iNews Briefs, More & Community Events
Cayman Islands Community Events
THU JUNE 18
Cayman International Film Festival
Cayman International Film Festival kicks off with an opening night film premiere and gala party on Thursday (18 Jun) at 630pm at Regal Cinemas and Gardenia Court
Humane Society Pub Quiz
The Humane Society Pub Quiz is Thursday (18 Jun) at 7pm at Fidel Murphy’s
FRI JUNE 19
Botanic Park Closure
The Botanic Park will close at 230pm on Friday (19 Jun)
Needs Assessment Unit Closure
The Needs Assessment Unit will be closed on Friday (19 Jun)
Purple Dragon Karate Showcase
The Purple Dragon Karate Showcase is Friday (19 Jun) at the Arts & Recreation Center in Camana Bay at 6pm.
Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association Essay Contest
The Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association Essay Contest for CI students under 16 will focus on ‘How has the cruise industry improved my country.’ For full contest guidelines and entry forms, contact [email protected]. The deadline is Friday (19 Jun)
CayFilm Festival at the National Gallery
CayFilm Festival at the National Gallery is Friday and Saturday (19 — 20 Jun). For details visit www.cayfilm.com.
Former Chief Justice Edward Zacca knighted
From Jamaica Gleaner
Former Chief Justice of Jamaica, Edward Zacca, has been honoured with a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to justice in British Overseas Territories.
He will now be formally addressed as Sir Edward, and his wife, as Lady Zacca.
Zacca was among hundreds of people recognised by the Queen in her 2015 Birthday Honours List published Friday.
Sir Edward is the father of Christopher Zacca – a businessman and former president of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica.
Sir Edward has had made an exceptional contribution in guiding the development of the law in Overseas Territories as the President of the Court of Appeal in three UK Overseas Territories – Bermuda, Turks & Caicos and The Cayman Islands.
Sir Edward is said to have made an exceptional contribution in guiding Bermuda and the Cayman Islands in particular, with their large financial service industries whose growth and reputation have depended heavily on their internationally respected courts and maintaining the confidence of the business and wider community in the legal institutions.
Edward Zacca’s membership of the Privy Council since 1996, as well as his judicial service in Jamaica for over 38 years, reinforce and spread that positive influence more widely.
For more: http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/lead-stories/20150613/former-chief-justice-edward-zacca-knighted
IMAGE: www.todayinbermuda.com
Ore Carrier pays homage for HM Queen’s Birthday as it passes Cayman Brac
The 800ft ore carrier Baldock, transporting coal from New Orleans, Louisiana to the Dominican Republic, hoisted the Union Jack and sounded six blasts of its horn, off Spot Bay, Cayman Brac, on Monday, 15 June 2015, in honour of Queen Elizabeth II’s official birthday.
Ship’s Captain Slechta Miroslave of the Czech Republic agreed to the suggestion by Raymond Scott, a volunteer shipping advisor, from Cayman Brac.
The Baldock came as close as one mile off Spot Bay and Mr Scott noted that a number of people came out to the coastline to watch the passage of the huge ship.
Cayman Islands rugby makes history
The Cayman Islands National Men’s Sevens rugby team finished fourth over the weekend at the North America and Caribbean Rugby Association (NACRA) Championship, winning all three of its day one matches before falling to USA in the semifinals and Mexico in the third/fourth-place match.
This was good enough to book them a spot at the Hong Kong Sevens tournament, a qualifier for the World Sevens series.
This has made history as it is the first time Cayman has ever qualified for the Hong Kong Sevens, one of the world’s most prestigious tournaments.
2015 Antitrust and M&A Trailblazers
The National Law Journal recognizes professionals who have moved the needle in the legal industry, professionals who are truly Trailblazers. In 2013 and 2014 we have published pieces on Trailblazers in Legal Business, Governance, Risk and Compliance, Intellectual Property and Litigation.
We are now accepting nominations for our inaugural list of 2015 Antitrust and M&A Trailblazers which is slated to appear on September 28, 2015. We are looking for movers and shakers who have impacted the Antitrust and/or M&A landscape through new types of strategies or innovative court cases.
What are the criteria?
We are seeking legal professionals who have decisively altered the playing field in the legal arena in terms of Antitrust and M&A. Here are just a few examples of the types of trailblazers we are looking for:
Devised new strategies for completing deals
Worked on deals that required extremely high levels of creativity
Pioneered technological advancements to create efficiencies in either M&A and/or antitrust
Broke new paths in the area of antitrust enforcement, either as a regulator or as counsel
Litigated landmark cases that changed the game in competition law
The above are just examples; it’s important to understand that we are not simply looking for lawyers who have worked on big deals – we are looking for agents of change!
Nomination Process:
Please fill out the form found at: http://pages.email.alm.com/antitrustmatrailblazers/ to submit your nomination. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Lisa Van Dyke at [email protected] or call 202-828-0351.
Key Dates for the Antitrust and M&A Trailblazers
Publication Date: September 28, 2015
Nominations Close: July 10, 2015
De-risking – meeting the challenges
By Louis Parris From Barbados Nation News
The view has been expressed in some quarters that left unchecked, the process of de-risking may leave some countries with absolutely no access to international finance. That, in turn, is likely to exacerbate the conditions of poverty and exclusion that fuel the terrorism and crime these rules were designed to prevent.
The Prime Minister of Belize, Dean Barrow, raised the issue of correspondent banking with United States (US) President Barack Obama at the Summit of the Americas recently in Panama. It was also raised by Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne in his remarks at the meeting between CARICOM Heads and Obama in Jamaica immediately before the summit.
The Caribbean Association of Banks has come out in support of the view expressed by Browne that there is a very real and grave threat to the Caribbean banking industry. Browne said there had been an unfair and unsubstantiated labelling of the region as a high risk area for financial services by some US organisations. As a result, there is a threat of loss of correspondent banking relationships to banks in the region.
The issue of the international banks providing correspondent banking services turns on the risk ratings assigned by the international regulatory agencies which have put the Caribbean in a high-risk box.
Some regulators have made the point that though the Caribbean is a high-risk area, it has a very thin record when it comes to anti-money laundering prosecutions. Whether fair or not, they interpret this to mean we are doing little to eliminate obvious money laundering or that our systems are weak. The recent rumblings in the US that the area may be contributing terrorists to ISIS, whether substantiated or not, has not helped.
In the choppy waters of international banking, the big banks are the Leviathans and the Caribbean nations are bottom feeders. Indications are that governments, local regulatory agencies, banking operations, and related associations will need to come together on common approaches to leverage collective influence. International regulators respond best to proactive initiatives which demonstrate that a jurisdiction is doing all that it can to be transparent and to eliminate money laundering and financing of terrorism risks.
Recently in Britain, which is one of the world’s leading financial centres, the economic secretary to the Treasury, Andrea Leadsom, hosted a cross sector round-table discussion on how to address the growing problem of banks closing down and denying bank services to a range of customers. It involved representatives from the charity, remittances, financial technology and defence sectors, as well as the banking industry and regulations.
The British Banking Association is convening regulator meetings of round-table participants to monitor progress and is in continuing dialogue with members of the G20 group on the issue. It may be true that the possibility of de-risking driving transactions underground and disrupting international trade, could influence some reversal of the current trend. However, the Caribbean can’t wait and the issue begs for a united effort in leveraging whatever collective bargaining power these small nations have.
Louis Parris is a certified compliance professional, consultant and publisher of the Caribbean Banking Intelligence AML Compliance Newsletter. Email: [email protected].
For more: http://www.nationnews.com/nationnews/news/68383/-risking-meeting-challenges#sthash.ePUro4YI.dpuf
Cerno Capital Partners joins Suggestus Research Platform
From Finextra
Investment management boutique Cerno Capital Partners LLP (“Cerno”), which manages the assets of individuals, families, charities and wealth managers, confirmed today that it has signed up for the ARC’s “Suggestus” research platform.
Commenting on the development, James Spence, managing partner of Cerno, said: “Our core investment approach derives from a flexible mind-set, backed up by a disciplined process, applied globally. We believe that Cerno Capital’s flexible investment proposition is relevant to a broad investor base. To that end we are delighted to be joining ARC’s Suggestus platform as it will represent our core proposition as an appealing solution.”
Suggestus is a web-based solution, providing private client advisers with structured research on discretionary investment managers. Suggestus informs the process of selection and review. It offers a solution to private client advisers who wish to demonstrate a documented manager selection process with a verifiable audit trail.
Daniel Hurdley, ARC’s Head of Research: “We are delighted to welcome Cerno as the latest firm to join the Suggestus community. Regulatory requirements, due diligence, directorial and trustee liability, as well as the long overdue focus on transparency, are increasingly important factors in the financial services sector. Suggestus answers the questions “how do you choose an investment manager?” and more importantly, “why did you choose that manager?”
For more: http://www.finextra.com/news/announcement.aspx?pressreleaseid=60153
15 Jun Haitian Heritage Museum presents Caribbean Tech & Innovation Awards
Final MC2 Tech Cocktail AwardsJune 25th, the Haitian Heritage Museum (HHM) will set the tone for a cocktail gala fundraiser honoring innovative influencers in the technology industry. The Caribbean Tech & Innovation Awards will shed light on diversity in technology and award those who have exemplified unmatched drive and talent in their respective industry.
This year marks the 11th annual fundraiser the Haitian Heritage Museum has conducted and it’s proceeds will support HHM programming of cultural education and e-Ayiti Expose, an educational program dedicated to providing technological resources to classrooms globally.
The Haitian Heritage Museum is an innovation in it’s own right, as the first Haitian museum outside of Haiti. It is natural for HHM to seek out and reward other innovators that are paving the way for diversity in technology. The Caribbean Tech & Innovation Awards runs alongside HHM’s ongoing initiative to be involved in the South Florida community, which has a heavy Caribbean population. By using technology the Haitian Heritage Museum and Miami Caribbean Code hope to inspire, support, and highlight the future endeavors of the next generations in the South Florida and Caribbean communities.
CARIBBEAN TECH & INNOVATION AWARDEES ARE:
Innovator of the Year: TBA at the ceremony
Education Innovator: George Cabrera, President & CEO of ASPIRA of Florida, Inc.
Economic Development Innovator: Pascale Elie of Haiti Pay
Health Innovator: Lixon Nelson, Founder of I AM UNEEK
Young Innovator: Gregory Johnson, Co-Founder of SelfieID
The Caribbean Tech & Innovation Awards will take place June 25th at 6:30pm in the Moore Building of the Miami Design District. Guests will enjoy entertainment, cocktails, and light bites. Hosted by the lovely Jessy Schuster of SAP.
SUPPORT THE LOCAL CARIBBEAN AND SOUTH FLORIDA COMMUNITY BY PURCHASING AN AWARD TICKET HERE: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/miami-caribbean-code-tm-tech-and-innovations-award-ceremony-tickets-16560885053
SOURCE: http://miamicaribbeancode.com/haitian-heritage-museum-presents-caribbean-tech-innovation-awards/
Customs officers in Miami discover cocaine in fried fish from Jamaica
From Caribbean News Now
IMAGE: Fried fish seized at Miami International Airport
MIAMI, USA — US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Office of Field Operations (OFO) officers at Miami International Airport seized over two pounds of cocaine concealed inside fried fish being carried in the luggage of a passenger arriving from Jamaica on Saturday morning.
During an X-ray examination of the passenger’s luggage, CBP OFO officers discovered approximately 2.3 pounds of cocaine and subsequently seized the illicit substance.
“CBP officers are an instrumental part of the detailed inspection process designed to detect illegal narcotics entering the United States,” said Miami International Airport port director Christopher Maston. “Drug smugglers are using increasingly innovative methods and this interception is an excellent example of how our highly trained officers continue to use their experience and knowledge to detect and interdict the flow of illegal narcotics.”
CBP officers and agents seized more than 3.8 million pounds of narcotics across the country in Fiscal Year 2014.
US Consulate reports delays in issuing visas and passports
From Dominican Today
Santo Domingo.- The US Embassy Consular Section on Monday reported technical problems with its systems which issue passports and US visas abroad.
“This situation, which has caused delays in the processing of visa applications, is not specific to the Dominican Republic, and affects both the issue of the citizenship document such as visas regardless of category,” the embassy said in an emailed statement.
“In this situation, the Consular Section of the US Embassy in the country regrets the inconvenience and continues to work diligently to correct the problem and return to operate at optimum level,” the embassy adds.
The Real Silicon Valley
By Greg Sands From TechCrunch
Greg Sands is founder and managing partner at Costanoa Venture Capital.
Every time I hear people talking about unicorns, I think “all hat, no cattle” or “another person living in the land of style over substance.” I’ve found myself blurting out, “F$&@ Unicorns!”* twice recently, including when I was on a panel at Stanford School of Engineering on Entrepreneurship from Diverse Perspective. (Yes, I get the irony.)
It’s not that I don’t like billion-dollar companies. Believe me, I like them as much as the next guy.
When Datalogix was bought by Oracle or when Yokou went public, it felt like great validation from years of hard work that came before it. I was thrilled for the teams that had worked so hard to build the business and proud of my involvement, even if the role of an investor is somewhat limited relative to the founders and management team.
When Netscape went public on August 8, 1995, I was sitting around the table with our engineering team and it instantly changed the life of the team. While those exits were milestones in my career, I am really pleased that our investment strategy at Costanoa, including the size of our fund, doesn’t require that we can only invest in unicorns. (For more on this subject, please see the well-written piece by Todd Hixon on how smaller funds can build a venture portfolio that can make money in a broad range of outcomes.)
I think my level of emotion on the subject is a function of how the press and media distort the real Silicon Valley. As I said at the panel, “If you get all your information on the entrepreneurial ecosystem from HBO, you’re screwed.”
The notion that gets propagated through the media is that Silicon Valley is the land of the fast and loose, where everyone is shallow and trying to make a buck (or a billion of them) as quickly as they can. Yes, it exists, but they aren’t the majority. The investors and entrepreneurs I have worked with do not encompass that stereotype at all.
Most of the people I know in Silicon Valley are hard-working, substantive and dedicated to building their products and business. They want to work on problems they are passionate about and they want to work with teams of people they love. And most companies, even the successful ones, are filled with moments of anguish and ecstasy. As former Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale said to us, “Our purpose here isn’t to make money. Our purpose is to acquire and serve customers. Making money is the logical consequence of doing our jobs well, but it isn’t our purpose.”
If you’re in the business of building companies, focusing solely on the unicorns will get in the way of executing on the high-priority items right in front of you. It is understandable that unicorns get outsized focus from outsiders, press, analysts and even LPs who observe the “inner workings” of entrepreneurial companies only when they’re doing well and nicely packaged by a PR team.
But life inside startups is messy. Most successful founders have to grind through periods of difficulty, face moments of apparent doom, and think their way through complex and multi-layered problems.
It’s okay that outsiders don’t understand the sausage making, but when entrepreneurs and venture capitalists who ought to know better focus on a “play” in gaming, a “deal” rather than an investment, or a “unicorn” rather than a company, they misinterpret — and understate — what Silicon Valley really is and why it is the biggest driver of innovation in the global economy. So saddle up, people, and get back to building companies . . .
*This post is not intended to offend my friend, Aileen Lee from Cowboy Ventures, who coined the term. She is a great investor and partner to entrepreneurs, who doesn’t take her job or responsibilities lightly.
These are the countries most and least interested in climate change
By Megan Ranney From Mashable
2015 is a big year for climate change.
Besides the United Nations Climate Change Conference set to take place in Paris later this year, the U.N. is scheduled to ratify its 17 proposed sustainable development goals in September — several of which aim to preserve the world’s ecosystems and combat climate change.
With Mashable’s sixth annual Social Good Summit just months away, and the United Nations Foundation promoting climate change as its #Action2015 theme this month, we pulled search data from Google Trends to take a closer look at interest in climate change around the world.
The map on the Mashable story (see link below) shows how countries rank, based on their volume of climate change-related searches over the past 12 months.
Four of the five top countries, Tuvalu, Samoa, Vanuatu and Fiji, are island nations located in the South Pacific, a region that has been notoriously affected by drought and rising sea levels. The top search terms for these countries include “sea level,” “adapting climate change” and “water scarcity.”
The countries with the lowest climate change-related search volume are Syria, Yemen, Ukraine, Russia and Iraq. Syria, where drought played a role in leading to the country’s current civil war, may rank low partly because ongoing fighting has led to intermittent power outages in Damascus and elsewhere.
The two highest-ranked cities for climate-based searches are both in the Philippines, which is currently the world’s most disaster-prone country. With frequent flooding in Manila, massive typhoons and volcanoes, the Philippines is becoming an emerging player in global climate talks.
Globally, there are common themes in the questions people asked about climate change. Its causes and effects, as well as how it can be prevented, are among the world’s top search queries. Also ranking highly are questions about whether climate change is real, and whether or not it’s man-made.
Mashable’s sixth-annual Social Good Summit, set to take place from Sept. 27 to 28 in New York, will bring together world leaders, grassroots activists and global citizens to discuss digital solutions to some of the greatest challenges of our time, including climate change.
Tickets to the Social Good Summit are now available. For more updates, including speaker announcements and ticket information, follow @MashableEvents on Twitter.
How Apple Music will trick you into paying for music forever
By Ewan Spence From Forbes
With the launch of Apple Music at last week’s WWDC keynote, one of the biggest ‘when’ questions around Cupertino has been answered (when will Tim Cook and his team launch a streaming music service?). Now the pressure is off, Apple can concentrate on other matters that will change the world (such as the Apple Watch).
That’s not to say there were no winners from Apple Music who are very pleased to see Apple’s streaming service finally launch.
The real winners were the major music labels and their bottom lines. With the launch of Apple Music, the triplet of Sony Music, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group, have covered all of the major musical streaming outputs. The executives of these companies believe that monthly subscription streaming services is the way forward to pay for music. In one recent example, Sony’s CEO Doug Morris told an audience at Midem that ad-supported streams are nine times less efficient than paid-for subscriptions in generating income for the labels.
Naturally the labels are pushing for the best deal possible from those that sell or stream their music (presumably with ‘favoured nation’ clause to maintain parity). One of the more noticeable elements about Apple Music was the cost of $9.99… a cost that matches other popular streaming services. While the small print may show some small differences between the services, the broad offering is similar.
Rather than having consumers decide what album to buy or which individual tracks to download, and therefore actually judging the music as the product, the decision will be about which service gets the ten dollars that month.
There is consumer choice on the service provider, but there is no differentiation between the service – it is ten dollars to listen to music for one month. There’s no consideration about how good the new album from Aminata is, or if you want to push out the boat and grab the classic ‘Cara Mia‘ from Måns Zelmerlöw. Much like asking a child if they want to read ’Wobble Bear‘ or ‘Big Daft Fish‘ when they get into bed instead of asking ‘do you want to go to bed?’, the decision about going with Apple Music or Spotify will be the focus, rather than wondering if you actually need a streaming service.
This layer of distraction between ‘paying’ for music and ‘consuming’ the music is vital in the eyes of the music industry. It’s telling that during Apple’s highly polished film clips at the keynote, one voiceover implied that paying to own music was a thing of the past. Right there, buried in the middle of the two-hour presentation, is one of the key driving forces for music subscription services.
It’s not about having users deciding to make a one-time purchase of one track from an album and then listening to it for the rest of your life. It’s about getting them to pay a monthly stipend to the industry for as long as you want to listen to any music. Once the monthly payments stop, no more music. In that sense it’s similar to a monthly line rental on a mobile device, utility bill, or insurance payment. It’s one more regular bill that you automatically pay from the household income because that’s what life expects you to do.
The key for any business is to have predictable and regular income. Music subscription services provide a regular income to the major labels,, and it is left to their contracts with performing artists and songwriters on how to divvy up the income from the streaming services (which, incidentally, adds another layer of diffusion between the funds received from the listener, and the funds paid out to the talent).
Unlike the major format jump from vinyl to compact disc in the past which generated a significant but one-off contribution to the bottom line of the music industry, the move to streaming means that the you’re going to be paying every month to listen to ‘Rubber Soul’ if you switch to Apple Music, if you stay with a rival, or if you shop around and try out the other streaming services to see how similar they are… your money is still going to end up with the major labels.
IMAGE: Apple and U2 (image: Apple.com)
For more: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2015/06/13/apple-music-monthly-payment/
Caribbean Premier League chief wants to own Australian Big Bash League team
By Chris Barrett From The Sunday Morning Herald
KINGSTON: The Big Bash League would have a team with Caribbean owners and there would be an Australian stake in a CPL franchise if the head of the game’s mid-year Twenty20 extravaganza has his way.
CPL chief executive Damien O’Donohoe has suggested cross-ownership in the Australian and Caribbean leagues as a way to expand the reach and appeal of both competitions.
While the CPL spruiks some of its owners – actors Mark Wahlberg and Gerard Butler have stakes in Barbados Tridents and Jamaica Tallawahs respectively – the BBL has resisted moves to go down the private ownership route and its franchises are run by the states in which they are based.
O’Donohoe, though, believes Cricket Australia should be open to having others invest in the BBL, as the owners of Indian Premier League team Kolkata Knight Riders did last week when they bought a share in the CPL team Trinidad and Tobago Red Steel.
The CPL chief is in regular contact with BBL manager Anthony Everard and says the T20 leagues can benefit from working more closely together.
“If you look at the KKR deal that’s gone through with Trinidad – they’re obviously looking at it like Manchester City are doing in Australia with Melbourne (City),” O’Donohue said ahead of the third season of the CPL starting on June 20.
“They want to expand the brand and the fact they’ve chosen us to do so is very exciting and I’m sure that’s something that maybe Anthony and the guys there (in Australia) will have a look it and have a discussion about how to get an IPL involvement in the Big Bash.
“I even said to Anthony when I was over there at Christmas that maybe we get a CPL-owned team in the Big Bash, and have an Australian-owned team in the CPL. It makes sense…because of the different windows that we’re in we’re never going to be competing against each other.
“That kind of Chris Gayle factor, of just cool, laidback and fun, kind of a Cool Runnings sort of vibe – to bring that to the BBL would be a nice edge, wouldn’t it?”
There has been an Australian flavour in the CPL. Ricky Ponting appeared in its first year, new Test centurion Adam Voges played previously with Jamaica. The Kingston-based team have also been coached by former Australia head coach Mickey Arthur, although he will not be returning this year for personal reasons.
O’Donohue plans to take the CPL to the United States next year with several games in Fort Lauderdale and is buoyant about its future.
“Cricket in the Caribbean has been on the decline for 10 years and the kids were becoming only interested in the American sports and you’d see them with their LeBron James and Dwyane Wade jerseys on. Now, the kids are back with their CPL jerseys and there is real tribalism there because they’ve successfully got behind the franchise model, which took a while.
“It’s going to re-energise cricket in the region and people are excited about it again. Our stadiums are packed to the rafters, we make the tickets as cheap as we possibly can to make them accessible to everybody.
Kevin Pietersen, Shahid Afridi, Jacques Kallis and Mahela Jayawardene are the leading foreigners in this year’s CPL.
IMAGE: Drawcard all around the cricketing world: West Indies batsman Chris Gayle. Photo: AP
