HAMILTON, Bermuda, CMC - Parliament has passed legislation allowing the One Bermuda Alliance government to borrow an additional one billion US dollars after it said it needed to act swiftly before it ran out of funds.
The Government Loans Amendment Act 2013 was approved by a majority vote allowing the government to raise the national debt ceiling from US$1.45 billion to US$2.5 billion.
Associate Member
HAMILTON, Bermuda, CMC - A new survey has found that children as young as seven have experimented with drugs and alcohol in Bermuda. According to the “Report of the Survey of Student’s Knowledge and Attitudes of Drugs and Health 2012”, one-third of Primary 5, Primary 6 and Middle 1 students had tried drugs, cigarettes or alcohol. Some students admitted trying alcohol at the age of six and marijuana at seven.
NEW YORK—Recently-elected Turks & Caicos Premier Dr Rufus Ewing, will showcase investment opportunities in the territory, at the third annual Invest Caribbean Now Forum, presented by luxury real estate company Avalon Partners, on June 5 at the Radisson Martinique Hotel in New York City.
HAMILTON, Bermuda, CMC - An outbreak of gastroenteritis has struck almost 30 patients and staff at the King Edward VIII Memorial Hospital. This has resulted in the quarantine of one of the wards at the institution. A spokesperson from the Bermuda Hospital Board said access to Gordon Ward is likely to be restricted through Friday. Five staff members
HAMILTON, Bermuda, CMC –The Bermuda government says it will crack down on tax dodgers who owe it a whopping US$85 million in unpaid taxes. A Finance Ministry spokesman said the sum is the total amount of unpaid tax receivables more than 90 days old at the end of 2012. The bulk of the figure, which does not include social insurance contributions, comes from unpaid payroll tax and represents almost 10 per cent of government’s estimated $871 million revenue for the coming financial year.
PROVIDENCIALES, Turks and CAICOS Islands, CMC - Britain says it will not impose a Value Added Tax (VAT) in the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) after both the government and the opposition said they were against the tax measure. Foreign and Commonwealth Minister with responsibility for the Caribbean, Mark Simmonds, in a letter to Premier Dr. Rufus Ewing, however indicated that London is of the view that the TCI government has a responsibility to ensure sound finances in the British Overseas Territory.
KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — Researchers steering a remote-controlled submarine around the world's deepest known hydrothermal vents have collected numerous samples from sunless depths of the Caribbean Sea where blazing hot, mineral-rich fluid gushes from volcanic chimneys that look like gnarled tree stumps.
HAMILTON, Bermuda, CMC - Community Development Minister Wayne Scott says government has ruled out giving the green light to same-sex marriages. Government said earlier this month it proposed to amend the island's Human Rights Act by adding sexual orientation to the list of prohibited categories of discrimination in the areas of the provision of goods, services and accommodation. But, he said, the changes will not go any further and same-sex marriages are not on the government's agenda.
HAMILTON, Bermuda, CMC - The new One Bermuda Alliance (OBA) government plans to introduce human rights regulations that will protect gays and lesbians from discrimination. Attorney General Mark Pettingill says Bermuda, a British Overseas Territory, is at present in violation of European laws that makes it an offence not to provide protection for gays and lesbians within its Human Rights Act. Pettingill told the Royal Gazette newspaper that government was moving quickly to amend the law and that changes would be put before parliament “within the next number of weeks”.
HAMILTON, Bermuda, CMC – Speculation is rife here that opposition parliamentarian Terry Lister will announce his resignation from the Progressive Labour Party (PLP) during Friday's sitting of the House of Assembly. Unconfirmed reports say Lister, a former cabinet minister, will sit as an independent. He has twice put himself up for the PLP leadership but failed on both occasions.