12/07/2011 BBC Channel Islands News

Good evening, welcome to the programme. Marketing Guernsey jobs

off-island - fears local construction workers will lose out

Also tonight, we examine the dangers of internet addiction among

Channel Island children. And meet the primate Prima Donna who's been

monkeying around with a video It's still unclear if the

redevelopment of Guernsey Airport will involve any of the local

workforce. The Public Services Department says the UK contractor

intends to recruit on-island staff once it's signed the contract. But

as Mike Wilkins reports, recruitment has already begun... In

the UK. Getting a slice of more than �80 million. That's how much

it's going to cost to redevelop Guernsey Airport's runway, aircraft

stands, taxiways, lighting and drainage. The redevelopment is one

of the biggest projects in the island for years. The UK based

company Lagan Construction has been named as the preferred bidder. But

some feel that while some skilled workers will need to come from the

mainland, there are local firms up to the job. We do have some very

good at small contractors on the island. It is hopeful that Lagan

Construction will engage with them. The level of engagement we'd like

to see is perhaps a little more than would normally done in the UK.

We'd like to encourage them to talk with these contractors. One of the

reasons why some of the building trade in Guernsey is getting a bit

jumpy is because of this. Adverts by British recruitment firms

looking for machine drivers, ground workers and concrete players to

work on a significant project in Guernsey. The problem is that Lagan

Construction hasn't yet signed a contract with the States. So

Guernsey's workforce is going to have to wait a while longer. It is

important there is some form of positive discrimination towards the

Guernsey economy. I think that's important. We feel as if we'd been

given a chance to take part in this. The States still needs to approve

the tender at the end of this month, then there's the wait for planning

permission. So it's looking like it'll be October before any

contract is signed and any sign is given that local companies can

Gay couples in Jersey have been given the right to form civil

partnerships. The new law gives same sex couples similar rights to

married couples. The States also decided that it would be up to

individual religious organisations whether to allow the ceremonies in

their churches or building. The airline Flybe has apologised to a

World War Two veteran after he was charged �60 to take a Military

Standard to the liberation ceremony in Jersey as hand luggage. Alec

Penstone complained saying some comrades could not afford the cost.

Flybe has now changed its baggage policy. Jersey has a new Planning

and Environment Minister. Deputy Rob Duhamel beat three other

candidates and will replace Senator Freddie Cohen, who stepped down

last week. Deputy Duhamel says he may only have a few months in the

role before the October elections, but he believes he can still make a

difference. Obviously there's a limited time but the thing is we

had a majority of states members, Bar one, who voted for the island

plan. What I want to use the period to do is to ensure that we are

going to deliver those policies and they are bedded in before the next

Minister is voted in the next elections. Are parents losing

control of their children when it comes to the internet and computer

games? An addictions expert is in the Channel Islands this week to

talk about the problem of excessive internet use. We'll hear from that

expert, Rick Dubras, in a moment about what parents can do. But

first, our reporter has the story of one young man in Jersey who

became addicted to gaming. Hayden and Conor have been friends since

childhood. And Hayden has needed his friends in recent years. During

a time when he faced problems in the real world, including bullying

at school, he found an escape in gaming. I could be who I wanted to

be, I could act how I wanted to act. If anyone I didn't like showed up,

I could just ignore them using different options. I used it to

escape my reality because reality was cruel to me. I hated the person

I was in real life. I just used this as a way to escape and be who

I wanted to be. Staying up late gaming and logging on straight

after breakfast, Hayden stopped seeing friends. Conor became

concerned and decided he needed to do something. We felt like he was

drifting away from us and we didn't want that to happen. We had to talk

some sense into him. More and more of us are using things like

Facebook and Twitter to stay in touch. It's easy to become

dependent. And that can lead to addiction. Experts say parents need

to be aware of the dangers. In the schools they are protected, there

are heavy filters in place to protect them. But when they leave

school they often go home and there is none, if little of filtering

going on. It's hard to see what they're doing. For Hayden though he

did get help from a counsellor and overcame his addiction. Both he and

Conor insist gaming can help build confidence and the internet is a

great place to make friends. Just, they warn, be careful not to let

the virtual world get in the way of Rick Dubras is an expert in

managing addictions like Hayden's, and he's in Jersey to help parents

spot the signs. He joined me earlier in the studio. I started by

asking him if parents should just be adjusting security and access

settings on the home computer. actually don't think that it is

about setting up programmes or security. Our children, like you've

said, they are very savvy. They know the system has more than we do,

generally speaking. I'm wanting to push the idea that we can have

influence and have relationships with our children that is what our

children follow, and that we learn how to trust them understand what's

too much and what's not enough. If we are talking about what is

negotiable on the internet and what's not, then we have to have

influence, we have to have relationships. I don't think it's

about setting up security software packages up on the computer to

limit their ability to access the internet. They can just go and

access it in a cafe. What about the gaming corporations, it's in their

interest to get kids hooked into playing it for hours a day, so how

can parents persuade their children to put the games console down?

use a great word - persuasion. We can only persuade and influence

when we have a relationship. In a relationship be then influence. We

can start then negotiating with our young people as to what is too much

and what is too little. But when we are spending up to five hours

connecting and not sitting at dinner with our family, when we are

not able to clean our room and do the chores and the family and being

relationships with each other, that's when I start to see the

disconnect and dislocation that happens in families. That is when

we start fighting, and that's when we start getting emotional. That's

when we are no longer being able to have emotionally mutual

conversations about our concerns. Lots of food for thought there.

That presentation from Rick is being held at Haute Vallee theatre

at 6.00pm tomorrow evening. You're watching the BBC in the Channel

Islands. Later in Spotlight with Justin and Victoria, we join Prince

Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall Now, here at the BBC, we like to

think that making television is a highly skilled craft that needs to

be honed over many years. So imagine our surprise that a 27-

year-old silverback gorilla has had a go for the first time and is

already a hit! Ya Kwanza was given a video camera by his keepers at

Durrell. Amy Harris has been taking a look at his work. He's one of

Durrell's most photographed residents and it seems, despite his

glum face, Ya Kwanza enjoys working the lens. He's started filming

himself. The silverback gorilla got his paws on this yellow camera and

soon got up to some monkey business. Little did Ya Kwanza know - it was

all planned. His keepers covered the camera in his favourite treats,

hoping he'd pick it up so they could see his life through a lens.

Let's see what happens. The result - these never seen before images.

And unlike some stars, he was happy to hand the pictures over! Pass the

box! Ya Kwanza's leaving Jersey soon after almost 20 years, so this

footage will provide a lasting memory of a very photo friendly

He's not bad. I wonder what would happen if we attached food to the

BBC cameras? Maybe we you would get We've had wet weather today, but

thankfully that's moving out of the way. For the next few days, until

the weekend, there's a lot of dry weather and the sunshine will

return. The area of low pressure that generated the showers is

moving away this evening. Quite a lot of cloud for the first half of

the night and then it moves away. By lunchtime tomorrow, we have a

ridge of high pressure which will stick their for much of the day,

all day on Thursday before a weather front will trickle in from

the West. It will introduce a lot more cloud into Friday. That was

the picture from earlier today, you can see the blues and yellows -

that's where we've had some quite heavy rain in the last 12 hours or

so. That has now moved out of the way. It's initially cloudy

overnight but the skies begin to break towards dawn. The winds also

dropping. Tomorrow should be a decent day. Some sunny spells,

patchy cloud, winds from the north and temperatures getting up to 18

or 19 degrees. Quite a pleasant day The forecast for Thursday is bright,

dry with some sunshine. That weak weather front will come in on

Friday and make things rather cloudy but it should remain dry.

That is until Friday night and into Saturday when we see some more wet

weather turning up. Saturday looks like it could be rather cloudy,