RTC Director

Former Guyana lawmaker sentenced to life for terror plot at JFK airport

Abdul Kadir, a Guyanese who formerly served as a lawmaker in Guyana, was on Wednesday jailed for life by a federal judge in the Southern District of New York in Brooklyn.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Kadir tried to persuade the judge to impose a lighter sentence by stating that he was a peace-loving man who never wanted to harm Americans.

The JFK cargo handler, who was a People's National Congress parliamentarian in the Co-operative Republic, was found guilty on August 2, along with Russel De Freitas, a co-worker, after a month long trial, for plotting to blow up fuel tanks at the John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.

Federal agents arrested the two men and another after an informant infiltrated the terror plot and recorded them discussing it. Prosecutors contended that the men sought to help militant Muslims.

According to reports from Georgetown on Wednesday night, Kadir’s daughter, Sauda, told newsmen that her father planned to appeal since he did not get a fair trial.

by RTC Director

UN in talks to set up independent panel to probe origin of cholera in Haiti

The United Nations is exploring the establishment of an international scientific panel to look into the source of the cholera epidemic in Haiti.

“We are calling for an international panel and we are in discussions with WHO [the UN World Health Organization] to find the best experts to be in a panel, completely independent… [and] have the best investigation on the source of the outbreak,” the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), Alain Le Roy, told a press conference at UN Headquarters.

The Department later added that the secretary-general is in discussions with interested stakeholders, including WHO, and that the panel will be completely independent and will have full access to all UN premises and personnel. The specific terms of reference will be established in the coming days and the secretary-general may have more to say on this on Friday.

Haiti’s cholera epidemic, which broke out in October, has already killed more than 2,000 people, according to figures from Haiti’s Ministry of Health, with over 44,000 others hospitalized, even as the country struggles to recover from the January quake, which killed 200,000 people and displaced some 1.3 million others – most of whom are still living in crowded and unsanitary tent camps.

There have been widespread media reports claiming that UN peacekeepers from Nepal, serving with the UN stabilization mission in Haiti, are the likely source of the epidemic, with infected water having spread from their base into a nearby tributary of the Artibonite River.

Le Roy said experts who have studied the epidemic have so far come up with different theories on the origin of the infection.

“There is no consensus among scientists on this issue,” he noted.

The peacekeeping chief added that none of the Nepalese peacekeepers had tested positive for cholera or shown any symptoms of the disease, and that repeated analyses of water from their camp have not detected the strain of the disease blamed for the epidemic.

On the controversy surrounding the provisional results of the general elections in Haiti, Le Roy reiterated the need for all candidates to file any complaints through legal means and to help avoid further violence. Candidates had until 4:00 p.m. local time on Wednesday to lodge complaints with Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council, which has proposed setting up a special verification committee to adjudicate the complaints.

The Caribbean nation, which has been dealing with the aftermath of January’s devastating earthquake and the cholera outbreak, went to the polls on 28 November to elect the president, senators and members of parliaments in constituencies where elections were due. Incidents of violence have been reported amid allegations of ballot rigging by some candidates.

Protesters have accused the ruling government coalition of rigging the results. Provisional tallies put former first lady Mirlande Manigat and the candidate of the outgoing President Rene Préval’s party, Jude Celestin, in first and second place, thus qualifying for January’s run-off.

Popular musician Michel Martelly was less than one percentage point behind in third place, but thus excluded from the run-off, and his supporters have been involved in the burning o timber barricades, boulders and flaming tires.

The UN’s stabilization mission, known as MINUSTAH, with nearly 12,000 military and police personnel currently on the ground, has been in Haiti since mid-2004 after then president Jean-Bertrand Aristide went into exile amid violent unrest.

by RTC Director

Gonsalves sworn in as prime minister of St Vincent

Dr Ralph Gonsalves of the Unity Labour Party (ULP) was on Wednesday morning sworn in as prime minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines for a third consecutive five-year term.

The National Broadcasting Corporation said that about 60 persons, including Governor General Sir Frederick Ballantyne, Gonsalves’ family, the ULP candidates in Monday’s elections, and the nation’s diplomats, were present at Government House where Gonsalves took the Oath of Allegiance, the Oath of Office, and the Oath of Secrecy.

Education Minister Girlyn Miguel, the four-time winner of the Marriaqua constituency, was sworn in as the nation’s first female deputy prime minister, while public servant Judith Jones Morgan was retained as attorney general, also for a third term.

Gonsalves said that the other members of his Cabinet will be sworn on Saturday at the playing field in the Central Leeward town of Layou, where first-time candidate, former teacher turned diplomat, Maxwell Charles, retained the seat for the ULP.

Sir Frederick, in congratulating Gonsalves, said, “Sir, I know you are well aware of the onerous task facing you as you seek to build this nation over the next five years.”

The head of state said that Monday’s general elections, in which the ULP won eight of the 15 parliamentary seats while the New Democratic Party won the other seven, were probably “the most intensely fought election, at least in my memory.”

“Suffice to say, that the elections are now over and our challenge is to unite the country. From the elections, I think we all can say that democracy is alive and well in St Vincent and the Grenadines. There might be election petitions but we are a nation of laws, and, if there are, the court will have to deal with them and we will have to be guided by the orders given from the court of laws,” he said.

Sir Frederick appealed to his “brothers and sisters” from the ULP, the NDP and the Green Party “to all see this nation as our nation.”

“It belongs to all of us and if we work together, we will progress. If we don’t, then it will hamper our progress,” he said.

He noted that Gonsalves is prime minister of the nation’s 106,000 residents, adding, “…we look to you for guidance and look to you to take the initiative to bring this nation together.”

Gonsalves said that the victory, in which his party got 32,200 of the 62,289 votes or 51.25 percent, compared to the NDP’s 30,012 votes -- 48.18 percent -- and the Green Party’s 145 votes -- 0.23 percent -- was the “sweetest” of his three election triumphs.

“It is the narrowest of the three victories but it is the sweetest because of the nature of the campaign waged against my party and against me personally. For ten years, there has been a campaign of personal vilification, of falsehood, of defamation, of innuendo, of scurrility, there have been concocted stories, a bitterness generated, which is unprecedented in our politics,” Gonsalves said.

Gonsalves said he was again extending to the opposition the hand of friendship he offered during his victory speech Monday night.

He noted that election watchers, including the Organisation of American States (OAS) observer mission, had said that the elections were free and fair.

The OAS, in a preliminary statement, said its ten-member delegation visited every polling station in the multi-island nation.

“In every case observed, the polls opened on time and had the requisite materials and polling officials. In the morning, there were long lines of voters who patiently waited to exercise their franchise. The presiding officers, poll clerks, party agents and police worked harmoniously throughout the long day, helping citizens to find their polling stations and ensuring an organized and peaceful environment,” the OAS said.

Gonsalves said his government will focus on the ten policies outlined during the election campaign as well as the rebuilding after Hurricane Tomas, which devastated the northern part of the island at the end of October.

“There will be no discrimination whatsoever on political or any other ground in respect of fixing people’s houses and proving for them in every material way until they get themselves back on their feet, this goes for the farmers also,” he said.

by RTC Director