iNews Briefs
Cayman Islands tennis tournament to become ATP-sanctioned event?
The organisers of the Cayman Open annual tennis tournament are applying to have it sanctioned by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP).
On Monday (19) Cayman Islands Tennis Club Teaching Professional Dale Avery said on CITN’s News27, “Once it does become an ATP tournament, then the growth is exponential in the tournament and the amount of money involved becomes huge and the players involved. So there’s a lot of expansion there. So I mean you’re just looking at players’ accommodations and flights and appearance fees and prize money. Then you could start looking at tournament costs, stadium costs and so it would be great for tennis on island. Not just the tennis club, but the entire island could benefit from having a big event like that.”
The 2015 Cayman Open is scheduled from 26th – 29th March.
[Trinidad] Wheelchair Killer
From Trinidad Express
IMAGE: Gunned down: 19-year-old Salma Chadee, killed by a man in a wheelchair.
A manhunt has been launched by officers of the Police Service for a wheelchair-bound man who was said to be the main suspect in the murder of 19-year-old Salma Chadee on Saturday night. According to police reports, the teenager was at her home at Chadee Street, La Paille Village, Caroni, in the company of the wheelchair-bound man and other relatives. At about 9.30 p.m. the group got into an argument, during which the suspected assailant was said to have pulled out a firearm, shooting Chadee several times in her upper left chest. He then made good his escape in a vehicle which was waiting outside. The police and emergency health services were notified. However, Chadee died shortly before their arrival. A party of officers from the Central Division and the Homicide Bureau of Investigations, including Senior Supt Johnny Abraham, Supt Adams, Insp Terrance Williams, Sgt Jitindra Toolaram, Sgt Burnette, Cpl Raju, and WPC Funrose, among several others, visited the scene.
The body was viewed by District Medical Officer Trim before it was ordered removed to the San Fernando Mortuary. An autopsy is expected to be performed at the Forensic Science Centre in St James today. Police are asking for the public’s assistance in locating the suspect, noting that, according to their recent information, both of his legs were in a cast following a vehicular accident recently which resulted in his legs being broken. They said the injury has therefore confined him to a wheelchair. The suspect, a 35-year-old Macaulay, Claxton Bay man, is also wanted in connection with the murder of Sherlene Mahangoo-Charles who was shot dead at her Ste Madeleine home. Her 14-year-old daughter was also injured in this incident. Speaking to the media yesterday, Chadee’s relatives described the 19-year-old as a kind and loving woman, who was outspoken at times, but always respectful. They noted that Chadee was the mother of an 11-month-old baby boy, whom she loved dearly, and was always seen taking care of. “She was a young and vibrant persons and liked to do things that a normal teenager would do. She was a very nice child. Respectable. She was a little hot-tempered at times but for the right reasons. If you tell her something and she didn’t like it she would tell you as is. Plain talk bad manners. But she always voiced her opinions. “She liked things like going to the beach and party life and things like that. But she was a mother figure. She settle down basically after she had her son and would take care of him and would walk with him and play with him and things that a mother would do,” recalled one of Chadee’s relatives. However, relatives also noted that they were living in fear since the incident as they believed that the suspect could return for those who he saw at the home and as such, they were calling on the police to find the individual immediately. This brings the murder toll for the year to 22. The murder toll at this time last year stood at 32.
For more: http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/WHEELCHAIR-KILLER-288997521.html?m=y&smobile=y
Cayman Islands Monetary Authority issues efficient option to submit forms
CIMA has launched a new online portal for electronic submission of financial services information which entities regulated by the Authority are required to submit. It’s called Regulatory Enhanced Electronic Forms Submission (REEFS).
Selected Industry partners have been invited to test the system, which will be phased in gradually. The first phase of this new process has already begun for persons whose information is intended for the Insurance Supervision and Fiduciary Services divisions.
Persons filing financial returns, change requests and new licence applications with the Banking Supervision and the Investments and Securities divisions will be added in the second phase of the project, which is expected to be completed by the third quarter of 2015.
Injunction granted to halt St Kitts-Nevis boundary changes
By Andre Huie From Caribbean News Now
BASSETERRE, St Kitts (WINN) — An injunction was granted by the High Court on Friday restraining the St Kitts and Nevis government from proclaiming constituency boundaries changes. Chris Hamel-Smith, the senior counsel representing the opposition, told WINN that the injunction was granted on Friday afternoon even as the government was moving to have the boundaries changed.
“The judge has issued an injunction restraining that proclamation from being made in order to stop the report from coming into effect,” Hamel-Smith told WINN.
“In layman’s terms it means that the judge has said things must not change until the court has an opportunity to look at the whole matter properly, and not under the unfair and undue pressure and haste that was created here this afternoon,” the senior counsel said.
However, government attorney Sylvester Anthony suggested that the injunction obtained by the opposition to stop the proclamation of the constituency boundary changes is of no effect, as he is not aware that an order has been served to the relevant parties.
Donation received for children and families in Cayman Islands
GRAND CAYMAN, Cayman Islands – Premier Hon. Alden McLaughlin proudly accepted a $10,000 donation on behalf of the Children and Family Services over the holidays. The donation presented to the Premier by CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank Managing Director Mark McIntyre. The donation was used to help families in need in the community have a better holiday season.
St Vincent PM wants new legislation to strengthen ICT sector
From Jamaica Observer
KINGSTOWN, St Vincent (CMC) – A three-day workshop examining technology and telecommunications issues in the Eastern Caribbean began in St Vincent on Monday with Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves underscoring the need to enact legislation to develop the sector in the sub-region.
Gonsalves told delegates from Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia and the host country, St Vincent and the Grenadines that he hoped the conference would examine possible draft legislation that would reflect the current technological needs of the region.
“I really am looking forward to you moving swiftly and to present me with a draft bill which I can subject a study, have the officials in the Ministry of Legal Affairs…look at it carefully and to have it out for public discussion.
“But I don’t want you to have this seminar and deliver the bill for me five years hence, because by then you will have to deliver a different bill for me because technology would have made several of your assumptions obsolete. So speed is of the essence,” Gonsalves added.
The Eastern Caribbean Telecommunications Authority (ECTEL), said the conference would discuss various technology development issues, including broadband quality of service, consumer protection, Internet Exchange Points, and Internet neutrality.
The workshop is being held in partnership with the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU), under the umbrella of the Caribbean Regional Communications Infrastructure Programme (CARCIP).
Cayman Islands Heroes Day Celebrations on Monday (26)
WHO: Heroes Day honourees
Government officials, inc. Governor and Premier
Uniformed organisations on parade
Members of the public
WHAT: National Heroes Day Celebrations 2015
WHEN: Monday, 26 January 2015 at 8.30 a.m.
WHERE: Heroes Square, George Town
BACKGROUND: This year’s focus is on Health Services. Over 75 persons – ranging from doctors, midwives, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, medical assistants, environmental health workers, optometrists, emergency response workers and therapists – will be honoured this year for their contributions to the health and wellness of the Cayman Islands. The event will conclude with a family-friendly social, featuring live entertainment as well as samples of traditional Caymanian food. There will also be a display of various photos and artifacts relating to the history of Cayman’s health services at the George Town Library. Staff from various health organisations and local practices will also be on hand at the George Town Town Hall to promote their products and services.
Remains found stuffed into charred suitcase identified
From Eyewitness News ABC
NEW YORK (WABC) — The NYPD has identified a young woman whose body was found inside a charred suitcase in Brooklyn nearly two years ago.
The remains of 30-year-old Erica McDaniel were found inside the suitcase in a building that burned down on Hull Street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section in May of 2012. The gruesome discovery was made when the property was sold in March of 2013, when the new owner found skeletal remains inside the charred suitcase as renovations were beginning.
McDaniel’s last-known address is on Bedford Avenue, but she also lived in Kansas in the past.
Edsson Benedith remembers when the body was found next door to his home.
“This house had a lot of history, a lot of stuff happened in this house,” Benedith said. “A lot of bad stuff.”
Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS (8477).
Cayman Islands Smoking Cessation Classes: ‘I Can Quit’
The Public Health Department reminds smokers who wish to quit the habit that there are still some spaces left for the upcoming smoking cessation classes the department is offering. Classes start on 4 February 2015 from 5:15pm to 6:45pm every Wednesday for 7 weeks in the Public Health Waiting Room. Registration deadline is 23 January 2015.
For more info or to sign up, contact the Public Health Department on 244-2889/244-2648, or email [email protected].
IBM debuts new mainframe in a $1 billion bet on mobile demand
From Moneynews
IBM is introducing a new mainframe in a bet that clients will need its souped-up speed and security to handle a surge in consumers using smartphones for everything from banking to checking healthcare records.
The z13 system can encrypt and analyze data in real time and process 30,000 transactions a second, International Business Machines Corp. announced Tuesday. That means faster and safer transactions for consumers on mobile phones. The system is the result of five years of development and a more than $1 billion investment, said Donna Dillenberger, an IBM distinguished engineer who helped develop the machine.
The mainframe is one of IBM’s signature hardware products that will help sell related software and services, and it’s debuting at a critical time for the Armonk, New York-based company. Chief Executive Officer Ginni Rometty is trying to find new sources of revenue growth from mobile offerings, cloud computing and data analytics as demand for its legacy hardware wanes.
“When we are on our mobile devices, we only just want to wait for low single-digit seconds,” Dillenberger said in an interview. “Working on those types of problems drove us to ask, ‘How can we speed up these analytics?’ The z13 provides the capability to allow users to connect their mobile devices directly to the mainframe.”
The new system boasts improvements including the ability to perform data analytics on the machine itself, which IBM say can deliver insights faster and cheaper.
Cayman Islands police community meetings announced
RCIPS District Community Meetings
The Royal Cayman Islands Police Service (RCIPS) will be having the first district community meetings for 2015 later this month.
The meetings, will be facilitated by the district area commanders to hear the views of community, and issues concerning the policing within their districts.
Please support the community by attending and meet your district commanders to discuss topics important to the community’s security and safety.
The scheduled meetings are attached
Virginia Tech engineers look into wastewater pollution issues to modernize Caribbean communities
From Augusta Free Press
For the past three years, Virginia Tech civil and environmental engineering students and faculty advisers Mark Widdowson and John Novak, have spent considerable time in the Caribbean but the journeys were not of the recreational variety.
They have been measuring the significant pollution of the well water in Veron, a rapidly-urbanizing community with considerable health issues related to sewage-contaminated groundwater.
Although Veron itself is not a tourist destination, the untreated wastewater for the population of 60,000 threatens the aquifer that the tourism industry of the Dominican Republic depends on, according to the Puntacana Ecological Foundation.
Most of Veron’s residents work in the tourist industry.
“Our data has set into motion a solution in the form of a pilot project for one of the worst areas of Veron,” Widdowson reported.
Cayman Islands Governor has ‘complete confidence’ in Auditor General
After the Cayman Islands Leader of the Opposition, McKeeva Bush, trashed Auditor General Alastair Swarbrick’s professionalism that included accusations his office had tried to influence public opinion ahead of his (Bush) criminal trial last year, Helen Kilpatrick, the Cayman Islands Governor, said she had complete confidence in the Auditor General.
“I continue to have complete confidence in the auditor general, his staff and the professionalism of the reports produced by his office,” she said. “It is critical that the auditor is able to undertake his important work independently and report publicly on what he finds.”
The Governor’s statement was met with anger by Bush said he did not believe the auditor general was independent.
“The AG does not report to the governor, he’s not supposed to. He’s a creature of the constitution and of law that is supposed to report to the Legislative Assembly and Public Accounts Committee. He does not report to the newspapers and he does not report to the public.”
See today’s Editorial “I am not surprised Bush is to sue, but I don’t give a damn.”
St Kitts-Nevis parliament dissolved
From Caribbean News Now
BASSETERRE, St Kitts (CUOPM) — The St Kitts and Nevis parliament was dissolved on Friday at the request of Prime Minister Dr Denzil Douglas.
Douglas said he has advised Governor General Sir Edmund Wickham Lawrence to dissolve parliament with immediate effect and that the dates for nomination day and polling day will be announced later.
He made the announcement following an emergency sitting of the National Assembly that saw the passage of a resolution paving the way for the governor-general to sign a proclamation that would bring into effect revised electoral boundaries whenever parliament is dissolved.
Douglas told parliament that the Constituency Boundaries Commission, which has been meeting since mid 2012, had finalized its report.
For more: http://www.caribbeannewsnow.com/topstory-St-Kitts-Nevis-parliament-dissolved-24425.html
Cayman Squash: Ivy League universities enjoy South Sound facilities for a week
From Digicel Sportmax
Squash teams from two Ivy League universities in the United States spent a week in the Cayman Islands for some warm weather mid-season training.
Harvard University in Boston, and Brown University from Rhode Island, sent their players and coaches to the island where they went through their paces at the South Sound Squash Club.
The visit stemmed from glowing comments made by players and coaches from New York’s Columbia University, who visited the island for similar purposes last year.
Once every four years, a U.S. university is allowed to travel abroad for their mid-season training and through Mark Chaloner, head coach at the club, these two were invited and willingly accepted getting away from the routine of campus life and also a record winter chill.
“Luckily, with my contact network and through my time on the circuit, I’ve met so many people and a lot of the coaches are actually friends of mine from my days running around the court,” said Chaloner.
“It makes it much easier to sell Cayman, especially with the facilities we have here at the club, an excellent place for them to come and train in the warm.”
Study: Jobless rate still above pre-recession levels in 95 percent of counties
By Dan Weil From Newsmax
Looking at the economy through the prism of the nation’s 3,069 counties, things are getting better but still have a ways to go, according to a study by the National Association of Counties.
Last year was one “of recovery, but unemployment has yet to return to pre-recession lows in most county economies.” the report said.
On the plus side:
GDP surpassed the peak recorded before the latest downturn in an additional 88 county economies relative to 2013.
Housing prices recovered in just under half of county economies.
Employment levels recovered in an additional 130 county economies.
But on the minus side:
Nearly three-quarters of county economies are still below their pre-recession employment levels, and unemployment is not back to pre-recession rates in 95 percent of county economies.
Average annual wages declined in half of county economies between 2012 and 2013.
Only 65 county economies have fully recovered to pre-recession levels in all four of these areas: jobs, unemployment rates, GDP and median home prices.
“The analysis shows that economic growth is spreading, with jobs and unemployment rates improving across nearly all county economies,” the study stated. “This progress through adversity indicates the success of county economic development efforts, but also the continued need for a strong local-state-federal partnership in securing a strong economy.”
Meanwhile, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum (AAF), says last week’s December employment report raises questions about the economy’s strength.
Non-farm payrolls gained 252,000, putting the increase for all of 2014 at 2.95 million, the biggest yearly gain since 1999.
But average hourly wages advanced only 1.7 percent in the 12 months through December, the worst showing in more than two years, and labor force participation totaled only 62.7 percent, matching a 36-year low.
For more: http://www.Newsmax.com/Finance/employment-GDP-economy-counties/2015/01/13/id/618237/#ixzz3POroYVK8
Copper’s biggest plunge since 2011 leading commodities sell-off
From Moneymax
Commodities slumped to a 12-year low, led by the biggest plunge in copper since 2011, after a report from the World Bank fanned concerns of a global economic slowdown.
Copper futures for March delivery tumbled five percent to $2.5125 a pound as of 11:45 a.m. in New York, set for a fourth day of losses. Nickel erased more than 2 percent, while oil reversed earlier declines, with West Texas Intermediate trading little changed at $45.88 a barrel. The Bloomberg Commodity Index of 22 energy, agriculture and metal products was little changed after touching the lowest level since 2002 at 99.9516.
“It just shows the general level of weakness currently and worries spreading,” Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank A/S in Copenhagen, said by phone. “We have basically wiped out gains seen in the first decade, and this is obviously a significant change in outlook.”
Investors are bailing out of raw materials after a decade- long bull market led producers to boost output and data from manufacturing to jobs fuel speculation that the global economy is too weak to sustain more demand for commodities. The World Bank cut its forecast for global growth this year, adding to concern of a growing disparity between the U.S. and other major economies.
Copper, Oil
Copper has fallen 11 percent this year, the worst performance in the Bloomberg Commodity Index outside the energy industry. The metal is trading at the lowest level since 2009 as low energy costs make it cheaper for mining companies to increase production, while disappointing economic data from China adds to concern about demand.
China’s consumption is forecast to rise at the slowest pace since at least 2009, Deutsche Bank AG estimates. The world economy will expand 3 percent in 2015, down from a projection of 3.4 percent in June, according to the World Bank report.
Oil rebounded after falling as much as 1.9 percent. Futures closed at the lowest in more than five-and-a-half years as OPEC nations predicted the global surplus would persist and U.S. stockpiles were forecast to rise.
Prices may recover only when demand improves later this year, Ali Al Yabhouni, the United Arab Emirates’ governor to OPEC, said.
