News

The Anguilla Government has signed up its permanent establishment of some nine hundred civil servants and their immediate families into an air ambulance evacuation plan, an initial step in the provision of an eventual island-wide service for the population.

The August holiday week in Anguilla was a time of merriment not only for hundreds of Anguillians, but many tourists and other persons who poured into the island for the 2009 Summer Festival. They all converged on the Landsome Bowl Cultural Centre where various shows were held, on the streets for jam sessions, a colourful parade of troupes and the attendant series of exciting boat races.

Chief Minister, Osbourne Fleming, and Minister of Finance, Economic Development and Tourism, Victor Banks, told reporters on Monday that the agreement which the Anguilla delegation signed in London last week with the Chinese Business Network (CBN) was for tourism promotion only. They gave the hasty explanation at the Chief Minister’s press conference in response to opposition charges and public fears that under the agreement local businesses would be at risk and eventually the island “would be swamped” by competing Chinese business investments.

Anguilla’s Minister of Finance, Victor Banks, speaking on behalf of Chief Minister, Osbourne Fleming, said that the island, like other OECS member territories, had concerns with ways and means of dealing with issues regarding the movement of persons throughout the sub-region.

Anguilla’s Parliamentarian, the Hon. Edison Baird, is back home recuperating well from injuries he sustained in a vehicular accident in the Water Swamp area on June 4. Since then he had been receiving treatment in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands.
The Road North Elected Representative was met at Wallblake Airport on his arrival on Sunday, July 26, by a large number of persons from his constituency and from among the general public.

Talks with the Chinese Business Network (CBN) on tourism promotion and investment in Anguilla, and with British Government officials on the need for assistance to alleviate the impacts of the global economic crisis on the island, were among matters in which the Anguillian delegation was engaged in London over the past several days.

Crocus Hill, in the historic Lower Valley, long known as the highest elevation in Anguilla, is the site of a ten million US-dollar real estate development now rising majestically with a sweeping view of the beautiful fishing bay and beach below. The villa project is being built on land made available by Michael Basden, an Anguillian residing in Brooklyn, New York, whose late mother, Cecile Gumbs, served there as a Nurse before returning to Anguilla and taking up residence at the upper end of the property.

One of Anguilla's fire trucks overturned in the Little Dix area on Tuesday, while travelling to Shoal Bay Road, where the occupants of a jeep, reportedly driven by a female motorist, were trapped inside after the jeep had crashed into a utility pole. The fire truck was on its way to rescue them.

Cap Juluca Resort was ushered into the top of the news in Anguilla on Tuesday this week when the new owner, Adam Aron, representing his two partners and their company, Cap Juluca Properties Ltd, entered into a signed Memorandum of Agreement with the Government to own and further develop the world-class property. Mr. Aron, known “to put his money where his mouth is,” handed over to Government a cheque for one million US dollars in Stamp Duty for transfer of ownership of the resort to his company which could have been paid later.

There have been many school graduations in Anguilla over the past two weeks or so, but the most celebrated has been the graduation of the Sixth Form Class of of the Albena Lake-Hodge Comprehensive School on Thursday, July 2, at the Teachers’ Resource Centre.

It appears that there is now a generally well-worked out harmony and understanding among the Anguilla Bar Association, the Attorney General’s Chambers, the Anguilla Financial Services Association (AFSA) and the Anguilla Christian Council, with respect to what was seen in some circles as a controversial Proceeds of Crime Bill. With a good deal of agreement on all sides, the draft legislation is now ready to be presented to the House of Assembly over the coming days by Attorney General, Wilhelm Bourne, who played a major role in the public discussions.

With the Anguilla Summer Festival due to commence towards the end of this month, The Valley Community Troupe is off to an extremely good start having been presented with a cheque for US$10,000 by Crocus Bay Development, a neighbourhood villa project.

Newcomer to the political arena in Anguilla, Lawyer Cora Richardson-Hodge, has started a series of tent meetings in District 2, the East End/Sandy Hill constituency, which are allowing her to meet voters in the local communities at the grassroots level.

With all other political parties and candidates having virtually declared themselves for the upcoming general election, the governing United Front Party (UFP) is gearing up for the first of two conventions at the end of July. It will be at that first event that the party, to be officially led by the Hon. Victor Banks, in place of Chief Minister, Osbourne Fleming, who is retiring, will formally select and announce its candidates for the seven electoral districts.

Ernest Hemingway’s novella, The Old Man and the Sea, immediately came to mind upon hearing that young Patrick Webster, Island Harbour fisherman, had a Blue Marlin rope-lashed to the side of his twenty-seven-foot, open fishing boat named Opportunity, struggling slowly from the far north, back to Anguilla. After considerable time and effort, the mobile phone signal range allowed only a garbled call to be placed to his two brothers, Tim and Vernon.

Fifty new and continuing officers in the Anguilla Public Service benefited from a two-day induction training session aimed at equipping them with the relevant knowledge about the functions and operations of the service.

Wallblake Airport was a scene of much jubilation on Tuesday this week when the top award-winning Anguillian chefs, in the Taste of the Caribbean Culinary Competition held in Puerto Rico last weekend, returned home to a resounding welcome. Wild cheers and dancing greeted them as they disembarked from the American Eagle aircraft, compared only to when the judges of the competition announced that they had won a Team Gold Medal and would go through the finals.

Anguilla has been showcased as the biggest award winner in the Americas and the Caribbean, winning almost concurrently, awards in Puerto Rico and New York.

Over the past several weeks, a number of political parties and candidates have come forward, declaring their interest in contesting the general election constitutional due by March next year.

Anguilla is coming of age with other countries having now its own prescribed Customs Declaration Forms to be filled in and submitted by all persons arriving at the island’s ports of entry with or without imported goods.