MONDAY 10
Passengers busted at CJIA with cocaine in tamarind achar
SECURITY agencies operating at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA) at Timehri prevented a US citizen and a Guyanese citizen from smuggling approximately 20 kilogrammes of cocaine concealed in tamarind achar onto a Caribbean Airlines flight bound for New York City in the USA. A statement issued by CJIA authorities has said that at 15:45 hrs, the baggage of American citizen Winston Blake, 77, was searched and two packages of achar with over 10 kilos of cocaine disguised to look like tamarind seeds were found. The Guyanese citizen Sadeeka Odie, 38, was apprehended around 17:10hrs after similar packages of achar with cocaine in the shape of tamarind seeds were also found in her luggage. She was travelling with her nine-year-old daughter. Both intercepted passengers were en-route to New York City.

Six injured in car/minibus collision at Ruimzeight
SIX persons were injured in a minibus/motor car “smash up” at Ruimzeight, West Coast of Demerara and at least two had to be warded at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH). Davenand Pooldass and Davekumar Singh were rushed to the GPH for treatment for the multiple injuries they suffered in that accident. Other minibus passengers who sustained injuries were: the driver, Jomo Younge, 36, of Bagotstown, East Bank of Demerara; conductress Tamara Johnson, 38; and another person, who was taken to a private hospital in the city.

It could take about $200M to fix Le Repentir Cemetery
GEORGETOWN’S Deputy Mayor, Patricia Chase-Green, has said that while the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) is unhappy with the current deplorable condition of Le Repentir Cemetery, it would take about $200M to perform an acceptable level of rehabilitation there. She said the present situation at Le Repentir is that besides being overwhelmed by bushes and large trees, widespread flooding, and the pile-up of garbage have caused several burials to be postponed of late. According to Mayor Hamilton Green, of the $17M allocated last year to the rehabilitation of the cemetery, M&CC utilised $1M to carry out preliminary works. He said: “You cannot put a budget of $17M to fix a cemetery… Unless government broadens the revenue base, which wasn’t done since 1994, we wouldn’t be able to do much.”

PPP calls on AFC’s Nigel Hughes to resign
THE ruling People’s Progressive Party (PPP) has called for Chairman of the Alliance For Change (AFC), Mr. Nigel Hughes, to resign after noting what it describes as “damming allegations” of his involvement in another racketeering scheme. The party said in a statement: “These allegations must not be taken lightly and are, to say the least, troubling and worrying to the public at large…the fact that these allegations continue to be made is cause for concern about the integrity of the attorney-at-law and his ethical standards, not only in the political realm, but when doing business…the PPP demands the resignation of this corrupt politician who constantly abuses his office and portfolio.” The statement comes in the wake of a court action moved by Mayfield French, owner of popular city private school, Mae’s Schools. French, on January 17, 2014 sued Hughes, Hand-in-Hand Mutual Life Insurance Company and the Registrar of the Supreme Court in respect of a property located at Lot 29 Subryanville, Kitty, Georgetown upon which part of the school has been built.

CJIA on high alert!
THE United States Embassy has warned that it had received “unconfirmed threat information” about Caribbean Airlines’ flights, and urged Americans to avoid using that carrier. A security message posted on the embassy’s website reads: “Out of an abundance of caution, the Embassy advises all U.S. citizens in Guyana travelling on Caribbean Airlines (CAL) to the United States from Monday February 10 through Wednesday, February 12, 2014 to make alternate travel arrangements.” The embassy also called on U.S. citizens travelling to, or residing in, Guyana to enroll in the Department of State’s Smart Traveller Enrollment Programme (STEP), which gives the latest security updates and makes for easier contact in an emergency. The Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA), in a statement said a heightened security posture will remain in place over a number of days, until such time as the threat is no longer deemed valid.

TUESDAY 11
Bill passed to allow Local Gov’t Elections by August
THE National Assembly, after rigorous debate over the importance of local government elections to the democracy, passed the Local Authorities (Elections) (Amendment) Bill 2013, which states that elections must be held on or before August 1, 2014. The Bill’s passage was pushed by the Opposition, which used its one-seat majority to its advantage, even as government MPs argued in a favour of the date being on or before December 1, 2014. The August date was made via an amendment to the Bill, proposed by A Partnership for National Unity, while the House was in Committee.

Basil Williams unanimously elected Deputy Speaker
A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) Member, Mr. Basil Williams was elected Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly. His was the only nomination for the post to fill the vacancy left by the resignation of other Member of Parliament (MP) Deborah Backer and the House, unanimously, supported the election of front-bencher Williams.

His nomination was by APNU Chief Whip, Amna Ally and seconded by Dr. Rupert Roopnarine. Dr. Karen Cummings replaces Backer in Parliament
VETERAN Member of Parliament (MP), Ms. Deborah Backer who resigned her seat recently, has been replaced by Dr. Karen Cummings. The latter was sworn in as Backer’s replacement in the National Assembly. Speaker of the House, Mr. Raphael Trotman acknowledged the loss of Backer as an MP and noted that her resignation was “very sorrowful” news. He added that a letter from the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) confirmed that Cummings’ name, to replace Backer’s, was taken from A Partnership for National Unity’s (APNU’s) List of Candidates, which was presented on Nomination Day, prior to the December 2011 general elections.

Man wounds another after request for $100 was denied – court hears
KEMPT Beckles, charged with unlawful wounding, was placed on $125,000 bail by Chief Magistrate Priya Sewnarine-Beharry. Particulars of the indictable offence said that on January 21 he unlawfully and maliciously wounded Seekumar Outar. Police Inspector Michael Grant, prosecuting, said the virtual complainant was in the vicinity of Demico House in the Stabroek Market area when the accused asked him for $100. He told Beckles he did not have any money. Subsequently, an argument erupted between the parties and the accused armed himself with a broken piece of bottle and dealt a lash to Outar’s head, along with several stabs to his armpit. The prosecutor did not object to bail and the case was put off to March 6 for a report.

Fire razes Grove house, owner and family homeless
FIREFIGHTERS were combing the debris in their bid to determine the origin of a fire which swept through a dwelling house at Lot 55 Public Road, Grove, leaving the owner Vanessa Higgins and three family members homeless, and considerable damage done to neighbouring properties. Higgins, who is employed as a Day Care Teacher at Eccles Day Care Centre, East Bank of Demerara, as well as conducts her own beverage and food vending business, was attending a funeral at Eccles Assembly of God Church, also on the East Bank, when around 14:30 hrs she received a phone call from a mechanic living across the road from her, informing that her home was on fire. Higgins said that in an impulsive response, she told the man, “Don’t make them kinds o’ joke”, but the mechanic insisted that he was serious. She hurried home, only to find the building fully engulfed and she was unable to save anything. “When I reached home everything done burn, everything burn,” she lamented, noting that all she had acquired in the 18 years she was living there had gone up in flames.

WEDNESDAY 12
Parliament unanimously approves bill on electronic verbatim recording in courts
THE National Assembly unanimously passed the Recording of Court Proceedings Bill 2014 which Government said will speed up the operations of the courts, through electronic verbatim recording of proceedings, rather than the current lengthy manual note-taking process.

Piloting the measure through the House, Minister of Legal Affairs, Mr. Anil Nandlall said that it introduces to Guyana’s legal system, for the first time ever, automatic recordings of court proceedings using technological apparatus.

Rohee charges Stabroek News with biased coverage
GENERAL Secretary Mr. Clement Rohee expressed the People’s Progressive Party’s (PPP’s) concerns over what he called “bias” in sections of the media, in particular Stabroek News. He said his expression follows an in-house survey comparing coverage in the local dailies. In the four-month period, the Stabroek News covered these three political parties 68 times. The PNCR/APNU has 68 percent of the coverage; the AFC had 24 percent of the coverage while the party with the largest amount of seats in the National Assembly, the PPP, had less than 10 percent of the coverage. The other interesting finding that the PPP discovered was that, during the period, the Stabroek News totally blanked the PPP Press Conferences from its newspaper’s pages. Stabroek News covered more than 50 percent of the APNU press conferences. These hard facts now, empirically, confirm what the PPP has known for some time about the pro-APNU anti-PPP position of the Stabroek News.

Motion approves increase ERC membership
PARLIAMENT approved a motion to increase the membership of the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC) to include one representative each from the Indo-Guyanese, Afro-Guyanese and indigenous people cultural/ ethnic group. The motion on the appointment of members of the ERC, including the new category, had been moved by Dr. George Norton, M.P. and Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee of Appointments, which had also included representatives from all three political parties represented in the National Assembly. Dr. Norton had been mandated by Parliament to nominate representatives for President Donald Ramotar to appoint as members to the ERC, their numbers being no less than five nor more than fifteen, after the entities are determined by votes not less than two-thirds of all the elected members of the National Assembly.

CARIFORUM countries can significantly reduce annual food import bill by working together
AGRICULTURE Minister, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy is convinced that CARIFORUM countries can significantly reduce their total annual food import bill, which stands at in excess of US$4 billion, by working together in producing more food domestically, and in removing the barriers to related intra-regional trade. He made the assertion following completion of a one-day Buyers Forum held by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) under a programme aimed at improving market linkages between buyers and producers in CARIFORUM countries.

This activity fell under one of the three components of the intra-ACP Agriculture Policy Programme (APP), funded by the European Union (EU) and implemented by IICA in partnership with the CARICOM Secretariat and the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI). The EU-funded programme aims at promoting the development of small producers/entrepreneurs in the agricultural sector of CARIFORUM countries, thereby increasing the amounts of locally grown food on plates in the Caribbean, and enabling Caribbean farmers to be adequately paid for their work.

THURSDAY 13
Defendants in cocaine–in-achar allegations remanded
SADIKA Leona Odie, a 38-year-old model of Burrowes School of Art who was charged with drug trafficking was refused bail Monday by Chief Magistrate Priya Sewnarine-Beharry.

Odie of Lot 186 Thomas Street, Kitty, Georgetown, pleaded not guilty to the charge that said on Saturday, February 8 at Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA), Timehri, East Bank of Demerara, she had 9.274 kilogrammes of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking. Meanwhile, 78-year-old Winston Blades, of Lot 121 Meadow Brook Gardens, Georgetown, who was also busted with cocaine in achar was also refused bail in the same court. He too denied the allegation which said on Saturday, February 8 at Cheddi Jagan International Airport (CJIA), Timehri, East Bank of Demerara, he had 10.658 kilogrammes of cocaine.

Woman paid $400,000 for sex DVD with husband
FAZEELA Khan, 26, of Lot 247 ‘BB’ Eccles, East Bank of Demerara, charged with obtaining money by false pretence, was granted $125,000 bail. She appeared before Chief Magistrate Priya Sewnarine-Beharry and pleaded not guilty to the charge that said, on Friday, February 7, at Vlissingen Road, Georgetown, she falsely obtained $400,000, by pretending to be in possession of DVD which contains sexual content of Trisha Persaud’s husband, knowing same to be false. Police Inspector Michael Grant, prosecuting, said the defendant made arrangement to hand over the DVD to Persaud in exchange for the money. He said Khan left her car approximately five feet away from the virtual complainant’s car to make the exchange but was apprehended by police ranks. The case was put off to March 10.

Mother charged with injecting insulin in her children
GAIL De Jonge, 24, who resides in the Linden Hospital Complex at Mackenzie and accused of injecting her children with insulin, was slapped with an assault charge. Before Chief Magistrate Priya Sewnarine-Beharry she pleaded not guilty to having, on Friday, February 7 at Linden Hospital Complex, unlawfully assaulted Huette Moore. Police Sergeant Vernetta Pindar, prosecuting, did not relate the circumstances under which the offence was committed but stated that the defendant is a nurse attached to the Linden Hospital Complex and requested that she be refused pre-trial freedom, because she may pose a danger to both the virtual complainant and her children.

The prosecutor informed the court that De Jonge is alleged to have injected her seven year and eleven-year-old children with insulin. She said that led to the social worker going to investigate the allegation and the nurse and the virtual complainant had an altercation during which she assaulted Moore.

FRIDAY 14
Four in custody over killing of murder witness
FOUR persons are in police custody following the slaying of a murder witness at the Canefield Nursery School in East Canje. The bloodied body of Kenneth Khanai, 56, of Gangaram Village, another East Canje location, was discovered by Headmistress Deomattie Bhowandin at approximately 07:45hrs, as she entered the school building. Prior to the discovery, the teacher on approaching the building questioned why the pupils were outside the locked building when the school should have been opened for classes. Meanwhile, Khanai, alias Puri, was charged for having an unlicensed firearm and ammunition. Further he was charged with being an accessory after the fact of murder, in that he allegedly harboured and assisted Ramdhanie Persaud, called ‘Prackask’ or ‘Prack’, who allegedly murdered his reputed wife Bibi Shameena Deen on March 20, 2012. Prior to instituting the charges on Khanai, police went to a farm owned by the now deceased man, at Besscut New Forest, East Canje where they found a .38 special revolver, 23- 16- gauge cartridges and seven live 12-gauge cartridges.
Mashramani exhibition opens at National Museum
MASHRAMANI is not just about the flag-raising, road parade and competitions but the celebrations include a commemorative aspect. In this regard, the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport launched its annual Mashramani Exhibition at the National Museum. The vibrantly coloured displays illustrated aspects of the mash celebrations including masquerade, the parade, flag-raising and depictions from the various ethnic groups’ folklore. The exhibition will conclude on March 8, and it is anticipated that many citizens particularly school children will visit the exhibition. Apart from that exhibition, another one will be opened at Castellani House where the attention will be on Guyanese sculptures. The Republic Lecture Series by Clem Seecharran is another commemorative activity on the Mash schedule.

Hope Canal Bridge opens to traffic
THE National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) has advised the public that the long-awaited Hope Canal Bridge, component 2 of the East Demerara Water Conservancy- Hope Canal Project, is going to be commissioned on Saturday. According to a statement from the NDIA, opening the bridge is the first step in the “operationalisation procedure for this facility” and it is expected that the other components will soon follow.

20-yr-old charged with murder at age 10
TWENTY-YEAR-OLD Ryan Adams, called Orlando Andrews, of Buxton, East Coast of Demerara, who was charged with murder at the age of ten, but was not arrested until he was 14, was freed of the charge by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). He had been incarcerated for 10 years. Before discharging Andrews, Judge Franklyn Holder told him, among other things, “Go, and walk the straight and narrow path.” Earlier, Prosecutor Mrs. Judith Mursalin told the judge that because the evidence on the record did not support the charge, the DPP had decided to enter a nolle prosequi (withdrawal of the charge against the accused).

SATURDAY 15
Guyana earns further reprieve over Anti-Money Laundering bill
THE France-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has agreed that Guyana should be reviewed again in another three months on the crucially important Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Bill, which has won widespread support from almost everyone, except from the parliamentary Opposition parties. The Government of Guyana said it has been advised that the FATF Plenary members, during their meeting on Thursday February 13, 2014 accepted the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) (ICRG) recommendation that Guyana, et al, be reviewed subsequent to the CFATF next Plenary’s decision in May of 2014. The Government noted that this is the substance of the CFATF public statement made in November 2013 when the National Assembly defeated the Government’s AML/CFT Amendment Bill No.12 2013 on November 7, 2013. The Government said it wishes to go on record to “thank” Guyanese citizens, civil society bodies with particular reference to the business community and their organisations, the labour movement, the diplomatic community, the Organisation of American States and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and all who publicly lent support to the Government’s efforts in what were and continue to be “unique and unprecedented circumstances.” The Government is also once again calling on the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance For Change (AFC) leaders that the AML/CFT Amendment Bill must be passed in the National Assembly as urgently as possible before the end of this month.

Footballer Peter Lashley killed by sand truck
FORMER National Player/Coach and Administrator of the Georgetown Football Club (GFC), Peter Lashley known as ‘Peter Graham’, 54, of Lot 6 ‘D’ Tucville, was killed when he found himself underneath a truck on Mandela Avenue, also in the city. At the time, he was riding his motorcycle on the way to work at John Fernandes Ltd. (JFL), where he was employed for many years as a gate clerk. The accident occurred in the vicinity of the National Gymnasium. Investigations, so far, revealed that Lashley rode out of the Meadow Brook access road and, allegedly, failed to stop and was struck down by a lorry that was proceeding along Mandela Avenue. The driver of the lorry is in police custody assisting with the investigations.

UG students bemoan condition of stray animals on Turkeyen Campus
IN addition to being deemed as having an aquatic sports field, the University of Guyana is considered a home for domestic animals. The issue of stray animals occupying the Turkeyen Campus has been raised on many occasions by students, hoping that the relevant authorities would intervene. However, due to the failure to address this issue, the current situation is a problematic one. And not only is this situation dangerous, but it could also embarrass those responsible for maintenance of the compound, when events are to be held.

Suspects in Trevor Rose execution released on bail
THE suspects in the Trevor Rose murder probe, who were arrested and held for 72 hours, have been released on station bail. The men were being sought by the police for questioning about the execution of the designer and events promoter in January. Last weekend they were both apprehended and questioned before being let go earlier this week, Crime Chief Seelall Persaud confirmed to the Guyana Chronicle. The Deputy Commissioner (Crime) could not say, however, at which police station the men had been detained, how much bail was granted them and exactly when. Asked if the police took possession of the passports of the duo, after they were placed on bail, he responded in the negative.

Three accused in septic tank murder case committed for High Court trial
RALPH ‘Nick’ Tyndall, 27, of Lot 31 ‘C’ Field Sophia; Anthony De Paul Hope, called ‘Papa’, 26, of Lot 55 William Street, Kitty; and Kevin O’Neil, 26, of Seaforth Street, Campbellville, accused of murdering Colleen Forrester on December 27, 2008 at William Street, Campbellville, Georgetown and dumping her body in a septic tank, were again committed to stand trial in the High Court after conclusion of their second Preliminary Inquiry (PI). The first PI, conducted before Magistrate Hazel Octive-Hamilton, had resulted in the three being committed to stand trial at the High Court. The case was quashed by Justice Diana Insanally on October 28, 2013 and a new preliminary inquiry was ordered. In making the order, the defence submissions were accepted in support of a preliminary objection, which claimed that an unsworn statement of a child of tender age was the only evidence on which the Committal Order was based. A voir dire (a trial within a trial) will have to be held to determine admissibility of caution statements by the accused. At the last PI, a voir dire had been started, but was not completed.

The judge, having listened to the submissions in the absence of the jury, told them afterwards that she was satisfied that the case was not properly brought, and would have to be sent back to the magistrate.
The second PI was conducted before Magistrate Judy Latchman, and thirteen witnesses were called by the prosecution to testify. The trial was given a completion time frame of four months. It was sent before Magistrate Latchman on October 28, 2013, and the PI commenced on November 15 last.
That PI was completed, after both defence counsels and the prosecution had made their submissions. The trio was informed that, based on the evidence, the court had found that a prima facie case had been established against them for the offence of murder, and there is sufficient evidence for them to stand a trial at the next practical sitting of the High Court.