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Vol.4 #23

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CANJE GIRL, 14, FOUND STABBED to death in trenchThe festive season came to an abrupt and sad end for the Raghbeer family of Reliance Aban-don, East Canje, with the sudden and untimely death of a family member.

See More on Page 35

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Jamaican artiste, Sean Paul, receives death threat from Islamic groupJamaica’s Grammy award winning singer, Sean Paul, is to decide whether or not to perform a New Year Eve show in the Maldives after report-edly receiving a death threat from an Islamic group claiming to have ties in Syria, the Jamaica Observer newspaper reported Saturday.

Arrests plummet 66% with NYPD in virtual work stoppageNYPD traffic tickets and sum-monses for minor offenses have dropped off by a staggering 94 percent following the execution of two cops — as officers feel be-trayed by the mayor and fear for their safety, The Post has learned.

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BULLY COPSA FIRESTORM of condemnation has been levelled at two police officers — from within their own ranks and from the general public — after they brutally assaulted a disabled man who sat in a wheelchair on lower High Street in San Fernando, in full view of passers by on Saturday afternoon.

MOTHER OF 4 FOUND FLOATING IN CANAL

THE body of thirty-four-year-old Natasha Jacobs of Lamaha Park, George-town was yesterday morn-ing found floating in that South Sophia canal that is known as the “Blacka”.

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Arrests plummet 66% with NYPD in virtual work stoppageBy Larry Celona,

Shawn Cohen and Bruce Golding

It’s not a slowdown — it’s a virtual work stoppage.

NYPD traffic tickets and summons-es for minor offenses have dropped off by a staggering 94 percent following the execution of two cops — as officers feel betrayed by the mayor and fear for their safety, The Post has learned.

The dramatic drop comes as Police Commissioner Bill Bratton and Mayor Bill de Blasio plan to hold an emergen-

cy summit on Tuesday with the heads of the five police unions to try to close the widening rift between cops and the ad-ministration.

The unprecedented meeting is be-ing held at the new Police Academy in Queens at 2 p.m., sources said.

Angry union leaders have ordered drastic measures for their members since the Dec. 20 assassination of two NYPD cops in a patrol car, including that two units respond to every call.

It has helped contribute to a nose dive in low-level policing, with overall arrests down 66 percent for the week starting Dec. 22 compared with the same period in 2013, stats show.

Citations for traffic violations fell by 94 percent, from 10,069 to 587, during that time frame.

Summonses for low-level offenses like public drinking and urination also plunged 94 percent — from 4,831 to 300.

Even parking violations are way down, dropping by 92 percent, from 14,699 to 1,241.

Drug arrests by cops assigned to the NYPD’s Organized Crime Control Bureau — which are part of the overall number — dropped by 84 percent, from 382 to 63.

The Post obtained the numbers hours after revealing that cops were turning a blind eye to some minor crimes and making arrests only “when they have to” since the execution-style shootings of Officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu.

Police sources said Monday that safety concerns were the main reason for the dropoff in police activity, but added that some cops were mounting an undeclared slowdown in protest of de Blasio’s re-sponse to the non-indictment in the po-lice chokehold death of Eric Garner.

“The call last week from the PBA is what started it, but this has been sim-mering for a long time,” one source said.

“This is not a slowdown for slow-down’s sake. Cops are concerned, after the reaction from City Hall on the Garner case, about de Blasio not backing them.”

The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Associa-tion has warned its members to put their safety first and not make arrests “unless absolutely necessary.”

Sergeants Benevolent Association President Ed Mullins told The Post he’s glad de Blasio is meeting with the unions, but worries that it’s just a publicity stunt.

“I’m disappointed in the issuance of a press release announcing the meeting, which now raises concerns of sincerity,” he said.

“Is this about politics or is it about working through problems?”

Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu

Statistics obtained by The Post show a dramatic drop in NYPD activity between Dec. 22 — the first weekday after the double cop assassination — and Sunday, compared with the same period last year.


Air Services plane missing over jungle

Over six hours of search-ing failed to locate a twin engine Cessna Britten

Norman Islander plane that went missing earlier yesterday over the Region 8 (Potaro-Siparuni) jungle with the pilot and cargo handler on board.

The Air Services Limited (ASL) plane, piloted by 28-year-old Nicolas Persaud ceased com-munication about two minutes after takeoff from Mahdia to Karisparu, both in Region Eight at around 11:45am yesterday. Also onboard was 51-year-old cargo handler David Bisnauth. The flight time from takeoff to landing is approximately 15 to 25 minutes.

ASL Manager Annette Ar-joon-Martins told Stabroek News late yesterday that her company exhausted search mea-sures but there was no sighting of the aircraft whose registra-tion number is 8R-GHE. “Within half an hour of no communica-tion, we sent in four aircraft in the area that started a search, we then dispatched both of our helicopters for a total of six and they searched until sundown but nothing, nothing as yet,” she said.

“There were also ten officers from the GDF’s (Guyana Defence Force) Special Force and they will

be on call from daybreak…while we have exhausted all resources trying to locate the aircraft all is not lost as yet,” she added.

Stabroek News understands that the plane was shuttling mining cargo from Mahdia to Karisparu and had onboard fuel, jet parts and zinc sheets among other items.

The Guyana Civil Aviation Au-thority (GCAA) in a press release said that the plane took off from Mahdia at 11:42 local time on a routine local cargo flight and the last known position was a Spot Tracker hit at 11:44am. The air-craft, it said, was estimated to arrive Karisparu at 12:00 local time.

“At 16:20, Timehri Air Traffic Control made contact with the aircraft operator to establish whether the aircraft landed be-fore implementing a search and rescue operation. After no in-

formation was received, the Air Traffic Control commenced the ‘alert phase’ and the Rescue Co-or-dination Centre at the Timeh-ri Control Tower was activated,” the statement said.

According to the GCAA, in the meantime, two of ASL’s Cessna 208 Caravans flying within the area were vectored to commence searching for the aircraft. A Piper Cherokee from Hinterland Aviation also joined the search efforts while a Bell Helicopter also departed Ogle Airport to join the search. The agency informed that the search continued until sunset and said that the helicopters and a Cess-na Caravan are at Mahdia and will recommence search at sun-rise today. Other aircraft from ASL will depart early this morn-ing to join the search efforts and take in the GCAA Coordinators and Investigation team. The GDF helicopter is also on stand-by to join the search and rescue operation.

“To date, 6 hours and 40 min-utes search time was logged by four (4) fixed wing aircraft and two (2) helicopters,” the GCAA said.

On social media, many per-sons expressed hope and prayed for the rescue of Persaud who they described as “a remarkable young man.”

Arjoon-Martins said that Per-saud’s brother and father spent the afternoon at their Ogle of-fice and were kept abreast of all that was happening. She said that while he was young, he had several thousand hours of flying time and was familiar with the area in which he was flying.

She said that she would not speculate on what went wrong and is praying that come today, the duo will be rescued and all will be well.

Nicolas Persaud

The Rescue Coordination Centre was activated at the Timehri Control Tower.

GANJA AT SEABY RALPH BANWARIE

Police remain on the alert for two drug traffick-ing suspects who dove

into the rough waters off the coast of Grande Riviere to es-cape capture as high waves smashed their pirogue into rocks, tossing bales of com-pressed marijuana into the choppy sea.

Investigators believe the suspects were fishermen and they managed to swim to shore, although they add it is possible they may have drowned due to the rough sea conditions.

Several bales of compressed marijuana were washed ashore, however Cpl Nicolas Vialva, PCs Daren Francis and Keron Nanan, of the Eastern Division, still waded into the sea to recover other bales floating in the water.

The land search for the sus-pects led the police into the forest where they found two bales of compressed marijua-na hidden among trees.

At first count, seven bales were said to have been recov-ered, five of them from the sea, and the value of the ille-gal drug was estimated at $1.5 million.

A National Security Minis-try release later said 13 bales were seized.

Matelot police remain on the lookout for more bales which may have floated along the coast.

A joint operation of the National Operations Centre (NOC) and Coast Guard was in the midst of a search and res-cue of nine hikers who over-nighted on Saturday at Paria Bay but became marooned due to the heavy sea swells.

As NOC’s air surveillance swept the coastline early yes-terday morning in the rescue operation, a white pirogue was spotted off north east coast. The Eastern Division was alert-ed and Snr Supt Sacenarine Mahabir and his team were airlifted in a national security helicopter to Grande Riviere where, from about 6.30 am, they positioned themselves waiting for the pirogue to land.

A national security helicop-ter kept track of the boat, and as it neared the two men spot-ted the police on the shore and jumped out of the boat which smashed into the rocks, debris floated on the sea as the engine sank. They were not found.

The bales of marijuana found at sea and land were taken to the Sangre Grande Police Sta-tion, some of them so heavy

they had to be carried by two officers. It is estimated that they weighed an estimated 152 kilogrammes.

Mahabir later compliment-ed his police officers for their effort, especially braving the rough sea to retrieve the nar-cotic.

The Eastern Division team were Cpl Vialva, PCs Francis, Nanan, Ashki Charles, Mar-vin Mendoz, Stephen Sam-uel, Marcus Awing and WPC Patrice Clarke Awing.

In its release, the Nation-al Security Ministry reported that in keeping with drug erad-ication initiatives and stronger multi-agency operations, “ a high level team led by the Na-tional Operations Centre’s Air Division and the Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard Division, seized 13 packages of com-pressed marijuana weighing 152.68 Kg on the high seas in Grande Riviere. The illegal drugs have an estimated street value of TT$1,526,800.”

The ministry said the joint operation occurred between 11.45 pm on Saturday, ending at about 10 am yesterday.

“Other agencies involved in this multi-agency operation in-cluded, the Trinidad and Toba-go Defence Force’s Air Guard and National Radar Centre, the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service Eastern Task Force and the Criminal Gang and intelli-gence Unit,” said the ministry.

It continued, “According to reports from the NOC, an air rescue operation was on the way to extricate 9 hikers on 28th December who were all marooned on Paria Bay and overnighted on the beach as a result of the rough seas. Reports say it was during this operation the rescue team no-ticed suspicious movements on the high seas and launched an investigation where they discovered and confiscated the contraband.”

The statement said National Security Minister Gary Griffith “would like to publicly applaud the efforts of all agencies in-volved in these operations in our continuing drive to rid the country of illegal drugs, arms and ammunition.”

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My flight won’t disappearWhile officials in Asia searched for

missing AirAsia flight QZ8501, at least one Trinidad and To-

bago (TT) national took to social media to reassure herself, and her loved ones, that while she would soon be boarding an Air Asia aircraft, her flight would not disappear too.

An Airbus A320-200, carrying 162 passengers disappeared over the Java Sea an hour into its flight to Singapore early yesterday. The woman who had a flight to Myanmar from Bangkok posted on her Facebook page, that she was go-ing to the airport to “catch her AirAsia flight and everything will be okay.”

Her post was made after reports that the Air Asia flight QZ8501went missing.

Newsday was unable to contact For-eign Affairs Minister Winston Dooker-an on whether his ministry had any in-formation about TT nationals being on board the ill-fated flight.

AirAsia flight QZ850 took off from the Indonesian city of Surabaya, destined for Singapore, but later lost all contact with air control. This came mere months after the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 which vanished somewhere in the Indian Ocean on March 8. It has never been found.

Then in July, Malaysian Airlines suf-fered another tragedy with flight MH17 which was shot down by insurgents over Ukraine.

On that occasion, TT national Suzette Moses-Burton, was scheduled to fly on MH17 but changed her flight plans sav-

ing her life. The executive director of the Global Network of People Living with HIV (GNP+) who is based in Amsterdam, was on her way to the 20th International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2014) in Australia.

Transport Minister Stephen Cadiz yes-terday assured the Civil Aviation Author-ity of Trinidad and Tobago stands ready to deal with any eventuality, in the wake of the second disappearance of a civil aircraft. Cadiz, who was on a mini-vaca-tion at Santiago, Chile, said, “I saw the latest developments on the news. God forbid such a thing should happen in our region.”

The Minister said while civil aviation formally falls under the Ministry of Fi-nance, he was informed that the author-ity was prepared to deal with incidents.

“If asked how ready would Civil Avia-tion be for such an eventuality, I would think that they would be very well-pre-pared to handle something like that,” Cadiz said.

“That agency has a huge responsibility. It covers a large area, from Puerto Rico and then way into the middle of the At-lantic, including flights from Africa, Gha-na. It is quite an extensive area and that is a substantial responsibility. But from what I gather, the authority has invested a lot into equipment training a staff and is very well-respected.”

Cadiz – who makes annual trips at the end of year, including recent trips to Cartega and even one to the Antarc-tic – is due to fly back to Trinidad next Saturday.

Father of girl killed in accident found dead, suicide suspected

The distraught father of Yonette Branche, Alfred Branche was

found dead at Cotton Tree yesterday and it is suspect-ed that he took his own life.

Alfred had been the driv-er of the car on Tuesday which crashed with Yonette in the back seat. Yonette passed away leaving Alfred in deep sorrow.

Yonette was in the back-seat of her father’s car on the night of December 23rd when it collided with a parked Canter truck on the Public Road at Number 29 Village, West Coast Berbice as the family was on their way home from the city. Yonette sustained head in-juries and was pronounced dead on arrival at the Fort Wellington Public Hospital.

Alfred, 62, of McKenzie Street, Murphy Dam, Ros-ignol, WBB was discovered yesterday morning in a trench by residents of Cot-ton Tree. He was found in a trench at Lillo Dam.

Family members suspect that he may have ingested a poisonous substance and drowned. They are awaiting

a post-mortem examina-tion.

According to a foster daughter, Sabrina (only name give) since the acci-dent he kept saying that he cannot “live with himself knowing that he was driv-ing the car his daughter was in [when she died]”. The daughter recalled too, that he kept telling the family that they would have to bury him before his daughter.

Police in a release on the accident said, “The driver of motor car PLL 4691 was proceeding along the road-way allegedly at a fast rate, when he lost control of the vehicle and collided with a parked motor Canter.” However the inconsolable mother Elise Branche had

told Stabroek News that a vehicle with a bright light approaching them had blinded her husband, who hit the Canter on being un-able to see what was in front of him.

Alfred went missing on Christmas Eve day. The foster daughter said that he had returned to the Fort Wellington police station to assist officers with addition-al investigations. However, she stated that the last they heard from him, he was on the road buying some med-ication for her mother but time passed and there was no further contact with him. It was yesterday morning Sabrina said that a man called and informed them that a person was floating in the trench. When they arrived at around 11:00 hrs they were able to positively identify him.

The daughter had also explained to Stabroek News that they had made a miss-ing person report at the Blairmont Police Station and to the media.

Yonette is to be laid to rest on Wednesday.

Yonette Branche


THE POWERFUL GOD:Shiva is 'shakti' or power, Shi-

va is the destroyer, the most powerful god of the Hindu pan-theon and one of the godheads in the Hindu Trinity. Known by many names - Mahadeva, Ma-hayogi, Pashupati, Nataraja, Bhairava, Vishwanath, Bhava, Bhole Nath - Lord Shiva is per-haps the most complex of Hin-du deities. Hindus recognize this by putting his shrine in the temple separate from those of other deities.

SHIVA AS PHALLICSYMBOL:Shiva, in temples is usually

found as a phallic symbol of the 'linga', which represents the energies necessary for life on both the microcosmic and the macrocosmic levels, that is, the world in which we live and

the world which constitutes the whole of the universe. In a Shaivite temple, the 'linga' is placed in the center under-neath the spire, where it sym-bolizes the naval of the earth.

A DIFFERENT DEITY:The actual image of Shiva is

also distinct from other dei-ties: his hair piled high on the top of his head, with a cres-cent tucked into it and the river Ganges tumbling from his hairs. Around his neck is a coiled serpent representing Kundalini or the spiritual en-ergy within life. He holds a tri-dent in his left hand in which is bound the 'damroo' (small leather drum). He sits on a tiger skin and on his right is a water pot. He wears the 'Rudraksha' beads and his whole body is smeared with ash.

THE DESTRUCTIVE FORCE:Shiva is believed to be at the

core of the centrifugal force of the universe, because of his re-sponsibility for death and de-struction. Unlike the godhead Brahma, the Creator, orVish-nu, the Preserver, Shiva is the dissolving force in life. But Shi-va dissolves in order to create, since death is the medium for rebirth into a new life. So the opposites of life and death and creation and destruction both reside in his character.

THE MOSTFASCINATING OF GODS:The God Who's Always High!:

He is also often portrayed as the supreme ascetic with a pas-sive and composed disposition. Sometimes he is depicted rid-ing a bull called Nandi decked in garlands. Although a very

complicated deity, Shiva is one of the most fascinating of Hindu gods.

Since Shiva is regarded as a mighty destructive power, to numb his negative potentials he is fed with opium and is also termed as 'Bhole Shankar', one who is oblivious of the world. Therefore, on Maha Shivratri, the night of Shiva worship, dev-otees, especially the menfolk, prepare an intoxicating drink called 'Thandai' (made from cannabis, almonds, and milk) sing songs in praise of the Lord and dance to the rhythm of the drums.

By Subhamoy DasHinduism Expert


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APNU questions $2.1B gov’t advance to rice millersMain opposition APNU yes-

terday said that the gov-ernment’s announcement

on Christmas Eve that it was ad-vancing $2.1B to millers so they could meet obligations to rice farmers is intended to mislead the public and divert attention from the hardships faced by growers.

In a statement, APNU said that the announcement by the Minister of Agriculture, Dr Leslie Ramsammy that the Government is advancing $2.1B to millers “is deliberately intended to mislead the Guyanese public and divert attention from the existing pres-sures that these farmers are fac-ing on a daily basis.”

It called on Ramsammy to ex-plain the following:

If the farmers have delivered 600,000 tons of rice to the millers, valued at $42.0B, then the paddy price must have been $4,400 per bag. However, APNU alleged that the reality is that farmers are be-ing paid discriminatory prices, ranging from $3,250 to friends and between $2,800 -$1,900 per bag to others.

APNU said that rice farmers know that their paddy price was cut in half from $6000 to $3000 since the PPP Administration took

control of paddy delivery under the lucrative PetroCaribe Venezu-ela deal which it said was originally initiated by Dr. Turhane Doerga.

APNU charged that very lu-crative prices are being received from the Venezuelan deal while low paddy prices are being paid to the farmers to “enable the PPP Administration and its cronies to reap super profits on the backs of the rice farmers who are being progressively impoverished”.

APNU further said that in the 2007-2008 boom, rice farmers invested massively in the indus-try because the paddy price was reaching the $7,000 per bag lev-el. However, APNU said that the Government-to-Government ar-rangement with the Venezuelans has enabled the PPP Administra-tion to “finally succeed in its ob-jective to reduce the price paid to the rice farmers while benefiting the PPP cronies through discrim-inatory prices. How is this bene-fitting the suffering independent rice farmers?”

APNU asked what Ramsammy meant when he referred to the de-livery of packaged rice and where the packaging is being undertaken.

APNU also queried when the first gasification/energy plant was

built and by which company.It also questioned why the pri-

vate sector is being prevented from developing and marketing specialty rice cereals.

On Wednesday, Ramsammy’s ministry said that Government had released $2.1 billion to pay rice farmers who have often-times complained of being paid late by millers with rice produc-tion this year reaching a record 633,000 tons.

The statement from the Min-istry said that at the beginning of the week, about $600 million was released by the government and it on Wednesday released $1.5 bil-lion from the PetroCaribe account to assist in paying off rice farmers making the advanced payments so far for the second half of Decem-ber, $2.1 billion.

Venezuela has been by far the major market for Guyana’s rice and paddy accounting for around 70 per cent of total exports in 2010. This year, however it is about 30 percent since new markets have been acquired, the ministry state-ment said.

According to the ministry, at the beginning of the week, farmers were owed about $3 billion and after payments of the latest ad-

vances, the amount owed to rice farmers will be less than $1 billion. “These are not loans, but payments made earlier so that millers pay off farmers,” the statement said.

The ministry disclosed that presently, the Guyana Rice De-velopment Board (GRDB) and the Guyana Rice Producers Associa-tion (RPA) are working with farm-ers to ensure that millers complete all payments before the end of the year. “We urge the millers to work through their bankers to make all outstanding payments to farmers. While the Ministry acknowledges that a valiant effort was made by millers, we still believe that they must ensure 100% payment to farmers within the Rice Factory Act timeline,” the statement said.

According to the ministry, the accumulated sales of paddy by rice farmers to millers amounted to greater than $42 billion for the two crops in 2014. “At this time, millers would have paid off more than $39B, or greater than 93%. While this is commendable, the millers must make an even greater effort to meet their obligations to farmers. Increasingly, the GRDB is making more rigid requirements on millers and we are cautioning millers that we will ensure that

they pay interest on their debt to farmers in 2015,” the ministry asserted. According to the minis-try, Guyana’s rice industry is also poised for expansion into val-ue-added products.

“While bulk export of rice con-tinues to be the main export from the rice industry, 2014 evidenced the largest amount of packaged rice sold. Packaged rice export amounted to about 50,000 tons in 2014. In collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism and Com-merce and IAST, rapid advances have been made in acquiring a rice cereal factory and we ex-pect this to produce commercial quantity of rice cereal in 2015,” the ministry said.

“At the same time, we expect the first major bio-energy plant replacing about 70% of fossil fuel utilization in the operation of a rice factory in Essequibo to be in place by the first quarter of 2015. The GRDB and the Ministry of Agricul-ture in collaboration with the TERI Group of India is working to ensure at least three such bio-fuel substi-tutions occur in 2015. The TERI Group is also working with us to establish a paddy husk pellet proj-ect to utilize paddy husk for gener-ating energy off-site,” it added.


Diamond man dies after crashing in bridge at Belle Vue-had swerved to avoid racing bikers

An attempt to avoid a head-on col-lision on with two racing motor-cyclists resulted in the death of a

24-year-old man on Friday and an eye-witness has slammed the callousness of bystanders as also contributing to the man’s demise.

Richard Anthony Giddings of 1128 Block X, Diamond Housing Scheme passed away at the West Demerara Re-gional Hospital (WDRH) on Friday night after his car PEE 2570, crashed into a bridge at Belle Vue, West Bank Demerara sometime around 7.45 pm. The Police have issued a press release stating that investigations are in progress.

According to an eyewitness who re-quested an-onymity, he was sitting a few metres away when he saw Giddings who was heading north, swerve away from two southbound motorcyclists who were racing.

The eyewitness pointed out that speed was a factor in the accident.

He went on to say that Giddings’ inten-tion to avoid the collision resulted in him losing control when the car’s front wheel dropped into a rut and struck a sudden bump. As a result, the car somersaulted in the air and Giddings fell out. He struck his head against the wall which also serves as a rail for the bridge, and the car plunged

front-first into the opposite rail.“If you see this thing! This thing like a

picture [movie] story…” the eyewitness said with a concerned look on his face.

He also lamented that after the acci-dent, Giddings was bleeding profusely while almost 100 persons flocked around him just staring.

“Every [expletive] body stand up and just watching. Nobody didn’t want to take him to the hospital. One ah dem say how he car clean and he nah want blood on it. If dem de move he quick, I think de ban-

na woulda be alive but wha I gun say? Is Guyanese…” he said.

Compton Giddings, the father of the deceased told Stabroek News yesterday that he along with his wife and Richard were at their former home in Goed Intent having a family moment.

He related that he left with his wife as Richard remained behind. The distraught father further related that his wife, had called Richard to inquire where he was and when he was coming home and he told her that he was on his way.

“The next call I get, we heard that he was in an accident…” he said.

Compton said that his son died at the WDRH after several attempts to resusci-tate him failed.

He described his son as a loving child with great potential.

“He only celebrated his birthday on the 2nd of this month and had promised to bring home his girlfriend to meet his mother on New Year’s Day…” Compton said.

He will be cremated on Tuesday.

Richard Giddings The Bridge where the incident occurred.


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PITBULL KILLS GRANNYBloody attack on 84-year-old woman

at Maraval homeAn 84-year-old great grandmother was yesterday mauled to death by a family pitbull.Lillian Bunsee had never ventured close to the dogs as she had been attacked in the past, but yesterday morning one of the dogs escaped from its kennel and again attacked her, this time killing her.

Neighbours said the dog was one of approximately ten which were bred and being given aggression training in preparation for sale by two of the woman’s relatives.

Never once did the resi-dents hear Bunsee scream for help but only noticed she was being attacked as they walked along the road-way close to her home on La Seiva Road, Maraval.Police said it was shortly af-ter 9 a.m. that the residents saw the woman on the ground with the dog tear-ing away at her body. They tried throwing boulders at the animal in an attempt to stop it but their efforts were unsuccessful, said officers.

Investigators said several police officers who were on patrol nearby went to the scene after receiving a report and was only able to have the dog stop biting the woman after opening fire on the animal, shooting it six times.

Residents in the area said the officers had no other option but to kill the dog. The other dogs were all locked away in their ken-nels, they said.“After the first two shots the dog was still biting the woman, like the shots did nothing to it. The police had to shoot it four more times before it stopped,” said one man.

The resident, who asked that his name not be pub-lished, said regardless of the type, he was always op-posed to people giving ag-gression training to dogs within their own household which is shared with other family members. He said he was also knowl-

edgeable when it came to the training of dogs and disagreed with the deci-sion of the dog’s owner to carry out the training at the house.

“Aggression training within your own environment and training of dogs within your own household where you have ageable people or fam-ily members in your house

is a no no. Aggression is not the type of training to do within that environment. High potency dog food and aggression training in the home environment is cre-ating a time bomb and it is just a matter of time before tragedy strikes,” he said.

Detectives from the Port of Spain Criminal Investiga-tions Department (CID) led by ASP Ajith Persad went to the scene and de-tained the man who owned the dog.

Up to yesterday evening he was in custody at the CID office along St Vincent Street, Port of Spain. Of-ficers said they would be consulting with Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Roger Gaspard SC to deter-mine what charges could be laid against the man.The other owner was not arrested as he did not live on the premises where the

incident occurred.

Dr Azizul Rahaman of Jones Animal Clinic exam-ined the dog and confirmed it was one of the danger-ous dogs referred to in the Dog Control Bill which was passed in Parliament last month but is yet to be pro-claimed, police said.Rahaman removed some of the animals and locked

them away at the clinic yes-terday evening. He told the Express the dogs were be-ing temporarily kept at the animal hospital until the other owner makes a deci-sion “on what he is going to do with them”.

“It was not for any legal rea-son or anything. Relatives and so on would be going to the house to give their condolences and what have you, so we are just keeping the dogs for a little while,” he said.

The other owner said resi-dents no longer wanted the dogs in the area, so he may have to “put them to sleep”.Contacted via phone yes-terday, Attorney General Anand Ramlogan said the Dog Control Bill was passed on the last day of the parliamentary session in order to prevent it from being “lapsed”.With the passing of the bill,

Ramlogan said there was an undertaking within the Parliament that he would accommodate cer-tain amendments based on suggestions from Inde-pendent Senators and also from members of the Op-position.The Independent Senators had already forwarded their suggestions to him, but he was still awaiting the Opposition’s before the Act is proclaimed by Presi-dent Anthony Carmona.

“This bill is clearly needed. I would like those per-sons who argue that there should be no legislation to control these dangerous dogs, I would like them to pay a visit to the relatives of victims to explain their position and to offer some condolence. I am calling upon them to go pay them a visit and to offer them some compensation,” said Ramlogan.

Section 19 of the Dog Control Act:

19. (1) Where a class A dog injures a person, without reasonable cause whether in a public place or on private premises, the owner or keeper of the dog commits an offence and is liable on summary convic-tion to a fine of $100,000 and to imprisonment for five years.

(2) Where a class A dog kills a person or causes the death of a person, with-out reasonable cause, the owner or keeper of the dog commits an offence and is liable on summary convic-tion to a fine of $200,000 and to imprisonment for ten years.

CLASS A dogs are identi-fied in the Bill as:

1. Pitbull Terrier or any dog bred from the Pitbull Terrier.

2. Fila Brasileiro or any dog bred from the Fila Brasileiro.

3. Japanese Tosa or any dog bred from the Japa-nese Tosa.

FAMILY PHOTO: 84-year-old Lillian Bunsee who was mauled to death by a pitbull yesterday in her own

home.

Political spite caused closure of local airline

A former head of the now-defunct state-owned Guy-ana Airways Corporation has blamed government officials for the current aviation woes gripping the country.

Former GAC General Manager, Fazal Khan is adamant that political spite rather than financial or operational problems forced the closure of the airline back in the late nineties, and it is one of the ma-jor reasons G u y a n e s e are paying e x or b i t a nt prices to travel up North.The former aviation of-ficial is con-vinced that Guyana’s current state of affairs is one that could have been avoided, with the continuance of the “prosperous and devel-oping” state-owned car-rier being preserved and prized for its functioning and importance to Guya-nese travelers.

“They didn’t know they were making a mistake because they do not un-derstand aviation,” Khan told Kaieteur News. “They were totally clueless and had they known it was a mistake, they would have never done it, but by the time they realized, it was already too late,” he said in a recent interview at his Queenstown residence.

Khan believes that he was “pushed aside” as head of the GAC for express-ing his reservations about one political appointment. According to Khan, he realized that the lack of forward-thinking man-agement would destroy the GAC and he there-fore gave the then powers some eight months to re-consider their position of removing him.

But he said that “reconsid-eration never occurred; the airline was eventually sold and within less than a year the airline was in total cha-os,” Khan charged.

He said that prior to this, the state-owned entity had been making strides.

“We had about 80 percent of the market shares in

the country, while receiv-ing not a cent from the gov-ernment. Not even when we requested to borrow only half a million dol-lars from the government after running into debt that we could not avoid, did they give it.”

Khan continued that de-spite huge expenditures, GAC was making, “three, four and five million dol-lars pre-tax yearly. We had very good junior and senior staff. People were sent for university educa-tion in marketing, aviation management and diploma courses.” He boasted that as far as he is aware Guy-ana Airways was the first regional airline to offer free headphones and alcohol on board the aircraft.

He continued that Guy-ana Airways grew to fly five flights to New York, and three times to Toron-to, weekly, while trips in-creased during peak sum-mer seasons with North American Airlines having to be chartered to aid the influx of travelers. GAC was able to increase its feet of planes under his stew-ardship.

Khan said for the first time in the country’s history there were local pilots who were captains on jets.

“The first choice for pas-sengers was

...contnue on page 8

Former GAC GM Fazal Khan

15Caribbean Star Newspaper July 11 - 18, 2014

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Constable Christopher Madeira, who had been on suspension from the Trinidad and Tobago Police Ser-vice (TTPS), died after he ingested a quantity of weedicide on Tuesday.

His picture had been posted on the tele-vision programme “Beyond the Tape” co hosted by Inspector Roger Alexander.

The post carried the words “The first member of the protective services to grace the ‘Wall of Shame” is Christopher Madeira. If you see Madeira, do not ap-proach or confront him since he is con-sidered armed and extremely danger-ous…instead call ANY police station, 623-0362/ 4968 or send an e-mail to [email protected] if you have information that could help the po-lice capture this fugitive from the law”. Under his photograph, it stat-ed he was wanted for two charges of misbehaving in public office, and failure to appear in court.

The charges alleged that he and an-other police officer, Corporal Len-nox John, knowingly and wilfully handed over a loaded firearm and a bullet-proof vest belonging to the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service.

Madeira, who was last stationed at the Scarborough Police Station in Tobago, was also charged sep-arately with handing over a load-ed pistol and a bullet-proof vest.

He was released on TT$150,000 (One TT dollar = US$0.16 cents) bail, or-dered to surrender his passport to the court and report to the Scarbor-ough Police Station twice weekly.

Pathologist Dr Valery Alexandrov, who performed the autopsy Tuesday, said that he found approximately 200 cubic centimetres of the substance in his stomach, which amounted to approximately a regular-sized glass.

“The major problem is that there is no antidote. So it doesn’t matter if someone drinks one teaspoon or a bottle. The re-sult is the same,” the pathologist added.

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad, Wednesday July 9, 2014, CMC – A police officer com-mitted suicide hours after a photo of his appeared on a television programme

hosted by a senior po-lice officer that he was a fugitive from the law.

Wanted Trinidad police officer commits suicide after being placed on ‘Wall of Shame’

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MOROCCO-GUYANA: Guyanese held in North African country with cocaine

Morocco Customs has seized 2.4 kg cocaine and arrested a Guyanese national at the Casablanca Mohammed V airport in that North African country on Saturday, an

official told Customs Today. The illegal substance was hidden inside the luggage of the Guyanese drug trafficker who was traveling from Sao Paulo to Cotonou (Benin), said the airport’s judiciary police Chief Abdelhadi Siba. The dealer is kept in po-lice custody to complete the investigation under the supervi-sion of the public prosecutor of Casablanca first instance court.

Moroccan authoritries do not release the names of persons even after they are charged.

Missing man found floating in Demerara River

A man who went missing last Mon-day was on Wednesday found floating in the Demerara River

and relatives believe that he was mur-dered.

Trevor Melville, 51, a miner who rel-atives said didn’t have a fixed address at the time of his demise was staying at one of his sisters, Thelma Charles at Land of Canaan on the East Bank of Demerara.

His niece, Lurline Smith told Sta-broek News that her uncle went miss-ing since last Monday and after efforts made by relatives to locate the now dead Melville were fruitless, a report was made to the police.

On Wednesday, the family received a phone call about the discovery of a man floating in the river at the Fish-eries which is also located on the East Bank Demerara and upon their arrival, the man was positively identified.

Smith said that the last place her uncle was seen was at a residence in Friendship, East Bank Demerara. She added that persons in the area wit-nessed when Melville was being beat-en and he was calling out for help, but nobody wanted to come forward and testify. The home where her uncle was last seen was also pointed out to them, the woman said.Relatives of the dead man are also claiming that the corpse bore visible wounds which suggest that he didn’t just drown. Smith recalled that her uncle was beaten before and was threatened by some of the villag-ers that he would be killed should he return to the area.

Melville separated from his wife a few years ago after he suffered an ac-cident. He fathered six children and mostly worked in the interior.

Relatives said that the police told them that they are waiting on the re-sults of a post-mortem examination, which is expected to be done tomor-row.

Melville leaves to mourn six sisters, two brothers and his children.

Trevor Melville


ISLAM Peace / submission to the will

of our creator.

ReflectionAs we approach the end of the

Gregorian calendar year, even though it isn’t the Islamic year

and New Year’s Day isn’t part of a Mus-lim’s celebration, many of aspects of our lives are connected to the begin-ning and ending of the Gregorian cal-endar year, thus this date will serve as a milestone.

Let us ask ourselves: what have we done thus far? Did we give our person-al happiness priority? Did we strive to please those around us? Our family, our friends, our spouses and our colleagues. Did we give the pleasure of our lord and creator a position of paramount impor-tance? Or did we manage to find the thin tricky line on which we managed to be happy ourselves and make those around us happy, all while earning the pleasure of our lord?

As the standards of our society and the world at large, digress further and further away from true modesty and morality, it is becoming increasingly difficult to walk that thin line of com-promise.

Everyday gone is the past and every tomorrow signifies the future. Our Be-loved Prophet (Sallallahu alaiyhi was-sallam) has advised us to constantly reflect on our past to learn from our mistakes so that we will be able to live a more obedient tomorrow.

Allah (S.W.T) created us with the abil-ity to choose between right and wrong, and with that he sent down for our guidance the instructions of the Quraan & Sunnah as to what will please him and what will earn us his anger. Very often however, we follow the whispers of Shytaan instead of the teachings of the Quraan and Sunnah, thus we have become a nation of error, sin and mis-guidance. This isn’t the major problem. Allah is our creator and he knows us better than we know ourselves. Allah (S.W.T) has told us in Hadith Qudsi:

“Every son of Adam will make mis-takes and the best of the sinners are those who will repent”.

Our real problem is that we are not in the habit of correcting our errors through repentance. We fail to reflect on our mistakes. We have failed to even

acknowledge our mistakes. Reflection is a sign of divine guid-

ance, a sign that Allah has not sealed our hearts from the truth, a glimmer of hope for our souls, a sign of intel-lect and wisdom. While sinning without a second thought and compounding it with greater and greater sins signifies foolishness, a heart sealed from the truth and Allah’s anger.

Our beloved Prophet (Sallallahu alai-yhi wassallam) told us:

“The wise one is he who assess him-self and prepares for the life after death while the foolish one is he who follow his desires and hopes that Allah will forgive him”

Be wise O Muslims! Reflecting on the past to identify our

errors and shortcomings, isn’t the pro-verbial “crying over spilled milk”, rather it is the beauty of the teachings of Is-laam In trusting the innate wisdom of a believer to assess himself and plan for a better tomorrow, thus following the advice of the Prophet (Sallallahu alai-yhi wassallam) when he instructed us to let it not be that our days are similar in spiritual progress, rather we should constantly seek to better ourselves and gain closeness to our creator through obedience. Hence, we are required to spend every moment ahead, not only correcting the mistakes made before, but with a desire to enhance every as-pect of our lives.

With reflection there should come re-pentance and a desire to enhance our standard of spirituality; our connection to Allah. When we realize the errors we have committed, as Muslims, there should be the desire to rid ourselves completely from this sin. We should feel embarrassed by the thought and afraid of the fact that we will have to stand before our creator on the Day of Judgment. With this thought not only will we be encouraged to repent, but it will serve as a deterrent from future sins.

It is only by the mercy of Allah that we do not feel the effects of our sins. Allah has told us in his glorious book:

And if Allah were to seize mankind for their wrong-doing, He would not

leave on it (the earth) a single moving (living) creature, but He postpones them for an appointed term and when their term comes, neither can they de-lay nor can they advance it an hour (or a moment).

Allah is giving us the opportunity to repent for and rectify our actions, but if we choose to ignore the many warn-ings we have received in the form of ad-monitions in the Quraan as well as the Sunnah, the many natural disasters or the current state evil and chaos in the world then we run the risk of Allah’s wrath descending upon us, as we have been told about regarding previous na-tions.

As Muslims it is of paramount im-portance that we constantly remind ourselves of our primary reason for ex-istence; that we are firstly servants of our creator then employer, employees, parents, children or any position that we occupy. That there is no obeying the creation at the expense of obedience to the creator.

In general, it is important that we un-derstand the obligation upon us to obey the commands of Allah, that we start

living our lives in a way pleasing to Al-lah and with the intention to continue doing so.

It is time we realize, and more impor-tantly admit, our faults and shortcom-ing. Allah asked us about this over 1400 years ago when he said in his glorious book:

Has the time not come for those who have believed that their hearts should become humbly submissive at the re-membrance of Allah and what has come down of the truth? (Surah Hadid 16-17)

It is time for us to be honest with ourselves and repent sincerely for our sins, time to enter completely into Is-laam and implement every aspect of it into our lives. Make it such that every part of our life is according to what our creator the Almighty would be pleased with. Allah has given us this command in his noble book:

O you who have believed, enter into Islam completely [and perfectly] and do not follow the footsteps of Satan. In-deed, he is to you a clear enemy.

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Mother of 4 found floating in canalTHE body of thirty-four-year-old Na-

tasha Jacobs of Lamaha Park, George-town was yesterday morning found

floating in that South Sophia canal that is known as the “Blacka”.

Residents and relatives suspect that the mother of four had been murdered by her lover, with whom she had shared an abu-sive relationship even though she had been seeing him for some time now. When the Chronicle arrived on the scene, Natasha’s body had already been taken out of the ca-nal and placed on the dam awaiting arrival of the hearse to take it away, even as the police had completed their examination of the body.

Relatives at the scene of the discovery were vociferous in commenting on Na-tasha’s easygoing attitude and the shock that her death has caused. To this report-er, it was evident that the dead woman had been struck to the face with an object. Her body had no signs of decay, which caused residents to believe that she had been mur-dered on Sunday night and the suspect dumped the body in the canal in the wee hours of yesterday morning. No one re-siding close to the suspect’s shack on the reserve reported hearing anything strange when this newspaper enquired.

The Guyana Chronicle was told that Nata-sha had been abused in all the relationships

she had shared with men; and the relation-ship she had had with the suspect had been an abusive one. One relative said that when-ever Natasha was abused, she used to relate it to them and they would advise her against returning to her abusive lovers, but she would defy the advice and find herself back into the arms of her abusers. It was also re-ported that the suspect was somewhat “out of sorts” and had a health ailment. It was only recently that Natasha had lost a brother who had been struck to the head by some-one, which had caused him also to become somewhat “out of sorts”. He later ended his own life. Speaking with the mother of the deceased, Ms Pamela Jacobs, at the scene of the discovery, this publication learnt that she had last seen Natasha alive on Saturday night, when the two of them walked from Festival City to Lamaha Park; the Jacobses have other relatives living in Festival City.

The elder Ms Jacobs could not continue her interview, because the hearse had arrived to remove her daughter’s body, causing her to break down and become inconsolable. The dead woman’s brother, however, indicated that his sister had been a mother of four chil-dren, all of whom are younger than 15 years old. He said the family is convinced that the late Natasha had been murdered, and their conclusion is based on several develop-ments. The young man said that after family members had arrived on the scene following receipt of the news of Natasha’s death, they later visited a home which they were told that Natasha had frequented – residence of the man suspected of her murder. There he asked the suspect if he knew Natasha, but the man denied knowing her. Natasha’s brother said that at the time of the family’s visit, the suspect, who is now in police custody, was cleaning out his house, and this raised suspi-cion that he might have killed Natasha in the home and dumped her body in the canal.

Natasha’s brother said he pulled the sus-pect out of the house, and other persons began beating him and trashing his little cottage home which rests on Government reserve. The suspect then admitted to knowing Natasha, and again other persons began beating him even as other relatives pleaded with them to desist from so do-ing. The man was then handed over to the police, and was up to late last evening still in their custody. The police are continuing their investigations into the matter even as residents of the area and relatives are call-ing for swift action in ensuring that justice is served to the surviving relatives of the late Natasha Jacobs.

Relatives carry the remains of the mother of four to the hearse


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Canje girl, 14, found stabbed to death in trenchThe festive season came to

an abrupt and sad end for the Raghbeer family of Re-

liance Abandon, East Canje, with the sudden and untimely death of a family member.

The body of 14-year-old Tey-ana Raghbeer was found yester-day around 13:15hrs floating in a trench aback Adelphi Village, East Canje. The body bore multi-ple stab wounds.

Raghbeer who resided at Lot 32 Reliance Abandon with her paternal grandparents, father, stepmother and brother, was last seen alive sometime around 23:00 hrs on Friday.

According to her distraught father, Jaiprakash Raghbeer (aka Jaio), the family spent Boxing Day at a gymkhana held in East Canje and returned home in the evening. He explained that the family became aware of the fact that Raghbeer had left the house when she failed to return to the living room after stating she was venturing downstairs to fetch drinks for her father and step-mother. “Minutes to eleven she bring food for me and she step-mother and she said she going downstairs for the drinks,” he

said.He recalled that after he had

finished eating his dinner, he called out to her and got no re-sponse, so he sent her 10-year-old brother to determine her whereabouts. “Her brother come back to say she gone,” he added.

It was at that point in time that a search began for the Canje Secondary School student and ended with her being found dead. “Me and my wife jump on the motorbike and start looking for she in all the places we think she could be,” the father said.

Raghbeer’s search took him as far as Edinburgh on the East Bank Berbice but that proved futile. On his way back, he was informed that a body was found in the backdam trench. “When we reach they didn’t take her out yet. When they take her out I rec-ognize her clothes and I tell the police that look like me daugh-ter,” he said.

The man said though he recog-nized his daughter’s clothing, he did not accept she was dead un-til he saw a scar on the forehead of the body which confirmed his worst nightmare – his daughter had been killed and dumped in

the trench like a piece of gar-bage. “She got a cut on her fore-head and that was how I was able to positively identify her. The clothes tell me it was her but I wasn’t certain until I saw the cut,” he added.

Still in a state of shock, Ra-ghbeer said he was unable to comprehend how and why his “pride and joy” was taken from him. He described his eldest child and only daughter as being very “bubbly and outgoing.” He added that “everything was normal and good…good” and nothing point-ed to his daughter wanting to up and leave the family house of her only volition in the middle of the night, though from all indications that is what happened. He not-ed however that she had acted somewhat strangely a few min-utes prior to her disappearance. “She come and hold me and hug me up and thing, and she behave strange. But I didn’t take it for anything because when we went gymkhana I buy two stag [beer] for her. So I thought it was that making her act so,” he said.

Teyana Raghbeer had appar-ently opened the front door of the house, walked down the

stairs, jumped the fence and vanished. When asked who she could have possibly been going to meet, Raghbeer stated that he had no idea but indicated he knows of persons who may have harmed her. He explained that he was involved in a physical altercation with a few men on Christmas night, and his daugh-ter who was with him at the time, attempted to defend him by hit-ting one of his attackers with a bottle. “Six of them tried to double bank me and beat me up. We went at a back shop to buy

credit for the phone and my wife ex-partner and a few of his fami-ly and friends was making trouble and Teyana pick up a bottle and threw it at them,” he said.

Raghbeer recalled too that they had threatened her stating “by the time tomorrow you will see what happen to you”. He however, did not take the threats seriously, and not wanting to make a big issue out of the inci-dent, failed to report the scene to the police. This mistake he said will haunt him for the rest of his life, for his decision to not involve the police may have cost him his daughter. This information has been passed on to the police who are investigating.

Meanwhile, Raghbeer’s grand-father, Harripersaud Raghbeer, also could not come to terms with the loss of his beloved granddaughter. According to the senior Raghbeer, he and his wife legally adopted Teyana and her brother and raised them from babies, so it is difficult for him to cope with her death. “We trying to stand up, but it hard. We mind them from baby on to this age. I never expect this. I was taking her to America,” he said.

Teyana Raghbeer


Happy New Year !

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A NEW DAY IS DAWNINGA new day, a new year and new

opportunities are opening to us. For some, it is just a monotonous

passing of time with repetitive stuff going on – as they say, “Same old.” For others, it is a wonderful entrance into the future and great opportunities for a new start or advancing ourselves. The Apostle Paul always had a positive attitude in life looking for new doors to open for him. It did not matter what adversity he faced, he saw new doors to accomplish greater achievements. Every trial or hardship presented a test of his faith in God. Conquering his tests and trials meant growing stron-ger and achieving more. Every success was celebrated for God’s praise. Then, he waited for another opportunity.

Paul wrote in a letter to the Philip-pians 3:13-15 “No, dear brothers, I am still not all I should be, but I am bring-ing all my energies to bear on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God is calling us up to heaven because of what Christ Jesus did for us. I hope all of you who are mature Christians will see eye-to-eye with me on these things, and if you dis-agree on some point, I believe that God will make it plain to you.” (The Living Bible)

Let us be thankful for life.Our lives are not our own. We some-

times think we control our lives and destinies. We forget that it is He Who gives life and He takes it away as He wills. Our life is an opportunity to do things for Him and for others, which pleases Him. As we move into a New Year, recognize there are others who did not have this privilege, but we have been given much grace from our gen-erous Heavenly Father. Why did He spare us? What is there for us to do for Him? There is a purpose and we can find it if we diligently seek Him for it.

Don’t let your past keep you stag-nated.

It is interesting how Paul handled his past. He recognized he was not everything he wanted to become. So he put all his energies into forgetting the past so he can move forward. All things considered normal, no one real-ly forgets the past. Well, we may forget some things, but not everything. Our past sins and failures tend to come back to haunt us. We feel guilt for past hurt or loss we caused. We avoid some people because we are ashamed to face them. Even our successes can hinder

us if they make us proud. We can feel so accomplished that we don’t want to improve. Success can also breed atti-tudes that affect our relationships. All these, success or failures, can hinder our desire for progress. Paul found a way to overcome the past. It was in keeping his eyes on the calling of God in Jesus Christ. When God forgives our past, we must not allow the devil to make us feel guilty over that. We need to receive His forgiveness, act on it and behave the way He sees us – clean and guiltless. We can seek reconcilia-tion with broken relationships because of His grace. We must behave so peo-ple begin to trust us again.

Reach for the highest prize that God promised you.

The Apostle maintained a focus on what God promised him. Nothing dis-tracted him. He was determined to put all his energies into overcoming the past and working towards becoming what God wanted him to be in Jesus Christ. Bible readers know Paul sought every opportunity to do something for God and be a blessing to His people. He preached the gospel and planted churches whilst enduring much suffer-ing. He wanted more souls to come to Christ and be saved eternally. Preach-ing must be accompanied by Christian life and testimony. Obstacles will come our way to discourage us. Satan will

do everything to hinder our work for Jesus. Our reaction will tell the world around us whether we are walking in His power, His love and His Presence. Paul wanted to ensure his personal salvation, but he wanted more than that; he wanted to bring some souls with him to the throne of Jesus Christ.

Wonderful opportunities will pres-ent themselves in 2015.

God is constantly offering us oppor-tunities for personal growth, spiritual development and ministry involve-ment, healthy relationships, advance-ment in business, academics and much more. I encourage you to make deci-sions become what God wants you to be. This is a great time for restoration and reconciliation. If you have fall-en away from faith in Christ, this is a great time to come back to Him and be restored. If you have ceased using your giftings for His Kingdom, this is a good time to begin again to feel the joy of serving Him. If the joy and bless-ing of prayer is missing from your daily routine, make a plan to start a regular prayer time. Bible reading should be-come a normal part of our day. If you want real joy and a peace that pass-es understanding, come to Christ and be committed to living for Him. His Spirit will keep you in your daily walk with Him. He will make you strong and steadfast.

2015 is your time.Start the year right with Jesus. ACar-

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No sign of missing plane - weather en route had been ‘bad’Hours of searching over mountainous

Region Eight for a second day yes-terday yielded no sign of the missing

twin-engine Britten Norman Islander as concerns grow over the fate of the pilot and the cargo handler.

The aircraft which belongs to Air Services Limited (ASL) with 28-year-old pilot Cap-tain Nicolas `Nicky’ Persaud and 51-year-old cargo handler David Bisnauth onboard, disappeared on Sunday a few minutes after takeoff from the Mahdia airstrip for anoth-er located in Karisparu. Communication with the plane was lost at 11.45 am, ap-proximately two minutes after takeoff. The routine flight was scheduled to last for ap-proximately 15 minutes. In a statement last evening, the Guyana Civil Aviation Author-ity (GCAA) said that the weather en route

to Karisparu at the time of the flight was reported as “bad.”

The search and rescue operation lasted for six hours and 40 minutes on day one. On day two eleven hours and 24 minutes of flight time were accumulated.

Stabroek News was told that the opera-tion resumed around 9 am with five aircraft inclusive of a helicopter.

An Army helicopter leaving Mahdia to commence its search. (Photo courtesy of the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority)

An Army helicopter leaving Mahdia to commence its search. (Photo courtesy of the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority)

Throughout the day the aircraft returned to the same Mahdia airstrip where the miss-ing plane took off from to refuel. The search was called off at nightfall and according to

the GCCA it will recommence at sunrise.In the press release, the GCAA said that

investigators and GDF Special Forces are on standby for possible extraction. It noted that searchers were able to cover a large area but there were still no sightings of the aircraft. The release added that search and rescue teams triangulated a search area approximately 20 miles west and south of Mahdia.

“The expanse of dense jungle is within the area of interest as determined by map ter-rain information and aircraft sighting while taking into inconsideration the last known position of the aircraft,” the aviation body said.

It was stated that the mountainous area – up to 700 metres high – was overflown including Echerak and North Fork in search

of the duo. Persaud, the release noted, has 8,000 flying hours and vast experience op-erating in the area.

The twin-engine aircraft’s last known po-sition via “Spot Tracker” was 3.8 nautical miles south of Mahdia.

“Regrettably, the second day of the search yielded no sightings of the aircraft,” the re-lease said, adding that the total search hours flown so far is 18 hours and four minutes.

Included in yesterday’s search were two fixed wing aircraft and three rotor wing air-craft including one GDF helicopter.

All aspects of the operation are being coordinated from the Rescue Coordination Centre at the Timehri Control Tower.

Present at the coordination centre are officials from the Ministry of Public Works, Ministry of Health, GCCA, the Cheddi Jagan International Airport Corporation, GDF Air Corps, ASL and the Guyana Police Force.

The release added that Mahdia is a hub for operations into locations in the escarpment and as such the missing flight was taking supplies to Karisparu. Stabroek News un-derstands that among the supplies onboard were fuel, jet parts and zinc sheets.

ASL Manager Annette Arjoon-Martins had told Stabroek News that within half an hour of no communication, the company sent four aircraft into the area to search. Subsequently both of the company’s he-licopters were dispatched. The six aircraft remained in the skies until sundown without any sighting.

Stabroek News was told yesterday that the difficulty that the searchers are facing is the denseness of the forest. It was explained that from the air it would be difficult to spot a downed aircraft amidst the thick vegeta-tion. “The forest is very big and the plane is very small,” a source said.

Based on what was told to this newspa-per what is required at this point is a “comb search.”

This newspaper was unable to make con-tact with Persaud’s relatives but was told that a sister of Bisnauth was at the airstrip yesterday. There have been several inci-dents involving domestic aircraft this year.

In January a Kato-bound plane crashed af-ter takeoff at the Ogle Airport. The January 11 crash resulted in pilot Raul Seecharran and a pregnant Shamica Monroe being hos-pitalized. Then on January 18, a Trans Guy-ana Airways (TGA) plane crashed shortly after takeoff from the Olive Creek, Region Seven airstrip. Canadian pilot Blake Slater and Guyanese cargo handler Dwayne Jacobs died. The next aircraft incident occurred on March when the door to a Britten Norman Islander owned by ASL opened up during a flight to Kamarang. The plane, 8R-GHE, de-parted the Ogle International Airport around midday with four travellers and during its descent into the village the left passenger’s door opened. The door was quickly secured. No one was hurt.

Three persons were hospitalized after the plane they were aboard crashed around 11:15 am on March 18 at Arau, Region Sev-en during takeoff. Pilot Bernard Singh along with passengers Ivor Williams, Leon Bristol and Troy Daniels sustained injuries.

On May 16, a TGA Britten Norman Island-er aircraft had a hard landing at the Kuru-pung Bottom airstrip, Region Seven around 12:27 pm. Five persons, including the pi-lot, were on board the aircraft, which had departed from Ogle International Airport. There were no reported injuries.

In July a plane owned by Domestic Air-ways ran off the runway upon landing at the Monkey Mountain airstrip in Region 8. The pilot Orlando Charles and a lone pas-senger were on the plane when the incident occurred at around 9.50 am but they were not injured. The twin-engine aircraft was however damaged.


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Queens Man Charged With Making Threats To Kill Police Officers;Illegal Weapons And Bulletproof Vests Found In Home

If Convicted Defendant Faces Up To 15 Years In Pris-on

Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown to-day announced that a

38-year-old Queens man has been arraigned on multiple counts of criminal possession of a weapon, aggravated ha-rassment and other charges after he was allegedly over-heard telling someone that he was going to kill police officers and a cache of guns, ammunition and bulletproof vests were found in his home.

District Attorney Brown said, “We take these charges very seriously-particularly in light of the fact that illegal weapons, ammunition and bulletproof vests were found in the defendant’s home. To-day, there will be a wake for one of the two officers brutal-ly gunned down last weekend in Brooklyn. We will not under any circumstances tolerate violence against anyone in

our community, especially not against police officers who tirelessly protect and serve all of us.”

The District Attorney iden-tified the defendant as Elvin Payamps, 38, of72-34 Edsall Avenue in the Glendale sec-tion of Queens. The defendant was arraigned last night before Queens Criminal Court Judge Stephanie Zaro on charges of second-and third-degree criminal possession of a weap-on, second-degree aggravated harassment, unlawful use of police uniform and emblem and other charges. Bail was set at $500,000 and the de-fendant’s next court date is January 7, 2015. Payamps is facing up to 15 years in pris-on, if convicted.

District Attorney Brown said that, according to the complaint, the defendant was overheard talking on a cell phone in a local bank on Christmas Eve, December 24, 2014. The witness allegedly

heard the defendant say that he was going to kill another cop and that it should happen before Christmas and that last weekend’s shooting should have killed white officers.

According to the charges, said District Attorney Brown, approximately an hour later police spoke to the defendant about the dark tint of his ve-hicle’s windows and at that time, the defendant admitted to having marijuana in his possession. Police allegedly recovered a zip lock bag con-taining marijuana and a metal pipe in the vehicle.

District Attorney Brown said, according to the charges, during a search of the defendant’s home police recovered metal knuckles, a loaded black Jimenez Arms JA 9mm pistol, a black Mossberg Maverick Model 88 12-gauge shotgun with a defaced seri-al number, ammunition and two bulletproof vests. One of the vest was labeled as being

from the Brooklyn Detention Complex.

Following the defendant’s arrest, according to the com-plaint, Payamps admitted to saying that the two officers shot and killed in Brooklyn last weekend should have been white instead of His-panic and Asian, if the shoot-er wanted to send a message.

The case is being prose-cuted by District Attorney Brown’s Career Criminal Major Crimes Bureau, which is under the supervision of Assistant District Attorneys James W. Evangelou, Bureau Chief, and Robert J. Hanophy, Deputy Bureau Chief, and Patricia M. Theodorou, Unit Chief, and under the overall supervision of Senior Execu-tive Assistant District Attor-ney for Trials James C. Quinn.

It should be noted that a criminal complaint is merely an accusation and that a de-fendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Bandits shoot, disarm se-curity guard while on duty

AN ARMED guard employed with Caliber Security Service was on Sat-urday night shot in the shoulder and

relieved of his weapon. He is now warded at the Male Surgical Ward of the George-town Public Hospital (GPH) where, at this time, his condition is listed as stable.

Walter Williams, who turned 63 a week ago, was on duty at a private residence in Roxanne Burnham Gardens when the in-cident occurred around 23:30 hrs.

Speaking from his hospital bed, Wil-liams said he was standing on the bridge of the premises he was guarding when he noticed two men on a CG motorcycle approaching. They initially rode past him, but suddenly turned back and pulled up in front of him.

The moment he laid eyes on them, Williams said, he knew they were mili-tary-trained and quite experienced.

One of them jumped off the bike and ordered him to hand over his weapon. Williams said he tried to trick the man into believing that he did not have weapon on him, but his assailant saw through the plan, shot him in the shoulder and relieved him of his gun. He then got back on the pillion of the motorcycle, and together he and his accomplice rode off into the night.


Flailing $13B info tech project nets little results - Goolsarran-says Parliament should be accountable

Thus far, $13.7 billion has been spent on govern-ment’s floundering In-

formation Communica-tions Technology (ICT) programme in-cluding the troubled fibre-optic cable project with little to show for it, former Auditor-General Anand Goolsarran says.

“It is clear that the funds ear-marked for the government’s ICT programme have been fully exhausted. However, the main objective of advancing “fully into e-government mode, hooking up our schools and our police stations and everything else so that we can deploy technology in the service of our people,” as stated by the for-mer President (Bharrat Jagdeo), is far from its realization and remains a dream unfulfilled,” Goolsarran wrote in his Stabroek News col-umn which appears today.

“Those responsible for de-cisions relating to the execu-tion of the project as well as for monitoring it have failed us im-mensely. They have left us not only without any meaningful tan-gible assets for the expenditure incurred but also a huge debt burden that future generations will have to repay,” he declared while adding that many of those responsible may not be around to witness the completion of the loan repayment.

The ICT programme has three main components: installation of a fibre optic network from Georgetown to Lethem; installa-tion and commissioning of wire-less and terrestrial network sys-tem from Moleson Creek to Anna Regina; and the One Laptop per Family Programme.

It came back into sharp focus earlier this month when Sta-broek News reported that gov-ernment officials had gone quiet on the fibre-optic cable project which had missed many dead-lines. Subsequently, Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr Rog-

er Luncheon acknowledged that the project which was supposed to vastly expand internet band-width, needed “remedial work” but failed to mention that it had been suspended.

That announcement was quiet-ly made in the December 12 edi-tion of the Guyana Times by the Project Manager Alexei Ramotar who had not been available to Stabroek News for several weeks to discuss the state of the project.

Goolsarran, in his column, blazed the Minister of Finance and Office of the President for their silence on the issue and only speaking when pressured to do so. “In his budget presentation for these two years (2013 and 2014), the Minister of Finance spoke glowingly about the Gov-ernment’s ICT programme with-out the slightest hint that there was a problem with the laying of cables along the Georgetown – Lethem route,” he said. “It is also incomprehensible that the Office of the President chose to remain silent on what the government considers its flagship programme until pressured to do so some two years later,” he added.

Experts have said that sal-vaging the multi-billion dollar fibre-optic cable project will be costly and will require govern-ment to be frank about key attri-butes of the project which may in turn expose poor decision-mak-ing.

The main opposition A Part-nership for National Unity (APNU) feels the project should be put on hold until a compre-hensive assessment is carried out and then a decision should be made on its future. The par-ty believes that the project, the brainchild of the Jagdeo ad-ministration, was mired in in-efficiencies from its onset and spokesman Joe Harmon believes that government must suspend it pending the recommendations of

expert fibre optic analysts.Goolsarran said that based on

public audited accounts up to 2012 and using figures from the 2014 Estimates of Expenditure for 2013 and 2014, it has been determined that $13.707 billion has been spent thus far on the project.

He said that it is clear that funds earmarked for the ICT programme have been fully ex-hausted. “The entire loan and grant resources provided by the China Export Import Bank have been drawn down and expended. The loan is repayable, inclusive of interest, in 31 equal semi-an-nual installments. Commencing March 2017 and ending Septem-ber 2032,” he said.

“The issue of whether val-ue-for-money has been achieved for this massive expenditure in terms of outputs, outcomes and impact, requires serious reflec-tion on the part of our elected representatives. Collectively, through the budget process over the last five years, they have committed public resources to the project which from all ap-pearances, and in the considered view of experts on fibre optic networks, is now in serious jeop-ardy,” he asserted.

He said that unlike the previ-ous three years, the Estimates

for 2013 and 2014 did not in-clude reference to work on the fibre-optic cable project which suggests that the project might have been suspended sometime in 2012. “Did our parliamen-tarians not notice this in their consideration of the estimates” Goolsarran questioned.

He also highlighted that there were breaches of the Fiscal Man-agement and Accountability Act. “An amount of $353.549 mil-lion was provided by way of a Supplementary Estimate for the installation of fibre optic cables and terminal equipment. The full amount was shown as hav-ing been expended. However, no expenditure was incurred during the course of the year, and ac-cording to the Auditor General’s report, four cheques were drawn on 31 December 2009 and de-posited into an account at a com-mercial bank to meet expendi-ture on two contracts,” he said.

“What the report failed to mention, however, was that the withdrawal of funds on the last day of the fiscal year, i.e. 31 De-cember, to meet expenditure to be incurred some three to four months into the new fiscal year, is a breach of Section 26 of the Fiscal Management and Account-ability (FMA) Act. This section states that “Except as provided

for in this Act, every appropria-tion of public moneys authorized by Parliament for a fiscal year shall lapse and cease to have any effect as at the end of that fiscal year.” This is reinforced by Sec-tion 31 (3) which prohibits the payment of public moneys unless the works undertaken or goods/services supplied are in confor-mity with the related contract or other agreement,” the former Auditor-General pointed out.

He said that as at December 31, 2009, there was no contract in force relating to installation of the fibre optic cables and ter-minal equipment, and therefore the amount of $353.5 million should have been returned to the Consolidated Fund as is re-quired by Section 43 of the FMA Act, instead of being paid into a commercial bank and charged as expenditure for 2009.

“Indeed, the practice of with-drawing moneys from a public bank account and placing them in a commercial bank to meet future expenditure, is a serious violation of the FMA Act and a manipula-tion of the accounting system. Neither the Auditor General nor the Public Accounts Committee saw it fit to raise this as a matter of serious concern,” he asserted while also highlighting a similar breach the following year.

These photos show the fibre optic cable in a vulnerable state as it crosses the Essequibo River from the Iwokrama Rainforest Reserve

Tuschen triple-murder. DPP: Father, son to be charged with capital offenceJEROME Franklin and his son, Timmy

Franklin, will both be charged with mur-der following the triple murder at Tus-

chen 11 days ago when the cane-harvester allegedly ran amok. The Guyana Chronicle has learnt that based on the evidence avail-able and the case put forward by the po-lice, the Chambers of the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) has recommended the capital charge for the father and son.

Reports are that the younger Franklin physically restrained Floyd Drakes, one of the three victims, from escaping so his fa-ther could to “finish him off.”

Prior to that disclosure, however, his fa-ther had tried to clear him of any involve-ment in the commission of the crime, stat-ing that it was he (Jerome Franklin) alone

who had committed the act against his re-puted wife’s mother and “sweet-man”.

He was at the time expressing his dismay at the police’s decision to arrest his son af-ter he, the senior Franklin and prime sus-pect in the killing, went into hiding.

Franklin also denied chopping his nine-year-old stepdaughter, Ashley, to death, saying he flew into a rage and killed his re-puted wife’s mother after she attacked him with a cutlass and accidentally chopped the child in her head.

He said he cared too much for the child, whom he had minded since she was a baby, and would never do her any harm. The po-lice, however, did not buy his story, and are relying on the statements from the lone survivor of the attack, Geeta Boodhoo, his

reputed wife, to assist them in making a strong case against him.

He again tried to exonerate his son of any wrongdoing by saying that it was not he who told him that Drakes, whom he re-ferred to as the “sweet-man”, was at Boo-dhoo’s house at the time, but rather a taxi driver who had dropped the man off there.

Eleven days ago, Franklin broke his way into the home of his reputed wife and be-gan a chopping rampage that left his reput-ed wife hospitalised, and his 55-year-old mother in law, Bibi Zalima Kahn; nine-year-old stepdaughter, Ashley; and 30-year-old Drakes dead.

The man reportedly made his way into the home through some louvre windows which he removed while the family was

having a few drinks.Last week, the man reportedly made con-

tact with a section of the media to which he admitted some aspects of the crime and denied others. He also explained what led to his actions, and his intentions to ensure that he goes to the extreme to get to his reputed wife and her sister, since accord-ing to him, they are part and parcel of the entire issue especially his reputed wife’s sister.

Upon getting wind of that threat, the po-lice intensified their manhunt for the man and on Christmas Eve Day, he was found in the Tuschen backlands where he was hid-ing reportedly to make good on his threat of finishing off his reputed wife and her sister.


BULLY COPS

A FIRESTORM of condem-nation has been levelled at two police officers —

from within their own ranks and from the general public — after they brutally assaulted a dis-abled man who sat in a wheel-chair on lower High Street in San Fernando, in full view of passers by on Saturday afternoon.

Officers of the Professional Standards Bureau were appoint-ed to investigate the assault were yesterday searching San Fernando and environs for the unnamed disabled man to record a statment.

A passerby who witnessed the exchange recorded the incident and uploaded the video to sever-al social network websites, with the video going viral in minutes and prompting many comments, most of which were critical of the officers’ conduct.

The officers have been iden-tified as two SRPs (Special Re-serve Police) from the Mon Re-pos Police Station.

Following the video upload and the avalanche of negative pub-lic reaction, Ag Commissoner of Police Stephen Williams ap-pointed a team from the Profes-sional Standards Bureau headed by ACP Harrikrishen Baldeo to investigate the incident.

Head of Police Southern Di-vision Snr Supt Cecil Santana last evening confirmed being contacted by ACP South, Cen-tral and South Western Donald Denoon who relayed that Com-missioner Williams wanted an immediate and thorough inves-tigation.

Santana said the two officers have already been identified as

belonging to the Rapid Response Unit based at Mon Repos police Station. He described their con-duct as disgraceful, adding, “the Service cannot condone that kind of action and these kinds of officers are what we don’t need in the ranks.” He assured, “no stone would be left unturned with respect to the investigation and what necessary action has to be taken, would be taken.”

When Newsday yesterday visited lower High Street where the incident occurred, emotions were still high. Some persons who said they witnessed the in-cident on Saturday strongly con-demned the officers’ actions and called for justice to be done.

An eyewitness related that the attack began after the wheel-chair-bound man was observed stretching out his hand to beg. This prompted a WPC in full po-lice uniform to scold the disabled man, telling him he was getting disability by the State and should not be begging on the road.

The eyewitness who asked not to be identified said the disabled man cursed the officer causing her to become enraged. In the video, the female officer is seen disengaging the hand brake mechanism on the wheelchair.

She is then heard saying, “if you feel you mad, then I more mad” as she pushed the wheel-chair down the slight incline of High Street and letting it go. In

doing so, the officer herself nar-rowly escaped being hit by an oncoming van. The wheelchair proceeded down the road for a few feet before bumping into a car parked at the side of the road and coming to a halt. Eye-witnesses yesterday asked if the disabled man had been struck by an oncoming vehicle, what would have been the officers’ reaction.

The person who recorded the incident is heard using exple-tives as he described what was taking place. He then egged on the disabled man to go back up the street. As the disabled man did so, he was met by an oncom-ing policeman dressed in plain-clothes.

The man pulled out a wallet, identified himself to the disabled man as an officer and then asked him why did he curse the wom-an police officer. The officer warned the disabled man that being in a wheelchair would not prevent him from getting a slap. The male officer, in the presence of several onlookers, proceeded to slap the disabled man at least three times, with two of the slaps being so vicious, so powerful as to rock the man’s head forcefully to the side. The male officer then walked off.

An eyewitness who said he was extremely disturbed by the beating told Newsday the dis-abled man wore a colostomy bag which was hanging from the wheelchair and one of the slaps from the officer caused urine to squirt out of the bag.

Business people in the area claimed the male officer in ques-tion is well-known to them as he is in the habit of harassing them about parking when vehicles arrive to offload goods to the stores.

David Manning, son of for-mer prime minister and out-going San Fernando East MP Patrick Manning, was among those who strongly condemned the officers’ actions stating on his Facebook page, “The Police act tough in the streets to earn respect, but the true measure of earning (respect) is perfor-mance. Tapping up retards (sic) in wheelchairs hardly earns re-spect in light of a 400 plus annu-al murder rate and not a single suspect apprehended and not a single case solved. Any officer laying his hands on me trying to score points will certainly get an assault charge.”

Another Facebook user, Don-na Ramnarine wrote: “Peo-ple forget life is a boomerang and what goes around comes around. This is a human being. Somebody’s brother, uncle, fa-ther, nephew that these cops beating. There are ways to deal with this. I understand he just came out of the hospital...God is watching.”

Meanwhile, the Police Com-plaints Authority (PCA) in a news release said, “it is aware of a video that has been circu-lating on social media of alleged impropriety of persons who ap-pear to be officers of the Trin-idad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS).” The Authority stated that, “pursuant to the functions of the Police Complaints Au-thority Act”, it has initiated an independent investigation into the incident and is calling for any witnesses or persons with infor-mation on the incident to kindly contact the PCA at the follow-ing numbers: 800-2PCA/800-2722/627-4383, 627-4386 or [email protected].”

Public Affairs Officer of the

TT Police Service Supt Joanne Archie strongly condemned the officers’ actions. “We condemn what has happened. We would not condone such behaviour by officers. The video sent to me was communicated and for-warded to the Ag CoP (Stephen Williams) about mid-morning today (yesterday). He (Williams) immediately directed that the Professional Standards Bureau (PSB) initiate an investigation,” Archie said.

Meanwhile, the Police Social and Welfare Association added its voice to criticisms describ-ing the video posting as “worri-some” and calling for a speedy investigation into the matter.

General Secretary of the asso-ciation Insp Michael Seales said while the man may have insulted the police, the officers’ response was unnecessary.

“We have established that summary offences have been committed by the man but the exchange between the officer and the man, doesn’t warrant that type of interaction by the officer, in terms of what would have happened to the man, based on what has gone viral.

“We are very concerned and hope this is one of the investi-gations that the Commissioner completes as quickly as possible to the satisfaction of the citizens who would have witnessed the incident,” Seales said.

San Fernando Mayor Kazim Hosein said the corporation was very saddened at the incident .

He noted that while it was reasonable to expect protection from violence and crime by all police officers, this indeed was “an isolated and unfortunate in-cident” which needs to be fully investigated.

TSA SCREENER AT KENNEDY AIRPORT CONVICTED OF STEALING $10,000 IN CASH FROM PASSENGERS GOING THROUGH SECURITY

Defendant Faces Up To 14 Years In Prison When Sentenced

Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown today announced that a Transportation Security Admin-

istration officer assigned to John F. Ken-nedy International Airport has been con-victed of grand larceny and other charges for stealing $10,000 cash from two pas-sengers traveling in December 2011 and January 2012.

District Attorney Brown said, “It is par-ticularly troubling that someone hired to ensure the safety and security of our na-tion’s airlines and to protect all of us from terrorism would stoop to stealing from those she is supposed to protect. The de-fendant’s actions tarnish the reputation of the many TSA agents who faithfully carry out their duties with integrity and pride.”

The District Attorney identified the de-fendant as Alexandra Schmid, 34, of 383

Sumpter Street in Brooklyn. Schmid was convicted Wednesday following a near-ly four-week bench trial before Acting Queens Supreme Court Justice Joel Blu-menfeld, who found the defendant guilty of third-degree grand larceny, third-de-gree criminal possession of stolen prop-erty and official misconduct. The de-fendant will be sentenced on March 13, 2015. She faces up to 14 years in prison.

District Attorney Brown said that, ac-cording to trial testimony, Schmid was on duty on December 9, 2011 when Dr. Imrana Ali and her family passed through security before boarding a plane for In-dia. The defendant separated the passen-gers from their belongings for approxi-mately 15 minutes. When the passengers collected their luggage and other items, the defendant acted rude and strangely while insisting she hadn’t touched their things. The family then rushed to board

their flight and that is when Dr. Ali re-alized $6,000 cash had been taken from her husband’s jacket pocket.

District Attorney Brown said according to court records on J anuary 5, 2012 pas-senger Rahat Mohammed Shimul and his mother, traveling to India, were screened by the defendant. Mr. Shimul alerted Schmid that his mother’s pocketbook contained $4,000 in cash and jewelry. The defendant took the man’s mother’s purse and left the area and returned moments later. Mr. Shimul checked his mother’s purse and noticed the cash was gone and asked the officer about the missing money. Schmed accused Mr. Shimul of stealing it.

The investigation was conducted by the Port Authority Police Department’s De-tective Diwan Mahajarai, Detective Curtis King, Sergeant Ray Delena, Sergeant Mike Palermo, Sergeant Thomas Eddings, and Sergeant Thomas Bomengo under the su-

pervision Detective Lieutenant Jose Alba, under the overall supervision of Captain Hugh Johnson and Deputy Chief Matthew Wilson of the Criminal Investigations Bu-reau at Kennedy International Airport, and by the Department of Homeland Se-curity Office of Inspector General’s Spe-cial Agent in Charge Edward Nasiatka and Special Agent William Meditz of the Trans-portation Security Administration.

Assistant District Attorney Carmencita N. Gutierrez, Deputy Bureau Chief of the District Attorney’s Integrity Bureau, and Assistant District Attorney Fred Wyshak prosecuted the case under the supervi-sion of Assistant District Attorney James M. Liander, Bureau Chief, and the overall supervision of Executive Assistant Dis-trict Attorney for Investigations Peter A. Crusco and Deputy Executive Assistant District Attorney for Investigations Linda M. Cantoni.


World News Highlights

MOSCOW - A Russian court gave Kremlin critic Alexei Na-valny a suspended sentence on Tuesday for embezzling money but jailed his brother for three and a half years in a case seen as part of a campaign to stifle dis-sent.

ISTANBUL - Turkey’s top ju-dicial body has suspended four prosecutors who initiated a cor-ruption investigation that target-ed the inner circle of President Tayyip Erdogan, Dogan news agency reported on Tuesday.

BRUSSELS - The United States plans by the end of next year to station around 150 tanks and armored vehicles in Europe for use by U.S. forces training there, according to a U.S. military com-mander.

WASHINGTON - The Unit-ed States called on Tuesday for the release of U.S. citizens held in Iran, but denied a re-port that Washington had pro-posed a prisoner exchange for a former U.S. Marine.

SEOUL - A South Korean court on Tuesday ordered that a former Korean Air Lines executive be detained for delaying a flight following an outburst over the way she was served nuts, in a case that prompted both outrage and ridicule.

HAVANA - Prominent Cu-ban dissident Yoani Sanchez said police detained her hus-band and another government opponent on Tuesday in what would be the highest profile detentions since Cuba and the United States agreed to end five decades of hostility.

UNITED NATIONS - U.N. Security Council is expected to vote as early as Tuesday af-ternoon on a Palestinian draft resolution that calls for a peace deal with Israel within a year and an end of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories by late 2017.

ATHENS - An Italian helicop-ter was flying to intercept a car-go ship believed to be carrying hundreds of migrants after it left Greek waters and headed to-wards Italy, according to a state-ment from the air force.

SURABAYA, Indonesia/JA-KARTA - Indonesian rescuers searching for an AirAsia plane carrying 162 people pulled bod-ies and wreckage from the sea off the coast of Borneo on Tues-day, prompting relatives of those on board watching TV footage to break down in tears.

ATHENS - Greece’s splintered political landscape means small, often relatively new parties may determine whether the winner of elections next month can cobble together a lasting government and avoid a new financial crisis.

NEW YORK - The Democrat-ic Republic of Congo and U.N. peacekeepers should take mil-itary action against a Rwandan Hutu militia if it fails to meet a Jan. 2 deadline for disarmament, the U.S. envoy to Africa’s Great Lakes region said on Tuesday.

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria - Sus-pected Islamist militants opened fire in a town in northeast Nige-ria, killing at least 15 people, wit-nesses and a security source said.

MOGADISHU - A leader of the Somali militant group al Shabaab was killed by a U.S. air strike in Somalia, U.S. and Soma-

li officials said on Tuesday.

BENGHAZI, Libya/CAIRO - A fire raging for almost a week at Libya’s biggest oil port of Es Sider has destroyed up to 1.8 million barrels of crude and damaged seven storage tanks, causing total damage of $213 million, a top oil official said on Tuesday.

GENEVA/BEIRUT - U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura will be represented at talks about Syr-ia in Moscow next month, his spokeswoman said on Tuesday.

BENGHAZI, Libya - A suicide bomber detonated a car lad-en with explosives in front of a hotel where Libya’s elected parliament was in session in the eastern city of Tobruk on Tues-day, wounding three deputies and eight others, the assembly’s spokesman said.

Health officials investigating two suspected Chikungunya deaths

KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, Monday December 29, 2014, CMC - Health officials

are investigating the deaths of two people to determine whether they were as a consequence of the mos-quito-borne illness Chikungunya, which causes fever and severe joint pain, muscle pain, headache, nausea, fatigue and rash.

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health, Wellness and the Environment, Luis de Shong, said the two suspected deaths have not been confirmed by labo-ratory tests.

“They both occurred in elderly patients who died at home. The Ministry of Health, Wellness and the Environment is currently in-vestigating these cases to ascertain the cause of death.

“The Ministry of Health, Well-ness and the Environment urges everyone to be vigilant and to help in the fight against Chikungunya,” de Shong said.

To date, there have been 173 laboratory confirmed cases and 1,220 epidemiology-linked cases of Chikungunya here, where the disease was first diagnosed in April.

De Shong said that the ministry is continuing to implement surveil-lance and vector control activities as a response to the virus.

He said that although there has

been a decrease in the number of reported cases since the virus was diagnosed here, the virus remains prevalent in the country and also throughout the region.

“Persons who have not yet con-tracted the disease are still at risk of contracting the virus,” he said, adding that the fight against Chi-kungunya is also a fight against dengue and dengue hemorrhagic fever, which are spread by the same vector, the aedes aegypti mosquito.

“It is, therefore, appropriate and necessary for everyone to protect him or herself from mosquito bites and to avoid harbouring conditions which cause mosquitos to breed,” de Shong said.

He said health care providers,

both private and public, are ad-vised to comply with public health guidelines.

“Case investigation forms must be completed and submitted to the Surveillance Officer in the Ministry of Health, Wellness and the Envi-ronment in all suspected cases of Chikungunya.

“Laboratory tests must be car-ried out on infants, pregnant wom-en, complicated cases and persons of advanced age who are suspect-ed of having the virus.

“All suspected and confirmed cases must be reported to the Ministry of Health, Wellness and the Environment in a bid to facili-tate appropriate planning and re-sponse,” de Shong said.

Bahamas government accused of herding migrants like “cattle”

NASSAU, Bahamas, Mon-day December 29, 2014, CMC – Bahamian author-

ities have described as a “false and malicious construction of events,” a photo showing a num-ber of migrants being herded into a cage like “cattle”.

The Department of Immigra-tion said it had taken note of the photo of migrants being held at Exuma and circulated on social media sites on earlier this week.

“The construction being given to this photo by those who are seeking to sabotage the policy of the Department is that somehow the migrants were being mis-treated and being held in inhu-mane conditions. That is a false and malicious construction of events. The photo and comments appear designed to defame the Department.”

President of the Grand Baha-mas Human Rights Association (GBHRA), Fred Smith, said that since the launch of the govern-ment’s immigration policy on November 1, Foreign Affairs and Immigration Affairs Minister Fred Mitchell has insisted that the au-thorities do not treat illegal mi-grants as “cattle”.

He said in light of the recent-ly-surfaced image showing sus-pected illegal immigrants penned

in a mobile enclosure more suited to the transportation of livestock than human beings, the GBHRA is demanding that the minister gives “a satisfactory explanation of the behavior of public ser-vants under his charge.

“Responding to the many cas-es of physical battery, wrongful detention and unlawful tactics which have arisen over the last two months, not to mention the recent rape allegation against a senior Immigration official, Mitchell’s stance has been that the Bahamas government does not condone the abuse of detain-ees.

“This is a calculated and cyni-cal dodge. The fact is, as minister he is responsible for the Depart-ment of Immigration, its employ-ees and their actions. In all such cases, the buck stops with Mitch-ell. His excuses are simply not good enough.”

Smith said that the “photo it-self stands as a powerful example of the kind of unconstitutional, inhumane and degrading treat-ment of individuals – who are in-nocent until proven guilty under the law – which has stained the soul of The Bahamas for decades. Mitchell’s harsh new policy has

Bahamas continued on page 29


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Fill in the blanks so that each row, each column, and each of the nine 3x3 grids contain one instance of each of the num-bers 1 through 9

PUZZLE!2 9 7 4 8 5 6 1 38 1 4 3 6 2 9 7 53 5 6 9 7 1 4 2 89 6 1 5 3 7 8 4 24 3 5 2 9 8 7 6 17 2 8 1 4 6 3 5 96 8 2 7 5 3 1 9 45 4 3 6 1 9 2 8 71 7 9 8 2 4 5 3 6

W Connection break Suriname hearts on penalties

PARAMARIBO, Suriname (CMC) — Suriname's na-tional team, comprising

mostly Holland-based players, went down on penalties to W Connection of Trinidad and To-bago in a friendly game here on Boxing Day.

The mixed-nationality team that has been hyped up to lead the country to the 2018 World Cup Finals in Russia, played to a 1-1 stalemate during regular time before losing 3-2 on penalty kicks.

The loss does not augur well for the experiment by the Su-riname Football Association, which announced last month that it would create a nation-al team that included players with Surinamese roots who play in the international leagues abroad.

More than 100 players with Surinamese roots play profes-sionally in the Dutch leagues and some have historically helped the former coloniser claim ma-jor championships. Meanwhile, Suriname have never qualified for a World Cup.

The SVB's dream of writing football history and taking Su-riname all the way to Russia 2018, has been gaining traction locally.

Draft legislation to change the law on nationality and cit-izenship allowing players with non-Surinamese passports to represent the country, was sub-mitted to the National Assembly two weeks ago. It is not clear when it will be tabled in Parlia-ment.

Several players who play for Dutch teams have reacted with enthusiasm at the prospect of wearing Suriname's colours.

However, many could not make it to Suriname for the friendly match because of scheduling conflicts, but the team that played W Connection in the Andre Kamperveen Stadi-um Friday afternoon still com-prised 10 players with Dutch passports.

Among them were 28-year-old central defender who cap-tains Milano Koenders in the Eredivisie, the top tier of Hol-

land's football leagues and Ryan Koolwijk, formerly of FC Dor-drecht, also in the Eredivisie.

The only player with Surinam-ese nationality - Stefano Rijssel, who plays for Suriname's local champion Inter Moengotapoe - was benched until halfway through the second half of the game.

Friday's game saw a sold-out crowd, with Sports Minister Is-manto Adna and Public Works Minister Rabin Parmessar, among the supporters.

W Connection snatched the lead halfway during the first half when Jerrel Britto was set free following great combination play between Hashim Arcia and Devaughn Elliot.

Down 0-1 at half-time, Suri-name equalised after 60 min-utes thanks to Norichio Nieveld, who headed home from Furgill Lie A Kwie's corner.

With the scores locked 1-1 at full-time, Alvin Jones, Hashim Arcia and Tremain Paul all net-ted in the penalty shoot-out to break the hosts' hearts.

only exacerbated this shameful trend”.

But in a statement, the Depart-ment of Immigration said that “the people in the photo were sitting on the back of a flatbed transport or trailer with an open end at the back of the trailer se-cured by a removable metal tail-gate.

“The trailer was used to ferry the individuals from where they landed in Exuma to the holding facility the E C McKenzie audi-torium in Ramsay, Exuma. The migrants were held at that audi-torium overnight until they were transported by the Royal Baha-mas Defence Force to Nassau.

“The journey from the landing point in Exuma would normally take thirty to forty minutes. At no time was any person under the care or supervision of the Department of Immigration kept in inhumane conditions,” the De-partment said.

The GBHRA says it is in the process of collecting testimonials of Bahamians of Haitian descent in particular, “who tell of unusu-al and unwarranted scrutiny by

National Insurance Board (NIB) officials, illegal fees levied for the treatment of children in the pub-lic healthcare system, and denial of access to a public school, to name just a few cases”.

The GBHRA said it was call-ing on Mitchell to answer the various questions being raised regarding the new policy, failing which it wanted Prime Minister Perry Christie “to relieve him of the immigration portfolio, and bestow it upon someone with the foresight and clarity of thought to see where this disastrous policy threatens to take us”.

THE DEPARTMENT OF IMMIGRATION SAID IT HAD TAKEN NOTE OF THE PHOTO OF MIGRANTS BEING HELD AT EXUMA AND CIRCULATED ON SOCIAL MEDIA SITES ON EARLIER THIS WEEK.

BAHAMAS from page 28

What is my favorite hobby and how it helps me to focus:

Jai Seeta Ram. My name is Hemraj L. Sobhai, a blessed member of the Naujaavaan Man-dale of the Shaanti Bhavaan Mandir. I have the greatest privilege to write this article and share some of my thoughts.

I have several hobbies but my favorite is READING. I find reading to be fun. It helps me to calm down when I am upset

and cheer me up when I am sad. Reading helps me to bond with my family; we spend quality time when I share what I read. I love reading because my parents and siblings read with me and it’s a lot of fun especial-ly when it’s a funny book. Reading helps to develop my ability to concentrate and to stay focused for a long period of time. Reading also helps me with my education and serves as a way to discipline myself be-cause I set my goal I make sure I achieve it.

To all the kids reading my article, I en-courage you to read more. Here are some benefits of reading:

• If you read often and wide selection, you will get better at it

• Reading exercises the brain.• Reading improves concentration

(helps me with my tabla)• Reading teaches us about the world.• Reading teaches us new words and

helps us understand the English Language better.

• Reading develops our imagination. • Reading helps us develops empathy.

• When we read a lot we do better in school.

• Reading is entertaining.• Reading relaxes the body and calms

the mind.So my friends, now that you know some

of the benefits of reading I urge you to go find a book and read.

JAI HO!


(March 21-April 19)A temporary setback can seem like it’s insurmountable on Monday, but once you under-

stand that it’s a learning curve — and one you can leap over if you put your considerable energy to it — things clear up by Thursday. The nice thing about getting this lesson out of the way now is that you’ll see a dozen different ways to make this knowledge work to make your life easier, especial-ly on Friday. Just beware of information overload over this weekend. More isn’t necessarily better when it comes to getting the 411.

ARIES(April 20-May 20)Just when you think you know someone or have a certain area of expertise, something happens that

shows you the opposite may, in fact, be true. On Monday and Tuesday, be surprised by nothing. The more you realize that you can only know the partial truth of any one person, place or thing is what, curi-ously enough, begins to give you real wisdom. Friday, Saturday and Sunday are filled with communication, and some of it from unusual or intuitive channels. Simply listen without judging, then take what works for you.

TAURUS(May 21-June 20)It’s normal to want praise, especially on Monday. After all, every human

being needs acknowledgment that their work is well done. But on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday you realize that your acknowledgment of your wonderful efforts is what counts the most. Don’t forget to praise and reward yourself for every-thing that you do and that you do it so well. Friday and the weekend are flirty, fabulous and fun. Dress up a little no matter what the day’s tasks entail. Run-ning chores can be much more glamorous that way.

GEMINI

(June 21-July 22)Persistence is a virtue, but on Monday and Tuesday, you might

actually be better off realizing when something’s a dead end. That way, you end up on a route that’s quicker and more interesting. Wednesday and Thursday are great times, however, to put your shoulder to the wear and persevere no matter what. If there’s too much infor-mation coming your way on Friday, then say so. This weekend, pick and choose your words with care. If you’re not sure exactly what to say, then say nothing or ask for more time before you reply.

CANCER(July 23-Aug. 22)Boldness is a virtue, especially on Monday and Tuesday. Say what

you mean and mean what you say — you’ll find it all deeply liberating. By midweek, you realize that discretion is very much the better part of valor. When you’re not sure what course to take, doing nothing is more productive than recklessly plunging into action. Be creative about the ways you commu-nicate on Friday and the weekend, especially when it comes to your feelings. A touch of humor — but not too much, or you’ll come off as defensive — works wonders.

LEO(Aug. 23-Sept. 22)Asking yourself what makes your life simpler right now really gets to the

heart of the matter on Monday. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday you realize that ‘simple’ doesn’t necessar-ily mean ‘easy,’ and that it may, in fact, mean making a tougher choice in order for a better payoff down the road. With your newfound insight, that makes it easier to deal with. Your composure makes you an example to someone unexpected over the weekend. If they ask you for advice, be honest without being preachy. They’ll appreciate what you have to offer.

VIRGO

LIBRA(Sept. 23-Oct. 22)It’s easier to play it safe than be sorry — or at least that’s the way it seems to

you on Monday and Tuesday. However, you might actually be making your life harder than it needs to be in the long run. On Wednesday and Thurs-day, embrace the concept of short-term pain in order to make some big long-term gains and you might see that those pains are brief and not really painful at all. Friday and the weekend are a good time to talk it out with family and friends, or with yourself and your journal, if that’s more helpful to you.

(Oct. 23-Nov. 21)You can be blind to your own best qualities, especially on the first two days of this week. That’s true of

anyone you know, actually — it’s hard to see the best in yourself. View your personality as if you were your dear-est friend. Surprised at how much there is to like? You shouldn’t be. Thursday and Friday, speak your mind, but add a little extra helping of charm. Your audience will get the message, and they’ll appreciate that special way you have of putting things, too. The weekend is relaxed, mellow and loving — a great time for family.

SCORPIO SAGITTARIUS(Nov. 22-Dec. 21)The impulse to change or somehow improve oneself is part of the human condition, and you’re likely to feel

that need this week, especially on Monday and Tues-day. Remind yourself that in order to change, first you need to really see who you are. That’s not always an easy task. If you succeed, you’ll find that change hap-pens naturally in an evolutionary way, not because you force the issue. Friday and Saturday are great times to talk about all that you’ve been going through. Sunday, concentrate on being with your family.

PISCES(Dec. 22-Jan. 19)Your physical environment has a great deal of impact on your mental

and spiritual health. Is your home chaotic and disor-dered? No wonder you’re not feeling at the peak of your abilities. Use the first half of the week to treat yourself well: Tidy your room, wash dishes regularly and cook healthy, delicious meals. By Friday, you’ll be ready for a mental challenge whether it comes in the form of a lighthearted, flirtatious debate or deciphering the instructions for a lovely but puzzling piece of kitch-enware. This weekend, tell your family how much you care about them.

(Jan. 20-Feb. 18)Instead of automatically saying no, why not take a chance on Monday

and Tuesday? That means being open to the possibility of failure, but it also means being open to success. If it doesn’t work, that’s simply a sign on the highway of life directing you to your actual destination. Thursday and Friday are simply teeming with opportunities. If you’re not quite sure what you want to say yes to, take a deep breath and say so. Use the weekend to contemplate your next mood. A journal and a quiet spot can be useful to sort out your thoughts.

AQUARIUS(Feb. 19-March 20) On Monday and Tuesday, find ways to encourage yourself in a positive, consistent way instead of operating

on a punishment/reward system. Believing in yourself leads the way and shows others they can believe in you, too. The middle of the week is a great time to slow down and think about ways to build on all the ground you’ve gained. On Friday, talk it out with yourself before you engage in a discussion with someone else — you’re a whiz at communication, but you have to edit the infor-mation to make sure it’s truly effective. Slow down so you can enjoy the weekend.

CAPRICORN

The weekly horoscopes are updated on every week to gives you an in-depth insight into your family, your love life, any career opportunities, friends and money issues.WEEKLY HOROSCOPE

The new year sTands before us, like a chapTer in a book, waiTing To be wriTTen. we can help wriTe ThaT

sTory by seTTing goals. — Melody beaTTie


Entertainment NewsBig B wishes to start

a campaign for Hepatitis B

Megastar Amitabh Bachchan is planning to start a new campaign for infectious disease caused by

the hepatitis B virus (HBV).The 72-year-old actor, who is also

a UNICEF Global Ambassador for po-lio eradication, met doctors recently to strategies the plan.

"Wish to start a campaign on aware-ness of Hepatitis B...

Met some committed doctors and shall strategise... Detect and cured asap!," Bachchan posted on Twitter.

Apart from his social works, Bachchan is also excited to release the first song of his upcoming release 'Shamitabh' after unveiling the film's first audio poster.

"#Shamitabh... Next for the song of the film... Wait wait wait. youseethewhole-countryofthesystem..!!," he tweeted.

Besides Bachchan, the R Balki-directed film stars Dhanush and debutante actress Akshara Haasan. It is expected to hit the-atres on February 6 next year. Amitabh Bachchan

Jennifer Lawrence cheers hometown basketball team

Jennifer Lawrence finds new man?Jen-nifer Lawrence 2014''s most googled celebrityJennifer Lawrence dated a

hacker?Why Jennifer Lawrence want-ed to produce films?Jennifer Lawrence 'scared' of paparazzi

Actress Jennifer Lawrence stood out among a crowd in a team T-shirt cheering

and flashing signals as the National Col-legiate Athletic Association (NCAA) col-lege basketball game got underway in her hometown, Louisville, Kentucky, Saturday.

"The Hunger Games" actress made quite an appearance from her seat in the stadium as she formed an L shape with her hand as a sign of support for the Louisville Cardinals who were playing the Kentucky Wildcats, reports dailymail.co.uk.

The 24-year-old wore a black Univer-sity of Louisville T-shirt, skinny jeans and a red Louisville Cardinals cap during the game that featured rivals Kentucky Wild-cats against her beloved Louisville Cardi-nals. Her team lost by eight points.

In a video posted on video-sharing site YouTube, the beauty is seen performing the university's 'C-A-R-D-S' cheer and enjoying a slice of pizza.

'Wolf of Wall Street' most pirated movie in 2014

American black comedy "The Wolf of Wall Street" is the most pirated movie this year accord-

ing to piracy-tracking firm Excipio.The film starring Leonardo DiCap-

rio earned its place on the list of most pirated movies with 30.035 million downloads by Torrent users following its release last Christmas.

Trailing behind the drama is pop-ular animated film "Frozen (2013)" with 29.919 million. The third place, meanwhile, is taken by "RoboCop" with 29.879 million. The figure shows

combined data from the 1987 release and its 2014 reboot which has same title.

Sam Smith feels 'X-Factor' damaging for artists

Sam Smith has admitted that he would never have auditioned for 'X-Factor' as it's "damaging" for

artists.

The 'Stay With Me' hitmaker, who re-cently performed on the 'X-Factor' finale, said that it was a very conscious decision for him not to audition, the Mirror re-ported.

The 22-year-old singer continued that the reality show was only meant for sing-ers and it would be damaging for those who want to go into songwriting.

Smith further said that one could sing on a cruise ship or release a cover album, that was what it was for because when one think about it, every week, that's what one did.

Smith added that the minute he start-ed writing music, he knew that none of that stuff was going to be for him and he wanted people judging him on his voice and his songs and that's what was im-portant to him.

Daniel Radcliffe's fortune soars to staggering 68M pounds

Daniel Radcliffe has reported-ly achieved a 68 million pound fortune, as he earned 1 million

pounds for 'Harry Potter and the Philos-opher's Stone', which rose to a rumoured 8 million by the final movie.

The actor's company 'Gilmore Jacobs' holds 57.7 million pounds in profits and it is also owed 10.2 million pounds, the Daily Star reported.

The company is up 3.7 million from last year and holds161 million pounds in fixed assets, including Radcliffe's 1 million pound Fulham flat and his three apartments in New York.

Jude Law keen to make 'The Holiday' sequel

Jude Law has recently admitted that making a sequel to the hit Christmas film 'The Holiday' would be a great

idea.The 2006 romantic comedy, which also

featured Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet and Jack Black, was not a huge hit upon its

release but it has since become a festive favourite, Contactmusic.com reported.

The British actor told in Glamour maga-zine interview that he'd love to reconnect with the girls who played his daughters in the movie, Miffy Englefield and Emma Pritchard.


PK Controversy: Protest Against Aamir Khan's Film in Agra, BhopalPK MAY HAVE CROSSED RS 200-CRORE MARK AT THE DOMESTIC BOX OFFICE, BUT THE FILM IS FACING IRE OF MANY RELIGIOUS OUTFITS

Bollywood actor Aamir Khan's lat-est film PK may have crossed Rs 200-crore mark at the domestic

box office, but the Rajkumar Hirani direc-torial is facing ire of many religious out-fits in cities like Agra and Bhopal.

The film, which features Aamir as an alien, takes a hard-hitting swipe at organ-ised religion, god and godmen.

Accusing Aamir of double standards, and advising him to go to Pakistan, Ba-jrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad activists jointly intruded into the Shree Talkies in Agra on Sunday evening to disrupt screening of PK. (Also Read: No Television Premiere for Aamir Khan's PK)

Cinema hall management filed a com-plaint against protestors at the New Agra police station. SP city Sameer Saurabh said action would be taken.

Madan Sharma of the Bajrang Dal and Rajendra Garg of the VHP criticised Aamir, saying that he was displaying his anti-Hindu sentiments by ridiculing Hin-du gods and goddesses in the film.

Some of the Hindu activists also staged protest on Monday in front of Jyoti cine-ma hall in Bhopal. Bajrang Dal state vice president Kamlesh Thakur said that PK

should be immediately banned and they will submit memorandum to Madhya Pradesh government soon regarding the same.

Police superintendent (city) of Ma-harana Pratap Nagar, Arvind Khare told IANS, "People who were protesting in front of the hall have been stopped. They were not manhandled and no one was ar-rested".

PK, which released on December 19, had also led to Twitter war. Thanks to dif-ferent opinions, #BoycottPK and #We-SupportPK were recently trending on the micro-blogging site.

Reacting to the controversies sur-rounding Rajukumar Hirani's latest re-lease, actor Boman Irani said people need to respect the point of view of the makers. "People may agree and may even disagree but then they have to respect it (the concept of PK) because we are also respecting their view," said Boman, who has a key role in the film. (Also Read: Boman Irani on PK Controversy)

Senior BJP leader LK Advani, who re-cently watched the film hailed the movie as a "wonderful and courageous film".

Actress Juhi Chawla, who had bought

30 tickets of PK for her family, had also tweeted: "I have some issues with PK. I agree with a lot of things but disagree with some. Now that's a good film; one

that stirs thought and discussion".PK also features actors Anushka Shar-

ma, Sanjay Dutt and Sushant Singh Ra-jput.

Aamir Khan. A still from PK.

Priyanka Chopra Says Swimsuit Round in Miss World Competition Was 'Awkward'

PRIYANKA ALSO SAID THAT SHE WAS LUCKY NOT TO HAVE A SWIMSUIT ROUND DURING THE COMPETITION IN 2000

Actress and Miss World 2000 Pri-yanka Chopra says she was lucky not to have a swimsuit round

during the competition as she finds it strange to walk in bikini on stage.

The organisers of the Miss World con-test, which has been an annual feature since 1951, have removed swimsuit round from their competition starting next year. To this, Priyanka said, "Ob-viously, it's strange to walk in heels and swim suit on stage. Take us to a pool or a beach and do that shoot, that's fine be-cause that's a natural environment. It's weird and not natural."

"I have found it awkward myself but I am happy that it didn't happen with me in my years during Miss World. We didn't have this swimsuit round," she added.

Rolene Strauss of South Africa was crowned the 64th Miss World winner in London on December 14 and it marked the final event featuring contestants wearing bikinis. Priyanka Chopra in a still from Dostana


Campbell, Moss show their inner

child

Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss recently proved that the super-models are still kids at heart. They

were spotted enjoying rides at Winter Wonderland here.

They jumped on the rides at the Hyde Park amusement, and couldn't contain their delightful smile as they enjoyed some festive fun, reports dailymail.co.uk.

Jazz clarinet legend Buddy DeFranco passes away at 91 in Florida

Jazz clarinet legend Buddy De-Franco has passed away at the age of 91 due to poor health in

his recent years. The American musician, known for

working with Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday and other well-known musi-cians took his last breath at a Flori-da hospital, the BBC reported.

DeFranco's wife asserted that they have received condolences from around the world.

Leading jazz clarinettist Ken Pep-lowski said that DeFranco almost single-handedly was the clarinettist

who moved the harmonic and rhyth-mic language forward from where Benny Goodman left off into the much more adventurous territory of bebop and beyond, while never for-getting his roots in swing music.

DeFranco, a member of the Amer-ican Jazz Hall of Fame, performed at venues around the world for 75 years and also recorded many al-bums.

The musician is survived by his wife and son Chad DeFranco.

Buddy DeFranco

Govinda’s daughter Narmada to be launched as Tina Ahuja in her debut film

Govinda’s daughter Narmada Ahuja will don a different screen name for her debut movie, Second Hand

Husband. Looking back at history we can see that her dad Govinda also changed his name when he came onscreen. He preferred going just with hsi name and leaving out on his surname Ahuja. His daughter won’t follow suit, but will actu-ally change her first name and retain the surname Ahuja. Yes you heard it right.

Our khabroos inform us that Narma-da will be rechristened as Tina Ahuja in Second Hand Husband and the reason for this change is her superstition. Like her father, she is also a staunch follow-er of Numerology. A source close to the film reveals, “It’s a decision taken keeping numerology in mind and the name ‘Tina’ works for her according to the numerol-ogist.” The film will also star Dharmendra and is slated to release in 2015.

Now we are not saying that we are su-perstitious, but it seems to have worked wonders for the Kill Dil star and we hope it does the same for Narmada aka Tina. Hai na peeps?


Caribbean Connections

www.eliteradionyc.com • Playin The Best In Caribbean Music 24/7 • Download the app from any App Store search: eliteradionyc

Facing the harsh reality in USA/CUBA 'peace' move

WITH Christmas 2014 now officially behind us, I take the opportunity to share

some brief thoughts with readers on a few of the more significant region-al/international political develop-ments that undoubtedly would im-pact on our own ways of life in this Western Hemisphere, perhaps from as early as the latter half of 2015.

Foremost among them would be the announcement recently by Unit-ed States President Barack Obama of his authorised decision for ending 53 years of political, economic and cultural embargo by the USA against Cuba.

That's the four-letter name of the small, proud revolutionary island nation which a quartet of Caribbe-an Community states -- Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Guyana, and Jamaica -- had initially succeeded in rescuing from the punishing dip-lomatic cold to which it had been ruthlessly relegated by superpower USA under the presidency of John F Kennedy.

The objective of this unique em-bargo was to crush the Cuban Rev-olution. It has proven to be a monu-mental failure.

However, as the governments and people of Caricom and Cuba contin-ued to officially mark that historic friendship initiative of 1972 --amid US-orchestrated assassinations and terroristic activities (recall the mind-boggling Cubana aircraft trag-edy in Barbados' airspace?) -- it was the USA that increasingly became isolated diplomatically over its ruth-less anti-Cuba politics.

A sobering distinction must now be noted -- one that contrasts with President Obama's smooth an-nouncement last week of the accord reached with Cuban President Raul Castro on the renewal of full diplo-matic ties between Washington and Havana. The harsh reality is that the really big challenge is yet to come

THE STIFLING EMBARGO

The reality is that both Houses of the US Congress must be willing to lift the stifling, iron-clad legislation governing the trade, economic and financial embargo against Cuba.

The embargo, routinely over-whelmingly condemned annually at successive meetings of the Unit-ed Nations General Assembly, has caused losses of enormous billions of dollars over 50 years to Cuba amid much human suffering. Yet, to their eternal credit, the great mass of Cubans have declined to genu-flect to 'Uncle Sam's mix of political bribery and terrorism'.

Currently, President Obama is un-derstandably the recipient of some deserved credit for resumption of diplomatic relations between the USA and Cuba. This development has been enabled by Canada -- which has maintained a special re-lationship with Cuba since the Fidel

Castro-led revolution in 1959 -- as well as a significant role played by Pope Francis, Latin America's first Pope (and we hear Pope Benedict XVI) -- in influencing the "peace" di-alogue between the administrations in Washington and Havana.

However, despite the reassuring rhetoric from President Obama's White House, the reality is that the conservative anti-Cuba Republican hawks, whose party now controls the majority in both the House of Representatives and Senate, seem anxious to demonstrate a political defeat for the current tenant of the White House by opposing any initia-tive to lift the embargo.

For his part, President Raul Cas-tro, has firmly declared that Cuba's communist-oriented political sys-tem of governance would remain "non-negotiable", while "obective-ly" cooperating with Washington to improve relations and promote international peace and economic cooperation.

ISRAEL-PALESTINE PEACEIn the new year, this column will

focus on another quite important political issue of international con-cern for peaceful development that dates back four decades and one about which Caricom governments and non-government organisations continue to maintain active interest.

It is the elusive quest for peace be-tween Israel and Palestine for a two-state solution, with defined borders, including the return of Palestinian territory taken by Israel during the 1967 war -- a conflict that continues to remain bloody and costly and with the USA and Britain, historical allies of Israel, currently revealing senti-ments in favour of new peace initia-tives that could unravel in 2016, if not late next year.

Currently diplomatic envoys from both Palestine and Israel are en-gaged in lobbying initiatives, includ-ing with Caribbean counterparts, on a draft resolution by Jordan.

This screen shot taken from live video from the TN channel shows President Barack Obama (right) and Cuba’s President Raul Castro addressing their nations at the same time, from Washington, DC, and Havana, respectively, yesterday. Obama announced the reestablishment of diplomatic relations as well as an easing in economic and travel restrictions on Cuba, declaring an end to America’s ‘outdated approach’ to the island in a historic shift that aims to bring an end to a half-century of Cold War enmity. Castro welcomed restoration of diplomatic ties, saying the two countries would work to resolve their differences ‘without renouncing a single one of our principles’. (PHOTO: AP)

Protect Dancehall

Another Sting has come and gone and the headlines are all too familiar: clash getting out of hand, fight-ing, gunshots fired, stampede, patrons beating a

hasty retreat, artiste in trouble with the police.I used to attend Sting regularly in my youth. (Yes, Sting

was around in my youth.) It was a place to see great per-formances from the best in the dancehall genre, in an atmosphere of fun and good vibes. Yellowman, Josey Wales, Peter Metro, Charlie Chaplin, Brigadier Jerry, Papa San, Lieutenant Stitchie and their peers would perform, and clashes would be highly entertaining and the crowd would enjoy the friendly rivalry.

Sting gradually evolved into a battlefield. Clashes be-came personal to the point of physical altercations. In-stead of championing lyrical prowess, personal attacks and obscenity-laced 'tracing' would be encouraged and applauded. Missiles would at times be hurled by patrons at acts that did not satisfy their musical or lyrical tastes. Every now and then an artiste would get themselves into hot water with the security forces for violence or for spewing obscenities.

Dancehall has a large following, but also many detrac-tors who consider it to be "boogu yagga" trash of little musical or entertainment value, promoting slackness and violence. Such generalizations are unfair because, as with many other genres, different artistes have different styles of writing and delivery and will focus on a variety of topics. Also, whether one is a fan of the genre or not, it takes skill to create lyrics that rhyme in a particular way and to execute a song rhythmically, with the appropriate vocal intonations and dynamics. One has to also appreci-ate the mental alertness and verbal dexterity that it takes to enter a stage in front of a large crowd and freestyle with ease.

Unfortunately, incidents such as those which took place on Boxing Day this year only serve to feed into the ste-reotype, held by some, of dancehall being rubbish. I am a proud Jamaican, and am proud of our culture including our music. Dancehall songs have made the top 40 charts in many countries and been on the soundtracks of sev-eral Hollywood motion pictures. When the first western artiste to be invited to an Asian country (the Maldives) to perform in two years happens to be a Jamaican dancehall artiste (Sean Paul), our influence cannot be ignored.

Dancehall artistes, producers and promoters of dance-hall shows need to protect the genre. To have the biggest dancehall show being streamed live, and to broadcast chaos and disorder to a global audience is potentially damaging. I see nothing wrong with having clashes, but maybe careful thought should be given as to who is cho-sen to clash, and strict guidelines issued and enforced. The entourage issue should also be examined, and re-strictions probably applied to the number of entourage members allowed backstage.

Unfortunately, the mayhem on display at Sting is a re-flection of the indiscipline and aggression in our society. Whether we want to admit it or not, it is a reflection of ourselves, and incidents such as the one that recently transpired are likely to recur unless the attitudes of our populace improve. We all need to take a serious look at ourselves; what we do, what we tolerate and what we en-courage.

Music is supposed to be entertainment, not a blood sport. As Tristan Palmer sings in his popular song 'En-tertainment', "entertainment is a form of enjoyment, nuh badda fight inna dance, dance, dance, we come fi enjoy wiself, we come fi enjoy wiself".

Michael Abrahams is a gynaecologist and obstetrician, comedian and poet. Email feedback to [email protected] and [email protected], or tweet @mikeyabrahams.


Jamaican artiste, Sean Paul, receives death threat from Islamic groupKINGSTON, Jamaica, Monday De-

cember 29, 2014, CMC – Jamai-ca’s Grammy award winning singer,

Sean Paul, is to decide whether or not to perform a New Year Eve show in the Mal-dives after reportedly receiving a death threat from an Islamic group claiming to have ties in Syria, the Jamaica Observer newspaper reported Saturday.

It said the video message was posted online and that the publicist for the ar-tiste, Carlette DeLeon, said a decision would be taken following a meeting with Sean Paul’s management team and au-thorities in the Maldives.

“We are aware of the developing situa-

tion. We are currently in contact with all related parties concerning the concert to address the matter. No further details are available at this time,” DeLeon told the Jamaica Observer.

Britain’s Independent newspaper re-ported the video message carries the logo of the Bilad Al Sham Media (BASM) group, an organisation which claims to comprise Maldivian jihadists based in Syria and the Maldives.

“Sean Paul, if you visit the Maldives, the world will see your burned and blood-drenched dead body,” said cards held by a cloaked figure in the video posted on YouTube late on Wednesday night.

“It is for all Muslim to jihad in the name of Allah. Hence disbelievers like Sean Paul, who are like the worst of the devil’s advocates, deserve nothing but death,” according to the video.

But the newspaper quoting a Twitter account allegedly belonging to BASM, said the group denies being behind the threat.

“We would clearly like to announce that our media have nothing to do with the Sean Paul death threatening video.”

JAMAICA’S GRAMMY AWARD WINNING SINGER, SEAN PAUL

Ebola crisis likely to continue throughout

2015

LONDON, England, Monday Decem-ber 29, 2014 – The Ebola crisis in West Africa is likely to continue until

the end of 2015, according to Profes-sor Peter Piot, a leading researcher who helped to discover the deadly virus.

Professor Piot, who recently returned from Sierra Leone, told the BBC World Service’s Newsday programme that he was encouraged by progress in that coun-try and by the promise of new anti-viral therapies. He nevertheless cautioned that vaccines would take time to develop. Piot, who was one of the scientists who discovered the killer disease in 1976, is now Director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

He said that although the epidemic has peaked in Liberia and was likely to peak in Sierra Leone in the coming weeks, the outbreak could have a “very long tail and a bumpy tail.”

“The Ebola epidemic is still very much there. People are still dying, new cases are being detected,” he told the BBC.

“We need to be ready for a long effort, a sustained effort [for] probably the rest of 2015.”

He nevertheless added that he was im-pressed by the progress he had witnessed during his recent trip to Sierra Leone.

“Treatment centres have now been estab-lished across the country with British help. You don’t see any longer the scenes where people are dying in the streets,” he said.

Piot also said he was encouraged that, thanks to simple treatments such as in-travenous fluids and antibiotics, mortality rates had fallen to as low as one in three.

“Getting it below that will require spe-cific therapies that are now going to be tested,” he said, adding that he hoped that within three months it would be clear which anti-viral therapies were effective.

While noting that developing a vaccine would be more complicated, he said it must be done “so that when there is an-other epidemic or maybe when this ep-idemic drags on for a long time, that we have that vaccine available.”

The current Ebola outbreak, the deadli-est ever, has so far killed more than 7,300 people, mostly in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.


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on various subject matters. It is expected that all material is submitted in “Good Faith” with no intent to mislead or harm others. It is the readers responsibility to make intuitive decisions that are right for themselves.

Baffling decisions over Bravo, PollardThe appalling outcomes of repeated

administrative decision making ‘mad-ness’ and abject performances on the

field of play maybe considered ‘normal’ and unsurprising. However, these recurrent gaffes are quickly eroding a pillar of West Indian history and development. When dis-cussing Caribbean culture I always tell stu-dents that it is characterised by complexities and contradictions. We say one thing and do another. Examples are easily found in every aspect of life from politicians to even those who impart the word of god.

A recent example is the decision by the WICB and its selectors to replace Dwayne Bravo as the ODI captain as well drop him and Kieron Pollard from the team to play South Africa in their five match ODI series. In the aftermath of the disastrous tour of India in attempt to heal wounds and move forward it was agreed upon at a meeting chaired by St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves in Port-of-Spain that no reprisal will take place against any player. Additionally, the final report on the disastrous aborted tour indicated that all parties were partly guilty.

But then again one should not be totally surprised as the WICB and its selectors have a rich history of arriving at mind boggling de-cisions. These selection decisions come on the heels of the surprised omission of Ravi Rampaul from the provisional list of 30 play-ers from which the final World Cup 15 will be chosen. An explanation for his exclusion is still outstanding and may never be provid-ed. The lessons should have been clear that the way forward had to be premised upon open channels of communication and the (re)building of trust; the benefits of which will redound to all major stakeholders—WICB, players, WIPA, sponsors and the fans.

The views highlighted by chairman of se-lectors Clive Lloyd leaves much to be desired in terms of convincing the general interested West Indian public that Jason Holder is the right person to lead the West Indies team to the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand which starts in 48 days on February, 14th. All the countries save England are entering the World Cup with experienced captains. Although England have sacked Alastair Cook, Eoin Morgan is a very experienced captain at the ODI level. The fact that Bravo was selected captain to India and there were no openly expressed concerns about his

captaincy then, begs the question as to why suddenly he is not good for the job.

If the team selected to play the ODI series against South Africa does not perform with any creditability then entire plot to win the World Cup can fall apart before the tourna-ment starts. This will only add more pres-sure on Jason Holder. These selections seem to indicate that Bravo and Pollard may not be selected for the World Cup. At least the WICB press release did not give any indica-tion as to why the players were left out. And even if the selectors reluctantly and surrep-titiously cede to political and public critique and select Bravo and Pollard for the World Cup—the deadline date is January 8th—they would have missed the opportunity to give the new captain all the opportunity to pre-pare competitively with the best available players.

And if they are selected, what would have been the logic and reason for leaving them out on an all-important dress rehearsal se-ries against South Africa? And furthermore why create so much of unnecessary noise and unwanted distraction? This latest fias-co does not augur well for team unity and this can severely affect the team’s chances of winning its 3rd World Cup. It has been commented on umpteen occasions that the actions of the WICB over the years have reeked of blunders after blunders. However, they seem to be systemic and regardless of whoever is the administrator the problems are repeated. It will remain a case of classic of administrative madness if the governance system is not overhauled as has been rec-ommended by the PJ Patterson Report and several commentators including past and present players.

Another problem that is likely to resurface and which has been a characteristic of West Indian cricket and politics is the issue of in-sularity. This is not healthy for the sport giv-en its current state of affairs both regionally and internationally. To have a reversal of the current bottom of the table position (being ahead of Bangladesh and Zimbabwe is no cause for celebrations after ruling the world for 15 years) requires making the best de-cisions for West Indies cricket which should be bigger than the egos of all and sundry. Happy holidays and a bright and prosperous 2015 to all athletes, administrators, spon-sors and the Caribbean fans of all sporting disciplines.

Caribbean publication names Mighty Sparrow ‘Person of the Year’

NEW YORK, United States, Monday December 29, 2014, CMC – A Unit-ed States-based publication has

named calypsonian Slinger Francisco, pop-ularly known as The Mighty Sparrow, as its “Person of the Year.”

“Any person, in any part of the world, re-gardless to sex, age and vocation, can em-ulate the virtues The Mighty Sparrow ex-emplified during 2014,” said Herman Hall, the Grenadian-born editor, publisher and founder of the Brooklyn, New York-based Everybody’s magazine.

“For those reasons, we unabashedly pro-claim our readers’ selection of The Mighty Sparrow as the ‘2014 Person of the Year’”, he added.

Hall said Sparrow was “overwhelming-ly” selected by its readers and social media friends from among “many regional leaders and people of Caribbean heritage in the Di-aspora.”

He said they included Tiffany Ford, of St. Lucian-Grenadian heritage, elected into municipal government in Toronto, Canada; Rodneyse Bichotte, the first Haitian-Amer-ican elected to the New York State Assem-bly; Barbados Leader of the Opposition Mia Ottley; the 2008 and 2014 Formula One Grand Prix World Champion, Lewis Hamil-ton of the UK, who is of Grenadian heritage, outgoing US Attorney-General Eric Holder, of Barbadian heritage; and Antigua and Barbuda’s newly elected Prime Minister Gaston Browne.

“Of all email messages received from

Toronto, UK (United Kingdom), Jamaica, Guyana, Boston (Massachusetts) and other places, one name kept appearing often – The Mighty Sparrow,” Hall said.

Hall said this “indomitable spirit has been the defining feature of Sparrow’s life work, as he continues demonstrating sheer grit and an ability, ‘inspired by God’ to, ‘survive through pain, sorrow and tears,’ rendered in one of his hits, ‘Survival’.

“Sparrow’s timeless message and his health challenges testify to man’s will to survive,” he added.

The Mighty Sparrow, whose roots are in Gran Roi, a rural fishing village in Grena-da, was born there to a poor working class family.

The family migrated to Sparrow’s adopt-ed homeland, Trinidad and Tobago, when he was one year old.

At 20, Sparrow emerged as the leading calypsonian in Trinidad and Tobago with his record-breaking hit, “Jean and Dinah.”

THE MIGHTY SPARROW


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New York pays tribute to the “Calypso Queen of the World”NEW YORK, United States, Sun-

day December 28, 2014, CMC – Though she was barely able to

walk because of gout, Calypso Rose was still able to woo her audience, as Brook-lyn paid tribute to the Tobago-born singer who “broke the glass ceiling” in the calyp-so genre.

“This woman, sometimes I sit and won-der what got that woman to sing calypso in the 1950s and survive,” said popular Grenadian-born radio personality Harold Pysadee, one of the Master of Ceremonies at the grand tribute in honour of Calyp-so Rose, 74, renowned as the “Calypso Queen of the World”.

“Every woman you see singing calypso today is because of Calypso Rose,” add-ed Pysadee at the event organized by the Brooklyn-based Dee Vee International Pro-ductions, headed by the Grenadian-born entertainment producer Derek Ventour.

“Calypso Rose has set the pace,” said Pysadee making reference to Rose’s attain-ment of an honorary doctorate from the University of the West Indies (UWI). “[Ca-lypso] Rose is a Caribbean Lady first of all..

Bronx-based Gus White, a former an-nouncer with the now defunct Mont-serrat-based Radio Antilles, said he was “honoured to be part of this function” that honored Calypso Rose.

“Dr. McArtha Lewis, Calypso Rose, for what you have done, I’m truly grateful,” he said, while the Trinidad and Tobago born radio announcer, Dave Elcock, also gave his “heartfelt congratulations to our beloved McArtha Lewis, the indomitable Calypso Rose”

Elcok said that Calypso Rose has won “countless” fans and over 23 awards, over the years, for her catchy songs, including the, ?evergreen, signature “Fire, Fire”.

Elcock, who sat next to Rose, during the near three-hour-long event, noted that she was the first female to win the Trini-dad and Tobago Road March Competition. “This is the spirit that we lionize today,” he said.

Noting that the Caribbean community, the single largest population of Caribbean people outside of the islands, is “critical to every sector of our city’s life”, New York City Mayor Bill deBlasio said the tribute was “a wonderful opportunity to celebrate one of its most creative and trailblazing artists.

“By sharing the transcendent spirit, rich sounds and contagious rhythms of Trini-dad and Tobago, Calypso Rose has given the world a great gift,” said deBlasio in his message.

“I applaud her extraordinary talent and distinguished legacy, which enriches lives throughout the five boroughs and well be-yond.

“On behalf of the City of New York, Chirlane (his wife) and I offer our congrat-ulations to Calypso Rose for receiving an honorary doctorate from the University of the West Indies, and extend our best wish-es for a joyful celebration and continued success uniting the world through song,” the Mayor added.

The Rev. Dennis Dillon, the Jamai-can-born pastor and founder of the Brooklyn Christian Center, said he was “grateful” for Calypso Rose’s leadership,

her inspirational spirit and for doing what few people have done.

“Many people at the Christian Center they dance to your music all the time,” he said, telling the singer “we salute you for your inspiration to all of us.

“I’m not saying that we shouldn’t say Calypso Rose, but its Dr. McArtha Lewis you’ all,” added Rev. Dillon, alluding to the recent honorary doctorate recently con-ferred on Calypso Rose by UWI.

Among others paying tribute in songs, speeches, dances, instruments and poems included the The Brooklyn-based Ujamma Pan Sounds; Carriacou, Grenadian-born calypsonian Blackman, lead singer of the Brooklyn-based band, Lambert & the Matadors; former Grenadian calypso-nian-turned-gospel singer Janice Charles; Vincentian Collin Connell; Grenadian calypsonian Lady Samo; Calypso Rose’s granddaughter Arianna Butler (dance); Ziad Garraway (poetry); and Jude Phillip and Joe Allert (trumpeter and saxophonist, respectively).

“Last week, I couldn’t walk. Thank God for bush medicine,” said Calypso Rose before belching out hits from her diverse repertoire, as well as contemporary gos-pel and Christmas songs, referring to the medicine that helped her recover from a bout of gout.

“Thank God for giving me the inspira-tion for writing my songs,” she added.

Rose then rocked the house with some of her tunes, including “Jesus is My Rock,” “You Must Call,” “Coming up the Moun-tain,” “Senior Citizen Day,” “Fire, Fire and “O Christmas”.

She brought down the house with a medley of religious songs including “What a Friend We Have in Jesus, “Jesus Meek and Gentle,” “Leaning on the Everlasting

Arm” and Anchor Hold” among others.Born in Bethel, a small village in Tobago,

Rose began singing at 15, and while she had garnered a number of regional hits throughout the years, including her most famous, “Fire, Fire,” in 1966, she did not win any of the major calypso contests until 1977.

That year, she was the first woman ever to win the Trinidad and Tobago Road March Competition with the tune “Tem-po”.

A year later, she won the National Ca-lypso King Competition, -later re-named National Calypso Monarch Competition- with her tunes “I Thank Thee” and “Her Majesty”.

That same year, Rose won the Trinidad Road March Competition for the second year successive year, with “Gimme More Tempo”.

Calypso Rose has headlined at major venues and festivals throughout the Unit-ed States, Europe and Australia.

As of 2011, she is the most decorated calypsonian in Trinidad and Tobago’s his-tory, and was awarded the Trinidad and Tobago Gold Humming Bird Medal, an award given to Trinidadians “for loyal and devoted service beneficial to the state in any field, or acts of gallantry”.

Though Calypso Rose moved to Jamaica Queens, New York in 1983, she returns to Trinidad and Tobago for carnival annually.

In 1996, she battled and beat breast cancer. She continues to tour regularly on multiple continents, and records music.

Last Sunday, she told patrons that she has been booked for performances in Canada and will tour France and England in March.

To date, Calypso Rose said she has writ-ten “well over 800 songs”.

In 2011, a feature-length documentary, entitled “Calypso Rose: The Lioness of the Jungle”, was released at Cannes Film Fes-tival in France.

Directed by Pascale Obolo, the doc-umentary tells Calypso Rose’s story through interviews and live concert foot-age, among others.

“I saw the event as a celebration, not just for her achievement from the Univer-sity of the West Indies but for recognizing her role in exposing this unique Caribbean culture throughout the world,” Ventour told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) about the Tribute to Calypso Rose.

“She led the way for women to get in-volved in the art form, and we need to rec-ognize her for all her efforts. So the tribute was all about celebrating her contribution to the growth of Caribbean Music,” he added.

Nelson A. King


Dhoni retires from Test cricketMS Dhoni has retired

from Test cricket with immediate effect fol-

lowing the drawn Test against Australia in Melbourne. Virat Kohli will take over as India captain for the final Test of the series, which India have already lost, in Sydney.

Dhoni was batting on 24 when the Test was called off early at the MCG - four overs were left and India had four wickets in hand - and he made no mention of his retirement during the cus-tomary captain’s press confer-ence at the end of the match. The announcement was made via a BCCI press release shortly after and it cited “the strain of playing all formats” as the rea-son.

“One of India’s greatest Test captains under whose lead-ership India became the No. 1 team in the test rankings, MS Dhoni, has decided to re-tire from Test cricket citing the strain of playing all formats of

cricket,” the board said. “BCCI, while respecting the decision of MS Dhoni to retire from Test cricket, wishes to thank him for his enormous contribution to

Test cricket and the laurels that he has brought to India. Virat Kohli will be the captain of the Indian team for the fourth and final Test against Australia to be

played in Sydney.»In recent months Dhoni suf-

fered from fitness issues, miss-ing five ODIs against Sri Lanka in November because of a hand injury, which also sidelined him from the first Test against Aus-tralia in Adelaide. In addition to the pressure of leading India in all three formats, and the Chen-nai Super Kings franchise, for six years Dhoni has also had to play an extraordinary amount of matches. Since the start of 2008 - taking into account interna-tional matches across formats, IPL and Champions League T20 games - Dhoni has played 398 matches, the most for any crick-et during this period. Suresh Raina is second with 369 games.

Though Dhoni’s place in In-dia’s Test side has not been un-der question, his batting form took a dip in 2014 and he aver-aged only 33 in 17 innings this year. His wicketkeeping has also deteriorated, in particular his ability to move laterally to take

testing catches. India’s overseas results have also suffered un-der Dhoni’s leadership in recent years. Since 2011, they have won only two out of 22 away Tests and lost 13.

Dhoni, however, is India’s most successful captain, hav-ing presided over 27 wins in his 60-Test tenure, which began in 2008. His first Test as captain was against South Africa in Kan-pur in April that year, because of an injury to regular captain Anil Kumble, and he took over full time after Kumble retired following the Delhi Test against Australia in October. Dhoni led India to the No. 1 Test ranking in 2009, a position they enjoyed until the tour of England in 2011.

Overall, Dhoni played 90 Tests in a career that began in 2005 and scored 4876 runs at an av-erage of 38, with a high score of 224 against Australia in Chennai in 2013. As a wicketkeeper, he effected 294 dismissals, the fifth highest in Test cricket.

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SA /WI Test drawn after fifth-day washoutWest Indies 275 for 9 (Brathwaite

106, Samuels 101, Morkel 4-69) drew with South Africa 417 for 8 dec (Elgar 121, du Plessis 103, Steyn 58)

South Africa fancied win with 60 overs

A waterlogged outfield and per-sistent rain ruled out any chance of play on the fifth day of the Port

Elizabeth Test, which ended in a draw with only 201 overs having been possible over five days. Whenever play had been possible, the pitch threw up an excellent

contest between bat and ball, with four batsmen scoring centuries, one tonking a 26-ball half-century, and the bowlers re-sponding with 17 wickets, but the weath-er ruined any chance of a result. Replying to South Africa’s 417 for 8 declared, West Indies had ended day four on 275 for 9.

The umpires inspected the outfield at hourly intervals between 10am and 1pm, but there was no improvement in its condition. Play was called off at 1.05pm. Kraigg Brathwaite was named Man of the Match for his innings of 106.

Shakib joins Melbourne Renegades

Shakib Al Hasan has been signed by Melbourne Renegades for the second half of the Big Bash League

season. The Bangladesh allrounder with provide cover for the departing Andre Russell, who will join the West Indies ODI squad in South Africa.

Shakib had been suspended for six months in July by the Bangladesh Cricket Board for «serious misbehavior» with the coach Chandika Hathurusingha and was refused permission to play in overseas tournaments until December 31, 2015. However, the BCB recently lifted the restriction on no-objection certificates, allowing him to participate in the Big Bash League and other tournaments.

This will be Shakib’s second stint at the BBL, having represented Adelaide Strikers for two matches last season and he comes into the Renegades side as the No.1-ranked allrounder in T20 cricket.

“We were looking for someone who could contribute across the board for us and being able to call on the top ranked T20 all-rounder in the world is a terrific boost,” coach Simon Helmot said. “He brings plenty of experience and cool head under pressure.”

Shakib will be available for Rene-gades’ final four matches of the group stage, starting with an away fixture with Hobart Hurricanes on January 7.


Agar added to squad for Sydney TestAshton Agar has been added to

Australia’s squad for the fourth Test in Sydney as the selectors

contemplate a twin spin attack with Nathan Lyon. Agar has not played for Australia since the first two Tests of last year’s Ashes series in England, when he made a spectacular debut making 98 batting at No.11, but strug-gled to have any significant impact with the ball.

The move is surprising given Agar’s first-class form - he has taken only seven wickets at 45.14 this summer in the Sheffield Shield and has 62 in his career at 44.00. However, he has im-pressed during the first few BBL games for the Perth Scorchers this season and Ricky Ponting said this week he considered Agar a bolter for the World Cup squad.

Steve O’Keefe, who made his Test de-but against Pakistan in Dubai in Octo-ber, was unavailable due to a calf injury. O’Keefe has taken nine Sheffield Shield wickets at 28.44 this season, including a five-wicket haul in Adelaide in his first match back from the UAE.

If Agar was to play at the SCG, it would need to be in tandem with Lyon, who bowled Australia to victory in the first Test at Adelaide Oval this month. Captain Steven Smith said Agar had improved his bowling since the Ashes

last year, when he played as the sole spinner and Lyon was axed.

“I think he’s bowling very well at the moment,” Smith said. “He’s a good ad-dition to the squad. We’ll see how the wicket is in Sydney when we get there

and we’ll go from there.“We’ll just have to wait and see what

the wicket is like. We’re not too sure what it will be like. Last year it had a bit of grass on it and previously it’s been quite a spin friendly wicket. So I think

it’s more of a see how the wicket is and if he’s needed then he can play.”

The addition of Agar is the only change to Australia’s squad from the side that secured the Border-Gavaskar Trophy with a draw in Melbourne.

Ashton Agar had made a stunning 98 on Test debut batting at No.11 against England in 2013 © Philip Brown

Jets fire John Idzik, Rex Ryan

The New York Jets began a major overhaul Monday, firing coach Rex Ryan and general manager John Idzik -- no-brainer moves, accord-ing to owner Woody Johnson.

“It became pretty apparent during the season the team wasn’t getting better and, as (Bill) Parcells said,

you are what your record says you are,” Johnson said at a news conference. “It was kind of obvious we had to make the change. It was obvious to me, anyway.”

Johnson made the decisive moves after his team stumbled to 4-12, its worst re-cord since 2007. Johnson recently called it the most difficult of his 15 seasons as owner.

Ryan addressed the team briefly Mon-day morning, revealing little emotion, according to players. Instead of giving a speech, he showed a Jets highlight film. He left quickly and returned home with-out commenting or giving a statement.

Idzik didn’t speak to the team, instead leaving without saying goodbye to many of the staff members, according to sourc-es. He released a brief statement, thank-ing Johnson “for the opportunity to work with so many fine individuals in the Jets organization and I wish them well going forward.”

Idzik made no mention of Ryan. John-son hinted of a rift between the two men, who were paired together in 2013 de-spite having no previous relationship.

“I’m not sure if there was a disconnect, but I can tell you the ideal is to have a connect, because you have to be on the same page as your coach,” Johnson said.

Johnson and his newly hired consul-tants -- former longtime GMs Charley Casserly and Ron Wolf -- will lead the search for replacements. They showed late interest in Jim Harbaugh, a league source confirmed, but he’s poised to be-come the Michigan coach.

The Jets probably will hire a GM first, but they could adjust the plan depending on which candidates are available, John-son said.

“This is very, very critical right now,” Johnson said. “We’ve got to make some good decisions. We have to structure it properly. We have to know exactly what we’re looking for in a head coach and how he defines exactly what he’s looking for. Same with the GM.”

New Zealand complete best ever Test year

New Zealand 441 (McCullum 195, Neesham 85) and 107 for 2 beat Sri Lanka 138 (Boult 3-25, Wagner 3-60) and 407 (Karunaratne 152, Boult 4-100, Southee 4-91) by eight wickets

It had to be black magic. Tim South-ee and Trent Boult were swinging a 70-over old ball on the fourth

morning. Both ways. Their skill ac-counted for 13 of the 20 Sri Lankan wickets and confirmed Brendon Mc-Cullum’s Boxing Day assault as match winning. Christchurch witnessed New Zealand’s fifth victory in 2014, mark-ing it their best year in Test history.

A target of 105 appeared straight-forward, but Sri Lanka created a few nervous moments for New Zealand along the way. A fluent Tom Latham was undone by a ripping turner from debutant offspinner Tharindu Kaushal and Hamish Rutherford was surprised by Shaminda Eranga’s extra bounce and lobbed a catch to gully.

Sri Lanka strived hard for further inroads. Ross Taylor and Kane Wil-liamson, though, were resolute and secured the Test in the seventh over after tea on the fourth day.

The visitors had begun the day 10 runs behind and with five wickets in hand, and their best chance was if their captain Angelo Mathews could shep-herd the tail. But even he was unpre-

pared for the bouncer from Southee, feathering an edge to the keeper off a front-foot pull early in the morning.

Kaushal, the night-watchman, man-aged a couple of pleasing strokes through square leg and cover off the front foot before a short ball in the off-stump corridor did him. He was caught in two minds and before he could pull the bat away, the edge flew to Mark Craig at second slip to give Southee his first strike of the morn-ing.

Dhammika Prasad was reluctant to get in line for most of his 17 balls and was not ready when Southee sprung the trap with the fuller length - twice. Ross Taylor grassed an absolute dolly, but before his face could grow red an-other came his way and he caught it.

Sri Lanka did well to bat until lunch and their final-wicket pair even forced the umpires to take a half hour’s extension. The lead was 17 when Mathews was dismissed, but Eranga and Suranga Lakmal conjured 59 runs off 57 balls. Their clear-the-front-leg-and-swing tactic frustrated New Zealand as they either watched the ball skirt past the outside edge or skim to the cow-corner bound-ary. Boult broke through and earned himself and his fellow bowlers some well-deserved rest after 196 testing overs across the two innings.


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No reason to respect Johnson - KohliAfter scoring his third Test hundred of the tour, Virat Kohli brought his attacking form to the press conference too, say-ing he was left with no good reason to respect Mitchell Johnson and some of the other Australia players after verbals flew “throughout the day” at the MCG.

The squabbling reached its peak when Johnson fielded in his fol-low-through and threw back at

the striker’s stumps. Unlike with Mo-hammed Shami and Steven Smith on day one, there was a genuine case for Johnson trying to run Kohli out, and the throw was headed for the stumps when it hit Kohli, who was trying to get back into his crease. Kohli believed it was an attempt to hit him and an argu-ment ensued, which needed the inter-vention of the umpires.

“I was really annoyed with him hit-ting me with the ball, and I told him that’s not on,” Kohli said. “’Try and hit the stumps next time, not my body.’ You have got to send the right mes-sage across. I am not there to take to some unnecessary words or chats from someone. I am going there to play cricket, back myself. There’s no good reason that I should respect unneces-sarily some people when they are not

respecting me.”Kohli said this attitude from Aus-

tralia helped him play better, which he said might be one of the reasons why five of his nine hundreds have come against them. “It was going on throughout the day,” Kohli said. “They were calling me a spoilt brat, and I said, ‘Maybe that’s the way I am. You guys hate me, and I like that.’ I don’t mind having a chat on the field, and it worked in my favor I guess. I like play-ing against Australia because it is very hard for them to stay calm, and I don’t mind an argument on the field, and it really excites me and brings the best out of me. So they don’t seem to be learning the lesson.”

When he comes up against a team that does stay calm, unlike Australia, Kohli said he can still make do. “You always have a few who can’t keep calm in every team. So I have my targets,” Kohli said with a cheeky grin.

Pragyan Ojha banned from bowling

Left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha has been barred from bowling in competitive cricket

after his action was found to be illegal.

ESPNcricinfo understands that following a request made by the Hyderabad Cricket Association,

Ojha’s home association in domestic cricket, Ojha’s action was tested at the ICC-recognised centre in Chennai. The tests, it is understood, concluded that Ojha’s elbow flexed more than the per-missible limit of 15 degrees.

The BCCI informed the HCA in a let-ter on Friday that Ojha cannot bowl in competitive cricket till his action is cleared, and the bowler was subse-quently withdrawn from Hyderabad’s squad for their Ranji Trophy game against Services, which begins on Sun-day.

It is understood that Ojha’s action had been under the scanner for more than a year now, which was one of the reasons why he disappeared from the selectors’ radar despite being one of the quickest Indian bowlers to reach 100 Test wickets. Ojha is believed to have discussed the issue informally with the national selectors, which re-sulted in him getting his action tested in Chennai.

Purshottam Agarwal, the HCA joint secretary, admitted that the association had “received a letter” from the BCCI, but denied that the HCA had asked for Ojha’s action to be evaluated. Hyder-abad’s coach Abdul Azeem, meanwhile, said he was surprised by the setback to his team, particularly since there had been “no whispers about it”.

Former Test umpire AV Jayaprakash, a member of the BCCI’s committee to eradicate suspect bowling actions, had told ESPNcricinfo in October that Ojha had been asked to undertake cor-rective measures in the past. Follow-ing Jayaprakash›s claims, which came during the Duleep Trophy, Ojha start-ed bowling in half-sleeves. In the Ranji Trophy this season, he bowled 133.4 overs in Hyderabad›s three matches, picking up four wickets at 75.25. It is understood that Ojha did bowl his arm-ball throughout the season, a de-livery which is believed to have come under the scanner.

Earlier this month, Ojha was re-leased by Mumbai Indians ahead of the 2015 IPL season.


‘Dhoni calmly told me, I want to quit Test cricket’ - BCCI secretary

Despite the news of MS Dhoni’s re-tirement from Test cricket coming out of the blue following the end

of the MCG Test, BCCI secretary Sanjay Patel said it wasn’t a decision the India captain had made in haste.

Patel revealed Dhoni phoned him soon after the conclusion of the drawn Test in Melbourne to convey the news. “MS is a very practical man. Today, he called up just after the Test match in Melbourne and told me that he wanted to retire from Test cricket,” Patel told PTI. “I asked him, ‘What happened are you injured or what?’ He just calmly told me, ‘No, I just want to quit Test cricket for good.’ He is an Indian captain and a distinguished cricketer. It’s his per-sonal choice and I needed to respect that.

“I asked him, ‘Is it your final decision,’ and he told me, ‘Please wait a bit as I want to inform the boys about my decision and then you can make an official announce-ment.’ He duly called up and told me that I have informed the boys and you can go ahead. In the meanwhile, I also contacted chairman of selectors Sandeep (Patil) and Shivlal Yadav. Both felt that we should re-spect Dhoni’s decision.

“I was a bit taken aback by the sudden-ness of his statement. But we had spoken about it before the Test also. Now what transpired between us is an internal mat-ter but I can tell you that it wasn’t a deci-sion taken in haste. It was done after due

deliberations.”When asked whether Dhoni was emo-

tional during the phone conversation, Patel said, “I didn’t feel that. But some-one, who was present in the dressing room told me that he (Dhoni) was a bit

emotional while announcing his decision. He has given fantastic service to Indian cricket and the BCCI has always believed that retirement is any player’s personal choice.

“You have to understand that Dhoni

knows the rigors that his body has tak-en in Test cricket more than anyone else. But there isn’t a single murmur about his leadership in the shorter formats. There is no question of any change in that re-gard.”

BCCI secretary Sanjay Patel said he spoke to MS Dhoni soon after the end of the MCG Test © Getty Images

Giants’ Coughlin & Jerry Reese to return

New York Giants owner John Mara confirmed Tuesday that Tom Coughlin would return as the

team’s coach next year.But after the team went 7-9 last year

and 6-10 this season, Mara made it clear that he expects to see improve-ment in 2015.

“Tom knows his legacy is on the line,” Mara said in a long news conference Tuesday. “He doesn’t want to have three losing seasons in a row.”

Asked whether 2015 could be de-scribed as a win-or-else year for peo-ple in the Giants organization, Mara replied: “I don’t think that’s an unfair statement.”

Mara’s comments don’t sound too different from those he issued a year ago. He called the 6-10 record “an embarrassment,” said the defense had to improve (Last year he said the “of-fense is broken”), lamented the team’s league-leading number of injuries and said that, in spite of it all, he and co-owner Steve Tisch are convinced that Coughlin and general manager Jerry Reese are the right men for their jobs.

But the simple math of the situ-ation indicates that a third straight losing season could add consequence to Mara’s words of warning this time around.

For example, it was pointed out to Mara that the Giants have historical-ly not allowed coaches to work lame-duck seasons without extending their contracts at least one year. Coughlin is signed through only 2015. And while Mara said he hadn’t broached that topic with his coach, he indicated the team could change its long-held policy against one-year deals for coaches.

“I’m not so sure that we’ll be in that situation anymore,” Mara said. “I will have to talk with him about that.”

For his part, that possibility seems not to affect Coughlin. He invoked the well-known name of a former Brook-lyn Dodgers manager who famously worked on 23 one-year deals through-out his entire career.

“Walter Alston,” Coughlin said. “Twenty-one one-year deals. Maybe.”

Coughlin was fired up in his own news conference Tuesday, and he supported Mara’s assertion that he’s concerned about his coaching legacy.

“My legacy? Year to year, how I’m viewed as a coach? Yeah, that bugs me,” the two-time Super Bowl-winning Giants coach said. “I don’t want to be associated with losing.”

Coughlin said he was in the process of evaluating his coaching staff and hasn’t ruled out making changes, even at the coordinator level.

Pierre-Paul might get franchise tag

New York Giants general manager Jerry Reese met with all of the team’s pend-ing free agents Monday, as is his cus-

tom on the day after the end of the season.The most prominent of those is defensive

end Jason Pierre-Paul, who had 12.5 sacks this season and has made it clear that he’s seeking a very lucrative long-term contract.

Whether the Giants can re-sign Pierre-Paul depends on whether he’ll sign a deal for their price (as opposed to his) before he hits the open market. But it’s also possible the Giants could use the franchise player desig-nation on Pierre-Paul and keep him off the market entirely.

The projected franchise number for defen-sive ends in 2015 is about $15 million, which would be a huge salary-cap hit the Giants would rather avoid with a long-term deal if possible.

The highest-paid 4-3 defensive end in the league is Buffalo’s Mario Williams at $16 mil-lion per year, followed by the Rams’ Robert Quinn at $14.25 million per year. There’s a group right after that at around $12 million per year, and Pierre-Paul likely will seek to join that group or slot in right behind Quinn.

The Giants may not think Pierre-Paul is worth that much; he is still a young player -- his 26th birthday is Thursday -- and he did have 16.5 sacks in the 2011 Super Bowl season.

But the two seasons in between that one and this one were difficult, injury-plagued

ones in which he was not as productive. Re-ese seemed to be already in negotiation mode when discussing Pierre-Paul on Tuesday.

Historically, the Giants haven’t used the franchise player designation as a means of keeping free-agent players off the market for an entire year but rather as a means of giv-ing themselves extra time to put the finishing touches on a long-term deal that was near completion. But in the case of Pierre-Paul, it’s possible that they could break from that history and use the tag the way a lot of teams use it -- as a means of keeping a player they want on next year’s team without committing to him long term.

“We would certainly like him back, but it would have to be at the right price, something that makes sense for us,” Mara said. “He had a great finish to the season and showed us the type of player that he can be. I would be very surprised if he was not a Giant next year.”

At this point, the Giants project to have about $12 million or so in cap room, plus ex-pected gains due to the anticipated release of players like Mathias Kiwanuka. They could add cap relief if they signed quarterback Eli Manning to an extension beyond 2015, but to this point they have not discussed that with Manning.

The Giants also face a potentially difficult free-agent decision on safety Antrel Rolle, who is an unrestricted free agent after play-ing every game of the five-year deal he signed with the team before the 2010 season.


India saved game but lost seriesKohli found the resolve to

make a match-saving fifty through plenty of chatter

from Australia.Australia 530 (Smith 192)

and 9 for 318 dec (Marsh 99, Rogers 69) drew with India 465 (Kohli 169, Rahane 147, Harris 4-70) and 6 for 174 (Kohli 54) Scorecard and ball-by-ball de-tails

Australia did not need to win, and India never really thought seriously about doing so. A cu-riously muted final day of the Boxing Day Test petered out with four overs still to bowl; on recent evidence more than enough time to winkle out the visitors’ last four wickets.

A draw was enough for Aus-tralia to regain the Border-Ga-vaskar Trophy under the stand-in captaincy ofSteven Smith, and also enough for MS Dhoni’s India to avoid a series white-wash. So hands were shak-en, backs slapped and stumps drawn. Despite the odd moment of rancor - Virat Kohli ver-sus Brad Haddin- or transcen-dence - Mitchell Johnson’s rip-ping cutter to bowl Cheteshwar Pujara - this always seemed the most likely result.

It was a revealing day for Smith, showing that in his sec-

ond Test as leader he was un-prepared to risk a 2-0 series lead over opponents who had chased boldly and capably until tripping up within sight of the finishing post in Adelaide. In this, Smith showed a level of pragmatism more in common with another former captain who bowled leg spin in Richie Benaud, as op-posed to the greater gambling instinct of Michael Clarke and his mentor Shane Warne.

Right from the start of the day, Smith had appeared intent on making sure India would not be presented with too amenable a target on what always remained

a friendly batting surface. In-dia’s captain MS Dhoni seemed to be hoping just as much for a closure early in the morning ses-sion, affording his batsmen the chance to pursue a target in the region of 350.

But the hosts pushed on, Shaun Marsh advancing to the cusp of a third Test century when he chanced a quick single to mid-off and was thrown out by Virat Kohli’s direct hit. When the innings was closed with Australia’s last pair of Nathan Lyon and Josh Hazlewood at the crease, it was the coach Dar-ren Lehmann, not Smith, who

waved them in.Still, 70 overs was a not com-

pletely insubstantial amount of time. Ryan Harris struck with his second ball, finding late swing to pin Shikhar Dhawan in front of the stumps.

KL Rahul was unexpectedly promoted to No. 3, but complet-ed an unhappy match when he hooked convulsively at Mitchell Johnson and was held by Shane Watson, jogging back from first slip. M Vijay fell to the first-change Josh Hazlewood soon after, struck in line though the ball appeared likely to be sliding past leg stump.

Kohli had made only four when he was almost run out - David Warner’s excellent div-ing save devalued somewhat by a throw not accurate enough to strand Kohli as Haddin ran in to collect. The first verbal con-frontation between Kohli and Haddin caused India’s No. 4 to complain to the umpires, while Haddin goaded him with a series of exaggerated handclaps.

Not quite as fluent as they had been in the first innings, Kohli and Ajinkya Rahane were helped by the ball losing some of its earlier hardness. Each had close calls, Harris raising an lbw query against Kohli and a fierce-

ly struck Rahane cut shot burst-ing through the fingers of Chris Rogers at backward point.

India managed to reach tea without further loss, but that achievement was made moot when Kohli flicked a little too hastily at Harris’ first ball of the evening session and ar-rowed it straight to Joe Burns at square leg. Pujara had been dropped down the order as something of a safety blanket, and his 95-ball union with Ra-hane was enough to dim Aus-tralian hopes.

Johnson had to conjure the ball of the Test to find a way past Pujara, his fast offbreak the stuff of Derek Underwood’s wildest dreams, but there was not the same purchase for Lyon, and the other pacemen lost penetration as the day wore on. Rahane’s mistimed pull shot to square leg left a narrow window open, but R Ashwin and Dhoni looked secure enough to leave Smith thinking he had run out of time four overs before he actually did so.

An enjoyable and well-attend-ed match had thus faded away. The series is Australia’s, not in the sort of circumstances that prompt wild celebrations, but more the sober handshakes in recognition of a job completed.

DAY 5 IN MELBOURNE: India cling on for first draw at the MCG in 17 years. Australia’s belated declaration helps.

‘Dhoni led by example, not rhetoric’ – Dravid

Calling MS Dhoni an «inspi-ration» on the day he re-tired from Test cricket, Ra-

hul Dravid said he was a captain who led «more by example than by rhetoric or by words».

“He was a captain I enjoyed playing under,” Dravid told ES-PNcricinfo. “One of the things I liked about MS was, what you saw was what you got. Very uncom-plicated, always led by example. One of the things I really liked about playing under MS was that he never asked you to do anything that he himself didn’t do.”

Dhoni’s style of leadership was famously hands-off, but Dravid said he won the respect of his teammates with his deeds rather than his words.

“The reality was he was hav-ing to transition a senior group of players and build a young-er group who were coming through,” Dravid said. “In a sense he was not the most communi-cative of captains, but he tried to earn your respect by walking the talk. He never took a backward step, and led more by example than by rhetoric or by words. More by actions.”

Dravid hailed the impact Dhoni had made on Indian cricket after

emerging from one of its back-waters.

“For someone to come from a small town like Ranchi, to go on and captain India and play 90 Test matches, to do it the way he has, I think he brought a lot of dignity to the job of captain-cy,” Dravid said. “He might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but he was his own cup of tea and he led with a lot of success and that can never be taken away from him.

“And he’s been an inspiration. If there are kids in small towns today dreaming and aspiring for great things, not only in crick-et but in various fields, then MS Dhoni has a lot to do with it.”

Dravid was surprised by the timing of Dhoni’s decision to re-tire, with one Test still left in the series against Australia, but he said he had expected him to take stock of his future fairly soon.

“I guess it was unexpected that he would do it in the mid-dle of the series,” Dravid said. “I expected him to review it at the end of the series, without India playing Test cricket for the next seven or eight months.

“Knowing MS, if the series was alive, I don’t think he would have taken the decision in the middle

of the series, but having seen that the series was already gone, maybe he felt that if he was go-ing to go, then maybe this was the time to do it, and to give Vi-rat Kohli a Test match in Austra-lia to captain, Wriddhiman Saha another opportunity in a Test match, and to start the process of taking India’s Test team forward.”

Starting with the tour of En-gland in 2011, Dhoni won only one Test match overseas. Dravid sympathized with Dhoni for per-haps not having the resources - particularly in the bowling de-partment - to improve his away record.

“If you look at it overall, there

was no doubt he was India’s most successful Test captain. The numbers don’t lie,” Dravid said. “There’s no doubt that he didn’t have the best of times, espe-cially over the last four years, in overseas conditions. Maybe it’s also a reflection of the fact that the team was in transition, it was changing times, especially in the bowling department. It’s not easy to captain a team when you don’t have the resources to be able to take 20 wickets.”

Dhoni also attracted criticism for his defensive tactics as cap-tain, and Dravid said those mea-sures might have been forced on him by the resources at his dis-

posal.“He was never defensive when

captaining in India,” Dravid said. “When he had spinners, he was always attacking, on turning tracks, he was willing to force the game. It’s just overseas, and over the last three or four years, that I just think he maybe felt he didn’t have the bowling resources to be able to take 20 wickets, and he found himself, at many stages, always behind the four-ball.

“It’s hard to attack for the sake of attacking when your runs are leaking at four, four-and-a-half an over, when your batsmen - as it happened on the two tours I played at the end of my career in England and Australia - are struggling as well. We just didn’t put enough runs on the board for a captain to be aggressive and at-tacking enough.

“Yes, he would be a bit disap-pointed that he could not maybe transition the team as well as he would have liked overseas over the last four years, and maybe he felt it was the right time for someone like Virat Kohli to take that forward and possibly he felt he’d taken Indian cricket as far as he possibly could as a Test captain.”

Rahul Dravid: “MS never asked you to do anything that he himself didn’t do.” © Getty Images

January 1-7, 2015

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