NEWS
LIAT20 makes inaugural flight to Trinidad and Tobago
LIAT20 CEO Hafsa Abdulsalam said the airline will no longer be known as “Leaving Island Any Time” as the airline was relaunched under new management. She said the airline was committed to offering safe and reliable service and will uphold the high standards the Caribbean and TT expected and deserved. She was speaking at the welcome reception for the inaugural LIAT20 flight to Trinidad on December 19 at the departure lounge of the Piarco International Airport. “The old ways Liat was known has been perceived as a negative. For us, new Liat, new management, new branding, it means we will be available to fly you when you want to fly. When we commit to a time and a service, we will deliver that service to you. So ‘leaving island’ means you will ‘leave island’ at the time we promised you will travel.” Read more here
Zaheer’s 17-hour ordeal
Almost five hours after kidnapped teenager Zaheer Samuel was abandoned by his abductors in a forested area in San Pablo, Valencia, he trekked through mud and bush and even crossed a river barefoot to seek help from residents at Quarry Road, Valencia. Bloody from thorny bushes and razor grass slicing at his body; with sores on the soles of his feet; his knees and hands bruised from bracing himself every time he fell; battling insect bites; and hungry and frightened having stumbled in the dark, Samuel, 14, walked into a house at 10.15 pm on Wednesday and asked its occupants to call his mother. Initially, Zaheer sent one woman screaming for help and the other occupants scrambling to lock up, fearing he was an intruder when he peered through the house’s open front door. While his freedom came 17 hours after he was snatched by armed men outside his parents’ business—the S&S Plant and Garden Shop along the Eastern Main Road, St Augustine, at 5.30 am on Wednesday, residents of Quarry Road yesterday credited the teenager for making it out alive. The owner of the house, who refused to be named, said the Form Four St George’s College student would have endured rugged terrain. Read more here
POLITICS
Kamla: 'Callous pension policy was no error'
Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar has slammed the government’s handling of a recently rescinded policy that would have disqualified elderly citizens with savings of over $25,000 from receiving pension assistance. Describing the policy as a “callous and deliberate attack on the vulnerable,” Persad-Bissessar accused the Cabinet of failing to admit responsibility. “No public servant will get up on their own and decide on clauses that will disqualify elderly citizens with over $25,000 in savings from receiving pensions,” she charged during a press conference on December 19. Read more here
BUSINESS
Young: Do not blame current board for NGC's $1.3B loss
The current chairman and the board of the National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago (NGC) are not to be blamed for the recent billion dollar loss incurred by the state-owned company, Minister of Energy Stuart Young said yesterday. Young came to the defence of chairman Dr Joseph Ishmael Khan and the board of NGC at a press conference at his Ministry's headquarters at Tower D in Port of Spain yesterday. Earlier this week, UNC MP David Lee said the public should keep an eye on the NGC chairman after the company reported a loss of $1.3 billion for financial year 2023, and noted it had similarly reported a loss in 2021. Read more here
REGIONAL
Top brass of Police Force ‘most qualified’ in Guyana’s history
Newly-appointed Commissioner of Police Clifton Hicken and his deputies are the most qualified, both professionally and academically, in the history of the Guyana Police Force (GPF), Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces President Dr. Irfaan Ali has said. Hicken, who has acted in the role since March 2022, was sworn in as Commissioner of Police at State House on Thursday. He will be supported by several deputies, namely Wendell Blanhum, Errol Watts, Fizul Karimbaksh, Simon McBean, and Ravindradat Budhram, who all took their oath as well on Thursday. Read more here
INTERNATIONAL
Dominique Pelicot's double life: Who is the man who plotted his wife's mass rape?
It was something in Dominique Pelicot's swagger, his "élan" - as the French might put it - that immediately struck the psychiatrist as odd. There he stood. A 68-year-old pensioner who had already spent several months inside one of France's most notorious prisons, Les Baumettes in Marseilles. The prison was a grim, intimidating place, crowded with members of the port city's warring drug gangs. And yet the man in the visiting room who rose to greet Dr Laurent Layet on a cold day in February 2021 seemed "clean, polished… He had just cut his own hair. He came towards me with this assertive attitude." Dr Layet was surprised, to put it mildly. The psychiatrist was the first of many people to scrutinise Dominique Pelicot. Each expert was looking for clues to explain how this apparently genial pensioner could have committed such grotesque crimes and deceived his unsuspecting victim for so long. Read more here
20th December 2024