SEYCHELLES REALITY

Abhishek Sharan , Hindustan Times  New Delhi, October 24, 2014 First Published: 22:58 IST(24/10/2014) | Last Updated: 23:03 IST(24/ The CBI, which is probing receipt of alleged kickbacks in the Rs. 3,600 crore VVIP AgustaWestland deal, is likely to send Letters Rogatory (LR) to authorities in Singapore and Seychelles to seek details regarding certain monetary transactions under its scanner. The Seychelles and Singapore connections have emerged in the probe for the first time. “The probe has taken under its scanner certain transactions from an accused Tunisian firm to an intermediary firm in Mauritius, which in turn, routed the funds to a few other firms based in the same country as well as in Singapore and Seychelles,” said a CBI source. The alleged transactions were done through banks located in Port Louis in Mauritius, Victoria in Seychelles and in Singapore, said the source. The details, once procured, would help in determining t...

Oct 22, 2014 - PRAMOD KUMAR Evidence collected by Indian investigating agencies into the AgustaWestland helicopter deal reveals that kickbacks into the country were routed through a circuitous financial network involving countries like Singapore and Seychelles. For the first time a Seychelles connection has surfaced in the multi-crore helicopter deal. Sources said both Central probe agencies CBI and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) are planning to send judicial requests to authorities concerned in Singapore and Seychelles to get details about certain firms based there. Sources said the CBI is preparing to examine some more private persons in connection with its probe into the deal. The ED is planning to send judicial requests to about six countries in this regard, they added. The ED recently arrested a businessman Gautam Khaitan in connection with the case. Investigations by the agency revealed that Mr Khaitan had allegedly helped the Anglo-Italian defence manufactur...

Alain St.Ange, the Seychelles Minister responsible for Tourism and Culture, led a one-day working visit to Paris to meet with French tour operators and members of the press. Minister St.Ange was accompanied on this working visit by Captain David Savy, the Chairman of the Seychelles Civil Aviation Authority (SCAA), and Mr. Manoj Papa, the CEO of Air Seychelles. In Paris, the Seychelles Minister and his delegation were joined by Bernadette Willemin, the Seychelles Tourism Board's Paris-based Director for Europe; the island's Marketing Executive, Christine Vel; and Jennifer Dupuy. Air Seychelles' Justin Gosling and Christine Ozouf were also present at the meeting when Minister Alain St.Ange announced that Air Seychelles would, with immediate effect, operate its two weekly flights between Paris and Seychelles with only a technical stop in Abu Dhabi where passengers now remain on board the plane during the short stop. "We can today announce that Seychelles...

1. SEYCHELLES CHIEF MINISTER JAMES MANCHAM STOPPED BY EMBASSY LONDON ON HIS RETURN TRIP FROM A CONFERENCE ON TOURISM IN MEXICO IN ORDER TO EXPRESS CERTAIN CONCERNS HE HAD ABOUT FUTURE OF U.S.-SEYCHELLES RELATIONS. HE HAD CALLED AT FCO TO DISCUSS UK AND US RELATIONS AND WAS REFERRED TO US ON LATTER. HIS CONCERN IS FOCUSED ON WHAT HE REGARDS AS A DETERIORATION OF THE PUBLIC RELATIONS ASPECT OF THE USAF TRACKING STATION OPERATION IN SEYCHELLES, EXACERBATED BY THE IMPENDING TERMINATION OF THE PL-480 SCHOOL LUNCH PROGRAM IN THE SEYCHELLES. THIS PROGRAM IS LOOKED UPON IN THE SEYCHELLES AS BEING PART OF THE "QUID" FOR SEYCHELLOIS PUBLIC ACCEPTANCE OF THE TRACKING STATION. 2. MANCHAM OUTLINED THE HISTORY OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE AMERICAN PERSONNEL AT THE STATION AND THE GENERAL POPULATION SINCE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE TRACK- ING STATION IN 1966. HE SAID THAT IN THE EARLY DAYS THERE SEEMED TO BE A DETERMINED EFFORT ON THE PART OF THE AMERICANS TO CREATE A GOOD IMAGE AN...

The highest Court of Appeal in Egypt has upheld the death penalty imposed on three Seychellois nationals convicted of drug trafficking, the Seychelles Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) says it has learnt today. In a press statement issued this afternoon, MFA said the three men who are currently being detained in Egypt’s Qena prison have lost their appeal against the death sentence imposed on them last year. Ronny Norman Jean, Yvon John Vinda and Dean Dominic Loze were sentenced to death by execution on April 7, 2013, the sentence was confirmed on June 3, 2013. Ever since the death sentence was imposed on the three Seychellois nationals, the Seychelles government had been appealing to the Egyptian government to commute their sentences to life imprisonment. “Although it is the government’s policy to respect the sovereignty and judicial process in other countries, it nevertheless upholds the rights of its citizens to a fair trial. To this end, whilst reassuring the ...

Tax havens like the Seychelles Islands are helping our super rich annually evade hundreds of billions in taxes. Almost everyone knows how Al Capone went down. We’ve seen the movies. The biggest and baddest gangster in American history extorted and murdered for years. But the feds could never convict him on anything, until the green eyeshade guys went to work. They finally nabbed Capone — on income tax evasion. The moral of this story? Even the most ruthless of our richest can’t hide what the federal government really wants to find. We need the green eyeshades back on the job. Today’s wealthy have taken tax evasion to a level that old Scarface never dared imagine. Their network of offshore tax havens is now hiding a significant share of the world’s wealth. How much are the mega rich hiding offshore? Independent analysts have been working to pin that figure down. The most recent — and statistically robust — of these estimates comes from the young London School of E...

By Staff Sgt. Leslie Keopka CJTF-HOA October 14, 2014     Three service members from Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa Contingency Contracting Office traveled to Victoria, Seychelles to negotiate a service contract for an upcoming mission and to purchase mission essential supplies Sept. 21, 2014. The contracting officers met with commercial airline Air Seychelles representatives to discuss and validate a contract for the High Altitude LIDAR Operations-Experiment mission that begins in Oct. The HALOE will conduct high-altitude contouring over the island of Seychelles. “HALOE is being deployed to Seychelles to support CJTF-HOA in creation of contour maps of [East Africa] to improve mission planning and support partner nations in AMISOM,” said U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Lars Lone, CJTF-HOA DET liaison officer to Seychelles. “HALOE will additionally support S...

Access to safe drinking water is undoubtedly the most essential requirement for every traveller. But knowing where it is safe to drink the water can be confusing, with conflicting information available. A new infographic using research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identifies which countries have safe water for visitors - and which do not. It is important to note that not all the countries indicated as 'unsafe' here have water that is necessarily unclean or polluted.  Rather, it can be harmful to those who have not built up a tolerance to it as locals have, so visitors (particularly those with sensitive systems) should be cautious.  The CDC reports that no countries on the continents of Africa and South America contain water suitable for drinking, and a handful in Asia: Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Brunei, Israel and South Korea.  Illnesses that can be transmitted through water include cholera, hepatitis A, typh...

Dubai: The draft UAE federal budget for the year 2015, which is a part of the Dh140 billion for 2014-2016 three-year budget announced last year, has placed maximum emphasis on social development, health and education. “Health, education and social services sectors take priority in the federal budget expenditure for 2015,” His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai said. The draft federal budget has a total allocation of Dh49.1 billion which is 6.3 per cent higher than Dh46.2 billion allocated in 2014 budget. Social services projects have been allocated Dh24 billion from the budget, accounting for 49 per cent of the budget. “Investing in UAE citizens and meeting their needs is the cornerstone of government policies, and is at the forefront of priori...

SEYCHELLES ACQUIRES TRUE SPIRIT AUTHENTICATOR VICTORIA – In efforts aimed to fight trade of counterfeit alcohol, the SEYCHELLES Ministry of Finance has purchased TWO machines to test the authenticity of drinks entering the country. State radio, SBC News says the move comes after complaints against counterfeit alcoholic products being sold in INDIAN Ocean island country. It says authentic alcohol is made with ethanol, whereas counterfeit alcohol contains ethanol substitutes that can cause nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, drowsiness, and dizziness; kidney and liver problems; as well as many others. The Customs Division and the SEYCHELLES Bureau of Standards will be responsible for the TWO true spirits authenticator.  http://www.sabaorg.com/seychelles-acquires-true-spirit-authenticator/

The first flight test of an upgraded mobile intercontinental ballistic missile in the lead-up to National Day aimed to show the world that China was reinforcing its nuclear deterrent, military experts said yesterday. The People's Liberation Army launched a Dongfeng-31B on September 25 from the Wuzhai Missile and Space Test Centre - also known as the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre - in Shanxi province, according to US-based online newspaper The Washington Free Beacon . The DF-31B is an upgraded version of the DF-31A and the launch was at least the second time the PLA's Second Artillery Corps had tested a DF-31 missile in the past three months. In late July, the PLA conducted a flight test of a DF-31A in what was the fourth known flight test of that missile in two years. The DF-31 system has an estimated range of nearly 10,000 kilometres - enough to deliver a nuclear warhead to the capitals of Europe or the west coast of the United States. The mobile missile...

By Cithara Paul Published: 04th October 2014 05:59 AM Last Updated: 04th October 2014 05:59 AM  NEW DELHI: In one of the first standoffs between the ministries in the Narendra Modi Government, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has shot down the Ministry of Tourism’s (MoT) proposal to include Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Vanilla Islands organisation in order to jointly promote tourism in the Indian Ocean destinations. The concept of Vanilla Islands was founded in 2010 to bring all the tourism assets of the Indian Ocean together. Joining the Vanilla Island groups would have meant that Andamans would be jointly promoted along with other Indian Ocean destinations, including Seychelles, Maldives and Mauritius. The Vanilla ball was set rolling when Seychelles Tourism Minister Alain St. Ange visited India in July. MoT warmed up to the idea and a proposal was sent to the MHA for approval. But the Rajnath Singh-led MHA shot down the proposal, mooted by M...

This is according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) who led a staff mission to the island for its first review under the IMF’s Extended Fund Facility (EFF) arrangement. Seychelles’ tuna and tourism revenues remained weak after reporting exceptional results in 2013 while  domestic demand and imports has grown strongly following a 13 per cent boost in earnings an a 16 per cent growth in credit to the private sector. “The combination of weak export earnings and rising imports has led to pressure on the balance of payments,” said Marshall Mills, mission chief at the IMF. “The authorities have the tools and determination to manage these short-term pressures. Monetary and fiscal policies are being tightened, with lower reserve money targets and higher primary surplus targets than envisaged in the program.” Overall, the IMF is confident that the Seychellois government is on track to meet its key objective of reducing public debt below 50 per cent of GDP by 2018....