iNews Briefs
Cayman Islands notorious Operation Tempura back in court
When will the Cayman Islands be free from the enormous debt Operation Tempura has caused the country?
Who knows?
Operation Tempura is back in the Cayman Islands court again with the governor’s office going into battle once again to stop publication of the report on a complaint regarding the internal police probe.
This is the second hearing of the judicial review sought by the governor’s office to challenge a decision by the Information Commissioner’s Office to release a report, commissioned by the governor, into a complaint about the Tempura probe.
So why do the authorities want a lid placed tightly down on Tempura?
Pandora’s Box has nothing compared to what must be inside it!
Come to Grand Court Five in Kirk House, George Town to find out what is happening. Martin Bridger, the man who was in charge of the fiasco, might be making an appearance.
From CIFA – Postponed games Cayman Premier League
Postponement of Cayman Premier League Match #P60 – Scholars ISC v Sunset F.C. – Sunday 15 February 2015
Please be aware that CIFA has accepted a postponement request from Scholars ISC for the postponement of this weekend’s Cayman Premier League match #P60 v. Sunset F.C.
We will be postponing this match until a later date and will advise everyone when a new date has been scheduled.
Postponement of Cayman Premier League Match #P58 – Roma United SC v. Bodden Town F.C. – Sunday 15 February 2015
Please be aware that CIFA will be postponing the Cayman Premier League Match #P58 between Roma United SC and Bodden Town F.C. as both of these clubs have reached the Final of next week’s President’s Cup.
We will advise everyone when a new date for this match has been scheduled.
The family of 30-year-old Kate Clayton has confirmed she is being treated in the intensive care unit at Southampton General Hospital
by Melanie Adams From Daily Echo
A HAMPSHIRE woman left fighting for her life after a Caribbean island crash is back in Southampton.
The delighted family of Kate Clayton confirmed that she has been successfully flown back to the UK from the Caymen Islands, where she suffered a catalogue of horrific injuries after her car veered off the road and into a tree.
The 30-year-old, from Hedge End, is now receiving treatment at the intensive care unit at Southampton General Hospital, with loved ones by her side.
A statement from Kate’s family said: “Kate’s family are delighted to announce that Kate Clayton has arrived safely into the UK. She is now with doctors being assessed. We will announce more news as we know more.
“Thank you for your continued support everyone and places carry on sharing this fantastic news and donating to the Kate Fighting Fund to help with her rehabilitation.”
As previously reported, her family launched an appeal to raise enough money to fly Kate back home in an air ambulance and to help with the costs of her rehabilitation.
After just a few days, overwhelming support for the family’s appeal had been boosted by friends and relatives gathering an undisclosed amount towards flight costs and after doctors deemed her stable to fly, she headed home with her mum. But the family still have a £100,000 target to ensure the best rehabilitation.
Kate was left fighting for her life after the crash, which happened on January 11.
She is paralysed from the chest down and has possible spinal injuries and remains on a ventilator.
Kate moved to the island in December 2013 to follow her dream of training as a dive master and was helping people to explore the Caribbean Sea with Tortuga Divers, part of a company called Red Sail Sports.
The Royal Cayman Islands Police Service is investigating the incident.
IMAGE: Southampton GH
See iNews Cayman story “Successful fundraising means Kate Clayton set to return to Southampton after Caribbean crash” at: http://www.ieyenews.com/wordpress/successful-fundraising-means-kate-clayton-set-to-return-to-southampton-after-caribbean-crash/
Haiti’s housing crisis needs attention
By Nelson A. King From Caribbean Life
Human rights watchdog Amnesty International says the abject failure to sustainably rehouse tens of thousands of people who lost everything in the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti must be a top priority for the new Prime Minister Evans Paul.
In an open letter to Paul, the London-based group said more than 79,000 people are still living in make-shift camps “in deplorable conditions, meanwhile violent forced evictions continue.”
The open-letter also calls on the prime minister, who assumed office on Jan. 16, to address a “worrying increase in the brutal repression of peaceful demonstrations, including injuries and even death meted out at the hands of the police”.
“Haiti is at a cross-roads and new Prime Minister Evans Paul has an opportunity to lead the country on towards a better realization of human rights,” said Erika Guevara Rosas, Americas Director Amnesty International.
“The task is not an easy one, we have seen a worrying increase in repression and violence from different security forces,” she added. “However, there are concrete moves the prime minister can make to set Haiti on the right track.
“The prime minister, as a priority must implement full investigations into the cases of all forced evictions and ensure that no more evictions take place under his watch,” Guevara Rosas continued.
She also urged Paul to ensure that no-one is arbitrarily detained for their political activism, nor persecuted for lobbying for human rights change.
“The time has come for a fresh star,” she said.
For more: http://www.caribbeanlifenews.com/stories/2015/2/2015-02-05-nk-haiti-cl_2015_2.html
Cayman Islands garden club remember past president known as the “bat lady”
The Garden Club of Grand Cayman members, friends and family of the late Lois Blumenthal gathered last Sunday (8) at the Queen Elizabeth II Botanic Park, North Side, Grand Cayman to plant a tree in memory of their past president.
Lois Blumenthal was known as the “Bat Lady” as she initiated the National Trust’s Bat Conservation Programme.
Lois Blumenthal was a Lifetime Member of the National Trust and served on its council since 1994. She also set up the Cayman Wildlife Rescue programme and served as its manager until 2007.
2015 Caribbean Laureates announced
The Anthony N. Sabga Caribbean Awards for Excellent have announced their 2015 Laureates. They are:
In Arts & Letters: Dr Paloma Mohamed, poet, playwright and academic from Guyana
In Entrepreneurship, Mr Herbert Samuel, an energy consultant, and creator of the Welectricity App, from St Vincent & the Grenadines In Science & Technology, our first laureate is Prof Suresh Narine, a bio-technologist from Guyana. And our second laureate is Prof Patrick Hosein, a Computer Scientist from Trinidad & Tobago.
The 2015 nomination period for The Anthony N Sabga Caribbean Awards for Excellence is now open.
Steady captive growth on the Cayman Islands
From Captive International
The Cayman Islands captive insurance industry has enjoyed steady growth in 2014, with 22 new captives formed.
This brings the total number of captives domiciled in Cayman to 759. Pure captives represent 415 of these with a further 139 being segregated portfolio companies, writing total premiums of $12 billion and holding total assets of $51.5 billion.
Kieran O’Mahony, the chairperson of the Insurance Managers Association Cayman (IMAC), is confident about Cayman’s continued leading position in the captive market.
“The increase in the number of captives last year is evidence of the continued strength of our industry and the domicile. The enactment of the Portfolio Insurance Company regulations earlier this year also sets the stage for continued growth and innovation in 2015”, he said.
IMAC said that Cayman remains the leading jurisdiction for healthcare captives, with 34 percent of the captives in this classification, however, Cayman captives are increasingly being used for more innovative uses, such as insuring against cyber risk, terrorism threats and environmental pollution.
For more: http://www.captiveinternational.com/news/steady-captive-growth-on-the-cayman-islands-1025
Cuba wins Caribbean Series for first time since 1960
From Caribbean Journal
The Caribbean has a new baseball champion: Cuba.
The island’s Pinar del Rio club won the Caribbean Series this week, 55 years after their previous victory.
Cuba had only returned to series play last year, after more than a half century on the outside of what is the preeminent baseball tournament in the region; that came after Cuba’s government permitted the island’s players to play professionally overseas.
Cuba defeated the Mexican team, Culiacan de Mexico, 3-2, in a match at host island Puerto Rico’s Hiram Bithorn stadium.
The club rebounded to win the crown after two of its players defected early last week.
Cuba “demonstrated that they are the better team,” Mexico manager Benjami Gil said following the loss.
For more: http://www.caribjournal.com/2015/02/09/cuba-wins-caribbean-series-for-first-time-since-1960/
Opening ceremony of UWI TAC Committee Thu Feb 12 Grand Cayman
The Ministry of Education, Employment & Gender Affairs on behalf of the University of the West Indies (UWI) has announced:
The Opening Ceremony of the UWI Technical Advisory Committee Meetings
Thursday 12th February, 2015 from 9:00am to 10:00am at Sir Vassel Johnson Hall, University College of the Cayman Islands, George Town, Grand Cayman
PARTICIPANTS: Honourable Tara Rivers, MLA, Minister of Education, Employment & Gender Affairs, Mr. Winston Connolly, Councillor, Ministry of Education, Employment & Gender Affairs, Mr. Christen Suckoo, Acting Chief Officer, Ministry of Education, Employment & Gender Affairs, Professor Hilary Beckles, Vice-Chancellor Designate, The University of the West Indies and Professor Eudine Barriteau, Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Open Campus, The University of the West Indies
BACKGROUND: The University of the West Indies are holding their Technical Advisory Committee Meetings in Grand Cayman on the 12th and 13th February, 2015. At these meetings the budgets of the four University of the West Indies Campuses, The University Centre and the University Hospital of the West Indies will be presented for review. Delegates from across the Caribbean region will be coming to Grand Cayman for these meetings.
Annie Lennox’s Grammys performance with Hozier blew everyone away
By Laura Vitto From Mashable
Annie Lennox just brought the roof down at the Grammys.
As Hozier finished out his performance of “Take Me To Church,” Lennox joined him for a floor-shaking performance of the Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ 1956 classic “I Put a Spell On You.” Naturally, Lennox took the opportunity to blow everyone away.
Lennox is one of many artists to record a cover of “I Put a Spell on You.” Her version is on her 2014 album Nostalgia.
IMAGE: Annie Lennox at the 57th annual Grammy Awards.IMAGE: JOHN SHEARER/ASSOCIATED PRESS
There’s now a non-violent way to stop drones from flying over your home
By Chris Smith From BGR
Apps & Software Stop Drones From Spying On Your Home
One problem with drones these days is that they can be used for spying purposes — not for NSA-like jobs, mind you, but simpler jobs such as peeping on your neighbors. Luckily, TechCrunch reports that there’s a way of stopping drones from flying over your house and potentially infringing your privacy in the process.
A new website called NoFlyZone.org lets anyone quickly enter their home’s GPS coordinates to register their interest in having their properties be made unreachable by drones. The site only allows one registration per person with no questions asked. If you want to enter more than one address, you’ll have to provide proof that you actually own the property that you’re submitting for review.
The GPS database is then shared with drone and software makers, who will then create a no-flight zone over your house for those drones. As the publication reports, there are plenty of drone makers that have already decided to cooperate with
NoFlyZone.org, but some of the biggest sellers, including DJI and 3D Robotics have yet to confirm their participation.
The drone makers that have agreed to work with NoFlyZone.org so far include EHANG, Horizon Hobby, DroneDeploy, YUNEEC, HEXO+, PixiePath andRCFlyMaps.
For more: http://bgr.com/2015/02/10/stop-drones-from-spying-on-your-home/
Ring from The Lord of the Rings
By Jacob Siegal From BGR
Thirteen years after the premiere of The Fellowship of the Ring, the Lord of the Rings film saga came to a close in December with the last installment of The Hobbit. You can now watch the entire story from start to finish, but even after watching the extended editions of each and every film, you’re still probably going to have a few questions.
That’s where YouTube user CGP Grey comes in. We featured his last Lord of the Rings explainer video as well, which covered the general mythology of Middle-earth and its fantastical races, but this time he’s decided to focus specifically on The One Ring, the magical item around which the entire series revolves.
If you ever wondered why the ring’s powers seem relatively limited, why there are so many other rings and why a hobbit was chosen to destroy the ring, you need to watch the full video
Image Source: Shadow of Mordor Wikia
For more and video: http://bgr.com/2015/02/10/video-lord-of-the-rings-explained/
Record number of Americans give up citizenship
CNBC From Yahoo News
While politicians are focused on all the foreigners who want to become Americans, perhaps they should consider all the Americans who are becoming foreigners. According to the latest data from the Treasury Department , spotted by Andrew Mitchel at the International Tax Blog, a record 3,415 Americans renounced their citizenship in 2014. That was up from the 2,999 in 2013 and more than triple the number for 2012.
While some may see taxes as the main reason to flee, that’s only part of the story. The big policy change that’s causing people to give up their American citizenship is FATCA, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act.
Number of billionaires surges to record high. It may sound wonky. But the act requires foreign banks to reveal any Americans with accounts over $50,000. Banks that don’t comply could be frozen out of U.S. markets. And Americans overseas-even those who never lived in the U.S. or have a tangential connection here-are now under far more pressure to file detailed tax returns and pay U.S. taxes on their overseas income. The program was designed to catch more wealthy overseas tax cheats. But one of its unintended consequences is that those Americans are simply giving up on being Americans.
For more: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/record-number-americans-citizenship-175736337.html
Windies cricketer sued for allegedly sharing intimate photographs
From Caribbean360
PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad, Wednesday February 11, 2015, CMC – West Indies opening batsman, Lendl Simmons, who argued that he had a one-time affair with an account executive, will appear in court on March 23, for the start of a lawsuit relating to the dissemination of intimate photographs of the woman.
The woman, Therese Ho, has filed a breach of confidence lawsuit against Simmons, 30, a member of the West Indies World Cup team now in Australia, alleging that he had disseminated the photos electronically to several of his colleagues.
The matter came up for case management on Tuesday and the trial will begin on March 23.
On June 5, last year Justice Ronnie Boodoosingh granted Ho an injunction preventing the West Indies and Trinidad and Tobago cricketer from disseminating any further photographs or information about her.
Ho is contending that by disseminating the photographs, Simmons has contravened the tort of breach of confidence which is a common law tort that protects confidential information that is conveyed to another in confidence.
Simmons, on the other hand, is arguing that he never shared a relationship with Ho and that his encounter with her was only a one-time affair, meaning he was not under a duty to owe her any confidentiality.
U.S. Airlines were tardy, bumped more passengers and lost a bunch of bags in 2014
By Mary Beth Quirk From Consumerist
There’s bad news, and then there’s the slightly less bad news: In 2014, passengers suffered as airlines were on-time less often, lost bags at a higher rate and bumped more people than the year before. But at least airlines canceled fewer flights, and there were fewer lengthy delays leaving travelers stranded on the tarmac, so there’s that.
According to data released by the U.S. Department of Transportation today, airlines were on time (within 15 minutes of scheduled arrival) 72.6% of the time last year, down from 78.3% in 2013, reports the Chicago Tribune.
The major players didn’t do so well out of the dozen carriers that report to the DOT: American Airlines was sixth, United Airlines came in seventh and Southwest Airlines ranked 10th on the rolls of most punctual. Delta was the sole large carrier to come in among the top at No. 3.
The most on-time flights went to Hawaiian Airlines, with Envoy at the very bottom.
As for personal belongings, airlines lost 3.62 bags per every 1,000 passengers, an uptick from 3.22 bags the year before. And more passengers got the boot from flights, with 0.92 involuntary denied boardings per 10,000 passengers, an increase from 0.9 the year before.
Passengers didn’t suffer their gripes quietly, either, filing a total of 11,364 complaints against U.S. airlines, up 17.3% from 2013. Frontier Airlines garnered the worst complaint rates along with United Airlines, while the fewest complaints per 100,000 passengers were about Alaska and Southwest.
However, lengthy tarmac delays were at their lowest in the last five years since larger fines were adopted: 30 domestic flights had tarmac delays longer than three hours in 2014, with nine international flights delayed more than four hours.
In 2009, the last full year before the new fines went into effect, a whopping 868 domestic flights had lengthy delays. Even in 2013, there were more than twice as many lengthy delays than last year, with 84 domestic and 55 international that year.
“These tarmac delay rules are meant to protect passengers, and it appears that the airlines have gotten the message,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in a statement. “We have aggressively enforced, and will continue to aggressively enforce, our tarmac delay rules.”
Apple invests in a solar farm that can power 60,000 homes
From engadget
Apple makes much ado about using clean energy sources to power its buildings these days, and it just put its money where its mouth is… a lot of money. The company is investing a whopping $848 million in a First Solar plant in California’s Monterey County that, according to Apple chief Tim Cook, should generate enough electricity to power 60,000 homes. Apple will get a 130-megawatt supply from the solar farm to light up buildings such as its future spaceship-like campus, while the remaining 150 megawatts will go to Pacific Gas & Energy’s grid. Reportedly, this is the largest commercial deal to date in the solar industry — it certainly eclipses many of the other green energy initiatives we’ve seen in tech, which tend to “only” require tens of megawatts.
For more: http://www.engadget.com/2015/02/10/apple-invests-in-giant-solar-farm/?ncid=rss_truncated
Credit Agricole initiates coverage on Qunar Cayman Islands (QUNR)
By Matt Cooper From Sleek Money
Investment analysts at Credit Agricole began coverage on shares of Qunar Cayman Islands (NASDAQ:QUNR) in a note issued to investors on Monday, TheFlyOnTheWall.com reports. The firm set a “buy” rating on the stock.
Shares of Qunar Cayman Islands (NASDAQ:QUNR) traded down 1.97% during mid-day trading on Monday, hitting $28.84. 159,916 shares of the company’s stock traded hands. Qunar Cayman Islands has a 1-year low of $21.00 and a 1-year high of $36.73. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $29.20 and its 200-day moving average is $28.02. The company’s market cap is $3.429 billion.
Qunar Cayman Islands (NASDAQ:QUNR) last released its earnings data on Monday, December 1st. The company reported ($0.78) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.38) by $0.40. The company had revenue of $81.60 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $77.67 million. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 107.6% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts expect that Qunar Cayman Islands will post $-1.16 EPS for the current fiscal year.
A number of other firms have also recently commented on QUNR. Analysts at Deutsche Bank reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of Qunar Cayman Islands in a research note on Monday, December 15th. Analysts at Aegis reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of Qunar Cayman Islands in a research note on Tuesday, December 2nd. Finally, analysts at HSBC initiated coverage on shares of Qunar Cayman Islands in a research note on Friday, November 21st. They set a “neutral” rating and a $29.00 price target on the stock. Three analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the stock. Qunar Cayman Islands currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $31.50.
Qunar Cayman Islands Limited is a search-based commerce platform for the travel industry in China. The Company’s customers include travel service providers (NASDAQ:QUNR) and display advertisers. The Company’s platform is designed to facilitate and enhance convenience, data accuracy, and transaction security for its users.
For more: http://sleekmoney.com/credit-agricole-initiates-coverage-on-qunar-cayman-islands-qunr/131995/
