Black Immigrant Daily News

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Arme de poing saisie par les gendarmes dans la nuit de samedi à dimanche. • GENDARMERIE DE MARTINIQUE

Un gendarme a été blessé par un scooter qui a refusé d’obtempérer lors d’un contrôle routier au Vauclin. Une arme de poing a été saisie et plus de 50 conducteurs verbalisés dans le cadre de ce dispositif.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

The Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) notes a consistent increase in the monthly point-to-point inflation rate as of October 2022, which now stands at 9.9 per cent.

Though the COVID-19 pandemic wanes globally, Jamaicans face an unrelenting rise in commodity and service costs.

According to Sterling Asset Management, intelligent investing is the way through these choppy financial waters. The investment firm shared this tip and others during its third quarterly business mingle on Wednesday, November 16, 2022.

Savvy investors attended the after-dusk corporate soiree at ATL Automotive’s Audi Showroom in New Kingston under the theme: “How to Navigate Investing for the Future”.

Ably led by Charles Ross, President and CEO, the top brass of the 21-year-old Sterling Asset Management Limited informed clients of the great returns possible over the short to medium-term.

Ross said Sterling Asset Management caters to a “discerning, knowledgeable niche market that demands excellent service and intelligent investing”.

Dwayne Neil, Sterling’s Assistant Vice-President (AVP) – Personal Financial Planning, shared the first of three investment tips focused on short-term bonds and other short-term assets.

According to Neil, “short” investments afford investors the agility and adaptability to react to changes in economic conditions. In the current inflationary environment, short-dated, high-quality bonds will enable investors to preserve their spending power and ensure consumption levels are not eroded over time by inflation.

For her part, Christine Rankine, Manager – Personal Finance Planning at Sterling Asset Management, suggested portfolio diversification as a tool to weather the “inflation storm”.

Rankine remarked that portfolio diversification is often understated but critical in today’s financial environment.

“Once you set your financial goals, we at Sterling come in. We do the research for you. Our traders use a wide variety of tools to track investments. This is something we take pride in. We provide predictability and growth,” she explained.

To close the discussion, Anna-Joy Tibby, joint- AVP of Personal Financial Planning at Sterling Asset Management, through the equation: market volatility = opportunity, explained wild fluctuations in the market, which could be juxtaposed with the present-day, are the ideal occasions to strategise.

“If you understand that volatility is the rule, not the exception, prolonged dips and swings in the market can actually work to your advantage,” Tibby noted.

Speaking to existing clients and prospects, Tibby petitioned investors to better capitalise on these volatility opportunities by keeping their investments short and liquid, which Sterling Asset offers through its short-term US$ Repurchase Agreements and US$ Certificates of Participation.

On the other hand, for the more risk-averse investor, Sterling Asset Management has a new Capital Markets Unit, providing structured notes that carry limited price volatility, if any.

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Press Release

The DNA continues to hemorrhage its top brass as Mr. Kelton Dalso becomes the fourth person in four weeks to resign from the 6-year-old organization. Mr. Dalso, was slated to represent the DNA in the constituency of St. Georges.

This comes as a serious blow to the organization as Mr. Dalso, was one of the more popular candidates for the party, grossing the second highest number of votes in the 2018 elections.

Mr. Dalso has been active in politics for over 30 years and was the former campaign manager for Mr. Adolphus Freeland, the ABLP stalwart who represented the same constituency from 1976 to 1999. He was elected as the DNA’s Mobilization Officer at its Congress in June 2021.

On November 19th 2022, he wrote to the party’s Deputy Secretary General stating that it was his own resilience, fortitude and perseverance which kept him in the ranks of the DNA as he was not here because the institution itself was pleasant and progressive.

He chided the Party for what he termed were “categorical lies” issued to the public in their press release of the 27th October 2022 which he claimed, was laced with malicious intent, as he expressed concern as to how easily the DNA had turned on its key Founders.

In his three-page letter of resignation, the former Mobilization Officer accused the President of using the party to wage personal vendettas and questioned her leadership capacity claiming that she was prone to serious and frequent meltdowns and that it was her failure to even respond to the July 22 letter that was penned by the 1st Vice President, the Chairperson and the Secretary General that led to the departure of his former colleagues. Sparing no words, Mr. Dalso accused his now former leader of being pompous and arrogant.

Among the other matters raised in his letter of resignation, Mr. Dalso stated that his campaign had been repeatedly undermined and sabotaged by other officers of the party and by the President herself who had unilaterally shelved a strategic document written by the former Chairperson, Ms. Malaka Parker, despite his pleadings as Mobilization Officer for the strategic document to be properly discussed by the party. Further, he referenced what he termed as serious threats levelled against him by other colleagues, stating that the hostility and aggression towards him had grown and that these flames were openly fanned by the leader.

The former candidate for St. Georges, in closing the door on the DNA, stated that it was the events of the last week, which truly sealed his decision as it had now become crystalized that the DNA was joining forces with the ABLP. He described the radio interviews done by the leader of the DNA over the last week as being “quite eccentric and distasteful.

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The five divers involved in an underwater accident at Paria Fuel Trading Co Ltd in one of the last photos taken at Pointe-a-Pierre on February 25. From left are, Christopher Boodram, who survived, Kazim Ali, Yusuf Henry, Rishi Nagassar and Fyzal Kurban. –

Conversations amongst the five divers who went into a 30-inch pipeline at Berth 6, belonging to Paria Fuel Trading Co Ltd at Pointe-a-Pierre on February 25, were heard for the first time on Monday during an evidentiary hearing by the Commission of Enquiry (CoE) into the incident.

The hearing took place at Tower D of the Port of Spain International Waterfront Centre.

Kazim Ali Jr, Fyzal Kurban, Yusuf Henry, Rishi Nagassar and Christopher Boodram were doing routine maintenance on the pipeline when they were sucked into it.

Only Boodram survived.

Counsel to the CoE Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, SC, said in addition to Boodram’s evidence , the commission also obtained video and audio footage from a work camera that Ali had with him at the time of the incident.

Maharaj said the video was lost at the time of the incident, around 2.45 pm on February 25, but the audio was still active.

While saying only six minutes and 55 seconds of the footage would be played, Maharaj advised people who were physically in the room to leave if they were unable to listen to it. He advised people viewing the footage virtually to switch off their devices for a few minutes, if they might find the footage disturbing.

Some of the audio which was played including the following conversations:

“All of we in this together.”

“We have to go. We have to start moving.”

“I’m trying to come out.”

“I’m right behind you.”

“You right behind me?”

“My foot break.”

Maharaj said when Boodram was rescued, between 4.30 and 4.45 pm, by divers Ronald Ramoutar and Corey Crawford, he indicated that the other divers were still alive and that Kurban was right behind him in the pipeline.

“The four other divers remained alive in the underwater pipeline, and they were not rescued.”

Maharaj said LMCS, the divers’ employer, and Paria gave evidence of efforts to rescue the four divers before and after Boodram was rescued.

The bodies of Ali, Henry and Kurban were recovered on February 28. Nagassar’s body was recovered on March 2.

Post-mortem examinations on the bodies of the dead divers were done by two forensic pathologists

The first exam was done by Prof Hubert Daisley. Daisley’s report, Maharaj continued, said Ali “could have have been alive as late as midnight on February 26.”

Kurban may have been alive up to 6 pm on February 26. Henry may have been alive up to the early hours of the morning of February 26. Nagassar may have been alive up to midnight on February 25.

Maharaj said a second post-mortem showed Ali, Kurban and Henry may have been alive up to midnight on February 27 and Nagassar up to midnight on February 28.

Referring to the commission’s terms of reference, Maharaj said they included determining whether sufficient efforts were made to rescue the divers; whether criminal proceedings could be implemented against any person or entity; and whether such a recommendation should be made to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP)

Maharaj also said the commission would determine whether or not adequate safety precautions had been taken to prevent the incident of February 25 from occurring.

With respect to the rescue, Maharaj said LMCS had an initial rescue plan at 3.20 pm on February 25, involving divers with scuba equipment going to rescue the four trapped divers. This was later revised at 6.20 pm to involve pumping surface air into the pipeline to facilitate the rescue.

Maharaj said LMCS submitted in its evidence that Paria prevented it from implementing its rescue plan on the ground that it was unsafe.

Paria, in its evidence, Maharaj continued, said it implemented sea searches for the four divers around 5.45 pm on February 25 after being informed of Boodram’s rescue.

CoE chairman Jerome Lynch KC expressed surprise that three hours had passed before Paria became aware that the four divers were trapped in the pipeline.

Maharaj said evidence from the Coast Guard suggested its divers did not have the equipment necessary for commercial sea diving and could not attempt a rescue with only scuba equipment.

He also said a preliminary report on the incident done by the Occupational Health and Safety Authority (OSHA) on April 28, suggested neither LMCS or Paria may have taken possible risks related to sub-sea diving into consideration before the repairs were done on the pipeline.

This included the conditions for a Delta P situation, which is defined as movement from an area of higher pressure to an area of lower pressure.

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