Guns bombshell
-- GDF confirms AK-47 rifles stolen from Camp Ayanganna
-- President meets Army, Police chiefs
THE Guyana Defence Force (GDF) late yesterday confirmed that 33 of its high-powered AK-47 rifles have been stolen from the weapons storage bond at its Camp Ayanganna headquarters in Georgetown.

The confirmation raised fears that the automatic weapons may have been sold to criminal gangs, including those holed out in the back lands in Buxton on the East Coast Demerara, known to use AK-47s in attacks.

“While the internal investigation is continuing, efforts are being directed simultaneously to possible linkages with persons in the wider society who may be the recipients of the stolen weapons”, GDF spokesman Lt Col Wilbert Lee told the Guyana Chronicle.

“All leads will be pursued with the audacity and force befitting the military”, he vowed, adding, “We are confident that we will recover the weapons wherever they are.”

He said the investigation has pointed to the “very strong possibility that ranks from the GDF may be involved in the disappearance of these weapons.”

Lee said the guns were stolen recently but the Army was still to determine the period.

The confirmation of the theft of 33 of the Army’s largest weapon type prompted a statement of serious concern from President Bharrat Jagdeo who yesterday met GDF Chief of Staff Brigadier Edward Collins and Police Commissioner Winston Felix on that and the massacre by gunmen in two East Bank Demerara villages Sunday night.

Secretary to the Defence Board, Dr Roger Luncheon, in a statement after the meeting, said Collins and Felix briefed the President on matters related to the recent criminal activities on the East Bank Demerara and the disappearance of weapons from the GDF inventory.

He said President Jagdeo, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, “expressed his deep concerns about the recent criminal activities, particularly the use of automatic and high-powered weapons. Even greater concerns were expressed about the disappearance of the automatic weapons from the GDF.”

He said the Defence Board will meet tomorrow for further deliberations on the reports of the ongoing investigations.

President Jagdeo, he said, expressed condolences to the families of those killed in the criminal onslaught and condemned the terror inflicted on the affected communities on Sunday night.

A heavily-armed gang of about 15 men dressed in black clothes attacked the Two Brothers Gas Station at Eccles, East Bank Demerara Sunday night, killing three private security guards and a young man driving by on the road, and later killed four others in separate incidents in the neighbouring Agricola village.

Confirmation of the theft of the AK-47s followed that of the disappearance of five pistols from the same storage bond in Camp Ayanganna.

Lee said Monday that following the recent reported theft of ammunition and grenades from an army bunker in neighbouring Suriname, Collins ordered a check of the GDF inventory of arms and ammunition.

The check found that five pistols were missing from the storage bond in Camp Ayanganna and Lee said Monday, “we believe others may be missing” from the base in Georgetown.

He said six soldiers, including a Warrant Officer, who were the principal staff assigned to the storage bond, were in detention in Army headquarters.

The six remained in detention yesterday, Lee said.

He reported that a “thorough check of the weapons inventory” of the GDF showed that “all machine guns and M-70 rifles are accounted for.” The checks were continuing but 33 AK-47s have been stolen, he said.

Reflecting the Army’s deep chagrin that its soldiers were most likely responsible, Lee said, “This revelation is of great importance to the Army since it betrays the trust and confidence reposed in those ranks who were responsible for the safe custody of arms and ammunition.”

He maintained that the GDF will be going after the thieves and the weapons.

Lee confirmed too that the guns were spirited out of the storage bond through ventilation mesh cut close to the top of the building.

Checks at other GDF bases around the country have found the weapons inventory intact, he said, adding that all the guns stolen were from Camp Ayanganna.

Massacre probe continues
-- no hard leads on killer gang
POLICE were yesterday trying to get firm leads on the killer gang that mercilessly cut down eight persons, including two pensioners, at Eccles and Agricola on the East Bank Demerara Sunday night, a top official said.

As the investigations continued, the Two Brothers Gas Station that was the target of the attack by a heavily-armed gang of about 15 men dressed in black clothes and which they tried to burn down, was yesterday back in business.

“We are looking into several aspects”, the Police official said last night, adding that no one had yet been arrested in connection with the killings.

The deadly onslaught, in which witnesses said tracer bullets were used, has left the country in shock.

Police Commissioner Winston Felix said Monday the massacre may be linked to the high-speed chase between the Coast Guard and three vessels on the Demerara River on Sunday.

He said investigators have also not ruled out a connection between the killings and what he called “a staged kidnapping” last week involving the four-year-old daughter of an ex-Policeman.

He told reporters a high-level Police team has been assembled to investigate the brazen and deadly attacks.

The investigators, he said, are looking at, among several other things, a possible connection with the drama on Sunday when a trawler and two fibre-glass super-fast escort boats were nabbed by the Guyana Defence Force Coast Guard resulting in 11 persons, including a popular businessman, being arrested and detained by the Police.

Sources yesterday said charges are likely against those detained.

Among those killed Sunday night were three Supernumerary Constables attached to a security firm, two pensioners and a senior employee of the Office of the Georgetown Mayor and City Council (M&CC). The two other persons killed were the operator of an Internet call shop and a young man driving on the road outside the gas station.

Dead are Loris Semple, 33, of #28 Village, West Coast Berbice and 123 Friendship Village, East Coast Demerara; Cedric Dummett, 26, of 8 Public Road Victoria, East Coast Demerara; Sheldon Smartt, 22, of 83 Plum Park, South Sophia; Lavern Garraway-Scott, 31, of Lot 115 Caesar Street, Agricola; David Brummell, 74, of Peter’s Hall; Hannah Cameron, 73, of 40 Brutus Street, Agricola; Otis Rudder, 26, of Lot 1 Republic Road, Bagotstown (and said to be the operator of the Internet shop at Lot 40 Brutus Street, Agricola); and Cecil Duncan, 26, of 143 Da Silva Street, Kitty, Georgetown.

Police and other reports indicated that around 22:00 h on Sunday, about 15 heavily-armed men attacked the gas station at Eccles and in the process shot and killed three Supernumerary Constables attached to the MMC security service.

Police said the security constables - Semple, Dummett and Smartt - were in motor pick-up - PHH 8405 - taking air at the time at the service station. A company official, however, said they were in a patrol that responded to the attack at the gas station.

The three men died before receiving medical attention at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation where they were subsequently rushed.

The man who was apparently in charge of the band of gunmen ordered his group to burn down the place, a source said.

Investigators believe the horrors unleashed at the gas station and the chilling mowing down of security guards responding to a robbery report, was meant to send a clear message to others.

The source said the man who seemed to be leading the gang of some 15 persons who closed in on the gas station was heard to blurt out: “I want this gas station burnt down now.”

Others in the gang set the fuel pumps alight and doused gasoline on a mini-bus parked in the compound, also setting it on fire, the source said.

But persons in the area rushed to put out the spreading flames after the gang fled, spraying bullets from heavy guns that left four men dead.

Eyewitnesses told this newspaper it was sheer pandemonium as the gang of gunmen began shooting indiscriminately. Residents and others said the shooting lasted for at least 20 minutes.

Witnesses said the men also fired on vehicles passing along the East Bank Demerara main road at the time.

Police said Duncan, who was in his motor car, PHH 3829, was shot and died at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation.

Four other persons in other vehicles were also wounded. They are Jason Thomas of Old Road, Eccles, who was shot in his back, treated at the GPHC and sent away; Simone Savory, 17, and Stacy Chinapen, 21, both of Sheriff Street, who were shot in their chest and, according to the Police, remained in serious condition at Woodlands Hospital; and Basdeo Dalloo, 53, of Herstelling, who was shot in his back. He was up to last night still being treated at the Georgetown Hospital.

One hundred and forty three spent shells, four warheads and 13 live rounds of various calibres were retrieved at the scene by the Police.

From all indications and based on various reports, it would seem that some of the gunmen then went to the home of Lavern Garraway-Scott and fired a number of rounds at the house before setting it alight.

The Police said this incident occurred around 23:15 h but other relatives and neighbours said it was much earlier than that.

In full view of her six-year-old daughter, Garraway-Scott was reportedly shot several times about the body before being set alight in her home at 115 Caesar Street, Agricola during a separate but seemingly related incident.

Reports are that five men armed with guns went up to Garraway-Scott’s home and called out her husband’s name. The gunmen also reportedly shot a padlock on the gate, before storming the premises where they were said to have shot the woman several times and then set her home on fire. Garraway-Scott was burnt beyond recognition in the blaze. Her daughter escaped unhurt.

And in another separate (but also seemingly related) incident, gunmen stormed a house at Lot 40 Brutus Street, Agricola where they called out two names, including that of ‘Hannah’ – the 73-year-old occupant of the house.

About 07:30 h Monday,  acting on information received, the Police found the bodies of  David Brummell and Hannah Cameron in a Brutus Street, Agricola house while the body of Otis Rudder was found behind the Agricola Primary School (aback the Brutus Street house).

Police said investigations revealed that a group of men armed with firearms went to the home of Hannah Cameron and enquired for Otis Rudder, her grandson.

The Police said it is believed that Rudder saw the men approaching and ran away but was pursued by some of them.

“In apparent retaliation, the men shot Hannah Cameron in her head and David Brummell in his chest as well as cutting his throat. The bodies were then set on fire on a bed in the house,” the Police said.

The body of Rudder was found behind the Agricola Primary School by school children Monday morning.

The body bore several bullet wounds.

CARICOM links with UN to help cut poverty
By Shawnel Cudjoe
THE Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) yesterday launched a South-South Cooperation Initiative with officials hoping it could help achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) within CARICOM member states.

The initiative, under the theme “Transcending boundaries: Uniting people”, is a follow up to a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed between the two organisations in 2004 and focuses on joint planning and implementation of activities in critical areas of human development.

Deputy Secretary General of CARICOM Ambassador Lolita Applewhaite said CARICOM brings to the partnership a tradition of being able to coordinate sustainable human development activities initiatives among its diverse, yet dynamic constituency of 15 member states.

UNFPA, on the other hand contributes by helping to meet the MDGs with its special expertise in reproductive health and population issues.

This is in keeping with the MDGs – initiated into 2000 at the 55th Session of the United Nations General Assembly – which focus on promoting gender equality, empowering women, improving maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases and developing a global partnership for development, among other things. The deadline for these goals is 2015.

“It is envisaged that by sharing this expertise and relevant experiences among themselves, our member states can transform the MDGs and other development initiatives into reality,” Applewhaite told the gathering.

She added that CARICOM is especially interested in strengthening cooperation in the areas of adolescent sexual and reproductive health, life skills and HIV/AIDS education, career planning and educational programmes for out of school youths.

With the signing of yesterday’s initiative, a gateway will be made for skills and experiences from other developing countries to be shared, she noted.

“It provides a framework to share technical skills in the areas of reproductive health, HIV/AIDS prevention, population and development strategies, data for development planning and the promotion of gender equality,” she added.

According to Padron, since becoming partners in 1969, the goal of UNFPA and CARICOM (then CARIFTA) has always been to create a better quality of life for the people of the region, “although the terms of the agreement have been adjusted over the years to meet the changing needs of the Caribbean.”

In 2005, UNFPA collaborated with CARICOM on several programmes which included the strengthening of CARICOM’s Health and Family Life Education programme to better equip young people to deal with sexual and reproductive health issues including HIV/AIDS; and supporting the Pan Caribbean Partnership on HIV/AIDS (PANCAP) in interfaith dialogue around strategies to combat the disease.

In addition, Padron noted, they also provided technical assistance to support the Caribbean consensus on the new target on universal access to reproductive health under MDG 5 – which deals with the improvement of maternal health care.

Assistant CARICOM Secretary General Dr Edward Greene said the partnership has been a good one, since UNFPA has been participating in HIV/AIDS activities, an issue that is high on CARICOM’s agenda.

“It really needs no emphasizing the importance that so far we have placed in our collaboration with UNFPA on the accelerated approach to HIV/AIDS,” Greene added.

He said this is very important since the Caribbean is seeking to wipe out the scourge at a time when statistics coming out of a recent World Bank report show that quite a number of CARICOM countries have a very high rate of infection.

In addition to HIV/AIDS issues, Greene said the meeting will try to expand on other areas of priorities such as population development strategies, and development of social statistics analysis since “all the indicators show this is a critical area we must focus on if our policies are to be meaningful and driven by evidence,”

Also, he urged that focus be placed on social and reproductive health especially at the levels of schools and community health centres. “We must use this to reach out to those populations and deal with the education and behavioural change component,” Greene stressed.

Among those attending the ceremony at CARICOM headquarters at Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown were United States Ambassador to Guyana, Mr Roland Bullen, Canadian High Commissioner, Mr Bruno Picard and British High Commissioner Mr Stephen Hiscock.

Car-bus collision disrupts phone service
A COLLISION, at 11:00 h yesterday, between a 35-seater bus and a motor car at the junction of Sheriff and Garnett Streets, Campbellville, Georgetown, disrupted landline telephone services in the area.

The vehicles were travelling in opposite directions when the crash occurred and the bus split a utility pole in two, Police said.

But, fortunately, no one was seriously injured in the accident.

However, both drivers reported to Kitty Police Station, in another part of the city, to assist with investigations into the mishap.

PUC asks GT&T to stop selling cell service
-- until it is better
THE watchdog Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has requested that the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GT&T) suspend the further sale of its cellular service until it can be improved.

The PUC in a letter to GT&T dated February 24, 2006 said it has been receiving numerous complaints from owners/users of cellular phones that they cannot access the service in certain parts of the country.

They complain also that the service is badly affected in Central Georgetown and they cannot adequately and properly conduct their business and work or receive calls, the commission added.

“We wish to advise that we also personally – members of the staff of the commission and commissioners also are experiencing this problem,” the PUC pointed out.

The body noted that the GT&T has explained that the restriction of the spectrum by the National Frequency Management Unit is contributing to the problem.

“The shortage of adequate numbers of cell sites we believe is also a contributory, nay a substantial cause of the problem,” the PUC said.

The PUC said it has observed that the number of consumers is increasing almost daily and the great number of cell phones in the system also helps to curtail adequate service to all consumers at all times.

“In the circumstances, we request that you suspend the further sale of this service until such time as you can provide a reasonably adequate service to your customers. The situation as it obtains at the moment belies your claim that you are getting better all the time,” the PUC stated.

Patrol checks out Fort Island report
A POLICE and Coast Guard team dispatched to Fort Island in the Essequibo River Tuesday night after reports that a boatload of suspicious looking persons was seen in the river, did not find any trace of them, an official said yesterday.

The official said the patrol of Police and Coast Guard ranks spent the night searching for the suspicious group around the island in the Essequibo River but did not find them.

The team was deployed about 20:30 h Monday.

On December 28 last, a gang of eight men terrorised four families on Fort Island before escaping with cash, jewellery, four firearms and a quantity of ammunition, seven outboard motor engines, three chainsaws, two water pumps, a generator, electronic equipment, cell phones and groceries.

During the attack, one of the bandits was apparently accidentally shot by an accomplice and was believed to have been seriously wounded, Police reported.

IDB approves policy for indigenous in region
THE Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has approved a strategy and operational policy designed to protect the rights of indigenous peoples in Latin America and the Caribbean, strengthening the bank’s commitment to non-discrimination and including indigenous peoples socio-culturally.

The policy also supports their development of identity, empowers their active participation in the development process while respecting their priorities, natural assets and cultural heritage, a release from the IDB said.

Chief of the IDB Indigenous Peoples and Community Development Unit Anne Deruyttere said in the release, “The policy in particular contains specific safeguards regarding the physical, territorial and cultural integrity of indigenous peoples.”

The release added that the policy is its first comprehensively developed one to benefit the indigenous peoples, and it ensures that indigenous issues will be mainstreamed into country strategies for consideration.

The policy specifies that indigenous communities have a right to participate in resource management as well as receive benefits from these resources. In addition, it provides for compensation from the impact of bank-financed projects.

It also supports the peoples’ access to economic opportunities, information technology, technical assistance and financial services, with special emphasis on gender equality.

The release added, “The policy and the strategy also support the strengthening of land titling processes and adequate enforcement mechanisms to protect indigenous collective and individual rights.” They cover urban, as well as rural areas, and cater for those living in trans-border area.

The policy was developed through a series of consultations with indigenous organisations and lessons learned from other projects supported by the bank.

GNBS addresses rice farmers concerns
AS A result of complaints from rice farmers regarding short weight, inaccurate dockage and moisture content, the Guyana National Bureau of Standards (GNBS) in its 2004 annual report submitted to the National Assembly recently, said it visited several rice mills and provided suggestions for improvement.

“Resulting from complaints received from farmers regarding short weight and inaccurate dockage and moisture content, Cabinet convened a meeting with representatives from the GNBS, Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) and the Guyana Rice Producers Association (RPA) to address the concerns raised.

“As a result, visits were conducted by the GNBS in collaboration with GRDB and RPA to 31 rice mills in Regions Two, Three, Four, Five, and Six, to observe the operations of these mills and to provide suggestions for improvement in order to ensure transparency,” the report stated.

In addition, the GNBS said letters were sent to millers informing them of the areas that would be monitored by the bureau and what is required of them to ensure that the requirements are met.

Continuous inspection was carried out by the GNBS during verification activities and surveillance inspections and it was found that correct procedures were followed, the bureau reported.

However, the GNBS noted that farmers reported that in the absence of GNBS inspectors some millers do not comply with the correct operating procedures, resulting in farmers being cheated.

Prices of consumer items rise
THE year 2006 began with a 1.6% increase in the price level of consumer items monitored in the Urban (Georgetown) Consumer Price Index (CPI) basket of goods and services, according to the latest report from the Bureau of Statistics.

The price index value for January registered a level of 213.8 points compared with the December 2005 level of 210.4 points, the bureau said.

This increase was mainly due to the significant impact of the recent flooding which resulted in the interruption of supplies to the markets from the middle of December, 2005, it said.

Thus the significant increase of 1.6% for the month of January was fuelled primarily by price increases of more than 3% in the food group, the Bureau of Statistics reported.

This was due to price movements recorded in several sub-categories, among them being vegetables and vegetable products - 26.4%; fruits and fruit products - 6.5%; pulses and pulse products 1.6%; meat, fish and eggs and tobacco and tobacco products - 1.0%; sugar, honey and related products - 0.9%, and prepared meals 0.3%.

Although there were decreases in the sub-categories of cereals and cereal products by 1.1%, milk and milk products 0.8%, oils and fats by 0.1%, alcoholic beverages 0.2% and non-alcoholic beverages 0.9%, the bureau said this did not reverse the overall upward price trend in the food group.

In respect of other goods and services, it said increases were recorded in the housing group by 0.6%, of which the sub-categories -- rent and maintenance -- rose by 0.4% and fuel and power by 0.9%, the latter primarily due to increases in kerosene oil prices by 0.6%.

The Bureau of Statistics said the furniture group showed a 0.5% increase with sub-categories cleaning materials and household services recording a 0.6% and 3.6% increase, respectively.

There were increases in the medical and personal care and miscellaneous groups of 0.1% and 0.6% respectively, the bureau added.

The transport and communication, and educational, recreational and cultural services groups all declined by 0.2%, with the sub-categories of personal transport equipment recording a 0.2% decline, and operations and personal transport (parts and accessories) and purchased transport services (air fare) a 0.1% and 0.4% decline, respectively, it said.

Wild cat strikes could scuttle industry
-- GUYSUCO official warns
By Chamanlall Naipaul
A TOP official of the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GUYSUCO) is lamenting that strikes coupled with a high level of absenteeism is affecting production and productivity in the industry.

He is advocating that worker attitudes which are outdated need to be changed to ensure that present challenges are overcome.

In an interview with the Guyana Chronicle, Operations Director of GUYSUCO, Mr Paul Worthington, said the local sugar industry has been left behind and current working attitudes are outdated.

He decried “wild cat strikes” and a high rate of absenteeism by workers, asserting that if this trend continues, it would be difficult for the industry to survive, more so in the face of the price cuts for sugar announced by the European Commission (EC), and the liberalisation of trade.

According to Worthington, the sugar price cuts will begin to “really bite by October 2008, and so there are only 18 months for these attitudes to change.”

During last year, some three to four weeks of grinding time were lost due to strikes, he said. This led to the loss of about 20,000 tonnes of sugar, because the quality of the sugar cane was significantly reduced as it was not harvested and processed on time, Worthington reported.

He is calling for disputes between workers and management to be resolved through dialogue rather than resorting to strikes.

“A partnership between the workers/unions and management is needed” whereby strikes are used only as a last resort in settling disputes, he exhorted.

Turning his attention to the high level of absenteeism, the Operations Director emphasised that, during last year, more than 5,000 temporary employees had to be recruited to compensate for absenteeism.

He noted that to get sugar production to the desired level, 12,000 hectares of sugar cane need to be planted annually. But if the present trend of absenteeism prevails, “we won’t survive” because the replanting programme is crucial towards to making the industry competitive, he said.

Another problem impacting negatively on the industry is the attrition rate among the intermediate level of managers, Worthington noted, pointing out that over the past 15 years, 650 such managers have migrated, and this is putting much pressure on the management system

The wage bill of the industry also is too high, he observed, and this could be a real problem in reducing production cost which is vital to being competitive on the world market.

The current wage bill accounts for 56% of revenue generated by the corporation. This, he said, is far too high for any business.

General Secretary of the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU), Mr Komal Chand, in an invited comment, said while his union recognises the challenges facing the industry and appreciates the need for partnership, “I do hope that the gentleman is not trying to find a scapegoat for the reduction in production last year.”

He noted that strikes are a legal weapon of struggle for workers’ rights and are catered for in agreements signed between the union and GUYSUCO.

The union agrees that the industry is at the cross-roads and as such there is need for cooperation among all stakeholders, particularly in the face of the cuts in the price of sugar, Chand said. However, he is imploring management about the need to adopt a better approach in dealing with worker problems.

Management also needs to engage workers in the process of making changes instead of imposing changes, he argued.

Chand is contending that a significant factor in lower production levels is poor management in the field.

“Sugar is made in the fields and not in the office,” he stressed, adding that the Booker-Tate management must deal with this issue expeditiously

He further urged that GUYSUCO needs to focus its attention on matters such as land preparation, use of fertilisers and clearing grass in the fields, as it has been proven that at locations where these matters are addressed, production and productivity are high.

Chand cited the Enmore Estate as supporting his contention.

Guyana renews commitment to fighting illegal activities
IN FORMALLY signing on to the Inter-American Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters, the Government of Guyana yesterday renewed its commitment “to confront illegal activities in unity with other states in the hemisphere and reinforces respect for the rule of law as a fundamental value of the inter-American system.”

Ambassador Bayney R. Karran, Guyana’s Permanent Representative to the Organization of American States, signed the OAS treaty on his government’s behalf, along with Assistant Secretary General Albert R. Ramdin.

“Guyana’s signing of this convention will contribute to building security in our hemisphere,” said Ambassador Karran, noting that “at a time when many states of the hemisphere face unprecedented threats to their security through growing sophistication in transnational criminal activities, such as the illegal drug trade and trafficking in arms, it is highly opportune for states to render to one another mutual assistance in criminal matters.”

Elaborating, Karran observed that since the convention was adopted in 1992, it has “buttressed the provisions of Article 2.e of the Charter of the OAS, which establishes as an essential objective ‘the solution of political, juridical and economic problems that may arise among the American states’.”

Under the OAS treaty, the states commit to cooperate in investigations, prosecutions, and proceedings that pertain to crimes over which a requesting state has jurisdiction. This convention does not authorize any state party to undertake, in the territory of another state party, the exercise of jurisdiction.

Meanwhile, the Assistant Secretary General hailed yesterday’s signing as an “expression of the ongoing commitment of Guyana to this organization.”

He noted as well that many of the issues concerning cooperation have been put on the agenda of the Ministers of Justice Meeting. He stressed that “these issues get full attention,” because crime itself, including illegal firearms trafficking, has an impact on countries’ socio-economic climate.

Ambassador Ramdin argued that by placing emphasis on these issues, “the OAS expresses its relevance” to its member countries.

Ramdin also urged those member states that have not yet signed the treaty to do so as soon as possible, reiterating that crime does not care about borders, and hence “we need to cooperate among ourselves.”

With Guyana, 20 member states have now signed the Inter-American Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters, which entered into force April 1996. Eighteen member states have ratified. (OAS PRESS RELEASE)

Police arrest Rupununi shooting suspect
POLICE yesterday reported the arrest of a shooting suspect, on Sunday, at Tabatinga, Central Rupununi.

According to a press release, the man was held about 10:45 h, when ranks went to Masara Point, North Rupununi, to investigate a Friday report that another man had been shot.

The detainee, who remains in custody pending charges to be laid shortly, had a .32 revolver with which he is alleged to have wounded Cleveland Hodge, 25, of Craig, East Bank Demerara.

Hodge was shot in his right hip during an argument, the release stated.

Banks DIH scores big for Mash
BANKS DIH, with the largest float at this year’s Mashramani celebrations, has emerged number one in the Large and Commercial float categories, 2006 Mash Coordinator Lennox Canterbury has reported.

Banks DIH revellers, along with those of 30 other costume bands, representing public and private companies and organisations, mashed through Georgetown streets on Republic Day last Thursday to the National Park with tens of thousands joining in the fun.

At the National Park, a committee of judges awarded points to the participants based on originality, clarity, mobility/movement, presentation, colour, craftsmanship, uniformity, float and main costume.

Mashramani 2006 was held under the theme `Showcasing a cultural mix in 2006’ and while some bands adopted this as their main slogan, others used their own themes.

Banks DIH took to the streets on Mash Day under the theme `Celebrating Culture and Pride’. Its float was more than eight feet high and featured a replica of the rotunda of the Banks DIH complex at Thirst Park.

The Government Information Agency (GINA) said Mr Canterbury reported that second spot in the Large Float category went to the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport. The ministry’s band moved through the streets of Georgetown with participants numbering just about 250.

The agency said the ministry blossomed under the theme `Colourful, cultural explosion’ showcasing a profusion of colours which blended beautifully on the streets as participants made their way to the National Park.

Rayon House of Fashion copped third place in the large float category. Its revellers were under the theme `Consolidation’ displaying their floats and costumes which symbolised the 15 member states of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

In the Medium float category, the Ministry of Agriculture copped first place while Giftland Office Max, with a float representing the National Bird, `The Canje Pheasant’, was awarded second place. Placing third was the Ministry of Local Government.

In the Small float category, the Ministry of Home Affairs was awarded first while the Ministry of Health came in second. Third place was awarded to Don Gomes of Don Gomes Optical Services.

In the Large Costume category, the ‘Slingshot’ band made off with first place while the People’s National Congress Reform (PNC/R) was in second position. In third place was the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers Union (GAWU).

Government ministries dominated the Medium Costume category as the Ministry of Finance came in first and the Ministry of Housing was awarded second. Third place was given to Chemical Corner.

In the Small Costume category, the State Media band, comprising the National Communications Network (NCN) and the Government Information Agency (GINA) got the judges’ nod for first place, as participants revelled under the theme `Information for the Nation’. Second place was awarded to the Guyana Forestry Commission.

Adrian Dutchin, who was crowned Soca Monarch for 2006, was also crowned Road March King for having the most popularly played soca music during Mashramani.

NDC launches clean environment competition
-- offers prizes for Best Kept Yard, other categories
THE Woodlands/Farm Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC) in Region Five (Mahaica/Berbice) has launched a Clean Environment Competition for residents within the NDC with cash prizes for winners.

Chairman of the NDC, Mr K.P. Deokarran said the competition, which began last week, will run to December.

Residents will receive prizes for Best Kept Yard, Best Kept Road Shoulders and Best Kept Drains in the villages with $50,000 for first prize, $20,000 for second prize and $5,000 for third prize in each category.

Deokarran said councillors hit upon the idea of running a competition as one means of encouraging cleanliness and beautification of residential surroundings within the NDC during the last statutory meeting of the council in January last.

The NDC has set up a panel of four judges to adjudicate on competitors at the end of June, September and at mid-December.

The judges will award points to competitors on each occasion and the winners will be decided based on who gets the most points, second highest and third highest, etc. over the duration of the competition.

Deokarran said the members of the business community within the NDC have pledged to offer material support to the venture.

The four judges are Senior Environmental Health Officer in Region Five, Mr Ignatius Merai, Environmental Health Officer within the Mahaicony-Abary Sub-Region, Ms Amanda James, Vice-Chairman of the NDC, Mr Deonand Maraj and Councillor, Mr Prince Pompey.

In a related issue, Deokarran said the council will be intensifying its stray catching programme this year.

He advised cattle owners to keep their animals off the dams and roadways or risk having them impounded and having to pay the associated costs for their release.

The Woodlands/Farm NDC is the Local Government authority for several villages between the Left Bank of the Mahaicony River and the Right Bank of the Mahaica River.

The NDC, like all others in Region Five and countrywide, expects to benefit from the support of Community D&I workers who are to be employed under an initiative by President Bharrat Jagdeo for an initial period of at least one year.

The Community D&I workers are being paid by Central Government but are to be supervised by the NDCs, not only for D&I works, but for other environmental health and community development issues.
(CLIFFORD STANLEY)

In Region Two…
RPA blames farmers for delayed flood assistance payout
RICE Producers Association (RPA) General Secretary Dharamkumar Seeraj has said farmers are partly to blame for the delay in paying those in Region Two (Pomeroon/Supenaam) entitled to assistance from a government flood relief package.

He said the planters contributed to the situation by giving false information to extension officers.

Those affected by the recent flooding are each to receive $5,000 per acre for cultivations of up to 20 acres and the aid is intended to help them buy fertiliser and insecticide for their fields.

Mr Seeraj said the list with names of intended Region Two beneficiaries will have to be scrutinised properly before payment is made.

He said the RPA and Guyana Rice Development Board (GRDB) want the compilation to be accurate and have held discussions about it with potential recipients in the region.

Mr Seeraj told the Guyana Chronicle that some 32,500 acres are cultivated with the grain in Region Two but the listing compiled, so far, has surpassed that acreage by 8,000 acres.

Public Assistance books distribution begins on Essequibo Coast
THE Ministry of Labour, Human Services and Social Security has begun distribution of books to Public Assistance recipients on Essequibo Coast in Region Two (Pomeroon/Supenaam).

A release from the Regional Administration said the exercise started at Charity and was to continue yesterday at Dartmouth; Danielstown today; Queenstown tomorrow and Anna Regina on Friday.

The release said more boks will be distributed at the Suddie Administrative Office on Monday, March 6; at Supenaam Amerindian Hostel on Tuesday, March 7 and Aurora Youth Centre and Huist T’Dieren Primary School on Wednesday, March 8.

Guyanese on ammo charge in Barbados
A 21-YEAR-OLD Guyanese is due to appear in the Bridgetown, Barbados court this morning to answer a charge of being in possession of ammunition.

Marvin Shane Pestano was nabbed at the Barbados Grantley Adams airport on Monday as he was about to return to Guyana. He arrived from Guyana on Saturday.

The quantity of ammo he is alleged to have had is small - one live round of 7.62 calibre.

Sugar action plan consultations end
BROAD-BASED public consultations on Guyana’s sugar action plan to access compensation from the European Union for its sharp price cuts, have ended and officials say the proposal may be ready this week.

After the final round of consultations at the University of Guyana Tain campus in Berbice on Monday, the Government Information Agency (GINA) said the plan will soon be ready for submission to the European Commission for its consideration to provide Guyana with increased funding to cushion the impact of the price cuts.

At the session, it reported, Foreign Trade and International Cooperation Minister, Mr Clement Rohee said the consultations were convened to ensure stakeholders are abreast with efforts by the government and the Guyana Sugar Corporation (GUYSUCO) to ensure the survival of the sugar industry amidst the reformation of the EU sugar regime.

Rohee commented on the US$165M Skeldon modernisation plan which includes a co-generation plant and a refinery which will collaboratively boost the industry’s competitiveness, the agency said.

“We in Guyana have not been idle. Anticipating a price reduction, GUYSUCO had already articulated and begun to implement a forward-looking business plan that aims to cut production costs, expand production and diversify into value added production”, he noted.

GINA said Rohee pointed out that the plan to modernise signals a shared vision of GUYSUCO and the government as it illustrates that sugar has a future.

He said that with the cuts being implemented, effective July 1, 2006, cumulatively it would see the price for sugar traded preferentially moving from 523.7 Euros to 498.8 Euros in 2006 to 2007, representing a 5.1 per cent price cut. During 2008 to 2009 the price would move to 448.8 euros, and finally in 2009 to 2010, the price being traded in Europe would be 335 Euros.

GINA said Rohee noted the tireless lobbying efforts he, President Bharrat Jagdeo and other stakeholders had undertaken which resulted in a three per cent reduction in the original price cut.

Though this is not a “source of great satisfaction,” he said the government is now focusing on ensuring Europe provides adequate compensation for affected sugar producers in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

He also pointed to Mr Jagdeo’s upcoming lobbying mission to Europe to access increased compensation for Guyana and other CARICOM producers to restructure its industry to deal with the devastating cuts.

Acting Agriculture Minister, Mr Satyadeow Sawh said, “we here in Guyana remain confident, not out of our own enthusiasm or historical linkages but we are confident because our government is putting measures in place to ensure that sugar survives and continues to play the very important role it has played in the evolution of our history from colonial days to independence to today where sugar is a very important part of our life.”

GUYSUCO Chairman, Mr Ronald Alli, during a presentation on key elements within the strategic plan, said it presents a comprehensive strategy to respond to the EU’s sugar price cut prepared according to EC regulations which invite sugar protocol countries to present a multi-annual adaptation strategy as a basis for technical and financial assistance.

The main elements of the plan include:

* The expansion of production in line with new marketing opportunities

* Increasing sugar sales to CARICOM to 100,000 tonnes

* implementing an Agriculture Improvement Plan

* upgrading factories

* producing value added products

* constructing a co-generation plant which will provide 30 mega watts of power

* Ethanol production

* The mechanisation of factories

Alli said the Sugar Association of the Caribbean (SAC) is expected to hold a meeting to rationalise the region’s sugar position.

Advisor to the President on Sustainable Development, Mr Navin Chandarpal said the discussion is important and the industry “cannot afford to operate like it’s business as usual.”

GINA said those present at the consultation asked questions regarding the action plan. The main query, it said, was about the measures being put in place to cater for human resources and job loss.

Sugar workers were assured that the government would do all it could to ease the socio-economic fallout from the EU reform, the agency said.

Port Mourant students tour Office of the President
STUDENTS of the Port Mourant Primary School in Region Six (East Berbice/Corentyne) yesterday toured the Office of the President complex.

The students, accompanied by their teachers, were also given a chance to meet the Cabinet, led by President Bharrat Jagdeo, which was in session at the time of their visit, the Government Information Agency (GINA) said.

Reflecting on the exercise, many of the students said this was their first visit to the Office of the President.

One student told the agency the outing was “very exciting, since we got to meet the Cabinet and see the Office of the President.”

Government may import Venezuela cement to ease shortage
THE government yesterday said it was seeking an alternative cement supplier to ease the dire shortage in the construction industry and other areas.

Tourism, Industry and Commerce Minister, Mr Manzoor Nadir told the Government Information Agency (GINA) that President Bharrat Jagdeo has been in consultation with neighbouring Venezuela to satisfy the demand.

“We have been asking one of our neighbours if they can assist us with close to twenty to thirty thousand tonnes of cement in four or five shipments. His Excellency the President has intervened in this regard and we are awaiting a response. If that materialises we are hopeful that the backlog of orders can be cleared and the normal shipment importers have will be able to give us a continuous supply,” Nadir said.

GINA said he noted that the supply is necessary to stabilise the market and eliminate price gouging which is being experienced in certain parts of the country.

“We know throughout the country those persons who have a few bags of cement have been hoarding and selling at high prices. There is one businessman in Berbice who is selling cement for $2,100 per sack. We need desperately to get in this cement that the President is trying to get, to not only keep the supply but to keep the price level stable,” he explained.

He said the situation is being closely monitored.

“This week, small shipments of cement started trickling back into the country. We have a shortage of 30,000 tonnes, which represents a backlog of about two months which was compounded by a number of factors.”

The agency said Nadir cited the inclement weather during January which stalled many construction projects, and after the weather cleared, there was a high demand for cement.

He said the regional supplier; Trinidad Cement Limited (TCL) has not been supplying cement in the regular quantities, noting that importers of the TCL product have only had 20 to 30 per cent of their orders filled.

The minister recalled the government’s decision to open the market to extra-regional cement by waiving the Common External Tariff (CET).

“We know for the entire week about 8,000 tonnes should be coming in the country but everyone I suspect would have a backup of orders. Eight thousand tonnes would only satisfy a quarter of the current demand for the critical building material.”

He told GINA that Guyana’s demand for cement will remain high given the recent boom in the construction industry.

“There is a very strong demand for the Skeldon project, the Cricket World Cup stadium, hotels, housing construction, roads and other infrastructural development; the demand for cement in Guyana will continue to be very strong.”

The minister pointed out that it is hoped that cement importers would take advantage of the waiver on extra regional cement.

“We are urging cement importers who have been looking up extra regional sources of cement to see how they can bring in cement from those sources to ensure that Guyanese consumers can have a regular supply at a decent price,” Nadir told the agency.

GBTI awards domestic environment competition winners
THE Guyana Bank for Trade and Industry (GBTI) yesterday recognised the steps taken by their customers in designing and maintaining their homes to enhance their environment and enter the “Best Kept Home and Yard” competition.

The prize giving ceremony was held at the GBTI Water Street branch and saw persons who entered the competition being presented with one to three month rebates on loan instalments along with consolation prizes of picnic folding tents.

The first prize of a three months rebate on a loan instalment was presented to Mr Mario Reid of Grove, East Coast Demerara; the second prize of two months rebate on loan instalment was presented to Mr Royden Trotz of Tuschen, East Bank Essequibo, and the third prize of one month rebate went to Mr Kenny Edwards of Parfaite Harmonie, West Bank Demerara.

The competition was an initiative of GBTI aimed at enhancing the environment by encouraging people to take up the challenge to make their surroundings a better place.

“Our primary business is lending money,” said Mr John Barnes, Senior Manager of the bank’s Inspection Division. “[But] we are proud to be involved in this scheme of not only handing out prizes, but to hand out pride in home building. This way we all can enhance our environment by creating the best kept homes and yard and the total package is something worthwhile”.

At yesterday’s ceremony was Permanent Secretary from the Ministry of Housing and Water, Ms Claudette Moore who emphasised the value of maintaining homes and a healthier environment.

She also stressed the importance of having a partnership with GBTI so that the ministry’s Environmental and Homeownership Training programme could be highlighted, since most persons are not aware of the programme.

This programme, she explained, is the vehicle through which the Government of Guyana is pursuing its stated goal in collaboration with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to assist particularly low-cost housing schemes and regularised settlements in the areas of community responsibilities and environmentally sound practices pertaining to water, sanitation and other aspects.

“At the ministry we are not only responsible for giving out house lots but also to create a better environment. We hope that persons will continue to maintain their environment and be involved in building their communities”, said Ms Moore. (NATHALENE DEFREITAS)

The chilling reality
THE brazen display of violence on Sunday night when men with high-powered guns murdered eight persons during a daring killing spree in two neighbouring East Bank Demerara villages has to be interpreted in its chilling reality.

The evidence so far discloses that robbery was not the dominant feature of the episode.

From all that has unfolded since then, the killers had a special mandate - one was to destroy the gas station and execute four persons.

The killing of the three security guards was incidental.

This was a terrifying mandate.

Gas stations have to conform to strict safety standards and installations should include built-in features to guard against outbreaks of fire and other calamities given the nature of the main products they deal in.

But if the band had succeeded in setting the service station ablaze, the chain reactions could have been catastrophic to the community.

If the main motive was not robbery, then the acts were meant to terrorise.

The question is who? The community? The gas station owner?

Police Commissioner Winston Felix on Monday said the deadly attack may be linked to the high drama chase in the Demerara River on Sunday when the Guyana Defence Force Coast Guard was in pursuit of a trawler and two high-speed smaller boats which ended with the arrest of 11 men.

He also indicated that there may be links to what he flatly said was the “staged” kidnapping last week of the four-year-old daughter of a former Policeman.

Some people are suggesting even more sinister motives.

** Is Agricola becoming the arena to fill the vacuum of Buxton?

** Was this part of a war between kingpins?

* Was it a centrally-directed mission to test the response or resolve of the security forces or the administration?

** And what about the disappearance of weapons from the Guyana Defence Force Camp Ayanganna headquarters in Georgetown?

There are conflicting reports on the amount and types of arms missing from the army base.

Whatever are the real answers to these chilling developments, one reality is quite clear -- there must be a significant response by our security forces.

The reaction of the Commissioner of Police will be reassuring only if there is a positive breakthrough soon.

There are too many unsolved murders and executions in which the Police appear to be making no headway.

The breakthrough must come quickly if citizens are not to fear even worse to come.

A kidney for Uncle Rudy
- A return to India
(Continuing our feature started in the Sunday Pepperpot)
By Clifford Stanley
DECEMBER 2003: Kumkarran Rampersaud and his wife Nirwattie are at D’Edward Village, West Bank Berbice, at home.

Five months have passed since they had successfully undergone surgeries in India -- she to donate one of her kidneys to him, and he so that he could get a healthy kidney from her for a new lease on life.

Nirwattie has found that the after effects of the removal of one of her kidneys are minimal. Apart from an occasional twinge of pain in her side, she is in perfect health. Her kidney function is completely normal.

She realises as she had been told all along that a person really only needs a single healthy kidney to live a normal life.

But after enjoying relatively good health over a five month period, Kumkarran is heading for a relapse.

December 15 2003: He is afflicted by cold fever. His body is racked with an uncontrollable shivering. His urine has an odd smell. Something is wrong.

Nirwattie is as deeply disturbed. After the successful receipt of a healthy kidney from his wife, he felt he had put the kidney problems behind him.

But the problems have resurfaced.

It’s back to the doctors and injection needles and the multiplicity of medication and the gurneys and operating tables.

But he has been there before; there and back.

December 18 2003: The cold fevers and the general feeling of disease become more intense.

December 20 2003: He cannot bear the discomfort. He travels to Trinidad and spends 14 days in the St Joseph Medical Associates Hospital. He gets medication and gets relief. He comes back home. A few days later the shivering and related problems return, worse than before.

In January 2004 he acquires medication from overseas and spends seven days in the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) for staff to administer it.

He feels better. He returns home. Three days later, the bad feelings return. He is taken back to the GPHC where he spends 17 days.

He has been in communication with the doctors at NU Trust Hospital in Bangalore, India all along. It is now early February 2004.

The doctors at NU Trust advise -- if you are not getting relief at home you have to come back to India.

His wife listens, her eyes soft with sympathy. He would have to return to India. She would accompany him.

They spend less time on preparation for this second trip to India.

On February 12 2004, they board a LIAT flight at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport at Timehri on the first stage of the second journey.

They take their Murtis – religious icons of Hinduism - with them.

As he boards the aeroplane, Kumkarran feels as if he is entering the jaws of death.

He, however, quickly shakes off the feeling. He would take this second operation, survive and return home, cost it what it will.

They travel first to Barbados as before. But this time they have to overnight in Barbados and he is so ill that he has to take medication at a hospital there before they continue to London, then Mumbai, India and then by internal flight to Bangalore once again.

BACK IN HOSPITAL
They renew contacts with friends from the first trip and then again gain admission to the NU Trust Hospital in Bangalore.

The last time both Kumkarran and his wife had to undergo surgery simultaneously but this time it would be he alone. This makes it easier for him to be stoic about the ordeal ahead. His objective is simple: get through the operation, survive and return home to Guyana.

On February 22 2004, he undergoes surgery for a blocked urinary tract which had been causing a reflux of urine into the transplanted kidney. He is not put to sleep. The lower part of his body which is being operated on is without feeling. He chats with the doctors while they operate.

They send him back to his apartment nearby thinking that it is over but one day later the shivering and the feeling of illness attack again. He returns to the hospital.

The doctors consult. They now feel that the polycystic kidneys which had not been removed in the transplant surgery in 2003 were the source of the problem. They feel that these two bad kidneys were adversely affecting the transplanted kidney. They decide that the two diseased kidneys would have to be removed.

Lying on a gurney on the way to the Operating Room, Kumkarran sees only the tiles in the ceiling of the NU Trust Hospital. His horizons are gone. He is in the operating room. He stares at a big powerful light bulb directly overhead waiting to be switched on.

There are five doctors waiting to operate. Anaesthetic is injected into the base of the spine. At 11:30 h he is unconscious.

Two hours later he hears one of the doctors: ”Operation is over. Operation is over. Time to Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!”

In the recovery room, his wife is nearby, strong, silently supportive. She asks: “Do you want to see the bad kidneys?”

He nods: yes. She shows them to him. The two are monstrous, weighing more than four pounds each as against the one pound average weight of a healthy kidney.

Amidst the post operation pain, he breathes a sigh of relief that they are no longer in him.

He has just one more challenge. He has to get up and move around to facilitate a bowel movement. He tries. Three days pass, no success. Five days pass, no bowel movement. This is not good.

On the fifth day after the operation, he feels like belching and tries to but instead vomits. He contemplates the greenish stuff in the pan for a moment; a feeling of nausea rises up in him and he blacks out.

His wife sees him lose consciousness, sees the pupils of his eyes roll upwards and she panics. She rushes out of the room and alerts the nurses that something has gone wrong.

A doctor is nearby. He hurries back to the ward with her. He takes one look at the unconscious man and recognises an emergency situation.

There is a quick rush for the Intensive Care Unit. Nirwattie, outside, locked out from the ICU, cries uncontrollably.

Hours tick by. Nirwattie maintains a tearful vigil. She holds onto their murtis and prays and prays. They wheel him out. She runs forward to see him. He is unconscious, inert almost lifeless.

The diagnosis is mind boggling. His intestines seemed to have fallen into the holes left in his stomach after the removal of the polycystic kidneys. Stuff from his intestines which should have been going downwards was instead coming up and out through his mouth.

There had been a build-up of toxic waste in his body. His entire system was poisoned. Doctors could try another operation but there was a very high probability that his heart would give up during this operation. Death seemed inevitable.

A doctor gently hands her his cell phone. “Call home to Guyana,” he says. Advise relatives that he has had a relapse and that he is not going to make it.

A little later, staff assure her that they would help with the arrangements for a cremation - a cremation so that his ashes at least could make it back home.

TOMORROW: Dancing in the twilight zone.

Perspectives
Fighting for real independence
By Prem Misir
HISTORY will remember Cheddi Jagan as a world leader who struggled for social progress among the dispossessed and the disadvantaged, who vigorously implanted progressive political thought, who was a resolute builder of political movements; who forged the political-labour nexus; who was an unwavering Caribbean integrationist; who was a true internationalist in his unrelenting promulgation of the New Global Human Order; and whose authentic local legacy has to be his tireless fight for national unity, working class unity, and racial unity.

His ideas and his indefatigable promotion of these ideas have not only redefined the Caribbean, but have impacted the world of the poor. These writings and his grassroots work have a superlative nexus with current philosophical debates, particularly in the philosophy of history and the social and behavioural sciences and with moral and political philosophy.

This understanding of history sees economic, social, and political influences of human life as the most important factors shaping human experience, personality, ideas, and social arrangements.

The fight against colonial hegemony to achieve Independence, working together for national unity, working class unity, and racial unity, and the promulgation of the New Global Human Order are only a few of the major thrusts of Dr Jagan’s work. But today, I want to focus on his fight for Independence. Next week, national unity will occupy centre stage.

The former President of Guyana has been a tenacious fighter for Independence and he is among the first few to have kicked off this struggle against colonial domination. This novel idea of Independence emerged in 1945 in a Dr Jagan pamphlet titled COOPERATIVE WAY. Dr Jagan said: “It therefore behoves the working class people to get control of government through their constitutional ballots in our forthcoming election, with a view towards complete independence. A free and independent Guiana can easily cooperate and eventually federate with her Latin neighbours, especially Brazil.”

The PPP birthed in 1950 continued from where the Political Affairs Committee (PAC) left off; unrelenting agitation for Independence became the number one item on the PPP’s agenda; demands included universal adult suffrage, a fully elected legislature, a Cabinet of elected Ministers, etc. This feverish campaigning drew the ire of British planters, prompting the arrival of the Waddington Commission. This was a success long in the making for the PPP struggle against colonial hegemony; a struggle that conceived and gave birth to universal adult suffrage; a struggle that designed the road map for Independence. The first election under universal adult suffrage happened in 1953 during the Cold War.

Not long after, the Colonial Office removed the PPP Government after only 133 days in office; the spread of communism in Guyana topped the list of the British and American governments’ reasons for the ouster. A lie if there ever was one.

Proper scrutiny of the PPP Government’s Parliamentary measures were all working class based, and not communistic; the removal had a lot to do with American and British vested economic interests, interests quite attuned to the Truman and the Lyttleton Doctrines, advocacies of imperial interests; classic beginnings of the British and American Administration’s attempts to prevent the PPP’s accession to political power.

With considerable resilience and conscious of the odds stacked against it, the PPP forged ahead with its persuasive campaign for political independence; the Colonial Office, dumbstruck by the PPP’s enthusiastic campaigning, agreed to initiate dialogue, not primarily for negotiating Independence, principally for blocking the PPP’s return to power; hence the 1960 London Constitutional Conference.

The British Government agreed on Independence on two conditions: that both Legislative Houses in Guyana should (1) approve motions for Independence, and (2 grant independence to the West Indies Federation.

The People’s National Congress showed little enthusiasm for immediate Independence in 1960. Any way, both conditions were fulfilled. Dr Jagan subsequently met with the Secretary of State for the Colonies Mr Reginald Maudling on December 13, 1961 with a request for Independence by May 31, 1962; Maudling refused. The PPP Premier then proceeded to the UN Fourth Committee in New York seeking to rally support for Independence; the Committee agreed to mull this matter and report back to the UN General Assembly and requested the British to resurrect negotiations on the Independence matter without delay.

Incidentally, only an Independent territory was eligible to make representations on this Committee; Guyana was not yet independent; but the Committee manoeuvred a hearing for Dr Jagan amid strenuous British objections.

In 1962, to further delay Independence, the PNC conditioned the bestowal of Independence with a change in the electoral system. Great Britain eventually granted Independence to Guyana on May 26, 1966.

Vernon Nunes while in detention at Sibley Hall, penned “INDEPENDENCE YES! CELEBRATIONS NO!” a front page caption in Thunder of April 1966. Dr Jagan advanced these reasons for not celebrating Independence: (1) the colonial Constitution did not protect fundamental rights, a pre-condition for national unity; (2) the colonialists’ marionettes gained power through a rigged constitutional arrangement; (3) detention without trial was still the order of the day;(4) colonialists still exerted political and economic domination via firming up the economy rooted in primary production and extraction, and the escalating debt burdens; (5) the state of emergency was still in place to silence and bully the working class; (6) PPP comrades were still languishing in detention at Sibley Hall.

The British political authorities in an unabashed show of imperialist intrigue with their American counterparts granted Independence in 1966, not because they loved the Guyanese people, but because of a concerted effort to: keep Dr Jagan and the PPP out of office; consolidate British and American vested interests; demonstrate the virility of the Truman and Lyttleton Doctrine; infuse the ‘American way’; and illustrate, unwittingly and unintentionally perhaps, the meaning of political opportunism.

The PPP’s election victory in 1992 cemented the way for real Independence, prompting Dr Jagan to proclaim that the people have won and “…that for the first time since independence, we have a Parliament which is truly representative of the people…”

This year marks the 40th Independence anniversary and for the first time in these last few years, a new spirit of Independence has stalked this land; and recapturing the spirit of 1953, national unity, working class unity, and racial unity, may very well require an engaging public discourse and consensus.

Mahaica wounding accused found guilty
BY A majority verdict of 10 to 2, a Demerara Assize jury has found Mahaica farmer Terrence Hawker, called Terry, guilty of unlawfully wounding fellow farmer Malcolm Brown with intent to cause him grievous bodily harm.

Sentence was postponed Monday to March 13 to enable the court to benefit from a probation report on the prisoner who was represented by Mr Bernard De Santos, S.C.

As outlined by the prosecution, led by Miss Donelle Harding, the case involved a row over land rent between the father of the accused and the victim, with Hawker attacking Brown with a cutlass on June 5, 2001.

Brown, who, the defence said is a diabetic, was chopped about the body and his right index finger severed. The evidence was that the left arm, which was in a sling while Brown was in hospital, had to be amputated.

In his statement from the dock, Hawker claimed that Brown was the aggressor that day.

He said he was on his way to his farm when Brown attacked him with a cutlass, causing him to remove his own cutlass from his bicycle, to ward off the attack by Brown.

Hawker claimed that during the clash, he and the victim had fallen into a trench in which there were pieces of zinc that could have injured Brown.

East Ruimveldt wounding trial opens today
THE East Ruimveldt wounding trial, with accused Anthony Charles facing a two-count indictment of wounding, begins today at the Demerara Assizes, before Justice Yonette Cummings-Edwards and a mixed jury.

Charles, represented by attorney-at-law Mr Basil Williams, has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

He is accused of having, on January 3, 2003, in Demerara, caused grievous bodily harm to Phillip Knights with intent to murder him.

The second count accuses him of unlawfully wounding Knights on the same day.

Prosecutor Miss Omeyana Hamilton is expected to deliver her opening address this morning.

Deploy military personnel
THE Guyana Police Force seems in need of help to provide the level of service and protection needed.

Steps needed immediately:

(1) Transfer as many military personnel as feasible to guard key sites and roadblocks. This was recently done by a Central American nation in answer to a rampaging crime spree.

(2) Establish system of communication and mobility, including use of at least one helicopter to ferry a response unit to crime scene, and as many small helicopters as possible to be used as spotter craft for response teams. 

(3) Use crime data to place rapid response teams within minutes of highest crime scenes.

(4) Get outside Police experts to advise and plan better strategies to combat crime; we cannot worry about political or personal pride to prevent a better strategy than now exists.

(5) Seek immediate cooperation from political parties, NGOs, civil society and media in this fight.

(6) The President must lead this fight and put it as the number one priority.  Unless we use this or a better plan, all that Guyana has accomplished will be lost regardless of who is in power. 

It is time for unity or chaos, life or death for Guyanese hopes.
G. XAVIER   

Downright frightening
I AM Guyanese, I live in the United States but I'm at my heart and soul a person who loves my home country.

I come home often. I do that because I know that those of us who have been blessed with the opportunity to live abroad have a responsibility to not only send assistance back to our families but to return home often, spending money to enhance our economy and looking for ways to make our country better so that the urgency with which our people are constantly attempting to relocate to other countries is no longer necessary.

Recently, however, I find that I'm questioning returning to Guyana, not for a vacation and definitely not permanently. The incredible violence is not just disturbing but it’s downright frightening. 

My question is, other than "condemning" the violence, what exactly is the government doing about this?  Why isn't there an actual investigation into where all these guns are coming from?  Everyone seems to know except the people who are responsible for stopping it.

How are people supposed to live, carry out their everyday lives and feel safe in the streets of their own country when there are gangs running around killing innocent people, robbing businesses and basically terrifying our nation? 

I know I’m not the only Guyanese living abroad who is saddened by the state of our country; I've heard people say that they will never return to Guyana after visiting last Christmas. 

I can't blame them, no one wants to go on vacation and be robbed or killed so the question remains, has Guyana been turned over to the criminals who are now heavily-armed and free to do as they will, or is our government going to take a stand, find out (even if they need outside assistance) where the guns are coming from and put a stop to it? 

We abroad really want to know because as much as we love our country, we have no intention of coming home to support it but instead lose our lives or have our kids kidnapped.
CONCERNED CITIZEN

Flush them out
I AM appalled at all the violence taking place in Guyana.

The police force is full of rhetoric and much song and dance.

Some businessmen and women are trading in illegal guns, ammunition and drugs.

The government should play a more proactive role in regards to the importation of goods into the country. Everyday vessels sneak guns, ammunition, illegal fuel, as well as drugs into Guyana.

The cell phones used by those who killed the eight persons over the weekend should be traced. I guess the telephone company would quickly say that it does not have any tracking device to acquire this important information.

Too many crazy things are taking place in Guyana and the families of these bandits/killers should be held accountable for their actions.

Once identified, they should be placed before the courts and remanded to prison. Laws should be enacted to facilitate these proceedings.

Some of these bandits live with their parents, and other family members. Communities should band together to smoke them out of the society.

The honest policemen in Guyana are but few and rare and the government should encourage these good cops by giving them special incentives. The bad cops in Guyana are a threat to the stabilisation of the country.

The government should swallow its pride and seek external help to solve many cold cases in this country.

The rapid increase in violence came as a result of the openness of the sea ports as well as the unmanned operations at most border crossings. This has given rise to guns, drugs and other illegal activities.

Corruption is on the rise in Guyana and before we realise what is going on, it may be too late.

These bandits who are the garbage in our society should be flushed out.
FED UP

Strange excuse 
GUYANA newspapers are perhaps the only ones in the world reporting on vicious crimes and murders without giving eyewitness descriptions of what the perpetrators look like.

Newspaper editors say they do not wish to endanger the eyewitnesses who are fearful revenge. This is a rather strange excuse considering the newspapers do not identify the eyewitnesses who give other extensive quotes in the news pieces.

But as the saying goes: “Argue for your limitations and they are yours.” Mediocre journalism is the norm in Guyana.

It is therefore not surprising that the three security guards passed a road block set up by the depraved butchers of last Sunday’s East Bank massacre. The Stabroek News reports that “from all indications the MMC guards were allowed to pass through the gunmen's roadblock at Houston and the MMC guards were unaware that they were not policemen.”

The guards did not recognise the gunmen who, according to reports were so adept at the devil’s work that it is obvious this was not their first abominable act, not their first step into hell.

Can’t anyone else who was stopped at the Houston roadblock that night give a description of the persons who stopped them?

“Residents who were liming at the time said they observed the men but were not sure what they were about until the rapid gunfire erupted . . . ,” reports the Stabroek News. Did the residents recognise the gunmen or did they have to wait until shots were fired before realising who these people were?

The Stabroek News quoted an eyewitness who was close enough to hear one of the gunmen’s cell phone conversation but apparently not close enough to tell us what he looked like.

The Guyana Chronicle reports that the three MMC guards may have been responding to the crime and “drove straight into the gas station because they took the gang for the `Black Clothes Police’. . ."

Doesn’t the Guyana Police Force make composites of gun toting murderers and circulate these to security and other law enforcement agencies?

Imagine, in this day and age of crime fighting (and news reporting) such an elementary task is not done. It would have been laughable, were it not for those who lost their lives and their grieving families.

But then again why fuss?

After all, Guyana is the country where the Police Commissioner says he is “scared” to talk about a kidnapping even though he is sure the abduction wasn’t for real. 
LUTCHMAN GOSSAI

Cyber-armchair-engineers
RELUCTANTLY, I respond to a letter from Seopaul Singh published in the Stabroek News of Friday 24th February headed `The MMA/ADA project was not well researched’.

It is indeed disturbing to see the length to which some people would go to manufacture situations and manipulate information in order to postulate and give their opinions.

Ordinarily, I would not have cared about Singh’s opinion that the Mahaica, Mahaicony, Abary (MMA) is an ill-researched project. He is entitled to that.

Surely, I would have disagreed, as I certainly do. But to have him write that the extracts from the reports by Camacho et al that were cited in relation to the project, as well as saying that the PNC hastily put together the project for political mileage as the basis of this nonsensical opinion is totally unacceptable and somewhat revolting.

It is my opinion instead, that the research and analyses done for the MMA project, as well as the constructed engineering works, are still the best yet for our country, and if I am to be contradicted by others apart from Singh, then I plead my association and intimate passion for the organisation.

I have always seen the MMA as a truly Guyanese project, and because I have craved and strived for a separation between the ‘Engineer’s MMA’ and the ‘Politician’s MMA’ I want to, at the outset, treat with his remarks that refer to the PNC and political mileage. He is wrong.

For the benefit of Singh and others, the MMA project had its beginnings since 1952. (The PNC did not exist then).

At that time, F.H. Hutchinson, then consulting engineer to the government, laid out his ideas for water control in the Mahaicony and Abary catchments. In 1953, those ideas were expanded on by Lacey, then adviser to the government, to include the Mahaica. In the mid-1950s, work commenced with surveys and data gathering.

By 1961, the project report with the detailed designs and cost estimates for Stage 1 – Control of the Abary - were completed by the government Drainage and Irrigation Department. Camacho was then Director of the department, and the report and designs acknowledged the work of the consulting engineers Drury and Rowe, as well as the many surveyors, draughtsmen and other local staff of the department.

By 1978 when the first IDB loan was finalised, a reappraisal of the 1961 work had been undertaken and completed between 1975 and 1976, by renowned international consultants Halcrow and Partners. Many of the reappraisal studies benefited from new technologies that had been developed by then. (The Abary River tidal drainage studies which included a mathematical model of the Abary River was one to so benefit. See final report “Tidal Drainage Studies” Sir William Halcrow and Partners – June 1985).

In the end, there were some changes, but the concept and the bulk of the designs including the 7-door sluice, generally remained the same. Incidentally, Halcrow was retained as consultants for the resulting construction works, and yes, the same Camacho who headed the British Guiana D&I department in 1961, was employed as their Project Director.

It is therefore not true that the PNC hastily put together the project in the late seventies for political mileage. As a matter of fact, I was told that the MMA was one of the reasons for the Opposition at the time giving ‘critical support’ to the then government. Wasn’t that nice, Seopaul?

Now for his reference to the reports: In my previous letter to which Mr Singh refers, and upon which he sets out to join in on the debate about the Abary River, I quoted a few extracts from reports by Camacho et al. I clearly stated what those reports were in pointing your readers to them.

It would have been nice to know whether Singh was able to source any of the reports, so that he would have had the benefit of all the information about the extracts quoted. It does not appear as if he did. Instead, he chose to separate out a piece from one extract and ‘go to town’, out of context of course, on it, and me too.

I refer to the piece “It was reported that the Abary River is now silting up” which started the extract from Source #2. Did he miss the quotation marks? Or was it the comprehension necessary for direct speech?

Either way let me see if I can help him by explaining differently what the extract was saying. What Camacho was saying was that it was reported to him that the river was silting up, and that the basis of those reports was the recent survey information presented to him about the channel.

But he pointed out that it seemed as if no comparisons were done (by perhaps those who reported that the channel was silting up) with the 1960s survey data, because there appeared to be no significant change between 1960 and 1994.

Obviously, he would have done the comparisons. If you understand, then you should accept that you have totally misconstrued what the extract was intended to say, and rather than telling me about ‘putting my foot in my mouth’ you may wish to remove your head from up where it is.

There is another issue in Seopaul’s letter that warrants a similar correcting.

In column 2, last paragraph, he stated that the question that we must first answer is whether the river is dying and why? He then goes on to erroneously appropriate the depth and width information about the river mouth at the bar, to other sections of the river instead.

And then pads up, condescendingly it appears, with reference to a statement from Malcolm Alli about the river depth; his aim apparently, to arrive at a conclusion that the river is dead.

Now from the beginning, when the issue of the river first came up, I have always clearly stated that the data and investigations we were working with, relate to the mouth of the river. All the reports cited also made that clear. How then could Seopaul have seen otherwise?

Again for his benefit, and lest it may have been missed by your readers, please allow me refer to another letter of mine carried in a different section of the press in relation to this issue. In that letter I submitted that the character of the low water channel at the river mouth is determined by the upstream discharges of the river, constantly acting against the littoral currents and their heavy sediment charge.

If the river were silted up and had no conveyance capacity as is being claimed then, how then could have the flow channel remained significantly unchanged? As a matter of fact, analyses of our January 2006 investigations point to a clear movement of the low water channel eastwards, which suggests significant upstream discharges sufficient enough to overcome the tidal drifts. If we are to accept then that the river has been discharging effectively, then we should accept that the sediment load would not have all deposited on the river bed upstream, but transported down to, and out of the mouth also. This is a simple and commonsensical argument that Singh’s letter, as long as it is, and as scientific as he seems to want it to appear, fails to speak to.

Instead, he goes forward and backward between some theoretical expectations and his deduced ‘realities’, one of which is that the river is now very shallow, 1.5 feet. Absurd as it is, the gentleman wants me to explain it too!

I can’t because it is your imagination. Additionally, I do not believe that the newspapers should be the medium for any elaborate technical and scientific engagements.

Finally, with regards to his query about how a main canal between the Abary and Mahaicony would control the flooding on the Abary, I point him to the way in which the existing main canal between the Abary and Berbice controls flooding on the left bank of the Berbice and the cultivation areas north of the canal.

Perhaps it should have been spelt out for Seopaul that we are talking about a canal, not a drain, and that it is the canal embankment that would serve as a dam keeping the water from inundating the area.

Quite elementary, I should I think for someone who has just ‘written-off’ the entire engineering of the MMA/ADA project.

For the moment, I think I have had enough of these ‘cyber-armchair-engineers’.
RUDOLPH GAJRAJ
HEAD MMA/ADA

Snow-drifts in Georgetown
I HAVE patiently waited for someone to comment on the snow-drifts of styrofoam and plastic bottles which covered the streets and canals of Georgetown on the morning after our Mashramani frolicsome excesses.

The resounding silence may be taken as proof that we have lost all sensitivity to such an outrage.

It would also appear that lingering memories of the flood are manifested only by expenditure on cement for elevating yards and floors, presumably to a level which no future flood would exceed.

This year’s ‘fall’ of plastics and styrofoam was worse than it has ever been and the workers valiantly attempting to clean up the mess on Friday morning looked like lost travellers in a wasteland, an air of futility in their very stance.

Surely a moment’s reflection on the fact that those bottles and boxes are never going to go away, or rot or even melt like the snowfall they resemble, would indicate that the problem has reached a state of critical urgency.

We do not manufacture these items. Why are we importing more problems? Do we have a dearth of troubles or an excess of foreign reserves?

In an earlier letter I promised to quote from an article on plastics written by Ms. Carol Bloner, a Californian volunteer ranger, who says she was inspired by articles on plastic bags in the Stabroek News. Ms. Bloner’s article was written for the Point Lobos Docent in California and the information in it is so valuable to us that, with her permission, I have quoted the entire article below:

“Diamonds are forever; so are plastics. Most of us consider the legacy we will leave our grandchildren. Yet, few of us think in terms of our great-great grandchildren’s great-great grandchildren. It is quite possible that descendents of ten generations behind us may be reading about Albertson’s and Raley’s and Safeway from the plastic bags that we, today, bring home from the grocery stores.

And bring them home we do! World Watch Institute in 2002 placed United States bag use at 100 billion bags each year and worldwide use between 4 and 5 trillion bags. They are inexpensive, lightweight, and virtually indestructible. The indestructible part is the problem.

The impetus for this article came from one written for the Stabroek News in Guyana, a country whose location I had to look up in an atlas. In researching information, I found articles dating back four years from South Africa, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, India and the UK. Articles from the United States are just now beginning to appear. Websites abound from around the world. Among the most helpful was earthresource.org, located in Southern California, whose Campaign Against Plastic Plague (CAPP) is dedicated to educating the public and involves individuals and businesses to solve the plastic problem.

Let’s define the problem. Plastics are petroleum-based products that are not fully degradable. No bacteria exist that break down plastic. Only 5% of plastic bags are recycled, and only a small percentage of those can be made into usable items; most end up in landfills where decomposition can take upwards of 500 years. Outside of landfills, discarded plastic bags become imbedded in the soil and ultimately block the sun and nutrients from land often needed for farming.

Most bags are discarded wantonly. They catch on fences and hedges, garnering the sobriquets “national flag” in Ireland and “national flower” or “roadside daisies” in South Africa.

They clog sewers and drainage systems. Bangladesh blames the bags for massive flooding in 1988 and 1998. Many too many find their way into the oceans where they kill an estimated 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtles and between 700,000 to 1 million sea birds each and every year. By the heat of the sun, plastics in the oceans slowly break down into sand-sized, toxic molecules. These plastic pellets act like sponges. They soak up contaminants like DDT and PCBs that also do not dissolve in water.

The bottom of the food web mistakes these particles for food and eats them, and up the chain it goes to produce a very non-organic fish for the dinner plate.

If a piece of plastic is discarded in the northern Pacific Ocean, chances are it will become part of an ocean desert known as the Horse Latitudes and, more recently, as “the eastern garbage patch.” This area, about halfway between Hawaii and the mainland at latitudes between 30 and 35 N, has a permanent high-pressure system, little wind, and circular currents, or gyres. You can get in but without an independent source of power you can’t get out.

Serious research on the ocean’s plastic problem started in 1997 when Charles Moore, returning to California from a yacht race in Hawaii, decided to detour through the horse latitudes. He found himself “…in the middle of the ocean, and there was nowhere I could go to avoid the plastic.” It took Moore a week to traverse an area the size of Texas, and all he saw was plastic. When he investigated below the ocean surface, he discovered plastics to depths of 100 feet! Alarmed, Moore created the Algalita Marine Research Foundation (AMRF) and developed ways to monitor decomposing plastics in the oceans and on the beaches, which have been adopted by individual countries and the United Nations Environmental Programme. Monitoring the problem is not the same as solving it.

There are some solutions. One is to charge for the use of plastic bags. In 2002, Ireland instituted a 15¢ per bag user fee. Within the year, plastic bag use plummeted by 90%, and that reduction has remained steady. Additional countries imposing fees are: Denmark, Germany, Japan, Norway, South Africa, and Tasmania.

Since 2004, supermarkets in Shanghai, China, have charged for bags. Education is another option. Australia and New Zealand are taking this approach before imposing bag fees.

Some countries have gone farther and banned plastic bag use completely. These include: Bangladesh, Eritrea, India, Italy, Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, Somaliland, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan and Thailand (where even tourists are fined for bringing a plastic bag into the country).

India is quite innovative. One state bans even the manufacture of bags, and law-breakers risk a seven-year prison sentence. Another state is turning recycled plastic bags into designer handbags that are sold in high-end boutiques in London, Paris, and New York.

So what about the United States? California is taking the problem seriously. In November 2003 our State Water Resources Control Board gave a grant to Moore’s AMRF, which has started the “Plastic Debris, Rivers to Sea” project to assess and reduce the sources of plastic that flows as runoff through cities to the ocean. The California Coastal Commission is also facilitating this programme.

Nationally, news articles concerning the problem have been more frequent in the last six months, but to date, only one city in our 50 states has acted. Galena, Alaska with a population of 850 is the only place in the U.S. that bans plastic bags. San Francisco’s efforts to enact a bag fee in 2005 failed; instead, supermarkets will provide $10 million for an education campaign. Last November Monterey County Waste Management District hosted a one-day “Say No to Plastic Bags” event.

Earth Day 2006 is April 22. Many of us will join with others around the world in cleaning trails and beaches. Will this solve the world’s plastic problem? Charles Moore thinks not. He writes, “I can no longer see pristine images when I think of the briny deep. Neither can I imagine any ‘beach cleanup’ type of solution. Only elimination of the source of the problem can result in an ocean nearly free from plastic.”

CAPP writes in its newsletter, “As a result of the harmful impact of plastic on global ecosystems, economies, and public health, immediate action must be taken to eliminate single use, throwaway plastics. Change must be established in the consumer lifestyle through education, citizen action, and business accountability.”

Today is a good day to begin. Let’s make every day Earth Day.” Written by Carol Bloner.
ELIZABETH ALLEYNE

Providence Stadium ...
Extraordinary work
… says CWC/ ICC Venue Development Officer
By Faizool Deo
THE quality of work done on the Providence Stadium was described as “extraordinary” in light of the adverse weather conditions.

Chief Operations Officer and Venue Development Director for ICC Cricket World Cup West Indies 2007, Don Lockerbie, yesterday, expressed the delight of a six-member delegation on the progress made over the last few months on the Providence Stadium.

The stadium which to date is approximately 40 percent complete will be used to host super eight matches at next year’s World Cup.

Along with the Venue Development Director, the other members of the delegation included ICC Venues Consultant Professor Eugene van Vuuren, ICC Pitch and Field Consultant Andy Atkinson, Broadcast Manager Rick Jemison, Sports Agronomy Team Coordinator Professor Jeff Atherton and ICC Consultant John Kuller.

“I know that CWC is very pleased and (I) would also state that my colleagues at ICC are pleasantly surprised at the progress,” Lockerbie stated.

“They were last here in December and the difference of the workmanship, the quality of the workmanship since December has been, we would think extraordinary especially with the weather conditions that Guyana has had to face.”

He said the initiative between the Government of Guyana and the Government of India, who helped tremendously in constructing the stadium, was a total success and the Local Organising Committee (LOC) was challenged to continue their pace of work.

“With just about a year to go before the matches, we can’t slow down, we can’t have delays; we need to continue to make sure that all the material that is needed is here and that the contractors, both Indian and Guyanese, are given all the resources.”

But Guyana may be faced with a construction crisis if enough cement is not acquired. Site engineer, Walter Willis, explained that there is a cement shortage at the moment and about 1 000 tons is needed to complete the concrete works at the site.

“The last 500 sacks were used yesterday and that was brought from as far as Essequibo as a buffer.”

He disclosed that they were awaiting their shipment from Fidelity Investment, coming from Venezuela, which should be here the latest Thursday evening.

“That is the assurance given to us.”

Willis said that they have tried to buy cement from many people who have right now, but no one wants to sell, not even at twice the price.

The delegation is on a trip around the Caribbean to evaluate the venue progress of seven venues in five World Cup territories.

Prior to the Guyana visit which ended yesterday afternoon, the team visited two venues in Barbados, while last evening they were expected to arrive in Grenada, with a stop in Antigua tomorrow and Jamaica (two venues) on Friday and Saturday.

In Barbados, they saw the Kensington Oval and the Three W’s Oval and they were very pleased with their progress as well.

“I would say at the moment that Providence Stadium is further along than the Kensington Oval,” Lockerbie said.

He explained that was a good barometer considering that they all have to be completed around the same time.

“Next February is when all the stadiums have to be totally completed for the World Cup.”

PITCH AND FIELD BEHIND
However, the pitch and field are behind time, according to Lockerbie.

“Right now we would have expected the pitch to be completed and the field to have some green grass growing (but) the weather conditions have caused that to be difficult,” Lockerbie explained.

He said the Local Organising Committee and builders Terra Forma promised the pitch and field would be ready by the end of May, pointing out the ICC requires matches to be played by the end of July.

Terra Forma resumed work yesterday at the site and Lockerbie commented that it was very important that they move quickly with the construction since that aspect of work was one of the most important aspects to evaluate the readiness of a country.

Lockerbie declared that when the delegation returned in April or May major work must be done on the pitch and field.

He noted that the CWC felt it was possible since Terra Forma was building six pitches for the World Cup, and that they had the expertise to get the job done.

“The concern is how can we put on super eight matches on a pitch and field that is under a year old? The answer is … we are not going to treat it like any other pitch and field that sits there and has very little maintenance; this pitch and field will have to be maintained every single day as if every week we are getting ready for the World Cup.”

ACCOMMODATION
With the possibility of thousands pouring into Guyana to witness the super eight matches, Lockerbie feels that accommodation needs to be in place a long time before the start so that people can book their rooms in advance.

He said he was heartened that the Government of Guyana promised to ensure that the accommodation problem was solved, but that the ICC was still monitoring the situation.

Therefore, a Guyana Task Force on accommodation with members from the LOC and CWC was established to observe, monitor and audit the progress of hotel accommodation.

The D-day for CWC and for all the World Cup venues will be May 11 at a board meeting.

Lockerbie said this would be the toughest of all meetings since ICC would demand a report that shows that all the venues in the Caribbean were on time and the stadiums completed in time for the greatest cricket show on earth.

Yorke strikes double ...
Trinidad beat Iceland
By Mike Collett
LONDON, England (Reuters) - Dwight Yorke scored twice as Trinidad & Tobago began their countdown to the World Cup finals with a 2-0 win over Iceland in a friendly international at a freezing Loftus Road, yesterday.

On a night when thousands of their countrymen began a traditional two-day carnival in the Caribbean heat, Trinidad's players tried to raise the temperature for their frozen fans in London and succeeded with a controlled all-round display.

In their first match since qualifying for their first World Cup in November, the Soca Warriors were quicker to the ball, faster on the break and more cohesive than Iceland whose first match under Eyjolfur Sverrisson saw a fifth straight defeat.

Yorke blasted his side ahead from eight metres after 10 minutes and the Trinidad skipper doubled the lead with an audacious chip from a 54th minute penalty after Stern John was pushed over in the box by Ivar Ingimarsson.

Iceland almost scored after 38 minutes when skipper Eidur Gudjohnsen was inches wide with a 20-metre free kick but Trinidad were always in control and gave scouts from World Cup opponents England, Sweden and Paraguay plenty to ponder.

BRITISH-BASED
Trinidad's Dutch coach Leo Beenhakker selected seven British-based players in his starting lineup, plus Yorke who was familiar with the Loftus Road ground from his days in the Premier League with Manchester United and Aston Villa.

It was Yorke who opened the scoring with a well-taken goal after only 10 minutes when Iceland's defence failed to clear a high, ranging cross from Colin Samuel who outpaced Heldi Danielsson down the left wing.

Indridi Sigurdsson played the inswinging ball straight to Yorke who controlled it with one touch before blasting it high and wide of goalkeeper Arni Arason with his next.

Iceland did create some chances of their own in an entertaining opening 45 minutes with left-winger Ivar Ingimarsson twice cutting in to fire two powerful efforts towards Shaka Hislop's goal.

Gudjohnsen went closest to a goal with his free kick and as ever was at the heart of almost every move Iceland put together.

But Trinidad were far too strong for Gudjohnsen to play on his own and some fine performances from Carlos Edwards, Samuel and Cyd Grey hinted that Trinidad may not be anyone's pushovers in the finals in Germany starting in June.

FIFA World Cup…
100 days to go
… Still plenty work
By Kevin Fylan
FRANKFURT, Germany (Reuters) - With the countdown to the 2006 World Cup reaching 100 days, today, organisers just want to be left to work in peace after a bruising start to 2006.

At first glance, there seems little for the organising committee to be worried about ahead of the start of the tournament in Munich on June 9.

The 12 stadiums are all staging matches with time to spare following a 1.5 billion euro ($1.78 billion) rebuilding programme, and ticket sales are all but complete.

The OC's reluctance to mark the milestone is understandable, however, considering the way their New Year's Bavarian breakfast party turned out.

Over beer and sausages, Franz Beckenbauer said Germany must cut out the arguments, avoid any more self-inflicted damage and concentrate simply on the task in hand.

"We can't afford another spanner in the works," Beckenbauer said in what amounted to a plea to the media to stop looking for trouble.

Within days, Stiftung Warentest, a prominent German consumer protection group was unveiling a report that questioned safety in several World Cup stadiums and created bad publicity around the globe.

Just as the story was fizzling out, the OC was dealt another blow by FIFA's announcement that the opening gala set for two days before the start of the tournament had been cancelled.

Beckenbauer, the OC's president and the figurehead for the tournament's organisation, looked on aghast.

"Our nation made itself look a bit ridiculous in front of the whole world," Beckenbauer told Bild newspaper.

Ridiculous, perhaps, but still perfectly capable of getting on with the job.

While national media have been laying into Germany's organisation of the tournament, the OC has kept up the furious workrate at its Frankfurt HQ, while Beckenbauer has been taking care of the PR work.

SAFE STADIUMS
The OC rejected the criticisms of the stadium report, swiftly and convincingly. The stadiums have all passed FIFA inspections and will be among the safest in the world for the tournament, they said.

The row over the opening gala has now dissipated as well. Slow ticket sales were proof enough that there was no great interest in a separate opening gala and instead parties will now be held by the host cities across Germany.

The last of three significant ticket offers was organised without trouble and the tournament is all but certain to be a sell-out.

"The World Cup could start tomorrow," Beckenbauer told reporters in New York on the latest leg of his marathon tour of all 31 qualifying teams for the tournament.

That is not quite true, of course.

The 12 stadiums will not be turned over to the OC until after the end of the domestic season in Germany in mid-May.

Organisers will then have just a few weeks to make all the necessary adjustments: enlarging press areas in the stands, setting up the media centres, assigning parking areas, putting up new signs, establishing offices for themselves and FIFA and taking care of all the other operational minutia.

There is also a team workshop to get through in Duesseldorf next week. That is certain to throw up new logistical problems, as the 32 teams get down to the nitty-gritty of how they are going to set up their own operations, while following competition rules.

There are 4 000 volunteers to train and assign, the 10 000 media workers to accredit and the 430 million euro operational budget to manage.

Then there is the threat of another unexpected spanner in the works, to use Beckenbauer's phrase.

Bild newspaper last week raised the pointless question of whether a bird flu pandemic might cause the World Cup to be cancelled.

It was just the sort of issue that might have sidetracked organisers for days or weeks but the matter was largely ignored in the wider media.

That was just as well. Germany has got most of the work done since being awarded the World Cup in 2000, but there is still plenty to do as the clock ticks down.

Mash table tennis tourney…
Lowe cops six titles
TRENACE Lowe was unstoppable in the Annual National Sports Commission (NSC) Mashramani table tennis tournament which concluded last Monday at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall.

Lowe, who will turn 15 next month, won six titles including two on the final day to finish the most valuable female player in the tournament.

On the final day she copped the Women’s Singles title after defeating Lisa Lewis in straight sets 11-8, 11-7, 11-8 while also winning the 18-&-Under Girls’ title, whipping Tiffany Blair 11-7, 11-5, 11-4.

Her other first places were recorded in the 15-&-Under Girls competition in which she again defeated Blair 3-0, the Girls’ Doubles in which she teamed up with Saskeia Chung to win against Blair/ Connie Chung 9-11,11-3,11-8, 11-3, the Junior Mixed Doubles, teaming up with Joel Alleyne to defeat Tristan Gaime/ Blair 11-8,11-7,11-6 and the Senior Mixed Doubles when she wielded her racquet with Andrew Daly to win against Rhonda Farley/Hewley Griffith at 12-10,11-7,8-11 and 11-8.

Also on the final day, two other finals were played - the B Class Open, and the 18-&-Under boys.

In the B Class Open, Dwayne Dick came from behind to defeat Edhino Lewis 6-11, 13-15, 11-6, 11-6 and 11-6. Lewis was very dominant, but was unable to counteract the top spin of Dick.

The 18-&-Under went to male MVP Joel Alleyne who recorded a come-from-behind victory over Devon Richmond 11-14, 8-11, 11-8, 11-6 and 11-4.

Richmond was recognised for his development and was named the Most Improved Player of the tournament, while on the distaff side it was little Connie Chung who was named the Most Improved Player. A special prize of a table tennis rubber was also given to young cadet player Nigel Bryan.

At the closing ceremony, Director of Sport Neil Kumar said he wanted the Independence tournament scheduled for May, to act as the National Championship.

PM Mitchell takes over LOC in Grenada
ST GEORGE'S, Grenada, CMC - Grenada's Prime Minister Dr Keith Mitchell has announced that the coordination of all matters relating to Cricket World Cup (CWC) 2007 in Grenada are now under the Prime Minister's Office.

Dr Mitchell said that the decision was taken about four weeks ago -- before the CARICOM Inter-Sessional Meeting in Trinidad earlier this month.

"Recognising the absolute necessity for quick decision-making and to facilitate our preparations for the World Cup, I have decided to take full responsibility for the preparation of the Queen's Park for the World Cup and all related issues for Grenada's readiness for World Cup 2007," Dr Mitchell said.

Dr Mitchell, who is also the chairman of the CARICOM Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee on Cricket, said that he has already held meetings with the Local Organising Committee (LOC) Grenada.

"Every Friday at 11 o'clock we meet and review the past week's activities and what decisions need to be made to make sure that we are on top of everything," he said.

On February 12, the Barbados Prime Minister Owen Arthur had also announced that he is taking full responsibility for all World Cup preparation activities in Barbados.

Managing Director and CEO of Cricket World Cup 2007 Inc, Chris Dehring lauded the move by both leaders.

"This move is indicative of simply the fact that we are moving into a much higher gear of our preparations and I am very heartened to see how both Prime Minister Arthur and Prime Minister (Keith) Mitchell in Grenada and other prime ministers are taking a very serious look at Cricket World Cup and ensuring that things will be done," Dehring told CMC.

Meanwhile, a delegation from the International Cricket Council (ICC) will visit Grenada today, as part of the fifth Venue Tour, to monitor this country's preparation for hosting the six Super 8 matches during the Cricket World Cup 2007.

The delegation, comprising Professor Eugene van Vuuren - Venue Consultant, Andy Atkinson - Pitch & Field Consultant, Rick Jemison - Broadcast Manager, Professor Jeff Atherton - Sports Agronomy Team Coordinator and Don Lockerbie - Chief Operations Officer/Venue Development Director, were due to arrive here last evening from Guyana after completing a similar exercise in that country.

While in Grenada, the officials will meet with Prime Minister Mitchell, visit the National Stadium construction, the two proposed practice venues at La Sagesse and Progress Park, and the hotel identified to accommodate the visiting media during the event.

Cheddi Jagan Memorial 80 km road race…
Top cyclists head for Berbice
THE powerhouses of local cycling will clash in the 9th Annual Cheddi Jagan Memorial 80 km road race on Sunday on the Corentyne Coast.

However, Warren McKay and Jude Bently will not be in the saddle this year because they will be heading for Australia as part of Guyana’s contingent in the Commonwealth Games.

Also, last year’s champion Marlon Williams will not defend his title because he is now in Anguilla.

But over the past year, many young riders have been strongly challenging the older riders and the meet will still be very competitive.

Alonzo Greaves, John Charles, Darren Allen, Shane Boodram, Sherwin Osbourne, the experienced Junior Niles and Tony Simon will be burning the roads, along with the veterans and upright riders.

The race starts at 09:00 h in front of Freedom House in New Amsterdam. Wheelers will race to Number 51 Village on the Corentyne Coast, turning back to finish at Port Mourant.

The first six finishers will receive prizes, along with the first three juniors, veterans and upright riders.

Banks DIH Limited will provide Tropical Mist water for the participants and Ricks & Sari Agro Industries will have hampers for the top placers.

Transportation for cyclists and officials from Georgetown and surrounding areas will leave at 05:30 h from Ricks & Sari office on Sheriff Street on Sunday.

Kensington Oval renovation gets thumbs up from Cup officials
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC - Officials from the Cricket World Cup (CWC) 2007 and the International Cricket Council (ICC) have expressed approval with the work being done at the Kensington Oval and the 3Ws Oval, the two venues to host matches when the tournament comes to Caribbean in 2007.

Don Lockerbie, the venue development director of the CWC, said the work was progressing well and things looked "fantastic".

"A lot of progress has been made, as a matter of fact things are looking fantastic and we are extremely pleased with what we are seeing," he said.

"I was here during the Christmas holiday and again in early February and to see the extensive progress that has been done is very encouraging and Barbados looks set to be ready. So far we have had positive reactions and we are pleased.

"The countries we will be seeing are the ones that have had a little bit of delay as we were moving forward, so we have decided to physically have a look at each one. I hope that for the rest of the trip we will be able to see the same positive things."

Lockerbie was speaking on Monday after he and four other officials made a tour of the two venues.

Kensington Oval, in the heart of Bridgetown, will be hosting the final match as well as Super 8 (second round) matches.

The seating capacity will be doubled to accommodate 28 000 spectators.

The 3Ws Oval, a small ground with 2 000 seats nestled at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI), is about two kilometres from Bridgetown. It will stage four pre-tournament matches.

"Now it's a matter of getting the job done. We are spending in the region of US$275 million to US$300 million to get the stadiums ready for the CWC and we are building brand new facilities in every country.

"We have made every country obligated to be ready by the end of October. The reason why we want to be finished by this time is that we want to be able to test them and ensure that those who will be working will know it better that everyone else and all will be in place when the tournament gets here."

The officials left Barbados on Monday night and will be visiting some of the other countries hosting CWC matches.

Yesterday, they visited the Providence Stadium, outside Georgetown, Guyana.

The following day they visit Queen's Park, Grenada, followed by the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, Antigua; Sabina Park in Kingston, Jamaica; and the Trelawny Stadium on the north-west coast of Jamaica.

The other venues are: Beausejour, St Lucia; the Queen's Park Oval and the Brian Lara Stadium in Trinidad; the Warner Park, St Kitts; and the Arnos Vale Field on the island of St Vincent.

The CWC will be played in the West Indies for the first time and 16 teams - Australia, West Indies, South Africa, England, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, New Zealand, Kenya, Scotland, Canada, Bermuda, Zimbabwe, The Netherlands and Ireland will play 51 matches in 48 days.

The opening ceremony is March 11 and the final match is April 28.

Australia are the two-time defending champions, having won the title in 1999 in England and 2003 in Australia.

Draw for Stanford Twenty20 tournament
GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands, CMC - Draw for the first-ever Stanford Twenty20 knockout tournament starting July 11 in Antigua and 19 teams vying for US$1 million first prize.

MATCH SCHEDULE:

Tuesday, July 11

15:00 h - St Maarten v USVI (Match 1).

19:00 h - Bahamas v Cayman (Match 2).

Wednesday, July 12

19:00 h - BVI v St Lucia (Match 3).

Friday, July 14

15:00 h - Grenada v Dominica (Match 4).

19:00 h - St Kitts v Nevis (Match 5).

Tuesday, July 18

15:00 h - St Vincent v Winner Match 1 (Match 6).

19:00 h - Barbados v Anguilla (Match 7).

Wednesday, July 19

19:00 h - Antigua v Winner Match 3 (Match 8).

Friday, July 21

15:00 h - Guyana v Montserrat (Match 9).

19:00 h - Jamaica v Bermuda (Match 10).

Tuesday, July 25

19:00 h - Trinidad v Winner Match 2 (Match 11).

Wednesday, July 26

15:00 h - Winner Match 6 v Winner Match 4 (Match 12).

19:00 h - Winner Match 8 v Winner Match 5 (Match 13).

Friday, July 28

15:00 h - Winner Match 11 v Winner Match 7 (Match 14).

19:00 h - Winner Match 10 v Winner Match 9 (Match 15).

BREAK FOR ANTIGUA CARNIVAL

Friday, August 11

15:00 h - Winner Match 14 v Winner Match 15 (Match 16).

19:00 h - Winner Match 12 v Winner Match 13 (Match 17).

Sunday, August 13

FINAL MATCH

Chanderpaul feeling the heat as captain
By Fazeer Mohammed
NAPIER, New Zealand, CMC - At the helm of a team that has endured a miserable run in the last 11 months, Shivnarine Chanderpaul acknowledges that it takes a tough character to take on the responsibility at this very difficult time in the history of West Indies cricket.

"There will always be pressure in this job, but someone has to do it," said Chanderpaul during his team's training session at a windswept Nelson Park, yesterday afternoon.

"No one expected it to be easy. You've either got to give up or get tougher."

Since being appointed to replace Brian Lara last March in the midst of the acrimonious sponsorship dispute between the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) and the Players' Association, the 31-year-old Guyanese has seen his side to victory in just one of 12 Tests.

Ironically, the one success enjoyed by the regional side in 15 One-Day Internationals before Wednesday's encounter with New Zealand at McLean Park came with Chanderpaul off the field suffering from a virus and Sylvester Joseph in charge of the depleted team that got the better of hosts Sri Lanka in Colombo last August.

The captain also conceded that the challenges of leadership were taking a toll on his batting, suggesting that he needed help from his teammates to see him out of a slump in form that started in Sri Lanka, continued in the three-Test series last November in Australia and has extended to the opening matches of this tour.

"It's been a long time that I haven't got a decent score and that has been at the back of my mind," Chanderpaul admitted.

"I've been talking a lot with the guys about it and hopefully they can help me through a couple of innings. I don't think it's just one thing that has caused this, it's a lot of things put together. Hopefully I can get it sorted out soon."

The current captain's experience is nothing new in the nearly 11 years since Australia ended the West Indies' unprecedented 15-year unbeaten run in Test series.

All the men at the helm since that time - Richie Richardson, Courtney Walsh, Lara (twice), Jimmy Adams, Carl Hooper and now Chanderpaul - have been unable to make any significant difference to the team's staggering decline in fortunes despite some heroic individual performances.

Only Walsh and Lara kept on playing at the highest level after being replaced as captain, and unless he can somehow engineer a dramatic turnaround in his side's performances, especially in the three-Test series against the Black Caps, Chanderpaul may very well have to consider whether it would not be better for the team and his own personal form to pass on the responsibility of leadership to someone else.

Guyana's Vaughn thrilled with SEC victory
GAINESVILLE, Florida, CMC - Guyana's top triple jumper Michelle Vaughn is thrilled about scoring yet another win on the US Collegiate circuit this past weekend.

Representing Auburn University, Vaughn captured gold at the Southeastern Conference (SEC) Championship at the University of Florida, Saturday evening at 13.15 metres.

The effort was below her season's best 13.33 metres but she was happy with the result as she prepares for the NCAA Indoor Championship on March 10-11.

"The competition went back and forth, but I had to stay focused and do what I had to do," said Vaughn, who had also won at the Clemson Invitational and Pepsi Invitational meets earlier this year.

The 23-year-old Vaughn had placed a disappointing 13th in the long jump the previous evening and stepped up her game for her pet event.

"I had a little bit of a setback (in the long jump), so I knew today I had to be perfect," the Auburn first-year student said after Saturday's triple jump triumph.

Her winning effort came in her very first jump and she also topped 13 metres (13.03m) with her sixth and final effort. In between, she posted 12.78 metres, then 12.40, and fouled her fourth and fifth jumps, winning ahead of Grenada's Patricia Sylvester (13.08m) and Shenae Dawkins (12.92m).

While competing previously for Essex County College, Vaughn was named Women's Field Athlete of the Meet at the 2005 US Junior College Outdoor Nationals after winning the triple jump and placing second in the long jump.

She had also won the triple jump and placed third in the long jump at the 2005 Junior College Indoor Nationals last year.

Vaughn's win at the SEC Championship on Saturday gave Auburn a sweep of the horizontal jumps as her teammate Jovanee Jarrett, of Jamaica, won the long jump crown at 6.31 metres. Jarrett had a season-best mark of 12.91 metres to finish fourth in the triple jump.

The Caribbean completed the sweep in the women's jumps at the SEC with St Lucian Levern Spencer landing the high jump at 1.88 metres.

Vaughn became the fourth Auburn and Caribbean triple jump champion at the last five SEC indoor meets, following Jamaicans Jarrett (2005) and Shelly-Ann Gallimore (2002, 2004).

Star performer at the 2006 SEC meet was Jamaica's Kerron Stewart, who produced a fine 55/200-metre double triumph to capture the Commissioner's Trophy as the top women's scorer.

South Asian countries ask for World Cup bid extension
KARACHI, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have asked the International Cricket Council (ICC) to extend yesterday's deadline for bids to host the 2011 World Cup.

Australia and New Zealand confirmed, yesterday, they were lodging a joint bid to stage the event.

"We have asked the ICC to extend the date to March 20. The heads of all four boards will meet in Chandigarh, India, on March 12 to finalise the joint bid," Pakistan Cricket Board Director of Cricket Operations Saleem Altaf told Reuters.

Altaf said the four countries had prepared a letter expressing their interest in hosting to the ICC but not their final official bid.

"We need to sort out some matters with the ICC relating to certain conditionalities asked for from bidding countries. We have to get clearance from our governments. That is why we have asked for a delay in the final date of submission," Altaf said.

The successful bidder is expected to be announced in July.

Australia and New Zealand co-hosted the 1992 World Cup and were next in line to stage the 2011 event after Asia (1996), England (1999), South Africa (2003) and the West Indies (2007) each took their turn staging the tournament.

However, the ICC announced late last year that they were scrapping their rotational policy for an event-by-event bidding process after the sub-continent demanded they should be given every third World Cup because of the money they can generate for the game.

Mavericks notch 15th straight home win
NEW YORK, NY (Reuters) - Dirk Nowitzki scored 32 points and had 13 rebounds to lead the Dallas Mavericks to a 104-92 win over the Philadelphia 76ers on Monday, their 15th consecutive home victory.

Nowitzki gave his team mates a scare when he had to leave the game early in the third quarter after landing awkwardly. The Mavs’ leading scorer and rebounder limped to the dressing room but returned to start the fourth quarter.

Nowitzki scored 11 of his 32 points in the final quarter, helping Dallas seal their sixth victory in a row and their 19th in 20 games.

Dallas, without regulars Josh Howard, Keith Van Horn and Devin Harris, led the game by 12 when Nowitzki left and were up by 15 when he returned.

The Sixers closed to 98-92 with 1:57 left but could get no closer.

Allen Iverson scored 29 points for the Sixers, who had won three straight. Chris Webber and Kyle Korver scored 19 points apiece.

In Cleveland, Rasheed Wallace scored 24 points as the Detroit Pistons beat the Cavaliers 84-72. Richard Hamilton added 22 and Chauncey Billups 15 for the Pistons (47-9).

In Atlanta, the Hawks beat the New Jersey Nets 104-102 in overtime while Dwyane Wade scored 32 points as the Heat beat the Toronto Raptors 101-94 in Miami.

In Memphis, Pau Gasol scored 39 points and had 10 rebounds as the Grizzlies beat the Washington Wizards 108-98. (Writing by Roger Lajoie in Toronto)

Federer and Nadal triumph in Dubai
By Barry Wood
DUBAI, UAE (Reuters) - Roger Federer began the defence of his Dubai Open title with a 7-6, 6-3 win over Swiss compatriot Stanislas Wawrinka, yesterday, in his first match since winning the Australian Open.

He was joined in the second round by number two seed Rafael Nadal, who was stretched by Frenchman Paul-Henri Mathieu before winning 6-7, 6-1, 6-2.

The Spanish teenager received a walkover into the quarter-finals after his next opponent, Younes El Aynaoui of Morocco, withdrew from the tournament for personal reasons.

Federer had to work hard for his victory against an opponent who rallied well, made few unforced errors, and changed the pace to good effect.

Both players needed to resist a pair of break points in the middle of the first set, before Federer took the tiebreak 7-3.

In the second set, seven of the nine games went against serve, with Federer holding for 3-2 and 6-3. Despite being put under pressure the world number one said he was not surprised.

"I thought my game was coming and going," Federer told reporters. "My serve wasn't that great in the beginning and then I really got a high percentage going and then it left me again.

Nadal proved his fitness after a recent lengthy period of injury when he resisted a strong challenge from Mathieu.

HIGH QUALITY
In a match of the highest quality, the players tested each other in some furiously-contested rallies which thrilled the late-evening crowd.

Mathieu fought off two break points at 3-3 with some powerful serves, held a set point at 6-5 which he lost with a poor return, but then forced a backhand error to claim the tiebreak.

He failed to maintain the rallies as well in the second set, though, as Nadal raised his game to another level and the Spanish left-hander broke for 2-0 and 5-1 when Mathieu netted two forehands.

Nadal continued his momentum into the final set, breaking for 2-1, and when he virtually tied up the match with a further break for 4-1 a frustrated Mathieu smashed his racquet.

Russia's Marat Safin made an impressive return from a six-month injury layoff to beat compatriot and world number five Nikolay Davydenko 4-6, 6-2, 6-2.

Safin had not played since August after a knee ligament tear suffered at Wimbledon became too painful for him to continue.

"I didn't expect to win. It was a big surprise," Safin said.

"Especially with the draw, I couldn't really think I would make even a set. I was coming out to play a few games and make sure I was moving okay and get back the rhythm.

"I still have a little bit of pain, but it's not the same pain as it used to be and I can move without any problems."

Leaving England job was not my decision - Eriksson
By Trevor Huggins
LIVERPOOL, England, (Reuters) - Sven-Goran Eriksson said, yesterday, it had not been his decision to stand down as England coach, indicating he had been asked to resign after embarrassing newspaper revelations.

He was asked at a news conference, yesterday, if there was any way that he could change his mind about leaving the England job after the 2006 World Cup.

"I could possibly change my mind?" Eriksson asked with visible surprise. "I haven't taken any decisions. I just listened to what people told me to do. So it doesn't depend on me."

The FA announcement in January said "the FA and Sven felt it was important to clarify his future" and thanked Eriksson and his advisers for their "tremendous cooperation". The Swede's contract had run until 2008.

The 57-year-old Eriksson, who became the first foreigner to coach the England national team when he was appointed in 2000, said at the time he was happy that the situation had been resolved.

"I am happy that we have reached this agreement and can now continue our preparations for the World Cup," he said on the FA website.

The FA acted after the Swede was trapped in a newspaper sting, making embarrassing disclosures about England squad members and saying he might be prepared to leave the England job to take over Premier League Aston Villa.

NO CHANGE
Eriksson now appears reconciled to moving on and said that, surprisingly, nothing had changed in his day-to-day dealings with the FA and that he still counted on the full support of the players.

"Everyone knows what's going to happen from now until August 1. From then on, I don't know what's going to happen with myself. But that's not a problem at all," he said.

"I feel I have the support of the players and think I always have had. It's a great feeling of respect between me, my coaching staff and the players. There always has been, it's a fantastic group of players.

"But I feel I have support from the FA as well, I must say -- if it's strange or not I don't know.

"When I'm not travelling to watch football, I'm in the office in London and nothing has changed there from what I can see or feel."

England captain David Beckham spoke of the players' loyalty to Eriksson.

"We will support the manager until he leaves at the end of the tournament. That's clear for the players."

Beckham was one of a handful of players about whom Eriksson had made embarrassing comments during the newspaper 'sting' operation, where a reporter posed as a wealthy Arab businessman.

"It was a difficult situation and whether you agree with it or not, it's happened and we have to move on," said Beckham.

"The players don't hold anything against him. They're fully supportive, fully behind him as a manager and as a person."

Powell aims for fast run at Commonwealth Games
SYDNEY, Australia (Reuters) - Jamaican sprinter Asafa Powell said he expects to run close to his world record time in the 100 metres at this month's Commonwealth Games in Melbourne.

Powell stopped short of predicting he would better the 9.77 seconds he ran in Athens last year but said he was certain he would run quick.

"I am still the fastest man on earth," he told a news conference after his arrival in Australia, yesterday.

"I've been in a few competitions in Jamaica and I've competed well and as far as I can see I'm all right."

Powell broke Tim Montgonmery's three-year-old world record of 9.78 in Greece in June but a groin injury forced him to miss the world championships in Finland.

But the 23-year-old said the injury had healed well and he was raring to get back into competition.

"Since I was injured, I've been working hard, trying to get better to come to these Games," he said.

"This is really important to me. I just want to get it (the comeback) over with. The only thing I have to prove is that I'm better and ready to run."

The heats of the men's 100 metres start at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in March.