NEWS
Children’s Authority boss: 10,000 sex abuse reports against minors in 8 years
Coordinator of the Child Affairs Division in the Office of the Prime Minister, Irma Bailey-Reyes, says the Children’s Authority has received 10,000 reports of sexual abuse in eight years. The statistics were given during the division’s first of three sensitisation and training sessions with councillors, aldermen, and other representatives at City Hall Port-of- Spain yesterday. Bailey-Reyes said other statistics revealed the authority gets 4,000-5,000 reports of abuse annually, and the categories most experienced by children are neglect, sexual abuse, physical abuse and emotional abuse. She said the division fees this information was critical for local government representatives to have as they represent their burgesses for four years. “We are all part of the village that is shaping that society for children. We have to ensure that whatever the programmes we are putting out there, it is meeting the needs and filling the gaps,” Bailey-Reyes said. Read more here
No sign of kidnap victim Anisha
Doubles vendor Anisha Hosein remains missing after she was abducted outside the popular Sauce Doubles outlet in El Dorado on May 18. Hosein, 27, was preparing to open the outlet when she was forced into a silver Nissan B15 by three masked men with guns. Her husband Richie Singh was grazed on his face by a bullet as the gunmen fired several shots before driving off. The family and officials close to the case have been tight-lipped about the kidnapping. Read more here
POLITICS
Charles threatens to expose UNC campaign secrets
Naparima MP Rodney Charles has threatened to publicly expose UNC political secrets he has kept silent about for the last eight years if his loyalty to UNC is challenged because he supports a call for the party to hold internal elections. Charles claimed Opposition Leader and UNC political leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar has intimate knowledge of the secrets he referred to. He made these statements when he addressed a community meeting in Woodland on May 19. Read more here
Gary wants to know why Best was fired from SSA
Former police commissioner Gary Griffith is questioning Government’s decision to terminate the contract of Strategic Services Agency director Major Roger Best. Griffith, who was speaking on CNC3’s The Morning Brew programme yesterday, said the Government has not indicated on what grounds Best was dismissed. “Roger Best has not been charged, he has not been found guilty of anything. The DPP has now released the individual, so on what grounds did you have a hurried Cabinet meeting on Saturday to dismiss a member of the SSA?” Griffith asked. Read more here
BUSINESS
Young meets with IOPC Fund team
Following his announcement that Trinidad and Tobago is eligible for compensation under the International Oil Pollution Compensation (IOPC) Fund, Minister of Energy and Energy Industries Stuart Young yesterday met with IOPC representatives to discuss the next steps in the claims process for compensation from the Tobago oil spill clean-up initiatives. A release yesterday stated that Young reiterated the intention of the Government to take legal action against the owner of the barge Gulfstream and the owner of the tug Solo Creed, and he assured the IOPC that T&T is continuing to pursue leads aggressively, with all available resources. Read more here
CAL carries more airbridge passengers this year than in 2023
National airline, Caribbean Airlines Ltd (CAL) carried 17.5 per cent more passengers on the domestic airbridge for the first four months of 2024, than for the same period in 2023. Statistics provided by CAL indicate that for the period January to April, 2024, some 223,033 passengers flew on the domestic airbridge. That compares with 189,852 passengers who flew from Trinidad and Tobago and back between January and April 2023. Yesterday and over the weekend, CAL issued newspaper advertisements in which it listed statistics for flights from Trinidad to Tobago and vice versa for the period January 1 to April 30, 2024. In that time the airline operated 3,523 flights, while for the same period in 2023, 3031 were made available between the islands. That means the majority state-owned airline operated 16.2 per cent more flights for the first four months of 2024 than for the same period in 2023. Read more here
REGIONAL
Increase your pace!
President Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali, on Monday, inspected housing and road infrastructure works in Region Three where he urged contractors to expedite the projects to ensure timely completion. During his thorough assessment, President Ali placed major emphasis on the ongoing construction of the $11.8 billion Schoonord to Crane four-lane highway. The massive development is designed to reduce traffic congestion along the West Bank and West Coast Demerara corridors. The contracts for the project, inked in September 2022, were awarded to VR Construction Inc., Avinash Contracting & Scrap Metal Inc., L-Heureuse Construction and Services Inc., GuyAmerica Construction Inc., AJM Enterprise, Vals Construction, Puran Bros Disposal Inc., and JS Guyana Inc. Read more here
INTERNATIONAL
Gazans ‘shackled and blindfolded’ at Israel hospital
Medical workers in Israel have told the BBC that Palestinian detainees from Gaza are routinely kept shackled to hospital beds, blindfolded, sometimes naked, and forced to wear nappies – a practice one medic said amounted to “torture”. A whistle-blower detailed how procedures in one military hospital were “routinely” carried out without painkillers, causing “an unacceptable amount of pain” to detainees. Another whistle-blower said painkillers were used “selectively” and “in a very limited way” during an invasive medical procedure on a Gazan detainee in a public hospital. He also said critically ill patients being held in makeshift military facilities were being denied proper treatment because of a reluctance by public hospitals to transfer and treat them. Read more here
21st May 2024