News

The Hurricane Lenny Road Project which calls for the redesign and development if six stretches of road at separate locations on the island has moved to the Quarter area.

Sections 2 to 15 of the Constitution establishes our fundamental rights and freedoms. Section 16 provides the mechanism by which our fundamental rights and freedoms are protected.

Cap Juluca Resort in Anguilla has been voted top hotel in the Caribbean, Bermuda and The Bahamas by Travel & Leisure magazine’s subscribers in its Eighth Annual World’s Best Awards Survey. The hotels surveyed were judged in the categories of rooms and facilities, location, service, restaurants, food and value. The respondents were asked to rate hotels, islands, spas, cities, cruise lines and tour operators. There were almost 200,000 evaluations on the questionnaire. The results of the poll were published in the August 2003 issue of the magazine.

A well-attended awards ceremony at the Anguilla Great House on August 2, 2003, brought an end to the week-long celebration of Fifty Years of Secondary Education in Anguilla. It was jointly delivered by the Valley Secondary School which came into being in September 1953 and the Albena Lake-Hodge Comprehensive School which took over in September 1986.

Anguilla received unprecedented coverage in its major markets with the release of an advertising video for the 2003 Tranquility Jazz Festival.

Accident victims will be more quickly extracted now that the Police Department possesses its own Jaws for Life, equipment used to cut through cars wrecked in accidents.

Residents at Sandy Ground, one of the areas where a Police/Community Consultative Committee is to be established, are calling for the police station there to be opened 24 hours a day.

Hats off to the four boats who went to race Sunday in the race kept by the Light and Peace. It was not for any monetary gain, but for points. The Superstar won.

June 2004 is the deadline date for the completion of the extension to Wallblake Airport and for the improved facility to be up and running. Previously it was estimated that the work should be completed by March. The new and more realistic date follows the recent discussions in London held by a three-man Anguillian delegation with British Government officials and the consultants for the project. Three of the delegates Kenn Banks, Marcel Fahie and Fritz Smith reported at a press briefing Tuesday that the talks went well and that the airport project was on course with a total agreed length of 6,000 feet. The process of prequalification of contractors for the civil works and the issuing of tender notices is now being stepped up for early implementation.

Arif Ali, a long-standing Caribbean journalist and publisher residing in London, says that so far the progress his publishing company has made on the tourism promotional book Anguilla, Tranquility Wrapped in Blue, has been very rewarding. It is to be on the market in November for the beginning of the tourism season and is expected to rank highly among similar books he has produced for other regional islands as well as countries outside the region.

Chairman of the Anguilla Constitutional and Electoral Reform Committee, David Carty, says another round of awareness-raising initiatives will be made to deepen public understanding of the island’s Constitutional and Electoral Laws and to solicit the views of the people.

As part of its initiatives to promote Summer travel to the island, the Anguilla Tourist Board is participating in the annual convention of the Puerto Rico Chamber of Commerce from June 19 – 22, 2003 at the Wyndham El Conquistador Resort & Golf Course in Fajardo, Puerto Rico. Over 1200 participants and 170 exhibitors are expected to be in attendance at the 4-day event which will feature workshops, seminars, business meetings and social activities, under the theme “In firm step with the new generation”.

The crowd was slow to build up at the Ronald Webster Park for the parade marking the Official Birthday of Queen Elizabeth The Second, but by the time the celebration commenced the many seats under the tents and in the pavilion were largely filled. Among the public and private sector representatives and other members of the Anguillian community in attendance, were the British Defense Attache based in Barbados, Commander Steve Samm and his wife.

“You made me like cricket,” a middle-aged Anguillian woman shouted as Omari Banks approached the mammoth and jubilant crowd at Wallbalke Airport which accorded him a hero’s welcome home from a test series between the West Indies and Australia and one day international matches against Sri Lanka and Australia. Another expression of jubilation rang out over the den of voices, horns and music: “America has Michael Jordan, her basketball hero, and Anguilla has Omari Banks, her cricket hero.”

Civil Society in Anguilla has been afforded an opportunity to take its concerns about self-determination and other issues directly to the General Body of the United Nations Special Committee of 24 on Decolonisation in New York. These concerns were presented by Dr. Phyllis Fleming-Banks on Thursday morning June 12 in a statement which she had previously delivered to the UN Caribbean Regional Seminar held in Anguilla on May 20-22.

As excitement reached fever pitch over the homecoming of Anguilla’s first West Indies Test Cricketer, Omari Banks has also been receiving attention overseas. This is a result of an article published in the June 2nd edition of the Express newspaper in Trinidad.

Minister of Finance Victor Banks, responded to requests made by listeners of Talk Your Mind that he should appear on the weekly talk show to answer questions about the liberalisation of the telecommunications market in Anguilla and the increased fees agreed to between Government and Cable & Wireless.

With plans now advanced for the establishment of an autonomous Health Authority to take over the running of the medical and health services from the Anguilla Government, the Nurses at the Princess Alexandra Hospital are busily preparing themselves for the eventual transition. On Wednesday, June 4, Chief Nursing Officer, Serene Carter-Davis and Matron Alma Hughes led ten Senior Nurses at a Managers’ Day Workshop at the Teachers’ Resource Centre at which several local facilitators delivered presentations to the health workers.

The younger generation in Anguilla will be given an opportunity to learn more about the traditional sea-faring life of the island when a new definitive issue of postage stamps is released on June 10.

Anguilla’s Chief Minister Osbourne Fleming has appealed to nationals to form community action groups to provide voluntary service to the island in an effort to contribute to nation-building. He made the appeal during the official parade at the Ronald Webster Park on May 30 in observance of the 36th Anniversary of the Anguilla Revolution.