Man Robbed of Car in Residence Yard
Providenciales Police are investigating the robbery of a man on Thursday, January 3rd, 2019 around 10:00 p.m. at Residence Yard.
According to Central, two males, one armed with a gun approached the complainant and took his white Toyota car, license plate unknown.
According to the complainant, both men were slim build, medium in height, dark-skinned and dressed in dark-coloured clothing with long sleeve hooded jackets.
The men fired one round of ammunition in the air before driving away.
The car was later recovered at Miracle Close Blue Hills.
Childish Gambino, Tame Impala, Ariana Grande to headline Coachella Festival
Childish Gambino, Tame Impala and pop star Ariana Grande are the main headliners for this year's Coachella festival, taking place the weekends of April 12-14 and 19-21 in Indo, California.
Also taking the stage this year will be Weezer; R&B singers Janelle Monae, Solange, Ella Mai and H.E.R.; The 1975; country star Kacey Musgraves; Diplo, Anderson .Paak and Kid Cudi; rappers Wiz Khalifa and Pusha T; CHVRCHES, Zedd and Jaden Smith, son of Will Smith. The lineup so far includes 165 acts in all. You can check out the complete roster of performers at the Coachella website.
Childish Gambino, Tame Impala and Ariana Grande are scheduled to perform both weekends of the festival.
Last year's big Coachella performer, of course, was Beyoncé, who earned rave reviews for a two-weekend set that also included a Destiny's Child reunion and a duet with her husband, JAY-Z. Her powerhouse performance prompted the trending hashtag #Beychella. Her set was also the most-viewed Coachella performance ever on YouTube, and the most-viewed live music festival performance, period, on the platform.
There's no word yet on whether this year's Coachella will be live streamed for free, like the first weekend was last year.
Kanye West was rumored to be under consideration to headline Coachella this year, but TMZ reported just hours before the performers were revealed that negotiations had broken down over Kanye's stage design demands. None of that's confirmed.
Re-Registration of All Private Schools
All schools and educational institutions operating in the Turks and Caicos Islands are required by law to seek approval to operate from, and register with the Ministry of Education, Youth, Culture and Library Services. Pre-primary, Primary and secondary schools are regulated by the Department of Education and all post-secondary and higher education institutions and programmes are regulated by the Higher Education Advisory Board. In an effort to ensure compliance and streamline the quality of education provision at the pre-primary, primary and secondary levels, the Ministry is requesting all private Pre-Primary, Primary, Secondary schools & Tertiary Institutions currently operating in the country to re-register with the Ministry of Education and to have their documents submitted to the Department of Education before 31st March 2019. The Registration form will be available on the Ministry’s website, emailed to existing schools and a limited number of hard copies will be available at the Department of Education offices on Grand Turk and Providenciales as of Monday, 31st December 2018.
Once the completed registration form along with supporting documents are received, an inspection team comprised of officers from the Department of Education, the Departmental of Environmental Health, the Planning Department and the Fire Department will conduct site inspections. The outcome of the inspections and review of registration forms will be communicated to proprietors and Principals. Schools that are in full compliance will be issued with a certificate by the Ministry of Education which will be used to enable them to proceed with renewal of business licenses for the 2019/2020 academic year. Schools not satisfying the inspection criteria will be given a deadline by which full compliance is to be achieved.
The Ministry of Education commends all proprietors of private schools who assist the Government with fulfilling its obligation to provide access to quality education. Our aim, through this re-registration exercise is to improve the efficiency of the administrative support, programming, quality assurance and standards we provide to private schools in order to ensure that optimal educational outcomes are achieved for students in the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Plastics maker to cut jobs, after rejection of ban alternative
The plastics ban, which takes effect on January 1, will see Agri & Industrial Packaging Limited cutting a fifth of its workforce.
The company is cutting one unit, having failed to convince the Government that its alternative product to the single-use plastics it currently makes conforms to the ban.
In addition to plastic bags, the 31-year old company also produces printed and unprinted food industry bags, plastic sheeting for construction, garbage bags and other plastic film products for specialised applications.
"I'm looking at about a 20 per cent cut in my staff complement, and given that there are about 100 persons, you can do the math," CEO Hugh Gray told the Financial Gleaner from his Lyndhurst Road, Kingston, plant ahead of a staff function for the holiday break.
He had initially hoped to save those jobs under the company's planned switch to bags made of oxo-biodegradable plastic material - a plan that Agri & Industrial had been working on before the Jamaican Government announced its clampdown on plastics for environmental reasons.
"I'm not dealing with them at all because I've been talking with them for a long time and I'm getting no traction from them," a disappointed Gray said.
ALTERNATIVE BAGS
"What I've been doing is to say to my customers, like the hotels, that they should use the oxo-biodegradable bags and the reaction has been very good."
The Government's point man on the plastics ban, Senator Matthew Samuda, confirmed to the Financial Gleaner that the ban would also cover oxo-biodegradable plastics.
"The recommendation from the working group chaired by Parris Lyew-Ayee, Jr was that based on the available science and the research and discussions, the oxo-biodegradable was not an optimal solution," Samuda said on Thursday.
"The science says that it is only under specific circumstances that the plastics do degrade. What was unclear was what they degraded to. Indications are that they don't degrade to, say, oxygen but rather micro-plastics, which is worse for the marine environment," Samuda explained.
WARNING
Gray is warning of the possibility that some players may seek to circumvent the ban, which covers bags measuring 24x24 inches and under. He repeated his charge that China has been dumping goods in Jamaica and that marginally larger bags would be exported here from that country, requiring the authorities to be on alert.
"We know that they're on their way, but we don't know if any of it is here yet. My information is that since the ban is from 24x24 inches downwards, they are making them 25x26 inches," Gray charged.
Samuda, while not dismissing the report, reiterated that the Government in formulating the policy around the ban, at the size arrived after countless meetings with various interest groups.
He said that any attempt to use bags that are slightly larger would lead to practical problems for those seeking to sneak under the radar.
"The issue they will have is that as the bags get bigger, they will have to make them thicker to hold the weight that comes with the supermarket-type requirements. This will change the pricing that retailers and wholesalers would have been used to for those sorts of bags," Samuda said.
Still, he also noted that the policy was not static and would be adapted to changing circumstances.
"Is the policy perfect? I don't think so, but we have to start somewhere in breaking our addiction to plastics. We will cut out what we can and then adjust based on periodic reviews of the sociological, environmental, and economic impact," Samuda said.
The senator is credited with being the architect of the policy behind the ban, for which he introduced a private member's motion in the Senate in October 2016.
The ban covering single-use plastic bags and Styrofoam containers will be implemented through a Ministerial Order under the Trade Act. Jamaica will join Dominica, The Bahamas, and Grenada as regional territories to ban a range of plastic and Styrofoam products.
"We're firm on the fact that reducing plastics is the way to go. These measures are part of myriad possibilities that will eventually be explored and possibly implemented," Samuda said.
Brexit 2019: UK will choose between recession and relief
Britain has a stark economic choice to make next year: Recession or relief.
The United Kingdom is set to leave the European Union on March 29. Crashing out of the bloc without an exit agreement would result in turmoil; striking a deal would minimize damage to the economy.
UBS economists led by Arend Kapteyn say their outlook for the UK economy is "binary." The disruption to trade caused by a disorderly Brexit would "plunge the UK into recession," they warn. A deal would postpone difficult decisions and provide certainty to business.
Prime Minister Theresa May has negotiated a divorce deal with the European Union, but it faces long odds in parliament. UK lawmakers are expected to vote on the agreement next month.
Brexit-fueled recession ...
Abruptly leaving the European Union without a deal in place would spell disaster for companies in the United Kingdom. They would face new trade barriers and an uncertain legal environment. Business lobby groups have warned that many companies are unprepared for a messy Brexit.
"The United Kingdom would only have time to reestablish the most critical of the hundreds of international trade and regulatory treaties that it is currently party to via its EU membership," said Andrew Goodwin, associate director at Oxford Economics.
Government studies predict the UK economy would be 7.7% smaller 15 years after a disorderly Brexit than if it stuck with current trading arrangements. The damage would be even greater if immigration from the European Union drops.
Economists expect the damage to show up quickly.
Research firm Capital Economics forecasts that a disorderly Brexit would lead to the economy shrinking 0.2% in 2019. It said the pound would likely plummet to $1.12 against the dollar, from its current level of $1.26. According to Oxford Economics, the economy would be 2.1% smaller by the end of 2020 than in a scenario where an exit deal is finalized.
... or relief?
While the UK economy would be worse off under all Brexit scenarios studied by the government, agreeing a deal would provide certainty to companies who have spent the past two years in the dark about future terms of trade with the European Union. Business groups have urged UK lawmakers to approve May's deal.
High levels of uncertainty contributed to a significant slowdown by the UK economy in the second half of this year. Consumer spending and business investment have also taken a hit since voters chose to leave their biggest trading partner in 2016.
"While the long-term risks to UK potential growth from Brexit loom large, the prospect of a deal presents considerable upside potential for the UK economy over the medium-term," said Kallum Pickering, a senior economist at Berenberg.
Companies that had been most at risk, such as carmakers, would see the greatest benefits from a deal, according to Pickering. Wages would also increase at a quicker pace.
Leaving under May's deal or crashing out without it aren't the only options.
There are two more scenarios that would leave the UK economy better off than a disorderly Brexit: Postponing the exit, or calling it off altogether.
Netflix says more than 45 million accounts have watched 'Bird Box.' But the figure needs an asterisk
Netflix seems to be flying so high over the reception to its just-released psychological horror film "Bird Box" that it's breaking a long-held tradition of staying largely mum on viewership.
The streaming service on Friday said more than 45 million "accounts" have watched the Sandra Bullock-led film in its first week of release, the "best first 7 days ever for a Netflix film," the company boasted in a Tweet.
It's an impressive figure, certainly, but one that also requires a "Star Wars" scroll-worth of disclaimers, qualifiers and questions -- several of them immediately posed by journalists and TV industry rivals, who have been frustrated by the streaming giant's unwillingness to divulge such information.
Central to all of it, too, is a greater conversation about transparency. Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and all the rest fighting for streaming domination share a dedication to operating as though they're immune to the numbers-driven nature of the content business.
To be fair, it's because they sort of have been, but how much longer will that last?
Rebecca Keegan of The Hollywood Reporter questioned the value of Netflix's data in the absence of further context.
"Does Susanne Bier's agent use this data as leverage on her next film? How does a traditional studio considering her for a project view it?" Keegan asked on Twitter.
Bier directed "Bird Box."
Giving people a rare peek behind the curtain, even a flattering one, will only renew calls for greater transparency by journalists who report on the service and those who do business with it.
The watch-it-your-way flexibility of streaming presents challenges to anyone trying to draw a comparison to traditional film in regards to audience.
It would be difficult, for example, to say what the activity of 45 million accounts equates to in traditional box office terms. It's also unclear -- though presumable -- that the number reflects accounts that have accessed the film globally. (Netflix is currently available in more than 190 countries.)
Exactly how Netflix qualifies what counts as a viewing is another question. Does the figure account for those who accidentally play the film from an auto-play option? Does it log "viewers" who only watch a few seconds or the entire film?
And is there any way to say what portion of that audience would make the effort of going to a theater and buying a ticket to "Bird Box"? From the comfort of a Netflix household, the time and financial investments are far less.
Finally, there's no independent, third-party sourcing involved, a la the Nielsen ratings. As CBS Entertainment president Kelly Kahl somewhat skeptically tweeted, the numbers were "independently verified by ... uh, Netflix."
Streaming services have gotten away with opting not to share the abundance of viewership information to which they have access, but as more traditional corners of the entertainment industry feel increasingly jealous of their 45 million-plus pairs of eyes, the blindfold may be coming off.
Mayweather crushes Nasukawa in one round
Mayweather dropped Nasukawa three times before the latter’s corner threw in the towel
Floyd Mayweather just made more than $3,000,000/minute.
Despite the bizarre buildup to the bout and Mayweather’s later-than-expected entrance, which treated viewers to almost two hours of intermission, his bout with Tenshin Nasukawa finally took place this morning at RIZIN 14. The contrast in attitude was clear from the beginning, as a smiling Mayweather casually flicked out both hands and a dour Nasukawa tried to find room for his jab.
Nasukawa landed the first real blow, a clean overhand left, but Mayweather returned the favor with a left hook that sent the younger man to the canvas. Nasukawa got back to his feet and dug in for a firefight, only for Mayweather to go low-high with a pair of right hooks and score an even more authoritative knockdown. Finally, Mayweather clipped him with a 3-2 that had Nasukawa flailing on the mat, and though the ref gave him a count, Nasukawa’s corner wisely stopped it.
Mayweather’s boxing record doesn’t change, but he’s now 2-0 (2 KO) against guys who aren’t boxers.
If you want to see more about the event that preceded this fight, which featured quite a few impressive finishes, click here to see the writeup at MMA Mania.
Kim Jong Un reaffirms commitment to denuclearization in letter to South Korean president
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reaffirmed his commitment to denuclearization in a letter sent to South Korean President Moon Jae-in over the weekend. The move raises hopes for a positive message in his annual New Year’s Day policy speech to be delivered on North Korea’s state television.
The two-page letter, stamped with Kim’s signature golden logo, arrived on Sunday addressed to “Revered President Moon Jae-in.” Only the first sentence was released to the public.
“Chairman Kim Jong Un emphasized the bold step the two Korean leaders have taken to overcome the long-pending confrontation between North and South to meet three times in one year alone,” read the letter, according to Kim Eui-kyeom, spokesman for the South’s presidential office.
Moon posted a response on Facebook, saying he “welcome[s] chairman Kim's intentions” to hold further talks.
“[Chairman Kim] redefined his standpoint in actively carrying out agreements in the inter-Korean summit as well as the US-DPRK summit,” Moon wrote, continuing, “I welcome chairman Kim’s intentions to meet several times in the new year to find solution for denuclearization and to solve practical problems in achieving peace and prosperity.”
Moon added that he witnessed a sense of frustration over Kim not having been able to visit Seoul, which the two leaders agreed to during the third inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang this September.
President Donald Trump has also expressed a willingness to meet for a second time with Kim in 2019. He also reiterated in mid-December that he wasn't concerned over criticism about the lack of progress in denuclearization since the two leaders met in Singapore and signed an agreement on June 12.
It was almost exactly one year ago, in the wake of Kim's 2018 policy speech, that Trump threatened the North Korean dictator and said his nuclear button was "much bigger and more powerful."
Trump says concrete wall was 'never abandoned,' contradicting Kelly's comments in interview
President Donald Trump defended his promise to build a solid border wall along the U.S.-Mexico early Monday, one day after outgoing chief of staff John Kelly said in an interview that erecting a concrete wall along the entire border was already off the table.
The president tweeted Monday morning that the concrete wall was "NEVER ABANDONED."
"Some areas will be all concrete but the experts at Border Patrol prefer a Wall that is see through (thereby making it possible to see what is happening on both sides). Makes sense to me!" he tweeted.
Trump blamed the media in the tweet, even though Sunday's news cycle reported on Kelly's comments.
In an interview published in the Los Angeles Times Sunday, Kelly, who will be leaving post this week, gave a wide-ranging account of the some of the president's policies, including immigration and the border wall.
“To be honest, it’s not a wall,” Kelly he told the paper.
The interview comes as Trump is feuding with Democrats over funding for a border wall and security.
Kelly described in the interview coming into the job in early 2017 and seeking advice from border patrol agents, among others who secure the area.
“They said, ‘Well we need a physical barrier in certain places, we need technology across the board, and we need more people,’” he told The Times.
He added the president uses the word "wall" often, but acutally uses "barrier" or "fencing" to describe security measures along the border.
"But we left a solid concrete wall early on in the administration," he said, "when we asked people what they needed and where they needed it.”
Extension of post Hurricanes Customs Duty Exemption
The General Public is hereby advised that the Cabinet has approved the extension of post hurricanes Customs Duty Exemption on the selected building material, furniture, and appliances, for a further period beginning the 1st of November 2018 and ending the 30th of April 2019.
The list of commodities to which the exemption applies, the requirements, and process remains the same. The list of commodities may be viewed on the Customs Department website at cmwilliams@gov.tc.
The Customs Department remain responsible for receiving, vetting and processing of applications, and all applications and supporting documents must be forwarded accordingly, using one of the below email addresses.
cmwilliams@gov.tc
ldmalcolm@gov.tc
rggibbs@gov.tc
drobinson@gov.tc
phmayhem@gov.tc