Local News

Malliouhana Hotel & Spa’s restaurant has been honoured once again with Wine Spectator Magazine’s GRAND AWARD in the 2003 Restaurant Awards. This is the highest award bestowed upon restaurants that show an uncompromising and passionate devotion to their wine programme.  Grand Award recipients offer a flawlessly organized and presented wine selection and feature a serious breadth of top wine producers and verticals with outstanding depth in mature vintages and a selection of large-format bottles with the wine lists in excellent harmony with the menu and accompanied by superior wine service.

The well-renowned Heritage Collection Museum, under the curatorship of Colville Petty, OBE, an authority on Anguilla’s history, has moved to new premises. It is now located in East End, next to the East End Pond Bird Sanctuary. Its opening hours are: 10.00 am to 5.00 pm – Monday to Saturday.

Inmates from the Miriam Gumbs Senior Citizens Home in Anguilla and the Bethany Home in St.Martin, fellowshipped together here over the weekend of October 25, as part of activities on the two islands in observance of the Month of the Elderly.

Caribbean story-teller, writer, humorist and motivational speaker, Paul Keens-Douglas, used his ready wit and humour to put across two of the most candid motivational lectures his listeners in Anguilla have ever heard.

Minister of Social Services, Eric Reid, was among health personnel, members of the Health Authority Transition Board and staff of the Information Technology Unit at a motivational workshop conducted by Paul Keens-Douglas at the Teachers Resource Centre on October 26.

The Government proceeded with two motions, in the House of Assembly on Tuesday and Thursday this week, relating to the expansion of Wallblake Airport, brushing aside objections from Leader of the Opposition Hubert Hughes and his colleague Edison Baird.

Second Nominated Member and Deputy Speaker in the Anguilla House of Assembly, Claudel Romney, was in the hot seat on Tuesday and Thursday this week. He presided over the sitting of the House for the first time in the absence of the Speaker, Leroy Rogers, who left the island some days before.

The Anguilla Government is well on its way to establishing an autonomous Health Authority to run the island’s health services with effect from January 2004.

ANGUILLA’S CULINARY TEAM, BARTENDER DID WELL

The National Culinary Team and the Bartender from Anguilla did very well at the “Taste of the Caribbean 2003” competition at the Renaissance Jamaica Grande in Ocho Rios from October 2-5.

Pilot Project For Anguilla

The Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court, of which Anguilla is one of the various jurisdictions, is in the initial stages of rationalising its structures. The aim is to streamline the system to provide a more efficient and effective operation. This is according to Chief Justice Sir Dennis Byron. He made the statement on Monday, September 15, while delivering a live video address, from Antigua, marking the opening of the Law Year 2003/2004.

As plans continue for the Tranquility Jazz Festival to be held in Anguilla by the island’s Tourism Board, American Airlines and CuisinArt Resort & Spa have come forward to provide some much-needed sponsorship for the November 14-16 event. In the meantime, the festival is being advertised across the United States by B.E.T. into 10 million homes.

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.

The open air auditorium at Campus B at the Albena Lake-Hodge Comprehensive School was filled to capacity on Sunday evening July 27, where a special Thanksgiving Service was held to mark the Fiftieth Anniversary of Secondary Education in Anguilla. Throngs of past students of the Valley Secondary School established in September 1953 and the Comprehensive School, which came into being in September 1986, paraded from Campus A to Campus B for the service.

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.

The silence by the police in Anguilla on the investigations surrounding the murder of school girl Jamida Webster of Island Harbour in March this year, is not an effort to keep information from the public, Commissioner Keithly Benjamin said this week.

What “was a night of hell” in Montserrat on July 11, was also a memorable experience for Anguilla and a number of neighbouring islands, as the Soufierre Hills volcano, overnight, sent tons of ash across the region.

Separation of Powers: How Real Is It?

Constitutional theory suggests that there should be a clear demarcation between the three arms of Government. This is generally referred to as the separation of powers.

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.