News

It was exactly 33 years on Tuesday this week, December 2, since Leroy Errol Brooks, a most respected and beloved Anguillian was ordained to the Priesthood in the Ministry of the Anglican Church at St. John’s Cathedral in Antigua. A Thanksgiving Service to mark the anniversary occasion was held at St. Andrew’s Anglican Church on that evening, following the end of the Patronal Festival there.

The special appearance of our bordered front page denotes the silent observance of ten years since The Anguillian has been functioning as the island’s main weekly newspaper. The paper began publication on December 4, 1998. It was printed locally at Max Printing on the Stoney Ground Road for several years following which it was taken to the Daily Herald in St. Maarten for continued production.

Anguilla’s oldest citizen, Victoria Charles, has given admirers a recipe for longevity. “Eat plenty fish and ground provisions,” she told a gathering on the grounds of St. Gerard’s Roman Catholic Church on Sunday, November 30.

The Anguilla Government is concerned that although there has been a reduction in the cost of fuel per barrel on the world market, there has been no real drop price in at the pumps on the island.

Various groups and individuals involved in civil society came together in Anguilla from Tuesday this week in observance of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, at a two-day workshop and rally in condemnation of this violent ill-treatment of women and girls by men.

The National Bank of Anguilla Ltd proudly announced on Tuesday, November 25, that its West End Branch was now operational. The full-service facility was opened to the public on Monday, offering all the services and products currently available at the main branch in The Valley.

Shoal Bay Beach, on the north coast of Anguilla, is one of the island’s thirty-plus beaches which regularly attract many visitors particularly around this time during the tourist season.

Crowds of supporting children and adults stormed onto the fenced playground at Coronation Park on Monday, November 17, where the male members of the young football team from the Adrian T. Hazell Primary School were leaping in the air after winning the National Bank-sponsored Primary Schools Tournament.

Unlike some of the previous events, Anguilla’s 6th Annual Tranquility Jazz Festival, was basically uninterrupted by inclement weather conditions that usually result in rain showers early in November when the musical function gets underway. Thus, with no rain to worry about, the November 6-9 festival, under the regular theme “Straight Jazz No Chaser”, went very well at the locations at which the events were held.

Police in Anguilla now know that the information given to them by a suspicious man found at Little Harbour, on October 28, on the island’s south coast bordering French St. Martin, is entirely false.

Mothers in Anguilla have been told that if they were to nurse their babies for two years and more, they would provide them with the normal nutrition and protection against illness at a time when it is common among other toddlers.

Had it been possible, the late civil rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., would have leapt from his grave to see the day when an African-American in the person of Senator Barack Obama was elected as the 44th President of the United States on Tuesday this week, November 4, 2008. Indeed, he might even acknowledge that we had “reached the mountain top” – a summit he strove for throughout his entire life.

Graduation 2008 at the Albena Lake-Hodge Comprehensive School was “almost flawless and the school must be highly commended,” the Principal, Mrs. Ingrid Lake, said in a statement.

Faced by the gloomy prospect of a drowning death on March 14th this year when he was hurled overboard, while on a fishing trip east of Anguilla, Sam Webster of Island Harbour lamented that he would die without seeing “Obama become President of the United States”.

The National Bank of Anguilla’s 20th Annual Primary School Football Tournament, known to attract large crowds from throughout the island, is now in progress for a three-week period at Coronation Ball Park in The Valley.

Tell-tale signs on vegetation, some scars on the infrastructure and severe erosion of beaches in Anguilla, bear evidence of the swift passage of Hurricane Omar with sustained winds of approximately 73 miles per hour and gusts of 80 mph in the early hours of Thursday, October 15.

The Albena Lake-Hodge Comprehensive School took a plausible decision when Monday this week, September 8, was set aside as Motivational Day for Third Form students under the theme I am a Promise. It is one of the largest forms at Campus A with the youngest students, fresh from Campus B, with special needs for settling in, getting off to a well-rounded start and building a foundation for higher learning and spiritual and social development.

The large auditorium at the Road Primary School was filled to capacity on Tuesday, September 9, where Government officials, teachers and students as well as residents in South Hill and Blowing Point, gathered for the Renaming Ceremony and Anniversary Celebrations of the learning institute. The person at the centre of the high profile event was former Headmaster, Adrian T. Hazell, whose name has now been given to the school in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the development of education in Anguilla. Smartly dressed and accompanied by his wife, Mrs. Dorothy Hazell, and Colin, one of their three children, the well-respected erstwhile educator entered the auditorium to a rousing welcome and standing ovation from the mammoth crowd.

The current effort by the Government of Anguilla towards constitutional development is a matter of continuing interest on the island. In view of this, The Anguillian, in cooperation with the Social Security Board, will be publishing, over the coming few weeks, in serial form, a paper delivered by Dame Bernice Lake, DGGN, Q.C. at the 8th Annual Walter G. Hodge Memorial Lecture in June this year. The first installment of that lecture follows:
Throughout the region, which we know as the Eastern Caribbean States, there is a shared evolution from the classification of colonial territory to that of emergent democratic nation states. That process has been evolutionary rather than revolutionary, and, for that reason, our sense of nationalism is not as frenzied and fanatical as those nation states who have come through the cauldron and crucible of armed conflict with their colonial masters.

While the Flag/Temenos project is temporarily closed, Ashtrom, the construction company, and the Ministry of Social Development of the Anguilla Government, have taken the opportunity to work towards the completion of the Football Stadium at the Ronald Webster Park annex which had been halted for sometime now.