NEWS

OWTU: We’re not forcing anyone

Former Petrotrin workers who come out to the Oilfield Workers Trade Union’s (OWTU) march on May Day, will receive favourable consideration from the union when it acquires Paria refinery in Pointe-a-Pierre from the Government. An e-mail from OWTU general secretary Richard Lee urged that all union members come out in their numbers to the May 1 march at the Pointe-a-Pierre roundabout. Lee’s e-mail as well as several WhatsApp messages which subsequently followed, were sent to Newsday yesterday by an ex-Petrotrin worker who is an OWTU member. Read more here

Filthy Easter campers leave trail of garbage

More than 150 truck­loads of garbage had to be re­moved from the north-east­ern beach­es and rivers yes­ter­day left be­hind by over 6,000 campers and beach lovers over the long East­er week­end. Chair­man of the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Ter­ry Ron­don de­scribed the rub­bish pile-up as the worst he had seen in years. He called on Gov­ern­ment to take de­ci­sive ac­tion against campers, vis­i­tors and beach lovers who con­tin­ue year-af­ter-year to leave piles of garbage be­hind af­ter days of en­joy­ment and fun. Read more here

POLITICS

Mitchell: Carnival Village, special cruise being planned

Tourism Minister Randall Mitchell says his ministry is in discussions on the establishment of a Carnival Village and a special Carinval cruise. He was responding to a question in Parliament Tuesday on why cruise-ship arrivals were not timed to coincide with Carnival activities. Mitchell explained cruise lines booked their itineraries two to three years in advance and those bookings were made at the discretion of the cruise line. He reported during the 2019 Carnival period culminating in Carnival Tuesday 4,457 cruise passengers arrived in TT. Read more here

Ministry, stakeholders meet on SEA results issue

Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion’s Chief Ed­u­ca­tion Of­fi­cer Har­ri­lal Seecha­ran says a de­ci­sion on whether the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment re­sults will be pub­lished is still to be de­ter­mined. “We will bring to bear on the ta­ble all the views and the le­gal ad­vice from our le­gal de­part­ment be­fore our de­ci­sion is made,” Seecha­ran in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day morn­ing, hours be­fore the top­ic was dis­cussed at a strate­gic ex­ec­u­tive meet­ing at Ed­u­ca­tion Tow­er, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day. “I am not at this point at lib­er­ty to say that will be a fi­nal de­ci­sion but cer­tain­ly, it is up for dis­cus­sion.” Seecha­ran ad­mit­ted, how­ev­er, that oth­er stake­hold­ers who were not sched­uled part of yes­ter­day’s meet­ing will still need to be con­sult­ed about the de­ci­sion. “We have to al­so take on board the views of the dif­fer­ent stake­hold­ers NPTA, teach­ers’ union, par­ents, so that all of those will be tak­en on board, I guess, dur­ing the dis­cus­sion. This meet­ing this evening will pri­mar­i­ly be with the strate­gic ex­ec­u­tive team in the min­istry, if need be I sus­pect that we may fur­ther en­gage oth­ers,” he said. Read more here

BUSINESS

TTSE profit rises to $14.9m for 2018

Chairman of the Trinidad and Tobago Stock Exchange (TTSE) Ray Sumairsingh has announced improved results in the financial performance of the TTSE and its subsidiary, the Trinidad and Tobago Central Depository (TTCD), for the year ended December 31, 2018. Read more here

REGIONAL

Measles Risk - Tufton Raises Concern Amid Global Outbreaks And Local Decline In Vaccination

Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton has raised concerns about the fall-off in recent years in the number of Jamaicans vaccinated against measles even as he sought to assure the country that no imported case of the disease has been recorded. In a statement in the House of Representatives yesterday, Tufton said that no local or imported cases of measles have been recorded locally, but acknowledged that “over the last few years”, the uptake of the measles vaccines has been on the decline, dropping to 89 per cent coverage of MMR1 and 82 per cent coverage of MMR2 last year. Read more here

INTERNATIONAL

Kim Jong-un in Russia for Vladimir Putin summit

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has arrived in the far east of Russia for a summit with President Vladimir Putin. Mr Kim arrived in the Pacific Coast city of Vladivostok for his first talks with the Russian president by train. He was welcomed by officials with a traditional offering of bread and salt. The Kremlin says they will discuss the Korean peninsula's "nuclear problem", but analysts say Mr Kim is also seeking support after talks with US President Donald Trump collapsed. Mr Trump and Mr Kim met in Hanoi earlier this year to discuss North Korea's nuclear weapons programme, but the summit - their second - ended without agreement. Read more here

Sri Lanka investigates Easter bombings

Terror has turned into grief in Colombo during a wake for a young Sri Lankan family who died in the Easter Sunday attacks at St. Anthony's Shrine. Prathap Kanagasabai, his wife Anistie Napoleon and two daughters, Andreena, 7, and Abriana, 1, did not usually go to St. Anthony's services. But on Sunday, they decided to attend a special Easter mass alongside hundreds of worshippers and the suicide bomber. After the explosion, their relatives searched desperately for the family at the local hospital, the mortuary and, finally, the church. It was there where relatives found their bodies in pieces. Fazal Haniffa, a family friend who is Muslim, expressed his horror over the act of brutality. "They [the suicide bombers] are not humans, they are animals," he told CNN. Read more here

24th April 2019

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