Jessica Stephenson cops second Carifta medal

Kaieteur News – March 31, 2008

Jessica Stephenson captured a second medal at the Carifta Games Swimming championships being contested in Aruba.

The Trinidad and Tobago-based Guyanese secured a bronze medal in the 100m breaststroke event yesterday.

She had earlier claimed gold in the 200m breaststroke. Full details in tomorrow’s edition.

Mother may soon be reunited with abducted baby

Kaieteur News – March 31, 2008

Alexis Bhagwandin may soon be reunited with her one-year-old son, Alex Cleveland McKenzie, who was abducted by his father about two weeks ago.

This is through the input of officers from the Bartica Police Station.

According to the grandmother of the missing child, Janice Glen, the family is now in possession of crucial information which could lead directly to the location of the child’s father and hopefully the child, who according to reports has become ill.

The woman said that last Saturday night she received a call from an aunt of the child’s father, who lives in Bartica, informing her that someone had spotted him and the child in an area called Tiger Creek.

According to Glen, a resident of the area had informed the aunt that her nephew had in his possession a young child who appears to be very ill and has since become plagued with sores.  

Friendship house ravaged by fire – owner in custody

Kaieteur News – March 31, 2008

A woman of unsound mind is in police custody after being fingered as the arsonist who set ablaze her Friendship, East Bank Demerara home yesterday afternoon.

The woman, 52-year-old Pulmattie Rampersaud, was taken to the Grove Police Station along with her husband, who was identified as Sham Rampersaud.

At the station, both persons were accusing each other of setting the blaze that completely gutted the two-storey structure.

At the scene of the fire yesterday, neighbours were all of the opinion that the woman had set the blaze since she had consistently been threatening to set the house afire.

One of the neighbours said that the woman was recently discharged from the psychiatric ward of the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation. This was confirmed by relatives on the scene who declined to be named. 

Relatives concerned about safety of executed man’s daughter

-victim had been told to go to Laing Avenue
Stabroek News – March 31, 2008

As fear continues to grip 18-year-old Anika Barton who narrowly escaped death just over a week ago when her father was gunned down on Laing Avenue, her relatives say that three recent developments clearly show that her life is in danger.

The teen is now out of hospital after taking her own discharge and her relatives have vowed to protect her at all costs while voicing their concerns over the police’s apparent non-interest in the matter.

To them this case seems as if it would go down in Guyana’s crime pages as unsolved and they issued pleas to the law enforcement authorities to act swiftly on the information they have so that those responsible could be caught and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Visiting RAM medical team off to Rupununi outreach

Guyana Chronicle – March 31, 2008
By Nathalene DeFreitas

THE team of medical doctors from the Remote Area Medical (RAM) Volunteer Corps last Saturday departed Georgetown to the Rupununi to commence their medical outreach programme on cervical cancer in the area.

In an interview with the Director of RAM Dr Rebecca Kightlinger, she noted the desperate need that developing countries have for the provision of women’s health services, such as screenings for cervical cancer and breast cancer.

Dr Kightlinger explained that RAM is actively involved in providing screenings and treatments, also mammograms, and sometimes Pap smears. She added that through the Guyana project currently hundreds of village women are being treated and since the project was launched in Guyana over 2,000 Amerindian women were screened and treated.

Research has shown that Guyana has the third highest rate of death from cervical cancer in the Western Hemisphere. Cervical cancer is preventable through screening.

Some more equal . . .

The Nation Newspaper (Barbados) – March 30, 2008
by TONY BEST

ARE WOMEN REALLY EQUAL in the Caribbean? The answer: the laws often mandate one thing but in actual practice the story can be quite different.

It’s a provocative question at a time when women in Barbados are top corporate executives and Mia Mottley is the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament.

In the United States human rights report on the status of women it said that in Barbados, women had made significant gains. In fact, the report to the United States Congress stated: “Women actively participated in all aspects of national life and were well represented at all levels of the public and private sectors.”

It’s also a fact that “women have equal property rights, including in a divorce settlement”, and there are constitutional guarantees of equality.

But there are problems. Barbados has pointed to the feminisation of poverty and the abuse of women as major social problems. Prostitution fuelled by poverty and tourism is also a fact of life.