News

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.

An active community group at East End, called “CITRUS”, is making inroads in community life and social development there. Though not a political grouping, as its leadership and members emphasise, it nevertheless has a function which may help in the choice of candidates in the upcoming elections in Districts 1 and 2 (Island Harbour and Sandy Hill).

Anguillians turned out in large numbers at the James Ronald Webster Park on Tuesday, June 2nd, to celebrate the 42nd Anniversary of the Anguilla Revolution and Anguilla Day with an Official Parade and the honouring of a number of nationals and others for their outstanding contribution to the island.

The United Kingdom’s Attorney General, the Rt. Hon. Baroness Patricia Scotland, has made it clear to Anguilla and the other Overseas Territories that matters of good governance, public accountability and law and order are being followed closely in London. She was at the time addressing the opening session of the 18th Annual Conference of Attorneys General hosted this week by Anguilla at the Malliouhana Hotel & Spa Conference Centre at Meads Bay.

The stage has been set for the celebration of Anguilla Day on Tuesday, June 2, under the theme: Anguilla at 42: Moving On, We Celebrate With You. The staging event was a Thanksgiving Ecumenical Service at St. Mary’s Anglican Church on Sunday, May 24, attended by a capacity congregation, the largest seen there in recent years.

Anguilla’s Deputy Governor, the Honourable Stanley Reid, stressed that fraud impacts institutions at the personal and organisational level and the Anguilla Public Service was no exception.

Tragedy struck Anguilla early on Wednesday morning this week when a member of the Royal Anguilla Police Force, a national of Dominica, was killed in an accident on the Shoal Bay to Island Harbour road.

The Anguilla Community Foundation, which has made substantial grants from its Cares Campaign over the years, is preparing to make its first grant from its General Endowment Fund shortly to non-government organisations and other groups serving the island’s youth.

There is a strong possibility that cancer and kidney patients in Anguilla can get a whole lot of help under an arrangement being looked into, at the initiative of Dr. Roy Schneider, a noted physician and former Governor of the US Virgin Islands.

The rain held off as the two teams gathered on the beach awaiting the arrival of the St. Maarten 12 Metre boats for the seventh annual “Battle of the Banks” race which has become a key part of the annual Anguilla Regatta.

Minister of Tourism and Economic Development, Victor Banks, told reporters on Tuesday this week that the Anguilla Government was doing all it could to ensure that the Flag Luxury Project, which remains closed since the beginning of the latter half of last year, would not become “a white elephant” on the island.

With the general election in Anguilla constitutionally due in just under one year, a new Anguilla Democratic Party (ADP), comprising three members so far, has launched its campaign for the political leadership of the island while seeking additional qualified candidates.

The imposing and luxury Anguillian-owned da’Vida Restaurant at Crocus Bay, is the island’s newest classy cuisine facility with seventeen well-experienced staff members serving a growing number of patrons on two shifts. The attractive structure, which is to be further developed on the top floor, complements the long-established Lloyd’s Guest House in the historic Upper Valley. There is also a small villa development at Crocus Bay neatly tucked away in the northern corner of the beach opposite the new restaurant which had a soft opening on April 30, ahead of its formal grand commissioning in the near future.