BRIDGETOWN, Barbados: The Nation, March 30, 2006 – My Turks and Caicos Islands contact in Cable & Wireless is furious that no matter what they do, they cannot match or outperform Barbados on the price of products and services and, ultimately, the return on investment. The same applies to the Cayman Islands. Imagine that country, with a higher standard of living than Barbados and with people working for higher salaries, having overseas calls to the farthest corner of the earth for a maximum of $0.35 a minute.

I hate it when I am in the Cayman Islands and Cable & Wireless constantly reminds me how I can call from there to New Zealand for $0.35 a minute. How I can call from that Caribbean Island to South Africa, of all places, for $0.35 a minute? Cable & Wireless customers in Cayman Islands can call anywhere in Canada, the United States or the United Kingdom for the grand sum of $0.25 a minute. Click on “candw.ky” if you doubt me.

At these rates, telephone talking can become addictive. That is why I appreciate what Cable & Wireless is doing for us in Barbados. They care about us. They do not want us to suffer from any talk-related illnesses, so they have set and maintained phone rates in Barbados higher than anywhere else in the region.

Lobbyist sentenced for lying to Cayman lender

MIAMI, USA; The Miami Herald, March 30, 2006 – One-time powerhouse lobbyist Jack Abramoff was sentenced Wednesday in Miami federal court to a prison term of five years and 10 months for a fraudulent loan deal to buy a South Florida fleet of gambling ships. Abramoff was charged with lying to lenders -- Foothill Capital, a California-based unit of Wells Fargo, and Citadel Equity Fund Ltd., based in the Cayman Islands -- about putting down $23 million to qualify for a $60 million loan to seal the SunCruz deal.