NEWS

Flooding a wake up call for action on climate change

The unprecedented rainfall and ensuing disaster which has plagued this country for the past several weeks, is a wakeup call for the authorities to take decisive action against climate change. Environmental consultant Sascha Jattansingh said critical decisions will have to be made in the next decade which will dictate whether or not TT survives and thrive in the 21st century as climate change poses a most existential threat to the future. She said cities like San Fernando are major contributors to climate change and the recent flooding disaster is a sign that TT is running out of time. Read more here

Flood water receding in Woodland

Al­though the floods were grad­u­al­ly re­ced­ing in some parts of Wood­land yes­ter­day, sev­er­al homes and sec­tions of road­way were still in­un­dat­ed with wa­ter. Pre­matie Dwarpaul, whose house has been sur­round­ed by floods for the past three days, said it has been a very dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion for her and her son. “We get flood­ed out in Oc­to­ber. We did not even get over that now and now we get flood out again. This is too hard,” she said. Dwarpaul was among res­i­dents who got do­na­tions of mat­tress­es and oth­er re­lief sup­plies from the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port. Clean­ing sup­plies and wa­ter were al­so hand­ed out to af­fect­ed res­i­dents. As he wad­ed through his flood­ed yard in tall boots to col­lect sup­plies, Roger Jaimun­gal, 75, com­plained that all his house­hold items, in­clud­ing fridge, stove and bed, were dam­aged when three feet of wa­ter gushed in­to his home. Read more here

POLITICS

Rowley: My buddy Tim ‘turn beast’

The Prime Minister revealed a close friendship to Caroni East MP Dr Tim Gopeesingh, but teased him for having “turn beast” upon joining the United National Congress (UNC). This light hearted moment prompted giggles among MPs on both sides of the House of Representatives, as it debated the Petrotrin vesting bill on Wednesday night. Rowley was refuting Opposition remarks including those of Gopeesingh. Read more here

PM, Moonilal in court this week

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s law­suit against Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal will be heard in court this week. He told par­ty sup­port­ers at the PNM’st 48th An­nu­al Con­ven­tion at Shaw Park, To­ba­go, the Op­po­si­tion has been ped­dling fake news and de­scribed as a “mon­strous lie” claims that he had a bank ac­count in Flori­da and had re­ceived mon­ey from AV Drilling. “Well, that I en­joyed be­cause that is go­ing to court next week,” he said. In his wide rang­ing ad­dress, Row­ley said crime and cor­rup­tion were two of the biggest threats fac­ing T&T and they re­quire a con­sis­tent fight by his Gov­ern­ment. Read more here

BUSINESS

Is NGC negotiating in good faith?

Is some­thing fun­da­men­tal­ly wrong with the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny’s (NGC) style of ne­go­ti­a­tions? The ques­tion is be­ing asked be­cause since the ap­point­ment of the cur­rent board there has been un­ease among multi­na­tion­al com­pa­nies about the pace, tone and tenor of ne­go­ti­a­tions with the NGC. There are at least three in­ci­dents in the pub­lic do­main that raise ques­tions about the coun­try’s flag­ship en­er­gy com­pa­ny. One is the pro­tract­ed ne­go­ti­a­tions with bpTT and EOG Re­sources for which no so­lu­tion seemed in sight be­fore Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley went to Hous­ton and bro­kered a so­lu­tion among the three com­pa­nies. While these ne­go­ti­a­tions were on­go­ing, bil­lions of US dol­lars in in­vest­ment were be­ing with­held from T&T by BP and EOG. Read more here

REGIONAL

Housing For Poor Coming - Holness Announces $500m Programme For Indigent

The Andrew Holness administration is now crafting a programme through which $500 million will be spent to build "reasonable" housing solutions for the poor and indigent across the island. Further, Holness, the prime minister, signalled yesterday that from the Corporate Area to the western end of the island, more major roadworks were in the pipeline. He announced, too, that hundreds of new jobs were on the horizon across several sectors and said his administration was on track to build 22,000 housing solutions by 2021 when a general election is constitutionally due. Read more here

INTERNATIONAL

Trump's combative weekend shows rocky road ahead

President Donald Trump is responding to a midterm election that represented a rebuke for his polarizing and aggressive behavior by recommitting to his brazen political style, setting up a turbulent two years to come. Trump's busy weekend served as a microcosm for his presidency as a whole, as he seethed with insults, launched attacks on key figures who have criticized him and returned to fiery rhetoric on immigration. In one spat, he unloaded on retired Adm. William McRaven, former head of Special Operations Command, and attacked the military for not having killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden before 2011. Read more here

Nissan plans to fire Carlos Ghosn over 'misconduct'

Japanese car giant Nissan has proposed removing chairman Carlos Ghosn from his post over financial misconduct claims. The firm said it had been conducting an internal investigation for several months which showed Mr Ghosn had been under-reporting his pay package. "Numerous other significant acts of misconduct" including "personal use of company assets", were also found. According to Japanese media reports Mr Ghosn has been arrested in Tokyo, although that has not been confirmed. According to the same reports, he under-reported an amount totalling 5bn yen ($44m; £34m) over a five-year period from 2011. Read more here

19th November 2018

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