Employment Registration Drive to be held on Tuesday, April 16th
The Providenciales branch of the Chamber of Commerce is partnering with the Employment Services Department of The Turks & Caicos Islands in conjunction with the TCI Hotel and Tourism Association to host an Employment Registration Drive in on Tuesday, April 16th at the Gustavus Lightbourne Sports Center in Providenciales, beginning from 10am to 6pm.
The Chamber says this Employment Registration is part of a program that they are launching to encourage those persons who are unemployed, to register and utilize the services of the Employment Services Department.
They have also invited representatives from NHIP and NIB to be present to facilitate with questions and entitlements that those who are unemployed may have.
During this initial drive, the team will have representatives from the various hotels/resorts bringing presentations to familiarize individuals of the opportunities that exist in the industry, the expectations of an employer, what the employer looks for when hiring and opportunities for upward mobility in the industry. There will also be employees from hotels and resorts present to relay their success stories.
Also during this Employment Registration Drive the Chamber of Commerce has extended an invitation to the Graduating Class of 2013 from the high schools on island to pre-register them. The pre-registration is to better assist them with summer employment and for those remaining in the Turks & Caicos who will be seeking full time employment.
The various principals of each institution have been asked to confirm attendance of those students so that a presentation or two can be catered directly to them.
TCIG Procurement Board Meeting
Interested members of the public will have an opportunity to witness the opening of TCIG’s latest tender bids next week.
The TCIG Procurement Board is scheduled to meet on Wednesday, April 17, and in accordance with Section 41 (2) of the Public Procurement Ordinance 2012, the public is invited to attend the upcoming Procurement Board meetings to witness the opening of tender bids received.
The public is further advised that in accordance with Section 15 of the Procurement Ordinance, information relating to contracts must remain confidential until the award of a contract and will therefore be asked to leave the meeting, once all the bids have been opened.
The meeting of the Procurement Board will commence at 9:00am in the West Committee Room of the Hon. N.J.S. Francis Building, in Grand Turk.
TCI RED CROSS HIGH TEA AND FASHION SHOW A SUCCESS
The Turks & Caicos Islands Red Cross is dubbing its recent High Tea and Fashion Show a whopping success.
The TCI Red Cross hosted its annual High Tea and Fashion Show at the Atrium (Courtyard) Restaurant of the Osprey Beach Hotel, Front Street Grand Turk last Saturday, April 6th, 2013 and according to a representative of the Red Cross, the Fashion Show was the highlight of the evening and which featured clothing from the TCI Red Cross Thrift Shop. The models dazzled with glamour and elegance in their outfits as they wowed the guests, who were themselves, flawlessly attired for the occasion. Attendees applauded as the models paraded by their tables.
The combination of Mr. Calvert Robinson on saxophone and Mr. Dudley Been on bass guitar and vocals filled the air with sweet sounds. It was truly a musical treat.
There were special moments of hilarity that added bliss to the exquisite ambiance of the evening when Miss Ann Williams performed a dance and Mrs. Villamay Daniels a dramatic piece.
There was a delectable assortment of pastries, sandwiches, scones, turnovers, cakes and other delightful baked treats. Various teas and beverages were also served.
Door prizes were won by three lucky patrons; Ms. Kereitta Simpson, Mrs. Norma Seymour and Mrs. Ann Dempsey.
Chair of the Governing Board of the TCI Red Cross Mr. Arthur Forbes, was on hand to bring special remarks and thanked everyone who came out to support this fundraising initiative. He also thanked the team of dedicated volunteers who worked tirelessly to make the event a success.
TCI Red Cross offers its profound thanks to HE the Governor Ric Todd, The Osprey Beach Hotel, Beaches Turks & Caicos Resort & Spa, HJ Robinson High School Home Economics teachers and students, Radio Turks and Caicos, Dudley Been, Calvert Robinson, Creative Hands, Refresh Café, Sunshine Restaurant, Shernika’s Tasty Foods, RJ’s Shop and Save, Grand Turk Events, Ms. Desire Lewis, Ms. Anna Mae Williams, Mrs. Wealthy Hall, Mrs. Susan Malcolm, Ms. Shemeka Simmons, Mr. Brandon Williams, Mrs. Villamay Daniels, the Red Cross models, volunteers and the entire community for their continued support.
The Turks and Caicos Islands Red Cross prides itself in being able to help people in crisis, whoever and wherever they are. It is part of a global voluntary network, responding to conflicts, natural disasters and individual emergencies. Through their work the Turks and Caicos Islands TCI Red Cross enables vulnerable people in the TCI to prepare for and withstand emergencies in their own communities and once the crisis is over, help them to recover and move on with their lives.
Almost 19 and a half million dollars recovered with the latest acquisition of 50 acres
Another 50 acres of land recovered by the Civil recovery team, takes the total amount recovered so far to 2,500 acres; with cash recovered or ordered recovered, to nearly $19.5 million.
Attorney General, Huw Shepheard announced today (Thursday 11th April), that the Turks & Caicos Islands Government has recovered 50 acres of land falling within the Chalk Sound National Park and Pigeon Pond and Frenchman's Creek Nature Reserve, following legal proceedings brought by the Civil Recovery Team against Holiday Resort Dev., Ltd.
In a judgment recently handed down after a trial in February 2013, Justice Margaret Ramsey Hale ordered parcel 60300/35 to be returned to the TCIG. She also ordered the Defendant, Holiday, to pay TCIG's costs of the claim.
Here’s Damen Boviewith more.
Holiday had entered into a Land Freeze Agreement with the Government in July 2002, which provided it with a right to purchase Crown land if it satisfied certain obligations, including the construction of a road linking the site to the Millennium Highway. It was a term of that agreement that the company would be entitled to set off from the purchase price the costs it incurred in constructing the road.
Parcel 60300/35 was transferred to Holiday Resort Dev., Ltd on 10 January 2008. No payment was made by the company and the transfer indicated that it was in consideration for the work that had been undertaken in constructing the road.
The Court found that the land had been transferred to Holiday Resort Dev., Ltd. under the mistaken belief that Holiday had satisfied its obligations under the Land Freeze Agreement, when it had not. The Court also found that the parties had been mistaken as to the costs incurred in constructing the road, which had been very modest.
Accordingly, the Government was entitled to recover the land and parcel 60300/35 will revert to the Crown.
Attorney General Huw Shepheard expressed his pleasure at the success of this case, noting this is an important site, which will now revert to being Crown Land.
“It is another success for the Civil Recovery programme being run by Edwards Wildman and Chambers together. This takes the total amount of land recovered under the programme to over 2,500 acres - a very substantial amount of land across the Islands of enormous long term value to the country; and the cash recovered or ordered to be recovered to nearly $19.5m," AG Huw Shepheard added.
This is Damen Boviefor RTC News.
Kim K. flaunts pregnant belly in 'Keeping Up' teaser
Now that Kourtney and Kim are done taking Miami (the season finale aired on Sunday), it’s time to keep up with the rest of the Kardashians.
A teaser trailer for the eighth season of E!’s “Keeping Up” recently hit the Web, promising “a huge change in dynamics.”
In addition to the Jenner boys joining the cast, Kim is expecting a new cast member of her own.
The mom-to-be bares her pregnant belly in the short trailer and shares, “I’m scared with the divorce. … I’m probably going to have this baby being married to someone else.”
Meanwhile, it looks like Kourtney and Scott are trying to spice up their sex life, Rob is trying to lose weight, Khloe is trying to convince her sisters that she doesn’t want to get pregnant, and Bruce is trying to persuade Kris to keep a gun in the house.
The new season premieres on June 2 at 9 p.m. ET.
P. Diddy tops list of hip-hop's wealthiest
Sean "P. Diddy" Combs has gone by many names, but for now we can call him hip-hop's biggest moneymaker.
Forbes magazine has released its list of the five wealthiest hip-hop artists of 2013, and Combs is No. 1. Forbes estimates that he has a net worth of $580 million.
The industry mogul is lining his pockets mainly with deals outside of music, particularly his work with Ciroc vodka.
Coming in second place is Jay-Z, whose net worth arrives at $475 million. Between the 2007 sale of Rocawear for $204 million, and his $150 million deal with Live Nation, we're guessing his daughter Blue Ivy won't have to worry about her college tuition fund.
Coming in third place is Dr. Dre with a net worth of $350 million, mostly due to his Beats by Dr. Dre line of headphones.
Lil Wayne's Cash Money/Young Money Entertainment co-hort, Bryan "Birdman" Williams, is at No. 4 with a net worth of $150 million. At No. 5 on the list of the wealthiest hip-hop artists is 50 Cent, whose net worth of $125 million includes solid sales of music, merchandise, video games and books.
New York Metropolitan Museum of Art receives $1bn donation
New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art has received a $1bn (£650m) donation of Cubist art from cosmetics executive Leonard Lauder.
The heir to the Estee Lauder fortune has pledged 78 works - considered one of the foremost collections of Cubism in the world.
It includes pieces from Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Juan Gris and Fernand Leger, amassed over 37 years.
Museum director Thomas Campbell said the gift was "truly transformational".
In a statement, Lauder, 80, said his gift was for "the people who live and work in New York and those from around the world who come to visit our great arts institutions".
The Met said it had previously "lacked" early 20th Century art, but with Lauder's donation it would be at the forefront of world collections.
"We have long lacked this critical dimension in the story of modernism. Now, Cubism will be represented with some of its greatest masterpieces," Campbell said.
The collection "distinguished by its quality, focus, and depth," includes 33 Picassos, 17 works by Braque and 14 by Gris and Leger.
Lauder built it up over nearly four decades, telling the story of a movement that revolutionised modern art and paved the way for abstraction.
"I selected the Met as the way to share this collection because I feel that it's essential that Cubism - and the art that follows it, for that matter - be seen and studied within the collections of one of the greatest encyclopaedic museums in the world," he said.
The collection is thought to be worth around 13% of Lauders' personal fortune according to Forbes magazine which it said "enshrines him in the pantheon of the most generous philanthropists of all time".
Meanwhile, letters written by J D Salinger to a spiritual mentor have been donated to The Morgan Library and Museum in Manhattan.
The Catcher in the Rye author wrote 28 letters to Swami Vivekananda, founder of the Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Centre, which donated the correspondence.
Salinger, who died in 2010 aged 91, was strongly influenced by Eastern religion and philosophy and mentioned Vivekananda in his story Hapworth 16, 1924.
The Morgan Museum now holds 52 letters written by Salinger in its collection.
Barack Obama unveils $3.77tn budget plan
US President Barack Obama has unveiled a $3.77tn (£2.4tn) budget that proposes fresh taxes on the wealthy along with cuts to benefit programmes.
The White House is offering to trim pensions and healthcare costs, but only in return for $700bn in new revenue.
However, the Obama plan is viewed as having no chance of being fully enacted by the deadlocked Congress.
Republicans Senate leader Mitch McConnell branded the budget a "left-wing wish list".
The Democratic president will host a dinner for senior Republicans on Wednesday evening to sell his proposals.
Conservatives have refused to agree to new revenue after passing tax rises on earnings over $400,000 in January.
Congressional Democrats, meanwhile, have balked at Mr Obama's compromise offer to cut Social Security pension payments.
Mr Obama’s budget aims to reduce the US deficit by an additional $1.8tn over 10 years, bringing total potential reductions to $4.3tn, according to administration estimates.
Cuts in the plan include about $400bn in government health spending, and about $130bn from Social Security, by changing the way cost-of-living adjustments are calculated.
Elderly and disabled recipients with the lowest incomes would be shielded from the changes.
The cost-of-living adjustments would also raise $100bn in revenue over 10 years through changes to tax brackets.
Additional cuts would include $100bn each from military and domestic programmes as well as reductions in farm subsidies and federal employee pension programmes.
Mr Obama proposes raising revenue by eliminating income deductions for the top 2% of earnings and includes the president's oft-repeated Buffett Rule, requiring households with incomes of more than $1m to pay at least 30% in taxes.
The plan also includes some new spending aimed at improving the US economy, including $50bn in infrastructure and $1bn for 15 manufacturing institutes across the country.
Mr Obama has previously cited infrastructure spending as the best possible investment to propel an economic recovery.
His blueprint would replace automatic, across-the-board cuts - known as sequestration - to both military and domestic programmes that began on 1 March.
Those cuts took effect after Democrats and Republicans failed to agree to another plan to cut spending and reduce the US budget deficit.
Negotiations over the next US budget are expected to run into the summer, but the White House says the document released on Wednesday is not a opening offer.
"We don't view this budget as a starting point in the negotiations," a senior administration official said on Tuesday. "This is an offer where the president came more than halfway toward the Republicans."
But House of Representatives Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan argued that Republicans had made enough concessions.
Mr Ryan's budget proposal, already passed in the Republican-controlled House, sets out $4.6tn in deficit reduction.
Most of the savings would be found from healthcare spending and domestic programmes, without additional tax revenue, according to his plan.
Source-BBC
WTO cuts 2013 trade growth forecast
The World Trade Organization (WTO) has cut its trade growth forecast for 2013 because of risks from the eurozone crisis and from greater protectionism.
Global trade is now expected to grow by 3.3% this year, the WTO says, down from its earlier forecast of 4.5%.
Next year, however, growth should rebound to about 5%, said WTO director general Pascal Lamy.
Countries might turn to protectionism as other attempts to boost growth have been "found wanting", he said.
"There is a need for more rules-based trade in order to reduce unemployment and to stimulate growth," he said.
The WTO also warned that the weakness in Europe's economies would continue to weigh on trade.
It said that "improved economic prospects for the United States in 2013 should only partly offset the continued weakness in the European Union, whose economy is expected to remain flat or even contract slightly this year according to consensus estimates".
"China's growth should continue to outpace other leading economies, cushioning the slowdown, but exports will still be constrained by weak demand in Europe," it added.
The WTO said that trade had grown by just 2% in 2012, the second-worst figure since records began in 1981. The worst performance had come in 2009 when trade shrank.
Average growth over the past two decades has been 5.3%, it said.
In dollar terms, the value of the goods traded last year remained stagnant at $18.3 trillion (£11.9 trillion). The value was unchanged because prices for coffee, cotton, coal and iron ore fell.
"The events of 2012 should serve as a reminder that the structural flaws in economies that were revealed by the economic crisis have not been fully addressed, despite important progress in some areas," Mr Lamy said.
"Repairing these fissures needs to be the priority for 2013."
Brussels warns on Spanish and Slovenian 'imbalances'
UK hourly labour costs have fallen nearly two euros (£1.7; $2.6) below the EU average, data from the EU's statistics agency Eurostat show.
The EU average in 2012 was 23.4 euros hourly - and in the UK it was 21.6.
Eurostat calls the figures estimates, based on enterprises with 10 or more staff. Labour costs mean wages plus some other costs such as employers' social contributions.
The costs vary widely in the EU - from 3.7 euros in Bulgaria to 39 in Sweden.
The Eurostat data were given in euros to enable comparison across the EU. The data cover the whole economy except for agriculture and public administration.
In the UK, hourly labour costs rose on average from 20.9 euros in 2008 to 21.6 euros in 2012 - a 3.3% rise. But measured in pounds sterling, and taking account of exchange rate fluctuations, the increase was 5.2%.
Eurostat says that in 2012 the non-wage costs for employers, as a share of total labour costs, were highest in France (33.6%), Sweden (33.3%) and Lithuania (28.3%). The UK was at the lower end of the scale - 15.1%, but even lower were Denmark (12.4%) and Luxembourg (13.4%).
In the eurozone the biggest increases in labour costs since 2008 were in Austria (15.5%), Slovakia (13.8%) and Finland (13.7%).
There was a big decrease of 11.2% in Greece - coinciding with the country's financial crisis.
In non-eurozone countries the biggest increases were in Bulgaria (42.6%) and Sweden (23.3%).The European Commission has warned that Spain and Slovenia must quickly tackle the imbalances in their economies.
Spain has already had its banking system bailed out and Slovenia is widely expected to become the next to ask for for a debt rescue.
The Commission said the pair are the worst of the 13 European Union countries currently under review.
It called on Spain to deliver a "decisive" reform programme by the end of the month.
The imbalances in debt, unemployment and growth were doing long-term damage, with more than half of under-25s unable to find a job, the Commission said.
"Our (European) citizens are still paying the price for the unchecked development of imbalances in the past," it said in a statement.
"Urgent policy action needed"
Brussels highlighted the plight of banks in Slovenia by saying that "urgent policy action is needed".
The new Slovenian prime minister, Alenka Bratusek, insisted on Tuesday that her government was already working "day and night" to save the country's banking system.
The Commission said that the other 11 European Union countries experiencing "macroeconomic imbalances" to a lesser degree than Spain or Slovenia were Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Italy, Hungary, Malta, the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
Source-BBC