NEWS

Pan, Loquan celebrated at NAPA

National Gas Company president Mark Loquan showed off his cultural side with a concert at the National Academy for the Performing Arts (NAPA) which paid tribute to pan and all who contributed to its success as TT's national instrument. The show was also a celebration of Loquan's 20 years of involvement with pan as a writer, composer and performer. In a foreword to the show's programme, Loquan said, "After 20 years of contributing music for pan, I am extremely grateful to the pioneers of our national instrument and thank the many composers, writers, arrangers producers, performers, teachers, students and many pan enthusiasts that I have met across the globe along this incredible musical journey." Read more here

Trini-born surgeon in UK hailed as hero

A Tri­ni-born sur­geon prac­tis­ing in Eng­land is be­ing hailed as a hero by many for suc­cess­ful­ly re­con­struct­ing the jaw of a 15-year-old girl fol­low­ing a horse-rid­ing ac­ci­dent. Con­sul­tant Oral & Max­illo­fa­cial sur­geon based at Sheffield Teach­ing Hos­pi­tals and an Hon­orary Se­nior Clin­i­cal Lec­tur­er at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Sheffield, Ri­car­do Mo­hammed-Ali, suc­cess­ful­ly re­con­struct­ed the jaw of Emi­ly Ec­cles when it broke in half in Au­gust. Speak­ing on the show “BBC Break­fast” on Fri­day, Ec­cles ex­plained that her jaw was at­tached to her body on­ly by a bit of skin and the hel­met she was wear­ing at the time. Ec­cles’ in­jury was de­scribed by doc­tors as the worst they’ve seen out­side of a war­zone. Al­so ap­pear­ing on the show was Mr Mo­hammed-Ali who ex­plained: “I got a call from one of my ju­niors, which was a bit odd that said we’ve got a pa­tient that is com­ing in and their jaw has been sep­a­rat­ed from their face.” Read more here

POLITICS

Fuad: Help ‘invisible kids’

Special help must be given to a vulnerable group of youngsters, the children of prison inmates, implored Barataria/San Juan MP Dr Fuad Khan in his budget contribution on Monday in the House of Representatives. “There is an invisible group in this country who suffer from serious mental health but they don’t get help. These are the children of incarcerated parents.” When their parents are torn away from their lives, those youngsters who are under age 18 usually have no visiting rights to see them in prison, Khan said. “This invisible group of children are languishing outside and are seven times more likely to become truants as compared to the normal child. Read more here

DPP to get file on eye clinic

Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh said yes­ter­day that a file is be­ing com­piled and will be sent to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions in re­la­tion to the com­pa­ny in­volved in the drug which caused sev­en pa­tients to go blind in ei­ther one eye or both eyes. The sto­ry was first re­port­ed ex­clu­sive­ly in the Sun­day Guardian on Oc­to­ber 6 when it was re­port­ed that sev­en peo­ple were in­ject­ed with a taint­ed eye in­jec­tion brought in­to the coun­try by “il­le­git­i­mate im­por­ta­tion chan­nels” and had to un­der­go surgery to have one or both in­fect­ed eyes re­moved. Back in Ju­ly, the Min­istry of Health re­called the im­port­ed in­jec­tion which con­tained Tri­am­cineclone Ace­tonide as its main in­gre­di­ent. Read more here

BUSINESS

Scotiabank selected as one of the 25 world’s best workplaces

Sco­tia­bank has been named to the top 25 list in the 2019 World’s Best Work­places by the Great Place to Work In­sti­tute. The bank moved in­to po­si­tion num­ber 20, up five spaces from its 2018 rank­ing, hav­ing qual­i­fied as a re­sult of its suc­cess in ap­pear­ing in Great Place to Work in the fol­low­ing coun­tries: Pe­ru, Cos­ta Ri­ca, Chile, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Pana­ma, El Sal­vador, Trinidad and To­ba­go, Lon­don and Sin­ga­pore. Sco­tia­bank al­so achieved num­ber 6 rank­ing Best Places to Work in Latin Amer­i­ca & Caribbean. The sur­vey ad­dress­es top­ics in­clud­ing Fair­ness, Com­pen­sa­tion and Ben­e­fits, Work Life bal­ance and Op­por­tu­ni­ty for Ad­vance­ment. Read more here

REGIONAL

Former Prime Minister PJ Patterson In Hospital After Motor Vehicle Accident

Former Prime Minister PJ Patterson was rushed to hospital late Monday evening after a reported motor vehicle accident at his upper St Andrew home. The extent of his injuries, if any, could not be immediately ascertained. However, in a statement, one of his aides, Alston Stewart, said, the incident "required" Patterson to be taken to the Tony Thwaites Wing of the University Hospital of the West Indies for check and observation.  Read more here

INTERNATIONAL

Turkey-Syria offensive: US sanctions Turkish ministries

The US has imposed sanctions on Turkish ministries and senior government officials in response to the country's military offensive in northern Syria. President Donald Trump also phoned his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan to demand an immediate truce, Vice-President Mike Pence said. Mr Pence said he would travel to the region "as quickly as possible". The move comes after criticism of a US troop withdrawal from the region which some say gave Turkey a "green light". The Turkish offensive, which began last week, aims to push the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) from the border region. Turkey considers the biggest militia in the SDF a terrorist organisation. The Turkish government wants to create a "safe zone" in the area, where it can resettle up to two million Syrian refugees currently in Turkey. Read more here

Impeachment could lead to a first in the 2020 election

President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly shattered political tradition, may find himself in another unprecedented circumstance in 2020: He could become the first president ever to be impeached by the House and then seek another term in the next election. That unique prospect could scramble the electoral calculations next year for both parties. Read more here

15th October 2019

Back