Daily Brief - Wednesday 15th August, 2018

NEWS

Galleons Passage sailing close

The Galleons Passage ferry could make its first sailing on the seabridge this month. Works and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan expressed this optimism on Monday during a news conference at his ministry’s headquarters in Port of Spain. Asked if the Galleons Passage would begin its operations on the seabridge before Independence Day (August 31), Sinanan replied, “If things go as planned, the answer to that is yes.” Read more here

New $1.2b Point Fortin hospital ready by 2019

Although construction of the Point Fortin General Hospital began in 2015, Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh says the loan to finance the project was only received from the Bank of Austria two months ago. Deyalsingh together with Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley toured the new hospital which is expected to be completed by May 2019 and operational by September 2019. Under the Government-to-Government arrangement with the Government of Austria, Deyalsingh said the last administration was supposed annex specific projects. Read more here

Custodian charged with stealing Georges’ SUV outside police station

A thirty-one -year-old custodian and father of two was denied bail Tuesday when he appeared before a Port of Spain Magistrate charged with stealing CNC3 TV anchor Khamal Georges’ vehicle from outside a police station. Gamel Waldron of Layan Hill, Belmont, appeared before Magistrate Nizam Khan in the Port of Spain’s Fourth Magistrates’ Court charged with the incident which occurred last Thursday. Read more here

 

POLITICS

Rambharat: Let’s stop dumping in waterways

Agriculture Minister Clarence Rambharat has said various agencies need to work together to control flooding, as there is no control over the volume and frequency of rainfall. However, he said, it is possible to plan for what happens when rain falls. He was speaking at a workshop on the Integration of Urban Flood Risk, Mitigation and Management at the College of Science, Technology and Applied Arts of TT (COSTAAT), Chaguanas campus on Monday. Rambharat said after discussions with a joint select committee on disaster risk management, it would appear that the committee was struggling with the lack of co-ordination in the response to disasters, including flooding. Read more here

Roget challenges PM over meeting request

Joint Trade Union Movement (JTUM) leader Ancel Roget yesterday said the trade union movement was not afraid of the Prime Minister and will not back down from a fight. Responding to Rowley’s remarks during the PNM’s sports and family day in Chaguanas last Sunday, Roget challenged the PM’s version of events. Rowley had said Roget refused to meet with him and inferred that Roget earned a $100,000 salary. “What the country witnessed on Sunday was the ranting of a desperate man,” said Roget. Read more here

Hinds chased from Beetham

Acting Attorney General Fitzgerald Hinds was splashed with floodwater and chased out of Beetham Gardens yesterday afternoon by residents who accused him of doing nothing for them. Read more here

 

BUSINESS

ANSA McAL earns $454m second quarter profit

Noting the recent improvement in the T&T economy, ANSA McAL Group Chairman Norman Sabga said this has bolstered the conglomerate’s strategy of innovation with its new products. “That strategy is working well. The fact that we are up three per cent locally would indicate to us that things are improving, or that we are getting a larger piece,” he said yesterday as the Group announced its unaudited results for the six months ended June 30, at Tatil Building, Port-of-Spain. Sabga took the opportunity to announce a series of acquisitions the Group is working on. Read more here

Expanding T&T’s oil horizon

More exploration blocks will become available for the upstream companies in shallow water offshore the east coast when the Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries issues its competitive bidding order (CBO) shortly. Read more here

 

REGIONAL

Rogue Principals - CDF Committee Members Blasts Schools For Shutting Out Children Whose Auxiliary Fees Are Not Paid

Members of parliament's Constituency Development Fund Committee yesterday blasted school administrators who continued to demand the payment of auxiliary fees before students are admitted. During a special sitting of the CDF committee yesterday chairman, Everald Warmington, noted the number of projects submitted by Members of Parliament for additional funding for educational assistance and charged that the majority related to assistance with paying auxiliary fees for students going to high schools. "Before now I used to resist giving any assistance for auxiliary fees, but you have to consider the amount that is being charged by some of these schools, up to $30,000. But at the same time the Government already pays the school fee. So, I can't help but to assist in that area which I have always refused to do," said Warmington. Read more here

 

INTERNATIONAL

Omarosa's scorched-earth tell-all is a rare public breach of Trump's loyalty test

You could start counting off former White House staffers and you'd run out of fingers. And toes. Not all of them have been fired, but a fair number have. Sometimes spectacularly. Omarosa Manigault Newman is doing something none of her predecessors have done -- she's gone nuclear on her former boss and the White House. That's something no other former White House staffer -- from Hope Hicks to Sean Spicer to Steve Bannon -- has done. Spicer has tried self-deprecating humor. Bannon has carried on from afar as an ideological soul mate. Others have just stayed quiet. Manigault Newman is the first to turn on Trump with a blow torch. Read more here

Italy bridge: Grief and anger over collapse in Genoa

Grief in Italy for the 39 victims of a collapsed motorway bridge in Genoa has been mixed with anger that such a vital structure could have simply given way. Rescuers say there is little hope for more survivors underneath the Morandi bridge, where almost 40 vehicles fell 45m (148ft) in Tuesday's collapse. The cause is not yet known but there have been calls for the heads of the company operating the bridge to resign. Survivors have also been recalling the horror of the bridge's collapse. Hundreds of firefighters worked overnight with lifting gear, climbing equipment and sniffer dogs to try to locate more survivors. But an Italian Red Cross spokeswoman told the BBC's Tim Willcox that only bodies had been found. The local prefecture raised the death toll on Wednesday morning to 39, 37 of them identified. At least three children lost their lives. Read more here

15th August 2018

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