NEWS

Sangre Grande steps up flood preparedness

Three weeks after Sangre Grande and environs were devastated by flood waters after heavy rains, the Sangre Grande Regional Corporation (SGRC) is leaving nothing to chance as all efforts are being made to have a safe shelter for residents who live in flood-prone areas. Several families lost most of their belongings in the recent flood episode. Some had to be evacuated from their homes and placed at the Sangre Grande civic centre which was used as a makeshift disaster centre. Read more here

Cops alarmed at sex crime spike against children

Po­lice yes­ter­day ex­pressed alarm at the spike in sex crimes against chil­dren in Trinidad and To­ba­go. They made the com­ment af­ter point­ing out that so far for the year there have been 926 re­ports over­all of se­ri­ous crimes against chil­dren – which sug­gests an av­er­age of ap­prox­i­mate­ly three re­ports every day. So far for 2018 there have been 564 re­ports of sex­u­al pen­e­tra­tion against young vic­tims, al­most dou­ble what it was for the same pe­ri­od last year. The “fright­en­ing” sta­tis­tics were dis­closed the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) Child Pro­tec­tion Unit’s Sgt Michelle Lewis at yes­ter­day’s TTPS’ week­ly me­dia brief­ing. Read more here

POLITICS

Young: PP had attacked Roget

Stuart Young, Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister, said the former People’s Partnership government had once verbally attacked Oilfield Workers’ Trade Union (OWTU) head Ancel Roget. He spoke in yesterday’s House of Representatives debate on a bill to vest Petrotrin’s assets in successor companies, the Miscellaneous Provisions (Heritage Petroleum, Paria Fuel Trading and Guaracara Refining Vesting) Bill 2018. Read more here

Govt vests Petrotrin assets to new entities

There has been a safe, in­ci­dent-free shut­down of all Petrotrin re­fin­ery op­er­a­tions and preser­va­tion and “moth­balling” of units is now in progress. Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert con­firmed this sta­tus of Petrotrin op­er­a­tions in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, dur­ing de­bate on leg­is­la­tion to vest as­sets, un­der­tak­ings and oblig­a­tions of Petrotrin in­to three com­pa­nies which will com­prise the re­struc­tured en­ti­ty: Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Co Ltd, Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Co Ltd and Guaracara Re­fin­ing Co Ltd. These were in­cor­po­rat­ed on Oc­to­ber 5 to man­age new busi­ness­es. Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um will man­age ex­plo­ration and pro­duc­tion and hold re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for all E&P as­sets, in­clud­ing con­tracts, with rev­enue gen­er­at­ed through crude sales and crude stor­age. Read more here

BUSINESS

Caribbean actuary receives international award

Founding president of the Caribbean Actuarial Association (CAA) Daisy May McFarlane-Coke, has won the 2018 Max Lander Award. This award, granted every two years by the International Association of Consulting Actuaries (IACA), is a Consulting Actuary Lifetime Achievement Award given to a member of the actuarial profession who has contributed to the public awareness of the work of the actuarial profession and the promotion of the business of consulting actuaries. The award is named in honour of the late Max Lander who was a founding member of IACA. Read more here

Capitalist migraine

Re­cent­ly, the Unit­ed States re­turned, for the first time since the 2008 fi­nan­cial cri­sis, to its long-held po­si­tion as the most com­pet­i­tive econ­o­my in the world. No, it’s not be­cause of Trump. Or Oba­ma. Sor­ry Kool-Aid fans. Al­ready, the largest econ­o­my in the world—the Unit­ed States ac­cord­ing to the World Eco­nom­ic Fo­rum’s an­nu­al Glob­al Com­pet­i­tive­ness Re­port—“with a score of 85.6 out of 100”, is num­ber 1 again “due to its vi­brant en­tre­pre­neur­ial cul­ture and strong labour mar­ket and fi­nan­cial sys­tem.” Read more here

REGIONAL

5-Y-O Knew Her Sisters Were Dead - Young 'Prayer Warrior' Shares Pain Of Feeling Her Two Siblings' Death Before Being Told

Five-year-old Tamelia Thompson knew that her sisters, Tiara and Tiana, were dead long before her teachers confirmed her premonition. "We saw her crouched in a corner, praying," said Carolyn Brown, principal of the Providence Heights Early Childhood Institution in St James. Tamelia confirmed to The Gleaner in a tear-jerking interview yesterday that nobody told her that her sisters had died. "I just knew. I started feeling sad in the class, so I went into a corner and started praying because I love my sisters," she shared between sobs. Read more here

INTERNATIONAL

May Faces Commons Grilling

Conservative MP Sir Nicholas Soames - who opposed Brexit - congratulates the prime minister on achieving a draft text of the deal "in difficult circumstances" and asks the prime minister to elaborate on the agreed deal in relation to security. Theresa May says "we will have an independent foreign policy but we have negotiated an ability for the United Kingdom, where it makes sense to do so, to work with our European partners on matters of security and defence". Read more here

Saudi prosecutor seeks death penalty for Khashoggi murder, says journalist was killed by sedative overdose

Saudi prosecutors said Thursday they would seek the death penalty for five people allegedly involved in the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. A total of 11 people were charged, the Saudi Public Prosecutor's office said, adding that the five people facing capital punishment were directly involved in "ordering and executing the crime." It also shared details of the journalist's murder, saying Khashoggi was killed following "a fight and a quarrel" at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. He was tied up and injected with an overdose of a sedative that killed him, then his body was chopped up and given to a local collaborator, the prosecutor said. Read more here

15th November 2018

Back