NEWS

TT may not benefit from increased oil prices

The recent spike in oil prices due to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East may not benefit TT due to this country’s reduced oil and gas production according to former energy minister Kevin Ramnarine. Oil prices witnessed a spike on Monday following drone strikes on a Saudi oil facility said to be one of the largest in the world, over the weekend that shut off more than half of the kingdom’s daily exports, or about five per cent of the world’s crude production. According to Bloomberg, Brent crude surged 14 per cent during the day to settle at US $69.22 per barrel while West Texas Intermediate crude was trading at US $62.93. Read more here

More disorder uncovered at Tranquillity Government

A teacher who is al­leged to have used abu­sive lan­guage to­wards pupils of the Tran­quil­li­ty Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School has been told to stay away from the class­rooms for the rest of the week and will be served with sus­pen­sion pa­pers by the end of the week. Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter An­tho­ny Gar­cia vis­it­ed the school yes­ter­day and said he was “very con­cerned and very dis­turbed” by the types of re­ports and com­plaints that have sur­faced. This comes days af­ter a se­ries of voice record­ings—al­leged to be that of a Stan­dard Five teacher— was post­ed on­line in which ver­bal threats, racist rants and dis­parag­ing com­ments were di­rect­ed to the pupils and their par­ents. Dur­ing the im­promp­tu vis­it to the school at the cor­ner of Stan­more Av­enue and Tra­garete Road yes­ter­day, Gar­cia told the me­dia that the teacher had been re­moved from the class­room as stu­dents con­tin­ue to be coun­selled by five of­fi­cials from the Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion. Read more here

POLITICS

Abdulah: PNM, UNC ‘kicksin' in Parliament’

Leader of the MSJ David Abdulah says the PNM and UNC members "kicksin' in Parliament," reducing the politics of the country to a pappyshow. This as Dr Roodal Moonilal apologised to Fitzgerald Hinds and was reported as saying he did so because he wanted to be able to speak in the Parliament in the Budget debate. Moonilal apologised saying the show was about to start. Abdulah, in a release issued by the MSJ on Sunday, said, “The PM states that Opposition leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar told former parliamentarian, Marlene McDonald that the police were planning to arrest her. Persad-Bissessar has not replied but the UNC has countered that Dr Rowley’s statement is part of a grand conspiracy to have his colleague freed.” Read more here

PM, High Commissioner stew over BBC

A so­cial me­dia stand­off has emerged be­tween Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and British High Com­mis­sion­er Tim Stew over the Prime Min­is­ter’s de­ci­sion to write the British gov­ern­ment on the con­tents of a doc­u­men­tary, which Dr Row­ley con­tends has mis­rep­re­sent­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go. On Mon­day, Row­ley crit­i­cised the doc­u­men­tary stat­ing that it mis­rep­re­sent­ed the gov­ern­ment’s treat­ment of Venezue­lan mi­grants. He said that he in­tend­ed to write the British gov­ern­ment con­cern­ing the 15-minute re­port, which was avail­able to watch on so­cial me­dia in the past week. In a so­cial me­dia post on Tues­day, the High Com­mis­sion­er said, “The Gov­ern­ment (of Trinidad and To­ba­go) have brought to my at­ten­tion a BBC doc­u­men­tary on Venezue­lan mi­grants. As I have said, the UK’s com­mit­ment to free­dom of ex­pres­sion means that the UK me­dia, in­clud­ing BBC, are in­de­pen­dent of the UK Gov­ern­ment.” Read more here

BUSINESS

More needed to encourage digital agriculture

If T&T’s agri­cul­ture sec­tor has to move for­ward, poli­cies are need­ed for su­per­mar­kets to buy from farm­ers and pri­vate sec­tor in­vest­ment is al­so nec­es­sary to ad­vise farm­ers on agri­cul­tur­al plan­ning as is suc­cess­ful­ly done in St Lu­cia and Ja­maica, says Agri­cul­tur­al So­ci­ety pres­i­dent Dhanoo Sookoo. This was among rec­om­men­da­tions Sookoo made to Par­lia­ment’s Land and Phys­i­cal In­fra­struc­ture com­mit­tee yes­ter­day. The team in­ter­viewed of­fi­cials of the So­ci­ety, Agri­cul­tur­al De­vel­op­ment Bank and To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (Fish­eries/Forestry di­vi­sion) on how far non-tra­di­tion­al farm­ing meth­ods—in­clud­ing dig­i­tal agri­cul­ture—have gone. Sookoo said the so­ci­ety rep­re­sents 10,000 farm­ers. She said the up­com­ing bud­get can be as high as $60b or $70b but it won’t help agri­cul­ture which needs mar­ket­ing, fi­nanc­ing and poli­cies to en­cour­age farm­ers in mod­ern agri­cul­ture tech­niques and the Agri­cul­ture Min­istry al­so needs to do more. Read more here

‘I want to be a property developer’

Finance Minister Colm Imbert declared his interest to the House of Representatives when he piloted the Finance Bill No 2 in the House of Representatives on July 4, 2016. Read more here

REGIONAL

‘SHE’S NOT NASTY’ - Mother Disappointed In AG’s Response To Claim Involving Dreadlocked Child

A response from the Government to a claim scheduled to be heard in the Constitutional Court on Monday has added to the distress to at least one of the parties involved. Sherine Virgo, mother of a then five-year-old girl who was blocked from entering Kensington Primary School because of her dreadlocked hairstyle, filed a claim in 2018 arguing that the St Catherine-based institution’s policy against the hairstyle was in breach of her daughter’s constitutional rights. Virgo said she was shocked when she saw the response by the Attorney General’s Chambers, which sought to justify the rule. Read more here

INTERNATIONAL

Israel election: Netanyahu and rival headed for deadlock

Unofficial results in Israel's second election in five months suggest it is too close to call, Israeli media say. Incumbent PM Benjamin Netanyahu's party and that of his main challenger, Benny Gantz, are neck and neck with 32 seats each, the Kan public broadcaster says. A prime minister needs to command a 61-seat majority in parliament. The smaller Yisrael Beiteinu party appears to hold the balance of power. Official partial results are expected on Wednesday morning. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving prime minister, has been in office for 10 years and is vying to win a record fifth term in office. The 69-year-old, who leads the right-wing Likud party, has pledged to annex Jewish settlements and a swathe of other territory in the occupied West Bank if he is returned to power. Read more here

Trump on Cokie Roberts' death: 'She never treated me nicely. But I would like to wish her family well'

President Donald Trump on Tuesday reacted to the death of veteran journalist Cokie Roberts by saying "she never treated me nicely" before extending his well wishes to her family. "I never met her. She never treated me nicely. But I would like to wish her family well. She was a professional, and I respect professionals," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to California. "I respect you guys a lot, you people a lot. She was a real professional. Never treated me well, but I certainly respect her as a professional." Read more here

18th September 2019

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