NEWS

Gulf of danger

Citizens of this country could face “far more risk” in the Gulf of Paria if the situation in neighbouring Venezuela deteriorates any further. This was the view of University of the West Indies (UWI) Institute of International Relations director Prof Jessica Byron-Reid yesterday. Referring to the recent kidnapping of six fishermen, Byron-Reid said increased criminality in the Gulf of Paria could be one result of a total break down of law and order in Venezuela. Read more here

FCB records a quarterly profit of $311.5m

First Cit­i­zens Bank Ltd (FCB) record­ed a prof­itable first quar­ter for the three months end­ed 31 De­cem­ber 2018. FCB record­ed a prof­it be­fore tax of $311.5 mil­lion, a growth of 22.7 mil­lion or 7.9 per cent when com­pared to the cor­re­spond­ing pe­ri­od in 2017. The com­pa­ny’s prof­it af­ter tax was post­ed as $214.5 mil­lion, which ac­counts for a 5.5 per cent in­crease, as com­pared to De­cem­ber 2017. In an in­ter­view with FCB Group CEO, Karen Dar­basie, she placed the num­bers doc­u­ment­ed in the first quar­ter­ly re­port in­to con­text. Dar­basie ex­plained that the rea­sons for the growth of the com­pa­ny were large­ly due to a well ex­e­cut­ed mar­ket­ing cam­paign. She said: We do a big Christ­mas cam­paign that starts in the mid­dle of Sep­tem­ber and fin­ished off at the end of De­cem­ber.” Read more here

POLITICS

Build dam in Mayaro

Mayaro MP Rushton Paray said the issue of providing water for the people Mayaro and, by extension, the country was a genuine concern. After reading a letter written to Newsday by L Seepersad about millions of gallons of fresh water being dumped into the Atlantic ocean, Paray said, “Firstly the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA) should carry out a feasibility study on this issue.” Manager of the Mayaro Constituency Office Neel Ramdath said, Seepersad should write to WASA detailing his findings. Read more here

Cane farmers win $450,000 claim against Govt

The State has been or­dered to pay more than $450,000 to six sug­ar cane farm­ers, who claimed they were owed mon­ey un­der a com­pen­sa­tion scheme for tran­si­tion­ing out of the in­dus­try. On Mon­day, three Court of Ap­peal Judges dis­missed the State's ap­peal, in which it was seek­ing to over­turn the de­ci­sion of three High Court judges to re­ject its at­tempts to seek ex­ten­sions for fil­ing its de­fences in three sep­a­rate law­suits brought by the farm­ers. The de­ci­sion means that De­wantie and Man­zo­ol Mo­hammed would re­ceive $112,448, while Kaloutie and Mathu­ra Bisses­sar would re­ceive $63,476.04. Si­ta Ma­haraj and Manohar Ram­nar­ine would re­ceive $278,301.41. Read more here

BUSINESS

Citrus Growers building destroyed. 

For the past few months, curious observers would have noticed the systematic dismantling of the buildings on the compound of what was once the Cooperative Citrus Growers Association (CCGA) on the Eastern Main Road in Laventille. Read more here

Young: ‘Old talk’ drove Sandals away

San­dals Re­sorts In­ter­na­tion­al will not be re­turn­ing to T&T said Min­is­ter Stu­art Young on Wednes­day night at a fo­rum en­ti­tled Eco­nom­ic Im­pli­ca­tions of the Ter­mi­na­tion of the San­dals Project in To­ba­go, held at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), St Au­gus­tine. The event was mod­er­at­ed by Guardian Me­dia’s Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor, Ju­lian Rogers. “There is no San­dals project. San­dals is not com­ing to To­ba­go. Af­ter two years of dis­cus­sions and at­tempt­ed ne­go­ti­a­tions San­dals has picked up and has left. I do not want to spend any more time on my part dis­cussing what San­dals could have been. It is a waste of time,” he said. Read more here

REGIONAL

Poor No More - Lascelles Chin Pledges $50m Annual Injection To Rescue Youth From Poverty

Business mogul Lascelles Chin has committed to pumping up to $50 million annually into his newly established LASCO Chin Foundation, the broad objective of which is to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty and crime. “Our philosophy is to help Jamaicans who need help. It cannot be that you are making profit and skim it off and don’t help people,” Chin declared yesterday during a Gleaner Editors’ Forum at the media house’s North Street offices. Chin, founder and executive chairman of the LASCO Affiliated Companies and chairman of the foundation, noted that over the last two decades, LASCO has spent millions to reward the efforts of public servants such as teachers, nurses and police officers through various programmes. Read more here

INTERNATIONAL

Why Hungary's state-sponsored schoolbooks have teachers worried

Flick through a Hungarian history book for high school students, and you're left in no doubt about the government's view on migrants. The section on "Multiculturalism" opens with a photo of refugees camped under a Budapest railway station. Flanking the image is a speech given by strongman Prime Minister Viktor Orban on the perils of migration: "We consider it a value that Hungary is a homogenous country," he says. The state-sanctioned textbooks are part of a government shakeup of Hungary's education system that is causing deep unease among some teachers and publishers. Read more here

Trump to NYT: Wall talks a 'waste of time'

US President Donald Trump has dismissed the federal investigation into alleged Russian collusion in the 2016 election and talks about a proposed border wall. His lawyers had been reassured he was not a target in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, he said. Talks in Congress about wall funding - the issue behind the recent government shutdown - were a "waste of time". Mr Trump was interviewed by the New York Times, a paper he repeatedly described as "failing" in the past. The paper's interview with Mr Trump came after he contacted its publisher, AG Sulzberger. Read more here

1st February 2019

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