Once upon a time, not such a long time ago, there were three peaceful islands in the Caribbean – the islands that time forgot. Time has a habit of catching up and often catching people unawares.

What a week this has been for one of these (forgotten) three islands – Grand Cayman – the largest of the Cayman Islands.

Three men were acquitted of murder and one of these, Osbourne Douglas was immediately re-arrested over charges relating to conspiracy for murder in connection with the fatal shooting of Jason Christian, who was shot and killed in Crew Road in September.

Misty, a police dog was run over in the Newlands area when its handler who was off duty should have secured it.

The police helicopter rescued two surfers who got into trouble in the rough sea near the South Sound cemetery.

Cruise arrivals have sunk by the largest drop in the Islands history to only 48,603 passengers getting off their luxury ship to be tendered ashore – a drop of 43% less than the number of visitors last year. If you do the sums of each passenger only spending $25 each here it almost equates to a million dollars in lost revenue to our businesses and I am being very conservative with my sums.

A 52 year old man was killed in a road crash on Esterley Tibbetts Highway and the driver of the other car was arrested for DUI and dangerous driving. This, just before the RCIPS Christmas Cracker crackdown that started Dec 1. The Christmas Cracker is also going to be cracked open to target a lot more other ‘novelties’ including the personal space of women! Trying to keep drunks off our roads should have been the number one priority, if not the only priority, but the huge problem we have here of women not having enough personal space is going to be “particularly addressed.”

Former RCIPS Sergeant Theresa Solomon was sacked because she refused to work from sundown on Fridays through to Saturday evenings after converting to Seventh Day Adventism. Commissioner David Baines was well within his rights for dismissing her because she had sworn an oath to the RCIPS to uphold the law in the office of constable. “There can only be one lawful command, and that is the earthly laws of the Cayman Islands, and the commands you receive from the officers of the RCIPS,” said Baines. Heaven will have to wait.

Premier McKeeva Bush said at the opening of this years Cayman Captive Forum held at The Ritz-Carlton, “Immigration controls have to play their part and make the road possible so that we have good staff in our jurisdiction. Nobody wants to have their investment in a country where they aren’t sure who is managing what and they can’t get the staff they need. For a small island it’s tough, but I state publicly that we need to change our immigration regime. We need to enact legislation to allow business to flourish.” It is anticipated the new regulations will include ten year work permits for senior executives, a speedier work permit application process and reduced work permit fees. That is positive.

Along with all the other on going protests, Ezzard Miller, the MLA for North Side, boycotted the opening ceremony to open the new session of the Legislative Assembly last Thursday (1). Along with East End MLA Arden McLean, Mr. Miller has on a number of occasions stated that he doesn’t think McKeeva Bush should remain as premier whilst he is under police investigation.  Both Mr. Miller and Mr. McLean ware found sitting under a tree outside the LA until the pomp and ceremony was over.

The police are hunting down two men and a woman who are suspected of robbing a man at his home on Eastern Avenue at gunpoint by forcing themselves into his home and then leaving him and his family locked in a room. This happened on Wednesday (30) just before 8pm. This is the first such robbery for a little while and we were all starting to breathe a little more easily. Are the police really serious over women’s personal space with all this going on?

Ex MLA Frank McField was shot in the leg around 6am last Thursday and was admitted to the George Town hospital. As of writing this editorial there are no details of what happened. iNews Cayman will keep you up to date so keep going on line at www.ieyenews.com for all the latest updates on this and other stories under ‘breaking news.’ The mystery of Frank’s shooting is still that – a mystery

The islands three major projects, China Engineering (Cruise Ship terminal), Dart (West Bay Road et al) and the Shetty Hospital are all delayed.

And finally, the 2011 Atlantic Basin hurricane season was officially over last Wednesday with only Hurricane Rina having any impact here when it passed just under 200 miles southwest of Grand Cayman as a Category 3 hurricane. Even from that distance it managed to move our sunken US Navy ship (USS Kittiwake) dive site a further 60 ft. out to sea.

And, even more finally, the 24 year old student who was critically ill after being hit by a jet ski whilst aboard a yellow banana-shaped inflatable raft was happily recovered enough to be released from hospital and travelled back to her home in New York, USA.

Just another ‘quiet’ week on one of the islands time forgot.