NEWS

Piarco Airport pay kiosks crash after 2 days

The new au­to­mat­ed park­ing sys­tem at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port is down two days af­ter be­ing launched. Park-In com­pris­es mul­ti­ple elec­tron­ic kiosks around the air­port to fa­cil­i­tate au­to­mat­ed pay­ment trans­ac­tions for park­ing at the air­port. The sys­tem was launched on Mon­day, how­ev­er, on Tues­day night four of the five kiosks lo­cat­ed in­side and out­side of the air­port atri­um were re­port­ed to be down. The sys­tem was im­ple­ment­ed to pro­vide safer trans­ac­tions and avoid long queues to ex­it the fa­cil­i­ty. Read more here

Fewer police stations, more police patrols, says Gary

The public will soon be able to make police reports online rather than going to any of the 77 police stations. So said Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith on Wednesday during a crime symposium at the office of Oropouche Member of Parliament Roodal Moonilal in Debe yesterday. Griffith took questions from the audience and responded to their concerns. Read more here

POLITICS

Moonilal wants inquiry into ferry deal

Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal says the lease of the Mal­tese ves­sel Jean De La Valette should be stopped and an in­de­pen­dent in­quiry should be con­duct­ed in­to pro­cure­ment process for the pro­posed fer­ry. Speak­ing at his Oropouche East Con­stituen­cy of­fice yes­ter­day, Mooni­lal said he had not­ed Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s re­sponse to the is­sues sur­round­ing the ves­sel and found he was neg­li­gent in the mat­ter. Mooni­lal said the PM has tak­en the wrong ap­proach to the con­cerns raised and it clear­ly in­di­cates that T&T has an­oth­er scan­dal on its hand as there were no pro­cure­ment rules fol­lowed. He re­called there were al­so prob­lems with the Cabo Star, Ocean Flower II and Galleons Pas­sage which ser­viced the seabridge. Read more here

‘Everything in place’ for SEA today

Today 18,849 pupils across Trinidad and Tobago will be writing the Secondary ­Entrance Assessment (SEA) examination. As children got ready yesterday for the red-letter day today, some organisations and non-governmental organisations distributed stationery kits while special prayers were said on their behalf in several schools and by ­religious organisations. Read more here

BUSINESS

Subhas Ramkhelawan: T&T technically out of recession

Trinidad and To­ba­go has not been in a re­ces­sion for the last year and in­stead the econ­o­my has set­tled at a low­er lev­el, ac­cord­ing to the man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Bourse Se­cu­ri­ties, Sub­has Ramkhelawan. Ramkhelawan was speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew when he re­spond­ed to Trade and In­dus­try Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon’s de­c­la­ra­tion that the coun­try is no longer in a re­ces­sion. Ramkhelawan said: “A re­ces­sion is tech­ni­cal­ly de­fined as two con­sec­u­tive quar­ters of eco­nom­ic de­cline.” He added that“maybe some­body could say, tech­ni­cal­ly, we are out of the re­ces­sion, but that has been the case for prob­a­bly a year or so.” Read more here

REGIONAL

SHOWDOWN - Vaz, Crawford Go Down To The Wire In East Portland By-Election

Today’s high-stakes by-election in East Portland could cause tremors as pundits and party officials will judge whether the result could be a weathervane of the political fortunes of the ruling Jamaica Labour Party and the Opposition People’s National Party as Ann-Marie Vaz and Damion Crawford face off after an approximately monthlong campaign. Political watchers have suggested that the by-election could be a de facto referendum on the leadership of both parties – Andrew Holness, the prime minister, for the JLP, and Peter Phillips, the opposition leader and PNP president. The JLP currently holds 33 seats in the 63-member House of Representatives, a slight increase on their February 2016 general election count after picking up South East St Mary in a by-election in October 2017. Victory here could give the JLP a five-seat cushion. Read more here

INTERNATIONAL

Brexit: MPs back delay bill by one vote

MPs have voted by a majority of one to force the prime minister to ask for an extension to the Brexit process, in a bid to avoid a no-deal scenario. Labour's Yvette Cooper led the move, which the Commons passed in one day. The bill is due to be considered by the Lords later and will need its approval to become law, but it is the EU which decides whether to grant an extension. It comes as talks between Conservative and Labour teams to end the Brexit deadlock continue. Discussions between Prime Minister Theresa May and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on Wednesday were described as "constructive", but were criticised by MPs in both parties. Read more here

Ethiopian Airlines pilots 'followed expected procedures before crash'

Hours after this morning's press conference there has still been no news on when the preliminary crash report on the Ethiopian Airlines crash that killed 157 people in March will be published. "Boeing will be reviewing the published report as it is released," said company spokesman Peter Pedraza on Thursday. The Ethiopian Accident Information Bureau told CNN it had given the report to Boeing on Monday. In an earlier press conference on Thursday, Ethiopian investigators announced the findings of the preliminary report, but it has not yet been published. Read more here

4th April 2019

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