Messi under 'terrible pressure' in Copa America
Lionel Messi is probably under the greatest pressure of his career, having been blamed for Argentina's poor performances in their first two games at the Copa America.
His teammates, however, are coming to his defence and coach Sergio Batisa is expected to change his line-up for Monday's decisive match against Costa Rica, bringing in Gonzalo Higuain, Sergio Aguero and Angel Di Maria and taking out Carlos Tevez, Ezequiel Lavezzi and either Ever Banega or Esteban Cambiasso.
Messi's father, Jorge, said yesterday his son was under "terrible pressure" and was upset when he and his teammates were booed off the field following Wednesday's 0-0 draw against Colombia.
"Leo is really down about this," his father told Radio 10. "He can't understand how this happened. It's the first time they've whistled at him."
Twice voted the world's best player, Messi has done very little in two games and his team has scored only one goal.
Unthinkable
The Barcelona star was expected to help Argentina win their first major title in 18 years. Instead, the Gauchos must defeat what amounts to a second-string Costa Rica team Monday. A loss and Argentina will almost surely fail to make the knockout stage, unthinkable for the host country, which views itself among football's top half-dozen powers.
Costa Rica and Mexico are using mostly under-23 Olympic-style squads in this tournament because they are not part of the South American confederation and are playing as guests teams to boost the field to 12. Their full-strength teams played in the Gold Cup last month in the United States.
"Barcelona is another story," his father added. "It's a team that's been together for four years. The (Argentine) national team cannot match that. Playing in the Copa America at home in your own country is terrible pressure."
Messi walked through a light training session yesterday, nursing a sore right ankle. He will play Monday, but he will have different teammates.
"I'm think of changing the system," Batista said in a column yesterday for the newspaper Clarin. "Messi is going to be the playmaker and play very close to his forwards."
Barcelona and Argentina midfielder Javier Mascherano said it was unfair to blame only Messi, who is a bit of a stranger in Argentina. He left his native country for Spain when he was 12, has never played for a popular Argentine club and has a reserved personality that leaves some Argentines cold.
"It's not Messi's fault we are not playing well," Mascherano said. "We're not playing well as a team."
"If after the game they (fans) insult you, they have a right to do it," he added. "We are aware of the situation, and it depends on us to turn it around. Beginning Monday, we start another Copa America."
$300m in VAT owed
MORE THAN $300 million in Value Added Tax (VAT) was owed to the Barbados government as of last May 21.
And according to Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs Chris Sinckler, there were vast insufficiencies in the current VAT legislation regarding debt recovery.
In delivering the feature address during the official launch of the Barbados VAT and Excise Tax Administration System (VETAS) yesterday at the Accra Beach Hotel, Sinckler described taxes owed to almost all of government’s revenue collecting agencies as “astronomical”.
He said the VAT arrears included principal, penalties and interest.
“This is very undesirable as it is unsustainable and particularly unacceptable.
“A review of the VAT legislation has highlighted an overwhelming inadequacy in terms of the powers it grants for actual debt recovery and related activities so necessary to a modern VAT administration to operate an effective arrears regime,” Sinckler said.
Source:Nation.News
Over 700 Haitian Physicians Graduated from Cuba’s Caribbean School of Medicine
With the graduation this week of 115 new Haitian physicians, the number of young doctors from that country who have graduated from the Santiago de Cuba-based Caribbean School of Medicine rises to 731.
This cooperation project, conceived by Fidel Castro 12 years ago, had its first graduation in 2005 and there are currently another 291 youths from Haiti receiving training there with the purpose of graduating one thousand Haitian doctors in medicine in a decade.
The rector of the school, Dr. Rosa Delia Deconger, told Granma newspaper that there are also more than 100 residents on their second specialty, mainly Pediatrics, Surgery, Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Cardiology.
The Caribbean School of Medicine was founded almost 31 years ago and it has already graduated 4,812 physicians, including 1,051 doctors from 25 nations, mainly from the Caribbean and Africa. (ACN)
Grenada PM looking for greater Caribbean/Latin American ties
Grenada’s Prime Minister Tillman Thomas is interested is further cementing ties with Venezuela and other South American countries, which can help Grenada develop its energy resource sector.
“We really want to see that community of Latin America and the Caribbean become more of a reality whereby the more developed countries in South America could assist us,” Thomas said on Tuesday at a function commemorating the 200th anniversary of independence of Venezuela.
According to the prime minister, countries such as Venezuela, Brazil and Argentina may have more advanced technology in matters of energy that could be useful in assisting Grenada, which has “the potential for alternative sources of energy but we do not have the technology.”
Thomas was among several ministers who attended the function at the residence of Venezuela’s Ambassador to Grenada, Carlos Amador Perez Silva.
Other guests included Governor General Sir Carlyle Glean; members of the local diplomatic corps; and representatives of the business community and the labour movement.
“I really want to congratulate the government and people of Venezuela on celebrating 200 years of independence,” Thomas said. “Historically, we in the English-speaking Caribbean have been looking to North America and Europe. In recent times, we’ve been strengthening cooperation between South America and the Caribbean, and Venezuela has been playing a key role.”
Thomas said Grenada and Venezuela have always had good relations, and highlighted areas of assistance from the Venezuelans such as the construction of the Simon Bolivar Low-income Housing Project; the General Hospital Rebuilding Project; the provision of education scholarships for Grenadians; and the PetroCaribe initiative.
“PetroCaribe is something that we welcome,” the prime minister said. “Grenada and all the other member-territories that are in PetroCaribe have benefitted substantially from it. Of course, in the long run, the countries will have to pay back the loan. But at the same time, monies are being made available for other projects and programs.”
Education Minister Franka Bernadine substituted on Tuesday evening for Foreign Minister Karl Hood, who was representing Grenada at independence celebrations in Venezuela.
The acting foreign minister said that as an independent nation, Venezuela has made tremendous strides.
“Given the remarkable socio-economic and political progress made over the past 200 years, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela certainly has much to be proud of,” said Bernadine.
Grenada, she said, is “extremely grateful for the meaningful contributions made to our national development” by the government and people of Venezuela.
Ambassador Perez, in a comment to the Government Information Service, said the independence anniversary was more than just another celebration.
“I believe the most important thing at this particular time is that this year, we’re going to have a summit in Venezuela that is looking at the creation of a Latin American and Caribbean state community,” Perez disclosed. “I believe this is going to be a historical landmark for the region.”
The ambassador said Grenada/Venezuela relations are at an “excellent level,” announcing that “important projects of cooperation will begin soon, such as the second phase of the General Hospital and the complete refurbishment of the St George’s Market Square.”
For trade union leader, Senator Chester Humphrey, the independence commemoration was an opportunity to reflect on what he described as the anti-colonial revolutionary struggle of the Venezuelan people.
“What is even more historical and important is that today we have a government in Venezuela that epitomizes that struggle as led by President Chavez. It’s yet another high point in the universal struggle of people for national liberation and for national sovereignty and that, to me, is really important,” said Humphrey, president general of the Technical and Allied Workers Union.
Hundreds of patients exposed to radiation overdose in T&T
More than 200 patients have been exposed to overdoses of radiation treatment due to malfunctioning equipment at the Brian Lara Cancer Treatment Centre, Health Minister Dr Fuad Khan has said.
Dr Khan and Chief Medical Officer Dr Anton Cumberbatch said that the patients were exposed to higher levels of radiation during treatment for cancer at the centre over a one-year period because a radiation treatment machine at the centre was miscalibrated.
They said that 223 patients treated for cancer were exposed to more radiation than was required from the machine. According to the health officials, the patients were exposed to overdoses of radiation between four and 20 per cent higher than what was supposed to have been administered to them.
Dr Khan said that in September last year, a Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) radiation and protection safety team came to Trinidad and Tobago to assist in an investigation involving the machine.
The team confirmed the machine had been miscalibrated and administered overdoses of radiation to patients for a year.
The problems with the machine — called a CLINAC linear accelerator — were resolved.
Dr Khan said several recommendations were made to the ministry which included formally writing the centre's management to follow up on "223 possibly exposed patients" and to enact legislation to regulate the operations of radiation therapy facilities.
Dr Khan, meanwhile, urged patients treated within the period to contact the centre.
"We hope the 223 patients, if they have not yet been contacted by the Brain Lara Cancer Centre in that period, should do so and get whatever checks needed to determine whether or not there was any over-exposure or any mal-affects from that radiation."
Dr Cumberbatch said the centre was instructed to contact patients and that the ministry was monitoring the situation.
"When you get exposed to radiation, the question of monitoring patients extends from a period of three to five years, so it is possible that for the immediate first year or six months, there may not be any symptoms at all."
The relative of one former patient has already taken legal action against Medcorp Ltd, the operators of the cancer treatment centre.
Health officials would give no details yesterday about the legal action.
Last year, the widow of bar owner Ricardo 'Smokey' McKenzie called on the Ministry of Health to release the PAHO report on the Cancer Treatment Centre after her husband died in December 2010 at a hospital in Florida following radiation treatment for a brain tumour.
Prior to his death, McKenzie was treated at the Brian Lara Cancer Treatment Centre as part of a follow-up procedure to have surgery to remove the brain tumour.
His widow Lisa McKenzie said a pathology report on a mass removed from McKenzie's brain during a second surgery showed it to be once-healthy brain tissue that suffered radiation necrosis — the death of healthy cells caused by radiation.
The centre, opened in 2007, is named after cricket star Brian Lara.
Internet streaming firm Netflix expanding to the Caribbean
The Internet on-demand media distributor, Netflix, is to launch streaming services in 43 Caribbean and Latin American "later this year", the firm said here.
Subscribers in there region will be able to access American, global and local TV shows and movies in Spanish, Portuguese and English, the company added.
Netflix, currently available only in the US and Canada, allows subscribers to watch video content over a Web connection on computers, mobile devices, game consoles and televisions connected to set-top boxes.
"We feel great about being able to offer the same combination of convenience, choice and value to people in Mexico, Central America, South America and the Caribbean," said Jessie Becker, the company's vice president of marketing.
Netflix's expansion into the Americas is the latest step in the growth of the 14-year-old company which began as a DVD mail order rental service and has become a significant player in the fast-growing streaming media industry.
Netflix, which penetrated the Canadian market last year, now has more than 23 million subscribers in North America, the company said.
The new markets will be provided a streaming-only service rather than the DVD mail rental operation which Netflix said was costlier to operate. By 2007, when Netflix began its on-demand streaming service, the company had already passed its billionth DVD delivery.
Jay-Z Gives Press Taste of Kanye Collabo ‘Watch the Throne’
Below, writer Theo Spielberg of AOL’s The Boombox gives a detailed account of Jay-Z’s exclusive listening party for “Watch the Throne, his anticipated new album with one-time protégé Kanye West.
The lobby of the Mercer Hotel was crowded with industry types on Thursday night (July 7): various members of the press, music journalists, bloggers, magazine reps and then two teen boys, who sat with their parents conspicuously.
The miniature mob, at the behest of a publicist, crowded into an elevator — thick with the smell of marijuana smoke — in two tightly packed shifts. Everyone in attendance was there to listen to Jay-Z’s most recent collaboration with Kanye West — the hotly anticipated and oft pushed-back dual album ‘Watch the Throne.’
The previously mentioned teenagers were the first two to pre-order the album, thus receiving an invite to the exclusive listening party. The boys as well as the crowd filed into Hova’s hotel room in neat single file to find him sitting alone on a chair and, in the most literal sense of the phrase, “straight chillin’.”
The Brooklyn MC — without West due to his attendance at Paris Fashion Week Haute Couture — had a makeshift studio set-up in the room, also pervaded by the smell of pot. The Mercer Hotel is the most recent in a list of recording destinations that includes L.A., Paris, Bath (England), Australia and assorted other locations in New York City. The industry whisper in the small elevator was that Jigga and West recorded in a hotel room because, after every studio session, tracks were “mysteriously” leaked.
Jay switched on some afro-pop for mood music as alternate people around the room took turns yelling, “Swag!” He quieted the room and singled out the second teenager to pre-order the album. “Yo, this is the first time No. 2 won anything,” Jay-Z mused. He then invited the stragglers in the doorway to come sit on the floor campfire style, as people introduced themselves in a clockwise fashion, all while the rapper popped a cork on a bottle.
The only way to describe the music heard is maximalist, everything all the time. We’re talking finger tapping and NASA samples here. Remember that Swizz Beatz track, ‘On to the Next One’ from ‘The Blueprint 3′? Well, that is essentially the jumping off point for this new batch of tracks. The hard, unrelenting wall of sound that was ‘H.A.M.’ serves as a rough blueprint for ‘Watch the Throne,’ though Jay-Z is quick to qualify the song as the technical peak of his and Kanye’s combined musical experience, yet dismissing it with the sober wisdom of “You definitely don’t want to go ‘H.A.M.’ in the house.” Nonetheless, it seems both artists have hit their baroque period.
‘H.A.M.,’ the only official release from the ‘Watch the Throne’ sessions, has served as something as a yardstick by which they have measured the rest of the album. According to Jay, they started out huge, in the hard-as-a-motherf—– vein. They have since then continued to dial-down the intensity and are on the third incarnation of this much-delayed album. The philosophical posed by ‘H.A.M.’ and dealt with by the rest of the album is this: “Can something be artistically brilliant and yet unenjoyable?”
The songs that hit the hardest on ‘Watch the Throne’ are those that are comparatively of medium to soft intensity — meaning they are still pretty intense. He channels the ’70s soul of Otis Redding, on a song tentatively entitled ‘Otis,’ a la ‘The Blueprint,’ to great effect. Beyonce and Frank Ocean, among others, make appearances on the 15-plus tracks Jay-Z played during the night.
Lyrically, the album is incredibly rich, including a song where Kanye goes down the laundry list of his less-than-savory qualities that he urges his unborn son to steer clear of. Musically, the true standout track samples the famously transcendent ‘Ave Maria’ over speedy quarter note triplets to astounding effect.
All the while, Jay-Z sat in his chair vibing to his tracks. Say what you will about the album title, Jay-Z isn’t watching the throne, he’s sitting in it comfortably.
Source:EUR
Nicki Minaj Denies Leaked ‘We Miss You’ is About Cousin
Nicki Minaj is denying rumors that she released a new song paying tribute to her late cousin, insisting the leaked track was recorded “over a year ago.”
As previously reported, Nicholas Telemaque was shot and killed early Monday (July 4) after leaving a club in his native Brooklyn, New York.
An emotional track – titled “We Miss You,” about the death of a loved one – popped up today on the internet, prompting reports she was honoring Telemaque in the tune. Lyrics include: “You said that you would leave these streets, and I know you didn’t mean in a body bag/But now we see you were not bulletproof, and I’m mad ’cause you were the best that I ever had.” [Scroll down to listen.]
Taking to Twitter today, Minja writes, “Tho the lyrics of We Miss You eerily depict the circumstances surrounding my cousin’s death, I wrote & recorded that song on 5/24/2010.
“It was sent to Mariah Carey & Keyshia Cole over a year ago for a possible feature. It didn’t make Pink Friday due to clearance issues. Its an unauthorized leak.”
Minaj goes on to thank fans for their continued support as she mourns her cousin’s death, adding, “Thank u All for your kind words and well wishes. Love.”
New York police have launched an investigation into Telemaque’s death but have yet to make any arrests.
Rapper Ghostface Sued Over ‘Iron Man’ Samples
Hollywood composer Jack Urbont filed a lawsuit against Sony Music Entertainment and rapper Ghostface Killah for illegally sampling his “Iron Man Theme,” originally created for the 1960s television show, “The Marvel Super Heroes.”
Urbont is a veteran actor and producer on Broadway as well as the creator of theme music for “Guiding Light,” “One Life to Live,” “General Hospital,” as well as music for “That 70′s Show,” “Oprah,” “20/20” and “The View.”
Ghostface, who titled his first album “Iron Man,” is alleged to have copied verbatim” the Urbont-written “Iron Man Theme” on two tracks from his second album, “Supreme Clientele.”
The album was released back in 2000 (way before the recent Jon Favreau-directed movies) and it’s unclear why it took Urbont so long to sue.
The Hollywood Reporter notes…
Much of the case is a typical copyright infringement claim, but Urbont throws in an unusual unfair competition allegation that caught our attention.
According to the complaint: “Defendant Ghostface is also known for the nickname, ‘Tony Starks,’ which is a take-off of the name ‘Tony Stark,’ Iron Man’s real name and true identity. In this way, Defendants’ use of Urbont’s ‘Iron Man Theme’ gives them a substantial commercial advantage by linking Ghostface to Iron Man without paying for it.”
Alleged unlawful activity aggravated by use of nickname — that’s a new one.
Terry McMillan: Follow up to ‘Waiting to Exhale’ Almost Ready
The sequel to “Waiting to Exhale” is bout ready to start.
At the Essence Music Festival, the author Terry McMillian said she’s working on the third draft of a script and hopes to have it finished by July.
“This won’t be on the screen until sometime in 2012 though,” she warns.
McMillan broke the story on Twitter a few months ago, tweeting, “We are working on the script for ‘HAPPY.’ Will know in about a month or so when we’ll begin production.”
And on Whitney Houston, she’s still hopeful she’ll come around and recover in time.
“We’ll know soon enough,” she said. “I’ve been told that’s she wants to do it, and I think the studio wants her to do it. We all want her to do it… I just hope she’s healthy.”