Improving Border Security

Senator Arni Walters - FP Nation News

Minister Arni Walters who is responsible for immigration has clarified the current fingerprinting operation at the airport as a pilot. He further shed light by indicating it is not mandatory to participate. Based on the hue and cry by Barbadians in recent days we are therefore forced to ask what is the problem?

In the absence of proper communication from Senator Walter’s ministry, the public has been left to speculate where is the government going with this fingerprinting pilot! It is evident the current concerns being presented by Barbadians can be linked to the lack of proper communication by government on the matter.

The Opposition some may say have capitalized on the blunder to make political mileage. The honeymoon period for the Thompson government is over and it must be prepared to respond to legitimate criticism from the Opposition. Within two weeks the government in our opinion has made two obvious blunders, the other is the late delivery of invitations to the Opposition to attend the Ryan Brathwaite Tribute.

How Do We Get Our Children To Behave?

How often have we heard the adage, it takes a village to raise a child? Last week Barbadians were confronted with the sad news of an 11 year old bullied to death. The fact the bullying had taken place over a long period of time and known to many yet as a society we were impotent. The parents of the bullies did nothing. The school and by extension the Ministry of Education was impotent. The little boy before he met his horrible death was living a life full of torment.

May he rest in peace.

Increasingly Barbadians are witnessing the transformation of our society which has become very impersonal. It seems a contradictory position that a society which is so small should feel comfortable with what is has become. Many Barbadians from days of yore subscribe to the maxim, spare the rod and spoil the child. In an earlier blog we discussed the issue of Smacking Children In A Democracy. It appears a clash of generations when deciding on whether spanking children is good or bad for their development has created a deer caught in headlights position.

A recent study by Murray Straus of the University of New Hampshire showed the more a child was spanked the lower his or her IQ compared with others. Old Barbadians will argue the point we have spanked our children for years and built a wholesome society in the process. By comparison we have witnessed a US society which forbids parents and teachers from administering corporal punishment and what has been the result? A scan of the US news networks on any day narrates a society in social decay. For example, CNN is currently running a news story about a 16 year old African boy beaten to death by other children in Obama’s home city of Chicago. He was an honour student. Over 3 dozen children  children killed in Chicago for the year so far and many more nationwide.

It seems we live in a world today where we are unable to put the train back on the track. What does the future holds? How can we rebuild our society to make it safe for our children?

The article which highlights the research done about how spanking our children can lead to lower IQs is pasted below for convenience.

Are The Rich In Barbados Paying Their Fair Share:- Defining Rich As Those Who Earn $1Million or more!!!

Tax the rich was a theme raised last week at the Liberal Democrats conference in Bournemouth, UK where Dr. Vine ‘the oracle’ Cable purposed a new tax on those who earn in excess of a million pounds or more . Dr. Cable raised some eyebrows in his own party as this policy decision had not been discussed with its leader (Nick Clegg).

A report by the Brotherhood of St Laurence and the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute showed that the Capital Gains Tax (CGT) exemption is now worth on average $10,000 a year for the wealthiest 20% of home owners according to The Australian News report.

The Brotherhood of St Laurence will today seize on the research to call for the removal of the CGT exemption on homes worth more than 1.1 million Auzzie dollars. I wondered if this was where Dr. Cable pulled his policy decision from last week?

It is with these thoughts in mind, coupled with Channel 4’s airing of Piers Morgan’s visit to Barbados to interview Sir Cliff Richards in his £14 million hideaway pad in the lush surroundings of Sugar Hill that got me to thinking about this issue in its broader remit and context.

Mabey & Johnson Former Employer Of Jonathan Danos Fined On Bribery Charge

The British media unlike that in Barbados recently reported on the legal troubles the British company Mabey & Johnson is currently enduring. The BU family should remember that Janathan Danos was a former executive at Mabey & Johnson who subsequently left to form the company 3S Barbados to facilitate the ABC Highway Project (search BU for the many blogs posted on the murky project). Although Mabey & Johnson failed to win the road widening ABC Highway job, Danos was lucky to setup a five man company months before the previous government issued a multi-million contract to 3S Barbados using a rolling MOU which continues to be a hotly debated matter.

What is it the British media has printed about Danos’ former employer?

On July 2009 the Times Online reported that Mabey & Johnson a leading UK bridge-building company appeared in court today to say it will plead guilty to charges of overseas corruption and breaching United Nations sanctions. Mabey is charged with offences relating to activities in Jamaica and Ghana between 1993 and 2001.

He Did It His Way!

Leroy Parris, Chairman of CLICO Holdings-Limited

The Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reported last week that its controversial and enigmatic Chairman Leroy Parris has hinted at retirement at year end. The brief statement posted on the CBC website states:

Reports reaching the CBC are that the Chairman of CLICO Holdings will be retiring from that organisation at year end. While we have not yet been able to reach Mr Parris for comment  … CBC understands that he has made his intentions known at a board meeting last Monday. He has spent 30 years with CLICO Holdings moving its asset base from  two million dollars to one point four billion dollars, and he has also been responsible for the development for all the subsidiaries of CLICO holdings.

The above does not surprise BU given the other role which Parris currently plays as Executive Chairman of CLICO Holdings Barbados Ltd. The financial woes of the Trinidad based pan-Caribbean company CL Financial continues to be a concern for many of the countries in which it operates including Barbados. Based on the most recent status report on the matter as it pertains to Barbados, an Oversight Committee is currently considering bids to purchase some of the assets of CLICO Holdings Barbados Ltd. Chairman Parris in the circumstances has no choice but to remove himself from the position before he is pushed.

Candles Under The Bed

Submitted by Looking Glass

Do not “believe every inspired expression but test the inspired waters. (John 1. 4.1).

The devotion of some faithfuls to their party borders on idolatry and poisons the waters of enlightenment. In an effort to resurrect the phoenix from the dust fact and fiction are mixed to provide “false explanations and misrepresentations to mislead,” to blind unsuspecting souls, and to shift blame and liability. It opens the door to controversy, corrupts understanding and is ultimately self-defeating. It also speaks volumes about the wisdom, competence, integrity and morality of the phoenix and associates. Only fools would expect those responsible for great tragedies to emphasise with the tragic mood.

It may well be true that the DLP commissioned the Wickham poll. But is it fact or fiction? Forget the questionnaire. What was the political persuasion of those polled? How large was the sample and the area(s) covered? How many of the responders were BLP, DLP, Liberals and or Independents? Are we to accept that the majority of those polled were known DLPites from across the country? It is unlikely that the author had been privy to this information.

The author, real or surrogate (suspected), offers nothing to indicate that the poll was indeed commissioned. By his own admission the poll is inherently flawed. Since the poll is inherently flawed the findings must also be flawed. Ditto for an offering that relied on the questionable findings of the poll.

Inexcusable Disrespect: A National Ceremony Vulgarised And Diminished Into A DLP Affair Paid For With State Funds

Submitted by Alex Fergusson

Honourable Dr Esther Byer-Suckoo Minister responsible for Sports and Youth Affairs

Last week, a welcome home ceremony was held by the State for Ryan Brathwaite who won gold in the 110 metre hurdles. The win by Ryan Brathwaite was the biggest sporting achievement for Barbados since Sr. Garfield Sobers hit six sixes in the same over and was knighted by her majesty the Queen for a remarkable career in cricket.

That a Barbadian for the first time – would win gold at an international sports meet for juniors (seniors like Audrey Cox and Pearle Yearwood have been winning gold at international meets for seniors for some time now) yet the Minister of Sports, Dr. Ester Byer-Suckoo was mysteriously either out of the island or was trampled so that Senator Irene Sandiford Garner could act at Minister of Sports – is not only vulgar but inexcusably partisan.

In civilized countries, Dr. Byer-Suckoo would be expected to resign from the Cabinet for her unprecedented disrespect toward His Excellency Ryan Brathwaite – a national treasure. In contrast, on page 6 of the Barbados Advocate of September 24, 2009 – Byer-Suckoo was quoted as having said: “you have done something for Barbados than no one before you has managed to do.”

Barbados At The Crossroads: Are We Winning The Battle Against Climate Change?

Submitted by Terence Blackett

The 64^th Session of the UN General Assembly began with the issue of climate change, followed by the G-20 Meeting in Pittsburgh where world leaders work to put together a framework for tackling this issue as doing “NOTHING” could be disastrous.

For most people today, the issues and discourses on climate change is a parody of scientific gobbledegook where proponents like Nobel Prize winner and former Vice-President of the United States Al Gore, uses this agenda as a big stick to beat world leaders, institutional heads and public sectors officials into the looming dangers we face as a planet, if these issues are not tackled immediately.

Barbados is not exempt from the effects of this emergent global phenomenon which has been with us for over 20 years.  Since the years of the oil boom and the mass globalization of what many sociologists have termed the McDonaldization of society or as Davis, Baudrillard et al called the era of “hyper-reality” we have seen climate change climb to the top of the global agenda.

VEXX

Submitted by Royal Rumble

It is with some trepidation that I write you on a matter of grave national importance – a threat to our global reputation and an embarrassment to Barbadians throughout the Diaspora.

Barbadians at home and abroad have always held their country and its leadership in high regard so much so that anything remotely done or said by its leader that can sully the country’s good name invokes their anger and ultimately the withdrawal of their support.

I have no doubt that a large part of the Barbados Labour Party’s failure to recapture the Government in the last general election had to do with the smear campaign of the Democratic Labour Party. Throughout that campaign Barbadians were told that the BLP was corrupt and that they had stolen money from the treasury and had stashed it in foreign bank accounts. The DLP has been in office for almost two years now and not a single thread of evidence has been produced to support this wild and malicious charge.

Barbadians, We Need To Take Back Our Country

Dexter Smith, who admitted he drove a route taxi while his licence had been suspended for a year, was jailed for a year yesterday. (Picture by Heather-Lynn Evanson - Nation)

The unruly PSV sector continues to pillage on our society. Is it fair to state Barbadians have surrendered to the sub-culture which has become synonymous with the industry? We condemn the Royal Barbados Police Force under Commissioner Darwin Dottin who announced many moons ago he had declared war on our roads by introducing Operation Road Order Maintenance.

BU family member Inkwell in a previous blog provided a counter-analysis of the PSV sector which described the unruly behaviour as the outcome of a flawed government policy. The unwillingness of our authorities to implement the required governance structure gives anyone reasonable cause to question motive. Why would any government remain so impotent to act in the face of a sector which is wrecking havoc on the social fabric of our society?

Yesterday (9/23/2009) the Nation newspaper reported on a route taxi driver who was jailed for 1 year. Unbelievable but true a Dexter Smith despite although having had his license suspended for a year was able to commandeer a public service vehicle and in the process cause injury to 14 ZR passengers.

Here is the pertinent quote from the Nation report which lays bare the impotence of our authorities: