thursday, 3 march, 2016

Established October 1895

Thursday March 3, 2016 $1 VAT Inclusive

THERE was an 11 per centincrease in long-stayarrivals for the month ofJanuary, compared to thecorresponding period in2015.

So says Chief ExecutiveOfficer of the Barbados Hoteland Tourism Association(BHTA), Sue Springer. Shespoke of the improvedperformance as she delivered

the administrative report forthe last quarter of 2015, at theAssociation’s first quarterlymeeting for this year whichtook place at the Hilton Hotelyesterday morning.

Springer’s comments came asshe indicated that there hasbeen significant growth in ourmajor markets – 20 per cent inthe US and 16.5 per cent in theUK. However, she noted that

Canada’s performance was flatand there was a decline out ofBrazil. On the topic of touristattractions, Springer said thatwhile those BHTA membersreported that revenue inJanuary was “basically flat”,she was pleased to say thatFebruary had recorded a strongperformance.

REVIEW on Page 3

ATTORNEY-at-law Hal Gollopsays he supports and iscommitted to seeing Barbados’transition to a republic.

In fact, during a paneldiscussion at the EllerslieSchool on Tuesday night on the topic, “Should BarbadosBecome a Republic – ‘A Crossto Bear or a Crown to Wear?’”,Gollop revealed that out of the

four persons selected by theprevious administration toprepare a draft Constitution,he is the only one not deceased.

The other original drafterswere Professor Keith Patchett,Sir Roy Marshall andProfessor Simeon McIntosh.“So I am the one left to tell the tale of that effort at a draft Constitution,” he told

the audience.He said that constitutional

theorists seek to justify thesetypes of transitions on aprinciple that constitutionaldevelopment is anevolutionary process. “Youmove from one stage toanother gradually. It is not acase of material benefit thatyou can put your fingers on

and say this is the kind ofbenefit you can derive thissystem or that other system.It is not as simplistic as that.There are other benefits likeself-determination.

“That does not mean that it does not entrust a greaterlevel of independence andresponsibility and a greaterfeel-good attitude about

oneself. And that is how I see this whole progressionalsystem, moving fromcolonialism to independence to the republican system. I do not see it as anything youcan put your hand on and sayit will produce these materialbenefits,” he said.

REPUBLIC on Page 5

A section of the audience at yesterday’s BHTA Quarterly Meeting. INSET: Chief Executive Officer of the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA), SueSpringer, delivering her interim report.

Gollop committed to country’s move to a republic

Tourism continues to show improvement

MIXED REVIEW

School resumes forLawrence T. Gay Infants

Department today– Page 3

2 • Thursday March 3, 2016 The Barbados Advocate

Thursday March 3, 2016 • 3The Barbados Advocate

WILL a transition to re-publicanism be a crossto bear, or a burden tobear?

This was the topic posedon Tuesday night to an es-teemed panel,during a dis-cussion hosted by the El-lerslie School Alumni As-sociation,as they continueactivities to celebrate theschool’s 50th anniversary.

The spirited conversa-tion brought together his-torian, Trevor Marshall,senior lecturer in PoliticalScience at the UWI,Cynthia Barrow-Giles,Attorney at law,Hal Gollopand social commentator,Maureen Holder.

The overarching view bythe panellists was thatBarbados should become arepublic, recognising,how-ever, that there would beno material benefits thatcould be expected fromsuch a transition. Theyopined that should be seenas a natural progression,one that would boost the

psyche of Barbadians whowould then be truly inde-pendent.

Barrow-Giles espousedthe view that there wouldbe no real economic, finan-cial, foreign policy changes,nor anything foreign pol-icy-wise that ought to pre-clude the immediate trans-formation of Barbados to-wards republicanism.

Pressing problemsDescribing the move

away from a monarchicalstatus as an importantdemocratic process in thecountry, she stressed thatfocus must, however, notmove away from the press-ing problems that can beseen in Barbados and therest of the Caribbean.

“What we need to do isconsider the totality of thechanges that are requiredto get Barbados into whatI sometimes describe as areal model democracy. I seea number of things inBarbados that require

modernisation, and thosethings perhaps some ofthem are more important,some are fundamental.”

“We need to focus moreon transforming morethan a republic, but thestructures and institutionsthat are not functioningwell that can lead to prob-lems in the long run,” thelecturer said. She alsostressed that the processmust be transparent, withthe public having an inputinto such a move.

Historian Trevor Mar-shall said, “The search forand the acceptance of re-publicanism is true inde-pendence. I don’t think weare really independent.Wehave had constitutionaldecolonization,we are stillseeking sovereignty, andwe want to advance the ar-gument that republican-ism would advance Barba-dos in the eyes of or neigh-bours in the Caribbean.

“It would signal to themthat we are no longer pup-

pets of Great Britain.”Gollop told the audience

that the word “republic”has driven fear into thehearts of many Barba-dians.

“When we speak of Re-public,automatically thereis some notion of a bananarepublic, where you do asyou like. Nobody paysmuch attention to the ruleof law, and there is a revo-lution every other day,gov-ernments over thrown.That is the kind of conceptof a republic, unfortu-nately, that has takenroot,” he lamented.

Holder, who was theonly one on the panel whoremained “ambivalent” onthe topic, said there arestill a number of questionsto be answered before trulyventuring into republican-ism.She said the topic maywell be in vain,since a two-thirds majority would beneeded for the current ad-ministration to make thattransition. (JH)

Republicanism explored

CHAIRMAN of the Barba-dos Hotel and TourismAssociation (BHTA),SunilChatrani, contends thatdevelopment of the tou-rism sector must be care-fully planned, or else thesector and by extensionthe country, will face trou-ble.

Chatrani made the pointwhile speaking during apanel discussion on thetopic: ‘Barbados at 50 andMoving onward – HowCan We Grow for the Next50?’, which was part of theBHTA’s first quarterlymeeting held yesterday atthe Hilton Hotel.

“Where do we think wewill be in 50 years’ time?And it is not really wherewe think we will be, it iswhere we want to be in 50years’ time, and it is im-portant that we have alook at these plans,” hemaintained.

He added,“The TourismMaster Plan took us, Idon’t know how... manyyears to develop, and itjust came out last year; weprobably have anotherfour years on it in terms ofwhere the plan was look-ing. The plan is not out-dated... the plan has a lotof relevant stuff, but weneed to update it.”

He is adamant that anyother plan that is createdmust be comprehensive,focused not only on thetourism sector, but howtourism relates to theother sectors in the econ-omy. Moreover, he saidthat it must be able totranscend political admin-istrations, and has thebuy-in of the society, so asto ensure there is continu-ity.

“So it is constant, it is re-ally a vision,and I can’t sithere necessarily and say Ithink we have a clear vi-sion of where we want to

be in the next 50 years,and that’s where we needto be driving this,” he con-tended.

The BHTA Chairmanmade the point as he re-ferred to such issues aswater, garbage disposal,telecommunications andtraffic congestion, which,he noted, while affectingthe resident population,could also affect visitors tothe island, especially ifmore tourists are cominghere, unless proactivesteps are taken to addressthem. Too often, he said,there is a knee jerk reac-tion to these issues ,whichdoes little to actually treatthe root cause of the prob-lem.

Moreover, he said as ef-forts are made to bringtourists to Barbados, it isalso imperative that stepsare taken to increase visi-tor spend.

His comments came asalso he questioned whe-ther there was room fortourism development onthe East Coast of the is-land, to add to the existingtwo tourist belts.Chatranitold the BHTA memberspresent that the sector ingeneral needed to be moreforceful and decisive goingforward, to ensure the longterm sustainability of thecountry’s main economicearner.

“Brands are coming,butare we going out there andattracting investors orbrands that we want tocome to Barbados, or arewe waiting for thesebrands and individuals tosay ‘hey, Barbados is agreat place, tourism looksgood, maybe we should goand have a look and see ifwe should invest there’?We need to determinewhat we want and go afterthat,” he maintained.(JRT)

Targeted approachneeded for sector

THE Ministry of Educa-tion, Science, Technologyand Innovation, has ad-vised parents of studentsof the Infants Department(Reception, Infants A andInfants B) of the LawrenceT. Gay Memorial School,that classes for these stu-dents will re-commence atthe Grace Hill MoravianChurch, Spooners Hill, St.Michael, today, Thursday,

March 3.Parents of Reception,

Infants A and Infants Bare also invited to attend ameeting at 4:30 p.m. today,at the Grace Hill MoravianChurch.

The public is also in-formed that registrationforms for new studentsmay be collected from theLawrence T.Gay MemorialSchool. (JG/BGIS)

School resumes forLawrence T. Gay InfantsDepartment today

REVIEW from Page 1

Turning her attentionto the food and beverageconcessions granted to thehotel sector, she said theBHTA is continuing towork closely with the Bar-bados Revenue Authorityand the relevant min-istries in that regard. Shesaid while most of the is-sues regarding alcoholhave been sorted out,other areas are movingslowly. Nevertheless, she

said they are pressingahead and expect that theprocess will be runningsmoothly soon.

“A tutorial for thetourism sector is actuallygoing to be carried out,that will include also thecustoms officers and thebrokers, so that there willbe clear guidelines ofeverything that has to bedone ,and you can basi-cally tick the boxes andeverything will move for-ward smoothly once we

get this situation sortedout, and everybody on thesame page,” she said.

Additionally, the BHTACEO said discussions areongoing with the Barba-dos Tourism ProductAuthority about the re-duction of value added taxfor direct tourism serv-ices.

She made the point asshe indicated that a paperis also being drawn up tobe submitted to Ministerof Tourism, Richard Sealy,

requesting that the carrental companies bebrought formally into thetourism sector. She ex-plained that at present,such companies fall underthe ambit of the Ministryof Transport and Works,but with as much as 90per cent of their businesscoming from tourism, sheis adamant it would makemore sense for the carrental companies to bebrought into the tourismfold. (JRT)

Historian, Trevor Marshall; Attorney-at-law, Hal Gollop; moderator, David Ellis, social commentator, MaureenHolder and senior lecturer at the UWI, Cynthia Barrow-Giles during a panel discussion to discuss the pro-posed transition to a republic.

Direct tourism services VAT reduction desired

4• Thursday March 3, 2016 The Barbados Advocate

AT long last the stu-dents of the EdenLodge Primary Schoolhave a play park toenjoy.

The play area, which islocated on the school’scompound, took two yearsto be completed due tochallenges obtaining theequipment. It was offi-cially opened to pupils onWednesday following abrief ceremony at the St.Michael school.

Principal, SandieWorrell told students thatthe idea behind gettingthe play park was thebrainchild of Infants Ateacher,Yvette Hunte andClass 1 teacher, NikitaMayers. She also reminded them that acquiring it was “a verycostly venture” and itshould be treasured.

Sharing similar senti-ment, featured speaker,Education Officer – EarlyChildhood with theMinistry of Education,Science and Innovation,Catherine Blackman com-mended both teachers forrequesting that a playpark be established aswell as stated she wasglad to see it completed.She also underscored theimportance of the facilityto the development ofyoung children.

“Every school that hasinfants should have outdoor equipment because little childrenneed to develop and grow.Your schooling cannot only

be books, papers and pencil. Your physical development is as important as your language development,your mathematical devel-opment, your science andall of the other subjects.”

Blackman urged students to appreciate

their playground equipment and not to destroy it. Highlightingthe importance of sharingthe equipment, not littering and being carefulwhile in the playpark, shequizzed the pupils aboutproper playground etiquette.(MG)

Principal of the Eden Lodge Primary School, Sandie Worrell ensuring all goeswell while pupils are on the see-saw.

Education Officer, Early Childhood with theMinistry of Education, Science and Innovation,Catherine Blackman keeping a close eye of EdenLodge Primary pupils as they play on the slide.

Play park officially opensat Eden Lodge Primary

STAFF and students of theWilkie CumberbatchPrimary School were toldyesterday that they shouldconsider the positive impactthe school has had on theBarbadian landscape andwork even harder to attaingreater levels of success.

District Education Officer inthe Ministry of Education,Lomer Rock delivered these keywords of encouragement, as headdressed the staff andstudents yesterday, on theoccasion of the official visit ofGovernor General of Barbados,His Excellency Sir ElliottBelgrave, to the school, locatedin Lascelles Terrace, Pinelands,St. Michael.

“This visit by His Excellencyto the Wilkie CumberbatchPrimary School, coincides withthe celebration of the 50thAnniversary of the school. Aswe honour both school andcountry, we are mindful of thecontribution that the fineinstitution has made and

continues to make to thebuilding of our nation.Countless citizens havegraduated from these walls andhave gone on to makemeaningful contributions tothis fair land of ours,” Rockcommented.

“Staff, pupils andstakeholders, as you celebratethis historic milestone, youmust reflect on the impact thatyou have made on thecommunity and the Barbadianlandscape. You must askyourselves, what is it that thiscommunity requires for thefuture? How can we repositionourselves to supply that need?What skills do we need toaccomplish those goals,” Rockremarked.

Acknowledging that theschool’s motto emphasizes thevalue of perseverance, Rocksuggested that staff andstudents should also bepersistent, focused and diligent,in order to attain higher levelsof success.

Turning out to support theprogramme, held under thetheme “Celebrating Our DoubleJubilee: Honouring School andCountry”, was Senator DarcyBoyce, Minister in the Office of

the Prime Minister;Parliamentary Representativefor St. Michael South East,Santia Bradshaw; Cuba’sAmbassador to Barbados,Francisco Fernández Peña,

Grace Williams, daughter ofCharles WilkinsonCumberbatch, whom the schoolwas named after and hisgrandson David Williams,amongst others. (RSM)


REPUBLIC from Page 1

Gollop said he concurs withProfessor McIntosh, who was astalwart in pushing the viewthat the islands are alreadyrepublics.

“We already have a system ofgovernment that can be

regarded as a republic becausewe have what the politiciansand the social scientists looselyreferred to as government of thepeople, by the people, for thepeople, the true democraticmodel on which thegovernments of these societiesare founded. That view that we

are already a republic is notreally a far-fetched kind of view,it is quite easy in many ways tosupport,” he suggested.

Gollop holds the view thatthere can be no real big dividefrom the constitutionalstructure of the present systemand that upon which a

republican form of constitutionwould be based.

“Because essentially, thecommon distinguishing featureof the two constitutions is that ofa democratic process ofgovernment. When we speakprocess of government,we speakof the kind of government that

fosters a political system that isbased on the Rule of Law, andthat in itself will see to it thatlawlessness does not take root inany form of Constitution.Whether it be a republican formof Constitution or the presentone which we enjoy,” he said.(JH)

Governor General of Barbados, His Excellency Sir Elliott Belgrave accepts a gift from HeadBoy of Wilkie Cumberbatch Primary, Daniel Thomas, as Principal Margaret St. Hill-Pinderlooks on.

Governor General of Barbados, His Excellency Sir ElliottBelgrave greets and engages Sanaa Yearwood and her class-mates, during the meet and greet session held at the WilkieCumberbatch Primary School, during his official visit yesterday.

Dancers from the Wilkie Cumberbatch Primary School go through their paces, for a piece entitled “Happy”.

Staff, students ofWilkie Cumberbatchencouraged to workeven harder

No large divide between present system and republican form of constitution


EDDIE ABED, President of theBarbados Chamber of Commerceand Industry (BCCI) and astute businessman, says there is a pervasive culture of indiscriminate dumping on theisland which must be changed.

He was speaking to the media during a recent press conference hosted by theBarbados Private SectorAssociation, where concerns were raised about illegal dumping on the island,particularly with the recentemergence of the Zika virus,which has gained global attention.

Abed, who is the managing director of Abed’s in the heart ofthe City, gave the SanitationService Authority top marks fortheir service in Bridgetown, butlamented that it is a national cultural problem.

“We are just too dirty as acountry. The citizens of the country don’t pay enough respect generally to their surroundings. So we have a culture [where] if you have

something in your hand,you justthrow it anywhere to get rid of it.

“I will tell you that SSA does atremendous job. They send outthree pickups a day in the City.They have individuals who havepull-carts during the day andeven with all of that, and it is ayeoman task, the City is not asclean as we would like it,” hestated.

Abed revealed that there areefforts on the cards to get the private sector involved,similarly to the initiative seenon the highways to keepBridgetown clean.

“It is one of the main bugbearsthat we hear from people whocome to the City. This is an issue that they are concernedabout and we are as well. It is not going to go away any timesoon.”

“We have to understand thatas a direct result of what we continue to do, we are going toface the problems, if not today definitely in the future,”the BCCI president warned.

(JH)

Abed: Dumping culture must change

OFFICIALS at the BridgetownPort welcomed the CarnivalSunshine on its inaugural visitto Barbados last Friday.

The newly renovated vesselis now the lead ship of the ‘Destiny-class’ of cruiseships operated by the CarnivalCruise Line. It previouslysailed into Barbados as theCarnival Destiny.

Barbados Port Inc.’s Director,Michael Weetch, led the official welcome party for the traditional plaque exchange ceremony, which included officials of the BarbadosTourism Development Inc.,Bridgetown Cruise Terminals

Inc., and the Platinum Port Agency. Carnival ’sCaptain Andrea Catalani was accompanied by senior officers.

Carnival Sunshine was thefirst passenger ship ever builtto be over 100 000 tonnes as measured by gross tonnage.

The 14-deck vessel features anumber of bars, restaurants,theatres and a casino.

Captain Catalani remarkedthat since the renovation in2015, Carnival has been experimenting with a unique13- day cruise called theJourneys Cruise.

He explained, “The majorityof our guests are old timers

who travel regularly with us.They love the new Journeys

Cruise so much that we arebooked through 2017.”

On this trip, the ship carried 3 200 passengers, comprised ofpredominantly older guests,and 1 200 crew.

Sailing from Port Canaveral,Florida, ports of call along the way included St. Maarten,Dominica, Barbados, Tobago,Grenada, Martinique, St. Kittsand St. Thomas.

Carnival Sunshine, the 14thinaugural vessel to anchor in Barbados this winter season, is scheduled to be backin May.

Port welcomes Carnival SunshineMichael Weetch, BPI Director (right), presenting the Barbados plaque to Captain Andrea Catalani.

DIGICEL PLAY from Back Page

In launching the service, CEOConnor Looney told the audience on hand that DigicelPlay will now offer “our customers the fastest Internetat home in the country.

“It is giving our customers exactly what they need at this point in time. Right now it brings connectivity to communities not only inBarbados, but across the world.Bringing the best in content andthe best in entertainment,” hestated.

He noted further that DigicelPlay is good for Barbados’ ICToutlook and will ensure that as a country, it remains on the cusp of global technology advancements.

Looney said that by the end ofthis year Digicel would have invested over Bds$100 millionto rollout a robust 100 per centof all fibre to the home network,

which “we are proud to say wasbuilt by Barbadians forBarbadians. He also revealedthat they are adding to the already intelligent workforce,“by employing and training over100 new staff members in theareas of sales, engineering,marketing and finance”.

The CEO remarked furtherthat it is the most reliable worldclass network that exists in thecountry, thereby ensuring thatBarbadians remained at theforefront of technology in thisdata centric world.

“As a great investment it willbenefit all customers across the country; it is a great endorsement of employees atDigicel and to the partners andsuppliers that support Digicelin supplying that service,”Looney said.

“It has been a significant investment,” said CharlieClementson, CEO, Digicel PlayBarbados, who introduced thefiner details of the programme.

Over 1 000 kilometre of fibre isbeing laid around Barbados,huge investments in inter linkages, and internationalbandwidth, and an investmentin people,” he said.

Clementson said that what isexciting is that it is world classbroadband.

With Digicel Play comesInternet at the speed of light,the fastest, most reliable andconsistent. “Our state of the artnetwork is capable of deliveringup to 1Gb per second downloadand up to 1Gbps second upload,”the company said.

In addition, the Digicel packages see them providingfibre to the home speeds of25MBps/5MBps,Mbps/10MBps,100MBps50MBps, 350Mbps-/150MBps 1000Mbps/100Mbps.The company said that this isjust the start since it has a number of other exciting thingsup its sleeves that will see moreservices coming to more andmore people. (JB)

Digicel giving customers ‘what they need’

PERSONS interested intechnology in such areas asapp development have agolden opportunity to learnmore about how they canturn their dreams of creating a product into reality, thanks to the Pitch Itprogramme.

This is coming from ExecutiveDirector of the BarbadosCoalition of Service Industries(BCSI), Lisa Cummins, whospoke with the BarbadosAdvocate after the launch of‘Pitch It Caribbean’ recently atDigicel headquarters.

She said that best of all thiscomes at no cost to the personswho want to be a part of the initiative,since it is being fundedby the Government of Canada.

“This is the opportunity for usto create new applications using technology to expand the business, and it is also an opportunity for us to create new businesses and new entrepreneurship using technology.This is a phenomenalopportunity. There is no cost toany of the persons who are coming into programme….comeand apply and we will take youthrough all the way to market.”

Cummins said that the programme has been conducted

in other parts of the world andthey are hoping to replicate thesame success here in the region.

“We want people to be able to come into the programme because it presents an opportunity for exposure that wehave not had so far. It has beena project that has been run inSoutheast Asia and in EastAfrica in Nairobi extraordinarilysuccessfully, and we arereplicating here in theCaribbean for the first time.”

The Executive Director saidthat each cohort of applicantswould spend six months each inthe programme.

The criteria for admissionsinto the programme includeknowledge of and an interest insoftware development, app development and any kind ofcomputer science.Also,any kindof technology-based training –whether it is at the universitylevel, community college level orthe polytechnic level.

“Any of these persons are welcome to apply and we arehappy to welcome them into theprogramme.”

The main partnership of theprogramme is between the BCSI and the World Bank, sheadded.

(PJT)

Pitch It offers‘phenomenal’opportunities

ACCESS to informa-tion from the Ministryof Industry, Inter-national Business,Commerce and SmallBusiness Developmentis now closer thanever.

The InternationalBusiness Division of thisMinistry launched itswebsite during onMonday, at an event heldin the conference room ofthe Baobab Towers inWarrens.

Addressing the gather-ing, Minister of Industry,International Business,Commerce and SmallBusiness Development,Donville Inniss statedthat the website is a welcome addition to thedepartment.

“What we are celebrat-ing here today is not justa website, but the factthat the Ministry is seek-ing to use this media toget its message across asto what we are about. Toprovide information interms of the products weare offering, the legisla-tion that we are using, allthe regulatory functionsthat require the law forthe department and cer-tainly, to send the rightmessage out there – thatthis Ministry as mani-fested through the de-partment and others is

prepared to use this elec-tronic platform with youour stakeholders.”

Inniss added that “government certainlyrecognises the immensebenefits accrued to the state when we use the latest in ICT, not just the fundamental architec-ture that is available in telecom, but also to usethis kind of media andcommunicate with ourpartners in industry.Long gone must be thedays when individualsfeel they have to trek toevery government officeto do things.”

The InternationalBusiness Minister also remarked that the web-site will be useful togather data that can help‘Invest Barbados’ marketinternational business.

“As one government weneed to share informa-tion. So when we are ableto capture the number ofhits that come to a siteand maybe identify thesources of such hits, weare then better positionedto share with InvestBarbados informationthat they can then use todeploy the appropriatemarketing strategies toget the kind of businesseswe want.”

Additionally, he sharedsome of the responsibili-

ties that go with having awebsite.

Among those high-lighted were that the information on the site should be current,relevant and accurate.That there should be

replies to feedback, andthat any queries or concerns posted shouldbe done in a timely man-ner. Also, that the siteshould not become staticbut kept dynamic.(MG)


FLOW has landed yet another first for the coun-try. Barbados’ leadingtelecommunicationsprovider has announcedthat the availability of one gigabit (1Gbps) Internetspeeds has now been ex-tended to all customerswho are currently con-nected to the company’sultramodern Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) network.

In making theannouncement, NiallSheehy, Managing Direc-tor of Flow Barbados, saidthe decision has beenmade to meet the ever-growing demand for in-creased bandwidth.

“Reliable access to high-speed broadband iscritical to connectingBarbados to the digitalworld and we are espe-cially pleased that the sig-nificant investment madein our new fibre network,as well as our 4G mobilenetwork, is already begin-ning to pay dividends forour customers,” he said.

This most recent devel-opment follows Flow’s po-sitioning of Barbados asthe first country in theworld to have 100 per centFTTH broadband connec-tivity last year.The one gi-gabit was first introducedby the company in 2014and was available on spe-cial request.

“Flow is here to provideBarbadians with the verybest service and value op-tions, and our new FTTHnetwork has been builtwith future-proof technol-ogy that provides our

customers with reliable access to cutting-edgeproducts and services,”added Sheehy.

“With up to one thou-sand megabits per secondfor upload and downloadspeeds, there’s enoughbandwidth for everyone ina home, and all their devices too. Already wehave more than 300 cus-tomers enjoying thefastest Internet speedsever in the Caribbean.”

The gigabit is createdwith fibre optic connec-tions and the network isconfigured so that the fibreoptic access pipes deliverspeeds of up to one gigabitper second (Gbps). One gi-gabit is the equivalent toone thousand megabytes.

In layman’s terms, onegigabit is equivalent todownloading 100 millioncharacters of text in onesecond. That meansInternet users can streamcontent without anybuffering, transfer dataover the Internet fasterthan it can be written to athumb drive, downloaddata as fast as many com-puters can save the data toa hard drive, and down-load an entire digitalmovie (14 GB) in a littleunder two minutes.

“Flow’s superfast 1Gbps connection is actually one hundred times faster thanthe average connection.This means that opportu-nities for personal and professional growth arenow being delivered at superfast speeds,” saidSheehy.

Flow delivers moreAccess to info just a click away

Minister of Industry, International Business,Commerce and Small Business Development,Donville Inniss.

“What we are celebrating here today is not just a website,but the fact that the Ministry isseeking to use this media to get

its message across, as to what weare about.”

SPEAKING in the House of Assembly last week,Minister of Culture, Sport and Youth, StephenLashley, reiterated Government’s desire to have aNational Heroes Park,adding that they were givingconsideration to using Queen’s Park to this achievethat end.

Few Barbadians are likely to have any qualmsabout this move, but it is heartening that any deci-sion to rename Queen’s Park will not be made solelyby Government, as the Minister also announcedthat they intend to hold a few town hall meetingsto allow Barbadians to have their say.

The Minister nevertheless said that they envisionthat such a park would feature the statues andstatuettes of our ten National Heroes, and we certainly hope that if finances are set aside for thecreation of those statues, that money is also allo-cated for the refurbishment of the park,as there canbe no denying that it has seen better days.

That park, with its rich colonial heritage, is nowhome to the Steel Shed, the Daphne Joseph HackettTheatre, the Queen’s Park Gallery, and still boastsof its gazebo and foundation which date back manyyears. In the heart of Historic Bridgetown, the parkshould be a hive of activity, not only for the annualChristmas Morning celebrations and Agrofest, buton a regular basis,given its central location and closeproximity to the bus stands.

So, we respectfully submit that if Governmentdoes indeed rename Queen’s Park, that it is redevel-oped as well, and that a foundation, comprising rep-resentatives of the public and private sectors, is es-tablished to oversee this work. We make that sug-gestion given that more than one entity currentlyhas responsibility for the park – the NationalConservation Commission which maintains thegrounds; and the National Cultural Foundationwhich oversees the buildings. And while they willhave their preferences for its future, suchGovernment agencies as the Town PlanningDepartment and the Barbados Museum andHistorical Society,as well as private sector interestswho have the wherewithal to execute such workshould also be brought on board.

The focus of the foundation,we propose, can be ex-tended to devising short-, medium- and long-termplans for the financial sustainability of the park, soit can generate its own revenue.We suggest howeverthat no fee be charged for entry into this oasis in ourcapital city, but that other ideas are employed tomake money.

Given the drive to create more green spaces acrossthe country, and the recent construction of theChurch Village Greens, though Queen’s Park in itsexisting state is beautiful, some of the elements ofthe neighbouring Church Village Greens could be in-corporated to make the park more inviting to thegeneral public. Persons must it as an inviting place– a space they can hang out for lunch or relax aftera long day. It should be place of recreation, evenwhere people congregate to exercise.Being one of thelargest green spaces in the country, it is the perfectvenue to host lunchtime or sunset concerts. In thisrespect, there is an avenue for provision to be put inplace for a few vendors to sell food and indigenouscraft, but it is imperative that any such structures do not take away from the historical integrity of the area.

This park is currently not reaching its full poten-tial, but can do so if the requisite steps are taken torefurbish the area and encourage Barbadians andvisitors alike to stop by. If it is renamed NationalHeroes Park and statues and information aboutour National Heroes are erected there, it certainlywould help to make it a prime attraction.

Editorial

RedevelopQueen’s Park

By Jenique Belgrave

I RECALL as a pre-teenwatching the comedy ‘CoolRunnings’ for the firsttime. Now for those whohave never had the chanceto view this 1993 movie, itis loosely based on the truestory of the debut of a four-man bobsled team in theWinter Olympics inAlberta, Canada for thesunny isle of Jamaica .Yes,Jamaica.

Throughout all the hijinks, the laughs, theeye-rolling and the scepti-cism expressed by thoseviewing this team’s per-formance, one scene stuckwith me through the years.It occurred when the teamwas about to make its firsttrial run down the icetrack and all the otherteams stopped and staredat them with shock anddisgust on their faces.

The youngest team-mate expresses to the oth-ers his surprise that no oneappears to like them, and‘Yul Brenner’, played byMalik Yoba, says: ‘We’redifferent. People are al-

ways afraid of what’s dif-ferent.”

The truth of the senti-ment has always struck achord with me throughoutlife, and particularly dur-ing these times wheretechnological advance-ments or new solutionsmeet the scepticism of per-sons who are stubbornlyset in their ways.

It is difficult to get somepeople to try new thingswhen they have been ac-customed to doing anotherfor how many years. Justlisten to the screams of theelders in the householdwhen starting to cookchicken without first thetraditional lime and saltsoak. Questioning whysuch a step is necessary ismet with bull-headednessand a terse, ‘That’s the wayit has always been doneand that is the right way todo it”.

In another case, thereare several older individu-als who refuse to banktheir money, but insteadprefer to keep it at home inthe mattress, stuffed in apillow or pushed down in a

tin at the back of thewardrobe. Now some willscoff at that, pointing outthat such funds could begarnering interest in thebank or on the creditunion, but these older per-sons would say that theywant to be able to accesstheir money quickly andeasily and with no hassle,and that they do not wantto risk losing any funds totheir banks because theydo not trust financial institutions. To them,keeping it at home is asafer option.

Think back to the timewhen the ‘jambuster’ sys-tem was first introducedat the roundabouts.Peoplewere adamant that itwould never work andwould instead be introduc-ing folly on our nation’sroads.Almost two decadeslater and the system stillfunctions effectively for themost part, in spite of howthe Top Rock and GarfieldSobers roundabouts lookduring rush hour.

Recently, Minister ofIndustry Donville Innissmade a comment as to how

embarrassing it is to seethe long lines at some gov-ernment agencies in 2016.I have long believed thatpersons should be able topay all taxes online andhave their official receiptseither emailed or snailmailed to them as is theirpreference. It would savetime and ensure that pro-ductivity does not sufferbecause persons are tryingto do business at a timewhen they should be attheir place of business.

Of course, there are oth-ers who would be reluctantto take such an action andthere are those who maynot have a computer or in-ternet access to do so andhave no choice but to headinto these public offices.However, considering thatthere are several whowould be more than will-ing to take this option,imagine the difference itwould make in the lengthof the line. It is this type ofdifferent thinking thatwould move the countryforward, instead of onlyseeking to refashion oldways.

Being different is nothing to fear‘For the cause that lacks assistance, ‘Gainst the wrongs that need resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that I can do’


Telephone: 467-2000 News Fax: 434-1000E-mail Address: [email protected]: www.barbadosadvocate.com

Executive Editor: Gillian MarshallGeneral Manager: Sandra ClarkeAssistant Managing Director: Sean Eteen Publisher: Anthony T. Bryan

News Editor: Dorian BryanBusiness Editor: Jewel BrathwaiteSports Editor: Corey Greaves

UNITED NATIONS –North Korea faces harshnew UN sanctions tostarve it of money for itsnuclear weapons pro-gramme following a unanimous SecurityCouncil vote yesterday ona resolution drafted by the United States andPyongyang’s ally China.

The resolution, whichdramatically expands ex-isting sanctions, followsNorth Korea’s latest nu-clear test on Jan. 6 and aFeb. 7 rocket launch thatWashington and its alliessaid used banned ballisticmissile technology.Pyongyang said it was apeaceful satellite launch.

US AmbassadorSamantha Power said thesanctions go further thanany UN sanctions regimein two decades and aim tocut off funds for NorthKorea’s nuclear and otherbanned weapons pro-grammes.

Two council diplomatssaid on condition ofanonymity that the new

resolution makes theNorth Korean sanctionsregime even tougher thanthe Iran sanctions regime,which they say led to a de-cision on Tehran’s part toagree to an historic nu-clear deal last year thatled to most restrictionsbeing lifted in January.

All cargo going to andfrom North Korea mustnow be inspected andNorth Korean trade rep-resentatives in Syria, Iranand Vietnam are among16 individuals added to aUN blacklist, along with12 North Korean entities.

Previously states onlyhad to inspect such ship-ments if they had reason-able grounds to believethey contained illicitgoods.

“Virtually all of theDPRK’s (North Korea) resources are channelledinto its reckless and relentless pursuit ofweapons of mass destruc-tion,” Power told the coun-cil after the vote, addingthat the cargo inspection

provisions are “hugely sig-nificant”.

She said the point of theresolution was to targetthe country’s leadership,not its impoverished peo-ple, adding that NorthKorea is “a master of eva-sion” and would continueto try to evade the sanc-tions although the newmeasures would makethat harder.

There was no immediatereaction from the NorthKorean UN mission. Theofficial North Korean newsagency KCNA said onMonday the proposedsanctions were “a wantoninfringement on (NorthKorea’s) sovereignty andgrave challenge to it”.

The European Unionforeign policy chiefFederica Mogherini wel-comed the UN vote, say-ing the European Unionwould update the bloc’ssanctions regime to in-clude the new measures.Diplomats said that couldbe done as soon as tomor-row.

UN Secretary-GeneralBan Ki-moon welcomedthe 15-nation council’smove, saying in a state-ment that Pyongyang“must return to full com-pliance with its interna-tional obligations”.

North Korea has beenunder UN sanctions since2006 because of its fournuclear tests and multiplerocket launches.

After nearly two monthsof bilateral negotiationsthat at one point involvedUS President BarackObama and his Chinesecounterpart, Xi Jinping,China agreed to supportthe unusually tough meas-ures intended to persuadeits close ally to abandon itsatomic weapons pro-gramme.

China’s Ambassador LiuJieyi called for a return todialogue, saying: “Today’sadoption should be a newstarting point and apaving stone for politicalsettlement of the nuclearissue on the KoreanPeninsula.”

North Korea hit with harsh newsanctions over nuclear programme

By Peta Rowe-Forde

THE Broadway toBarbados CharitableTrust took its cocktailreception to St. Peter’sBay for an evening ofmingling, monetarypledges and entertain-ment.

However, before the entertainment started,Dr. Anne-Marie Hassellwas on hand to remindthe guests just what theircontributions were doing.

Dr. Hassell explainedthat over the years, theTrust has been able tomake donations to theIntensive-Care Unit (ICU)at the Queen ElizabethHospital, giving the unitthe ability to function likeone in a first-world coun-try.

Furthermore, she statedthat not only does theTrust raise the funds tobuy such equipment, butthey also set aside moneyto maintain it.

Even the smallest ne-cessities are not left out.Dr. Hassell pointed outthat they can also makedonations towards a supply pack, so that when items like gloves,gauze and the like arerunning low, they can berestocked.

However, this timearound, proceeds will beassisting the Accident andEmergency Department(A&E) of the hospital.Proceeds are expected toaid in expanding the crit-

ical care part of A&E and to buy the neededequipment.

Dr. Hassell noted thatthe upgrades are benefi-cial to the tourism sectoras well, since visitors toobenefit from the servicesbeing offered at the hospi-tal.

After her brief remarks,guests were then treatedto a snippet of whatBroadway to Barbados2016 is all about. Whilethe entire backing bandwas not present on stage,the lead singers of the castand accompanying key-boardist Neil Berg gave aproduction that was excel-

lent. The venue, added tothe spectacular perform-ances, made the event allthe more memorable.

The Broadway stars,singly and collectively,showed the guests exactlywhy they are so highlyrated, and their display of

extraordinary talent wasgreatly appreciated.

And by the end of theapproximately 40-minuteproduction, promises toattend the show this com-ing weekend could beheard from those in atten-dance.


Broadway goes to St. Peter’s Bay

Carter Calvert was lead singer as the cast opened the show with ‘O What ANight’.

Andrea Rivette gave a taste of the Cabaret.

Producer of the show, Neil Berg, accompanied mostperformances on the keyboard.


SEVERAL localcharities havebenefitted from thephilanthropic spirit ofthe participants in theBarbadosEntrepreneurshipFoundation (BEF)Flow $20 Challenge.

On Tuesday,participants donatedproceeds from theirentrepreneurial efforts toa number of charitiesduring proceedings at theCave Hill School ofBusiness.

Out of the 14 schoolsinvolved in the Challenge,The St. Michael School,Harrison College, St.Winifred’s School andCodrington School wereamong those makingpresentations on the day.Meanwhile, included inthe non-profitorganisations receivingthese monetarycontributions were theBarbados Vagrants andHomeless Society, theBarbados Cancer Societyand the BarbadosAssociation of the Blindand Deaf Inc.

Addressing thegathering, Keith Miller,Project Leader of the $20Challenge pointed outthat giving back is a keyaspect of the competition.

“One of the things wetry to do with the $20

Challenge is to create thatnew generation ofenterprising young peoplewho will make their ownway in life and this idea ofgiving back andsupporting is critical, it’sessential. We have toteach the new generation

that the easy part ismaking the money, theimportant part is whatyou do with the moneyand you can’t be happyjust by getting it. You canonly be happy by giving…”

“We don’t demand thatthe students give back but

we encourage thestudents to give back.Whether it is in the formof supporting anindividual, supporting acharity, supporting theirown school [and]supporting a country. Itdoesn’t matter, just to

understand that simpleconcept. I have made myown money… and I canchose to help other peoplewith it. That is such anincredible feeling whenyou are able to do it.”

Meanwhile, Lisa Cole,Scotiabank’s Senior

Marketing Managerstated that herorganisation was “reallyproud of these youngpeople that they haveembraced this challengeand have given back sofreely and generously.”

(MG)

BEF Flow $20 Challenge benefits local charities

Keith Miller, Project Leader of the $20 Challenge, Lisa Cole, Scotiabank’s Senior Marketing Manager with several of the recipients andparticipants in the Barbados Entrepreneurship Foundation (BEF) Flow $20 Challenge.

Jalisha and Jameka Edwards of the Daryll JordanSecondary School making their presentation.

Gavin Clarke of The Codrington School making apresentation to Dr. Dorothy Cooke- Johnson of theBarbados Cancer Society.

Harrison College’s Sierra Hamblin making apresentation to Elviston Maloney of the BarbadosAssociation of the Blind and Deaf Inc.

“POSITION yourbusiness to stand thetest of time.”

This was the centralmessage coming from OralDowell, CEO of Dowell’sAdvisory Services duringthe recent ScotiabankBusiness Success Seriesseminar entitled ‘SecuringYour Businesses’Profitability, Are YouPrepared for Growth?’.

During the session at thebank’s Rockley branch,which was attended byover 90 entrepreneurs andbusiness owners, Dowellemphasised that if abusiness is to besustainable, it mustidentify its most importantkey metrics and use theseto track businessperformance. He alsoencouraged participants toembrace the fundamentalprinciples of profitabilityand make efficient use ofthe organisation’sresources. This, he said,can help maximise theorganisation’s profits andimprove the chances of thebusiness being

sustainable.Keisha Phillips,

Business BankingManager at Scotiabank,encouraged businessowners to resist the urge torun their businesses usinginstinct only,and remindedthem that many times,“knowing your numbers”can help secure businessdevelopment loans fromlending institutions.

Dowell added to thatpoint, noting that havinga good business ideadoesn’t automaticallymean that the businesswill be sustainable. Hecautioned that businessowners who don’t knowtheir costs per unit, theirbreak-even points or howto accurately calculatetheir mark-up run the riskof losing money despiteworking hard to build thebusiness. He also notedthat businesses’ liquidity,solvency and viabilitymust all be aligned tocreate the roadmap forsustainability and growth,not only in times ofprosperity, but also in

times of scarcity.He advised business

owners to “think carefullyand determine what arethe critical, objective, fiscalmetrics that you need toknow in order to evaluatethe overall financialperformance of yourcompany daily,weekly andmonthly. Then create afinancial dashboard thatproduces these results ina timely and usefulmanner.”

MIAMI, FL – C&WBusiness, part of C&WCommunications (CWC),yesterday announced apartnership with U.S.based Scala, Inc., theleading provider of end-to-end software solutions fordigital signage, visualcommunications andadvertising management,to expand their portfolio ofservices and offer full-service digital signagenetworks throughout theCaribbean and LatinAmerican markets.

With more than 150,000customers in 26 countries,C&W Business is one ofthe largest informationand communicationstechnology providers in theCaribbean and LatinAmerican region. Scalahas more than 25 years ofexpertise creating digitalsolutions and is used on500,000 screensworldwide. Thepartnership will helpC&W Business grow intonew markets and regionsand will also allow C&WBusiness customers tobetter target and engageaudiences, optimisemessaging and evenanalyse results to enhancetheir businesses. The

company’s expected roll-out across the region willbegin immediately. “Theadoption of digital signageis showing a dramaticupward trend towardtechnology in theCaribbean and LatinAmerican region. We areexcited to be partneringwith Scala, a companyknown worldwide for itsreliability, innovation andits handling of the mostcomplex projectrequirements.We feel thiswill be a real game-changer for our customersby creating more intimateand interactive userexperiences,” said JohnMaduri,President of C&WBusiness. Scala’s digitalsignage solutions connectnetworks of digital signs,kiosks, mobile devices,websites and Internet-connected devices todeliver personalised andinteractive audienceexperiences. C&WBusiness will draw fromthe full Scala digitalsignage platform, which

includes content design,management,distributionand playback. C&WBusiness will deliver avariety of digitalexperiences to enterprisesin a wide range ofindustries such as retail,hospitality and finance –while also enhancing one-to-one engagements infacilities such as law andmedical offices.

“We are thrilled to bepartnering with C&WBusiness in the Caribbeanand Latin America andbringing a true end-to-enddigital customerexperience offering to analready robust portfolio ofservices and solutions.Clients across theseregions have been in needof a reliable and scalabletechnical platform, withthe ability to provideboundless and feature richdigitally managedsolutions,” said DanMcAllister, GeneralManager and VicePresident Americas ofScala, Inc.


C&W and Scala announcenew Caribbean partnership

Businesses need toplan for sustainability

A full and attentive house turned out at Scotiabank Rockley for the ScotiabankBusiness Success Seminar to learn more about creating business sustainability.CEO of Dowell’s Advisory Services, Oral Dowell engaged the audience.

BANK RATESCommercial bank rates to the public at the close ofbusiness yesterday by the Central Bank of Barbados.

Valid for March 3, 2016

Telegraphic TransfersCurrency Buying SellingEuro 2.16259 2.20313 Pound Sterling £ 2.80138 2.85390 Canadian $ 1.47902 1.50996United States $ 1.99375 2.02768Guyana $ 0.00975 0.00981East Caribbean $ 0.73843 0.74306Belizean $ 0.99688 1.00313Demand/Sight:Currency Buying SellingEuro 2.15852 2.20313 Pound Sterling £ 2.79611 2.85390 Canadian $ 1.47622 1.50996 United States $ 1.99000 2.02768Guyana $ 0.00975 0.00981East Caribbean $ 0.73843 0.74306Belizean $ 0.99688 1.00313Notes:Currency Buying SellingEuro 2.12731 2.21689Pound Sterling £ 2.75568 2.87172 Canadian $ 1.46787 1.51128 United States $ 1.98000 2.02857East Caribbean $ 0.73704 0.74445Belizean $ 1.00000 1.00000

INDICATIVE RATES FOR SOME REGIONALCURRENCIES AS ADVISED BY THE

RESPECTIVE CENTRAL BANKSN.B.: These rates are not meant to be used for trading.

BDS$Guyana $ 0.00978Jamaica $ 0.01646Trinidad & Tobago $ 0.30875

JAMAICA – The policeboat that was stolen froma dock in Negril,Westmoreland threeweeks ago has beenfound in the CentralAmerican country ofHonduras.

Deputy commissioner

of police Clifford Blaketold The Gleaner/Power106 News Centreyesterday morning thatthe two engines wereremoved from the vessel,but the police are notsure if they are useful.

When the boat wentmissing on February 11,a reward of half-a-milliondollars was offered by thepolice in exchange forinformation leading to itsrecovery.

The vessel was one of10 boats that the US

government gifted toJamaica’s marine policelast October to boosttheir crime fightingefforts at sea and trackdown those plying theillicit guns for drugstrade between Jamaicaand Haiti.

ST JOHN’S, Antigua –Supporters of the mainopposition UnitedProgressive Party (UPP)yesterday staged aprotest outside the officesof the Antigua PublicUtilities Authority(APUA) demanding thatthe authorities lower theprice of oil and gasproducts as a result of thedecline in prices on theworld market.

But UPP publicrelations officer, DamaniTabor, told reporters that

they were surprised thatarmed police officers hadturned up at the event,describing their presenceas “excessive”.

“I find it really andtruly ridiculous and it isakin to the two trucks ofriot police we had whenwe picketed the policestation,” Tabor said.

The UPP is protestingthe Gaston Brownegovernment’s refusal tolower gas prices andelectricity rates.


Stolen Jamaican police boat found inHonduras without engines

The UPP is protesting the Gaston Browne government’s refusal to lower gas prices and electricity rates.

CUBA reported its firstcase of Zika yesterday,diagnosed in a 28-year-oldVenezuelan doctor whosehusband and brother-in-law previously contractedthe virus in their homecountry.

The World HealthOrganization declared theZika outbreak, suspectedof causing thousands ofbirth defects in Brazil, aninternational health

emergency on Feb. 1,although much about thevirus remains unknown.

The patient arrived inCuba on Feb. 21 to take apost-graduate course inmedicine along with 37others.

She reported a fever aday later and wasdiagnosed with Zika onMonday. She wasrecovering well inhospital, the Health

Ministry said in astatement yesterday.

Her husband wasdiagnosed with Zika twomonths ago and herbrother two weeks beforeshe traveled, thestatement said.

Zika is carried bymosquitoes, whichtransmit the virus tohumans, though the U.S.Centers for DiseaseControl said on Feb. 23 it

was investigating possiblecases of sexualtransmission.

The Cuban government,which has fumigatedneighborhoods and homesfor decades to containdengue – also a mosquito-borne virus and a closecousin of Zika – putdoctors on alert for thevirus weeks ago andramped up mosquitoeradication efforts.

KINGSTON, Jamaica –Jamaica will officiallyhave a new leadertoday and a newCabinet by next week.

Andrew Holness willbe sworn in thisafternoon, a week afterhis Jamaica LabourParty (JLP) won generalelections.

The proceduralrecount, which ended onMonday night with theJLP winning 32 seats tothe People’s NationalParty’s (PNP) 31, haddelayed hisinauguration. But theElectoral Office ofJamaica (EOJ) yesterdayconfirmed that Directorof Elections OrretteFisher had advisedGovernor General SirPatrick Allen that theJLP had won majority ofthe seats, paving the wayfor Holness to be swornin.

The preliminary countafter last Thursday’selections had given theJLP 33 seats and thePNP 30 in the 63-seatHouse ofRepresentatives.

However, following therecount in the St. MarySouth Easternconstituency, the JLP lostthat seat to the PNP. TheJLP candidate Dr.Norman Dunn has filedfor a magisterial recount,contending that votes forhim which were accepted

in the preliminarycounting, weredisallowed in the recountand ballots for the PNP’sDr. Winston Green wereimproperly accepted.

The magisterialrecount began yesterday.

Meantime, JLP generalsecretary Dr. HoraceChang said on local radiothat a new Cabinetshould be in place by nextMonday. He said theCabinet would have amix of youth andexperience.

Although not yet swornin, Holness has beenmeeting with officials invarious governmentagencies as well asdiplomats.

Yesterday, he met withPermanent Secretary inthe Ministry of HealthDr. Kevin Harvey andChief Medical Officer Dr.Winston De La Haye, todiscuss the managementof and get an update on,the swine flu virus inJamaica.Two people diedfrom swine-flu relatedillnesses last month.

Holness said requestshave been made forvaccines from overseaswhile current stocks arenow being positioned forfrontline workers.

“We are keeping a closewatch on the dailyhappenings in the healthsector as it relates to theswine flu virus,” he saidon his Facebook page.

New Jamaicaprime minister tobe sworn in today;recount ends

Cuba reports first case of Zika in Venezuelan doctor

Antigua Oppositionpickets APUA overgasoline andelectricity prices

The vessel was one of 10 boats that the US government gifted to Jamaica’s marine police lastOctober to boost their crime fighting efforts at sea.

GUYANA – A Board ofInquiry will be set up toinvestigate recent claimsmade by self-confessed drugtrafficker Barry Dataram ofthe alleged involvement ofthe Customs Anti-NarcoticUnit (CANU) in the drugtrade and corruption,President David Grangerrevealed today.

The president was at the timeresponding to questions posedby members of the mediamoments after Chief Justice (ag)Yonette Cummings-Edwardswas sworn in as a member of theJudicial Service Commission(JSC).Granger in offering a commenton Dataram’s allegations whichwere aired by HGPTV Channel67’s Nightly News on Mondaynight said that a decision wasmade by the members of theNational Security Committee(NSC) to set up a Board ofInquiry.

He said that the matterconcerning Dataram camebefore the Committee during itsmeeting on Tuesday and itdecided that a Board of Inquirywould be convened under anofficer to be named.That inquiry,he said, will determine the“veracity of the information”which was broadcast.

“Yes we are convening aninquiry to investigate theallegations which were made”,he said adding that the officerwill be given Terms of Referenceto investigate the allegationwhich have been reported in the

press about the allegedimproper behaviour of officersof the state.

Dataram, who said he is abusinessman, during theinterview accused a highranking CANU official of beinginvolved in the drug trade andadded that the rank would takeas much as GUY$10 million toallow cocaine to leave thecountry. He said that drug lordswould pay GUY$5 million beforethe shipment and the remainingwould be paid after theshipment. Dataram admittedthat he is involved in the drugtrade but said he has never beenconvicted on a criminal charge.

Dataram also alleged that themajority of the drugs that isseized by CANU returns to thestreets. He said that he knew ofthis because of his involvementand his friends’ involvement inthe trade.

“I know what is going on inthe streets… I know what isgoing on in CANU… them is theenemies and they have to knowthat just like how they gotthings on me I get things onthem,” he said.

CANU’s head James Singhhas since denied the allegationsand called on Dataram toprovide sworn statements forpast and ongoing investigations.

Singh in his responsesuggested a link betweenDataram’s allegations and whatit considered to be his “unease”over the commencement of histrial for the alleged possession ofa large quantity of cocaine that

was found concealed in shrimpat his Diamond house.

Dataram, his wife and twofriends, who were held during araid of the Diamond HousingScheme property, are chargedwith possession of 284 pounds ofcocaine for trafficking.

Asked what will begovernment’s actions if anyoneis found culpable, Grangerresponded that the law wouldbe allowed to take its course.

“Well we will deal with theculpable in a way that we alwaysdeal with the culpable. Weexpect there will be due process,

if the person alleged to havecommitted offences…if there is acase to answer we will ensurethat the person after properinvestigation is put before thecourt but we don’t interfere inthe judicial process.Once we feelthere is a case to answer we willrefer the case to the authoritiesand the law will take its course.We are not persecuting anybodybut we just want to know thefacts and we will take it fromthere”, he told reporters.

Dataram’s confessions andrevelations are the most recentcoming from a person linked to

the underworld. Formerpoliceman and bodyguard SeanHinds last year during aninterview with the verytelevision newscast hadconfessed to being a member ofthe death squad. He also leveledallegations of corruption andunprofessional conduct againstthe police. He went as far asimplicating a now retired seniorcop in the 2006 murder ofjournalist and television talkshow host Ronald Waddell. Hewas later detained by the policefor questioning but refused tocooperate with investigators.


President of Guyana, David Granger (top); CANU’s head James Singh (bottom left) and self-confessed drug trafficker Barry Dataram.

Yesterday: 0.0 mmFor the month: 0.0 mmFor the year: 82.3 mm

London: 06°C PARTLY CLOUDYBoston: 02°C FAIRMontreal: -08°C OVERCAST/ SNOWToronto: -05°C OVERCAST / SNOWNew York: 05°C FAIRMiami: 28°C FAIR 6:13 am 6:08 pm

High: 10:39 am& --:--

Low: 4:23 am& 5:42 pm

Max: 29.6 °CMin: 23.7 °C

Partly cloudy to occasionally cloudywith a few scattered showers.

DOMINICA – Prime Minister,Roosevelt Skerrit,has said he willact decisively on allegations of inappropriate behavior by high-ranking members of societywhich have been developing inDominica over the past few days.

The Prime Minister told a wel-come rally held for him at the

Canefield Airport on Tuesday afternoon that he is aware of theallegations and was expecting afull briefing as early as Tuesdaynight on the matter and others.

“I am aware of widespread concerns among the populationconcerning alleged inappropriatebehavior of three adults in posi-

tions of trust and influence of oursociety,”he said.“I wish to state atthis point and on this stagetonight that I have only just re-turned to Dominica and is lookingforward as early as tonight to fullbriefing from the Acting PrimeMinister and all relevant officeholders with whom I would nor-

mally confer after a long period ofabsence from the country.”

He pointed out that after hehas been brought up to speed onall that have been happening, hewill act.

“I will act decisively on any andall matter requiring my attentionand intervention,” the Prime

Minister said.Over the past few days, the po-

lice have been reportedly investigating alleged inappropri-ate behavior of some high-ranking members of society,involving a minor. However, sofar the police have not made anyofficial statement on the matter.

PM Skerrit to act “decisively” on allegations of inappropiate behaviour

Inquiry to be setup into drugtraffickerallegations


NASSAU, The Bahamas –Minister of Education,Science and TechnologyJerome Fitzgerald has putrecipients of the EducationLoan Programme (ELP) onnotice that if they fail torepay their loans they willface court action.

Despite the many “success”stories coming out of the ELP,hemaintained that there were alsoa number of failings which have“derailed” the programme.

Since passage of the Act in2002, a total of 4,733 peoplehave benefited from theprogramme. But the initiativewas suspended in August 2009because of a 75 per centdelinquency rate in loanrepayments.

“This was and is clearlyunsustainable.The people of theBahamas financed thisprogramme to assist with theeducation of persons pursuingtertiary education. The loanportfolio is intended to be arevolving fund; and as theborrower pays, the monies are

repaid to assist other qualifiedstudents,” Fitzgerald said at apress conference yesterday.

“I must emphasize that manyloan recipients have satisfiedand are satisfying theircommitments. There are manymore, however, for a plurality ofreasons, who have not. We areaware that many persons whoreceived loans have returnedhome and are not working. Weare also equally aware thatthere is a possibility that anumber of persons who receivedfunds between 2000 and 2002may not have ever attendedschool. However, we arecognizant of our fiduciaryresponsibility to the country andthat we had to formulate a planthat would sensibly facilitateour pursuit to collect delinquentfunds, one way or the other.”

Fitzgerald explained that,with a view of jumpstarting theprogramme, the ELA wasmandated to review thesuspended it with the intentionof making recommendations torestarting to give an

opportunity to qualified personsinterested in pursuing tertiaryeducation.

He said that after three yearsof reviewing and reconcilingrecords, the Education LoanAuthority now has a formula toaddress and correct thedeficiencies of the ELP.

“I can assure that theDirectors and Management ofthe Education Loan Authority(ELA) were instructed to workfastidiously, to come up with a

solution to . . . not only restorethe programme, but to restorethe programme with thenecessary control provisions toensure its ongoingsustainability and viability,” theminister said.

Fitzgerald re-emphasizedgovernment’s position that “oneof the prerequisites forsuccessfully delivering ourcommitment to the creation ofan effective transition path fromhigh school into higher

education had to be therestoration of the ScholarshipLoan Programme.”

On October 21, 2015 theEducation Loan (Amendment)Act 2015 came into force. Inaddition to collecting funds, thenew Act addressesdelinquencies, rewardsborrowers who are payingand/or genuinely want tohonour their obligations, andempowers the ELA to collectfunds.

MEXICO CITY – A lawyer fordrug lord Joaquin “El Chapo”Guzman said yesterday hisclient now wants to beextradited as soon as possible tothe United States becauseguards at a Mexican maximum-security prison won’t let himsleep.

Lawyer Jose RefugioRodriguez said Guzman toldhim to negotiate with U.S.authorities for a lighter sentenceand confinement at a medium-security prison.

Rodriguez told Radio Formulayesterday he talked to GuzmanTuesday at the Altiplano prisonwest of Mexico City.

“He has reached the limit,”Rodriguez said. “It is an act ofdesperation.”

“He said to try to get anegotiation with the Americangovernment,” Rodriguez said,adding,“We know of agreements

with other people forconfinement in medium-securityprisons ... a much lowersentence.”

It was unclear what kind ofagreements Rodriguez wasreferring to; though someMexican drug suspects havereached some form of plea dealswith U.S.authorities in the past,it is not clear any have ever beenable to negotiate terms on wherethey will be held.

The U.S. Embassy in MexicoCity said it does not commenton extraditions.

Guzman’s lawyers hadpreviously vowed to fightextradition as long as possible,and Mexican officials hadacknowledged it would take atleast a year and perhaps morefor the extradition process towork its way through Mexicancourts.

But Rodriguez suggested it

could be done in two months,presumably if Guzman droppedan estimated nine appeals hislawyers have filed.

However, Rodriguez said “wewon’t drop the (legal) defense inMexico until we have anagreement with the UnitedStates.”

Officials have acknowledgedthat guards at the Altilplanoprison wake Guzman every fourhours for a head count. Heescaped the same prison in Julyand was recaptured in January.

The harsher regime –Guzman also has fewer visitsthan during his last stint inprison – seems to have brokenhim.

“I saw a defeated, humiliatedman,” Rodriguez said.

In February, Rodriguez gaveThe Associated Press a copy ofGuzman’s testimony in one ofthe cases against him. In it, the

jailed drug lord accused prisonauthorities of torturing him “bywaking him up, and said, “I feellike a sleepwalker.”

“My head and my ears alwayshurt and I feel bad all over,”Guzman said in the document.

The testimony also sheds lighton the relatively permissivevisitors’ schedule Guzmanenjoyed at the maximum-security prison before his escapein July. It has been reduced sincehe was recaptured in January.

Guzman said that previouslyhe had been give an hour-and-a-half every day totalk to his lawyer and an hour inthe sun in a prison patio. Everynine days, he was allowed a four-hour conjugal visit and afour-hour family visit.

National securitycommissioner Renato Sales,whose responsibilities includeoverseeing federal prisons, saidat a news conference Mondaythat Guzman’s human rightsare in no way being violated atthe Altiplano prison,

Sales pointed out thatGuzman has escaped twice fromMexican prisons.

“Shouldn’t someone who twiceescaped from maximum securityprisons be subject to specialsecurity measures? The commonsense answer is yes,” Sales said.

Guzman faces charges in anumber of federal courts acrossthe country, and authoritieshave not said which U.S.prosecutors will have the firstcrack at the drug lord.Therefore,at this point there is no one tonegotiate such a deal – not thatanyone would likely be willing todo so before Guzman had evenset foot in a U.S.courtroom.

GEORGETOWN, Guyana – Apolice sergeant in the SouthAmerican country of Guyanahas been stabbed to death whiletrying to arrest a rape suspect.

Authorities say the suspectalso wounded two other officers,who finally shot him in the legand arrested him. One remainshospitalized with a stab wound

in the chest.Police say the incident

occurred late Tuesday in themining town of Matthews Ridgenear the border with Venezuela.

Minister of Education Jerome Fitzgerald (third from left) announcing plans for the govern-ment’s Education Loan Programme, flanked by members of the Board of Directors and themanagement team of the Education Loan Authority.

In this Jan. 8, 2016, fileimage, Mexico’s mostwanted drug lord, Joaquin“El Chapo” Guzman, standsfor his prison mug shot withthe inmate number 3870.

Bahamas Gov’twarns studentloan defaulters oflegal action

Mexican Drug lord changes mind, wants extradition

Police: Rape suspect stabs threeofficers in Guyana; one dead


DEMOCRAT Hillary Clintonand Republican DonaldTrump have each won themost states on the biggestday of the race for the USpresidential nominations.

Mr Trump won seven stateswhile his closest rival,Ted Cruz,took three. The third-placedRepublican, Marco Rubio, camein with one.

Speaking in his home state ofTexas, Mr Cruz urged otherRepublicans to quit the race andjoin him against Mr Trump.

Democrat Bernie Sanders hadwins in four states.

Super Tuesday saw 11 statesvoting, from Massachusetts inthe east to Alaska in the north-west. A 12th state, Colorado,held a caucus - won by MrSanders - but does not actuallyselect its delegates until April.

Tuesday allocates nearly aquarter of Republican delegates,and about a fifth of Democraticdelegates, who will elect theirrespective presidential candi-dates at party conventions inJuly. No candidate has yet wonenough delegates to secure theirparty’s nomination.

FavouritesMrs Clinton, a former secre-

tary of state, and Mr Trump, a

property tycoon, entered SuperTuesday as favourites to win thevast majority of states for theirrespective parties.

The Democratic frontrunnerwon in Alabama, Georgia,Tennessee, Virginia, Arkansas,Texas and Massachusetts,polling well among blocs of blackvoters.

Delivering her victory speechfrom Miami, having moved hercampaign to Florida for the pri-mary there on 15 March, in com-mon with other candidates, sheappeared to already be lookingtowards a potential presidentialrace against Mr Trump.

“The stakes in this electionhave never been higher and therhetoric we’re hearing on theother side has never been lower,”she said.

Donald Trump won theRepublican primaries inAlabama, Georgia,Massachusetts, Tennessee,Virginia, Arkansas andVermont.

The billionaire insisted he had“expanded the Republicanparty", referring to higherturnout from a broad demo-graphic in states that have al-ready voted.

He described himself as a “uni-

fier” who could put internalfighting in the Republican partybehind him and told reportersin Florida: “Once we get all thisfinished, I’m going after one per-son - Hillary Clinton.”

Mr Trump,a former reality TVstar known for his controversialpolicies on immigration, hasstunned the Republican estab-lishment to become the party’sfront-runner.

He faced heavy criticism thisweek over his failure to disavowDavid Duke, a leader of thewhite supremacist Ku KluxKlan, who endorsed him. Helater said he had on several oc-casions in the past disavowedMr Duke.

Victory in Alaska handedTexas Senator Ted Cruz histhird state of the night, after hishome state and Oklahoma.

“Our campaign is the onlycampaign that has beaten, thatcan beat and that will beatDonald Trump,” he told support-ers at the Redneck Country Clubin Stafford, Texas.

Having managed to win onlyin Minnesota, Marco Rubio willneed to shine in Florida, hishome state, if he hopes to pres-ent a serious challenge to others.

This was a strikingly differ-ent Donald Trump who met re-porters on Tuesday night. Histone was conciliatory. He wasquietly spoken.He said he wouldbe a unifier - of the RepublicanParty, of the nation. He didn’tcrow and he didn’t claim to bethe nominee, but he clearlythinks the primary race is effec-tively over.

This was a man not looking tothe next primary, the next bit of

slog along that long and ex-hausting road. This was a manwith an eye on the much biggerfight in November, and his pre-sumptive opponent HillaryClinton.

He graciously congratulatedTed Cruz over his wins in Texasand Oklahoma. No mention lastnight of him being the biggestliar he’s ever met. And no de-meaning of Marco Rubio either.Were it not for the unmistakableblond hair and the family mem-bers at his side, you might havebeen forgiven for thinking animposter had entered the room.

It was Donald 2.0 that we hadwith us. The trouble, though,when you upload a new operat-ing system (OS) is there are in-evitable bugs and glitches. Andthe new OS takes a bit of gettingused to.

THE US Supreme Court hasheard arguments in a controver-sial abortion case that may haveimplications for millions ofwomen across the country.

It considered a challenge to aTexas law that imposes strictregulations on abortion doctorsand clinics.

But the court’s eight justicesso far appear divided on the hotbutton issue.

It is the court’s first majorabortion case in decades and thefirst big case since its most con-servative justice,Antonin Scalia,died in February.

His death leaves the courtevenly split between liberalsand conservatives, with all eyeson Justice Anthony Kennedywho holds a swing vote on thehighly charged issue.

Hundreds of activists - bothin support and in opposition toabortion - camped outside thecourt on Wednesday.

Wednesday’s case focuses on apart of the law that has yet to gointo effect requiring abortionclinics in Texas to have hospi-

tal-grade facilities - a require-ment that would require costlyupgrades at many providers’ of-fices.

It also focuses on a mandatewithin the law already gone intoeffect that requires doctors tohave the ability to admit pa-tients to hospitals within 30

miles (50km) of their clinic.Opponents to the law say it

would leave just 10 abortionclinics in America’s largest state,making it harder for womenthere to obtain the procedure.But the law’s proponents argueit is necessary to protectwomen’s health.

Justices at the court must de-cide whether such restrictionson clinics hampers a woman’sconstitutional right to an abor-tion.

But after 90 minutes of argu-ments, they failed to show a uni-fied front on the issue. In theirquestions, liberal judges voiced

hostility towards the law whilethe conservatives appearedmore sympathetic.

Justice Kennedy did not givea clear indication of which wayhe stood, however he did sug-gest sending the case back to thelower court to allow more evi-dence to be gathered on the law’simpact.

A ruling is not expected untilthe end of June, although ex-perts say this is likely to end indeadlock with a 4-4 split in thecase.Without a majority verdict,the Texas law would be imple-mented but the court will notset a nationwide legal prece-dent.

Abortion is a highly disputedissue in the US,and is a hot topicin the presidential election, withall of the Republican candidatesbacking bans on the procedure.

The Supreme Court legalisedabortion more than 40 years agoin a landmark ruling, but somestates have since endeavouredto pass laws placing restrictionson a woman’s ability to termi-nate a pregnancy.

Hillary Clintonand DonaldTrump rack upmore wins

US Supreme Court hears landmark abortion case

Mrs Clinton is fighting her second primary season having lost to Barack Obama in 2008

Hundreds of pro- and anti-abortion activists rallied outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday


RUSSIA and Syria aredeliberately using mi-gration as an aggres-sive strategy towardsEurope, the seniorNato commander inEurope has said.

US Gen PhilipBreedlove said they were“weaponising” migrationto destabilise and under-mine the continent.

He also suggested thatcriminals, extremists andfighters were hiding inthe flow of migrants.

Migrants are continu-ing to accumulate inGreece, after Macedoniastopped allowing morethan a trickle through.

On Wednesday it al-lowed around 200 Syrianand Iraqi refugees tocross, with thousands stillstuck on the Greek sideof the border.

New figures suggestlast year’s total of onemillion seaborne mi-grants arriving in Europecould be matched well be-fore the end of the year.

The InternationalOrganisation forMigration (IOM) saidnearly 129 500 migrantshad arrived by sea so farin 2016, plus another 1545 by land. It said 418

had drowned or weremissing.

The crisis has causedtensions to surge, withGreece struggling to copewith the influx and theEuropean Commissioncriticising Macedonia forusing tear gas on a crowdof migrants on Mondaymorning.

“The scenes we just saware not our idea of man-aging the crisis,” said ECspokesman MargaritisSchinas.

In the Jungle camp ofmigrants in Calais,France, the demolition ofthe southern half of thecamp continues - in whatthe government hastermed a humanitarianoperation but which crit-ics say will just leavehundreds of desperatemigrants without shelterin winter.

A volunteer with an aidorganisation in the camptold the BBC that chil-dren were in danger inthe camp, saying that shehad spoken to childrenwho had been raped andwho were carrying outsex work.

‘On the road’Gen Breedlove is the

head of the US European

Command as well asNato’s Supreme AlliedCommander Europe.

He told the US SenateArmed ServicesCommittee that the crisiswas allowing Russia touse non-military meansto create divisions in theNato alliance andEurope.

Greece is now the bot-tleneck in the migrationcrisis and six years ofdeep financial crisis havereduced the ability of theGreek state to respondquickly and effectively onits own. So the EuropeanCommission is assumingthat it will have to helpGreece look after a shift-ing population of about100,000 refugees and mi-grants for the foreseeablefuture.

But that figure onlymakes sense if consider-able progress is also madein reducing the numberof arrivals by sea, fromTurkey into the Greek is-lands.The rate of arrivalshas fallen in recent days,but the average so far thisyear is close to 2,000 peo-ple per day. That meansgreater co-operation fromTurkey remains essentialif the EU is to succeed.

A NANNY in Russia ac-cused of murdering andthen decapitating a littlegirl in her care has admit-ted in court that she car-ried out the act.

GulchekhraBobokulova, a 38-year-oldmother of three, replied“yes” when asked if she ac-cepted her guilt.

Russian officials havesaid Bobokulova was suf-fering from mental healthproblems.

CCTV appeared to showher, dressed in a hijab,walking near a metro sta-tion with a head in herhands.

Russian media reportedthat she pulled the headout of a bag and beganscreaming that she wouldblow herself up after a po-lice officer asked to see heridentity documents.

Amateur video postedonline showed a black-cladwoman shouting “I am aterrorist. I am your death".

Investigators told thePresnensky district courtthey had not found any-one else involved in thecase.

But prosecutors alsosaid they believed thatBobokulova had been “in-

cited” to commit the crime.Investigators believe

she waited for the four-year-old girl’s parents toleave the home beforekilling her, setting theapartment on fire and flee-ing, the Moscow Times re-ported.

Moscow residents haveleft flowers and children’stoys outside theOktyabrskoye Polye metrostation,where Bobokulova

was arrested, and outsidethe murdered child’shome.

Reports fromUzbekistan saidBobokulova was known tohave suffeed from schizo-phrenia.

Uzbekistan, which likeother Central Asian stateshas a Muslim majority,has long supplied migrantlabour for the Russiancapital.

MR SANCHEZ listenedwhile rival partiesfrom left and right at-tacked him and vowednot to support his ef-forts to create a coali-tion

Spain’s Socialist leaderlooks certain to fail in hisbid to become PM afterboth main rival partiesvowed to oppose him.

Pedro Sanchez has beentrying to secure supportfor a coalition govern-ment with the centre-right Ciudadanos follow-ing inconclusiveDecember polls, in whichthe Socialists (PSOE)came second.

He has until the end ofthe week to try to securea majority in parliament.

But now his opponentson both left and righthave scorned the attempt.

If he fails in a confi-dence vote later onWednesday, another votewill be held on Friday.

If neither vote is suc-cessful, it will be the firsttime in Spain’s last fourdecades of democracy thatthe procedure has failed.

Parliament will have twomonths to choose a gov-ernment or face freshelections on 26 June.

In parliament onWednesday, acting PrimeMinister Mariano Rajoy -leader of the incumbentconservative PopularParty - called Mr Sancheza “fictitious, unreal can-didate", said reports.

Mr Rajoy told MrSanchez his 122 deputieswould vote against him“because you plan to elim-inate what was achievedin Spain throughoutthese past four yearswhich prevented thiscountry from needing abailout, created jobs, im-proved its competitive-ness and caused it to groweconomically".

Podemos’s PabloIglesias scorned the poli-cies outlined by MrSanchez - but also offeredto work with him in a dif-ferent coalition formation

Conversely, Mr Sanchezwas also under attackfrom the left.

“You want to consoli-date the main policies of

the PP,” said PabloIglesias, the pony-tailedleader of the upstart far-left Podemos party, whichrepresents 69 seats.

However, he did notrule out a united frontwith the Socialists en-tirely, urging Mr Sanchezto “write the future ofSpain together with us” -but leaving asidePodemos’s ideologicalfoes, Ciudadanos.

In his address to parlia-ment on Tuesday, MrSanchez called for the for-mation of a coalitionbased on common inter-ests.

He said a Socialist-ledgovernment would enacta series of progressivemeasures such as a mini-mum wage increase and agender wage-gap law.

“Why don’t we form agovernment based onthose things that bringthe majority of the 350deputies of this parlia-ment together?” he asked.

Between them, thePSOE and partner partyCiudadanos commandonly 130 seats in the 350-

seat lower chamber ofparliament.

To become prime min-ister, Mr Sanchez willneed the support of morethan half of the chamber’s350 deputies inWednesday’s confidencevote.

Failing that, anothervote will be held onFriday in which he would

require only more votes infavour than against.

That now looks doomedtoo - leaving the countryin limbo at a time whenthe economy is growingbut still suffers seriousweaknesses, primarily anunemployment rate ofnearly 21%.

The Popular Partygained most votes in the

20 December election butMr Rajoy was unable tosecure enough backing toform a government.

The PSOE performedbadly, hit by the emer-gence of Podemos andCiudadanos, and the frag-mented political land-scape has eluded effortsto agree a governing coali-tion.

Spain election: Rivals reject Socialist power bid

Nanny admits beheadingchild in Moscow

Russia and Syria‘weaponising’ migration

Mr Sanchez listened while rival parties from left and right attacked him andvowed not to support his efforts to create a coalition

In court, Bobokulova admitted killing the four-year-old girl


A STUDENT leader chargedwith sedition in India hasbeen freed on bail.

Kanhaiya Kumar was ar-rested last month after a rallyagainst the execution of aKashmiri separatist convictedover the 2001 India parliamentattack.

The authorities allege pro-testers shouted anti-India slo-gans. Two other students re-main in custody.

The arrests have sparkedmassive protests across India,with many accusing the gov-ernment of cracking down ondissent and free speech.

The government defendedthe arrests, saying the studentssupported the Kashmiri sepa-ratist movement and the break-up of India.

Mr Kumar, the president ofthe students’ union at Delhi’sprestigious Jawaharlal NehruUniversity (JNU), was orderedto be released from Tihar jail ona bail period of six months.

The Delhi high court set bailat 10 000 rupees (£105; $148).

Two other students, UmarKhalid and AnirbanBhattacharya, also accused ofsedition for helping organisethe protest at JNU, were ar-rested last week.

Critics have condemned thecharges against the students as

an assault on freedom of ex-pression, but government min-isters have refused to backdown, vowing to punish whatthey describe as “anti-nationalelements".

The 9 February rally thatprompted the arrests was tomark the third anniversary ofthe 2013 hanging ofMohammed Afzal Guru.

Guru was one of those con-victed of plotting the 2001 par-liament attack - charges he al-ways denied. The attack wasblamed on Pakistan-based mil-itants fighting Indian rule inKashmir and left 14 peopledead.

Indian opposition parties seethe affair as an attempt by theBJP to push its Hindu nation-alist agenda, correspondentssay.

There have also been counterprotests by those who say JNUis a hotbed of “traitors” andshould be “cleaned up".

Sedition law in IndiaIndia’s sedition law dates

back to 1870, introduced by theBritish to hit back at anti-colo-nial movements.

Some of the country’s leadingindependence leaders, includ-ing Mahatma Gandhi, weretried under the infamous law.

The sedition law has rarelybeen upheld by India’s courts.

But anyone charged under thelaw cannot apply for bail im-mediately and so can be in-stantly imprisoned.

“The question of how muchcriticism a government can tol-

erate is indicative of the self-confidence of a democracy,”writes Lawrence Liang in anarticle for The Wire.

“On that count, India pres-ents a mixed picture where, on

the one hand, we regularly seethe use of sedition laws to cur-tail political criticism even aswe find legal precedents thatprovide a wide ambit to politi-cal expression.”

NEW Zealanders will be ableto vote from Thursday in afinal referendum on whetherto change their current flag.

They have until 24 March tochoose between the present de-sign and an alternative de-cided in a previous vote.

The exercise has been con-troversial with many criticis-ing the hefty price tag andshortlisted designs.

But Prime Minister JohnKey and others have arguedthe country needs a more dis-tinctive flag, as the current onelooks similar to Australia’s.

The final referendum will beconducted as a postal vote.

The alternative design,Silver Fern (Black, White and

Blue) was decided in Decemberafter a first referendum whereNew Zealanders chose betweenfive flag designs.

It was designed by architectKyle Lockwood and about 1.5million votes were cast in thatreferendum, which was abouthalf of registered voters.

The five possible flag final-ists were criticised as uninspir-ing, and were chosen by a com-mittee from a large pool of en-tries submitted by the public -including designs featuring akiwi shooting lasers out of itseyes and hand-drawn sheep.

Many took issue as well withthe NZ$27m ($18m; £12m) costof the exercise, saying it wasexpensive and unnecessary.

But Mr Key has argued for amore distinctive look for NewZealand’s flag, and has said itis also time to drop the UnionJack.

The prime minister, whobacks the alternative design,said earlier this week that theexercise was New Zealand’slast chance at changing itsflag.

“If they don’t vote for changenow, they’ll never get anotherchance until we become a re-public,” he said in a Radio NewZealand interview on Monday,adding that he did not thinkthat would happen within hislifetime given the current pop-ularity of the British royalfamily.

A 7.8 magnitude earthquakehas struck off the coast of west-ern Indonesia, the US GeologicalSurvey (USGS) reports.

There have been no immedi-ate reports of damage.

The USGS said the earth-quake struck at 19:49 local time(12:49 GMT). It said the epicen-tre was 805km (500 miles)south-west of the city of Padang,and 24km deep.

Indonesia’s NationalMeteorological Agency lifted itstsunami warnings several hoursafter the tremors.

Australian tsunami warningsfor Cocos Island, ChristmasIsland and Western Australiawere also lifted.

No tsunami warnings were is-sued in India or Sri Lanka.

‘Roads jammed’Residents near the city of

Padang told the BBC that theyfelt two earthquakes around twominutes apart.

Jusuf Wiwekananda, a pilot

in Padang, told the BBC theearthquake was “very powerful".

“The walls of my hotel roomshook and made a loud sound. Ihave heard there are a lot of peo-ple trying to reach higherground because of the tsunamireports, so some of the roads arejammed.”

Telephone communicationwas reported to be down in theMentawai island chain, closer tothe epicentre.

In 2004, an 8.9 magnitudeearthquake triggered theworld’s deadliest ever tsunami,killing more than 200 000 peo-ple.

After that disaster, a more ef-fective tsunami monitoring sys-tem was put in place. Warningsare now issued more frequentlyafter earthquakes in the area.

Indonesia lies on the Pacific“Ring of Fire” of plate bound-aries,which produces high levelsof seismic activity, including fre-quent earthquakes.

Indonesia quakeoff Sumatrameasures 7.8

India JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumarfreed on bail

New Zealand flag: Final voting

Indian student union leader Kanhaiya Kumar (centre) sparked nationwide protests

New Zealand authorities have put up banners advertising the referendum around the country


ARIES (March 21-April 19). Progress will be thwarted bytoo many opinions. They can't all be right, and they can't allbe wrong. You're the one to sort this out. There must be aconsensus if the group is to move forward! TAURUS (April 20-May 20). Showing off is never cool, andyet how are you going to let them know what you can do ifyou never perform it or even mention it? Today you'll walkthat fine line between standing out and fitting in.GEMINI (May 21-June 21). Some people complain to soundbig, when actually it only makes them sound weak, insecureand ill-equipped to do what it takes to make a situation work.As far as you're concerned, complaining is a red flag.CANCER (June 22-July 22). There's a score to even. Theother person might not think so, but you have your own wayof accounting, and in your book, things won't be quite rightuntil you execute a certain chain of action. LEO (July 23-Aug. 22). If it can be done, you'll find a wayto do it. Whether or not it's worth doing, well, that part mightbe out of your hands, as an authority figure is likely to requestmuch that falls under the category of "your job," whether youlike it or not. VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22). People want to know about you,but you're feeling shy and perhaps inclined to avoid the subjectof you altogether. It would be a mistake to let the day slip bywithout revealing at least a little about your remarkable life. LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 23). Bottom line, this certain someonesees something different in you. You're attractive in youruniqueness, and if you continue to be so intriguing you'llsoon gain a fan for life. SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 21). A sacrifice will prove thatyou're committed. But if you give too much, this will backfireon you. Over-giving could be taken as a sign that you caremore about what the other person thinks of you than you carefor yourself. SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21). You know what you'redoing and where you're going. You'll find the way, thealternate way, the scenic route and the shortcut. And you'llgenerously help anyone else headed in the same direction aswell! CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19). When you come up againstsomeone's pride, go gently. Keep in mind that this person mayfeel like he or she is fighting for life itself. That's the powerof ego. Pride is all some people feel they have. AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18). Not feeling quite as driven?The break from ambition will be healthy for you. Bonus: Ifyou just go along for the ride, you'll wind up at the samedestination as you would if you were in the driver's seat. PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20). Improvement will be simplefor you. Name the problem and solve it. If it's too big, makeit smaller. If it's still too big, make it smaller still, until it'ssmall enough to solve.

REX

MORGAN

PHANTOM

PROS

AND

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MOTHER

GOOSE

HOROSCOPESBY HOLIDAY

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ROME/SYDNEY – Ahigh-ranking Vatican official yesterday deniedtrying to bribe anAustralian man who wassexually abused as a childby a Roman Catholicpriest to ensure his si-lence in a bid to protectthe church.

Cardinal George Pell,the Vatican’s treasurer,was giving evidence viavideo link from Rome for the fourth consecutiveday to Australia’s RoyalCommission intoInstitutional Response toChild Sexual Abuse.

Given Pell’s high rank

within the church, hisgrilling over cases involv-ing hundreds of childrenthat occurred decades agoin Australia has taken on wider implicationsabout the accountabilityof church leaders.

On his final day ofscheduled evidence, Pellwas questioned in detailby lawyers representingthe victims about allega-tions that he knew of theabuse that was rampantin the church in Australiafrom the 1960s to the1990s but chose to donothing.

David Ridsdale, abused

by his priest uncle, FatherGerald Ridsdale, who waslater convicted of 138 of-fences against 53 victims,has previously told thecommission that Pell hadasked him what it wouldtake to keep him quietabout the abuse.

“It is implausible that I tried to bribe him for anumber of reasons,” Pelltold the commission. Hesaid he knew the policewere already involved inthe case, so he would havehad no motive to do so.

“It’s implausible be-cause I was an auxiliarybishop and I had no ac-

cess to money or – no access to significant resources,” he said. “It’simplausible because, ofcourse, the attempt tobribe someone is crimi-nal.”

Pell said he regrettedlater walking besideRidsdale, with whom heshared a presbytery for atime as younger priests,to court in a gesture ofsupport.

‘Enormous mistakes’Pell has told the inquirythat the church made“enormous mistakes” and“catastrophic” choices byrefusing to believe abusedchildren, shuffling abu-sive priests from parish toparish and over-relying oncounselling of priests tosolve the problem.

Pell also said he was de-ceived and lied to by supe-riors as a young priest inthe 1970s and has deniedhe ignored complaints orthat he was complicit inthe transfer of a pedophilepriest.

However, he has acknowledged he heardrumours about BrotherTed Dowlan’s inappropri-ate behaviour with boysat a Christian Brothersschool. Dowlan was laterjailed for abusing 31 boys.

“With the experience of40 years later, certainly Iwould agree that I shouldhave done more,” Pellsaid.

BEIRUT – Syrianrebels said yesterdaythey were under fiercegovernment attacknear the Turkish bor-der despite a cessationof hostilities agree-ment and a represen-tative cast doubt onwhether UN-backedpeace talks would goahead on March 9 asplanned.

The agreement drawnup by the United Statesand Russia came into ef-fect on Saturday and hasslowed but not entirelystopped a conflict that hasbeen going on for almostfive years. Both the gov-ernment and rebels haveaccused each other of violations.

The agreement does notinclude Islamic State or al Qaeda’s Nusra Front,which is widely deployedin opposition areas.

The United Nationssaid on Tuesday a new attempt at peace talkswould begin on March 9in Geneva,urging warringsides to ensure the cessa-tion agreement take holdto allow them to come tothe table.

But opposition officialGeorge Sabra said thedate for a resumption oftalks remained “hypothet-ical” as long as the trucedid not fulfil humanitar-ian demands including arelease of detainees heldby the government.

“What is the value of atruce if its overseers –meaning America andRussia – do not push allsides to abide by it?”Sabratold Arabic news channelArabiya al-Hadath yes-terday.

The White House said ithad seen a reduction in airstrikes against the opposi-tion and civilians in Syriain recent days but wasconcerned by some re-ported tank and artilleryattacks.

Washington was alsoaware of reports of pos-sible chemical weaponsuse by the Syrian govern-

ment, the StateDepartment said, addingthat it could not confirmthem but that they werebeing investigated. Israelsaid on Tuesday Syrianforces had been droppingchlorine barrels on civil-ians over the past fewdays.

There was no im-mediate comment fromDamascus, which has denied breaching theterms of the truce.

The opposition is press-ing for full humanitarianaccess to rebel-held areasand for detainees to be released – terms set outin a UN Security Councilresolution passed inDecember.

Opposition officials sayan increase in aid accesshas fallen short of what isrequired.

A senior US official saidWashington was workingwith Moscow to improveaccess to besieged areasand the World HealthOrganisation said it haddelivered medical suppliesto the besieged town ofMouadamiya yesterday,after reporting some medicines had been removed from a previousaid delivery.

Syrianoppositioncasts doubton UN peacetalk plan

MANILA – China sentseveral ships to a disputedatoll in the South ChinaSea, preventing Filipinofishermen from accessingtraditional fishinggrounds and raising ten-sions in the volatile re-gion, Philippine officialssaid yesterday.

China had sent as manyas seven ships to QuirinoAtoll, also known asJackson Atoll, in recentweeks, said Eugenio Bito-onon Jr., the mayorof nearby Pagasa Islandin the Spratly Islands.

The Spratlys are the

most contested archipel-ago in the South ChinaSea,a resource-rich regionand critical shipping lanelinking North Asia toEurope, South Asia andthe Middle East.

“This is very alarming,Quirino is on our pathwhen we travel fromPalawan to Pagasa. It ishalfway and we normallystop there to rest,” Bito-onon told Reuters.

“I feel something differ-ent. The Chinese are try-ing to choke us by puttingan imaginary checkpointthere. It is a clear viola-

tion of our right to travel,impeding freedom of nav-igation,” he said.

In Beijing, ForeignMinistry spokesman HongLei said China’s Ministryof Transport had sent ves-sels to tow a grounded for-eign ship and they hadsince left the surroundingwaters.

“To guarantee safety ofnavigation and of workconditions, China urgedfishing vessels near thesite to leave,” Hong said,adding that China had in-disputable sovereigntyover the atoll.

The Philippines ForeignMinistry said Chinesecoast guard vessels hadbeen seen at the atoll twoweeks ago but were not inthe area on Wednesday.

“The Department ismonitoring reports on thesituation on the groundand reiterates its call forChina to exercise self-re-straint from the conductof activities that couldcomplicate or escalate dis-putes in the South ChinaSea and affect peace andstability in the region,” theministry said in a state-ment.

Philippine officials say China blockedaccess to disputed South China Sea atoll

Australian Cardinal George Pell (centre) arrives at the Quirinale hotel in Rome, Italy, yesterday.

Vatican cardinal denies attempts tocover up child sex abuse in church


GERMAN authoritiesare investigating Face-book for suspectedabuse of its dominantmarket position.

The country’s federalcartel office suspects thesocial network’s privacyterms violate data protec-tion laws. It is looking intowhether Facebook’s “dom-inance”means those termsalso constituted an abuseof market power. The for-mal probe is the first of itskind the social networkhas faced.

Facebook said it was con-fident it complied with thelaw.“Dominant companiesare subject to special obli-gations,” said AndreasMundt, the president ofthe cartel office.

“These include the use ofadequate terms of serviceas far as these are relevantto the market. For adver-tising-financed internetservices such as Facebook,user data are hugely im-portant.

“For this reason, it is es-sential to also examine un-

der the aspect of abuse ofmarket power whether theconsumers are sufficientlyinformed about the typeand extent of data col-lected.”

His investigation wouldfocus on Facebook’s US op-eration, as well as its Ger-man and Irish subsidia-ries, the cartel office said

yesterday.It said Facebook was

dominant in the socialmedia market and reliedon advertising revenuesgenerated on the basis of a“large amount of personaluser data”.

And users had to agreeto this collection of data asa condition of their being

able to use the network.“It is difficult for users

to understand and assessthe scope of the agreementaccepted by them,” it said.

“There is considerabledoubt as to the admissibil-ity of this procedure, inparticular under applica-ble national data protec-tion law.”

Facebook investigated overmarket-power abuse claims

WEBSITES have beenwarned they could be ex-posed to eavesdroppers,after researchers discov-ered a new way to disabletheir encryption protec-tions.

The experts said about athird of all computerservers using the HTTPSprotocol – often repre-sented by a padlock in webbrowsers – were vulnera-ble to so-called Drown at-tacks.

They warn that pass-words, credit card num-bers, e-mails and sensitivedocuments could all bestolen as a consequence.

A fix has been issued.But it will take some

time for many of the web-site administrators to pro-tect their systems.

The researchers havereleased a tool that identi-fies websites that appearto be vulnerable.

They said they had notreleased the code used toprove their theory, be-cause “there are still toomany servers vulnerableto the attack”.

As yet, there is no evi-dence hackers haveworked out how to repli-cate their technique.

An independent expertsaid he had no doubt theproblem was real.

“What is shocking aboutthis is that they havefound a way to use a veryold fault that we haveknown about since 1998,”said Prof Alan Woodward,from the University ofSurrey.

“And all this was per-fectly avoidable.

“It is a result of us hav-ing used deliberatelyweakened encryption,which people broke yearsago, and it is now comingback to haunt us.”

The researchers, cyber-security experts from uni-versities in Israel,Germany and the US, aswell as a member ofGoogle’s security team,found a computer servercould be vulnerable to at-tack just by supporting1990s-era encryption pro-tocol SSLv2 (SecureSockets Layer version 2),even if in day-to-day use itemployed more modernencryption standards toscramble communica-tions.

‘Thousands of popular sites’ at risk of Drown hack attacks

A BRAZILIAN judge or-dered the release of aFacebook executive, a dayafter he was arrested aspart of a dispute involvingWhatsApp.

Police in São Paulo ques-tioned Facebook’s VP forLatin America Diego Dzo-dan on Tuesday,and he re-mained in jail overnight.

A court had orderedFacebook to provide datafrom WhatsApp,a messag-ing app it owns, in connec-tion with a criminal inves-tigation into drug traffick-ing.Authorities in Sergipesaid they needed Face-book’s help in a case wherethe suspects used Face-book Messenger andWhatsApp to communi-cate and plan their crimes.

According to the author-ities, the judge issued theorder three times andstarted fining Facebook 50 000 reals (US$12 600)daily for non-compliancetwo months ago. Lastmonth, the fine increasedto 1 million reals (US$253 000) per day. Awarrant was issued forDzodan on February 7.

Judge Ruy Pinheiro ofSergipe overturned thelower court’s arrest war-rant yesterday.

In a statement, thejudge ruled that Dzodancould not be arrested be-

cause he is not being in-vestigated in the case, call-ing the move “illegal coer-cion”.

A spokesman for Face-book confirmed thatDzodan was released yes-terday morning.

“Diego’s detention wasan extreme,disproportion-ate measure, and we arepleased to see the court inSergipe issue an injunc-tion ordering his release,”a spokesman for Facebooksaid in a statement.

“Arresting people withno connection to a pend-ing law enforcement inves-tigation is a capriciousstep and we are concernedabout the effects for thepeople of Brazil and inno-vation in the country.”

Facebook (FB, Tech30)bought WhatsApp forUS$19 billion two yearsago. Because WhatsAppencrypts information thatpasses through its plat-form and does not keepthat information on a cen-tral server, it’s harder for itto hand over data re-quested by authorities.

In the case in Brazil,WhatsApp says it’s impos-sible to give data becauseof the strength of its en-cryption, and because thedata is kept only on a per-son’s device after it is de-livered.

Judge ordersFacebook VP to bereleased fromBrazilian jail

WHATSAPP, the Face-book-owned mobile mes-saging service that re-cently hit 1 billion usersworld-wide, yesterdayrolled out a much-antici-

pated feature to its appson iOS and Android de-vices: document sharing.Though the companyhasn’t yet made an offi-cial announcement, a

number of WhatsAppusers have seen the fea-ture pop up alongsideother sharing options,like photo or video shar-ing, contact sharing, or lo-

cation sharing, for exam-ple.

The feature is arrivingnow on both iOS andAndroid, though not yetWindows Phone.

WhatsApp adds support for documentsharing, but only PDFs at launch

The formal investigation is the first to be held into Facebook.

The newly discovered hack attack could undermine servers using HTTPS protec-tion.


CAPE CANAVERAL,Fla. – Ah, there’s noth-ing like a blast of fresh,frigid air to welcomeyou back to the planetafter nearly a yearcooped up in space.

That’s the word from as-tronaut Scott Kelly,NASA’s space-endurancechamp who returned tobitterly cold Kazakhstanyesterday, along with hisroommate for the pastyear, Russian cosmonautMikhail Kornienko.

In a NASA interview be-fore heading home toHouston, Kelly said it was“amazing” to feel the coldair when the hatch of hisSoyuz capsule poppedopen after touchdown.

“I don’t mean to say it’snot fresh on the space sta-tion,” he said, “but there’snothing like new cold aircoming into the capsule.”

Both Kelly, 52, andKornienko,55,yearned fornature throughout their340-day mission at theInternational Space Sta-tion, a dry run by NASAfor eventual trips to Mars.

“Just like Scott, Iwanted to see Earth and Iwanted to smell that freshair. This is an unforget-table feeling,” Kornienkosaid.

It was the longest anAmerican ever lived inspace, although nothingnew for the Russians.Theworld record is 438 days,set back in the mid-1990sat the former Mir spacestation. Even before that,a pair of Soviet cosmo-nauts had racked up a full

one-year spaceflight.“Congratulations on

your record,” former cos-monaut and Kazak spaceagency chief TalgatMusabayev said at a wel-coming ceremony. Hecouldn’t resist: “Of course,it was already done 28years ago.”

President BarackObama joined the chorusof praise pouring in.

“Welcome back to Earth,@StationCDRKelly! Youryear in space is vital to thefuture of American spacetravel.Hope gravity isn’t adrag!” Obama said viaTwitter.

The latest one-year

space subjects quicklyparted company, Kelly fly-ing back to Houston andKornienko to Star City,Russia, near Moscow.

Kelly acknowledged itwas bittersweet leavingthe space station – hishome since last March,currently staffed by threemen until the arrival ofthree more in two weeks.

“I’d been there a longtime, so I looked forwardto leaving.But at the sametime, it’s a magnificentplace and I’m going tomiss it,” he said.

Neither will be sayinggoodbye to medical testsanytime soon.

Minutes after emergingfrom their capsule, theywere whisked in chairs toa medical tent where theydid their best to stand,walk, jump, navigate ob-stacles – everything an as-tronaut might need to doimmediately upon arriv-ing at Mars.

NASA aims to put as-tronauts on the red planetin the 2030s, but firstwants to know how thebody – and mind – willfare during the 2 1/2-yearexpedition. Kelly rankedphysical isolation aboardthe 250-mile-high plat-form, from those he loved,as his biggest challenge.

Yearlong spacemen embracefresh, frigid air back on Earth

TAKEN from outer space,the satellite images showillegal loggers cutting aroad into a protected areain Peru, part of a criminalenterprise attempting tosteal millions of dollarsworth of ecological re-sources.

With the launch of anew satellite mappingsystem yesterday, govern-ments and environmen-talists will have access tohard evidence of thesetypes of crimes almost inreal time as part of a pushby scientists to improvemonitoring of tropical de-forestation.

Tropical forests nearlythe size of India are set tobe destroyed by 2050 ifcurrent trends continue, astudy warned last year,causing species loss, dis-placement and a major in-crease in climate-chang-ing greenhouse gas emis-sions.

Prior to the launch ofthe Global Land Analysisand Discovery (Glad)alerts, researchers wouldhave to manually trackimages of logging in spe-cific areas.

The new process, devel-oped by scientists at theUniversity of Marylandand Google, uses an algo-rithm to analyse weeklyupdates of satellite im-ages and sends automatic

notifications about newlogging activity.

“This is a gamechanger,” said Matt Finerfrom the Amazon Conser-vation Association, an en-vironmental group.

His organisation tracksillegal logging in Peru,sending images of defor-estation to policymakers,environmentalists andgovernment officials to tryand protect the Amazonrainforest.

In the past, he wouldrely on tips from local peo-ple about encroachmentby loggers, then look atolder satellite images totry and corroborate theclaims.

“With this new data wecan focus on getting ac-tionable information topolicy makers,” Finerstated.

“We have seen how pow-erful these images can be,”he said, citing a casewhere his group broughtpictures of illegal goldminers cutting down treesto the Peruvian govern-ment, who then removedthe miners.

University of Marylandprofessor, MatthewHansen is one of the scien-tists, who developed Glad,which can track plots ofdeforestation the size of abasketball court fromspace.

New satellitemapping a ‘gamechanger’ againstillegal logging

OIL giant Shell is beingsued in London for the sec-ond time in five years overspills in the Niger Delta.

Two communities areclaiming compensationand want Shell to clean uptheir land.Shell said it is atan “early stage” in review-ing the claims and that thecase should be heard inNigeria.

The Ogale community ofabout 40 000 people in Ri-vers State, on the coast ofNigeria, who are mainlyfarmers or fishermen, aresome of the claimants.Their case is being handledby law firm Leigh Day.

Spills since 1989 havemeant they don’t have

clean drinking water, farm-land or rivers, their claimsays. It points to aNovember 2015 report byAmnesty Internationalwhich says four spill sitesShell says it planned toclean up are still contami-nated.

Clean-up planThe first court hearing

at the Technology and Con-struction Court, held yes-terday, found that theclaimants can lodge a caseagainst Shell’s Nigerianbusiness, known as ShellPetroleum DevelopmentCompany of Nigeria(SPDC). Shell declined tocomment on the ruling.

Amnesty’s findings fol-lowed a 2011 report byUnited Nations Environ-ment Programme (UNEP)which found water conta-minated with oil by-prod-ucts including benzene,thought to be a carcinogen.It suggested a clean up,butsaid a “sustainable recov-ery” of the area could takeup to 30 years.

Shell says it has agreeda clean-up plan.

The Bille community,who are mainly fishermenand are the other party tosue,claims Shell should beliable for “failing to protecttheir pipelines from dam-age caused by third par-ties”.

Shell being sued in two claimsover oil spills in Nigeria

International Space Station (ISS) crew member Scott Kelly of the U.S. reactsafter landing near the town of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, on Wednesday, March2, 2016.

The local fishing community in Nigeria’s delta region have been hardest hit byrecent oil spills.

DEAR JANE,I HAVE been married tomy wife, “Tammy”, forfive years. She is a peopleperson with close friendsof both sexes. I havenever had a problem withher having male friendsbecause I trust her, andbecause these men aremy friends, too.

Recently, however, aman called “Dave” hasbecome infatuated withmy wife. At least I thinkhe has, and I need an unbiased perspective.

Tammy has a separate e-mail account and shehas shown me some ofhis messages. He callsher “Babe” and saysthings like, “You areamazing; and you are myspecial friend.” She eitherdoesn’t reply or is verycareful how she does.

Jane, I sense that Daveis trying to establish aseparate relationshipwith Tammy. She and Ihave discussed it. In thepast we have joked aboutit, but now we’re both

becoming uncomfortablearound him and wanthim out of our lives.

The thing is though, wehave mutual friends weget together with everymonth. We’d have to ex-plain to them why wewant to cut off contactwith Dave. Am I beingparanoid?

FB

DEAR FB,IF you and Tammyhave both become un-comfortable becauseof Dave’s advances,

you’re not paranoid.Yes, you can withdrawfrom the get-togethersso you have less exposure to Dave.But there is anotherway to handle it.

Your wife can informthe man that his atten-tions are making heruncomfortable and, ifhe wants to communi-cate via e-mail, he cando so using your jointaccount – and blockhim from her privateone.

JANE


Bridge

Need Advice?Write to Ask Jane

c/o Advocate Publishers(2000) Inc.

Fontabelle, St. Michaelor e-mail:

[email protected]

Wife and I feeluncomfortablearound male friend

Thursday March 3, 2016 •23The Barbados Advocate

SPORTSSPORTS

By André Springer

AT the earliest finishing quarterfi-nals ever, held under an overcast skyat the Usain Bolt Sports Complex,there was keen competition from thetop schools from each zone, to ad-vance to the next stage of theNational Primary Schools AthleticsChampionships 2016.The top athletesfrom each school took to the trackand the field in hopes of placing in thetop three from each heat, or the nextfour fastest times or distances.

The morning period saw the running ofthe sprint events,the first of which was theUnder-7 50m Dash. The top three fastestgirls were Kydasha Worrell ,competing forA Dacosta Edwards Primary with a timeof 9.04s, Bay Primary’s Brianna Wallacewith 9.29s and Jaleesia Forde of HildaSkeene Primary School, who crossed theline in 9.46s.

The fastest Under-7 boys over 50m wereTirique Collymore of Eden Lodge Primaryin 8.77s,Rokeem King of St.Giles Primaryin 8.87 and Chekobi Moore from SelahPrimary School in a time of 8.88s.

The Under-9 Girls 80m saw Tia Apple-waite of St. Giles Primary in a time of12.25s, Ashari Brathwaite of WilkieCumberbatch in 12.59s and Tia’s sister,Tania Applewaite, also of St. Giles in atime of 12.68s,advance with the top threetimes.The Under-9 Boys 80m had the topthree athletes of Johnathan Thompson ofSt.Mary’s Primary School,Javier Norvilleof St. Giles Primary and Malique Aimeyadvance with times of 11.91s, 11.98s and

12.34s respectively.The Under-9 Girls 100m saw Tia Apple-

waite qualify in the top three in a time of15.04s, Ashari Brathwaite also qualifiedagain in a time of 15.21s, and finallyCamia Bynoe of St.Christopher’s roundedout the top three with a time of 15.25s.

The Under-9 Boys 100m had JoshuaMoore of West Terrace Primary advancingwith the fastest time of the heats with14.87s. St. Alban’s Primary’s KamariCummings was next fastest time in 14.87s,and the third fastest time went toJohnathan Thompson of St. Mary’sPrimary with a time of 15.22s.

The 100m for the Under-11 Girls hadthe top three finishers as the quick SamiyaDell of Sharon Primary, with a time of14.25s, Kelescia Downes of Arthur SmithPrimary, with 14.42s and Skye Spencer-Layne of West Terrace Primary with atime of 14.88s.The top three fastest qual-ifiers for the Under-11 Boys 100m wereAmari Forde of St.Cyprian’s Boys’, finish-ing with a time of 13.77s;next was JaquanPilgrim of St. George Primary in a time of14.10s and Kiko Wade of Grantley Prescodwith 14.18s as his time.

The Under-13 Girls’ 100m top threequalifiers were Aaliyah Agard of IgnatiusByer Primary,with a time of 13.25s.NaomiForde-Hinds of St. Paul’s Primary wasnext with a time of 13.26s and third fastestwas Keeshanna Smith of Arthur SmithPrimary, with a time of 13.88s. The BoysUnder-13 100m saw St.Stephen’s Primarytake the top two spots, with Chaz Searlesrunning 13.31s and Achilles Browne clock-ing 13.46s.Bay Primary’s Joaquin Adams

was the third fastest qualifier,with a timeof 13.76s.

The Under-9 Girls 150m saw TiaApplewaite once again qualify in the topspot for St. Giles Primary, with 23.54s.Shamari Addison had the second fastesttime for Grazetes Primary, with a time of23.63s followed by Camia Bynoe of St.Christopher Primary, in a time of 23.72s.

Samiya Dell of Sharon Primary was thetop qualifier in the Under-11 Girls 200mwith a time of 29.20s.She was followed byKelescia Downes of Arthur Smith with29.60s and Lanicia Harewood of WesleyHall Juniors rounded out the top threewith a time of 29.01s.The Under-11 Boys200m top three spots were taken byKevion Newton of Wesley Hall Juniors,Shamari Addison of St. Alban’s Primaryand Kiko Wade of Grantley PrescodMemorial,with times of 28.71s,28.81s and29.01s respectively.

The Under-13 Girls 200m had the topthree qualifiers of Tiara Stewart of RolandEdwards Primary, with a time of 27.87s,Aaliyah Agard of Ignatius Byer Primarywith a time 27.98s and Keeshanna Smithof Arthur Smith Primary, with 28.31s asher time. The 200m Under-13 Boys hadChaz Searles of St. Stephen’s Primary,Amir Gustave of Bay Primary and YazidDaniel of Luther Thorne as the top threequalifiers. Searles’ time was 26.84s,Gustave was next with 26.93s and Danielhad the third fastest time of 27.23s.

The Under-11 Girls 400m top qualifierswere Tonika Griffith of Lawrence T. GayMemorial Primary,with a time of 1:08.47s,Jahazara Holford of West Terrace Primarywith 1:08.52 and Kelescia Downes ofArthur Smith with a time of 1:10.53s.TheBoys top three qualifiers for the 400mUnder-11 were Daniel Duncan of Bayley’sPrimary in a time of 1:06.71, JoshuaHusbands of All Saints Primary with1:07.81s and Ziko Rogers of St. Stephen’sPrimary with his time being 1:07.97s.

The Under-13 Boys 400m top girl wasTiara Stewart of Roland Edwards Primaryin a time of 1:05.47s, Shakacia Watson ofGood Shepherd Primary was next with1:05.75s, followed by Jada Worrell of St.

Stephen’s Primary in a time of 1:05.89s.Yazid Daniel of Luther Thorne Primarywas the fastest qualifier for the Under -3400m Boys in a time of 1:02.47s, followedby Amir Gustave of Bay Primary with1:03.33s and next was Josh Newton ofBayley’s Primary in a time of 1:03.45s.

The Girls 600m Open had the fastestqualifier of Victoria Norville of IgnatiusByer Primary, with 1:52.79, ShakaciaWatson of Good Shepherd Primary with1:52.92s and Kaya Kellman-Wall of WilkieCumberbatch with 1:53.45m. The Boys800m Open had the top qualifiers of JoshNewton of Bayley’s Primary with a time of2:31.51s, Jaheem Wilson of Arthur Smithwith 2:35.84s and Nyerere Maughn ofWilkie Cumberbatch with 2:35.85s.

The Under-13 Boys Long Jump top boyswere Yazid Daniel of Luther Thorne with4.87m, Tyreke Crawford of St. GeorgePrimary with 4.80m and Timothy Worrellof People’s Cathedral with 4.51m.

The Under-13 Girls Long Jump saw therecord fall to Tiara Stewart of RolandEdwards Primary.Her jump of 4.82m wasenough to break the ten year old record bySarika Mayers of Gordan Greenidge Pri-mary of 4.76m.Next was Kay’ghun Rouseof Bayley’s Primary with 4.59m andLoticia Carmichael of Selah Primary witha jump of 4.34m.

The Under-11 Boys Long Jump topqualifiers were Daniel Duncan of Bayley’sPrimary with 4.47m, Kevion Newton ofWesley Hall Juniors with 4.24m andKriston Nurse of Hillaby Turners Hallwith 3.98m.The Girls Long Jump Under-11 top girls were Jazaria Bovell of WarrensPrimary with 3.78m,Tiana Morris of L T.Gay with 3.74m and Samiya Dell with ajump of 3.72m.

The Boys High Jump Open top threewas Kadari Webster of Hilda Skeene Pri-mary, Josh Newton of Bayley’s and JaiFarley of Blackman Gollop all qualified ata height of 1.34m. The Girls Open HighJump top three was Charity Cumberbatchof Bayley’s Primary with a jump of 1.27m,followed by Shania Thomas and DestinyAlleyne of Charles F. Broome with a qual-ifying height of 1.20m.

Smooth, seamlessrunning at NAPSACquarterfinals

The successful Luther Thorne team in the Boys Open medley. They are from (leftto right) Ty Ward, Makai Francis-Shepherd, Christoph Yearwood and Yazid Daniel.

Tamika Husbands of Wesley Hall Primary in Heat 1 of the Under-11 Girls 4x100m.


By Terissa John

“THE Peter Nurse Meet wasconceptualised a few years ago asan initiative to give up and comingathletes a little bit more exposureand competition for them to betterdevelop. As an athlete myself Iunderstand the importance of suchmeets and good friendlycompetition,” according toNathaniel Boyce, Coordinator ofThe Inaugural Peter NurseMemorial Primary SchoolChampionship.

Boyce told The Barbados Advocateduring a recent interview, “The meet isin memory of Peter Nurse, formercolleague, athlete, coach and friend. Hepushed me to have the meet when alive.This year four primary schoolsparticipated… Charles F. BroomeMemorial, Bay Primary, St. Paul’s,Luther Thorne and invitationalathletes from three other schools.”

Boyce credits the dedicatedteamwork of Rico Brathwaithe, JasonHaynes and Kemar Cumberbatch alongwith sponsors and parents, teachersfrom Lutherthorne and participatingschools for their contribution in makingthe meet a success.

He noted, “It is my hope next yearthe meet can be bigger and better nextyear as more schools come onboard andathletes can use the meet ascompetitive exposure to betterthemselves.” He referenced this tocountries such as Jamaica and Trinidadwhich boast of excellent athletesbecause their athletes have venues toventure and compete whilst improvingtheir athletic abilities.

He went on, “Our athletes need thisto go forward. It is important. A must.Not a one day or three day of trainingand come Napsac and that’s it. We needfriendly meets in Barbados with theincentives of trophies or medals asencouragement to our athletes topursue track and field and not justpursue it and stop. They needsomething to encourage and motivatethem and the Peter Nurse MemorialPrimary School Championship can dothat.”

This year Charles F. BroomeMemorial took 1st place at the meetwith a total of 281 points, LutherThorne placed 2nd with 175 points, BayPrimary 3rd with 160 points and St.Paul’s placed 4th with 142 points.

Victor ludorum went to MakaelShepherd of Luther Thorne and VictrixLudorum went to Xiomara Aymes ofBay Primary.

Alphonso King of Charles F. Broomeswas all smiles receiving the winning

trophy. King said, “The meet is justwhat the kids need. It is good exposureand provides experience for thosetaking part in Napsac. It gives themtraining whilst promoting good,friendly competition for the athletes.”

Sport meets, a must for athletes

A DRASTICALLY undermannedBarbados Hilton Resort Warriors cameout with the win over Urban Vybz St.John’s Sonics 69-66, in the second gameof the Barbados Amateur BasketballAssociation Premier League on Tueday.

Playing at the Garfield Sobers SportsComplex, Warriors were grosslyundermanned with not only a six mansquad playing but also without three oftheir starters. Their leading scorerJamar Headley and also two of thebetter players on the team in the formof Corey McDonald and RicardoToussaint were not present for thegame.This was the perfect opportunityfor the Sonics to take advantage and getan easy win to boost their record.Unfortunately for them,Nickolas Kingwas still available to play, and that isdefinitely what he did. King outplayedthe Sonics team almost by himself onthe offensive end as he ended with agame high 31 points and five steals.Hewas supported by the whole team andeach of them scored points in the game.Kareem Farrell had 13 points whileTrevor Simmons and Paul Grant hadeight points each.

The Sonics had the perfect chance towin the game if things had gone betterfor them on the night. Two mainreasons stopped them from achievingthat goal. Firstly, the Sonics had 21turnovers on the night, which theSonics were able converted to 16 points.Secondly, Akeem Marsh had a badshooting night for the Sonics. He wasthe team high scorer with 20 points butwas nine of twenty-five from the fieldand zero of five from the three point arc.All the blame cannot be placed onMarsh’s shoulder as the team wasshooting poorly as well with a shootingpercentage of thirty per cent (24 of 78).Stefan Clarke had 18 points to help theSonics have hope of the win but evenwith 28-17 final quarter, the gameslipped through their hands.

This win puts Warriors into thirdplace in the standings behind PanAmerican International InsuranceCorporation Warrens Sports Club,whoare in second with the same three winsand three losses record. (AS)

IN a keenly contested game, PanAmerican International InsuranceCorporation Warrens Sports Club putthe ropes on Burger King ClaphamBulls and reigned in their third win 61-54, in the Barbados Amateur BasketballAssociation Premier League.

Playing in the first game on Tuesdaynight at the Garfield Sober SportsComplex,Warrens fought hard and rodethe momentum of their previous win onthe weekend. The game was close themajority of the night with neither teamable to gain much of an advantage overthe other.Warrens however led for most

of the game and maintained a high levelof play on the defensive end. GreigSpringer had a team high 15 points andthree steals and with his defensivecounterpart Manuel Alleng, who had 12points and six steals, provided Warrenswith the much needed defensive edgeover the Bulls. George Farrell and DarioCumberbatch contributed on theoffensive end with 14 and 13 pointsrespectively which helped Warrens getover the line for the win.

The Bulls were a team which lookedout of sorts on the night and mainlyresorted to one on one basketball for a

big share of their possessions. RahiimGibbons, even though he ended with agame high 18 points and eight rebounds,had an abysmal shooting night. Gibbonsshot seven of twenty-five from the field,which was a shooting percentage oftwenty-eight per cent. The early missesdidn’t hinder him from trying again andeventually he found a rhythm and withthe help of Kelan Phillips with 14 pointsand also points from the free throw line,the Bulls kept pace with Warrens.

The fourth quarter saw the Bulls closethe gap from the free throw line andwith two minutes left in the game,

Danny Lovell, Halley Franklyn andKodia Leacock checked back into thegame for the final push for the win. Itwas a good strategy by the Bulls coachto keep his star players on the benchresting, while putting his trust in thebench players to keep the game closeenough to strike. They were almostsuccessful but with a smooth daggerjumper from the wing by Springer, theBull had to resort to fouling to stop theclock. Time ran out eventually with theBulls down and Warrens took their thirdwin of the regular season first round.

(AS)

Warrens Sports Club wrangle the Bulls

Warriors topSt. John’sSonics

Nathaniel Boyce, Coordinator of The Inaugural Peter Nurse Memorial PrimarySchool Championship.


THE victory celebration over, new FIFApresident Gianni Infantino’s first majordecision in charge of the troubled worldfootball organization will be to appoint asecretary general, effectively a chiefexecutive, to run day-to-day operations.

Since FIFA was founded in 1904, it hashad ten secretaries general, all fromEurope, the game’s strongest continent.

At an event in London during hiscampaign for Friday’s presidentialelection, Infantino said: “I am convincedthe general secretary of FIFA should notbe a European. Why not an African?”

A source close to Infantino said onMonday that this “did not necessarilymean that an African would be chosen,more than he had not ruled out anAfrican”.

That said, there would be a strongAfrican contender in the shape of theMoroccan Hicham El Amrani.

The Paris-educated 36-year-old becamegeneral secretary of the Africanconfederation (CAF) on an interim basisin 2010 and was confirmed in the role inSeptember 2011.

He had previously been deputy generalsecretary at CAF and worked for theAsian Football Confederation incompetitions marketing. He graduatedin 2004 from the FIFA Masters course,which was created to train future footballadministrators from around the world.

El Amrani won the Young Leader ofthe Year award in 2015 from the ‘Leadersin Sports’ organization partly inrecognition of the way he handled theswitch of the African Nations Cup toEquatorial Guinea after Moroccowithdrew two months before thetournament because of the Ebolaoutbreak in West Africa.

“He is very, very capable,” said Swiss-based sports business consultant JoaoFrigerio, who knows El Amrani from theFIFA Masters alumni association.“Thereis no doubt in my mind that he can be agreat general secretary.”

El Amrani could not immediately bereached for comment.

Not rushingInfantino said on Sunday that he

would not rush into a decision about thesecretary general, whose role takes on

added importance in FIFA’s new,reformed structure.

Although some of FIFA’s reformdocuments refer to a “CEO”, a sourcewithin FIFA indicated that for “traditionreasons” the title of secretary general islikely to continue to be used.

Infantino might also look to NorthAmerica, whose administrators played akey role in swinging votes to the Swiss atFriday’s FIFA Congress in Zurich.

U.S.Soccer president Sunil Gulati is aneconomics professor at ColumbiaUniversity and well connected politicallyin the United States.

This could be attractive to FIFA as ittries to improve relations with the U.S.Department of Justice, which hascharged dozens of soccer officials in theAmericas with corruption, and isinvestigating allegations of bribery andcorruption at FIFA itself.

A tweet from sports marketingexecutive Ricardo Fort suggesting Gulatiwould be a good choice sparkedspeculation in Zurich over the weekend.

THE Barbados Secondary SchoolAthletics Championships (BSSAC)will be aired on Sportsmax this year.This announcement came Tuesday

night at the launch of Digicel Play by theCEO of Digicel Sportsmax, OliverMcIntosh.

“In 2014, we brought football and trackand field from Jamaica. Last year westarted bringing football from Trinidadand Tobago and I’m happy to announcetoday that next week’s start of theBarbados track and field championships

will be covered by Sportsmax as well.”The championships will be held at the

National Stadium and the first Zone isthe Esther Maynard Zone on March 8thand 9th, while the Frank Blackman Zonewill be on the 10th and 11th. The finalsare set for March 17th and 18th.

He said viewers can expect to seemajor events such as the Indian PremierLeague, UEFA finals, Copa America,English Premier League, all 14 DiamondLeague meets (track & field), as well ascoverage from the 2016 Rio Olympics.

CAPE TOWN – An “energised” DaleSteyn has passed his fitness tests andwill play for South Africa in their three-match Twenty20 International seriesagainst Australia starting in Durbantomorrow.

Steyn, one of the world’s leadingpacemen, has missed most of SouthAfrica’s season with groin and shoulderproblems but is ready to face Australia inthe warm-up series for the WorldTwenty20.

“A hungry, fit, energised Dale is amassive plus for us,” South Africa coachRussell Domingo told reporters onTuesday. “He hasn’t played for SouthAfrica for a long period of time and he hascome here with a great attitude.

“He is desperate to play,desperate to dowell, he wants to win a World Cup, hewants to be involved in all formats of thegame, so his energy levels are right upthere and that bodes really well for us.”

Steyn has not featured in the 20-overformat for his country since the lastWorld Cup in Bangladesh in 2014 aftera self-imposed exile but is making areturn to add experience ahead of thenext tournament in India starting onMarch 8.

“The big thing for these type of playersis making sure the hunger and passion isthere. He has definitely got that at themoment,” Domingo said.

“His skills are always going to be there,he is desperate to play for South Africa,

and that is great news as a coach.”South Africa start the series against

Australia in Durban on Friday beforemoving onto Johannesburg on Sunday.They complete the series in Cape Townon March 9.

The Proteas open their WorldTwenty20 campaign against England onMarch 18 and will also play Sri Lankaand West Indies in their pool.

NEW YORK Yankees reliever AroldisChapman has been suspended 30 gamesfor his alleged role in a domestic violenceincident involving his girlfriend, MajorLeague Baseball said on Tuesday.

Chapman, a four-time All-Star whowas acquired in December from theCincinnati Reds in exchange for fourminor league players, will not appeal theban, MLB said in a statement.

MLB conducted an investigation of theOctober incident in which Chapmanallegedly fired eight gunshots into thegarage of his Miami-area home followingan argument with his girlfriend, whotold police he choked her and pushedher against a wall.

“After reviewing the staff report, Ifound Mr. Chapman’s acknowledgedconduct on that day to be inappropriateunder the negotiated policy, particularlyhis use of a firearm and the impact ofthat behavior on his partner,” said MLBCommissioner Rob Manfred.

The Cuban-born left-hander, whomade his MLB debut with Cincinnati in2010, has a 2.17 career earned runaverage and 146 saves during sixseasons with the Reds.

Chapman’s suspension will beginwhen the Yankees open their season onApril 4. Until then, MLB said he canparticipate in all spring training andpreseason games and activities.

“The New York Yankees support thedecision made by The Commissioner

today. We are pleased that Aroldis hasaccepted this discipline,” the Yankeessaid.

Infantino begins search fornon-European chief exec

Yankees’ Chapman banned 30games for domestic dispute

BSSAC to showon Sportsmax

Energised Steyn returnsto boost South Africa

New FIFA president Gianni Infantino.

New York Yankees relief pitcherAroldis Chapman.

Dale Steyn, one of the world’s leadingpacemen.


THE Tampa Bay Rays willbecome the first MajorLeague Baseball franchise toplay in Havana since 1999when they face Cuba’s na-tional team in an exhibitionthis month coinciding with ahistoric visit by U.S.President Barack Obama.

The March 22 game, an-nounced by MLB on Tuesday,has been planned for months.Major League Baseball, the or-ganization that runs profes-sional baseball in NorthAmerica, said in November itwould choose the Rays as theteam to play in Havana if itcould make a deal with theCuban Baseball Federation.

“During a time of historicchange, we appreciate the con-structive role afforded by ourshared passion for the game,andwe look forward to experiencingCuba’s storied baseball traditionand the passion of its many loyalfans,” MLB Commissioner RobManfred said in a statement.

Obama will attend the game,a senior White House advisersaid in a tweet late on Tuesday.

“Charting new #CubaPolicymeans stronger ties betweenCubans & Americans - we allshare a love of baseball,” tweetedBen Rhodes, Obama’s deputynational security adviser.

The game will be played at the45,000-seat Latin AmericanStadium, site of a 1999 exhibi-tion between the BaltimoreOrioles and Cuba’s nationalteam. It has been undergoingimprovements, including instal-lation of a new infield, underMLB supervision.

The game takes place 15months after a thawing of rela-tions between the former ColdWar enemies. Obama andCuban President Raul Castroagreed to normalize relations inDecember 2014 and the twosides restored diplomatic tiesand reopened embassies inHavana and Washington lastyear.

Obama’s visit on March 21and 22 will mark the first by asitting U.S. president since 1928and the first since Fidel Castro’srebels overthrew a pro-American government in 1959.

Earlier on Tuesday, theRolling Stones said they wouldperform a free outdoor concert inHavana on March 25, a mile-stone in a country where theCommunist government oncebanned the group’s music as an“ideological deviation".

The exhibition game alsocomes during an effort in bothcountries to halt the defection ofCuba’s best players. There werea record 150 baseball defectionsin Cuba last year, according toCuban journalist FrancysRomero.

In the latest blow, two broth-ers from Cuba’s pre-eminentbaseball family, Yulieski andLourdes Gurriel, abandoned aCuban team traveling in theDominican Republic inFebruary.

Major League Baseball andthe Cuban Baseball Federationlack an agreement on playertransfers because of the U.S.trade embargo on Cuba. As aconsequence, Cuban playerswith big-league aspirations havedefected.

MLB has applied for specialpermission from the U.S. gov-ernment to allow teams to signplayers in Cuba and is awaitinga response.Approval would per-mit MLB to negotiate a player-transfer agreement with theCuban Baseball Federation.

Cuba has embraced baseballas its national game since thelate 19th century, and the pas-sion is shared by Fidel Castro, abaseball aficionado and formerpitcher in recreational baseball.

Cuba has produced some 200major leaguers over the decades,including former CincinnatiReds slugger and Baseball Hallof Famer Tony Perez, three-timebatting champion Tony Oliva,and celebrated pitcher Luis

Tiant.Cuba has long been a force in

international tournaments,win-ning three Olympic baseballgold medals and silver the othertwo times the sport was includedin the Summer Games.

The Cubans were also run-ners-up to Japan in the inaugu-ral World Baseball Classic in2006 when their amateurs com-peted against top players, in-cluding professionals, from othernations.

In recent years, some of Cuba’sbest players have fled, primarilyby boat, to establish residencyelsewhere and become eligiblefor the major leagues.

Notable Cubans currentlysigned to lucrative MLB con-tracts include Yasmany Tomas ofthe Arizona Diamondbacks,Rusney Castillo of the BostonRed Sox, Jose Abreu of theChicago White Sox, Yasiel Puigof the Los Angeles Dodgers andYoenis Cespedes of the New YorkMets.

Tampa Bay Rays to play in Havana during Obama visit

FOR SALE48,969 & 21,780 sq.ft. of land, unobstucted view of the sea at Bottom Bay, St. Philip.

3 Bedroom house & cottage on 47,935 sq.ft. land over looking sea at Apple Hall, St. Philip.

3 Bedroom house on 8,335 sq.ft. land at Wheelers, St. Philip.

Isuzu FTR Dump Truck Excellent condition.

Tel:234-5987/433-8030/31

REAL ESTATE

FOR SALE

LotsConnelltown, St. LucyLand area4,512 sq. ft.$90,240.00

Tichbourne, St MichaelLand area 7,455 sq. ft. $145,000.00

Connelltown, St. LucyLand area 9,968 sq. ft.$150,000.00

Gibbons Terrace, Christ ChurchLand area 7,008 sq. ft.$150,000.00

Prior Park, St. JamesLand area 8,150 sq. ft. $160,000.00

Bagatelle Terrace, St.ThomasLand area 12,000 sq. ft.$200,000.00

Bagatelle Terrace, St. JamesLand area 11,290 sq. ft. $225,000.00

White Hall, St. MichaelLand area 16,504 sq. ft. $235,000.00

White Hall, St. MichaelLand area 1.05 Acres $365,000.00

Sion Hill, St. JamesLand area 21,776 sq. ft. $370,192.00

Redmans Village, St. ThomasLand area 5,222 sq. ft.$75,000.00

PROPERTIESBoarded Hall Greens (Town houses) From $228,800.00 to $461,900.00

Boscobelle Terrace , St Peter3 Bedrooms 1 Bathroom HouseLand area 6,708 sq. ft. $280,000.00

Clapham, St. MichaelTownhouse $299,000.00

Grazettes Court, St. Michael3 Bedrooms 2 Bathroom HouseLand area 7,402 sq. ft. $450,000.00

Edgehill Terrace, St. Thomas6 Bedrooms, 4 Bathrooms two storey House with a 3 Bedroom 2 Bathroom ApartmentLand Area: 7,852 sq. ft. $575,000.00

Rockley, Christ Church3 Bedroom 2 Bathroom

REAL ESTATELand area 7,629 sq. ft. $600,000.00

Ventnor Gardens, Christ Church6 Bedrooms 2 Bathroom with a 3 Bedroom ApartmentLand Area 13,068 sq ft $650.000.00

Brighton, St. Michael4 - 2 Bedrooms 1Bathroom Apartment Land Area 13,502 sq. ft.$850.000.00

Dayrells, St. George5 Bedrooms 6 Bathroom house with a Studio ApartmentLand Area 1.318 Acres $1,300,000.00

Clerview Heights, St. James4 Bedrooms 3 house Land Area 9,980 sq. ft. $1,300,000.00

Dayrells Heights, St. GeorgeApartment building$2,200,000.00

Pine Plantation Road, St. Mi-chael2 Wall Houses, Land Area 7,289 sq. ft. (land approved for subdivi-sion) $375,000.00

Contact: Telephone (246) 432-7191

Website: www.creis.com

AUCTION SALES

CARL HOLLIGAN GRADUATE OF THE OHIO SCHOOL OF AUCTIONEERING

WE WILL SELL BY AUCTION ON THURSDAY 03/03/2016 THE FOLLOWING WORKING, DAMAGED VEHICLES:-

ONE 2000 TOYOTA LITE ACE at De Wrecker Man at 1:15pm

ONE 2000 HUYNDAI H100 VANat Keith Jones at 1:30pm

ONE 2000 PEUGEOT 306 at ICBL at 1:40pm

ONE 1999 MAZDA 323 at Auto Rescue at 1:55PM

ONE 2011 SUZUKI CELERO, ONE 2000 TOYOTA HI ACE VAN, ONE 1998 MITSUBISH-SHI LANCER, ONE 2008 NIS-SAN URVAN, ONE 2008 MIT-SUBISHI L200 SPOTERO, ONE 1998 SUZUKI VITARA at Gab-riel Downes at 2:15pm

ONE 2003 SIZIKI IGNIS (SPORTS) at Champion Auto at 2:50pm

ONE 2010 MITSUBISHI LANCER, ONE 2011 ISUZU DMAX, ONE 2011 MITSUBISHI LANCER, ONE 2011 MITSUBI-SHI L300 PANEL VAN, ONE 2008 SUZUKI JIMNY, ONE 2010 SUZUKI GRAND VITARAat Simpson Motors at 3:10pm

PLEASE NOTE THATLOCATION &TIMES ARE

SUBJECT TO CHANGE ON THURSDAYS

Terms Draft/ Certified ChequeCarl/ Trevor Holligan

Tel: 233-1818/ 247-2906

NOTICES NOTICES

NOTICES CONSTRUCTIONSERVICES

L.L. BUILDING &Maintenance

Specials on

.Renovating

.Building

.Repainting

.Large Residential

.Small quick fix-up jobs

Tel:840-6533/[email protected]



Effective October 8th, 2012, the market price of a security listed on the board of the BSE will only change if a quantity of shares traded (in a single trade) is greater than or equal to the threshold amount (volume limit) as stated in the table below. For more information please visit the downloads section of our website - www.bse.com.bb

BARBADOS STBARBADOS STOCK EXCHANGEOCK EXCHANGE

COMPANY LAST TRADE VOLUME HIGH LOW LAST CURRENT PRICE BID ASK BID ASK

DATE CLOSE CLOSE CHANGE PRICE PRICE SIZE SIZE ABV Investments Incorporated 05-Feb-16 - - - $0.02 $0.02 - $0.02 $0.15 31,000 12,000

BICO Limited 12-Feb-16 - - - $1.86 $1.86 - $1.80 - 1,000 -

Banks Holdings Limited 29-Feb-16 - - - $7.10 $7.10 - $4.00 $7.10 500 193,103

Barbados Dairy Industries Limited 10-Jun-15 - - - $1.60 $1.60 - $1.88 $5.25 2,000 21,186

Barbados Farms Limited 25-Jan-16 - - - $0.50 $0.50 - $0.40 $0.50 6,342 13,466

Cable and Wireless Barbados Limited 29-Feb-16 - - - $2.66 $2.66 - $2.60 $2.75 1,175 7,770

Cave Shepherd and Company Limited 23-Feb-16 - - - $3.35 $3.35 - $3.35 $3.68 7,900 4,148

FirstCaribbean International Bank 02-Mar-16 2,886 $1.91 $1.90 $1.90 $1.90 $0.00 $1.90 $2.40 447 7,440

Fortress Caribbean Property Fund 01-Mar-16 - - - $0.19 $0.19 - $0.18 $0.20 20,000 105,634- Dev Fund

Fortress Caribbean Property Fund 02-Mar-16 3,016 $0.62 $0.62 $0.62 $0.62 $0.00 $0.61 $0.62 36,590 94,104- Value Fund

Goddard Enterprises Limited 01-Mar-16 - - - $6.61 $6.61 - $6.85 $7.25 6,914 10,842

Insurance Corporation Of B’dos Limited 29-Feb-16 - - - $2.95 $2.95 - $2.96 $4.18 1,750 5,124

JMMB Group Limited 09-Feb-16 - - - $0.15 $0.15 - - - - -

Emera (C’bean) Incorporated 5.5% Pref 06-Nov-15 - - - $3.11 $3.11 - $3.11 - 1,491 -

Emera (C’bean) Incorporated 03-Feb-16 - - - $33.30 $33.30 - $21.75 $33.00 117 2,208

Massy Holdings Limited 01-Mar-16 - - - $20.00 $20.00 - $18.50 $20.00 725 6,000

One Caribbean Media Limited 26-Feb-16 - - - $7.00 $7.00 - $3.05 - 3 -

Sagicor Financial Corporation Pref 6.5% 26-Feb-16 - - - $2.26 $2.26 - $2.00 $2.04 630 3,145

Sagicor Financial Corporation 02-Mar-16 1,397 $2.00 $1.87 $2.03 $2.03 $0.00 $1.89 $2.00 2,500 19,589

The West Indies Rum Distilleries Limited 13-Apr-15 - - - $8.00 $8.00 - - $8.00 - 13,100

Trinidad Cement Limited 08-Feb-16 - - - $0.80 $0.80 - $1.20 $2.50 900 677

West India Biscuit Company Limited 12-Feb-16 - - - $13.00 $13.00 - $14.00 - 50 -

Emera Deposit Receipt - - - $16.43 $16.64 $0.21 - - - -

TOTAL SHARES BOUGHT & SOLD 7,299

-* = Security is Trading X-Div*+* = Security is Suspended** = Rights Issued

Royal Fidelity TIGRS A3 Fund 18-Dec-13 $10.00 $10.00 $10.50 100

Last Trade Bid Ask Bid AskDate Price Price Size Size

B’dos Government Debenture 6.875% 2023 01-Feb-16 $103.00 30,000B’dos Government Debenture 7% 2027 $98.50 $104.00 50,000 50,000B’dos Government Debenture 7.25% 2026 19-Jun-15 $98.50 $103.00 30,000 30,000B’dos Government Debenture 7.25% 2029 26-Jan-16 $98.50 $101.00 20,000 20,000B’dos Government Debenture 7.375% 2027 29-Jan-16 $98.50 $104.00 20,000 20,000B’dos Government Debenture 8.50% 2018 21-Oct-15 $105.00 $111.00 100,000 150,000B’dos Government T/Note 6% 2016 29-Jan-16 $101.00 35,000B’dos Government T/Note 6% 2017 27-Jan-16 $105.00 296,000

MUTUAL FUNDMarch 2, 2016

ENDED NAME OF FUND NAV OFFER BID NAVCHANGE

26-Feb-16 REPUBLIC CAPITAL GROWTH FUND w 1.5058 -0.007226-Feb-16 REPUBLIC INCOME FUND -* w 1.5732 0.001526-Feb-16 REPUBLIC PROPERTY FUND w 1.2824 -0.000126-Feb-16 FORTRESS CARIBBEAN GROWTH FUND w 4.7512 4.7512 4.7512 -0.001926-Feb-16 FORTRESS HIGH INTEREST FUND - ACC. w 1.8560 0.002726-Feb-16 FORTRESS HIGH INTEREST FUND - DIST. w 1.0005 0.001531-Jan-16 ROYAL FIDELITY SELECT BALANCED FUND m 4.7078 4.7078 4.6136 -0.029131-Jan-16 ROYAL FIDELITY STRATEGIC GROWTH FUND m 0.8009 0.8009 0.7849 -0.012931-Jan-16 ROYAL FIDELITY PREMIUM INCOME FUND m 1.5035 1.5035 1.4734 0.007126-Feb-16 SAGICOR GLOBAL BALANCED FUND w 2.19 0.0126-Feb-16 SAGICOR SELECT GROWTH FUND w 1.18 0.0126-Feb-16 SAGICOR PREFERRED INCOME FUND -* w 1.05 0.00* Indicates the Fund is currently ex-div

NOTES: QUOTATIONS AND NET ASSET VALUE PER SHARE ARE SUPPLIED BY THEFUND MANAGEMENT. THE OFFERING PRICE INCLUDES NET ASSET VALUE PLUSENTRY COSTS.

m = monthly valuation, q = quarterly valuation, w = weekly

Regular MarketSecurity Volume High Low Market Advance/

Price Decline

FORTRESS C'BEAN PROP. FUND - VAL FUND 3,016 $0.62 $0.62 $0.62 $0.00FIRSTCARIBBEAN INTERNATIONAL BANK 2,886 $1.91 $1.90 $1.90 $0.00SAGICOR FINANCIAL CORPORATION 1,397 $2.00 $1.87 $2.03 $0.00

Deposit ReceiptsSecurity Previous Current Advance/

Close Close DeclineEMERA DEPOSIT RECEIPT $16.43 $16.64 $0.21

BARBADOS STOCK REPORTMarch 2, 2016

Three securities traded firm as 7,299 shares traded on the Regular Market, with a total value of $10,019.88. Fortress CaribbeanProperty Fund - Value Fund was the volume leader trading 3,016 shares at $0.62. They were followed by FirstCaribbean InternationalBank and Sagicor Financial Corporation which traded 2,886 and 1,397 shares respectively.

JUNIOR MARKET

Fixed Income

SHARE SUMMARY INFORMATIONWednesday March 2, 2016

INDICESTODAY'S TRADING LAST TRADING CHANGES

March 2, 2016 March 1, 2016Local 2,398.33 2,398.33 - Cross-list 1,738.11 1,738.11 - Composite 663.36 663.36 -

MARKET CAPITALISATION (in millions)

TODAY'S TRADING LAST TRADING CHANGES

March 2, 2016 March 1, 2016Local 6,071.48 6,070.40 1.08 Cross-list 2,862.76 2,862.76 - Composite 8,934.24 8,933.16 1.08

NEWS

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

FirstCaribbean International Bank Limited - Directors havefixed January 25th, 2016 as the record date for thedetermination of shareholders entitled to receive notice of theAnnual General Meeting of the Shareholders of the Companywhich will be held on March 11th, 2016.

Trinidad Cement Limited - Directors have fixed March 14th,2016 as the record date for the determination of shareholdersentitled to receive notice of the Annual General Meeting of theShareholders of the Company.

SECURITY VOLUME LIMIT SECURITY VOLUME LIMIT

ABV INVESTMENTS INCORPORATED 3,500 EMERA (CARIBBEAN) INCORPORATED 1,000

BANKS HOLDINGS LIMITED 4,000 EMERA (CARIBBEAN) INCORPORATED 5.5% Pref 100

B'DOS DAIRY INDUSTRIES LIMITED 300 SAGICOR FINANCIAL CORPORATION 6.5% Pref 7,500

B'DOS FARMS LIMITED 1,500 SAGICOR FINANCIAL CORPORATION 10,000

BICO INDUSTRIES LIMITED 100 THE WEST INDIES RUM DISTILLERY LIMITED 300

CABLE & WIRELESS (BARBADOS)LIMITED

9,000 WEST INDIA BISCUIT COMPANY LIMITED 300

CAVE SHEPHERD & COMPANY LIMITED 1,500 JMMB GROUP LIMITED 10,000

FIRSTCARIBBEAN INTERNATIONALLIMITED

10,000 MASSY HOLDINGS LIMITED 6,500

FORTRESS CARIBBEAN PROPERTY -DEV FUND

3,500 ONE CARIBBEAN MEDIA LIMITED 4,000

FORTRESS CARIBBEAN PROPERTY -VALUE FUND

3,500 TRINIDAD CEMENT LIMITED 10,000

GODDARD ENTERPRISES LIMITED 3,500 ROYAL FIDELITY TIGRS A2 FUND 100

INSURANCE CORPORATION OFBARBADOS LIMITED

2,500 ROYAL FIDELITY TIGRS A3 FUND 100

By André Springer

ATHLETES gave aglimpse of theirprogress at this year’sAthletics Association ofBarbados FebruaryClassic this past week-end at the NationalStadium. The competi-tion was tight as the ath-letes sought to improveand make themselvesready for the approach-ing BarbadosSecondary SchoolsAthleticsChampionships.

The field events werekeenly contested with

Springer Memorial Schoolhaving the largest contin-gent in the Throw events.In the Girls Discus Throwfor the Under 18 Division,Sankarra Price of B C TracClub threw a winning dis-tance of 30.73m, whileSpringer’s Renee Burkeand Simone Carroll weresecond and third with28.34m and 25.39m. TheUnder 20 Boys Discuss waswon by B C Trac’s AkiylSimon with a throw of40.01m and his team-mateK’Cey William was secondwith 35.70m. The WomensDiscuss Throw gold medalwas taken by Akela

Flemming competingUnattached with a toss of36.20m; second wasWinmalecia Bowen ofSpringer throwing a dis-tance of 33.19m and hersister Winmarie Bowen ofthe same Springer, wasthird was third with29.81m. The Men’s OpenDiscuss was won byMichael Gibson, a formerQueens College Student,now competing unat-tached. He threw a win-ning distance of 45.66m,al-most ten meters furtherthan B C Trac’s Sobersbrothers Dario and Daryl.Daryl was second with36.90m,just ahead of Dariowith 36.82m.

The Under 18 GirlsJavelin Throw was aSpringer Memorial affairas the top five spots weretaken by the school. ReneeBurke claimed the goldwith a throw measuring30.01m, second with 27.08was Rashanna Thorne andZariah Greaves tookbronze with 23.71m.

Springer also won theWomen’s Open Javelincompliments of TyraHolder with a throw of16.30m.The Under 18 BoysJavelin was won byMichael Callender ofRising Stars with 34.49mand Raphael Whitehalltook first place for PrincessMargaret in the OpenMen’s Javelin with a win-ning distance of 42.99m.

The Girls Shot Put forthe Under 18 Division waswon by B C Trac’sSankarra Price with athrow of 11.02m and therunner up was Springer’sSimone Carroll with10.90m while third went toRenee Burke of Springerwith 10.48m. The BoysShot Put for the Under 18Division was won byEnrique Babb with a throwof 13.07m competing forColeridge and ParrySchool, second was JoshLaRose for Elite DistancePerformance with a dis-tance of 13.02m and thirdwent to Coleridge and

Parry’s Jequan Jones with11.51m.B C Trac took firstand second place in theUnder 20 Boys Shot Put.K’Cey Williams was firstwith 12.39m and Akiyl wassecond with 12.10m. TheOpen Women’s Shot Putsaw the Bowen twin fromSpringer take the top twospots with WinmaleciaBowen throwing 10.84mfor the gold and Winmariethe silver with 9.89m. TheMen’s Open Shot Put toptwo spots were also won bya twin, the Sobers brothersof B C Trac.Daryl took firstplace with 14.06m andDario was second with athrow of 12.93m.

The Under 18 Girls HighJump was won by Drew-Ann Clarke with a jump of1.55m, second was ShonteSeale with 1.45m and thirdwas Misha Nelson ofFreedom Striders with1.40m.The Under 18 BoysHigh Jump winner wasQuinn Hodge of HighPerformance at the heightof 1.55m. The OpenWomen’s High jump firstplace honors was awardedto Yuriko Harewood ofFreedom Striders with ajump of 1.63m and secondplace went to Springer’sAriel Wood with 1.45m.The

Open Men High Jump waswon with the bar set at aheight of 2.00m byBlackbirds’ Akeem Roweand Josiah Beckles ofFreedom Striders was sec-ond at the height of 1.95m.

B CTrac’s Jaliyah Dennyout leapt the competitionto the take the gold in theUnder 15 Girls Long Jumpwith a leap of 4.81m.Second place went toFreedom Striders’ MishaNelson with 4.71m andthird to Kimani Archer ofQueens College with4.37m.The Under 15 BoysLong Jump winner wasAren Spencer with a leap of5.35m,while gold went to BC Trac’s Charissa Moorewit 5.25m,silver to ShemiaOdaine with 5.07m as hisdistance and third wasKayla Codrington with4.97m. The Under18 BoysLong Jump winner wasOndre Collender havingjumped a distance of 5.39mand Wilfred Boxill took thesilver with 5.17m. Kolij’sJamie Drayton won theOpen Womens’ Long Jumpwith a leap of 5.42m andthe Open Mens’ Long JumpOpen was won by BarryBatson with 6.19m and sec-ond went to RaphaelWhitehall with 5.01m.


Good turnout on the field for February Classic


WATCHING DamianLillard get 20 or 30points has become rou-tine for the PortlandTrail Blazers.

So has winning.Lillard scored 30 points

and the surging TrailBlazers continued rollingwith a 104-85 victory overthe New York KnicksTuesday night.

"It seems natural,"Portland coach TerryStotts said. "I don't thinkanybody is surprised."

Lillard posted his 19thgame with 30 points andonly Golden State'sStephen Curry, Houston'sJames Harden andSacramento's DeMarcusCousins have more gameswith at least 30 this sea-son. He also reached 30points for the eighth timein his last nine games byhitting eight of 18 shotsand making 10 freethrows, extending hisstreak to 48.

"He's playing at a reallyelite level, efficient, draw-ing contract when he getsto the rim, getting to thefree-throw line, hittingtough shots and makingplayers around him bet-ter," Portland guard CJMcCollum said. "So this isone of the best runs I've

seen him on, 30-pointgames, efficiently doing itagainst quality competi-tion.So I'd say this is someof the best basketball I'veseen."

Most of Lillard's produc-tion occurred during thefirst half, including duringone quick stretch late inthe first half whenPortland took an eight-point lead.He had 14 of his24 points in the final four-plus minutes of the half,including 11 straight asthe Trail Blazers took thelead for good.

"For me I've been hereall four years and I've seenit with his work pre-game,pre-practice, during prac-tice, late night," Portlandforward Meyers Leonardsaid. "He's a humble guyand he gets his work in.That's why I know and I'mnot surprised by anythinghe's doing."

The latest showing byLillard helped the TrailBlazers win for the 10thtime in 12 games, 18thtime in their last 22 gamesand sixth straight roadgame.

"It is impressive and Ithink it impressive for anyteam," Lillard said. "To goout on the road and to winon someone else's floor is

tough. Anything can gowrong on the road. Wehave grown so much. Overthe last month or so wehave really committed our-selves to every little thingthat will allow us to wingames. We have been overdedicated to these thingsand that is why we arewinning games.

After Lillard attackedthe Knicks defense, it wasMcCollum's turn in thethird.McCollum scored 13of his 25 points in the thirdquarter and made threekey plays late in the quar-ter to help Portland takean 85-72 lead into thefourth.

"Those two guys, Lillardand McCollum are verydangerous shooters so thebigs had to be up," Knicksrookie forward KristapsPorzingis said. "They wereable to move us around.They were playing at avery good level."

The big nights byPortland's guards contin-ued the Knicks' latestdownward spiral. ForwardCarmelo Anthony scored23 points but it was notenough as New York lostfor the 15th time in 18games.

Guard Arron Afflalo re-turned from a sore leftknee and added 13 points

and Porzingis finishedwith 11 on a night whenthe Knicks shot 37.5 per-cent,misfired on 15 of 21 3-pointers and missed ninestraight shots in a span ofsix minutes bridging thethird and fourth quarters.

New York's shootingdrought turned a 78-72deficit with 1:42 left in thethird into a 90-74 hole.While the Knicks weremissing, fans entertainedthemselves by booingloudly and chanting forguard Jimmer Fredette,and during a timeout,Anthony got into an ex-change with a heckler.

During the exchange

Anthony said, "The Knicks(stink) and I'm never com-ing back to another game.Anthony replied by point-ing at owner Jim Dolanand said: "He's the owner,ask him for your moneyback."

"Players have to be ableto play under hostile situ-ations," New York interimcoach Kurt Rambis said."They have to expect that ifthey are not playing at ahigh level that there willbe some criticism."

Fredette checked in with3:13 remaining but on thenext possession Lillardreached 30 points with a3-pointer.

CENTER Andrew Bogutcapped a season-best, 19-point effort with a key tip-in with 1:51 remaining inovertime Tuesday night,allowing the Golden StateWarriors to keep theirhome-court winningstreak alive with a 109-105 victory over theAtlanta Hawks.

Shooting guard KlayThompson had sevenpoints in the extra session,and power forwardDraymond Green buried aback-breaking, despera-tion 3-pointer with 40.2seconds remaining, allow-ing the Warriors to win a43rd straight at home withtheir fifth overtime victoryof the season.

The Warriors (54-5) wonwithout star point guard

Stephen Curry, who satout due to a strained leftankle.

Thompson, whose shortjumper with 11.4 secondsremaining secured thenarrow win, led theWarriors with 26 points ona night when he shot just8-for-27. He did make six3-pointers in 16 attempts.

Bogut hit eight of nineshots. Green contributed15 points,13 rebounds andeight assists, helpingGolden State complete atwo-game, season-seriessweep over the Hawks,having won 102-92 inAtlanta last week during agame in which Curryscored 36.

The Warriors, who haveclinched a WesternConference playoff spot,

improved to 2-1 this sea-son in games without thereigning NBA MostValuable Player.

Small forward HarrisonBarnes (12 points),backupguard Leandro Barbosa(11) and reserve centerMarreese Speights (10)also scored in double fig-ures for the Warriors, whobegan a stretch in whichthey will play 17 of theirfinal 24 games at home.

Power forward PaulMillsap had 19 points tolead the Hawks, who wereplaying the opener of afive-game trip.

Center Al Horford, hit-ting a 3-pointer for a 10thconsecutive game, had 17points for Atlanta, as didbackup point guardDennis Schroder.

Small forward KentBazemore (15 points),shooting guard KyleKorver (11) and backupbig man Mike Scott (11)also scored in double fig-ures for the Hawks, whoremained winless in fourovertime efforts this sea-son.

Atlanta (33-28) trailed95-90 before Korver endeda 4:13 scoring droughtwith a 3-pointer andSchroder converted a driveto draw the Hawks evenat 95-all with 1:22 to go.

Each team added a pairof free throws and had asubsequent shot at a regu-lation win, but the Hawks’Millsap misfired on awide-open 3-pointer with25 seconds left and theWarriors’ Thompson could-

n’t connect on a tough 15-footer with five seconds re-maining.

The Warriors led most ofthe first 48 minutes, butthe Hawks scored on sixconsecutive possessionsearly in the fourth quarterto complete a comebackthat had seen them downby as many as 14 pointsearly on.

They took their first leadsince 20-19 on a jumper byreserve guard TimHardaway Jr. on the finalpossession of the run,going up 88-87 with 6:59left.

A fastbreak dunk byHorford pushed theAtlanta advantage tothree at the 5:58 mark.However, the Hawks didn’tscore again until Korver’s

3-pointer with 1:45 left, adrought during whichGolden State scored eightstraight points to regain a95-90 advantage.

Riding the 7-for-7 shoot-ing of Bogut, the Warriorsled by as many as 14 in thefirst half and then by 73-62in the ninth minute of thethird quarter before theHawks nearly rallied intothe lead by period’s end.

Reserves Scott andSchroder buried 3-pointersas Atlanta scored thegame’s next eight points toget within 73-70.

Two Hawks turnoversand a buzzer-beatingperimeter jumper byBarbosa re-established afive-point Golden State ad-vantage entering the finalperiod.

Warriors edge Hawks in overtime

Portland Trail Blazers guard Damian Lillard (0) drives to the basket past New York Knicks center RobinLopez (8) during the first half at Madison Square Garden.

Lillard leadssurging TrailBlazers pastKnicks

Printed and published by Advocate Publishers (2000) Inc. Fontabelle, St. Michael. Telephone 467-2000, Fax 434-2020/434-1000

Thursday March 3, 2016

MORE than 100 Barbadians havefound employment with Digicel asthe company kept its promise by delivering its exciting home enter-tainment package, known as DigicelPlay.

Digicel Play,which the telecommunica-tions giant describes as a new frontier in

home entertainment, was officiallylaunched on Tuesday evening at a function at the Digcel’s office in theColonnade Mall on Broad Street.

As Barbados’ only true 100 per cent

fibre to the home network, the audiencewas told at the launch that Digicel Playturns your home into the ultimate enter-tainment zone, and delivers television,the fastest broadband that is available,

and state-of-the-art fixed line service.Currently, 75 per cent of homes inBarbados have access to Digicel Play,with a number of strategic distributionpoints having been set up to serve communities.

DIGICEL PLAY on Page 6

Digicel personnel, including Marketing Manager Krystale Smith (third from right); CEO of Digicel Barbados, Conor Looney (second from right); and CEO of DigicelPlay Barbados, Charlie Clementson (right), at the launch of Digicel Play on Tuesday evening at the Colonnade Mall, Bridgetown.

BRANCHING OUTDigicel launches new entertainment platform

BBSSSSAACC ttoo aaiirr oonn

SSppoorrttssmmaaxxPage 25

thursday, 3 march, 2016

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