A proposal for the possibility of an international conference to improve global environmental governance was mentioned in their final statement. This includes the possibility of a new international organisation or reform of existing arrangements.

The mini summit was the first British Prime Minister Gordon Brown presided over mini summit attended by 23 Commonwealth leaders, and the Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma. Mauritian Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam was also present. step in implementing the decision of the November 2007 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, at which leaders decided to establish a small representative group from their 53-member association, to undertake lobbying and advocacy for the reform of international institutions.

Bretton Woods

August 19,2007 at Clapham Common in London

The Day Out with a cultural touch was a great success and Mauritius News received the congratulations of everyone present including those of The Worshipful The Mayor of Lambeth, Councillor Andrew Gibson, and the Deputy High Commissioner for Mauritius, Mr Hayman  Dillum. From the stage Mayor Andrew Gibson addressed the assistance expressing his pleasure to welcome the Mauritian community gathered on Clapham Common in the Borough of Lambeth for such festive occasion.

The Mayor, accompanied by Mauritius News Managing Director Peter Chellen and Vivienne Griffiths, subsequently went round to greet the stallholders. He had a good word for their efforts to provide the service or for their charity work, such as the Anglo Mauritian Disability Link which takes to Mauritius wheelchairs and other aids for the disabled. The Mayor generously made a donation here and there or to buy some local craft from Mauritius. He even tasted a little of the Mauritian delicacy at some stalls.

The Mauritian Day Out was equally graced by the presence of Air Mauritius’s UK and Eire manager, Mr Dale Keller. Mr Keller standing by the side of Mayor on stage told the community of the policies and vision of Air Mauritius, now and beyond.

In spite of the heavily overcast weather condition we still pulled in to Clapham Common an assistance of over 2,500 Mauritians and their friends through the day. The event was opened to the public from 11am to end at 7pm. But the preparations had to begin at 6am when the stage was constructed, the sound control system installed, and portable toilets put in place.

It has been raining for days in London, and it rained during the early morning of Sunday, August 19, but from 8am not a single drop of rain fell on Clapham Common to the end of the day. Because elsewhere in the country the weather condition was still awful, many Mauritians did not leave their homes to come to London. Otherwise we would have had an attendance that would have burst out the compound on the Common. However, the stallholders providing the Mauritian delicacies felt they did well enough to justify their bookings and their expenses. The cashier’s till of the beer stall did stop ringing for a moment especially as many needed a drink to wash down the dhal pouri or the gateaux piments.

For entertainment, we had a highly professional stage, an expert sound system, and even the portable toilets were of a high standard entirely to everyone’s satisfaction. The funfair with a variety of rides, merry-go-rounds, bumper-cars, etc & etc provided the kids with the sort of amusement that is not found at other similar events.

The day’s programme, organised by Malini, (very ably compered by Pat French), was masterly orchestrated by Malini’s husband, John Daby, who filled up the day to put the audience in the right entertainment mode. He had the support of three bands, his own Sega Blues, Zoil Foundation, and the Solatimo. No minute was left without music with the participation of DJ Vish and DJ El Syd. Singer Denis Gaspard gave us from his repertoire some popular and catchy sega songs (accompanied by his dancers), and so did singers Jim from The Seychelles and ‘Michael Jackson look-alike’ who had, so far, created quite an impression on the Mauritian community.

We had a variety of dance performances comprising Indian dance, belly dancing by Sameera but the sega dance had a place of honour with the participation of such performers as Angel Dancers, Linda and her sega dancers, and the Twin Dancers from Mauricexplosion. The Fashion Show organised by Yvonne Goder was a value-added novelty for the event. Her models, female and male,  received all the applause they deserved in exhibiting the latest design from their fashionable wardrobe. But a great, long and exhausting performance was given by our guest star, the singer popularly known as King among the compatriots at home. Elected the 2005 top singer of the year in Mauritius, King is certainly an entertainer of great talent by himself though at home he would have his own group to back him up. King was flown from Mauritius thanks to the courtesy of Air Mauritius to whom we express our thanks and appreciation for their sponsorship to this event.

And here we take the opportunity to reiterate our thanks to everyone who has helped to make this event possible: members of the organising committee themselves, namely Vishnu Sooboodoo, Malini Daby and Bryan Chellen. We would not like to forget the contributions of Mauritius News staff and assistants among whom Jimmy (who took charge of all finance control with the help of Jean Claude and Jacqueline Anthony), Sabrina, James and Soundren. Our thanks is extended to The Worshipful The Mayor of  Lambeth, Councillor Andrew Gibson and those members of Lambeth Council staff who have been closely involved with us for several months to see that everything be right and done according to rules and regulations.

We, in turn, had to impose the same rules and regulations on the guests. This caused quite a bit of discontentment among them. One would-be sponsor, after receiving considerable exposure from Mauritius News, withdrew his sponsorship because he could not understand why he should be allowed to play his own music in his stall. The Local Council would have none of that as the noise level is closely monitored. Any decibel above the authorised level would incur us a fine of £20,000. This was made clear to us and we understood the consequence but not our would-be sponsor. No car should be kept on the compound and this was part of conditions of the hiring out of the Common to Mauritius News. It was not easy to make our guests understand this.

However, we thank all the sponsors whose names were spelled out in all our publicity campaign to advertise the Clapham event, the stallholders for making the efforts to come in spite of the threat of the bad weather. We thank all the entertainers, the service providers like Daytona for the stage, LongLight Event Services for  the sound control, the St John’s Ambulance for the first-aiders, the Sites Medical Service for the presence of an ambulance during the whole performance.

We say a special thank to the friends who gave us their unreserved support through the day. We never knew Mauritius News had so many faithful friends and supporters within the community. They came forward to provide their services as admission controllers, stewards, security officers and whatever function was required of them. And the whole day until late in the evening we had the presence of a Lambeth Council official overlooking the entire gamut of activities on the Common.

It has been an arduous task to put up this Mauritian Day Out which has demanded a lot of organisation and considerable efforts. It was a great show, a great challenge with a good dose of financial risk. The assistance certainly had the right change for their money, and members of the Organising Committee may congratulate themselves on a work well done.

During PM Navin Ramgoolams recent visit to Hull, the University of Hull granted Mauritius three Postgraduate Scholarships.

The Logistic Institute of the University is improving its logistic infrastructure to place Hull as a global gateway to the EU, and its Medical School has been working on the virtual radiotherapy to train doctors to cut costs on expensive equipment.

It is hoped that Mauritius may wish to take advantage of these facilities through the scholarships awarded to the country by the University .

Dr Ramgoolam was invited by the Wilberfoce Lecture Trust in Hull to deliver a lecture on slavery in the context of the 200th anniversary of abolition of Slavery.
PM receiving the scholarships offer from Professor Barry Winn, Pro-Vice Chancellor of the University.

Fresh victory for the Chagossians

The Royal Court of Justice has again ruled on May 23 that the Order in Council (O.i.C.) issued in June 2004 by the British Government in the name of the Queen - forbidding the Chagossians to go back to the Chagos - was illegal and constituted an abuse of power

In December 2006, the Chagossians went back to the High Court to fight the O.i.C. and won back their right to go home.

In March 2007, it was the turn of the British Government to sustain the validity, in court, the O.i.C. for the sake of the security of the US military base, and to deny the Chagossians their human rights.

The Court has once more in its May 23 verdict maintained the Royal Order was unlawful in spite of the Government’s challenge, and dismissed its plea for the security of the Diego Garcia military base in the Indian Ocean, a few thousand miles from Mauritius.

To all intents and purposes the Chagossians may now be allowed to go home, BUT the British Government does not have to give immediate effect to the renewed verdict. The Government has still one more card up its sleeve. In its own right, it may apply to the House of Lords to challenge the repatriation of the Chagossians. However, Liberal Peer, Lord Avery said outside the High Court that he hoped it might not come to that.


Privy Council restores the six months' sentence against Mauritian lawyer Dev Hurnam

The Privy Council has on April 25 restored the conviction and sentence of the Mauritius Intermediate Court against Devendranath Hurnam, a well-known barrister practising in Mauritius, and politician, to six months' imprisonment.

He was convicted on August 11, 2003, by the Intermediate Court of Mauritius on a charge of conspiring with his client Soobashing Bholah to do an unlawful act, namely.

The charge was that the lawyer hindered police in an enquiry into a larceny by fabricating an alibi for Bholah to mislead the enquiring officers.

The investigation concerned a case of armed robbery on May 4, 2000 involving a number of persons and carried out at the State Commercial Bank in Grand Bois.

The Intermediate Court found lawyer Dev Hurnam guilty as charged and sentenced him to six months' imprisonment and to pay costs of Rs 500.
On appeal, the Supreme Court of Mauritius set aside the conviction on the ground that the prosecution had not proved an intention on the respondent's part to hinder the police in their enquiry.

The Supreme Court accordingly held that the Intermediate Court should have accepted the respondent's submission of no case based on the contention that there was no prima facie evidence of the charged conspiracy.

The Mauritius Director of Public Prosecutions appealed to the Privy Council against the Supreme Court ruling.

The Privy Council judgement delivered by Lord Carswell restored the sentence against Dev Hurnam who has to undergo six months' imprisonment.


Former president's son dies

Dr Oomar Uteem passes away

Thirty-nine-year-old renowned cardiologist Dr Oomar Uteem, son of former President of Mauritius, Cassam Uteem, died from a heart attack on March 7.

He was rushed to the hospital with a chest pain in the early morning but to no avail. The former president and his wife were in South Africa when this happened. Dr Uteem’s funeral took place in the evening at Riche Terre cemetery in the presence of a huge crowd that included the President, the Prime Minister, ministers and many sympathisers.

Dr Uteem was engaged in politics as well as in social work. He launched last year, together with other doctors, the Heart Network of Mauritius, to sensitize people on the risks of cardio-vascular diseases.

In his address to the nation, the President Sir Anerood Jugnauth urged Mauritians to take the commitment to work together as one nation to further the country’s pr

He made a call for solidarity towards the poorest members of our society and encouraged Mauritians to look for ways and means for innovation and economic diversification in order to create employment and maintain the Welfare state.

For his part, Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam called for national unity and sacrifice in face of the different challenges which are affecting our economy.

He said the island was already showing positive signs of economic recovery with new emerging pillars and considerable Foreign Direct Investment. «But more efforts are needed to further economic progress. We have the means and abilities to become a great nation and a modern and prosperous country», he said.

Malagasy President Marc Ravalomanana was the chief guest at the National Day celebrations.

The President  attended a State banquet offered in his honour by the Prime Minister where both leaders stressed the need for more cooperation between Mauritius and Madagascar.

 The Malagasy President was present at the flag raising ceremony, parades and a cultural show at l’Esplanade Basdeo Bissoondoyal on the Port Louis Waterfront. He addressed members of the National Assembly and evoked the rapid growth of Mauritius over the past twenty years.

«The development of your private sector, particularly tourism and manufacturing is truly amazing. Your successes in education and family planning are exemplary», Ravalomanana said.

Abhimanu Kundasamy

High Commissioner of Mauritius

In a few days on the 12th of March, we will celebrate the 39th anniversary of our independence. On the occasion of our National Day let me extend to you my best wishes and that of the Government of the Republic of Mauritius.

On this very important day in the life of our nation we should  not only reflect on the very essence of our independence and what it all means to us but also renew and honour-in our hearts, in our minds, and in our actions- what our country means, what our country stands for. Thirty nine years ago with independence came our freedom, a new sense of belonging and a new hope for a nation. And every year the 12th of March is above everything a celebration of our unity in diversity. Not many countries in the world have ever been blessed with such diversity and social cohesion as you see in Mauritius.

If there is one thing that all Mauritians pride themselves of is indeed the unity of our nation and the peace and harmony in the country. Despite our very diverse ancestral heritage we have marvelled at forging a very high degree of tolerance and understanding among the various sections of the population. Over time this has become the identity of our nation- an identity which we are so proud of no matter where we are settled in the world.

We indeed have to be grateful to the father of our nation Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam who has bequeathed to us this valuable gift of tolerance towards each other.

Over the past thirty nine years, the country has experienced many ups and it has also faced a few challenging moments. Let us not forget that if we have managed to overcome the adversities and stride ahead with greater resolve and confidence it is because ours is a strong nation whose strength lies in its diversity as much as in its unity.

Today more than ever before, let us all pledge ourselves to the philosophy of tolerance, unity and sacrifice that has characterised thirty nine years of existence of our nation. As true patriots let us also commit ourselves in making Mauritius even better. 

Abhimanu Kundasamy

Principal of the London School of Law, Dr Kesso Ramsamy, has been awarded the Freedom of the City of London

Dr Ramsamy was recommended to the Corporation of London by former British army Captain Rogers for his contribution to the economic activities of London. Dr Ramsamy founded the London School of Law (the first Mauritian college) in 1991 and since then the LSL has added more allied subjects to its curriculum. A school of Nursing was founded three years ago.

Dr Ramsamy is proud to tell us Mrs Cherie Blair received the award a few days earlier.

Seen in the picture above, Dr Ramsamy holding his award with Captain Rogers on the far left, daughter Dinah, and on the right, daughters Emma and Kesha.