Usain Bolt clocked 45.86sec to break the meet record. AFP PHOTO

Bolt, the world and Olympic champion at both 100m and 200m and in the 4×100m relay, ran from lane four and clocked 45.86sec to break the meet record.

The lanky sprinter, who ran world records of 9.58sec and 19.19 for his individual sprint double at last year’s Berlin World Championships, got off to a very fast start. He was ahead by metres when he entered the final straight and had time to ease down across the finish line for a comfortable victory.

Bolt said he didn’t feel “how I wanted to,” but was encouraged by the time.

“To run 45 seconds is a good sign,” he said.

Last year Bolt opened his season with a 400m in the same meeting, where he clocked 46.35sec.

Bolt will next race at the Gibson Relays on February 27, also in Kingston.

Set 325 to win the Windies could only get to 274 for 8 from 50 overs with fifties from Kieron Pollard, Dwayne Smith and Narsingh Deonarine.

Once again the Windies top order let them down. Captain Chris Gayle got a start and made a typically belligerent 34 from 21 balls with six fours but fellow opener Travis Dowlin (8) and number three batsman Lendl Simmons (1) failed to register significant scores for the third consecutive time as the Windies slumped to 55 for 3.

Deonarine and Wavell Hinds (20) then battled in constructing a 45 run recovery before Hinds was run out to make it 100 for 4. Deonarine fell at 127 for five after making his first ODI fifty – 53 from 69 balls with five boundaries.

Pollard tried valiantly and top scored with 62 from 55 balls with four fours and two sixes as he and Dwayne Smith, who remained unbeaten on 59 at the end, put on 102 for the seventh wicket. Smith faced 63 balls and hit three fours and an equal number of sixes. Like Deonarine it was Pollard maiden’s ODI fifty.

Australian opening bowlers Doug Bollinger and Ryan Harris took two wickets each for 44 and 64 runs respectively as the Aussie bowlers partnered to ensure that the Windies run chase was kept in check throughout.

Ponting’s innings laid the foundation for the substantial Australian total as he laced the boundaries with six fours and cleared it twice during his 112 ball stay at the crease. All rounder Cameron White stroked 63 from 78 balls and James Hopes hit 42 from 21 balls with six boundaries.

The Windies were hampered by the continued injury-forced absence of ace paceman Kemar Roach. In his absence medium pacers Smith and Darren Sammy took two wickets apiece for 59 and 44 runs respectively. Ravi Rampaul, Pollard and Nikita Miller each took a wicket.

Ponting took the Man-of-the-Match award and can now rest easy knowing that the series is secure with a lone ODI to be played and two Twenty20s remaining. The Windies will be playing for pride in the last ODI and stand a better chance of competing more meaningfully in the shortest form of the game. (Caribnet)

American Airlines will begin flying to Port-au-Prince on February 19, with Air Canada and Air France to follow shortly after, Brigadier General Darryl Burke, vice commander of Air Forces Southern, said in an interview over the weekend.

The airport was turned over almost entirely to disaster relief and military flights after the January 12 earthquake, which destroyed hundreds of buildings in the capital, Port-au-Prince, and killed 212,000 people.

The quake caused serious damage to the airport’s terminal. Crews have repaired airport lighting and the part of the terminal that the airlines will use, Burke said.

“On the 19th American Airlines will resume operations in the west portion of the terminal,” Burke said. “Structural engineers have checked out the terminal to make sure it’s safe and it is safe to operate out of, and they’re ready to go.”

Air traffic control responsibilities, which were assumed by the US military following the quake, are slowly being turned over to Haitian controllers. They are currently directing flights from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. and will expand those hours from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. on February 19, Burke said.

Haiti’s feeble economy was brought to a standstill by the quake, which left 1 million people homeless and living in the streets.

“This is a chance for them to generate revenue. This is how airports make money,” Burke said.

At the peak of the disaster the airport had a capacity of 120 landings of military and relief aircraft daily. Those flights have dwindled to an average of about 70 daily in recent days, Burke said.

The airfield is being run out of a portable control tower brought to Haiti by the US Federal Aviation Administration. (Caribnet)

Canada’s Prime Minister, Stephen Harper. AFP PHOTO

“Prime Minister Stephen Harper will travel to Haiti on February 15 and 16 to assess the humanitarian situation on the ground and discuss the process of rebuilding the country,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement.

Harper, it added, “will discuss with Rene Preval, President of Haiti, and Jean-Max Bellerive, Prime Minister of Haiti, the challenges of the relief effort and Haiti’s reconstruction priorities.”

The Canadian head of government “will also meet a number of Canadians who are delivering humanitarian aid on the ground” in Haiti.

The January 12 earthquake in Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas killed at least 217,000 people, including 29 Canadians, with another 63 Canadians still unaccounted for, Canada’s foreign affairs department said on Friday.

The Head of the Maritime Administration Department, Claudette Rogers, Director of Ports and Harbours of the Maritime Administration Department, Taig Kalicharran, officials from the Ministry of Public Works and Communications and a team from India comprising Advisor of Transport Research to the Government of India, Alvin Kumar and other technical officers held a cordial meeting Friday, at the Princess International Hotel, East Bank Demerara.

Kalicharran noted that such an initiative is not new to Government, but owing to growth of the economy and external activities it sees it necessary to construct the harbour.

He stated that the one-week study which was conducted by the Indian Government has concluded that the Berbice area is most suitable for the construction of such infrastructure since the water in that area has the necessary depth and the area is not congested.

It was indicated that the Ministry is willing to provide additional information if requested by the Government of India via their High Commission so that this study will be successfully completed.

Kalicharran noted that the prospect of Guyana gaining from Brazil which is a landlocked country with a rapidly growing economy, utilising the harbour, exists and as such Government has been preparing infrastructure to facilitate this venture. He pointed to the fact that the Takutu Bridge has become a reality and Government has been constructing roads from Lethem to Linden and Linden to Rosignol.

Kumar noted that meetings were conducted with the Maritime Administration Department, private terminal operators and shipping agencies and have assisted the team in gathering necessary information for the study.

In addition, to collect more information aerial and site visits were conducted. These activities have been proven successful since they were able to compile pertinent data for further analysis.

Kumar being knowledgeable about Guyana’s vast natural resources noted that the deep water harbour will be useful in exporting key commodities including bauxite, timber and agricultural products since it will provide better connectivity to foreign markets.

Expressing similar sentiments to that of Kalicharran he noted that the proximity of Brazil to Guyana puts Guyana in a good position to gain from Brazil through the use of the harbour. (Caribnet)

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AFP) – The US military has pulled thousands of its troops from quake-hit Haiti because aid operations have improved, a general said, as relief workers raced to boost conditions at squalid camps.

There were growing calls to speed up efforts to provide tarps and tents ahead of the rainy season, which threatens to bring more misery to the estimated 1.2 million left homeless by the massive earthquake a month ago.

President Rene Preval stressed the urgent need for shelter in a meeting with visiting USAID chief Rajiv Shah and US General Douglas Fraser on Saturday, said Shah, who pledged to boost distribution of shelter material.

US Commander of the Southern Command General Douglas Fraser. AFP PHOTO

Fraser said troop numbers were now down to 13,000 after a post-earthquake high of more than 20,000, while adding that the Haitian government was taking back control of the Port-au-Prince airport during daylight hours.

The United States had assumed operations there in the chaotic atmosphere immediately after the quake, which killed more than 200,000 people.

“There are roughly 13,000 US military men and women supporting the efforts here in Haiti,” Fraser said.

“The international aid and relief efforts have improved and increased in Haiti and we’ve seen an ability to transition those capabilities to other needs around the world.”

Fraser would not provide specifics on how long he expected US troops to remain in Haiti, saying it would depend on needs in the Caribbean nation, which was already the poorest country in the Americas before the quake.

Many have warned that the lack of shelter is the most significant threat facing Haitians with the rainy season starting around May. Conditions at makeshift camps for the homeless are already fast becoming major health concerns.

The UN humanitarian coordinator, Kim Bolduc, said on Friday that the sprawling Champ de Mars camp across from the destroyed National Palace has “turned into an almost dangerous area” due to poor sanitation.

Some 16,000 people are jammed into an area that should hold up to 6,000, she said.

John Holmes, UN emergency relief coordinator, said 20,000 latrines were needed at camps and only five to 10 percent had been constructed.

The effort to provide shelter has been criticized by many Haitians as coming far too late, and protests over the stumbling aid distribution have been held in various parts of the capital over the past couple of weeks.

The deputy head of the UN mission in Haiti said Friday that many of the homeless are unlikely to have “good shelter” before the rainy season, though aid workers were hoping to provide everyone with some kind of material.

“No matter what, though, it’s not going to be pretty,” Anthony Banbury told AFP.

“No one should be under any illusions that all million people who have lost their homes are going to be living in comfortable, sturdy shelter by May 1. That’s just not going to happen.”

Food distribution has worked better in recent days, officials say, with an estimated total of 2.3 million people now having been given some sort of food.

But Haitians still say the aid effort has fallen short.

Richmond Delinois, a 35-year-old owner of a brick-making company, did not lose his house, but some of his workers did and are now living in his yard.

“How long are we going to remain like this?” he said. “The NGOs come, but no one tells us anything.”

Meanwhile, the case of 10 Americans charged with kidnapping in the wake of the earthquake here took another turn, with El Salvador police saying they are looking into a man presented as their Dominican lawyer, Jorge Puello.

El Salvador police said they were working to determine if Puello could in fact be Jorge Torres Orellana, who is wanted in the Central American country for allegations of running an international sex trafficking ring.

The ring lured women and girls from the Caribbean and Central America into prostitution with bogus offers of modeling jobs, according to Interpol, which has issued a wanted persons alert for Orellana. (Caribnet)

ST JOHN’S, Antigua (AFP) – Resilient residents of the tiny Caribbean island of Montserrat this weekend shrugged off clouds of ash spewing out of a volcano, and donned masks to go about their daily business.

“It is makes you sneeze a lot,” Gregory Willock, the president of the Montserrat Cricket Association, told AFP in the nearby island of Antigua by telephone.

Life has continued as normal since the Soufriere Hills volcano erupted Thursday, throwing up a plume of smoke and volcanic ash 10 kilometers (six miles) into the air, he said.

A man wearing a filtering mask looks at the ash on his car in Anse Bertrand. AFP PHOTO

“All I know is it can create problems for people who have sinus” problems, Willock added, saying many residents had taken to wearing masks while schools and government offices have been operating as normal.

Thursday’s eruption came almost 15 years after the volcano, which had lain dormant throughout recorded history, first rumbled into life in July 1995.

The 1995 eruption threw up a huge plume of ash and molten lava into the sky, which in coming weeks rained down on the British overseas territory.

The island’s capital city Plymouth was buried in ash and volcanic debris in a further massive eruption a month later and destroyed. Two-thirds of the island’s population were forced to flee abroad.

This time islanders are praying for rain to clear away the blanket of dust, which has even stopped the cricket team practicing.

“We cannot practice because Salem Park is not accessible. We need rain to get rid of ash on the ground,” Willcock said Saturday.

Another resident, who asked not to be named, said his only complaint so far had to do with his medical condition. He’s asthmatic.

“It has not worried me but because of my complaint I’m being ultra-careful. I’m talking to you with a mask over my mouth,” he told AFP.

“However, life goes on beautifully. It is just like normal life. We are a resilient people,” he said.

Many flights around the Caribbean remained cancelled Saturday due to clouds of ash spewed up into the skies.

“The continued ash hanging in the atmosphere presents a risk to planes and to the security of passengers,” the police in the nearby island of Guadeloupe said in a statement.

The airport in Guadeloupe, which lies just 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of Montserrat, would remain closed until Sunday, it said.

“The dispersion of these ashes will depend on today’s weather conditions,” it added in a statement, after fire engines were deployed late Friday to try clear the airport’s runways of a thick layer of ash.

Some 300 people were stranded on Guadeloupe waiting to leave, the director of the islands’ tourism office Thierry Gargar told AFP. He added they were all being accommodated in hotels on the islands.

Flights to other Caribbean tourist hotspots including Anguilla, St. Kitts and Nevis and St. Maarten also remained disrupted.

The ash has also forced LIAT, the region’s biggest airline, to temporarily suspend flights in and out of the V.C. Bird International airport in nearby Antigua, although flights resumed Saturday to Dominica.

Montserrat, settled by English and Irish colonizers in 1632, has been dubbed “The Emerald Isle of the Caribbean” for its lush vegetation. It has been trying to rebuild its tourism industry since the 1995 eruption.

The buried capital Plymouth, which has been compared to a modern-day Pompeii, now lies in an exclusion zone, but can be visited with organized tours. (Caribnet)

Caribbean countries have been implementing various measures to control the use of water as the region experiences a prolonged drought.

From Trinidad and Tobago in the south, to Jamaica in the north, governments and the various utility companies have announced stringent measures ranging from a ban on watering lawns, to washing vehicles as a means of dealing with the low volume of water in reservoirs as a result of the reduced rainfall.

In Trinidad, water police officers have also been deployed to ensure that consumers adhere to the new measures, while in Jamaica, water rationing has become the order of the day.

The Antigua Public Utilities Authority (APUA) has become the latest Caribbean country to announce plans for a water rationing system until there is a significant increase in rainfall.

’As Antigua and Barbuda enters further into a drought, APUA has seen a depletion of the surface water resources that it relies heavily on,’ it said in a statement.

’At our normal rate of consumption, the Potworks Dam, our largest containment is estimated to have enough water to take the country to the end of February if there is not a significant increase in rainfall. The Dunning’s Dam in Bendals is also estimated to follow this trend,’ the APUA said.

Because of this, the APUA said that beginning yesterday, consumers will be supplied with water at scheduled times throughout the day.

’As we go through the drought, APUA is urging the general public to conserve water.’

Last October, Antigua and Barbuda’s Meteorological Services said that below normal rainfall in August was the main factor for the current drought which it described then as being moderate.

Officials have said that the dry weather was being influenced by the weather phenomenon, El Nino.

The National Office of Disaster Services said that on average Antigua and Barbuda goes through a period of low rainfall every three to four years.

It added that in the last 134 years since 1874, the country has experienced 36 occurrences of drought.

In Guyana, Head of the Presidential Secretariat (HPS), Dr Roger Luncheon said that the authorities are monitoring closely the current drought-like conditions associated with the El Nino phenomenon.

He said that the Bharrat Jagdeo government would be pursuing public discussions on the impact of the dry season.

Luncheon said that the availability of irrigation water is significantly threatening certain affected areas and that in the capital, Georgetown, the surface water that provided as much as 50 per cent of potable water consumption is equally threatened.

He said that the use of water would have to be voluntarily reduced and involuntarily in some areas, especially if the situation is prolonged.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Agriculture in Guyana said it would continue to aggressively explore all avenues to ensure that farming communities get access to an efficient water supply

-CMC