NEWS

Griffith backs bill to curb guns

Commissioner of Police (CoP) Gary Griffith has endorsed Government proposals to restrict bail to people held with illegal firearms. At Thursday’s post-Cabinet briefing, Minister of National Security Stuart Young said no bail would be given for 120 days to someone caught with an illegal gun, to someone held with a gun who is on bail for another offence and for other serious offences including gang activity. He proposed to amend the Bail Act. Contacted for comment Griffith said, “I fully endorse and embrace such a decision. The crux of the matter is our laws are really outdated, if you look at best practice internationally.” Read more here

State moving to seize assets

Gov­ern­ment will seek to push two pieces of leg­is­la­tion in the com­ing weeks to al­low the State to re­cov­er prop­er­ties and oth­er as­sets from for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan and UNC Sen­a­tor Ger­ald Ramdeen. A high-rank­ing in­sid­er at the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al told Guardian Me­dia that the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to push the amend­ments to the Reg­is­tra­tion of Deeds Bill and push to have the Un­ex­plained Wealth Or­ders in re­spect of the Civ­il As­sets Bill pro­claimed to specif­i­cal­ly deal with the two men. Both men were de­tained by of­fi­cers at­tached to the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tions Bu­reau (ACIB) for over 70 hours be­tween Wednes­day and Fri­day be­fore be­ing charged. The two are ex­pect­ed to ap­pear in court to­day. Guardian Me­dia was told that Gov­ern­ment in­tends to push eight amend­ments to the Reg­is­tra­tion of Deeds Bill, cur­rent­ly be­fore Par­lia­ment, as it will form a ma­jor part of State’s case against Ram­lo­gan and Ramdeen. Read more here

POLITICS

Government wants a news-carrying society says Opposition Leader

The Opposition Leader has likened the Whistleblower Protection Bill (2018) to that of Nazi Germany and accused the Government of trying to make this country into "a news-carrying society." Kamla Persad-Bissessar said the Government wants people to carry news on one another. "This reminds me of Nazi Germany. Suppose you and your wife are having some hard times, you are not getting along, would you become a whistleblower? They want to make us into a news-carrying society, breaching all fundamental rights. We will not stand for it," said the leader. Read more here

MSJ leader: I warned Kamla about Ramlogan

Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice leader David Ab­du­lah says that nei­ther Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, nor her Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress, can ex­tri­cate them­selves from the po­lit­i­cal reper­cus­sions caused by the charges brought against for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC and UNC sen­a­tor Ger­ald Ramdeen. Speak­ing at the MSJ’s head of­fice in St Joseph Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do on Sun­day, Ab­du­lah said it was not a mat­ter of Ram­lo­gan and Ramdeen’s in­no­cence or guilt, but that Per­sad-Biss­esar at­tempt­ed to dis­tance her­self from the predica­ment. Read more here

BUSINESS

NCBFG stumbles, RFHL expands

This week, we at Bourse review the financial performance of NCB Financial Group Ltd (NCBFG) and Republic Financial Holdings Ltd (RFHL) for the six months ended 31st March, 2019. Both reported top line growth but fared differently with respect to overall profitability. Read more here

REGIONAL

Where Are They? - Efforts To Recover Missing Children Hampered By Inefficiencies, Reporting Flaws

Inefficiencies dog the Ananda Alert system established 10 years ago to help reunite missing children with their families, even as the country continues to see kids disappearing at the rate of one every six hours or four per day. Police data reveal that last year, 1,512 children were reported missing, with girls (1,164) outnumbering boys (348) three to one. Of this number, 155 girls and 31 boys are still missing. One boy and four girls were reported dead. Since January 2019, the trend has not slowed. Up to April 30, police statistics show that 413 girls and 104 boys have been reported missing, with 126 girls and 26 boys still unaccounted for. Two girls were reported dead. Launched in May 2009 after national outrage over the murder of 11-year-old schoolgirl Ananda Dean in September 2008, the alert system had proposed a number of strategies to help with the speedy and safe recovery of missing children. Read more here

INTERNATIONAL

One million species threatened with extinction because of humans

One million of the planet's eight million species are threatened with extinction by humans, scientists warned Monday in what is described as the most comprehensive assessment of global nature loss ever. Their landmark report paints a bleak picture of a planet ravaged by an ever-growing human population, whose insatiable consumption is destroying the natural world. The global rate of species extinction "is already tens to hundreds of times higher than it has been, on average, over the last 10 million years," according to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), a UN committee, whose report was written by 145 experts from 50 countries. Read more here

US sends aircraft carrier and bomber task force to 'warn Iran'

The US has deployed an aircraft carrier to the Middle East to send a "clear and unmistakable message" to Iran. John Bolton, US national security advisor, said they were acting "in response to a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings". The deployment of the warship was based on claims of a possible attack on US forces, Reuters news agency reports, quoting an unnamed US official. Mr Bolton added that they would counter any attack with "unrelenting force". In a statement, Mr Bolton said: "The United States is deploying the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force to the US Central Command region to send a clear and unmistakeable message to the Iranian regime that any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force." Read more here

6th May 2019

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