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Finance Minister Colm Imbert. –

FINANCE Minister Colm Imbert slammed the Opposition UNC for attempting to mislead the population about measures in the 2022/2023 budget which they claim to oppose now but wholeheartedly supported when they were in office between May 2010 and September 2015

He made these comments before the House of Representatives passed the Finance Bill 2022 on Friday. The bill will be debated in the Senate when it sits from 10 am on Tuesday.

Referring to Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar calls for tax amnesties to be approved by negative resolution by Parliament, Imbert said the facts showed that Persad-Bissessar and the UNC did not support this view in 2011 and 2014, when they were in government.

He reminded MPs that no such resolution was sought in May 2011, when then finance minister Winston Dookeran extended a tax amnesty that began in September 2010.

Imbert said in September 2014, then finance minister Larry Howai publicly said government implemented a tax amnesty because of “calls from the business community.”

He added this proved that UNC claims of tax amnesties under the PNM were aimed at “giving someone a bligh” were false.

“Political hypocrisy.”

Imbert was amused by Oropouche West MP Davendranath Tancoo’s comment that the UNC did not like his body language.

He wondered if the UNC would be happy if he were to dance or jump up and down.

After briefly raising his hands in the air and swaying from side to side at the podium, Imbert told opposition MPs he would not oblige them.

“I’m a serious minister. I do not engage in antics. If you don’t like my sombre, professional approach, too bad!”

Speaker Bridgid Annisette-George overruled Barataria/ San Juan MP Saddam Hosein’s complaint that Imbert was disturbing UNC MPs by speaking too loudly.

Imbert said UNC MPs knew he had “no control over the volume in this microphone (in front of him.”

He also told them to be quiet, listen and learn something.

Shortly after Imbert made that comment, Annisette-George instructed St Augustine MP Khadijah Ameen to leave the Parliament Chamber, after she made an inaudible remark.

Earlier in his contribution Imbert told Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar she was misled by her members into believing there were grounds for legal action to be taken against the Government over the implementation of property tax.

In her contribution, Persad-Bissessar claimed the implementation of property tax could be unlawful and said the UNC was ready to go to court on this matter. She thanked osein for helping her research information for her contributions.

Imbert said, “I’m a little embarrassed to tell a senior counsel to update her records.”

Government MPs thumped their desks when he said, “Whoever the honourable member relied upon for research, misled the honourable member. I would advise you to be careful who you seek advice from.”

Imbert said Persad-Bissessar, and whoever her researcher was, seemed oblivious to the existence of a legal notice dated August 20, 2021.

In that notice, he said, then acting President Christine Kangaloo said the Data Protection Act will come into effect on such a date “as fixed by the President.”

Imbert said in the notice, Kangaloo indicated certain sections of the act which allowed the sharing of information between the ministry’s valuations division and other entities (such as the Board of Inland Revenue) regarding property tax were proclaimed into law on August 23, 2021.

“Therefore the relevant sections of the Data Protection Act were proclaimed over one year ago.”

Persad-Bissessar earlier claimed that property tax could not be implemented because the act was not proclaimed and people’s privacy could be infringed.She threatened the UNC could go to court on this matter.

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‘We moeten door’ door Steven Seedo PARAMARIBO — Nu al is bekend dat de populaire kasekoband Sabakoe dit jaar met kerst, oud

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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The mayor of Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, is warning residents that they must prepare for the worst this winter if Russia keeps striking the country’s energy infrastructure — and that means having no electricity, water or heat in the freezing cold cannot be ruled out.

“We are doing everything to avoid this. But let’s be frank, our enemies are doing everything for the city to be without heat, without electricity, without water supply, in general, so we all die. And the future of the country and the future of each of us depends on how prepared we are for different situations,” Mayor Vitali Klitschko told state media.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address to the nation Sunday that about 4.5 million people were without electricity. He called on Ukrainians to endure the hardships and “we must get through this winter and be even stronger in the spring than now.”

Russia has focused on striking Ukraine’s energy infrastructure over the last month, causing power shortages and rolling outages across the country. Kyiv was having hourly rotating blackouts Sunday in parts of the city and the surrounding region.

Rolling blackouts also were planned in the Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Zhytomyr, Sumy, Kharkiv and Poltava regions, Ukraine’s state-owned energy operator, Ukrenergo, said.

Kyiv plans to deploy about 1,000 heating points, but it’s unclear if that would be enough for a city of 3 million people.

As Russia intensifies its attacks on the capital, Ukrainian forces are pushing forward in the south. Residents of Ukraine’s Russian-occupied city of Kherson received warning messages on their phones urging them to evacuate as soon as possible, Ukraine’s military said Sunday. Russian soldiers warned civilians that Ukraine’s army was preparing for a massive attack and told people to leave for the city’s right bank immediately.

Russian forces are preparing for a Ukrainian counteroffensive to seize back the southern city of Kherson, which was captured during the early days of the invasion. In September, Russia illegally annexed Kherson as well as three other regions and subsequently declared martial law in the four provinces.

The Kremlin-installed administration in Kherson already has moved tens of thousands of civilians out of the city.

Russia has been “occupying and evacuating” Kherson simultaneously, trying to convince Ukrainians that they’re leaving when in fact they’re digging in, Nataliya Humenyuk, a spokeswoman for Ukraine’s Southern Forces, told state television.

“There are defense units that have dug in there quite powerfully, a certain amount of equipment has been left, firing positions have been set up,” she said.

Russian forces are also digging in in a fiercely contested region in the east, worsening the already tough conditions for residents and the defending Ukrainian army following Moscow’s illegal annexation and declaration of martial law in Donetsk province.

The attacks have almost completely destroyed the power plants that serve the city of Bakhmut and the nearby town of Soledar, said Pavlo Kyrylenko, the region’s Ukrainian governor, said. Shelling killed one civilian and wounded three, he reported late Saturday.

“The destruction is daily, if not hourly,” Kyrylenko told state television.

Moscow-backed separatists have controlled part of Donetsk for nearly eight years before Russia invaded Ukraine in late February. Protecting the separatists’ self-proclaimed republic there was one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s justifications for the invasion, and his troops have spent months trying to capture the entire province.

Between Saturday and Sunday, Russia’s launched four missiles and 19 airstrikes hitting more than 35 villages in nine regions, from Chernihiv and Kharkiv in the northeast to Kherson and Mykolaiv in the south, according to Zelenskyy’s office. The strikes killed two people and wounded six.

In the Donetsk city of Bakhmut, 15,000 remaining residents were living under daily shelling and without water or power, according to local media. The city has been under attack for months, but the bombardment picked up after Russian forces experienced setbacks during Ukrainian counteroffensives in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions.

The front line is now on Bakhmut’s outskirts, where mercenaries from the Wagner Group, a shadowy Russian military company, are reported to be leading the charge.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the group who has typically remained under the radar, is taking a more visible role in the war. In a statement Sunday he announced the funding and creation of “militia training centers” in Russia’s Belgorod and Kursk regions in the southwest, saying that locals were best placed to “fight against sabotage” on Russian soil. The training centers are in addition to a military technology center the group said it was opening in St. Petersburg.

In Kharkiv, officials were working to identify bodies found in mass graves after the Russians withdrew, Dmytro Chubenko, a spokesperson for the regional prosecutor’s office, told local media.

DNA samples have been collected from 450 bodies discovered in a mass grave in the city of Izium, but the samples need to be matched with relatives and so far only 80 people have participated, he said.

In one sliver of good news, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant was reconnected to Ukraine’s power grid, local media reported Sunday. Europe’s largest nuclear plant needs electricity to maintain vital cooling systems, but it had been running on emergency diesel generators since Russian shelling severed its outside connections.

By SAM MEDNICK, Associated Press

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The North of Saint Lucia has experienced massive flooding.

The National Emergency Management Organisation (NEMO) disclosed on Sunday that it had received reports of individuals trapped in their homes in the Assou Canal area.

NEMO’s Acting Director Maria Medard told St Lucia Times on Sunday afternoon that emergency responders were trying to assist in evacuating the distressed residents.

She said the responders included the police, the Saint Lucia Fire Service, the Gros Islet District Disaster Committee, and the National Transportation Committee.

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However, Medard said the number of affected residents was uncertain and would not be evident until the responders made a report.

“Some people have reported that the flooding was up to their neck. That was in the Corinth, Grande Riviere area,” Medard said.

She explained that heavy rainfall on Sunday and downpours in the past week had saturated the soil, contributing to the flooding.

According to Medard, apart from the North, the other parts of Saint Lucia seemed reasonably sunny.

Videos and photos on social media showed several areas inundated by water.

The Saint Lucia Meteorological Services said an upper-level trough affected Saint Lucia during the weekend.

“We were expecting it to move out today,” Joyeux told St Lucia Times.

However, he pointed out that lingering moisture in the atmosphere triggered some showers over Saint Lucia’s North-East.

Joyeux said that, as a result, there were reports of heavy flooding in that area.

“It’s isolated because the rest of the Island has fair to partly cloudy skies,” he observed.

“We understand that certain areas from Gros Islet to Bexon are flooded,” Joyeux said.

Met Services expects the upper-level trough to move away from Sunday.

“This isolated incident was a little unexpected so we expect partly cloudy skies through the week,” Joyeux revealed.

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Ranks of the Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) have unearthed a quantity of marijuana and a shotgun along with matching ammunition in two vessels off the Corentyne Coast, Region Six.

The discovery was made on Saturday along the coast of the No. 47 Village, Corentyne, Berbice.

According to CANU, its ranks with support from the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) Coast Guard intercepted two vessels early Saturday morning on the suspicion that they were transporting cannabis.

Despite the rough seas and inclement weather, the team boarded both vessels to conduct searches, during which they discovered one shotgun, a quantity of ammunition as well as suspected cannabis on one of the vessels. While several bags containing suspected cannabis was discovered on the other vessel.

The shotgun with ammunition and marijuana found on the two vessels

The CANU officers arrested 44-year-old Adrian Hetmyer and 20-year-old Daniel Persaud, both from Sheet Anchor, Berbice, along with two Suriname nationals, 41-year-old Suren Mohan and 48-year-old Imami Fizal. The suspects were escorted to CANU headquarters with the suspected narcotics, shotgun, and ammunition.

The cannabis was tested and weighed at CANU Headquarters.

“The total weight of the cannabis was 117 kgs or 257.9 lbs. with a local street value of $14.3 million GYDs,” CANU said.

In the first vessel intercepted, which was carrying Guyanese Hetmyer and Persaud, had some 105.8 kilograms or 233 pounds of marijuana.

Onboard the other vessel, which was carrying the two Surinamese nationals and in which the shotgun with ammunition was found, had another 11.2 kilograms or 24.6 pounds of cannabis.

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