Mills plans to stop working with the national team so he can concentrate more time on coaching the club team which includes Olympic triple gold medallist Usain Bolt, the Jamaica Observer reported Friday.

Glen Mills. AFP PHOTO

“I feel that after being head coach for every world championship team, except the inaugural one and the one in 2003, and every Olympic Games since 1988, that’s a good run, and the crowning glory in Beijing,” Mills said. “It’s good to quit while you’re ahead.”

Mills made a name for himself after Bolt won the 100 metres and 200 metres in world record times of 9.69 and 19.30 seconds.

Howard Aris, president of the Jamaica Amateur Athletics Association (JAAA), said the announcement did not come as a surprise.

“As far back as five or six years ago when I took over as president it has been discussed,” Aris told a Jamaican sports radio show.

Mills replaced the late Herb McKenley as national team head coach in 1987.

He said he as pleased Jamaica’s track and field had achieved it highest level of recognition after winning 24 medals at the last two major global events — the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008 and the IAAF World Championships in Berlin earlier this year.

Jamaican athletes won six gold medals in Beijing and seven gold in Berlin. Jamaica won a total of 33 Olympic medals under Mills’ guidance.

Mills considering retiring nine years ago after the Sydney Olympics because he felt was time then for someone younger to take over.

“I took the decision then, that it was time to allow younger people to take up the mantle, but the then administration ask me to continue for a couple more years so that somebody could be groomed to take over,” he said.

The ferry sails from Southampton, England on November 17, and will arrive in St Thomas, USVI, on December 6. The first sailing will take place in early 2010 as the ferry will go through its final checks to be commissioned and licensed in St Kitts during the last two weeks of December.

The government of Montserrat moved to cover the high travel period in December by contracting a short term ferry, similar to last year. This service will begin on December 2 and will be for at least six weeks.

These arrangements were spearheaded by Charles Kirnon, Minister of Communications and Works with assistance from the interim access coordinator, Oral Martin and members of the recently formed access committee.

The ferry has the potential to move up to 400 persons per week on regularly scheduled service, a number that translates into over 20,000 persons per year. These additional seats will help to boost the economy, especially the vital tourism sector including day tours, one of the island’s newest businesses.

Minister of Tourism, Edmund Bartlett, said in many cases, these luxury items were available in other countries.

Minister of Tourism, Edmund Bartlett, addresses the launch of the Spruce-up Jamaica National Tourism Debate Competition

“The more the tourists spend, is the more money will be in the country and is the more we will be able to do for our citizens. Shopping is undoubtedly a major area and our job as government is to enable shopping to happen by providing the basis for all type of quality goods to be merchandised here in Jamaica,” the Minister stated.

He was addressing the launch of the Spruce-up Jamaica National Tourism Debate on Thursday in Montego Bay.

Bartlett explained that the inventory-enrichment strategy “will allow for in-bond merchants to be able to bring in and have in inventory, goods at a higher price level, with an arrangement that will allow them to pay a six per cent tax across the board, relating to the sale of those high-ends.”

This move, he said, will firmly establish Jamaica as a destination where tourists could shop for high-end products instead of going to countries such as the Cayman Islands, the Bahamas, and the United States Virgin Islands “as these goods would be available right here in Jamaica”.

Minister of Tourism, Edmund Bartlett, shares a light moment with students, who will be participating in the Spruce-up Jamaica National Tourism Debate Competition

“All those big brand names that wealthy, rich people want to buy when they come to your destination, we can have it in Jamaica now and the enablement that has been afforded by the Government’s new policy, is going to drive those higher-end goods and we are going to see coming to us more and more of what you call the high-rollers and those who spend big money when they come,” Bartlett stated.

In the meantime, he commended all 16 schools that have signaled their intention to participate in the Spruce-up Jamaica National Tourism Debate Competition.

The debate, which will run for 13 weeks beginning the second week in November, aims to educate the students about the importance of tourism to Jamaica.

By Chris Dolmetsch

NEW YORK, USA (Bloomberg) — Storm Ida moved back over the Caribbean Sea on Friday after pummeling Honduras and Nicaragua with rain as it heads north toward the Gulf of Mexico, the US National Hurricane Center said.

The tropical depression was centered about 65 miles northwest of Cabo Gracias a Dios on the border of Honduras and Nicaragua, the Miami-based agency said in an advisory at 4 p.m. local time. Ida is moving north at about 8 mph and is expected to turn to the north-northwest and approach Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsulaon Sunday.

Ida’s maximum sustained winds dropped to 35 mph Friday, about half the intensity of Thursday, when it hit Nicaragua as a Category 1 hurricane with winds of 75 mph. The storm is expected to regain strength and become a tropical storm Saturday, with winds as strong as 73 mph.

Rain from the system has let up over Central America, although Ida is expected to produce another 2 inches over northeastern Honduras, with heavier amounts in higher elevations. Precipitation from the storm may start to fall over eastern parts of the Yucatan Saturday.

The agency’s five-day prediction shows the system moving over the western Caribbean Sea as a tropical storm and emerging on Nov. 9 into the Gulf of Mexico, home to about a quarter of US oil production. By Nov. 11, the eye of the storm is predicted to be about 200 miles south of the Florida Panhandle.

A second storm is developing in the southern Gulf and will cause winds and seas to pick up along the coasts of Louisiana and Texas, said Joe Bastardi, an expert senior meteorologist for private forecaster AccuWeather.com.

“This is going to be a three-day problem at least,” Bastardi said in a statement. “Seas 15 to 20 feet and a 200- mile-wide area of strong gale-force winds 40 to 50 mph will mean a likely disruption of normal oil production in the northwest Gulf this weekend.”

Oil and natural-gas producers with platforms in the Gulf of Mexico haven’t made any plans to evacuate workers as Ida approaches, according to a helicopter company that provides storm rescues for the energy industry.

“We’re monitoring it and our clients are monitoring it, but there are no evacuation plans right now,” said Danny Holder, Gulf of Mexico business unit director for Air Logistics, which has about 140 rescue helicopters in the region.

An IMF team visited Kingston from Oct. 27 to Nov. 6, and IMF mission chief Trevor Alleyne said the focus of the talks was on policy measures to address imbalances.

“In particular, this has meant a focus on how to reduce the large fiscal deficit and put the debt on a clear downward path. In this regard, marked progress has been made during this mission,” Alleyne said in a statement.

“We will continue to be in close contact and discussions are expected to continue at Fund headquarters in Washington, D.C. next week,” he added.

HAVANA, Cuba (Reuters) — Cuba has chosen to pay a steeper price than it has to for Venezuelan oil so it can discourage itself from becoming too dependent on one source for energy, a senior Cuban official said on Friday.

Deputy Foreign Minister Rogelio Siera Diaz said Cuba chose to get oil under the more expensive “Caracas Accord” instead of through Venezuela’s Petrocaribe group. The goal was to avoid complacency.

“We decided to stay with the Caracas agreement so we would not become too dependent,” Siera said.

PetroCaribe, a Venezuelan initiative with 18 member nations including Cuba, allows for up to 50 percent of the cost of oil to be deferred at 2 percent interest for up to 25 years.

The Caracas agreement, begun in 2000 when oil prices were below $20 per barrel, allows for no more than a 25 percent deferral at a similar interest rate.

Cuba still receives most of its oil from Venezuela, which ships 93,000 barrels per day to help cover the island’s daily demand of 150,000 bpd.

But Cuba also has signed contracts with eight foreign companies to explore the island’s still untapped offshore oil fields in a drive for energy self-sufficiency.

Also, Siera said Cuba has strengthened relations with other oil-producing countries such as Brazil, Algeria, Russia and Angola in part for strategic, energy-related reasons.

“Just like the United States, our foreign policy includes energy considerations,” he said.

Cuba learned the hard way about the disadvantages of depending too much on one ally.

For three decades, the Soviet Union was Cuba’s top benefactor, and when it collapsed in 1991, Cuba plunged into a deep economic crisis. It has only begun to emerge in recent years.

Cuba does not want history to repeat itself, Siera said.

“We would be stupid to fall into the same dependence we had with the Soviet Union and before that the United States,” he said.

Siera said Cuba pays for Venezuelan oil by supplying medical and other professional services to the South American country at prices below those set by the Pan American Health Organization for the region.

He said Cuba has more than 40,000 people working in Venezuela, including about 30,000 medical personnel.

“These are high-quality services, specialists, professionals, paid well around the world and for which a price is set based on cooperation and solidarity for our mutual benefit,” he said.

Details of Cuba’s economic relations with Venezuela are cloaked in secrecy, in particular what the South American country pays for technical assistance, though local economists believe it is around $5 billion per year.

Siera said Communist Cuba’s relations with Venezuela go beyond energy and economics.

They have similar ideologies and a shared vision of a united and independent Latin America where “mutual benefit and preference for the least developed are more important than purely commercial interests.”

Anna Ramdass aramdass@trinidadexpress.com

National shame.

This was how deputy political leader of the Congress of the People (COP) Prakash Ramadhar described Sport Minister Gary Hunt’s defence of the $2 million giant national flag at the Hasely Crawford Stadium in Port of Spain.

’It is a sad and disgusting day in Trinidad and Tobago… to drape corruption in our flag and then call it national pride, it is nothing short of national shame when a child is dying for the want of $1.2 million. You can’t tell me about national pride when you allow children to die from lack of Government support,’’ slammed Ramadhar.

He was speaking at a news conference at the Normandie Hotel, St Ann’s, yesterday.

COP political leader Winston Dookeran also criticised the high-priced flag, saying it was evident Government’s priorities were in the wrong place. ’What adds insult to the people of Trinidad and Tobago, now we are hearing that they will have additional flags. It is an insult to the intelligence of the people of Trinidad and Tobago, and we must now put a stop to it,’ said Dookeran.

Ramadhar also expressed concern over profiteering with respect to the contract for the flag.

He said the evil taking place in this country was when money was being spent without any recourse.

He said the relevant institutions need to be strengthened and made efficient to ensure there are proper checks and balances and the interest of the people are best served.