PORT-OF-SPAIN – Acting Police Commissioner James Philbert said on Friday that police had arrested five people believed to be part of a plot unearthed by security forces to disrupt the 2010 general election.The arrests were made after lawmen raided a house in Carenageon Thursday night, where they recovered a deadly AK-47 rifle and T-shirts belonging to the New National Vision (NNV) political party led by Fuad Abu Bakr, the son of 1990 attempted coup leader Yasin Abu Bakr.Among those arrested were a 15-year-old boy from Ariapita Roadin St Ann’s; a 22-year-old woman of McKenzie Drive Point Cumana, Carenage, a 25-year-old former member of the T&T Coast Guard of Gonzales Road, Belmont, and two other suspects, ages 27 and 21, of Ariapita Road St Ann’s, and McKenzie Drive, Point Cumana, Carenage, respectively.Philbert disclosed the threat during an emergency press conference called on Friday evening at the Police Administration Building in Port-of-Spain. Police sources said the suspects are members of a particular religious organisation in the country. They were held at a house at McKenzie Drive, Point Cumana, Carenage.“We have unearthed credible information which suggests that a certain group has expressed its intention to disrupt election proceedings, and acting on that information, as of last night, police from the Western Division responded to information and conducted searches, and in a particular house in the Carenage district. They arrested five people and they foundan AK-47 assault rifle, together with two magazines containinga total of 48 rounds of ammunition,” he said.“We want to reassure the public that the Police Service intends to carry out its mandate to the fullest extent of the law, and no one would be allowed to disrupt the elections campaigns [and] the elections proceedings. “We intend to allow no one and no body and no group, whosoever they are, to stop us from exercising our democratic rights in Trinidad and Tobago,” he said. “Our officers will act fiercely, fearlessly and fairly within the ambit of the law. “We assure the law-abiding citizens of T&T that persons will feel the full brunt of the law if they intend to, and if they show their intentions, to disrupt proceedings or disrupt any aspect of peace in Trinidad and Tobago, not only at this time, but before and after the elections as well,” Philbert said. (Trinidad Express)
Civil service accepts pay cut
GEORGE TOWN – The Cayman Islands Civil Service Association has indicated it will not oppose government plans to cut workers’ salaries by 3.2 per cent starting in July.However, the group’s president has said government might consider implementing the pay cut a bit differently than has been proposed.According to government emails and memos obtained by the Caymanian Compass last week, the across-the-board pay reduction would affect all civil service departments as well as some statutory authorities and government-owned companies as of July 1 – the beginning of the upcoming budget year.Civil Service Association President James Watler said that reduction means a cut in monthly pension allotments government workers receive. Also, any older civil servants retiring under the defined benefit pension system next year would end up taking a lower monthly pension payment, since their final pensions are based on their last month’s salary before retirement.Both situations could be avoided, Watler said, if government would implement the pay cut as a furlough – essentially giving government employees unpaid days off.This would allow those workers to keep both their current pay grade as well as any pension payments, he said. Civil servants would likely have to take four or five days off for the year to make the 3.2 per cent pay cut.“Taking unpaid leave would help protect pensions and it would not have a direct impact on civil servants’ salary grades,” he said. “We urge government to consider this option.”As far as the pay cut itself, he said the idea was actually suggested earlier this year by the association, although they proposed it only as a temporary measure.“The Civil Service Association has always stepped up to the plate when called upon to do so,” Watler said.(CayCompass.com)
Comforted by God’s power
by CHERYL HAREWOODSHE WAS sexually molested by a family member when she was just six years old. At the age of seven she was frequently undressed and her private parts fondled by her primary school teacher.By the time she was nine, and left in the care of a family friend, she further suffered sexual, physical and verbal abuse by older men. When she entered secondary school, after attending eight primary schools, young Patricia became a cold-hearted, angry, radical teenager, who did whatever she could to protect herself from those who sought to take advantage of her.A school dropout by 16, and pregnant at 18, Patricia was suddenly faced with health issues, including spinal, hand and neck pains.And, as if her life was not filled enough with challenges and let-downs as a child, she would have to weep bitterly over her son’s lifeless body. The mother was confronted by the bloody tragedy just three years ago: the second of her three sons –25-year-old Jason Hinkson –was murdered. By then, she had received the heartbreaking news that she had contracted the HIV virus – the result of one of eight blood transfusions for her severe anemic condition.Today, Patricia Forde Hinkson, who was born in Trinidad to a Barbadian mother and Grenadian father, and who came to Barbados when she was 15 months old, has sought to change everything about her life – even her name to that of Faith.A born-again believer, she claims her faith in God has resulted in “healing from the HIV virus”. Now, she takes one instead of seven pills daily, and visits the clinic once every six months, compared with twice a month. Even in the midst of her pain and discovery she had the HIV virus in 2004, Patricia found love. She would walk down the aisle on August 31, 2008, at her side her husband Hallam – the man who married her despite her HIV status, and vowed to love, protect and support her, come what may. As a tearful Patricia sat to share her story with the Sunday Sun, she wanted to make it clear that she was reaching out to young people and hurting women.She also hoped her story would turn the drug addict, prostitute, homosexual, and those “facing life’s difficulties” to God – who she said“has been her constant source of strength”.Patricia, who came to Barbados in 1963, was first confronted by incest through her aunt’s children who “often interfered” with her.“At the age of seven, when I entered primary school, one of the male teachers would pull down my panties and fondle me,” Hinkson recalled.By the time she was eight, a 19-year-old cousin made her his target for further sexual abuse. She told no one of the sexual molestations.At eight years old, Hinkson had already attended five schools, because of her mum’s constant moving.When her mum wentoff to greener pastures in the United States, she left Patricia with a friend.The sexual abuse started all over again – this time by older men. A radical Patricia emerged at secondary school, and by aged 16, she was a dropout.“By then my mother had returned, but I had already started looking for love in all the wrong places. She was unable to show me love, because she too was abused,” said Patricia, who never met her dad. “After my daughter was born, things got worse. Her father disowned her,” said Patricia.By now a lover of parties, Patricia met another man, who fathered two of her three sons. That relationship soon died.At 23, she met a 41-year old man and within a year they were married. Sadly,that turned out to be another abusive relationship.Within a year she was back on her own.When Patricia gave birth to her third son before her divorce was final, she also suffered verbal abuse from her former husband who accused her of infidelity while they were married.“That was never the case,” she said.Fed up and hurt after this relationship too ended on the rocks, Patricia was next involved in a three-year same-sex relationship, a life she later regretted living in front of her children.“I knew it was a phase. I never saw myself as a lesbian. I just had no love for men,” she explained. Her desire for a better life took her to Canada; but even there bad luck seemingly followed. She was robbed of her possessions; ended up a hostel; and her daughter was sexually molested.Then in 2000, she was arrested and imprisoned for a month after threatening her employer because of ill treatment.Back home, she returned to church – a place she had left because of discouragement. Today, now sold on God, Patricia wants others to learn from her mistakes – and for believers to be real. “We give our lives to God but we still carry baggage,” she admitted.“I’ve been through a lot, but God has been good in spite of it all. “We in church need to stop being hypocrites and tell people that we messed up before, and we mess up sometimes because the flesh is always fighting against the spirit.”“Too many Christians make others believe they never had issues before meeting Christ. The church is just a hospital.”The former morgue technician, who hopes to make it in the field of beauty, thinks believers ought to show more love and compassion.“In church there is a lost world going to hell in a ham basket. People turn to drugs and all forms of addiction because they don’t know who to turned to,” said Patricia, who became a member of Restoration Ministriesin 2004.It was there she found love from pastors and church members.Love also came from others at the clinic.“I can’t sit back today and worry about people pointing fingers at me,” said Patricia, who went from 180 to 152 pounds after the blood transfusion.“They don’t know what I’ve been through.”Pressures and stress caused her to give up her job and she is yet to pay for her son’s funeral arrangements.Her husband,who describes her as his tower of strength,also gave up his security job to nurse her whenher spinal condition became unbearable.Going to the clinic has been an eye-opener.“I’ve met all kinds of people. Those who wantto ostracise, shun or discriminate against me would have to shun the person on the ZR van;in the hospital; the church; the restaurant and even their friends who are too scared to say they are HIV positive. Many people we come into contact with daily have the HIV virus.“It is through Christ that I am victorious. I know I am healed by the power of God,” said Patricia, who now has great respect for abstinence. Had she known better then, the 47-year-old said she would have charted a different course for her life.“I’ve learnt that life’s difficulties, and even HIV and AIDS, do not find people because they are promiscuous. HIV can happen innocently.“If my story can help anyone, I’ll be happy.“I am not interested in what people will say, only in the saving power of Jesus Christ. God looks beyond our faults and sees our needs.“None of us knows what will happen to us. I want to tell young people and the church to trust God,” she said.Now a devout prayer warrior, Patricia also believes too many Christians are seeking titles, rather than God.“I am not interested in titles, only in how much another believer cares and loves humanity.”She and her husband – a former cocaine, marijuana and alcohol addict – possess a deep love for the lost.“We thank God for everything he has done in our lives. We pray together, encourage others,and want to help those who are broken and need encouragement,” said husband Hallam, who stressed that when he and Patricia got married, God miraculously provided everything for them debt-free. “My dream is to see unity in the church,” declared Patrica,who plans to write a book about her life and God’s transforming power.
Ex-thug on God’s side
by MARLON MADDEN and ANESTA HENRY
BAD MAN, thug for life, Death Row, Out Law, Black Jesus and F…$ The World are tattooed on various parts of his body. He also once lived by the slogans of his gang: Ride Or Die and Thug Til I Die.Shawn Marshall was too busy living the life of a gangsta to consider life’s positives. That was then.Since March of this year he has turned his life around, and is now a man of God. He’s on a mission to help transform the lives of those who now live the life he shuns.Marshall, 34, said he was part of a gang for more than ten years.In an interview with the SUNDAY SUN, Marshall said he had a rough life growing up and that that was one reason he had joined the gang: one based in Black Rock, St Michael.“My life growing up was hard. My mother was a domestic worker and I didn’t have a father or a father figure. So I didn’t grow up with that guidance, and that is what a lot of the youths are growing up without.” He grew up seeing his sisters being sexually exploited by other relatives – debilitating images that remained etched in his mind for many years.“But I forgave,” Marshall declared.“Seeing my sisters being abused was mental abuse for me . . . . And my mother and I never had the relationship that a mother and son should,” he disclosed.Marshall, who joined his gang at 17, and whose “speciality” was robbery, told of some of his activities.“We had rivalry. We had ‘beef’ and war with other turfs – about three or four other gangs. We used to roll up on them and shoot at the men, and so on. “The men used to roll with nine-millimetres and Glock 40s and .38s. Drugs land here, and it doesn’t land without guns. “I wasn’t involved with the drugs, but robbery was my line; and I had this sort of theory, ‘God put me here for them sort of people who think them real cruel’. “I felt like I was invincible, like nothing could touch me; but God showed me He had a plan for me,” said the St Thomas resident.Marshall said that sometimes the gang he was a part of used other people to carry out their game plans.“You know there are youngsters that honour you; so things that you know you are not going to do, you send them to do. But if it is something that they can’t handle, you would handle it yourself. “They had a hit man on the block, and he died at age 17. His job was just to shoot and kill people. The last time he did [a killing], the next week he got killed.“We bought guns. We never landed without them – there are weed-runners and gunrunners in Barbados. We could get one gun for $5 000, depending on the type; and then we could get them more expensive too. “The gangstas on the street have guns just like what the police have,” Marshall claimed. During a decade of mischief and crime, and a life of uncertainty and cruelty, he has been sent to Dodds several times. But it was during his recent stay there, nine months of it, that he took time out to reflect on all he had done. “I am telling this story for the other young people out there; to show them that God changed me. If God could change me, he can change them. But they have to want to change too. “I think God put me in jail for a reason. I wasn’t vex for being in jail – because of the way that I was rolling. “God had to slow me down that year because I was on a fast pace; and he put me there to work on me. I had time to reflect. Maybe if I didn’t go at that time I would have gone at a different time for a bigger charge – maybe murder or something; or maybe someone would have killed me,” the repentant gansta testified.He hasn’t returned to the block since, and hasn’t smoked any ganja either, he insists.Marshall said he was now waiting on God to direct him when he should go back on the block to help him “change some of the youngsters out there”.He has a few regrets – among them the tattoos.“I wish I could take them off now. They may look pretty, but they are openings for demons . . . ,” he lamented. “I got them anointed with oil.”Marshall said that being involved in gang-related activities was not easy, and that it was a life no one should aspire to live.“Don’t take it up. Don’t start,” he warns. “Don’t even look at it. I have friends that are dead and some doinglong prison terms because of gang activities. “It might look sweet because you smoking and rolling with guns and with people who you think have your back. But, at the end of the day, if you are not one of the lucky ones, you will die in it.“I know some people are crying down the youths, but it doesn’t start with the youths. It had to start somewhere before,” Marshall argues.The former gangsta believes it started with the youths’ parents – and the parents before them. The children didn’t just wake up one morning and decide to be how they are, he insists. “It has to do with the Government too. You see poverty? It force you into doing things you don’t want to do.”
Picture this!
Forty pieces of photography by young Barbadians are now on display at the Barbados Museum after the National Geographic Photo Camp’s Exhibition was launched last Friday night.The exhibition, under the theme Waterworks: A Visual Expedition Of Barbados, was a culmination of a one-week camp held earlier this year, with 20 students of various schools in Barbados being trained by top photographers and graphic artists of National Geographic to capture island images of a water theme. The project was also funded by the United States Embassy.United States Charge d’Affaires Dr Brent Hardt and his wife Sasha Hardt, deputy assistant secretary Julissa Reynoso and council president of the Barbados Museum & Historical Society, Dr Trevor Carmichael, participated in the opening, showering the budding photographers with praises.The artistic quality of the photos suggested that the offerings could be at home in any national art gallery, the poignant images of varied Barbadian life calling out for them to be kept longer on display atThe Museum.Photo camper Melanie Grant described the week as a once in a lifetime opportunity where students were taught many valuable principles by top professionals. She said they had developed lasting relationships, and “it all climaxed” when they were given their own SLR digital cameras.Barbados also topped the National Geographic record for such camps, with students contributing2 900 images. (KB)
Jones: Step up, parents
MINISTER of Education Ronald Jones is urging parents to step up to the plate to confront the menace the cellular phone fever is posing to their children.And he says by the end of the term, every single parent will receive a brochure outlining the rules on cellphones in schools.Delivering the keynote address at a graduation for theological students and a thanksgiving service for benefactors of Codrington College yesterday, Jones said he was concerned that over half a billion dollars was pumped into education annually only to be frittered away “by persons who can’t settle down in any classroom”.Before an audience that included Archbishop John Holder, former bishop Rufus Broome and ex-Cabinet minister Sir Frederick Smith, Jones said parents needed to understand the uncontrolled use of cellphones could have on primary and secondary schoolchildren.“We can’t have our young people caught up in all kinds of behaviours that are not good for them as individuals. They are using Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to transfer images that they don’t understand and when they come across an image, it just spreads like fire on dry grass.“I love the use of technology, but I am an adult and I know how to take the decision as to what flows into my being, but many of our young people, six, seven, eight years-old, have not reached that maturity to be facing the barrage of what they have to face,” he said.The outspoken minister said he had an unequivocal position on the use of cellphones within schools and would not retreat.“I keep telling people I am not a politician, I am a community worker. Sometimes we make measurements as ‘if I do this, I am not going to get that vote’.“Let me say I don’t worry about the vote, because if I worry about the vote, then I slip, the country slips and all of us are destroyed. Somebody has to step to the plate and say enough is enough. “I have been challenged to work with young people as Minister of Education and therefore I don’t apologise.“The phones are yours, keep them at home. Do not bring them into the school,” he said.Jones told budding priests and their relatives the modern-day technology and its spin-offs presented a far different challenge to yesteryear. “It isn’t the black-and-white television with everyone sitting around it anymore. It is every child with a cellphone with technologies that are way beyond what the black-and-white TV had,” he said. The minister said the major reason for attending school was to learn values and be enriched in education rather than “having a cellphone for cheating in an exam, to provide pornography or all manner of negatives”.
• mikeking@ nationnews.com
Google to sell Nexus One offline, close Web store
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google Inc. will close an online store that it set up to sell its Nexus One phone and rely on traditional retailers instead.The shift announced Friday ends Google’s attempt to develop a new sales model for the mobile industry. Google had hoped to shake things up by establishing its online store as the only place to buy the Nexus One, which the company hailed as a “super” phone when it debuted amid fanfare in January.But consumers didn’t embrace the idea of buying a phone without any hands-on experience.“As with every innovation, some parts worked better than others,” Andy Rubin, a Google executive overseeing the Nexus One, wrote in a Friday blog post.Rubin said Google will stop selling the Nexus One in its Web store as soon as it lines up other U.S. retailers to carry the device.Google hasn’t disclosed how many Nexus One units it has sold so far.Nexus One is just one of many different smart phones that rely on Google’s free Android operating system.The alternatives also are proving to be an obstacle for the Nexus One. Two major carriers, Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp., recently decided not to support the Nexus One because they prefer other Android-powered phones.
Browne: It’s up to govt
RESTORING CONFIDENCE in the market after the CLICO crash was Trinidad and Tobago’s key action and responsibility.And while not seeking to offer Barbados a prescription for how to handle the controversial CLICO International Life Insurance Company, Trinidad’s junior finance minister Mariano Browne said where there was no market-based solution, it is incumbent on the state to step in.“What we have sought to do is to return confidence to the market by indicating that [government] will guarantee the survival of the insurance company,” said Browne, a former Butterfield Bank (Barbados) managing director who was asked to serve in the Patrick Manning Cabinet two years ago.“As you are aware, CLICO is not just a financial entity. It is very much a conglomerate with a number of financial interests and those interests were financed by policyholders’ funds. So it acted very much like a bank, effectively, in real terms but without many of the controls of a bank, so we in Trinidad and Tobago had to act in a fashion that is wide-ranging,” he told BARBADOS BUSINESS AUTHORITY in an interview in Port-of-Spain last week.“We had a diverse approach to what is a multifaceted and difficult problem and we have operated to give confidence to the marketplace to ensure that depositors are protected in all instances,” Browne pointed out.The junior finance minister said there were precedents for how to deal with insurance companies that ran into difficulty.According to Browne, the parts of the insurance company that were “salvageable” should be taken over by the marketplace.“Where there is a market-based opportunity, use the marketplace. Where there is none, then the role will have to be taken by the state. The state will have to make a determination . . . . I am not in a position to give Barbados advice on what it should do but to point out that there is [a] precedent elsewhere, and the precedent in the Caribbean would be Jamaica.“They had a significant financial collapse involving insurance companies and non-bank financial intermediaries in the 1980s and 1990s and they had to take some decisions and work out some solutions. The relevant example would be Sagicor, which grew substantially by purchasing many of the insurance companies that got into difficulty,” he noted.After pumping more than TT$5 billion (BDS$1.5 billion) into the CL Financial group, the ultimate parent company of CLICO Holdings Barbados Limited, Browne said going forward, financial sector regulation in Trinidad would be more “robust”. He said a number of pieces of legislation governing the financial sector would be heading to parliament in the next session.
Consulting firm: Exciting times ahead
While the regulatory fallout for international business jurisdictions has been viewed with trepidation by some since the global financial crisis, one international financial consultant thinks Barbados is in a good position to profit from coming changes.Jérôme de Lavenère Lussan, founder and chief executive officer of the London-based Laven Partners consulting firm, is of the opinion that there are “exciting opportunities” ahead for this island as businesses look to move away from jurisdictions that have not been as “cautious” as Barbados has been in terms of the types of businesses it licenses and regulates.As he addressed the April monthly luncheon of the Barbados International Business Association (BIBA) recently, Lussan said that Barbados’ immediate positioning on the top tier of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development “white list” of tax- transparent jurisdictions was “phenomenal” in helping firms like his promote Barbados to international investors.He added that Barbados needed to use the momentum gained from that to go “one step further” and enthusiastically market the island, especially in the area of fund management, because it had the potential to be “the Luxembourg of the Caribbean”.Lussan told BIBA members at the Savannah Hotel in Hastings, Christ Church, that despite Barbados’ being a well-regulated, well-respected jurisdiction, it was not as well known for its financial industry among international investors as the Cayman Islands or the British Virgin Islands. Lussan raised the concern that Barbados’ lack of membership in the international Financial Action Task Force (FATF) was harming its chances as a jurisdiction of first choice. Although Barbados is a member of the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force, Lussan noted that some international institutions were prohibited for compliance reasons from conducting business in countries that were not FATF members. (PR)
FIREARM CHECKS
THOROUGH BACKGROUND CHECKS are a must before you can possibly get a firearm licence. Commissioner of Police Darwin Dottin stressed this point yesterday as he responded to critics of the time it has been taking for licensed firearm applications to be processed.“As was said by a member of staff, issuing firearm licences is not issuing for the importation or sale of bread. These are implements or weapons that are lethal,” the police chief told the SUNDAY SUN. “And so I think that you have to be certain about whatever measures that are put in place, and that they don’t put the society at risk.”Dottin’s comments followed recent charges by local gun dealers that the slow process by police was seriously affecting their businesses.But the top cop said:” [Processing applications] is going to take some time, given the increase in the number of applications, given the background checks that have to be carried out, just to make certain that firearms don’t fall into the hands of undesirable persons.“So I think that is a small price to pay for our security in this country.”Noting there was a significant increase in applications for firearms over the past years, Dottin said the approval rate had been “veritably stable”.“In 2008 we processed 157 applications; in 2009 we processed 204. In 2008, 94 applications were refused, 57 approved; and we granted 27 changes of [firearm] calibre. In 2009, 41 applications were refused and 64 approved; and [there were] 71 changes of [firearm] calibre.”Dottin also said that a number of the applications made for firearm licences were in most cases status quo requests.“I think that by far and away the majority of the applications we get are [from] people [drawing] attention to their personal property. Also it’s about the type of job they hold. There are some people who feel that because they are law-abiding citizens, that gives them an entitlement to have a firearm,” he said. The police chief also spoke specifically about a concern to firearm dealers.“We have had a recent audit of all firearm dealers and there are some findings that have caused me some concern; and I am going to be having a meeting with firearm dealers to bring some observations to their attention.“Such that we can improve some of the practices and standards that we feel are required for the functioning of firearm dealers. We certainly would also be having those discussions with shooting clubs,” he said.Dottin also disclosed that countries that exported firearms and ammunition to Barbados were also concerned about the significant quantities of ammunition being used locally.