Turks & Caicos Islands participates in FIFA F4F
Football For Friendship (F4F) is the International Children’s Social Programme,
implemented by Gazprom and the 2018 FIFA World Cup, involving young
football players and journalists from FIFA Member Association countries, all
over the world. The programme intends to develop youth football by
championing youth sport and a healthy lifestyle, promoting tolerance, open-
mindedness, friendship between children of different cultural backgrounds, and
fostering social values. Comprised of several global events where thousands of
children meet, communicate, socialize, and share experiences, the fundamental
F4F programme values are friendship, equality, fairness, health, peace, devotion,
victory, traditions and honor.
February 2018 kicked off the F4F Friendship Relay where all 211 FIFA member
associations selected a young player/ coach and a young journalist to participate
in the international activities. The activities will involve The International Day Of
Football and Friendship, which will be celebrated on April 25 th , 2018 across the
world, whereby all participating countries will host local friendly football
matches that begin with the exchange of friendship bracelets, the official F4F
programme symbol that signifies equality and a healthy lifestyle. This will lead
up to a 3-day International Friendship Camp and the F4F World Championship,
which will be held in Moscow, Russia on June 8-15, bringing together 12-year-
old players from all over the world. All 211 member association countries will be
organized into 32 teams. Concluding the programme is the key event, The
International Football For Friendship Children’s Forum (in Moscow) where
participants will discuss ways of promoting the programme’s key values across
the globe.
The Turks & Caicos Islands Football Association (TCIFA) in selecting the youth-
ambassador, who will represent the Turks & Caicos Islands, chose Ms. Irener
Moline, student of the Iris Stubbs Primary School and a young player from the
South Caicos Youth Development Football Programme. In addition to active
participation in the F4F events, Moline’s duties will encompass discussing ways
for implementation of fundamental human values promoted by the programme
on the country level with official country representatives.
Covering Ms. Moline’s activities and the F4F 2018 events within the
implementation of the programme is Thais Burgess, a student and a player
within the Providenciales Youth Development Football Programme. She was was
selected to act as a young journalist. Accompanying both young participants in
the Moscow events will be Drani Saunders, TCIFA Executive member and
Chairman of Youth Football, as well as Candia Ewing, Adult Journalist.
FORTIS TCI Continues Partnership In The 2nd Edition Of The Youth Football League, Providenciales
An opening ceremony was held at the the Turks and Caicos Islands Football
Association (TCIFA) National Academy, on the morning of March 24 th , 2018, for
the 2 nd Year of the FORTIS TCI Youth Football League, Providenciales. The
ceremony began with a parade consisting of the teams in full uniform, coaches,
and referees. This was followed by remarks from TCIFA President, Sonia Fulford
and Fortis SVP, Ruth Gadiner. After all the speeches , the teams played several
small-sided football games. These games were engaging and equally, very
competitive. There was the annual FORTIS TCI Penalty Power kick for Boys and
Girls. The winners were Louis McCabe and Jodee Harvey.
The League is scheduled to kick off on April 7 th at 8:30am, will last through early
November 2018, with a summer break coinciding with the public schools’
calendar. It will involve all players from the Providenciales Youth Development
Football Programme, ages 9-13 years old, assigned to teams with names that
correspond with electrical energy.
The league was first announced at a joint press conference on February 6 th 2017
with FORTIS TCI and TCIFA. Since the leagues’ introduction in 2017, the TCIFA
Youth Development Football Programme has seen an increase in its young
players.
Fortis TCI is the sole provider of electricity in the Turks & Caicos Islands, serving
almost 14,000 electricity customers, and is one of the most reliable utilities in
the region. Fortis TCI and its group of companies operate under one vision:
Leading Today. Investing in Tomorrow. They strive to be a responsible corporate
citizen by supporting social and economic development in the TCI, such as the
development of our youth through sports. FORTIS TCI is committed to being a
hands-on partner, remaining engrossed in the organization of the entire
experience.
'Black Panther' becomes highest-grossing superhero film in the US
"Pacific Rim: Uprising" was the No. 1 movie at the box office this weekend, ending the five-week run of "Black Panther."
The sequel to to Guillermo del Toro's 2013 film, "Pacific Rim," which stars John Boyega, delivered an estimated $122.5 million overseas and $28 million domestically.
Marvel's "Black Panther" slipped to second place with an estimated $16.65 million weekend. It has become the highest-grossing superhero movie of all-time domestically, taking in over $630 million stateside.
It's also the fifth-biggest domestic release of all-time. "Black Panther" is currently on pace to surpass "Titanic" as the third-largest domestic release by the end of its U.S. run.
Overseas, the film earned an estimated $12.9 million this weekend, bringing its worldwide total to $1.237 billion.
"I Can Only Imagine" finished third for the second straight week, raking in $13.8 million. Grabbing fourth place was the animated feature "Sherlock Gnomes," featuring the voices of Johnny Depp, James McAvoy and Emily Blunt.
Rounding out the top five was "Tomb Raider," pulling in an estimated $10.4 million.
Here are the top 10 movies from Friday through Sunday, with estimated weekend gross ticket sales:
1. Pacific Rim Uprising, $28 million
2. Black Panther, $16.65 million
3. I Can Only Imagine, $13.8 million
4. Sherlock Gnomes, $10.6 million
5. Tomb Raider, $10.4 million
6. A Wrinkle in Time, $8 million
7. Love, Simon, $7.8 million
8. Paul, Apostle of Christ, $5 million
9. Game Night, $4.16 million
10. Midnight Sun, $4.1 million
How to find out if you've given Facebook access to your call history
With the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigating Facebook's privacy practices, the company has now acknowledged that Messenger and Facebook Lite users with Android phones, who uploaded contacts and chose the "opt-in" option, did have their call and text history logged.
So, how do you check to see whether you've given Facebook access to your call history?
1. Open the Messenger app on your Android.
2. Tap on your profile picture.
3. Scroll down to tap People, which will bring you to a new screen.
4. On that screen, make sure "Sync Contacts" has been turned off.
5. If Sync Contacts is on, you've opted in. Switch to off if you do not want to opt in.
Facebook says it does not collect the content of the logged calls.
US expels 60 Russian intelligence officers in response to ex-spy's poisoning
More than 20 nations on three continents Monday vowed to boot Russian diplomats in response to the poisoning of a former Russian spy in England, just as the United States announced it was responding by expelling 60 Russian intelligence officers.
The United Kingdom earlier this month sent home 23 Russian diplomats -- after saying Russia was behind the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, England -- and the following countries said Monday they, too, were expelling Russian diplomats -- at least 115 total:
U.S.: 60 diplomats (and it said it would close Russia's consulate in Seattle)
Ukraine: 13 diplomats
Canada: 4 diplomats (and denying three others' applications)
France: 4 diplomats
Germany: 4 diplomats
Poland: 4 diplomats
Lithuania: 3 diplomats
Czech Republic: 3 diplomats
Netherlands: 2 diplomats
Italy: 2 diplomats
Denmark: 2 diplomats
Spain: 2 diplomats
Albania: 2 diplomats (announced Tuesday local time)
Estonia: 1 diplomat
Latvia: 1 diplomat
Romania: 1 diplomat
Finland: 1 diplomat
Croatia: 1 diplomat
Hungary: 1 diplomat
Sweden: 1 diplomat
Norway: 1 diplomat
The president of the European Community, Donald Tusk, suggested there could be more measures to come.
Today 14 EU Member States decided to expel Russian diplomats as direct follow-up to #EUCO discussion last week on #SalisburyAttack. Additional measures including further expulsions are not excluded in coming days, weeks.
— Donald Tusk (@eucopresident) March 26, 2018
Russia’s foreign ministry issued a statement today protesting the U.S. and European expulsions of Russian diplomats, calling it a “provocative step” and warning that Russia will respond. It did not say explicitly how it would act, but after the U.K. kicked out 23 Russians this month, Russia expelled 23 British diplomats.
Skripal and his daughter, Yulia Skripal, were found slumped over, unconscious on a park bench in the southern English town of Salisbury. The U.K. has accused Russia of bearing responsibility for the March 4 attack, which British officials say involved a military-grade nerve agent of a type developed secretly by Russia -- an assessment shared by the United States.
Russia has denied any involvement.
Invest Turks and Caicos and Partners attends World’s Leading Real Estate Conference in Cannes, France
Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands, March 19th, 2018 – Invest Turks and Caicos and partners returned from MIPIM following a successful four days of promoting the Turks and Caicos Islands at the world’s leading international real estate business conference and networking event.
Held in Cannes, France (March 13th-16th) – the 2018 installment of MIPIM saw over 26,000 real estate, city and political leaders, including 5,400 investors from over 100 countries. Led by Invest Turks and Caicos Agency, the TCI delegation consisted of the Turks and Caicos Tourist Board, The Turks and Caicos Hotel and Tourism Association, Rock House Resort Turks and Caicos, Windward Development and Vista Development TCI. MIPIM was a great opportunity for Team TCI to present a unified voice to investors, industry partners and decision makers from international companies, from around the world.
Team TCI gained maximum exposure with a vibrant and attractive exhibit that was located in the Tourism and Hospitality Zone, and ran an activity of programmes which promoted investment opportunities in the Islands, as well as showcased our tourism industry, beautiful luxurious resorts and new developments in the country.
Acting CEO for Invest Turks and Caicos, Angela Musgrove stated, “Having attended MIPIM last year, we got a strong feeling that this is an event where investors are engaged, and relationships are formed. By having such a loud presence at this event, we sent the message that we are ready to engage and do business. We forged new relationships with potential developers, investors and industry partners. We also took advantage of every opportunity to make new connections with those involved in the related professional services.”
“We hope to return to MIPIM in 2019”, stated Vice President of Marketing and Promotion for Invest TCI, Trina Adams-Smith. “We want to have an even greater presence. Our aim is a bigger exhibition, a full programme of events, and a larger delegation of industry partnerships; all of which translates into new leads for the TCI.”
Speaking of their partnership, Marketing Representative for the Turks and Caicos Tourist Board based in the UK, Courtney Robinson said: “The opportunity to showcase the destination to a diverse audience of high net worth stakeholders was immense. We were able to make some valued inroads with our tourism and investment product, one that only could be had at a global summit such as MIPIM.” He went on to add: “Going forward, we will endeavor to galvanise every opportunity whereby we can impress upon those who not only travel to, but do business and/or reside in our ‘Beautiful by Nature’ country.”
DSS RELEASES GRAPHING TOOL FOR ICIJ DATABASES
New York City, 19th March 2018 – Domus Semo Sancus (DSS) today announced the release of its “Visualize Connections for ICIJ Databases” link analysis graphing tool. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) is a global network of investigative journalists and media organizations who focus “…on issues that do not stop at national frontiers: cross-border crime, corruption, and the accountability of power.” Their databases contain information on more than 785,000 entities that are part of the Panama Papers, the Offshore Leaks, the Bahamas Leaks, and the Paradise Papers investigations. The data covers nearly 80 years up to 2016 with links to people and companies in more than 200 countries and territories.
Visualize Connections for ICIJ Databases is a customized version of Visualize Connections, DSS’ cognitive link analysis tool that can graphically display relationships between entities found within structured and unstructured data. It can graph the data within the ICIJ Databases within seconds, and with “one click”, while not requiring the end-user to download the data or install the application. Visualize Connections for ICIJ Databases is fully integrated with SafetyNet.ai, DSS’ award-winning Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD) cognitive search tool. Through this integration, end-users can quickly and seamlessly cross-reference data from within the ICIJ databases with internal files or data found on the internet.
During a SafetyNet search, it scans global sanctions lists, Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs) lists, and Persons In Public Life (PIPs) lists; and utilizing Artificial Intelligence tools from IBM Watson, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, along with custom proprietary code; it conducts multilingual scans across the Internet (surface web, deep web, and dark web). Some of the datasets that SafetyNet searches are: court cases, criminal registries, government records, curated news sources, image files, and more.
“Visualize Connections is a very powerful, but user-friendly graphing tool, that greatly increases our clients’ ability to manage risk, and I’m happy that it’s now being made available across most of our plans” states Piyush Dubey, Lead Developer of Visualize Connections. Commenting on the release, Chairman and CEO of DSS, E. Jay Saunders stated “As the information within the ICIJ databases are now in the public domain, some of our clients want to know if they contain anything that they should be aware of, or that could help them, or their clients, better manage risk. With Visualize Connections, our clients can quickly and easily see the connections between the data within the ICIJ databases, and if needed, use SafetyNet to seamlessly and securely cross-reference that data with their own internal company data and/or data from across the internet.”
Visualize Connections for ICIJ Databases is available free of charge to all subscribers to SafetyNet’s EDD (or higher) plans.
A live demo of Visualize Connections for ICIJ Databases can be found at www.safetynet.ai and safetynet.ai/vc4icij_demo/.
Premier Robinson Welcomes Mounts Bay
"I have now been informed that the requested UK Ship is in our waters. We are pleased that the British Government has responded positively to a request from TCI's Government to provide immediate assistance in maritime coverage.
We note the several releases over the past few days of the Governor's Office and wish to remind of our other requests: manpower and a sustainable approach and way forward. We will as promised identify ways to receive ideas from our people in a secured fashion and will continue the successful efforts of Operation Guardian.
TCI with its wide coastline requires much resources and this bolstering of patrol at this time is much needed together with regional and other international support. We continue active discussions with the Bahamas on how its Defense Force can assist. We are also pleased to welcome the aerial support also now in country. These brazen attacks are in my view an attack on the UK's Sovereignty and it must do more in a sustainable way to fulfill its constitutional mandate for external and internal security.
We encourage residents to not harbour or employ any undocumented individual. We will strictly enforce the laws and will deal with any and all culprits to its fullest extent. Whilst we bolster patrol, upgrade our Radar, carry out special operations, we ask residents to remain vigilant and to report all suspicious activities and individuals.”
- Hon. Sharlene Cartwright-Robinson, Premier of the Turks & Caicos Islands
APPROACHING DEADLINE FOR DORMANT ACCOUNTS
The Revenue Department reminds the general public that all funds in dormant accounts held by any financial institution on the Islands are transferrable to the Turks & Caicos Islands Government (TCIG) became effective 1 December 2015.
An account is deemed to be dormant if no transaction, as defined under Section 4 of the Dormant Accounts Ordinance 2014, has been effected on that account in seven (7) years.
Financial Institutions, as required by law, have issued several notices of accounts held that are deemed to be dormant under the Ordinance. Account holders who are uncertain of the status of their accounts, are encouraged to contact their financial institution (s) for verification.
Section 10 of the principal Ordinance was amended by inserting 10A which stipulates:
(1) A claim against the Government under section 10 for repayment of monies transferred from a dormant account shall not be brought after the expiration of six years from the date the money was transferred to the general revenue of the islands.
As such, a dormant account holder no longer has an indefinite period in which he/she can make a claim to the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Finance, for funds transferred to TCIG.
Financial Institutions are required to remit balances of all Dormant Accounts as defined under Section 4 to TCIG annually on or before March 31st along with a Certificate of Compliance.
Please contact the Taxpayer Services Section for further information.
Revenue Department
Butterfield Square Wilma House
Providenciales Grand Turk
Tel: 649-338-5228 Tel: 649-338-2069
Fax: 649-941-8649 Fax: 649-946-2686
Website: http://gov.tc/revenue
Email: tcirevenuedepartment@gov.tc
Facebook: TCIRevenuedepartment
Instagram: @tcirevenuedepartment
Twitter: @tcird
German cities could ban some diesel cars after court ruling
Germany's top court has paved the way for major cities to ban diesel vehicles.
The Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig ruled Tuesday that cities in Germany have the right to ban some diesel cars. The decision could fuel efforts to implement similar restrictions across Europe.
The court said that Stuttgart and Düsseldorf, which have some of the most polluted air in Europe, have the authority to implement limited bans that would prevent some cars from driving into the city center. But any measures must be proportionate.
Stuttgart is the hometown of Daimler-owned Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen Group brand Porsche. Düsseldorf and its surrounding area is also a vehicle manufacturing hub.
Dorothee Saar, head of transport and air quality at the environmental lobby group DUH, said that bans could be introduced this year. DUH had been pressing the court to allow diesel bans in order to combat air pollution.
"This ruling gives long-awaited legal clarity that diesel restrictions are legally permissible and will unavoidably start a domino effect across the country," said Ugo Taddei, an environmental lawyer from ClientEarth who worked on the case. "Putting traffic restrictions on the most polluting vehicles is the quickest and most effective way to protect people from harmful air pollution."
The minister of transportation for the Stuttgart region, Winfried Hermann, said local clean air plans would be revised immediately and could include restrictions on highly polluting vehicles. The court said that Stuttgart should also consider restrictions on gasoline-powered cars that do not meet certain emissions standards.
The environment ministry in the Düsseldorf region said it was exploring other strategies to improve air quality and avoid diesel bans.
Volkswagen, BMW (BMWYY) and Daimler have been bracing for new restrictions on diesels amid rising public concern over air pollution and its negative health effects. Anger has been fueled by revelations that Volkswagen had been cheating on diesel emissions tests, allowing its vehicles to emit excessive levels of nitrogen oxide.
Bans are likely to hurt demand for diesel vehicles in Germany, and deliver a blow to the country's massive auto manufacturing industry. About a third of cars in Germany run on diesel.
Shares in Volkswagen (VLKAF), Daimler (DMLRY) and BMW dropped after the court decision, but later recovered.
Volkswagen said that it was "unable to comprehend" the court's decision.
"It threatens to produce a regulatory hotchpotch in Germany, which is unsettling for millions of motorists," the automaker said in a statement. "How this decision can be implemented in concrete terms is currently still completely unclear."
VDA, the German automotive association, said there were other "intelligent measures" that could be used to meet air quality standards without resorting to bans.
The European Commission -- the top regulator in the European Union -- has threatened legal action against Germany and other countries over high levels of air pollution. Germany is home to 26 cities that frequently exceed EU air pollution limits, more than any other country in the region.
The Commission estimates that over 400,000 people die prematurely each year because of air pollution and nitrogen oxide emissions in the EU.
Diesel cars emit far more harmful air pollutants than gasoline, yet they've been popular in Europe for decades because governments offered tax incentives in the hope of reducing CO2 emissions. (Diesel engines were thought to be more fuel efficient.)
Vehicles are responsible for around 40% of nitrogen oxide emissions in the EU, with the vast majority coming from diesels.
-- CNN's Nadine Schmidt contributed to this report.