GOVERNOR PRAISES LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIALS
Speaking at the annual service to mark the work of law enforcement officers on Sunday 18 January at the Church of God of Prophecy in Providenciales, His Excellency the Governor praised all the officials for their work.
“Too often the work of key staff in the public sector is under-rated and under-valued, “ the Governor said. “I am delighted that the churches of Turks and Caicos take it in turn to celebrate the contribution of officers ranging from the police and fire forces to customs and border control. A clear mark of the value of that work was the award of an Honour to the Permanent Secretary of the Department of Border Control and Labour in the Queen’s Honours. That award should be seen as a recognition of the work of everyone in her Department.”
The Governor also highlighted the focus on the police forces of the world, of which the TCI was a part. While he hoped that Turks and Caicos would never see the dreadful terrorism acts in Paris earlier this month, every member of the Royal Turks and Islands Police Force needed to ask themselves whether they could match the fitness, marksmanship and efficiency of the French police, who had saved their country from a far worse outcome.
“Although the events of Paris may seem light years away from us, we all need to recognise how dependent we are similarly on the bravery of our Police Force, who are part of the international community of police dedicated to preserving and protecting peace in our community” the Governor concluded.
New Permanent Secretary and Deputy Secretary Appointed
TCIG completed interviews held during the month of December for Permanent Secretaries, the Turks and Caicos Islands Government (TCIG) announced to RTC News the formal appointment of Ian Astwood as Permanent Secretary and Desmond Lightbourne as Deputy Secretary.
Deputy Governor, Anya Williams stated "Mr. Astwood having previously served as Deputy Secretary and later Acting Permanent Secretary, Government Support Services has been formally appointed to the post of Permanent Secretary from a pool of four applicants for that post and Mr. Wilson who was formally appointed as Deputy Secretary from a pool of 16 applicants for the post of Deputy Secretary, Border Control.
"I would like to congratulate them both, and reiterate how important it is for TCIG to continue to recruit the best and most talented to civil service."
These persons as a result of the new restructuring exercise announced by the Premier last week will now transition into the new Ministry of Home Affairs, Transportation and Communication and the Ministry of Infrastructure, Housing and Planning respectively.
John Kerry hails coalition effort in Islamic State
Coalition air strikes in Syria and Iraq have halted or reversed the momentum of jihadist group Islamic State, US Secretary of State John Kerry has said.
Speaking after talks in London between 21 coalition states, Mr Kerry said about half the group's leaders had been killed since strikes began in August.
The UK foreign secretary said the coalition was determined to defeat IS.
But Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi warned falling oil prices could hurt Iraq's fighting capacity.
Mr Abadi thanked the coalition for providing training to his forces but said it needed more help with the supply of weapons.
BBC diplomatic correspondent James Robbins says the recent attacks by Islamist militants in France have put even greater political pressure on governments to show decisive results.
As well as the US, UK and Iraq, the talks included Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and Spain.
Gulf coalition partners Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the UAE also took part.
Speaking after the talks, Mr Kerry said: "In recent months we have seen definitively... momentum halted in Iraq and in some cases reversed."
After nearly 2,000 air strikes, ground forces had reclaimed some 700 sq km (270 sq m) of territory, he told the news conference.
At the start of the coalition air strikes, the group was thought to control nearly 91,000 sq km of territory across Syria and Iraq.
Source-BBC
'Islamist cyber attacks' hit France
Numerous French media websites have gone down a day after warnings of a wave of Islamist cyber attacks.
The sites of Le Parisien, Marianne and 20 Minutes were among those affected, although most were soon restored.
The French government said some 20,000 sites had been targeted after terror attacks in Paris left 17 dead.
The media sites' web host said that it was investigating whether it was one of them but it has ruled out an external distributed denial of service attack.
On Thursday, the head of cyber security for the French military, Vice Admiral Arnaud Coustilliere, said that "structured" groups and "well known Islamist hackers" were behind the attacks against the 20,000 sites, but did not elaborate.
The outage among the media websites began the following day. It is not yet known if the two are linked.
The web host Oxalide told the BBC that no line of enquiry was being dismissed, but that its initial investigations had ruled out the possibility of an external distributed denial of service attack.
Such an attack involves flooding servers with requests to render the target site, thereby causing it to fail to load.
The company told the BBC it was still in the process of determining who was behind the attack.
It said it would release a report in the early afternoon on Friday. None was forthcoming at the time of publication.
That came after the vice admiral said he believed the first wave of attacks was a retaliation against Sunday's solidarity march in Paris, itself held in response to the Paris terror attacks.
According to to Agence France-Presse (AFP), he said "people who do not adhere to a certain number of values" expressed on that march were to blame.
Vice admiral Coustilliere added that some of the first wave of cyber attacks involved French army regiments and that the defence ministry "has decided to boost its security vigilance".
Besides the three named above, AFP reported that Friday's outage affected the websites of L'Express, Mediapart and France Info.
Those for France Inter, Slate and ZDNet were also among those affected from around 8am GMT on Friday.
Source-BBC
Oscars head Isaacs calls for more diversity after row
The president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts says she would like to see more diversity in Oscar nominations, after a row about this year's nominees.
All 20 contenders in the main acting categories are white and there are no female nominees in the directing or writing categories.
The Academy, which picks the contenders, has faced strong criticism.
But Cheryl Boone Isaacs said she was proud of the nominees and that the body was "making strides" towards diversity.
Ms Boone Isaacs, who is the first African-American president of the Academy, told AP the organisation is "committed to seeking out diversity of voice and opinion''.
In the last two years, we've made greater strides than we ever have in the past toward becoming a more diverse and inclusive organisation through admitting new members and more inclusive classes of members,'' she said.
She added she would "love to see" greater diversity among the nominees.
After the nominees were announced, people mocked the make-up of the awards using the "OscarsSoWhite" hashtag.
There has been much focus on Martin Luther King biopic Selma, with director Ava DuVernay and star David Oyelowo both missing out.
At the Critics' Choice award, another Selma actor, Wendell Pierce, said there would be "amazement" Oyelowo was not nominated once people saw the film.
But Ms Boone Isaacs said acclaim for Selma was reflected in its Best Picture nomination, which is chosen by all the academy members.
She said that while the Academy continued to make efforts to become more diverse, the wider industry needed to do the same.
"We hope the film industry will also make strides toward becoming more diverse and inclusive.''
Individual branches of the Academy choose the nominees, with actors choosing the acting categories, for example.
The more than 7,000 members then vote for a winner.
Birdman and The Grand Budapest Hotel lead the race for this year's Oscars with nine nominations each.
Source-BBC
Obama to seek tax raises on wealthy in State of the Union
President Obama is to use Tuesday's State of the Union speech to call for tax increases on the wealthy to help the middle class, officials say.
The proposals would raise $320 billion (£211 billion) over a decade, to fund benefits such as tax credits.
The speech is the centrepiece of the US political diary and may shape both Mr Obama's legacy and the 2016 election.
But the president faces resistance to his proposals, with Republicans controlling both Houses of Congress.
With the US economy growing, President Obama will stress that it is time for ordinary US families to feel the benefits.
According to US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, the plans include:
Closing a loophole allowing the wealthiest Americans to pass on certain assets tax free
Raising capital gains tax on the richest earners from 23.8% to 28%
New fees on US financial firms with more than $50 billion (£33 billion) in assets
The revenues would raise more than enough to fund the proposed benefits for the middle class, according to the officials.
These include tripling child tax credits, help for families with two working spouses and extra incentives to save for retirement.
There's growing confidence in the White House about the strength of America's economic recovery - as President Obama told the UK Prime Minister David Cameron last week, "we must be doing something right".
But there's also an awareness that for many middle class Americans wages still feel stagnant.
A growing theme in US politics is the need to make sure the economic recovery extends to all and that there's social mobility for those with aspirations.
Of course, as well as the freedom afforded him by the improving economic picture, there's also the fact that the president isn't seeking re-election himself.
It means Mr Obama can help set the political weather for the 2016 election, even though he knows these new tax rises will provoke opposition in the new Republican Congress.
Still, there's a desire not to frighten the horses too much. The White House is stressing 99% of these increases will fall on the richest 1%.
The speech is also set to include a plan to expanding free community college education and proposals on cyber-security.
The State of the Union speech will be President Obama's first since the Republicans seized control of the two Houses of Congress at elections last November.
Source-BBC
Messi scores three, before a Deportivo own goal
Lionel Messi scored the 30th hat-trick of his Barcelona career as his side beat Deportivo La Coruna to move one point behind leaders Real Madrid.
The Argentina forward, who missed out on winning the Ballon d'Or to Real's Cristiano Ronaldo on Monday, opened the scoring with a looping header.
He netted again when he collected Neymar's pass and dinked the ball over home goalkeeper Fabricio Agosto.
Messi grabbed his third with a low shot, before an own goal from Sidnei.
Ex-Barcelona winger Isaac Cuenca had a chance for Deportivo but shot over when the score was 2-0, although the hosts were comprehensively outclassed.
It was a dominant performance from Luis Enrique's Barca, who had 68% possession and 14 attempts at goal with the only surprise being that they scored only four.
The future of Messi, La Liga's all-time record goalscorer, has been questioned recently after he said "I don't know where I'll be next year", although Enrique then insisted he would not sell the 27-year-old.
Messi has now scored six of his side's last eight league goals and Barcelona's victory was their 14th in 19 league matches this season.
Source-BBC
Islamic State Group Releases 200 Iraqi Yazidis
The Islamic State group has released at least 200 Yazidis after five months of captivity in Iraq.
Islamic State fighters transported the freed Yazidis by bus to Hawaija, 55 kilometers southwest of Kirkuk, and from there they took cars to the Khaled Bureau District some 25 kilometers away where they entered Kirkuk.
Officials said almost all of those released Saturday were elderly or sick, including several children, and nearly all bore signs of abuse and neglect.
Gen. Shirko Fatih, commander of Kurdish peshmerga forces in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, said it appears the militants released the prisoners because they were too much of a burden.
"It probably became too expensive to feed them and care for them,"he told The Associated Press.
Islamic State fighters attacked the Yazidis in August, forcing thousands of them to flee to Sinjar mountain.
Islamic State militants declare most people in their path infidels, but seem to reserve a special wrath for those of the Yazidi faith.
In their advance across Iraq, Islamic State fighters have summarily shot and killed Yazidi men, kidnapped women and girls, and boasted of selling them as slaves. Recent guidelines by the Islamic State group detail the types of sexual and other assault that slaves may be subjected to.
Many Yazidi villages remain under Islamic State control.
Source-VOA
Boko Haram Kidnaps Dozens in Cameroon
Officials in Cameroon say Boko Haram militants kidnapped at least 60 people Sunday in a cross-border raid from Nigeria.
The officials say several people who tried to stop the militants were killed and about 80 homes were burned to the ground.
Cameroon's Information Minister Issa Tchiroma Bakary called the kidnappers barbaric and lawless and said nothing can stop them from killing.
The kidnappings, which included children, came a day after Chad sent thousands of troops into Cameroon to help fight Boko Haram - the Nigerian Islamic militant group that African officials say is quickly becoming a threat to the entire region.
Boko Haram has been seizing territory along the border between Nigeria and Chad. It recently took control of a military base near the shores of Lake Chad, killing a number of villagers.
United States Eases Travel And Trade Rules On Cuba
Swiftly expanding trade ties with Cuba, the Obama administration opened the door to easier travel and a wide range of new export opportunities with the communist island starting last Friday, punching the biggest hole to date in America's half-century-old embargo.
Less than a month after the Cold War foes agreed to end their enmity, the US Commerce and Treasury departments unveiled new rules last Thursday permitting US citizens to visit Cuba without special permits.
Most US travellers still will be required to go on supervised group trips, but now virtually any US company or organisation can offer such trips without the paperwork and inspections that discouraged past expansion of travel to Cuba.
Some tour operators, already seeing unprecedented interest in legal travel to Cuba, expect some tourists to simply ignore the restrictions.
American companies also now will be permitted to export telephones, computers and Internet technology, and to send supplies to private Cuban firms.
However, Cuban authorities have said nothing about the restrictions they might impose on US products entering a country that has long frustrated foreign investors with red tape and tapped-out infrastructure.
The changes are the latest step in President Barack Obama's plan to rebuild relations with Cuba after a history marred by suspicion, espionage and conflict. The new regulations come three days after US officials confirmed the release of 53 political prisoners Cuba had promised to free.
The US is now "one step closer to replacing out-of-date policies", Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said Thursday. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the new rules "immediately enable the American people to provide more resources to empower the Cuban population to become less dependent upon the state-driven economy".
They also allow US citizens to start bringing home small amounts of Cuban cigars, long adored by aficionados but banned under US law. The limit is US$100 for alcohol and tobacco products and US$400 in total goods.
Only Congress can fully end the 54-year embargo. Obama announced last month he would soften the restrictions, arguing that "these 50 years have shown that isolation has not worked".
The new spirit of cooperation emerged after 18 months of secret talks that culminated in the exchange of imprisoned spies and the release of Alan Gross, a US government contractor who had been imprisoned in Cuba for five years.
The few US companies facilitating travel to Cuba say inquiries have exploded since December and American visits are expected to surge this year from about 90,000 annually.
"We're hiring more people. We've secured more hotel rooms and assets in Cuba to provide additional travel," said Tom Popper, president of New York-based insightCuba.
Hotels in Havana and elsewhere generally fall short of international standards, and those with better food and service are almost always fully booked during the winter high season. So the tourism surge could be challenging.
"American tourists are really demanding," said Maikel Gonzalez, a 34-year-old hotel receptionist in Havana.
"How do I explain to one that the taxi didn't come because it doesn't have tyres or that there's no water in the rooms?"
Cubans also can legally rent out their homes or apartments, which could mean money outside of state control going to private citizens - something American officials say they want.
Most of the other possible changes now depend on Cuban President Raul Castro's government.
US officials say American companies will have to weigh for themselves the risks of their exports colliding with Cuban bans.
Profitability is another issue. Foreign companies operating in Cuba currently deal almost entirely with state-owned firms that are notoriously slow, inefficient and short on cash.
Also casting a shadow on potential deals is the possibility of litigation by Cuban-Americans and US firms whose property was confiscated in Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution. Some may sue companies entering into business with the Cuban government.
In Washington, Congress may also seek to erect barriers to new investment.
The sudden rapprochement between Cold War foes has divided US lawmakers. Republican Marco Rubio of Florida and Democrat Bob Menendez of New Jersey, both Cuban-Americans, have been particularly opposed.
But some business groups have welcomed the opportunity to open a new export market in a country 90 miles from Florida. Thomas Donohue, head of the US Chamber of Commerce, said last Wednesday it was better for the US to sell computers, smartphones and cars to Cuba than to cede such business to countries like Russia and China.
Cuba is already awash in American products brought in people's luggage, including iPhones and flat-screen TVs. The main barriers to Internet access are high prices and restrictions imposed by a government desperate for hard currency and worried about allowing citizens unrestricted communications. It's unclear if Cuba's government has grown more comfortable providing such access.
Cuban officials are keen on greater travel by American tourists and the hundreds of thousands of Cuban-Americans who currently visit the island each year under a general licence.
American officials stress that a general travel prohibition for Americans remains in force. Travellers must certify compliance with US laws with airlines in advance, officials say, and investigators can demand to see records and documents up to five years after a trip is made. Infractions can incur penalties.
But the 12 categories of people now allowed to visit to Cuba are broad. Months after the musicians Jay-Z and Beyonce went to Havana, a Treasury Department auditor declared their trip legal under rules allowing educational travel. They visited an art school and a local theatre group.
And cracking down on violators under the new arrangement may prove difficult.
"It's basically unenforceable," said John McAuliff, executive director of the Fund for Reconciliation and Development, a non-governmental organisation that arranges trips to Cuba.
Source- AP