bank agrees that we will work together on that issue,” Jagdeo explained.

Another issue Jagdeo said he argued is that of the OECD and G20 classification of many Caribbean countries as financial tax havens that are encouraging the avoidance of taxes on the part of investors from the developed world.

Robert Zoellick. AFP PHOTO

“…many of our countries have been put on either grey or black lists and if we don’t address this situation quickly we would see the region suffer even greater consequences because we would have a diversion of financial flows from this region to other regions of the world,” Jagdeo said

He noted that many of the Caribbean countries have major offshore financial sectors and this listing would significantly affect them.

“So I emphasized this point with the president of the World Bank and he has promised to work with us to ensure that these smaller countries have a fair shake in the OECD review of those countries that find themselves on this grey or black list. That went extremely well,” Jagdeo said.

Back in April several Caribbean countries were placed on the OECD grey list as tax havens, including the Bahamas, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands, the latter two having since been moved to the OECD white list.

Jagdeo concluded that the discussions were healthy and noted that there will be ongoing engagement with the bank.

“We have agreed there will be a follow up meeting sometime next year to see how far we have advanced in this regard. This is healthy because normally you don’t get a commitment and a follow up meeting to see progress on those commitments,” the president noted.