GUYANA – Three companies out of India and four from China are among nine that applied for the Government of Guyana contract to design, build and finance the new Berbice River Bridge.

The project which is being executed through the Ministry of Public Works was opened on Wednesday at the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) office.

According to information provided, the bidders are China Road & Bridge Corporation (China); Ashoka Buildcon Limited (India); China Railway Construction Caribbean Limited (China) in jointed venture with China Railway Construction Bridge Engineering Bureau Group Company Limited (T&T); Shandong High-speed Road & Bridge Company Limited (China) in jointed venture with AJM Enterprise; China Railway First Group Company Limited (China) in jointed venture with China Railway Eryuan Engineering Group Company Limited (China); Rockey & Son Construction (local); Kalpataru Projects International Limited (India); Vishwa Samudra Engineering Private Limited (India); and Aecon Global Services (Canada).

In January, President Irfaan Ali announced that his government intended to construct a fixed high-span crossing bridge across the Berbice River. The President made the announcement during his address at the sod-turning event for the US$161 million modern hospital in New Amsterdam, Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne).

“We are already understanding for the future needs of this region. That is why we are accelerating the plans for a fixed high-span crossing bridge across the Berbice River just like the one in the Demerara River,” he stated.

The president initially made the announcement of a new Berbice River Bridge back in October 2022. This structure is expected to mirror the US$260 million new Demerara River Bridge.

Following the ministry’s advertisement, at the commissioning ceremony of the Schoonord to Crane four-lane highway road, the Head-of-State had announced that plans are underway to have the current Berbice River Bridge toll-free and that the new bridge when completed will also be toll-free. (Kaieteur News)

Photo: The current Berbice River Bridge. (Kaieteur News) …[+]

PYONGYANG  –  North Korea has blown up sections of its road and railway links with South Korea and labelled its neighbour a “hostile state”, state media has said.

The Korean People’s Army destroyed the 60-metre-long (about 200ft) stretches of road and rail along the east and west sections of the inter-Korean border “as part of the phased complete separation” of North and South, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said on Thursday.

“This is an inevitable and legitimate measure taken in keeping with the requirement of the DPRK Constitution which clearly defines the ROK as a hostile state, and due to the serious security circumstances running to the unpredictable brink of war owing to the grave political and military provocations of the hostile forces,” the KCNA said, using the acronyms of the official names of North and South Korea.

KCNA cited a Ministry of Defence spokesman as saying Pyongyang would take further measures to “permanently fortify” the border without providing details.

The move to label South Korea a “hostile state” comes after North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly met last week to rewrite the secretive country’s constitution.

In a speech to his country’s rubber-stamp parliament in January, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said that reunification with South Korea was no longer possible and the constitution should be changed to define its neighbour as a separate “hostile” country.

“We don’t want war, but we have no intention of avoiding it,” Kim was quoted as saying by KCNA at the time.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff announced last Tuesday that the North Korean military had blown up northern sections of disused roads dividing the neighbours.

Tensions between the Koreas, which remain technically at war after fighting in the 1950-53 Korean War ended without a peace treaty, have been escalating since last year’s unravelling of a 2018 military accord aimed at reducing the risk of military clashes along the border.

North Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs last week threatened “retaliation” against South Korea after accusing it of operating propaganda leaflet-carrying drones over the capital Pyongyang. (Al Jazeera)

Photo: An explosion at an unconfirmed location in North Korea. (AFP) …[+]

PARAMARIBO – Raoul Hellings and Maisha Neus organized a protest in front of parliament on Tuesday. These activists had not organized any protest for the past two years. This time they wanted to express their discontent with the current situation in Suriname. Neus claimed that “many things

are going wrong in Suriname.” She mentioned the high crime rate, the chaos in the education sector and the decline of the nation’s healthcare sector. “These are just a few reasons why we organized the protest. Many things are going wrong because of the police of the Santokhi/Brunswijk administration,” said Neus who added that she wants to send a strong message to the government and parliament. Neus also condemned the fact  that the current administration does not provide transparency regarding the privatization of several state companies.

 Hellings expressed his disapproval regarding the huge raise that the government officials want to give themselves. He made it clear that “this is unacceptable because many people are finding it extremely difficult to make ends meet.” Hellings pointed out that the International Monetary Fund has repeatedly told the current administration to take austerity measures. He and Neus hope that more people will join the protest.

MIAMI  –  Donald Trump has described the US Capitol riots of 6 January 2021 as a “day of love” during a campaign event just weeks before the presidential election.

The former president claimed the thousands who travelled to Washington DC that day did so because “they thought the election was a rigged election”.

On 6 January, a mob breached the US Capitol building in an effort to deny the certification of Joe Biden’s election win, forcing lawmakers to flee. Several deaths, including that of a police officer, have been attributed to the events that day.

Trump has spent years making false claims that the vote was rigged. The event continues to divide America.

During his “town hall” event in Miami, Florida, Trump was challenged to win back the vote of a man who said he had been disturbed by what happened after the Republican lost the 2020 vote.

“Nothing done wrong at all,” Trump said in a lengthy response.

“There were no guns down there. We didn’t have guns. The others had guns, but we didn’t have guns. And when I say we, these are people that walked down — this was a tiny percentage of the overall which nobody sees and nobody, nobody shows. But that was a day of love.”

He recalled addressing a group of “hundreds of thousands” during a speech elsewhere in Washington DC.

“They didn’t come because of me,” he went on. “They came because of the election. They thought the election was a rigged election, and that’s why they came.”

Trump has been accused of criminal efforts to overturn his defeat, which were recently described in detail in a filing from the federal prosecutor investigating him.

Among the claims made by Special Counsel Jack Smith were that Trump planned to declare victory in the 2020 vote no matter the outcome, and that he laid the groundwork for challenging the vote ahead of election day.

Mr Smith also detailed how Trump fell out with Mike Pence, his vice-president who refused to join his boss in attempting to deny Biden his election win as Trump supporters gathered in Washington on 6 January 2021.

During the Univision broadcast, the voter questioned why he should support Trump when even his former vice-president, Mike Pence, was not backing him this year.

Alluding to Pence’s refusal to comply with Trump’s demands on 6 January, he said: “The vice-president – I disagree with him on what he did. I totally disagreed with him on what he did.” (BBC)

Photo: Donald Trump. (Reuters) …[+]