A Christmas Message From The Leader of The PDM
Oh give thanks unto the Lord for His mercy endureth forever, Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord.
I am grateful for this opportunity to extend greetings to all the people, residents and visitors in these Beautiful By Nature Turks and Caicos Islands. It is by God’s grace and mercies that we are alive to see this season yet again and we ought not to take this gift for granted.
I greet you on the occasion of the celebration of the birth of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ who came to earth as a babe to give hope to a lost people. His birth celebrated by the angels on that great day over 2000 years ago ought more so to be celebrated today. At this juncture in our country’s history, we are too often feeling hopeless as individuals and as a people. The hope that we ought to have in God must never be placed in man. As during His birth, He wants to give us a hope that no man can take away but He calls us to return to the hallmarks of who we are: a God fearing, caring, loving, honest and hard working people. It is too often our position to rid ourselves of the old when in fact some traditions keep us grounded and firm in who we are as a people.
As I greet you I urge you to return to the traditions of spending time with our families, giving the gift of love and thoughtfulness by sharing and greeting each other with kindness. Jesus remains the reason for the season and as we celebrate, let us remember Him and do so in a manner that honors Him. I believe that when we return to who we are as a people, hope will reign supreme in our hearts and lands.
As we close a difficult year, we must cling to the hope that we can ride out those storms that we know we may and will face. It is my prayer that you will ground yourself in the hope that Jesus brought to earth and that you will prosper and be in good health as your soul also prospers.
So on behalf of the Peoples’ Democratic Movement, my family and I, it is our wish that you have a joyous holiday season - one that will be filled with lasting memories of family and friends together.
Merry Christmas to you all and a bright and Christ filled New Year.
Derek H Taylor
Party Leader
Babies for celebs
Christmas came early for 68-year-old actor Robert De Niro and his 56-year-old wife, singer Grace Hightower. On December 23, according to People, the couple welcomed a healthy 7-pound, 2-ounce baby girl named Helen Grace Hightower through a surrogate mother.
For De Niro and Hightower, married since 1997, the baby girl is their second child. Their son, Elliot, is 13. No other details were provided.
De Niro has four other children from previous relationships.
Meanwhile
Christmas has come a bit early for Eric Benet and his wife Manuela Testoini. The couple, who married in July, became the parents of a new baby girl named Lucia.
Breaking the news via Twitter, Benet wrote, “Happiest daddy in the world!!”
The newborn is Benet’s second child, he has daughter India from a previous relationship.
India confirmed on Twitter, “I’m a big sister!!!!!!”
British Virgin Islands "Melanie Amaro" wins X Factor USA
19 year old Melanie Amaro was last night crowned the first X Factor USA winner, walking away with a $5 million recording contract and a Pepsi commercial lead.
Melanie was born in Sunrise, Florida but grew up to the British Virgin Islands from the age 3., captivated the heart of millions with her musical notes.
Melanie who was mentored by Simon Cowell was speechless after learning about her fate, beating out second place 30-year-old singer Josh Krajcik of Wooster, Ohio, and 28-year-old singer-rapper Chris Rene, who came in third place.
"Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God," Amaro repeated after host Steve Jones announced her as the winner. She then struggled through tears to reprise Beyonce's "Listen".. Finally after a tearful moment Melanie gave her victory speech 'Thank you so much! OMG, I don't know what even to say... God is good...
The three finalist performed classic Christmas tunes, and Justin Bieber, Stevie Wonder, Leona Lewis, Pitbull, Ne-Yo and 50 Cent performed various songs with former contestants.
Melanie and Josh also did a duet on David Bowie's "Heroes."
Moments after winning, Melanie told People Magazine , "Life will change a lot. The most I have ever had before was $200, if I was lucky."
With her winings she plans to buy her mom a house as she said "The one we live in now sucks."
and that for her she will get some chicken "I can't live without it," she says. "It's my favorite food.
It is a very proud moment for everyone in the Caribbean especially supporters from her second home of British Virgin Islands.
Busy Christmas for Chris Martin
Chris Martin is a busy man this festive season. The diminutive singer with the big song - Cheater's Prayer - is riding a wave of popularity and demand that has seen him performing in Africa, The Bahamas and Guyana right through until the new year.
The singer, just last weekend, released the video for his hit song Cheater's Prayer that seems to be gaining in popularity with each passing day.
Martin, accompanied by CeCile and his manager Kingy Lettman, departed the island for The Bahamas on Thursday, where Martin will perform on three shows, the first of which was held last night in Nassau. He will next perform tonight in Exhuma and then in Abaco on Saturday. He says he is looking forward to the three-show stint with great anticipation. "I plan to mix it up and ensure that the energy is very high," he said. "I performed previously in Freeport and a video was posted on YouTube, so you know I have to keep it fresh."
CeCile, who will also be performing in her own right as an entertainer in The Bahamas, said the trip with Martin gives her a chance to give fans there what they have been longing for. "I'm very happy to be touring with Chris and getting the chance to perform my counteraction to Cheater's Prayer," she said. She explained that Martin's song is extremely popular there, and as a result her counteraction is gaining in popularity as well. Fans, she said, are eager to hear her perform her song while on stage with him.
Martin will be back in Jamaica on Boxing Day for a performance in Montego Bay. "I have not performed in MoBay for a while, so I am looking forward to that," he said. He then jets off to Guyana on December 28 for two shows before he returns home on New Year's Day.
His busy schedule comes just after a week after he returned from a sudden trip to Kenya to replace Mavado who was billed to perform at the Pulse eighth anniversary celebrations. Martin said he was not surprised to be called upon by Kenyan promoters in Nairobi, because of his huge fan base there. Martin was making his second trip to Kenya after a trip in March. This time, he performed before a much smaller crowd of perhaps three or four thousand patrons that Martin said included fans who did not get the chance to see him perform earlier this year. "It was a much smaller venue and a lot more intimate," he said. "They know what I am capable of, so it was a great experience."
Jack: I will not sit silently on Fifa actions
Former vice-president of world football governing body FIFA, Jack Warner, is warning that if the organisation has its way then the Caribbean will never qualify for another World Cup. Warner was speaking with reporters yesterday following a tour of landslides in the Realise Road/Mandingo Road area in Princes Town. He said:,“If we go along with that lot, not a Caribbean (country) will qualify for the World Cup Again. If we go along with that lot, the Caribbean will never be able again to control even Concacaf.”
Warner, who was the president of Concacaf, was referring to an constitutional Caribbean Football Union (CFU) congress in Zurich on Tuesday and Wednesday where certain decisions were taken and agreed upon by 26 to 30 national association presidents. Warner, who resigned from FIFA after allegations of corruption at a CFU meeting in Port-of-Spain surfaced, said he would not sit silently while such actions were taking place.
Cruz, Bradshaw lead Giants past Jets 29-14
Rex Ryan was brash and confident all week, insisting his Jets were the kings of New York.
Well, the Giants shut him up in a big way - taking the city bragging rights and setting up an even more important showdown with the Dallas Cowboys next weekend with a 29-14 victory Saturday.
"I hate to use that cliche, but this is a huge one," left tackle David Diehl said. "This is about the city, the city of New York and what team wants to be responsible. They have talked all week and said what they wanted to say. From Day 1, they're our big brother and other stuff. We went out there and played our game and showed whose stadium this is."
Ryan said the Jets were the better team the last two years, based on their consecutive trips to the AFC championship game and the Giants missing the postseason. Tom Coughlin responded by saying, "Talk is cheap. Play the game."
It was the Giants who did.
"They were the better team today, and they're the better team this year," a humbled Ryan said. "Clearly, I was wrong."
The Giants kept their postseason hopes alive, helped by Victor Cruz setting two franchise receiving records and Ahmad Bradshaw running for two touchdowns. While neither team looked much like playoff material, the Giants (8-7) are now in position to win the NFC East with a victory at home next Sunday against Dallas.
"Given everything that was at stake, and all the noise that has been coming out of Florham Park," Giants co-owner John Mara said, "yeah, it means a little more."
Running back Brandon Jacobs said he had an exchange with Ryan after the game in which the coach approached him, used an expletive and said, "Wait till we win the Super Bowl."
Added Jacobs: "And I told him I'll punch him in the face. I told him out of all these Giants players on this team you're talking to the wrong one. And that was that."
Ryan acknowledged that he and Jacobs "had a private conversation. He doesn't like me; I respect him."
The back-and-forth went on even in the hours before the game, when Jacobs and kicker Lawrence Tynes both removed black curtains placed by the Jets over the Giants' Super Bowl logos. The Jets said it was simply their standard practice to cover those logos for every one of the team's home games, regardless of opponent, because it is the players' entrance.
"We knew early what we were going to get no matter what happened as soon as he had the opportunity to run his big fat mouth," Jacobs said of Ryan's boasts throughout the week.
Meanwhile, the Jets' playoff hopes took a devastating hit, and at 8-7 they'll need to win at Miami next week and get major help from several other teams. They have to hope for Cincinnati and Tennessee to lose, and have either Oakland or Denver lose.
"I mean, we don't deserve to control our own destiny," Jets linebacker Bart Scott said. "We haven't played good enough football to do that. We need to try to finish strong, but if you don't make it to the playoffs, you've got nobody to blame but yourself."
Cruz, who had three catches for 164 yards, broke Amani Toomer's single-season mark for yards receiving - and the team's record for longest touchdown reception, a 99-yarder that gave the Giants the lead for good in the second quarter.
"It's just amazing," Cruz said, "and to beat the Jets in the process is added incentive."
It was a brutal game at times, with both offenses sluggish and prone to mistakes. The Jets were also penalized 10 times, including a late hit call on Aaron Maybin , who plowed into D.J. Ware in the fourth quarter - a play on which Coughlin was injured out of bounds. The Giants coach needed to be checked out on the bench briefly before limping back to the sideline.
"Never better," a smiling Coughlin said when asked how he was feeling.
Eli Manning finished just 9 of 27 for 225 yards. Mark Sanchez completed 30 passes on a career-high 59 attempts but put up only 258 yards and was intercepted twice. The Jets were also a brutal 4 for 21 on third-down conversions.
"I left a lot of completions out there," Sanchez said.
The sloppiest stretch came midway through the fourth quarter with wild swings of momentum.
The Giants thought they had stopped the Jets on fourth down, but a pass interference call gave them new life. Plaxico Burress - playing against the Giants in the regular season for the first time since they cut him in 2009 and he served a 20-month prison sentence on a gun charge - thought he had scored a touchdown, but offensive pass interference called it back. The Giants thought they'd recovered a fumble by Sanchez, but officials reversed the call on a challenge, saying his arm was going forward.
The Giants got their turnover moments later, though, when Sanchez fumbled the snap in the end zone.
The Jets weren't done. David Harris intercepted Manning's pass that tipped off Hakeem Nicks ' hands, and the Jets had another apparent fumble by Sanchez reversed on review.
On third-and-12 from the 13, Sanchez scrambled for 11 yards - and Antrel Rolle was called for holding, putting the ball at the 1. Sanchez dived into the end zone, making it 20-14 with 7:17 left.
But the Jets wouldn't get any closer. Chris Canty sacked Sanchez for a safety, and after an onside free kick by the Jets was recovered by the Giants, Bradshaw had a 19-yard TD run with 2:04 left.
"It's real sad right now," Jets cornerback Darrelle Revis said. "We needed this win. We made some mistakes and they outplayed us."
Cruz's 99-yard catch - the longest scoring pass in team history - came with the Giants in dire straits facing third-and-10 from the 1. Manning, standing in the back of the end zone, zipped a pass to Cruz, who dodged tackle attempts by Antonio Cromartie and Kyle Wilson and took off down the right sideline. Eric Smith was the only one with a chance to get him, but Cruz outran him to give the Giants a 10-7 lead with 2:12 left in the opening half.
It was also the longest offensive play against the Jets in team history.
Now the Jets will prepare for the Dolphins - and keep their fingers crossed.
SI
Way forward for Caribbean football?
A nine-member normalisation committee appointed by FIFA, football’s world governing body, will attempt to straighten out the Caribbean Football Union (CFU).
Its appointment followed two days of meetings in Zurich hosted by FIFA president Sepp Blatter and chaired by Haitian Football Federation president Yves Jean-Bart.
Representatives from Haiti, Cuba, Grenada, Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Curacao and Jamaica were tasked with restoring the reputation of the region’s football authorities in the wake of the Mohammed Bin Hammam bribery scandal.
“I am very pleased that the representatives of the CFU have reached an agreement in order to move forward and to look into the future, for the good of the game in the region,” Blatter said in a statement.
The normalisation committee will double as the CFU’s executive committee until a new
one is appointed at the CFU’s ordinary congress in the first half of 2012.
The nine members will also convene an extraordinary congress in the meantime to appoint an interim general secretary as well as a legal, finance and football committees to steer the CFU back on course.
At a May meeting in Trinidad, former CFU and CONCACAF president Jack Warner allegedly offered 25 colleagues $40 000 each for their support of Bin Hammam in his failed bid to oust Blatter in the FIFA presidential race.
FIFA later handed down sanctions – mostly short-term bans, small fines and warnings – to the bulk of the CFU officials although the federation has yet to provide any explanations.
Injured Maria Sharapova expects to be fit for Australian Open
Maria Sharapova is confident of being fit for January's Australian Open despite pulling out of the Brisbane International with an ankle injury.
The Brisbane International is a warm-up event for the Australian Open, which begins on 16 January.
The Russian former world number one said: "Unfortunately my ankle is not 100% and I won't be able to make it.
"I do expect to be ready for the year's first Grand Slam and I am really looking forward to competing on court."
Sharapova, who has won Wimbledon and the US Open, clinched the last of her three Grand Slam singles titles at Melbourne Park in 2008.
However, she was beaten in the fourth round of the 2011 tournament by Germany's Andrea Petkovic.
Haiti migrants found dead off Cuba's coast
At least 38 migrants from Haiti have been found dead after their boat sank just off the eastern tip of Cuba, officials in Havana say.
Another 87 people from the boat were rescued, Cuban TV reported quoting civil defence officials.
It said the boast was spotted only 100m off shore. A search for more possible survivors is now under way.
Fatal incidents involving migrants from Haiti - the Western hemisphere's poorest nation - are not uncommon.
In 2009, US Coast Guard officials called off their search for about 70 migrants from Haiti whose boat capsized off the Turks and Caicos Islands.
In May 2007, at least 61 Haitian migrants died when a boat carrying 150 people sank off the Turks and Caicos, a British territory.
2011 Christmas Message By Premier Dr. The Hon. D. Orlando Smith
There is an old saying, love can move any mountain; it can weather the storm; and it can bring us back to where we belong.
This is the true spirit of the Virgin Islander. The legacy of our forefathers. The cornerstone of a Caribbean people and the true essence of Christmas.
Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you joyous greetings on this special day where we stop and reflect on the birth of our Lord.
On this day, we are reminded of our Creator´s love for all humankind and of the power of salvation through him.
On this day, our families gather together, to reminisce, give thanks, give gifts and express their love for each other by retelling the stories of old and reflecting on our experiences braved throughout the year.
On this day, our families are remembering the voices and faces of those who have passed, wishing they were here in person, but we are still thankful because their fond memories are in our hearts.
Today, in the spirit of love, let us remember all those who are less fortunate than ourselves. While we are here in our beautiful and relatively peaceful islands, there are those from throughout the world who suffer with poverty, disease and war.
Today, in the spirit of love, let us remember our brothers and sisters throughout the Caribbean who endured pain and devastation in myriad ways. To them, we offer our prayers.
I encourage all of us to take the time today to share the Christmas joy through a telephone call, or a visit.
There are many people among us who do not have extended families, so reach out to them today. Do not allow our busy lifestyles to erase the true meaning of Christmas.
There is no better way to express our thanks to God for the gift of his Son, than to offer our assistance to those in need. Whether it is a contribution made here in our own Territory, for those among us in need of a helping hand, or to those in need abroad, during this season of celebration and joy, giving of our time and ourselves should be our aim.
In my own reflections this Christmas Season, I am reminded this year, as every year, of the many challenges that confronts us in this Territory. I can assure you that my Government is working diligently to address them.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am reminded this year, as every year, of the many wonderful blessings that God has bestowed upon us.
God has given me personally so much to be thankful for: a loving family and dear friends. God has blessed me by making me a member of this loving community: the Virgin Islands. God has instilled in me the desire to serve my people - first as a doctor, now as your Premier. And He has seen fit to inspire in me a vision for our Territory and has brought me together with the dedicated and talented members of my Government who share this vision of putting the needs of the people and our country first.
As we get ready to say goodbye to 2011 and welcome 2012, let us embrace this day as a gift of life from God, our Creator. Let us today encourage a fresh inspiration in each other. Let us show genuine support and interest in the development of each other.
And, let us celebrate this Christmas, looking ahead with optimism and hope to a bright new year.
My Government, my wife Lorna, and my entire family join me in wishing all of you a safe and joyous season.
Merry Christmas to all of you!