Partnership falling apart, says PNM
The People’s Partnership coalition Government is falling apart.That was the opinion of the Opposition PNM yesterday, following the MSJ’s move out of the Partnership.PNM leader Keith Rowley and deputy leader Marlene McDonald did not answer calls yesterday.
Rowley is on leave from the Parliament until June 25, it was announced in Parliament last week. PNM officials said he was in California, USA. PNM MP Colm Imbert, however, said: “The partnership is falling apart and this was on the cards for a long time. “The COP threatened to pull out the other day so obviously things were not going too well for them,” he said.
“Obviously this MSJ development wasn’t unexpected as there are a lot of disgruntled people out there. People expected the sun, moon and the stars and they are disappointed. But some of the expectations were unrealistic also.” PNM general secretary Ashton Forde said:
“This collapse was inevitable because this was a government conceived on broken promises and they will die by broken promises.“The people must note that one of the partners is dissatisfied, then how you expect them to treat the rest of the population?” he said.“They went in there as one cohesive unit and they had all kinds of agreement, hugging up one another and for two years later—not even mid-term—and they fall out.“I believe they broke up long ago and today is just the nail in the coffin but the country must stand up and take note because it’s a serious development when a coalition starts to fall apart before mid term.”
B'dos police find marijuana in oranges from Jamaica
The police in Barbados have discovered marijuana hidden in oranges imported from Jamaica at four supermarkets. The police say the drugs have a street of 800,000 Barbados dollars or 400,000 US dollars.
The CMC says the Barbados police have been working with Jamaican authorities to probe the drug shipment but no arrests have been had yet been made.
According to the CMC, 41 taped packages of marijuana were discovered Saturday at four stores in shipments of Jamaican oranges.
The initial discovery of 17 packages of what appeared to be compressed marijuana in 17 cases of oranges at one rural supermarket prompted a search of a chain of stores that netted the drugs.
Prince Charles in climate change warning
The Prince of Wales has warned of the "catastrophic" consequences of inaction on issues such as climate change, at a UN sustainability conference in Brazil.
Prince Charles said he had "watched in despair" at the slow pace of progress on the "critical issues of the day," in a pre-recorded video address in Rio.
He urged world leaders to adopt a more integrated approach to issues such as climate change and food security.
Waiting for the worst to happen would be "too late to act at all", he said.
Rio+20, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, is attended by heads of state and representatives from governments, non-governmental organisations and the private sector.
In his address, the prince said scientific evidence showed the potential consequences of ignoring the risks.
'Sceptical reluctance'
"Like a sleepwalker, we seem unable to wake up to the fact that so many of the catastrophic consequences of carrying on with 'business-as-usual' are bearing down on us faster than we think, already dragging many millions more people into poverty and dangerously weakening global food, water and energy security for the future," he said.
"One thing is clear. We need to be much more informed about the actual state of the planet.
"We do not have nearly enough knowledge on which to base the decisions that will be the best for the long term.
"Until we do, we expose ourselves to the mounting danger of major shifts in policy that are not well conceived, but come as panicked responses to crises that could have been avoided."
He said the "outright, sceptical reluctance" by some to engage with these issues had often slowed progress "to a standstill".
Pointing to the work of his International Sustainability Unit, a foundation set up to campaign on global sustainability, the prince said a better picture of environmental problems was needed before effective policy could be implemented.
'Don't have long'
He said data on on energy, water, biodiversity, forestry and soil, which is collected separately, needed to be combined and and analysed as a whole.
"If this could happen, at least then we would know what the state of the planet actually is - and then plan accordingly," he said.
He went on: "We do not have long to capture such a comprehensive picture, and so I would appeal to you as you meet here in Rio to make an even greater and concerted effort to persuade policy and decision-makers to act before it is finally too late.
"It is, perhaps, a trait of human nature to act only when the worst happens, but that is not a trait we can afford to rely on here.
"Once the worst does happen, I am afraid that this time around it will be too late to act at all."
The conference marks the 20th anniversary of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil's second largest city.
Allen Stanford jailed for 110 years for $7bn Ponzi
Disgraced tycoon Allen Stanford has been sentenced to 110 years in jail for operating a Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors of more than $7bn (£4.5bn).
The scheme was described as one of the largest in US history.
In court, Stanford denied any guilt, telling the judge at his sentencing hearing: "I did not defraud anybody."
A Texan banker, Stanford rose to prominence outside the US when he bankrolled international cricket competitions in the UK and Caribbean.
But after the collapse of his agreement to stage Twenty20 cricket in England, his financial empire began to crumble amid investigations by US regulators.
Forbes Magazine listed him as the 605th richest man in the world in 2006.
However, since his arrest in 2009 he has spent three years in detention after being denied bail.
Shifting blame
Stanford's Ponzi scheme centred on his banking operation based in the Caribbean island nation of Antigua.
Some 30,000 individual investors were swindled, it was alleged. Prosecutors failed to find as much as 92% of the assets Stanford International Bank claimed to have.
In his statement in court on Thursday, which ran for some 40 minutes, he told the judge: "I'm not here to ask for sympathy or forgiveness or to throw myself at your mercy.
"I did not run a Ponzi scheme. I didn't defraud anybody."
US District Judge David Hittner, who presided over Stanford's trial, called Stanford's actions "egregious criminal frauds" during the hearing.
Two victims of the scheme spoke during the hearing, including Angela Shaw, who told the court Stanford was worse than convicted Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff because he preyed on middle-class investors.
"He stole more than millions," Ms Shaw said. "He stole our lives as we knew them."
His sentence is 40 years shorter than the jail term handed down to Madoff, who pleaded guilty in 2009 to a Ponzi scheme targeting wealthy investors.
Stanford was convicted in March on 13 of 14 charges against him, despite his lawyers attempting to shift most of the blame on his chief financial officer.
Prosecutors had asked for a 230-year sentence, with defence lawyers arguing for a lenient term of 44 months.
Three other former executives at Stanford's company are awaiting trial, while a former Antiguan financial regulator is expected to be extradited to the US for related charges.
While a jury has cleared the way for access to about $330m in stolen funds sitting in Stanford's frozen bank accounts across Canada, England and Switzerland, legal wrangling could make it years before investors recover any of that money.
Asia markets up as Greece voters back pro-bailout party
Asian markets have rallied after support for pro-bailout parties in Greece's elections on Sunday.
New Democracy, which came top, has backed the two bailouts of Greece by the European Union (EU) and International Monetary Fund (IMF).
There had been fears that if anti-bailout party Syriza had won, Greece could have been forced out of the euro.
Japan's Nikkei 225 index rose 1.8%, South Korea's Kospi gained 2.1% and Australia's ASX 200 added 1.5%.
Antonis Samaras, the leader of the New Democracy party, said "the Greek people voted today to stay on the European course and remain in the eurozone".
"There will be no more adventures. Greece's place in Europe will not be put in doubt."
'Sense of relief'
The elections in Greece were being watched closely not just by eurozone leaders but also investors all across the globe.
Greece, which is suffering from a sovereign debt crisis, has received two bailouts in the past two years.
It was given an initial package worth 110bn euros (£89bn; $138bn) in 2010, followed by another one last year worth 130bn euros.
However, the EU and IMF have attached tough austerity measures, including state spending cuts, as pre-conditions to those packages.
There have been various demonstrations against those cuts in Greece and the Syriza party had said that it would renegotiate the conditions if it came to power.
It had led to fears that if eurozone leaders and Athens did not agree on the existing terms, Greece may be forced to leave the eurozone.
There were concerns that such a move may spread contagion to other eurozone countries and result in turmoil in the global economy.
Analysts said that because the highest number of voters had backed the pro-bailout New Democracy party, those fears had been allayed for now.
"There'll be a definite sense of relief spreading around today," said Masayuki Doshida a senior market analyst at Rakuten Securities.
Broader gains
The gains were not limited to stockmarkets.
The euro rose almost 1% against the US dollar, hitting a one-month-high of $1.2748 in early Asian trade.
Analysts said that even though the crisis in Greece has not been solved, the result of the elections had made some investors optimistic that it may have bottomed out.
"At some point in time, when the crisis does end, there will be a significant move of capital from across the world back into the EU," David Lennox of Fat Prophets told the BBC.
"We think that early punters are already taking the view that a floor has put under the crisis for now."
The price of oil also jumped, boosted by a weakening dollar and on hopes that consumer demand may pick up should stability return to the eurozone.
Brent crude rose 1.5% to $99.11 per barrel, while US light crude rose more than 1% to $84.97 per barrel.
'Extremely reactive'
Some analysts said that investors should treat the gains in the markets with caution.
"The markets have become extremely reactive," Mark Matthews, head of Asia research at Julius Baer, told the BBC.
He said while the Greek elections had allayed fears about the country leaving the eurozone, the debt crisis still needed to be resolved.
There have been differences among leaders and policymakers about what is the best way to solve the crisis and spur growth in the region.
Mr Matthews said that until a sustainable solution can be found, markets were likely to remain volatile.
At the same time, some analysts were of the view that concerns about debt problems in larger economies such as Spain may resurface and hurt market sentiment.
Spain's borrowing costs rose to another euro-era record last week, indicating that lenders were concerned about Madrid's ability to repay its debt.
The yield on benchmark 10-year bonds rose as high as 7% in early trade on 14 June, a level which many analysts believe is unsustainable in the long term.
Even though the yield fell back slightly later in the day, analysts fear that the country may have to pay even higher interest rates while raising money in the near future.
The ratings agency Moody's cut Spain's credit rating to one notch above "junk" last Wednesday.
"How long is it going to take for people to worry about Spain again?" said Peter Schiff of the brokerage Euro Pacific Capital.
Ex-Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta guilty of fraud
A former Goldman Sachs board member has been found guilty of four criminal counts of insider trading by a federal court in New York.
Rajat Gupta, 63, denied illegally leaking boardroom secrets to Raj Rajaratnam, a former hedge fund manager now serving 11 years in prison.
The jury acquitted Gupta, a former managing partner of consulting giant McKinsey & Co, of two other charges.
Gupta could face up to 20 years in jail when he is sentenced on 18 October.
Prosecutors said that, in secret recordings of conversations with Rajaratnam, Gupta shared corporate secrets as though "he was talking about what happened at a Yankee game yesterday".
But defence lawyers told the jury that the use of phone records and FBI wiretaps only created the illusion of illegal business activities.
"That is a gambit that can bamboozle people into thinking something was proven when it wasn't," defence lawyer Gary Naftalis said.
The trial focused on a phone call made to Rajaratnam on 23 September 2008, minutes after Gupta had listened to a private conference call discussing a $5bn (£3.2bn) investment in Goldman Sachs by Warren Buffett's company Berkshire Hathaway. The deal would be made public after stock markets closed that day.
According to phone records, Rajaratnam bought $40m in Goldman Sachs stock moments after the phone call, earning nearly $1m.
Gupta, who was born in India and educated at Harvard, becomes the most prominent corporate figure to be convicted in a sweeping probe into insider trading. Experts say the conviction sends a message that no-one is off-limits.
He also served on the boards of Procter & Gamble, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Caribbean businesses must focus on competitiveness
TRADE and Competitiveness in the Caribbean was one of the key subjects discussed at last week’s three-day conference on Trade Policy in Barbados.
There were a number of presentations with one of them being done by Annabelle Haynes of the Competitiveness Company of Jamaica.
She made the point that competitiveness which is the new buzz word in international marketing cannot be undertaken in isolation. Haynes believes that competitiveness takes into account international competitors, value chain and other cultural attributes which must be exploited. She said that market tracking and public relations to accompany them are also vital in that they helped to drive Caribbean companies. She told participants at the seminar that the Competitiveness Centre had registered 11 trademarks to protect Jamaican products, and noted as well that the Company’s Intellectual Property programme has identified opportunities for regional collaboration, within a regime which is usually marked by exclusivity.
Productivity is only one of the sources of competitiveness. This view came from Mrs. Indera Sagewan-Alli, of the Caribbean Centre for Competitiveness at the University of the West Indies.
She said that the issue which productivity raised in relation to competitiveness is the actual selling of a product/service at a cheaper price. In this way, the official pointed out, the firm is able to realise maximum return from greater efficiencies. She explained that competitiveness spans a wide gamut of things.
She said too that focusing on a differentiation strategy also allows a firm to develop a competitive advantage especially when it is focusing on niche market and where a higher price because the market is prepared to pay that price.
Market intelligence is also a source of competitiveness.
Sagewan Alli remarked that it is important especially for firms operating in a global environment and in a world which is changing so rapidly where we have to come to terms with the fact that fossil fuel for energy is a dying industry.
“So issues of the environment are important. So having good market intelligence requires a good understanding of market trends where the world is going in terms of products, in terms of environmental issues that allow you to unveil that knowledge and that intelligence into your decision making process and into determining what are the products that can be produced and what are the niches,” she said.
According to her, the success of a firm and the sustainability of that success is linked to the competitiveness in both local and international markets.
Other presenters were Garik Joseph and Nicardo Nell.
BARBADOS ADVOCATE
Australia's Fairfax cuts jobs and changes newspapers
Australia's Fairfax Media will shed 1,900 jobs over three years and give two high-profile broadsheets a new "compact" format, it has announced.
Websites of the two newspapers, The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, will also introduce pay walls from 2013.
Two printing facilities in Sydney and Melbourne are also to be closed by 2014 as part of the cost-cutting measures.
Fairfax said it was taking "decisive actions to fundamentally change the way we do business".
"No one should be in any doubt that we are operating in very challenging times," said Fairfax Chief Executive Greg Hywood.
"Readers' behaviours have changed and will not change back."
The moves are expected to save Fairfax A$235m ($237m, £151m) annually by mid-2015, the company said.
It said editorial standards and content at the two newspapers would not change despite the new format.
Cuts are also expected at Fairfax's biggest rival, Rupert Murdoch-owned News Ltd, Australian media reports say.
The two companies together dominate Australia's newspaper market.
Italy selling off state assets to reduce debt mountain
The Italian government hopes to raise 10bn euros (£8.1bn; $12.6bn) selling off three state-owned companies, in a bid to reduce its crippling debt mountain.
Prime Minister Mario Monti described the measures, which include a reduction in the number of state employees, as "very robust".
The companies, Fintecna, Sace and Simsest, are all owned by the country's economy ministry.
More privatisations are likely.
The government is also reducing the size of its military forces and plans to sell off property released by this process.
The property will be put into a fund, then valued and sold to private investors.
In other cost-cutting measures, the government intends to merge some departments and reduce the number of employees.
Italy is in danger of buckling under the weight of its public debt, equal to about 120% of its gross domestic product (GDP).
On Thursday, the Bank of Italy announced that the country's public debt level had reached a record high of 1.95tn euros (£1.57tn).
Egypt's military 'grants itself sweeping powers'
Egypt's ruling military has issued a declaration apparently granting itself sweeping powers, as the country awaits results of presidential elections.
The document by the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (Scaf) reportedly says new general elections can not be held until a permanent constitution is drawn up.
It also allegedly gives the Scaf legislative control.
Meanwhile, the Muslim Brotherhood says its candidate, Mohammed Mursi, has won Sunday's presidential election.
Mr Mursi, an Islamist, is competing against Ahmed Shafiq, who served as prime minister under former President Hosni Mubarak.
Mr Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood said he was holding a 52%-48% lead over Mr Shafiq with almost all teh vote counted after Sunday's second-round run-off election.
"Mohammed Mursi is the first Egyptian president of the republic elected by the people," said a tweet from the Freedom and Justice Party, the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood.
But an official at Mr Shafiq's campaign headquarters told Reuters news agency: "I do not accept this, I will not file wrong numbers."
The election - the first since Hosni Mubarak was forced from office in 2011 - also comes amid a bitter row over the dissolution of parliament following a court ruling on Thursday.
The Brotherhood has denounced the step as unlawful and a coup against democracy.