NEWS
Homeless man killed near Grand Bazaar
Police are trying to identify a homeless man who was killed after he was knocked down near Grand Bazaar on June 29. Around 5 am on Sunday, a Penal man called police after he saw a man lying motionless on the shoulder of the southbound lane of the Uriah Butler Highway near the Grand Bazaar overpass. When police arrived they met first responders who said they checked the man but found no pulse. Read more here
Marabella oil spill cleanup almost complete says Heritage
Clean-up activities following a hydrocarbon leak in the river course from Tarouba to Marabella are almost completed, confirmed Heritage Petroleum Company Ltd, in a press release yesterday. The company added that response crews have begun transitioning to site restoration work while air quality monitoring is ongoing. However, it stated that preliminary results indicate that air quality was within acceptable levels. Meanwhile, the company provided a shuttle service for children who were among 57 Marabella residents temporarily evacuated from Bayshore last Friday, to attend school yesterday. Read more here
POLITICS
Allahar: Senators' remarks show anti-UNC predisposition
Leader of Government Business in the Senate, Darrel Allahar, accused two independent senators of statements seemingly sounding anti-UNC, speaking on the Prime Minister’s Pension (Amendment) Bill 2025 on June 30. He began by arguing the bill was not ad hominem ("to the man"), that is, aimed at a specific person. The bill says that retroactively, anyone serving as Prime Minister as of March 10 must serve at least a year to begin to qualify for the pension which will be awarded on a tiered basis for each successive year in office. "Let us not invoke the bogeyman of ad hominem and everyone runs away," Allahar said. "Let us not 'beat up' on ad hominem." He accused Independent Senators Anthony Vieira and Candice Jones-Simmons of very strongly arguing the bill was politically motivated. Read more here
NATUC urges Govt to absorb CEPEP workers pending reform exercise
The National Trade Union Centre (NATUC) is standing in solidarity with over 10,500 terminated Community-Based Environmental Protection and Enhancement Programme (CEPEP) workers. Furthermore, it is calling on Government to absorb the workers into the existing contractual framework of the company until it resolves issues it has highlighted. This follows widespread fear and uncertainty expressed by affected workers yesterday, after they reported to work and were finally told by the terminated contractors that they no longer had jobs. The contractors received their termination letters on Friday but the majority of them only officially communicated what this meant to workers yesterday. In a release yesterday, while NATUC general secretary Michael Annisette acknowledged Government’s concerns about poor governance in the programme under the former People’s National Movement administration, he said workers should not be punished for the alleged misconduct of politically connected contractors. Read more here
BUSINESS
Prestige Holdings reports $51m profit
Prestige Holdings Ltd (PHL), parent company to KFC, Subway, Pizza Hut, TGI Fridays and Starbucks franchises, has recorded a profit before tax of $51 million for the first six months of the 2025 financial year. This surpasses the profit recorded in the same period last year of $35 million, an increase of 46 per cent. In its consolidated unaudited financial results for the period ended May 31, Prestige Holding recorded a profit after tax of $35 million, an increase of $11 million from $23 million in 2024. Prestige Holdings ended the half-year period with $150 million in cash while keeping bank borrowing low at just $54 million. Read more here
T&T’s natural gas output falls 5.9%
Trinidad and Tobago recorded short-term increases in the production of crude oil but declines in the production of natural gas and gas-related industries like LNG, methanol, and ammonia production during the first quarter of this year. The Energy Chamber of Trinidad and Tobago, analysing the data released by the Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries, said it highlighted some core issues within the energy sector. “Looking at monthly and quarterly data and even single year data can often be a bit misleading as it ignores critical historical information. Read more here
REGIONAL
‘We are building a corridor of opportunity’
REducing the travel time between the East Coast and the East Bank of Demerara from one hour to just under 10 minutes, the first phase of the Ogle to Eccles Four Lane Highway was on Monday afternoon commissioned by President Dr. Irfaan Ali. The Head of State during his feature address at the commissioning ceremony, stated that the US$133.4 million investment is not just simply ‘a stone and asphalt’ project, but one of opportunities. “We are building new corridors of opportunity for Guyana. But it is also a bold declaration, a declaration that Guyana is on the move, not by chance, not by choice, not by accident, but by deliberate action. The road is about our ambition, not casted stone and asphalt. It is about progress, poured and paved. It is about our vision translated into reality,” President Ali emphasised. Read more here
INTERNATIONAL
Trump global aid cuts risk 14 million deaths in five years, report says
President Donald Trump's move to cut most of the US funding towards foreign humanitarian aid could cause more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030, according to research published in The Lancet medical journal. A third of those at risk of premature deaths were children, researchers projected. Low- and middle-income countries were facing a shock "comparable in scale to a global pandemic or a major armed conflict," said Davide Rasella, who co-authored the report. Read more here
1st July 2025