Rowley - Protocol breaches embarrassed us
The Office of the Leader of the Opposition Dr Keith Rowley today issues a statement, claiming that Government had committed a series of embarrassing protocol breaches during the State visit of the President of China Xi Jinping.
President Jinping arrived in Trinidad on Friday and left on Sunday.
At the Piarco International airport, he was welcomed by President Anthony Carmona, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, Chief Justice Ivor Archie and Dr Rowley.
On Saturday, the Chinese president paid a courtesy call on President Carmona and his wife, Reema, at the National Academy for the Performing Arts in Port of Spain. He then met Persad Bissessar at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann’s.
President Jinping also hosted a luncheon at the Hilton Trinidad and Conference Centre, and that night attended a State banquet at the Hilton Trinidad, hosted by President Carmona.
According to the Statement from the Opposition Leader's office, "It is with some disappointment that the Opposition People’s National Movement has observed serious and continued breaches of protocol on the part of the Prime Minister and her administration. We have witnessed in the past, the Prime Minister making her arrival at major events after the arrival of our Head of State, the President of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. Also on occasion, the Prime Minister has seen it fit to address major gatherings after His Excellency had spoken. These actions are wholly unacceptable and we feel the Prime Minister needs to be reminded of her role and function as prime minister and that of the president as Head of State".
The release stated "Last weekend, we observed in dismay even more serious breaches in protocol with the visit of the Vice President of the People’s Republic of China to Trinidad and Tobago. Splashed on the front pages of our newspapers were photographs of the Vice President of China and his contingent being welcomed by the President of Trinidad and Tobago along with the Prime Minister and other dignitaries and state officials. It was most appalling to see our Head of State trailing behind, not only the Prime Minister, but also behind lesser dignitaries, almost lost in the crowd. The Opposition is hereby calling on the Prime Minister to acknowledge that she is not the head of state.
Moreover, protocol errors of this nature ought not to occur since they fall within the ambit of the public service and it calls into questions whether the requisite public service functions are being exercised by public servants or are being usurped by persons unknown to the embarrassment of the nation".
Source-TEN
Media barred from luncheon with Chinese president
Prime Minister Kamla Persad- Bissessar yesterday apologised to members of the local media after reports that they were debarred by officials from the Chinese delegation.
She spoke to the media at the Hilton Trinidad and Conference Centre, St Ann’s following a luncheon hosted by the President of China Xi Jinping who was on a three-day visit to the country.
Following the luncheon the Prime Minister came out and promptly apologised: “My apologies but this luncheon was hosted by His Excellency it is not our doing in terms of who could attend and who could not attend. We did not mean to keep you outside.”
Persad-Bissessar’s apology came after reports that a local videographer was denied entry to the luncheon despite other regional and international media houses gaining full access. The videographer was reportedly told that no “Third World reporters” were allowed to enter.
Moments later Director of Communications at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Communications, Gideon Hanoomansingh told members of the media that what was really said was no “Third Party” was allowed.
Later at President Xi’s departure at Piarco International Airport a Chinese videographer had to be physically removed from the red carpet after ignoring directions which barred him from walking along the red carpet.
While the official visit saw heads of state interacting with each other with diplomacy and respect, the media saw an entirely different setting. Chinese and local photographers jostled each other for the best shot with one local photographer saying he had to “elbow one” in order to get his job done.
President Xi and his wife First Lady Madame Peng Liyuan however left the country at 6.35 p.m. without a glitch.
At 6.21 p.m. the front door of the Chinese B-2472 plane was closed. Trinidad and Tobago’s Defence Force marched off to the instrumentals of Bunji Garlin’s “Differentology”.
At 6.35 p.m. President Xi, his wife and entourage said zai jian (goodbye) to Trinidad and Tobago as they set off to Costa Rica then Mexico and finally the US.
Source-TEN
Dehui poultry plant fire: Locked exits 'blocked escape'
A fire at a poultry processing plant in China has killed at least 119 people, officials say.
The fire broke out at a slaughterhouse in Dehui in Jilin province early on Monday.
Accounts speak of explosions prior to the fire, which caused panic and a crush of workers trying to escape. Most exits were said to be locked.
A labour activist told the BBC it was the worst factory fire in living memory.
The fire is now said to have been mostly put out and bodies are being recovered.
President Xi Jinping, who is on a visit to the Americas, ordered every effort to go into the rescue operation and treatment of survivors, adding that the investigation into the cause of the accident would be vigorous.
Sources including the provincial fire department suggest there may have been an ammonia leak which either caused the fire or made fighting the blaze more hazardous.
Other reports speak of an electrical fault.
It is China's deadliest fire since 2000, when 309 people died in a blaze in a dance hall in Luoyang, in Henan province.
About 100 workers had managed to escape from the Baoyuan plant, Xinhua said, adding that the "complicated interior structure" of the building and narrow exits had made rescue work more difficult.
It said the plant's front gate was locked when the blaze began, and other official media reports said there was only one unlocked door in the whole building.
Firefighters have still not completed the job of recovering bodies from the building, meaning the death toll may rise yet further, say correspondents.
Some 60 injured people have been sent to hospital, but the severity of their injuries remains unclear. State media quoted hospital staff as saying that some wounded were being treated for inhalation of toxic gases such as ammonia while others had burns of varying degrees.
Pictures from the scene showed the roof mostly burned away to reveal blackened, twisted girders.
Turkish PM Blames Protests on Extremists
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused anti-government protesters of walking "arm-in-arm with terrorism," as he blamed "extremist elements" for three days of some of the most violent riots in years.
His comments Monday came as the Turkish Doctors' Association said a 20-year-old Turkish man died when a vehicle slammed into a crowd of protesters who were marching late Sunday. It was the first known death related to the demonstrations.
Speaking to reporters before departing on a planned four-day trip to North Africa, Mr. Erdogan dismissed the protests as the work of secularist enemies who never accepted the mandate of his Islamist AKP party, which has won three straight elections.
He rejected comparisons with the Arab Spring uprising, saying in televised comments that the protesters had no support in the general population. He gave no indication he was prepared to compromise.
Police in Istanbul and Ankara used tear gas early Monday to disperse protesters, some of whom had marched on Mr. Erdogan's offices.
Rights groups say hundreds of security personnel and protesters have been injured since Friday in the violence, pitting stone-throwing protesters against riot police firing tear gas and water cannons.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday expressed concern about reports of excessive use of force by police and urged the Turkish government to uphold freedom of expression and exercise restraint. He also urged protesters "to avoid any provocation of violence."
Both Mr. Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul urged calm Monday. However, in contrast to the prime minister's comments, Mr. Gul defended the right of citizens to protest.
The demonstrations began as a demand to stop an urban redevelopment plan on park land, but have more broadly included criticism of Mr. Erdogan's government.
Turkey's Interior Ministry said Sunday more than 1,700 people had been detained since last week, but that most have since been released.
The police crackdown on protesters in Istanbul appeared to anger many secular Turks, who accuse Mr. Erdogan's decade-old, Islamist-rooted government of becoming increasingly authoritarian.
International rights groups have strongly criticized the crackdown as excessive.
"The United States supports full freedom of expression and assembly including the right of people to peaceful protest, because that is fundamental to any democracy. And we are concerned by the reports of excessive use of force by police, we obviously hope that there will a full investigation of those incidents and full restraint from the police force with respect to those kinds of incidents. And we urge all people involved those demonstrating and expressing their freedom of expression and those in the government to avoid any provocation of violence."
First UN Arms Trade Treaty Signed
Representatives of more than 60 countries lined up at U.N. headquarters in New York to sign the first international treaty to regulate the $70 billion global conventional arms trade.
Argentina was the first to sign the Arms Trade Treaty the General Assembly approved in April. Iran, Syria and North Korea cast the only votes against the treaty.
But the United States was not among the countries signing on Monday.
A statement from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the world's top arms exporter will sign as soon as the official U.N. translations of the treaty are completed. The statement said the treaty is "an important contribution to efforts to stem the illicit trade in conventional weapons, which fuels conflict, empowers violent extremists, and contributes to violations of human rights."
The National Rifle Association, a powerful U.S. pro-gun lobbying group, opposes the treaty and has vowed to fight its ratification by the U.S. Senate when it reaches Washington.
The U.N. Treaty sets standards for cross-border transfers of conventional weapons ranging from small arms to tanks and attack helicopters. It would also create binding requirements for states to review cross-border arms contracts to ensure that weapons will not be used in human-rights abuses, terrorism and violations of humanitarian law or organized crime.
Russia, China, India and 20 other countries abstained from the April 2 vote. Many nations that abstained criticized the treaty as discriminatory. U.N. diplomats say that the treaty's effectiveness could be limited if major arms exporters and importers refused to sign it.
The treaty will enter into force 90 days after 50 nations have ratified it.
US Tax Agency Spent Heavily on Employee Conferences
The U.S. tax collection agency is facing new controversy with a report saying that it spent lavishly on expensive conferences for its employees.
The Internal Revenue Service [IRS], whose policies affect all tax-paying Americans, spent about $50 million between 2010 and 2012 on the conferences. Some of it went to pay for a 2010 video showing IRS employees learning the "Cupid Shuffle" line dance before a meeting in California, and more covered costly hotel suites at the conferences.
The new acting IRS commissioner, Danny Werfel, called the conference spending "an unfortunate vestige from a prior era." The agency says its spending on conferences has been sharply cut since then.
Werfel is set to appear Monday before one of several congressional committees investigating the agency's operations, including its targeting of conservative groups for extra scrutiny as they sought tax-exempt status before the 2012 presidential election. The conservative groups oppose many of President Barack Obama's tax and spending policies.
The tax agency has apologized for targeting the conservative groups. Congressional investigators are trying to determine whether the focus on the right-wing groups was confined to a regional office in (the midwestern city of) Cincinnati, Ohio or directed by officials in Washington who had a political interest in Obama's re-election.
The targeting of the conservative groups has drawn the ire of both Republican and Democratic lawmakers, as well as Mr. Obama, a Democrat in the first months of his second term. One of his former advisers, David Plouffe, told ABC's "This Week" TV news interview show on Sunday that Americans had a right to be concerned about the tax agency's operations.
"I think people should be concerned about the IRS. It touches everybody in America. And I think that as we move forward here, the key thing the American people want to know is, what is going to happen in terms of accountability? What changes are going to be put in place? And all of these things deserve thorough investigation,'' said Plouffe.
Heavy Floods Threaten Parts of Central Europe
Parts of Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic are on high flood alert as rising water levels threaten cities and drive thousands from their homes.
At least eight people were killed across the region as a result of the floods, including one who died in a landslide in Austria.
In the Czech capital, Prague, authorities were erecting protective barriers along the Vltava River, which began flooding the historic city center. Schools and metro stations were closed as authorities declared a state of emergency.
The flooding also affected southern and eastern Germany. In the city of Passau, which lies at the confluence of three rivers, water levels exceeded the record set there during flooding in 1954.
Thousands of people were evacuated from their homes as rescue workers used boats to retrieve those left stranded.
Heavy rains are expected to continue throughout late Monday.
Marking the Start of the 2013 Hurricane Season
Minister of Government Support Services, Hon. George Lightbourne
My fellow Turks and Caicos Islanders and residents alike….
The 1st of June marks the beginning of the 2013 hurricane season. In light of this fact, one of the most serious obligations we have as a Government is the protection of our people in the face of potential disasters. As Minister of Government Support Services with responsibility for Disaster Management, I have placed preparation for 2013 Hurricane Season at the top of my agenda.
I therefore urge all residents to take action to minimize their risks and vulnerability by planning ahead to reduce the chances of injury to self and damage to property, business and the environment. The Department of Disaster Management and Emergency (DDME) in keeping with its mandate and mission will collaborate with local, regional, and international agencies to provide the highest standard of assistance in the event of a hazard or natural disaster. I support the efforts of the DDME in ensuring that adequate preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery mechanisms are established to counteract the impact of natural and man-man disasters.
This government, through the DDME will continue to work with our local and regional partners to support disaster risk reduction for our residents. We will advise you of all risks, by informing you public through radio and all available media outlets about impending storms and offer you tips on preparing.
I call on all residents to take the necessary measures to protect their homes and families in the event of a storm. These measures include updating insurance policies and developing a disaster plan. Please ensure that you have all necessary resources available including, but not limited to food, water and medications, shutters, etc. Preparations should incorporate strategic planning for the safety of the elderly, infants, disabled, and also your pets. Remove all debris and ensure that your property is free from any potential flying objects. Secure important documents. Keep important numbers readily available.
I once again appeal to you to prepare, because preparing in not an option; it is a must. And it is the only thing we can do to reduce the impact of a disaster. Do not be caught off-guard. Remember disaster is everybody’s business.
God bless you and God bless the Turks and Caicos Islands.
George Lightbourne
Minister of Government Support Services
Europe Hands 6 Nations a Deficit Reprieve
Europe is giving six of its financially struggling countries, including the major economies in France and Spain, more time to control the deficit spending of their governments.
Austerity - calling for cuts in spending and increased taxes - has been the dominant prescription in the last two years for European countries looking to rein in budget shortfalls. But with unemployment surging and the continent mired in an 18-month recession, the European Union on Wednesday softened its demands.
The EU granted the Netherlands and Portugal an extra year to cut their deficits below the mandated level of 3 percent of their economic output. France, Spain, Poland and Slovenia were given an additional two years to meet the same standard.
Meanwhile, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD] said the economic weakness in the 17-nation euro currency union "could evolve into stagnation with negative implications for the global economy."
The Paris-based OECD, which promotes global economic well-being, said eurozone growth will shrink six-tenths of a percent this year, on top of a half-percentage point drop last year. Six months ago, the group predicted a smaller contraction, and a year ago said the eurozone economy would advance in 2013.
The OECD predicted 3.1 percent global growth this year, increasing to 4 percent next year.
But the OECD's secretary general, Angel Gurria, said unemployment across the world remains a major problem.
"The failure of the global economy to recover more strongly has posed a heavy burden on people. Unemployment remains far too high, In some countries it's already at record levels, and still rising in the case of the euro area," said Gurria. "It's still rising, it went through the 12 percent mark and moving up. The jobless, particularly youth and [the] less skilled, risk losing contact with the labor market and dropping out of the labor force all together. Even when activity eventually picks up, they will have been out of the market for so long that it will not be easy for them to hook up again."
Biden Presses Brazil on Trade
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is pressing Brazil for closer economic ties with the United States.
On the last stop on a six-day swing through Latin America and the Caribbean, Biden on Wednesday encouraged Brazil to make trade easier. Brazil has South America's biggest economy, but some of its products are protected by relatively high tariffs.
In a speech in Rio de Janeiro, the U.S. vice president said, "Imagine what these two dynamic economies could do with greater trade and investment."
In Washington, the White House announced that Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff would make a state visit to Washington October 23.