NEWS
Team Trinidad and Tobago power through Men's 4x400m relay to bring home gold
Trinidad and Tobago capped off a six-medal haul at the 2022 Commonwealth Games with a historic men’s 4x400 metres relay gold at Alexander Stadium in Birmingham, England on Sunday. The TT quartet of Dwight St Hillaire, Asa Guevara, Machel Cedenio and Jereem “The Dream” Richards, running in that order, powered to victory in three minutes, 01.29 seconds. In the process, they ended TT’s 56-year gold medal drought in this event at the Games. The last time TT won the Commonwealth men’s 4x400m was in 1966, when Lennox Yearwood, Kent Bernard, Edwin Robert and Wendell Mottley topped the field in Jamaica. Read more here
Woman found dead, months after prison release for husband’s murder
Six days after she went missing, murder convict Kareen Ramlal was found dead in a bushy area off Penal Rock Road on Sunday. Her body was decomposed and wrapped tightly in a black tarpaulin. Her identification card, her phone and her shoes were also recovered from the scene. Ramlal, 43, had been employed as a security guard after she was released from prison in December, having served a sentence for the murder of her husband Anil Jadoo. She was found following a joint search by the Siparia CID headed by Insp Junior Marcelle, the Hunters Search and Rescue Team led by Captain Vallence Rambharat and the TTPS Air Support Unit. Read more here
POLITICS
Moonilal claims Government wants to privatise WASA
UNC MP Dr Roodal Monilal says it has received information that the Government has entered into an arrangement with a Canadian company to privatise the Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA). On Sunday, Moonilal said the ongoing restructuring process was a façade to distract the public from the government’s ulterior motive. “We are told that they have entered into arrangements, secret arrangements with a Canadian company to restructure WASA and they have signed a non-disclosure agreement with a Canadian company.” Read more here
MSJ: Govt’s proposed copper ban is too little, too late
The Movement for Social Justice (MSJ) political leader David Abdulah believes the government acted too late to ban the export of copper. Speaking at a press conference held virtually on Sunday, Abdulah said it’s been more than two months since the T&T Scrap Iron Dealers Association has been calling for a ban on copper exports, yet the government ignored the call. “We have been engaged in dialogue with them for more than a year. TTSIDA made a call more than two months ago for the government to ban the export of copper. Had the Govt acted at that time, it could have well have put a break on the stealing of copper —whether at the installation at WASA, T&TEC, TSTT lines or Digicel lines,” Abdulah said. Read more here
BUSINESS
Enter the grocerant...a game changer for cuisine
For the vast majority of the past two years, the closest experience many had to a dinner date would be heading to a grocery with their partner and picking up a ready-made meal. However, this Friday, a serious variation of that concept is coming as the Food Hall grocerant is set to open its doors officially to the public. The new enterprise is exactly what it sounds like, a grocery and a restaurant combined into one. The idea of groceries being a spot to grab prepared meals isn’t new and that concept flourished during the pandemic, the idea for the grocerant came long before COVID-19 lockdown restrictions explained Omar Hadeed, one of the founders of the Food Hall. Read more here
NGC, NewGen deepen hydrogen partnership
Wholly State-owned National Gas Company (NGC) and NewGen Energy (NewGen) have deepened their partnership to cooperate on the enabling of a sustainable hydrogen economy for the energy sector of T&T, by signing a non-binding Heads of Agreement (HOA). The agreement, which was signed on August 4, outlines the framework for the establishment of Binding Definitive Agreements between the relevant parties, once acceptable terms can be reached, according to a news release from NGC last week. Read more here
REGIONAL
Step in the right direction
Guyana has taken diligent steps in the right direction to successfully manage its burgeoning oil-and-gas sector, and avoid the curses of the 20th Century, said Senior Vice- President and Head of Latin America for Rystad Energy, W. Schreiner Parker. He made these remarks during a presentation of a study by the company titled, “Guyana’s Upstream Industry and Country Benchmarking Update” at the Roraima Duke Lodge on Thursday. During his presentation, Parker told the gathering, which included members of the business community and private sector, that one thing that has continuously been brought up when talking about the new and emerging oil-and-gas countries like Guyana is the “resource curse”. Read more here
INTERNATIONAL
China-Taiwan: Beijing conducts new military drills near island
China's military says it is continuing large-scale military drills around Taiwan after its previously announced live fire exercises ended on Sunday. The Chinese army's Eastern Theatre Command said that it would practice anti-submarine attacks and sea raids. The earlier four days of exercises were Beijing's response to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to the island. Taiwan has accused China of using these drills as practice for an invasion of the island. On Monday Taiwan said Chinese aircraft and ships had not entered its territorial waters, which extend 12 nautical miles (22km; 14 miles) from the coast, during the exercises so far. The US, along with Australia and Japan, have condemned the drills, saying their objective is to change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait - the 180km-wide (110 miles) body of water between the mainland and the island. Read more here
8th August 2022