NEWS

Unwanted Children

President of the Rapidfire Kidz Foundation, attorney Kevin Ratiram has made an appeal for TT to start adopting children who are languishing in homes throughout the country. Ratiram said, in TT, the word adoption was almost taboo and called for a national conversation to begin on the subject. Quoting statistics provide by the Children’s Authority, Ratiram said there were 651 children, ages two and upwards, living in 40 orphanages/children’s homes across the country. Read more here

Seepersad: Judiciary plagued by chaos

One year ago, I broke with tra­di­tion and spoke di­rect­ly to the me­dia about my views in re­la­tion to the open­ing of the 2018/2019 Law term. One year lat­er, and hav­ing been con­tact­ed to ex­press my views, con­front­ed with the cur­rent cir­cum­stances which can­not be con­doned, I feel com­pelled and con­strained to clear­ly ar­tic­u­late my con­cerns. This in­sti­tu­tion which is en­trust­ed with the sa­cred oblig­a­tion to be the guardian of the Con­sti­tu­tion and the law, con­tin­ues to be plagued and char­ac­terised by chaos and now stands dan­ger­ous­ly close to the brink of com­plete col­lapse. Read more here

POLITICS

PEP: Deal with issues, not Marlene

It is high time for the politicians to tackle the country’s pressing issues rather than squabble about who knew or didn’t know beforehand about the arrest of Port of Spain South MP Marlene McDonald, argued Phillip Edward Alexander, leader of the Progressive Empowerment Party (PEP). He spoke at the launch of the party’s local government election campaign at the Croissee, San Juan, on Saturday. Lamenting his own father could no longer run and jump but today uses a walking stick, Alexander urged citizens to reject the country’s current state of affairs and get active in politics while still fit and healthy. Read more here

President: Effort needed to build civic-mindedness among young people

Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes says there must be a con­cen­trat­ed ef­fort to build civic-mind­ed­ness among young peo­ple if T&T has to have a se­cure fu­ture. Speak­ing at the Rapid Fire Chil­dren’s Foun­da­tion an­nu­al din­ner and Dutch auc­tion held at the Achiev­er’s Ban­quet Hall on Sat­ur­day night, Weekes com­mend­ed the foun­da­tion for work­ing with un­der­priv­i­leged chil­dren by pro­vid­ing free eye­glass­es, med­ical clin­ics, ca­reer fairs and recre­ation­al op­por­tu­ni­ties. How­ev­er, she called on the foun­da­tion to in­cor­po­rate civic-mind­ed pro­grammes in­to their ac­tiv­i­ties. “Every pro­gramme you put in place should aim to in­cor­po­rate a heavy com­po­nent of cit­i­zen build­ing. It must be de­lib­er­ate­ly in­te­grat­ed in­to pro­grammes in or­der to have max­i­mum im­pact and pro­duce the change with young peo­ple,” Weekes said. Read more here

BUSINESS

Central Bank rate cuts spur bond market rally

This week, we at Bourse review both the local and select international fixed income market performance thus far for 2019. The local market remained subdued despite the promise of new offerings for investors, while the international bond investors have experienced positive returns for 2019. We take a closer look at the main drivers and the impact for the investors. Read more here

REGIONAL

No Rasta Recompense - Coral Gardens Victims Waiting In Vain Two Years After PM’s $10m Trust Fund Promise

Two years after Prime Minister Andrew Holness apologised for the State’s role in the 1963 Coral Gardens Massacre and promised compensation to victims and families of the deceased, The Gleaner understands that no money has been disbursed. Holness, in April 2017 in the House of Representatives, apologised for the killings and announced the establishment of a trust fund of $10 million to compensate the victims. “(It) was wrong and should never be repeated,” the prime minister said at the time about the 1963 Good Friday attack when the police raided a Rastafarian camp in Coral Gardens, St James, killing eight persons and injuring hundreds. Read more here

INTERNATIONAL

Restoring oil production in Saudi Arabia "will take weeks, not days"

Two Saudi sources familiar with the kingdom’s oil operations tell CNN that restoring oil production to its pre-weekend attack levels “will take weeks, not days.”  “This is unprecedented in scale, and impact,” according to both sources. The attacks on key oil facilities in Saudi Arabia on Saturday have disrupted about half of the kingdom's oil capacity, or 5% of the daily global oil supply. To alleviate the shortage, President Donald Trump said he will authorize the release of oil from strategic reserves. The fear is the longer the Saudi facilities continue to operate below capacity, the greater the risk of oil prices rising higher. Read more here

Brexit: Johnson's 'cautious' optimism ahead of Juncker talks

Boris Johnson has said he is "cautiously" optimistic about progress in Brexit talks as he meets EU leaders. The prime minister is having a working lunch with European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker in Luxembourg, the first time the two men have met since he took office in July. No 10 says he is not willing to delay Brexit beyond the 31 October deadline. Asked as he arrived for the meal whether there was progress towards a deal, Mr Juncker replied "we'll see". And asked whether he was optimistic about the prospects for a breakthrough, Mr Johnson replied that he was "cautious". Read more here

16th September 2019

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