Breaking Amla, de Villiers partnership vital, says Holder

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CMC) — Jason Holder says today’s third day will be key for West Indies if they are to get anything out of the final Test, and says his fellow bowlers will need to deliver a much more clinical performance in order to limit South Africa.

The Proteas ended the second day at Newlands on 227 for three, only 102 runs behind West Indies’ first innings total of 329.

Captain Hashim Amla was unbeaten on 55 and partnered by AB de Villiers on 32, and Holder said breaking the fourth wicket partnership already worth 70 runs, would be top on the priority list.

“We probably let them score a little bit too freely. The scoring rate was a little bit too high. Having said that, I thought we batted decently in the early morning but lost quick wickets,” Holder told reporters here yesterday.

“I think tomorrow (Sunday) it is very important for us to start well, come and get some early wickets and try to get de Villiers and Amla out and break that partnership.”

He continued: “We are 13 or so overs shy of the new ball but it’s important that we don’t leak runs early in the morning and just try to break the partnership. These two guys have held us up the entire series so it’s just about breaking this partnership as quickly as possible tomorrow morning and getting (Stiaan) van Zyl and the other guy (Temba Bavuma) in.”

Resuming the day on 276 for six, West Indies lost their last four wickets for 53 runs with Jermaine Blackwood converting his overnight 45 into 56 and Holder extending his five not out to 24.

In reply, the Proteas batted well in partnerships. Alviro Petersen hit 42 and posted 48 for the first wicket with Dean Elgar (8) before adding a further 56 for the second wicket with Faf du Plessis, who top scored with 68.

Du Plessis and Amla then put on 53 for the third wicket to make the Windies toil.

Holder said West Indies had created pressure for themselves by falling short of the par score when they batted.

“I think we were about 70 runs short … we should have probably got 400. We needed to take it in stages but we obviously lost wickets quickly this morning. However, we did score pretty quickly, too, but 400 was probably a par score on this track,” he pointed out.

He added: “We have to wait and see what tomorrow brings for us but it’s all about being a little more consistent and getting the ball in better areas than we did today.”

West Indies trail 0-1 in the three-match series after going down by an innings and 220-runs in the Centurion Test and drawing the second in Port Elizabeth.

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Breaking Amla, de Villiers partnership vital, says Holder

JustBet renews partnership with beach volleyball league

Sport

Sunday, September 08, 2013

SUPREME Ventures Limited, through its sports betting brand, JustBet, recently renewed its title sponsorship with the Jamaica Volleyball Association (JAVA) for the staging of the 2013 JUSTBET/TVJSN Beach Volleyball competition, to the tune of $2million.The JustBet/TVJSN Beach Volleyball competition will take the format of a series of three one-day tournaments open to all interested persons and was scheduled to start yesterday at Long Bay Beach in Negril. Participants will gain and accumulate points based on their final placement in each leg of the tournament. The tournament will continue this Saturday at Cornwall Beach, Montego Bay, and the following Saturday at the UDC Beach in Ocho Rios. All games begin at 9:00 am.Following the tournament, the top six teams will then advance to a play-off, which consists of first and second rounds, semi-final and final. The teams in the play-offs will be placed into two groups, of which, the first round will take the format of a one-day round robin on September 28, while in the second round, the top four teams will advance to a two-day round robin scheduled for October 5 and 6. The semi-finals will then be played on October 12, and the finals and third-place play-offs on October 13.In expressing the gaming company’s delight in partnering with JAVA, Andrei Roper, Senior Marketing Officer of JUSTBET, said: “We are very thrilled to be on-board with what certainly promises to be another exciting beach volleyball competition. Volleyball on a whole is always entertaining, engaging and exciting and this is what we want to create and bring out at each of the venues on match days. Therefore, we encourage all sports fans to come out and support your favourite teams on match days.”Major Warrenton Dixon, president of the Jamaica Volleyball Association, expressed his gratitude at the support from the sponsors, and his excitement for the start and the new format of the competition. He said: “The Jamaica Volleyball Association (JAVA) is pleased that for the second consecutive year JustBet and TVJSN have partnered with us to stage a major beach volleyball competition for local players. JustBet, who was the first to come on-board last year, injected a lot of impetus into our efforts to develop the sport of beach volleyball and their continued support this year will help us to sure up the foundation of our development. Last year resource limitation confined us to running the competition in Kingston. This year the increased sponsorship will allow us to take the competition closer to several players who felt left out in 2012. Additionally, we have been able to double the prize monies available to the players.”Other sponsors of the competition include Jamaica Blue Bottled Spring Water.Andrei Roper (left), senior marketing officer, JustBet, presents a symbolic sponsorship cheque to Jamaica Volleyball Association President Major Warrenton Dixon, recently.

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JustBet renews partnership with beach volleyball league

Council says partnership agreement has youth focus

THE National Partnership Council has hit back at claims made by the National Youth Council of Jamaica (NYCJ) that the recently signed social partnership agreement does not address youth issues.

Chairman of the NYCJ, Ryan Small last week said that none of the six objectives of the agreement — inked by Government, civil society, trade unions, the private sector, and academia — showed that there was any recognition of and appreciation for youth as catalysts for social change.But speaking with the Jamaica Observer on Monday, youth representative on the council, Kemesha Kelly said nothing could be further from the truth.“The National Youth Council was one body I consulted to get feedback for the document,” she said during the newspaper’s weekly Monday Exchange.“Everything in this document has some bearing on Jamaican youth. At the end of the day, we talk about Vision 2030, it is the current crop of youth that will really realise Vision 2030 and this document has that visionary thrust as well. We have set these targets with consultation and youth participation,” she added.As an example, she pointed to the goal to reduce youth unemployment from the current 37 per cent to 25 per cent by 2016.“I’m particularly pleased that the partnership is so greatly concerned about youth unemployment and there is going to be great effort to bring that down. From the civil society perspective as well, [because] the document also focuses on female unemployment,” she said.The target is to bring female unemployment down from 17.8 per cent to 12 per cent, while the goal for general unemployment is to reduce the figure from 14.2 per cent to 10 per cent.Academia representative Professor Alvin Wint, who along with Kelly, labour union representative Oneil Grant and another academia rep Professor Neville Ying were guests at the Monday Exchange, also weighed in on the youth focus discussion.“I’ve heard comments that this is not for the youth [but it] is for the youth,” he reiterated.“We’re trying to create a Jamaica where Jamaicans will want to live and work and [do business]… but we have to move with greater assertiveness and aggression. And we need the energies of our young people to come on board,” he said.Asked how it intended to achieve the lower unemployment figures given the persistent softness of the economy, the council told the Observer that the strategy was not to consider unemployment in isolation, but in tandem with the other goals, including a reduction in murders, the debt-to-GDP ratio and the cost of energy, coupled with an increase in real economic growth and an improvement in the ease of doing business ranking.“We’re not trying to increase employment as an action in and of itself,” professor Wint explained.“We’re looking at it as part of a general programme of reforming and rebuilding and [reinjecting] confidence into the Jamaican economy and society to make people feel much more confident about the direction of the country,” he said, referencing the linkages between crime, security, economic stability and the ability to attract investors.“It’s important to understand that the whole thrust of this agreement is to harden the economy, to make it stronger, so these aren’t issues that are being considered in isolation of each other…If we don’t improve our regulatory environment, if we don’t improve our security, if we don’t improve our economic environment, we’re not going to get investment so that is why these things are all happening in tandem,” the professor stressed.Added to that, Wint said businesses make employment decisions based not only on current situations, but also on expected direction of the country at any particular point.“It’s not just that they have to see where the country is now, but they have to have some sense of where it is going. This is why this thrust is so important to rebuild confidence in where we are and where we’re going as a country, and this is why consensus is so important,” he told the Observer.And, he said, it’s “not beyond the realm of possibility” to achieve.“If you take unemployment, we’re at 14 per cent and the goal is to get to 10 per cent. But not too long ago we were at 11 per cent,” he argued.The partnership agreement was signed at King’s House last Wednesday after nearly two decades of dialogue.Public consultations on their elements and the way forward are to start within the next two months and youth advocate Kelly has committed to ensuring that the youth are duly represented in those fora.“It is important that all Jamaicans come on board to support this partnership and young people need to really throw their energies behind it,” she told the Exchange. “I’m going to make it my personal responsibility to ensure that young persons from across the length and breadth of Jamaica get involved in these consultations so their voices can be heard… Any strategy going forward must have the input of the young persons and their energy as well to achieve it.”(L-R) WINT… the partnership is for the youth. KELLY… everything in this document has some bearing on Jamaican youth (PHOTOS: NAPHTALI JUNIOR

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Council says partnership agreement has youth focus

The Partnership for Jamaica requires all hands on deck

ON July 31, at King’s House, the Prime Minister (on behalf of her government) and representatives of the private sector (Chris Zacca), trade unions (Lloyd Goodleigh) and civil society (Kemesha Kelley) signed the Partnership for Jamaica.

Although the prime minister should be congratulated for finally achieving Jamaica’s first social partnership agreement, as the agreement acknowledges up front, the signing is merely the first step on a long road to deal with “the urgent national and economic crisis the country faces”. The theme, as expressed by the extremely able chair of the event, Harvard-educated Professor Alvin Wint, corresponds to the governor general’s “I Believe” campaign and its byline – “there is nothing wrong with Jamaica that cannot be fixed by what is right with Jamaica.”The agreement acknowledges that the levels of trust across the Jamaican society are extremely low. The critical issue of “trust amongst partners” is governed by the Partnership Code of Conduct, which was signed in late-2011 as one of the last acts of former Prime Minister Bruce Golding, who was the sole member of the Opposition attending the signing of the agreement. To deal with this mistrust, the code outlines the guiding principles to be followed as “Respect, Engagement, Sensitivity, Reliability, Equity, Openness, Courage, Patience, Understanding and Humility”, with the key mechanism being one of “open communication” between the partners to resolve issues. The National Partnership Council, which has been meeting for over two years (supported by a Council Secreteriat) will be supported by a standing working committee to coordinate its agenda, led by Ambassador Burchell Whiteman as Partnership for Jamaica coordinator. Whiteman is a particularly astute choice for the position, combining past Ministerial experience with huge credibility and trust as one of a dying breed of true Jamaican gentlemen.In addressing “specific commitments”, the agreement correctly starts with Jamaica’s growth challenge (the economy has declined in 18 of the last 40 years), and the consequent erosion of social capital and increasing inequality. The priority challenges include fiscal consolidation (with social protection and inclusion), rule of law adherence (and timely justice outcomes), ease of doing business and employment creation, and energy diversification and conservation. A useful acronym to simply sum up the agenda might be DEBT plus crime (with the former standing for debt, energy, bureaucracy reduction and tax reform), very similar in fact to the economic agenda agreed with the IMF, but with the addition of a number of wider social issues.The timing of this agreement is extremely important, as it is not an exaggeration to say that Jamaica now faces its deepest crisis since the 1970s, hence the agreements call for the need for “all hands on deck”. The international financial markets, the rating agencies, and, indeed, the local “smart money” are acutely aware that the current IMF agreement is extremely ambitious, and requires, as one of them put it recently “for everything to go well” to succeed. Currently, the exchange rate of the Jamaican dollar and net foreign exchange reserves (which have again fallen below US $ 1 billion), are being used as key short-term indicators of the health of the economy. Business and consumer confidence is extremely low, and the investment plans of investors have not yet recovered from the collapse in confidence that occurred between the last quarter of last year, and the first quarter of this year, when the IMF agreement seemed delayed.Anecdotal evidence suggests that economic activity ground to a halt in July, as the full impact of the highly deflationary tax measures announced in the budget as part of the IMF deal were combined with apparent severe restrictions on government spending. Perhaps more importantly, everybody is now realising that the IMF agreement is no panacea for Jamaica’s deep-seated problems, and that we are in for a long haul to achieve a better economy, as we have finally come to the end of what seemed in the past to be our seemingly never ending ability to “kick the can further down the road”.The social partnership agreement could be extremely valuable in helping to restore confidence, both internally and externally. By creating a true “joined up” problem- solving mechanism that simultaneously achieves consensus amongst all partners, the government could lay to rest the enormous existing concerns about the speed and political feasibility of the very ambitious reform agenda it has agreed on with the IMF, and allow Jamaica to finally get ahead of its current ongoing crisis.In his speech at the signing, PSOJ President Chris Zacca noted five concrete examples of public/private partnership implemented this year. These include the cooperation of the Jamaica Bankers’ Association and Jamaica Securities Dealers’ Association to help complete the National Debt Exchange, the Economic Programme Oversight Committee, the linkages committee based at the Ministry of Tourism (facilitating partnership between the Jamaica Manufacturers’ Association and the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association in buying Jamaican products), and the very close cooperation between the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce with the Ministry of Industry, Investment and Commerce to promote the logistics hub. Finally, he quoted Financial Secretary Devon Rowe as describing the Incentives Working Group (the committee working on a new Omnibus Incentives Policy), as “a model for the world to follow on tax reform”. All of the above examples have involved the combined brainpower of the public and private sectors working closely as a team under time pressure to achieve critical national goals. A similar approach in other key areas supported by the collective will of a true Partnership for Jamaica would pay even bigger dividends.Signatories to the Partnership for Jamaica Agreement (front row), President of the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions Lloyd Goodleigh (left); Youth Advocate, Jamaica Youth Advocacy Group, Kemesha Kelly (second left), representing civil society groups; Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller; and President of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica, Christopher Zacca (right), display copies of the agreement during the signing ceremony at King’s House in Kingston. They were joined by a host of other industry leaders and dignitaries. (PHOTO: BRYAN CUMMINGS)

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The Partnership for Jamaica requires all hands on deck

eMedia announces Flow partnership

Business

BY JULIAN RICHARDSON Assistant Business Co-orinator richardsonj@jamaicaobserver.comFriday, August 02, 2013

eMedia Interactive will soon start to supply television content from its online network to cable giant Flow, the firm has announced.‘We have signed an arrangement with Flow where iVu tv will be supplying Flow with original content exclusively over the weekend,’ eMedia president and CEO Tyrone Wilson told Caribbean Business Report yesterday.“We have about 10 to 15 shows that we will be producing over a year that will compete in the local content market, from entertainment to business to documentaries,” Wilson highlighted.According to the eMedia boss, the company will by October start supplying Flow with content, which will be broadcast on Flow TV and iVu tv, dubbed as the region’s first online television network.“We see Flow as the ideal partner because their advertising packages are more attractive and they give more value across the network. Additionally, they are very friendly towards creativity,” Wilson said. “We are excited about it because what we are doing now is producing a lot of content, but we really want to get them out to a mass audience.”Among the eMedia-produced shows to be supplied to Flow is the documentary, 50 Years of Entrepreneurship, featuring appearances by key business people that have shaped Jamaica since independence. The special boasts cameos by the likes of former Prime Minister Edward Seaga and businessmen such as Charles Johnston, Roberty Levy and the late Maurice Facey, in what the media company says is his last detailed interview.Wilson said production is currently under way on another documentary, Barrel Culture, looking at the remittance industry and its socio-economic impact on the country.“That one is going to be big,” he promised.50 Years of Entrepreneurship, Barrel Culture and other eMedia-produced shows were previewed recently at the fourth annual Your Money eZine Business Summit held at the University of the West Indies in Mona. The summit, organised by eMedia, attracts a wide range of business players, from SMEs to large corporations.Wilson said the goal of this year’s summit was to create an environment where established businesses can offer mentorship and support to start-ups and include adoption of entrepreneurs into their long-term initiatives. Speakers included American entrepreneur and television personality Michael Michalowicz; management consultant and chartered business valuator, Kathleen Moss; Biz Tactics boss Sandra Glasgow; Development Bank of Jamaica consultant Audrey Richards; Stocks and Securities CEO Mark Croskery; and Wilson.Tyrone Wilson (second right), President and CEO of eMedia Interactive Limited, with Stocks and Securites CEO Mark Croskery (left), American entrepreneur and author Mike Michalowicz and University of the West Indies (UWI) director of alumni relations Celia Davidson-Francis at the fourth annual Your Money eZine Business Summit held at the University of West Indies in Mona.

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eMedia announces Flow partnership