MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Penguin News Update.
Headlines:
Candidates encourage ?more openness'; ?Something wicked this way comes' as students take to the stage.
News in brief
Police investigation; General Election 2005; Molchanov visiting today; Silent remembrance today.
?Something wicked this way comes' as students take to the stage
THIS trio of witches waits for the backstage "hurly-burly to be done" so they can take their places on the Town Hall stage at Tuesday night's variety show. The three, Alice Hancox, Abby Heathman and Gemma Jennings, brought a mystic touch to a performance of Macbeth.The concert showcased the talents of students from the Community School, featuring a touch of pantomime with Robin Hood and musical performances of a range of pieces, from classical to rock and roll. A second concert was held on Wednesday night.
Candidates encourage ?more openness'
FIRST time candidates in the General Election have been calling for greater openness in government. At a press conference held on Tuesday evening, attended by all Stanley candidates and two from Camp, a number of the first-timers criticised former councils for a "lack of public debate." A report of the Select Committee on the Constitution was released to the public in October. Candidate Andrea Clausen said that, having read through the report, she would support the option of retaining three elected members on Executive Council, assigning to them three ?super-portfolios'. She explained, "I do think having three Executive Councillors is the way to go, keeping five Legislative Councillors as the checking system." She is against the existence of General Purposes Committee (GPC): "I think it should go back to the old system whereby Executive papers are given to the Executive members to be read and they are discussed at Executive Council. "If their decisions are not agreed upon by all Legislative members - and there are financial implications - then these can be stopped at Standing Finance Committee. This is how it used to work, I'm not sure why it was changed." Former councillor Jan Cheek said there were "dangers" in only allowing three councillors access to Executive Council papers: "Councillors within living memory had to fight with other councillors for the right to see those papers. "Councillors were being asked in Legislative Council to be a rubber stamp for decisions made in Executive Council, so I think people need to think very, very carefully before they commend going back to that." She explained that GPC does not have constitutional right to make decisions: "GPC is an informalmeeting of councillors where Executive Councillors listen to the views of others but do not necessarily just go and vote as directed." Janet Robertson said there was a need for greater opposition: "There's no real questioning about our government policies and ideas. Other than what might come from the media, or from the public, there is no discussion on policies decided and executed." She said the public needs to hear debate from the politicians themselves: "They need to hear the various viewpoints, the various arguments, sometimes simply to be able to understand the issues themselves." Richard Davies said he felt "very strongly" about the issue of openness: "I fail to see how we can claim to be a modern democracy without properly open government. "Amongst other things, we have to increase public confidence and trust, which will be increased when they see how councillors, government and civil servants make decisions." He said he failed to see why most Executive Council business and the workings of GPC are private. "I'm fully aware that certain issues must be discussed confidentially, issues of security, issues of confidentiality of individuals, but I think these need to be looked at individually and we need proper guidelines for what is secret and what is in the public eye." Mike Forrest agreed and said the next council has to be, "far more pro-active on this". He was critical about GPC: "all the decisions are taken before any debate in the House, and in fact we get very little debate in the House. "The only way we're going to change this is to revert back to the system of Executive Council and the papers going to those members and we have the remaining members who are going to be scrutineers. "What we need to do is inject some energy into this...there are a lot of people out there who want to know what's going on and they don't know." Eric Goss, who has previously served on Legislative Council, defended GPC: "A lot of debate goes on - if you need to sway seven heads then you've got to get rough at times and that's how it came about. I think it should stay in private." Phil Middleton suggested holding more public meetings and having them independently chaired, "...so that we can get more issues out there for public debate." Meanwhile, John Fowler was in favour of the establishment of a government website which would allow, "an internal dialogue between voters and elected representatives, which people can contribute to at 4 o'clock in the morning if they wish." Former councillor, Mike Summers disagreed with this idea. He commented, "I baulk at using the internet as a way of informing people, because I think that is very elitist; an awful lot of people don't have the internet and don't sit around watching the internet." Along with Richard Cockwell however, he acknowledged that the government could do more to release information to the public. John Birmingham, another former councillor, agreed, but assured there is no conspiracy to keep things from the public: "I do not detect that; I have never detected that at all."
News in brief: Police investigation
A TEAM of seven officers from the Professional Standards Department of the Metropolitan Police Service will arrive in the Islands tomorrow to investigate allegations against members of the Royal Falkland Islands Police (RFIP).
The team will be led by Detective Chief Superintendent Carl Bussey. They will be sworn in as RFIP officers for the length of their stay.
The team aim to complete their investigations within a week, but some members of the team will be able to stay longer if that proves not to be possible.
They will submit a report to His Excellency the Governor on the findings of the investigation in due course. General Election 2005
Atypical scrapie found A SINGLE case of atypical scrapie has been diagnosed at a farm on East Falkland, the first case of the disease to be diagnosed in the southern hemisphere. The diagnosis was made by the world reference laboratory in Weybridge, UK. More on page 3.
Molchanov visiting todayCRUISE ship Molchanov is expected in Stanley today, carrying 44 passengers. On Monday, MS Explorer and Explorer II, with capacity for 96 and 430 passengers respectively, are due to visit Stanley.
Silent remembrance today TODAY is Remembrance Day. The occasion will be marked with two minutes silence at 11am. Saluting guns on Victory Green will fire at 11am and at 11.02am.
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