RICE AND PIGEON PEAS
MACARONI PIE; PINE APLLE SWEET POTATOES
SCALLOPED POTATOES; BBQ SPARERIBS
BBQ PIG TAIL; SEA CAT; BAKED CHICKEN
BAKED PORK; LAMB CHOPS
FRIED DOLPHIN; GRILLED DOLPHIN
STEAMED RED SNAPPER; LAMB STEW
SORTED VEGETABLES
TOSSED SALAD; COLE SLAW
Officials from the Children’s Legal Center of the United Kingdom, contracted by UNICEF to develop a National Child Protection Policy for Antigua and Barbuda, will meet with key stakeholders next week during a consultation to be held at Heritage Hotel.
The consultation will be held from 15 through to 19 Feb., 2010 and is being hosted by the Citizens Welfare Division within the Ministry of Social Transformation.
The meeting is a follow up to the team’s visit in October 2009, during which time a number of key stakeholders were interviewed by members of the consultancy team to glean information to drive the process.
Chief Welfare Officer, Faustina Jarvis, said the consultants will further dialogue with stakeholders to ensure that they have accurately assessed the current situation.
“It is imperative that they meet with local counterparts to ensure that final recommendations are developed in a participatory manner and become really viable options that can be placed before the policy makers.” Jarvis said.
A national child protection service response system will ensure that children in Antigua & Barbuda receives the protection that is guaranteed them under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and other related international human rights instruments ratified by the government. (Antigua Sun)
Former West Indies Cricket Captain Clive Lloyd has taken the required steps to set up a foundation in his name with the intention of assisting disadvantaged young people.
“The Clive Lloyd Foundation has as one of its main objectives the rendering of assistance to disadvantaged young people,” a release said. Two scholarships are expected to be given out annually. “The criteria for these scholarships will be academic promise as well as the ability to excel in sports” and will be named after Frederick Rudolph Wills.
Wills, an outstanding legal figure and a former minister of Foreign Affairs, was a mentor to Lloyd.
According to a press release, the constitution of the Clive Lloyd Foundation, is about to be finalized and many prominent Guyanese from the legal, business and diplomatic communities have agreed to serve on the Board of Trustees. “Clive Lloyd has determined that it is time that he gave back to the country,” the release said.
Lloyd is the West Indies most successful Test captain to date having led the team during its most successful era. Following his retirement from cricket he established himself as a successful cricket administrator.
He is currently Chairman of the International Cricket Council’s Cricket Committee and a Director of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB). (Stabroek News)
Sabrina Gordon, Business Reporter
The Jamaican operation American Home Assurance Company (AHAC) is exiting the motor-insurance market, citing high losses in the business over the last 13 years.
“The class of business has not been performing profitably, and we have not been making money on the motor segment. Our combined loss ratio has been about 129 per cent in 2009, which means that for every $1 in premium paid, approximately $1.29 is paid out in claims,” said Earl Codling, general manager of AHAC.
“Looking at it, we don’t have the expertise, but the sector on a whole has lost billions of dollars in claims, and we could see rates going up again,” he said.
$1 billion loss
For the first six months of last year, total underwriting loss for the general-insurance industry was $1 billion, of which losses from motor insurance accounted for approxi-mately $447.5 million.
Claims incurred amounted to $5.5 billion, with motor accounting for the majority of $4.3 billion.
“With the cost of claims, cost of labour, and fraud on the increase, we have decided to stop underwriting motor policies,” Codling told The Financial Gleaner.
The company has already stopped writing policies, but will continue to service the contracts now in force until their respective policy anniversaries, at which point the business will not be renewed.
Codling said the decision would have limited impact on company revenues and profits.
“The impact won’t be great. Motor is just a small part of our total business portfolio,” he said.
At the end of 2009, AHAC’s motor line accounted for 5.6 per cent of gross premium income, which totalled $1.2 billion for the year.
Other general insurers concur with Codling, pointing out that the motor market tends to be one of the more volatile business lines.
“We think it’s an area that can see improved results and profitability. The approach is to get the pricing right,” said Peter Levy, general manager of British Caribbean Insurance Company (BCIC).
“We have had increasing loss ratio over the past few years. Underwriting losses is a norm in that segment, but a number of companies have adjusted pricing to write it profitably.”
least profitable vehicles
According to Levy, the typical loss ratio for the market is around 70 per cent.
“One universal thing though, is that the lower-value vehicles are the least profitable. The premiums generated are not covering repair cost and we have also identified certain characteristics that are correlated to higher risk,” he said.
Mark Thompson, president and chief executive officer of Advantage General Insurance, which is listed among the top motor insurers, said prudent underwriting was key.
“I can’t speak for everyone,” he said, “but it requires one to be prudent and efficient in underwriting,” he said.
Thompson said his company had projected a 100 per cent combined loss ratio for this year but was working to lower the ratio below 95 per cent.
AHAC has 1,200 motor policies on its books, with total wind-up of the entire portfolio expected to be completed by March 2011, Codling said.
The company is accepting no new motor business, with the run-off for renewals - that is, retiring policies - starting this March.
AHAC is one of 12 general-insurance companies in the market offering motor policies and the largest insurer in the homeowners market.
Its other lines of business include property and casualty, personal accident, financial lines, lines, which comprise professional indemnity and fidelity insurance, as well as business-interruption products, packages for goods in transit, and engineering insurance.
While industry statistics for 2009 are still not yet available, AHAC in 2008 reported that it controlled 7.5 per cent of the general-insurance market. But its share is likely to be less for 2009, said Codling, with the company’s gross premium income being lower than 2008, when it earned approximately $1.9 billion in gross income.
$74.4 million surplus
At the end of 2009, AHAC reported underwriting surplus of $74.4 million, a figure the company expects to surpass this year.
But it begins the current year with a deficit, having lost two of its big accounts this year - Port Authority and Airports Authority - representing some $700 million in premium income.
Nonetheless, Codling said AHAC would be pushing aggressively to make up the lost revenue by offering plans to small and medium companies, and pushing more into the homeowners and condominium markets.
According to the latest data from the Insurance Association of Jamaica, the general-insurance market was valued at $13 billion in gross premium income at June 2009, with motor bringing in 45 per cent, or $5.9 billion.
sabrina.gordon@gleanerjm.com
Gareth Davis Sr, Gleaner WriterA Haitian boy, who was picked up Friday night in Fairy Hill, Portland, by the Port Antonio police, is now at that station lock-up.
He is 16-year-old Jean Saint Homme of Puerto-au-Prince in Haiti.
Homme was picked up shortly after 4 p.m. Friday at a house in Fairy Hill, where he had spent less than two hours with a friend.
The police say the teen, who fled the earthquake-devastated Haitian capital last Wednesday evening, landed at Hellshire in St Catherine with a group of local fishermen travelling in a high-speed boat.
The police say the teen was given $1,000 by a resident, which he later used to travel on a bus to Montego Bay.
Earlier repatriated
However, the teen took another bus, which took him to Port Antonio, where he visited a friend’s house in the Fairy Hill community.
The friend’s house is close to the Winnifred Rest Home shelter, which housed more than 800 Haitians between 2004 and 2006.
The police were later informed of the Haitian’s arrival.
The police have also revealed that the teen was among a group of Haitians, who landed in Portland in 2006, but were later repatriated.
Homme is being held at the Port Antonio station for safe keeping, but is to be transferred to the Port Antonio Salvation Army place of rest tomorrow. (Jamaica Gleaner)
Philip Hamilton, Gleaner Writer
Prime Minister Bruce Golding. - File
Prime Minister Bruce Golding has good enough reasons to support the Cybercrimes Bill after a recent incident left him holding thousands of US dollars in credit-card debt.
Golding told fellow parliamentarians he had the shock of his life after his bank told him that thousands of US dollars in purchases were made on his Jamaican-issued credit-card account during a two-day spending spree.
Golding, who had not travelled outside Jamaica in months, said his bank advised him that the money was used to buy several plane tickets.
The incident, which occurred three months ago, was traced back to hackers thousands of kilometres away in the United Kingdom.
pm reimbursed
The prime minister, who was making a presentation on the new Cybercrimes Bill, recently returned by the Senate to the Lower House for amendments, said he was reimbursed, the account immediately closed, and a new credit card issued.
“We are particularly familiar with the lotto scam in Montego Bay. It is not just the crime and the fraud that is committed, it is the murder to which it gives rise,” Golding stated.
The legislation imposes criminal sanctions on the misuse of computer systems or data. Offences covered include intentional unauthorised access to computer data; access to computer programmes or data with intent to commit any offence; intentional unauthorised modification of a computer programme or data; unauthorised interception of computer function or service; wilfull unauthorised obstruction of the operation of a computer or denial of access to a computer programme or data; and, unlawfully making available devices or data for the commission of any of the above offences.
e-commerce boom
The prime minister said that more consumers were carrying out business transactions via the Internet, and in the United States alone the value of e-commerce sales for 2009 was almost US$100 billion.
He said that tackling cybercrime is particularly complex because it allows for virtual anonymity. “It is what they call illusive scene of crime,” he pointed out.
Some of the cybercrimes, he said, may not be “criminally intended but just plain mischief to spread a virus, to create excitement and panic, and to demonstrate that, as powerful as these systems are, somebody can compromise them”. (Jamaica Gleaner)
THERE HAS BEEN another casualty in the controversial case involving Barbadian Julia “Yves” Elliott who is serving ten years in prison in Ontario, Canada, for murdering a Canadian man.
Last month, Kevin Murphy, the attorney who represented Elliott in her first trial 14 years ago, was suspended from practising law for six months after admitting to verbally abusing witnesses and making unfounded accusations against opposing lawyers during the notorious trial.
It is the first time that a lawyer has been disciplined in that country for courtroom conduct.
This suspension, follows the resignation last year of Justice Paul Cosgrove - the judge who presided over the case - after he was accused by the Canadian Judicial Council of abusing his powers during the trial. By resigning, he avoided being the first judge in that country to be fired from the bench.
Murphy, 52, who is now employed with the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, received a tongue lashing from the Law Society which called his behaviour “rude” and “sarcastic” and the “worst display of incivility ever seen in a Canadian courtroom.”
He had accused lawyers for Ontario’s Ministry of the Attorney General of coaching witnesses, deliberately misconstruing evidence and conspiring to frame his client. He went on to win the case after Judge Cosgrove ruled that the police and prosecutors committed more than 150 violations of Elliott’s Charter rights.
However, four years later, the Ontario Court of Appeal overturned that decision, saying the findings were baseless and during a second trial Elliott, who was accused of dismembering her lover Lawrence Foster and throwing the body parts in a river was convicted.
The attorney general’s ministry also filed a complaint about Murphy with the Law Society ten years ago.
The Law Society has spent between $300 000 and $400 000 to prosecute Murphy. He was ordered to pay $10 000 toward those costs. (MB) (Nation News)
Divisional Secretary Captain Robert Pyle showing an example of unacceptable footwear which they will throw away.
by CARLOS ATWELL
TOO MANY BARBADIANS are using the Salvation Army as a dumping ground.
Secretary of the Divisional League of Mercy and secretary of Special Services, Captain Paula Pyle, said the problem became especially bad around the Christmas season.
Speaking to the SUNDAY SUN yesterday at the army’s Reed Street, The City, headquarters, she said the proportion of unusable items to useful ones was about half and half. She said the organisation usually discarded around eight to ten barrels of clothing and toys a day.
Driver Ralph Worrell said they discarded items if they were too dirty, torn, odorous, broken, or outdated. He said they even had to throw away furniture which was beyond repair.
Appreciative
Despite this, Pyle said the army appreciated the efforts of Barbadians who genuinely gave to the needy.
“We are appreciative of efforts in the past and present and are looking forward to them continuing in the future,” she said.
She said the items most in demand were boys’ clothing. Pyle, however, reminded Barbadians not to donate undergarments and lingerie unless they were new.
Her husband, Divisional Secretary Captain Robert Pyle also appealed for the public to give “with mercy”.
“Naturally, we appreciate Barbadians sending in their clothing and other items, but please give with mercy and consideration for those who will be receiving them, those who are unable to buy new items for themselves.
“If the items you want to donate are soiled or broken, please carry them to the dump,” he said.
carlosatwell@nationnews.com
Professor Sir Hilary Beckles (left) and Professor Michael Howard.
SIR HILARY BECKLES has given an F grade to one of his professors for recommending that the flow of students to the Cave Hill campus be slowed to help ease the pressure on Government spending.
“Anti-intellectual”, is how Beckles, principal of the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI), branded the suggestion from economist Professor Michael Howard.
Howard had made the suggestion in an interview with the DAILY NATION last week.
In that interview he suggested that the UWI (Cave Hill) needed to “reduce the rate of increase of new students” as one way to help relieve pressure on the Government’s budget.
Howard said that should Government fail to aggressively deal with the present fiscal crisis, it could lead to more suffering.
Beckles however, in a stinging letter to the SUNDAY SUN, said the education of citizens at the higher level should not be computed as an expenditure, but rather as an investment.
He called Howard’s suggestion an anti-intellectual, knee-jerk reaction, and a rejection of what “we know about post-recessionary development”.
The effect of such a recommendation, Beckles said, would be to close the door on many working-class families who produce 80 per cent of the student intake of the campus.
“The shutting out of a larger percentage of these families as a way of serving the greater good of the country is consistent with the thinking of right-wing economists, who continue to suggest that a greater share of a country’s financial burden should fall upon the poor and disenfranchised.
“I presume, also, that Professor Howard has advice for the Government on how to deal subsequently with the masses of young people who, after making the right decision to stay in school and go to college, and having successfully met the university’s matriculation, will be left to languish on the block or be emotionally frustrated at a critical moment in their lives.”
Beckles said Howard, in making the suggestion, was in essence “calling for the poor to be further punished in the midst of an economic recession that is already challenging their capacity to survive”.
He reminded Howard that this was the 21st century and there were new, creative and innovative ways for Government and campus to manage the fiscal affairs of the country.
“Our economists can make a greater contribution by freeing themselves from the culture of financial cannibalism of the late 20th century world and enter this new world,” Beckles said. (RG) (Nation News)
