VEGETABLE RICE; FISH PIE
MACARONI PIE; HERBAL SAUTEED BREADFRUIT
ROASTED CHICKEN; BAKED PORK
BBQ SPARERIBS; BBQ PIG TAIL
SEA CAT; FRIED SWORD FISH
GRILLED STEAK FISH; LAMB STEW
FISH GRAVY; STEAMED VEGETABLES
TOSSED SALAD; COLE SLAW
Bolt
Olympic and World 100-metres and 200-metres champion and double world-record holder, Usain Bolt, was left stranded on the anchor leg during last night’s third staging of the University of Technology’s (UTech) Track and Field Classic at the National Stadium.
Four meet-records were broken during the early stages of the meet, as fans who were surprised to see the sprinting ace getting ready at the top of the 100m stretch before the start of the sprint relay, were left disappointed as the 23-year-old never got a chance to run.
Bolt, who up to late Friday evening was not confirmed to attend the meet, did not receive the baton from his Racers Track Club teammates after Mario Forsythe and Yohan Blake failed to execute the first exchange.
The event was won by UTech in 39.66, while MVP claimed second place with a time of 40.05 ahead of UTech Track Club, 40.92.
UTech were again too fast for the field in the women’s 4×100m, winning in 44.37 with Sprint Tech ending second in 46.60.
Moments later, rain triggered a mass exodus to the grandstand section as patrons sought shelter from the downpour. This resulted in a 20-minute break in the activities.
World 100m hurdles champion Brigitte Foster-Hylton went crashing to the track in the women’s 100m as she lost her footing after apparently picking up an injury midway the race. The event was won by her MVP club mate Sherone Simpson in 11.58 seconds. Racers’ Schillonie Calvert, 11.90, was second with MVP’s Ayanna Hutchinson third in 12.12.
Olympic and World 400m hurdles champion Melaine Walker, 52.84, had to settle for second place in the flat one-lap event behind UTech’s Stephanie McPherson who won in 52.48.
New record
2008 Beijing Olympic Games finalist Markino Buckley (MVP), 50.49, established a new meet record in the 400m hurdles, erasing the old mark of 50.77 seconds which was set last year by UTech’s Ramon Cooper.
Cooper, 51.41, had to settle for second place ahead of Richard Farquharson, 53.15, of G.C. Foster College.
Ricardo Chambers (Racers) was the fastest in the 400m field, setting a new mark of 45.61 in the event ahead of Oral Thompson (Swept), 46.23, and Denard Coote (MVP), 46.91.
Wolmer’s came out on top in the High school boys’ 4×100m relay time final, clocking a swift 40.55 seconds to claim the event in a new meet record. Calabar were second in 40.79 while St Elizabeth Technical rounded out the medal spots with a 40.81 clocking.
The high school girls’ sprint relay was won by Holmwood Technical, 45.23, who bettered rivals Vere Technical, 45.34, and Edwin Allen, 45.52.
- A.L.
Dravid
NEW DELHI (AP):
Two small bombs exploded outside a Bangalore cricket stadium as fans were heading to an Indian Premier League match yesterday, injuring 10 people.
City police commissioner Shankar Bidari said four officers and a security guard were among the wounded. The guard’s injuries were serious.
“It appears that some explosives may have been hidden in the wall next to a stadium entrance,” Bidari said. “The explosives weren’t powerful.”
The blasts, less than an hour before the game’s scheduled start, set off panic among the thousands of people streaming into Chinnaswamy Stadium to see the Bangalore Royal Challengers play the Mumbai Indians. The game, featuring Indian stars Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid, started an hour late amid increased security.
Initial investigations show the explosives used in the blasts were locally made and of low intensity, M.R. Poojar, the city’s additional police commissioner, told The Associated Press.
Assistant Commissioner of Police Les Green. - File
Philip Hamilton, Gleaner Writer
LOCAL DRUG traffickers have been turning to international courier services in their efforts to smuggle narcotics out of the country.
But this has not escaped the attention of law-enforcement officials.
According to Les Green, assistant commissioner of police with responsibility for the Criminal Investigation Bureau, for some time now, the security forces have had concerns about attempts to smuggle contraband through the courier services.
Only recently, members of the security forces searched the head offices of Federal Express, on Half-Way Tree Road in St Andrew.
A similar raid was carried out at the head offices of another courier service, DHL, on Haining Road in New Kingston.
“Based on our intelligence, we went there with dogs and searched the baggage area, but nothing was found,” said Superintendent Wrenford Robinson, who led the operation at FedEx.
Employees of the company appeared unperturbed by the police presence as they attended to customers while members of the security forces searched packages in the baggage area at the back of the building.
Outside the building, several members of the force stood with their semi-automatic weapons at the ready.
Two FedEx employees who spoke with The Sunday Gleaner said they were unsure of what was happening, as they had no idea why the police were present.
“Don’t let in any camera inside here,” a member of staff was heard telling a security guard who stood by the glass door.
Sergeant Sheldon Coulson of the Narcotics Division told The Sunday Gleaner that the police have been observing increased efforts by drug dealers to smuggle narcotics overseas via courier services.
Coulson said the courier companies usually alerted the police whenever drugs were discovered in shipments and the packages confiscated.
“We typically get calls at least three times per week that they have located drugs,” Coulson said.
Among the methods used by the drug smugglers to conceal narcotics for export are water coolers, guitars, courier envelopes, car engines, computers, amplifier racks and CD cases.
Contraband seized
Coulson said contraband was seized at DHL’s head offices during last Tuesday’s police raid, although he did not indicate the nature of the find.
He said two former DHL employees were held on suspicion of involvement with drug seizures in a previous operation but were eventually released due to the lack of evidence.
When contacted for comment, DHL responded in an emailed statement that it had implemented a security programme to “safeguard the company, employees and customers from illegal activities”.
DHL further stated that it had been proactively monitoring and implementing measures to deal with the upsurge of drug smuggling in the region and had implemented procedures, equip-ment and personnel to deal with the increased threat.
A FedEx employee told The Sunday Gleaner she was unaware of last week’s police raid or any attempts by persons to use the courier for smuggling narcotics.
Border Protection officers and US Customs have in the past seized narcotics sent through FedEx and DHL locations.
In January this year, several gang members were arrested in South Korea for smuggling drugs through Mexico via FedEx and selling them in Seoul. (Jamaica Gleaner)
Clarke
Tyrone Reid, Sunday Gleaner Reporter
Children’s Advocate Mary Clarke has reiterated her call for the revocation of the spirit licences held by bars and clubs that sell liquor to minors.
A Sunday Gleaner investigation, staged last week with the aid of seven students from three Corporate Area high schools, tested two supermarkets, a sports bar, a convenience store, a corner shop and a bar. Without reservation, all of them sold alcoholic beverages - from vodka to beer, stout and wine - to the minors.
No age checks
Dr Ellen Campbell-Grizzle, director of information and research at the National Council on Drug Abuse (NCDA), told The Sunday Gleaner that the authorities need to enforce the laws governing the sale of alcohol to underage persons.
“Vendors are not asking the age of the children before they sell to them, and that is a challenge, because the law does require it, but they are not doing so in most cases … ,” she said.
Campbell-Grizzle implored vendors to institute the practice of asking for identification cards, arguing that “all sectors of the society need to come on-board the fight” against alcohol abuse among the nation’s children.
Recommendations to revoke licences
Clarke said that the 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 annual reports published by the Office of the Children’s Advocate (OCA) recommended that spirit licences of vendors who sold alcoholic beverages to minors be revoked.
“It should be mandatory for all relevant establishments and public functions to display notices forbidding children underage to be served intoxicating liquor or alcohol,” Clarke said.
“Where there is a failure to comply, and intoxicating liquor or tobacco is sold to minors, there should be the sanction of the withdrawal of the respective licences,” Clarke reiterated.
“I’d like to add that none of these recommendations was discussed when I went to Parliament on two occasions,” said a crestfallen Clarke.
Only one cashier, from General Food Supermarket in Liguanea, chided 15-year-old Jovan McCookduring his attempt to purchase two bottles of Smirnoff Ice.
The cashier spotted him before he reached the cash register and made it abundantly clear that it was illegal for him to make the purchase. Jovan insisted that he had purchased it at other locations.
She said that those establishments should be closed down. The exchange continued for a short while.
However, after Jovan applied his teenage wiles, the cashier succumbed and allowed him to make the purchase. At the time of the purchase, Jovan was wearing his khaki uniform and school tie and he was accompanied by 16-year-old Kasheka Chen, who was wearing street clothes.
No-sell policy
After being told of the purchase, Brandon Chuck, manager of General Food Supermarket, checked his security cameras to confirm that his store had just broken the law.
“Our policy is not to sell (alcohol to minors),” he said after viewing the tapes. Chuck said General Food does not want to be part of the problem but of the solution. For future purchases, any person under the age of 30 would need to present proper identification, said Chuck.
This would make General Food unique, because no other locations visited by our news team took a single reasonable step to ensure that the minors, some of whom were decked in street clothes, were the legal minimum age required to purchase alcohol.
Permission for the teens’ participation was received from their schools and parents.
tyrone.reid@gleanerjm.com
Laws of Jamaica dealing with the sale of alcohol to any person under 18 years of age
Child Care and Protection Act (Section 40):
(1) An owner or operator of an establishment that sells or serves intoxicating liquor or tobacco products shall ensure that -
(a) no intoxicating liquor or tobacco product is sold or products served by the establishment to any child;
(b) no child is employed by the establishment to sell or assist in the selling of intoxicating liquor or tobacco products.
(2) A person commits an offence if that person -
(a) contravenes subsection ( I );
(b) employs a child to sell or assist in selling intoxicating liquor or tobacco products; or
(c) purchases intoxicating liquor or tobacco products from a child: Provided that no person shall be guilty of an offence under this section if he proves to the satisfaction of the court that at the time of the sale, or purchase in the case of paragraph (c), he took all reasonable steps to ascertain, and reasonably believed, that the person employed, or the person to or by whom the intoxicating liquor or tobacco product was sold or served, as the case may require, was not a child.
The Spirit Licence Act (Section 62):
Every holder of a licence under this act who -
(a) knowingly employs any person under the age of eighteen years to sell or assist in the selling of spirits in any licensed premises; or
(b) serves or permits to be served or sold to any person under the age of eighteen years any alcoholic liquor; or
(c) serves or permits to be served with alcoholic liquor, whether on payment therefor or not, any police constable while on duty or any person in charge of any public vehicle while on duty, shall be guilty of an offence and on summary conviction shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding one hundred thousand dollars or imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months, or both such fine and imprisonment.
Any employee or assistant of a licence holder who does any of the acts mentioned in paragraphs (b) and (c) shall also be guilty of an offence and on summary conviction be liable to a penalty not exceeding one hundred thousand dollars or imprisonment for a term not exceeding three months, or both such fine and imprisonment. (Jamaica Gleaner)
NINE WORKING DAYS before income tax returns are due, some property owners are waiting in vain for their postman to deliver mortgage payment notices.
Those with concerns are thousands without information from the Barbados Mortgage Finance Company (BMFC).
Clients called the SUNDAY SUN expressing worry over the lateness of the statements, which they said were usually on time.
Manager Waveney Nicholls has asked clients to contact the BMFC if they did not receive a letter explaining why the documents were late.
She said that a letter was sent to customers in March outlining the reason why they had not received their statements in the usual timely manner, and asking them to call.
Nicholls assured customers that the BMFC had made the Department of Inland Revenue aware of the delay.
However, with the approaching deadline for applications, customers who do not receive the relevant information soon and are subject to a late fee penalty have been assured that the BMFC will “do the legal thing and reimburse the customer”.
A source said the company was undergoing a computer system upgrade, and this had hampered its ability to produce the statements.
“I cannot say that people will get their statements on time. We have thousands of customers. But we are aware that we would be liable to them if our upgrade hinders them from filing on time,” the source said.
However, this issue does not extend to the entire banking sector. A Scotiabank representative said: “As far as I am aware, all customers have the necessary information to complete the processing of their returns.”
She noted, where the relevant information had not reached some customers, there was still time for that to happen before the deadline for the submission of income tax returns. (TY/LK)(Nation News)
The following is a fact sheet related to the cost of construction of the new prison at Dodds, submitted by Opposition Leader and Leader of the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) Mia Mottley.
* The continued reference to BDS$200 million was to a statement made in Parliament reflecting what would be the general cost of a new prison to Barbados. It was simply an estimate. This was before any detailed designs being done, or negotiations with any contractor. It was never the cost of construction of Dodds. This point has been made many times before.
* Costs of the contract for the construction of a new Prison at Dodds for 1 100 inmates between Government of Barbados and Veco was BDS$288.6 million.
* We know that the actual costs of construction came in under the agreed contract price of BDS $288.6 million but the DLP Government has never publicly stated the actual costs of construction.
* Under the agreement the Government would have received back 50 per cent of any savings realised from the construction costs coming in under the agreed contract price and the contractor would receive 50 per cent of said savings.
* The DLP Government got back just under $4 million in return and the other $6 million it would have gotten back was requested to rebuild Summervale which had burnt while Dodds was being built.
* The sum of $749.13 million referred to by the Governor of the Central Bank represented the agreed construction cost of $288.6 million plus $460.5 million in interest costs over 25 years.
* To say that the prison cost $749 million is to suggest that there were cost overruns in the construction of the Dodds Prison.
* The above facts show that it is absolutely untrue that there were any cost overruns related to the construction of the new prison at Dodds. The cost of interest is not a cost overrun.
For example, in the SATURDAY SUN, April 17, Page 2, Standard advertised a bed for $4 225 if purchased for cash. If, however, you pay $49 per week for the 130 weeks, it would cost $6 338.
* Another example: If you build a house at a cost of $300 000, most people would have to take out a mortgage over 25 years at an interest rate of eight per cent. That person would repay $2 315 per month over 25 years, paying a total amount of $694 634.60 for the $300 000 house. The cost of construction is still $300 000.
* Indeed in this example, like with the prison, the interest cost ($394 634.60) for the money borrowed is more than the amount borrowed ($300 000). (Nation News)
OPPOSITION SENATOR LIZ THOMPSON, the Barbados nominee for a top post at one of the key United Nations agencies, has been endorsed by CARICOM for the job.
A former Barbados Minister of Energy and the Environment, Thompson who is now in New York promoting her candidacy for the post of Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCC has also secured the support of the Association of Small Island States, AOSIS. She expects to be backed by as many as 37 of the 42 states which belong to AOSIS. It’s a post which is to be filled soon by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
The ruling Democratic Labour Party Administration recently nominated Thompson for the position and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its mission to the UN are aiding the candidate in her drive to generate more support from different regions of the world represented at the UN. She would need that backing if the Secretary General turns to them for advice before making a decision.
In a statement which Barbados circulated to UN members to support Thompson’s bid for the position, the Barbados mission said that as a “candidate from a developing country on the front lines of the fight against climate change,” the former Minister “fully understands the complexity of climate change challenges, as well as the need to place science and sustainable development at the heart of the response.
“As a lawyer, politician, and the longest serving Minister of the Environment in the Caribbean Community, Senator Thompson equally understands the difficulties involved in mobilizing political will to solve difficult challenges as well as the imperative of consensus building.”
That theme was repeated when she spoke to reporters at a UN press conference. She promised that if chosen she would seek to build an international consensus on the climate change issue.
Almost a dozen candidates nominated by different countries, including Canada, South Africa, Brazil, Hungary, and Costa Rica are vying for the job.
“I feel very comfortable and satisfied with the way things have gone so far in New York,” Thompson said. (TB) (Nation News)
FOR THE SECOND TIME in less than a year, a multi-sector trade mission from Prince Edward Island, Canada, will be visiting Barbados.
The nine-member mission will be visiting from tomorrow until Friday, and is being organised by the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, Prince Edward Island, and Innovation PEI, with the full support of the Canadian High Commission.
Seven export-ready Canadian firms will be looking to establish and develop strong business linkages in the areas of building products, food products, architecture and engineering, and environmental technologies.
Companies and entrepreneurs are encouraged to contact the Trade and Investment Section of the Canadian High Commission in Bridgetown to learn more about the products and services offered by these firms.
“Through focused match-making, we have organised over 120 meetings with local businesses”, said Jacques Desjardins, commercial attaché at the Canadian High Commission. “The interest level has been extremely high, which demonstrates the strong demand that exists in Barbados for new goods, services, and technologies from Canada.”
Bilateral merchandise trade with Barbados expanded last year, reaching CAN$68.8 million, which represents a 16.2 per cent increase over 2008.
Imports from Canada increased by CAN $9.5 million in 2009 to CAN $60.2 million. Exports from Barbados increased by CAN $0.2 million to reach CAN $8.7 Million.
Barbados is the third largest recipient country for Canadian Direct Investment abroad, which reached CAN $40.8 Billion in 2009.
The Trade and Investment Section is focused on expanding all areas of business with Barbados. (BA/PR) (Nation News)
WICB President Dr. Julian Hunte.
THE WEST INDIES CRICKET BOARD (WICB) has returned to good financial form.
It has achieved record levels of revenue during its last financial year, putting US$48 million into the bank.
Additionally though, the biggest losers on the field, the players, continue to be the biggest financial winners ever. The WICB wrote cheques to its players for an unprecedented US$10 million in fees for last year’s cricket.
In his report for the financial year ended September 30, 2009, WICB president Dr Julian Hunte revealed the US$48 million represented a significant increase over the US$19.6 million of the previous year.
The jump was due in large part to media rights fees the board earned from two home series (see accompanying box).
A four-match One-Day International series against India yielded US$15.3 million from Taj TV and a further US$600 000 from Sky, while a series of four Tests and five One-Day Internationals against England brought in US$12 million from Sky and US$845 000 from Taj.
Despite the increase in revenue, Hunte cautioned that the WICB was presented with growing hurdles in light of the popularity of the Twenty20 form of the game.
“West Indies cricket faces many more challenges and must focus on its cricket development programme to ensure that we have the capacity to produce players of the highest quality,” Hunte said in his report that is available on the board’s website.
“Whilst this mandates us to implement grass-roots programmes and the high performance centre, we are faced with the reality that these
same players are increasingly driven to maximise their returns on the international Twenty20 circuit.
“Consequently, these commercial tournaments do not recognise the contributions of clubs nor reward them for producing young cricketers.
“The world cricket order has changed and our future is going to be affected by our capacity to respond in a timely and sensible manner.”
While the WICB’s numbers in the books looked promising, the results on the field for the same period did not paint an impressive picture, with the West Indies winning only one of 11 Tests, four of 25 One-Day Internationals and five of ten Twenty20 Internationals.
It was also revealed that team sponsors Digicel withheld US$2.75 million in sponsorship fees arising from their claim for diminution in value of their sponsorship arising from the signing of player retainers after the cut-off date stipulated in the master sponsorship agreement.
The WICB also incurred legal costs of US$1.5 million for an arbitration matter with Digicel in the London Court of International Arbitration. (HG) (Nation News)