NEWS

State witness shot dead in Claxton Bay

A Claxton Bay father who was a state witness in an attempted-murder case has been shot dead. The body of Kevin Bhukal was found in his car near to the Forres Park landfill at Cedar Hill Road, Claxton Bay, on Sunday afternoon. Bhukal had been shot in the head. He was found in the driver's seat. A police report said at about 5 pm a passerby saw Bhukal’s car, a Nissan B12, parked in front of the entrance of the landfill. Gran Couva police were contacted and he was pronounced dead on the scene by a district medical officer. Read more here

Coast Guard conned out of $375,000

Close to half a mil­lion dol­lars is miss­ing from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard (TTCG) se­nior mess rates ac­count and a se­nior en­list­ed Coast Guard of­fi­cer with in­ti­mate knowl­edge about the fi­nan­cial run­nings is now the sub­ject of an in­ter­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the TTCG and has now widened to in­clude the po­lice. Guardian Me­dia (GM) dur­ing a three week in­ves­ti­ga­tion found out about the pos­si­ble mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion of funds that al­leged­ly oc­curred over the last year in which $375,000 went miss­ing from the TTCG se­nior mess rates ac­count at Re­pub­lic Bank in West Mall. Se­nior Coast Guard sources ex­plained to GM that close to 370 of­fi­cers of the se­nior mess rates con­tribute $200 month­ly to the mess ac­count. Of that $150 is their con­tri­bu­tion to the an­nu­al Christ­mas din­ner, while the oth­er $50 goes to­wards the mess quar­ters up­keep. Read more here

POLITICS

Kamla: No bail for the innocent under new bill

UNC political leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar warned of opportunities for abuse of the Bail Amendment Bill when she spoke at a local government campaign meeting at Paul Street, Sangre Grande on Monday night. Persad-Bissessar said if the bill were passed,  people could be wrongly arrested or framed, and would have to stay in jail without bail. She said government is planning to go to Parliament on Wednesday in a rush to have the bill amended, and  although the UNC has its own amendments to the bill, she doubted the government would heed the suggestions. Read more here

Kamla: UNC not supporting gun law in current form

Leader of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said her par­ty will not sup­port the new gun leg­is­la­tion in its present form. Speak­ing at a UNC lo­cal gov­ern­ment meet­ing in San­gre Grande on Mon­day night, Per­sad-Bisses­sar called for amend­ments to pro­tect in­no­cent cit­i­zens be­fore she would sup­port the pro­posed law. Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so took time to pay her re­spects to Wayne Chance who passed away ear­ly on Mon­day morn­ing. She said that Chance sought re­form for pris­on­ers, un­like the PNM who was seek­ing to lock up peo­ple and throw away the key on the An­ti-gun leg­is­la­tion. “If your child trav­el­ling in a maxi, a taxi and there is a gun in that ve­hi­cle, your child get­ting locked up, we say­ing that can­not be right,” she said. Read more here

BUSINESS

JMMB gets good credit raiting from CariCRIS

Caribbean In­for­ma­tion and Cred­it Rat­ing Ser­vices Lim­it­ed (Cari­CRIS) has as­signed ini­tial is­suer/cor­po­rate cred­it rat­ings of jmA+ (Lo­cal Cur­ren­cy Rat­ing) and jmA (For­eign Cur­ren­cy Rat­ing) on the Ja­maica na­tion­al scale to JMMB Group Lim­it­ed (JMM­BGL). These na­tion­al scale rat­ings in­di­cate that the lev­el of cred­it­wor­thi­ness of this oblig­or, ad­judged in re­la­tion to oth­er oblig­ors in Ja­maica is good. A me­dia re­lease from the JMMB Group yes­ter­day said that the rat­ings are sup­port­ed by the Group’s strong brand and long his­to­ry in the Ja­maican se­cu­ri­ties in­dus­try as well as its emer­gence as a re­gion­al fi­nan­cial ser­vices play­er. JMM­BGL is a fi­nan­cial ser­vices Group in­cor­po­rat­ed and domi­ciled in Ja­maica and list­ed on the Stock Ex­changes of Ja­maica and T&T. Read more here

Imbert defends decision against entering into IMF programme

Finance Minister Colm Imbert said yesterday that the Trinidad and Tobago government was being urged to adopt a structural adjustment programme more than two decades after the oil-rich twin island republic ended a similar programme with the Washington-based International Monetary Fund (IMF). Read more here

REGIONAL

PM says coalition government ramping up development in Rupununi

The Coalition Government is delivering to the Rupununi hinterland region, the better quality of life that it has promised. This is according to Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo, who visited the Upper Takutu-Upper Rupununi (Region 9) over the weekend to commission the new $473 million Barrack Retreat Corridor, which is the name for the four-lane concrete and asphalted road in the Lethem township. Writing in his weekly My Turn column under the caption, “Way Down South”, the Prime Minister noted that the Coalition Government has pushed unprecedented development in this frontier region. Apart from central government spending, the regional allocation during 2015-2018 amounted to some $950 million for roads, bridges and other capital works in the Rupununi region. Read more here

Dengue Crisis At ‘Busta’ - Deaths From Mosquito-Borne Disease Spike At Children’s Hospital

Dengue mortality at the Bustamante Hospital for Children has jumped by more than 30 per cent this month, with five deaths being recorded compared to 15 over the previous 22 months. There were 20 dengue deaths confirmed, suspected or under investigation at Bustamante between January 1, 2018 and November 7 this year, the children’s hospital racking up the highest number of fatalities among public health facilities. St James’ Cornwall Regional Hospital is second with 15 deaths; followed by Mandeville Regional, with 11, and St Ann’s Bay Hospital, 10. Victoria Jubilee, a maternity hospital, is the only secondary or tertiary public medical facility that has not recorded a single dengue death. The private Andrews Memorial has had one case and the quasi-public University Hospital of the West Indies, one. Read more here

INTERNATIONAL

Judge tells Trump he's not a king -- the President is not so sure

Donald Trump is not going to like his Constitution 101 lesson: "Presidents are not kings." A federal judge's stunning rebuke of the White House on Monday came as the result of a case by House Democrats to force former White House counsel Don McGahn to testify. But it serves as a thematic frame for an entire presidency that has never played by the rules. All of Trump's scandals are fusing together into a momentous fight over his staggeringly broad claims of expansive presidential power. How it turns out will shape his personal political legacy, the nature of the office he has held for nearly three years and potentially the American political system itself. Read more here

Thirteen French troops killed in helicopter crash in Mali

Thirteen French soldiers were killed when two helicopters collided during an operation against jihadists in Mali, the French president's office said. Monday's accident is one of the single largest losses of life for the French military in decades. French President Emmanuel Macron expressed his "deep sadness" over the incident. An investigation has begun. In 2013, France deployed thousands of troops to Mali after Islamist militants seized huge parts of the north. Mali's army has since recaptured the territory but insecurity there continues and the violence has spread to other countries in the region. France now has 4,500 troops deployed to support the forces of Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Burkina Faso and Chad against Islamist militants. Read more here

26th November 2019

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