NEWS

1 in 5 women reports abuse before 18

Dr Gabrielle Hosein, director of the Institute of Gender and Development Studies, University of the West Indies, said statistics revealed,one in ten women in TT reports non-partner sexual violence. One in three women report sexual and physical violence and one in five report sexual abuse before age 18. And the perpetrators are well known to them, she said. She made the revelation at the launch of a campaign for the elimination of violence against women at the Hilton Trinidad, Port of Spain on Monday. The campaign was launched by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). Read more here

Patient shot dead on PoS Ward 3

Two gun­men dressed in a white suits re­sem­bling those worn by crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tors (CSI) walked in­to Ward 3 of the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal and pumped sev­er­al bul­lets in­to a male pa­tient as he lay in his hos­pi­tal bed last night. The dead man has been iden­ti­fied by po­lice as a 25-year-old De­jean Bro­ker from Hillview, Laven­tille. The brazen killing, in­ves­ti­ga­tors told Guardian Me­dia, oc­curred around 8.45 pm. Eye­wit­ness­es said nurs­es and pa­tients scam­pered for cov­er when the gun­men ca­su­al­ly walked up to his vic­tim and opened fire. One pa­tient on the ward de­scribed the scene as chaot­ic: “I had to throw my­self un­der the bed...there were about ten gun­shots.” Read more here

POLITICS

Al-Rawi’s attorney: UNC election petitioner not fair-minded

San Fernando West voter Dr Shevanand Gopeesingh is not a fair-minded and informed observer and should not be treated as such, submitted Reginald Armour SC, attorney for MP for the constituency Faris Al-Rawi. Armour told Justices of Appeal Gregory Smith, Peter Rajkumar and Mark Mohammed, who are hearing Gopeesingh’s application to have the court set aside the appellate court’s ruling in its election petition challenge, that Gopeesingh, on deposition, said he was a UNC activist and held positions with the party. “He is a UNC member and he candidly tells you he is not a fair-minded observer,” Armour said. Read more here

Siparia to become a borough

The seat held by Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is set to be­come a bor­ough as soon as lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form leg­is­la­tion is passed, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced on Tues­day night. He told sup­port­ers at a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) po­lit­i­cal meet­ing at the Siparia mar­ket that it was one of the most un­kempt con­stituen­cies he has seen, with bush­es grow­ing on road­sides and in drains. Row­ley said it was un­ac­cept­able for the cor­po­ra­tion of­fi­cials to say they did not get mon­ey from the cen­tral gov­ern­ment to clean drains, col­lect garbage and up­keep ceme­ter­ies. “They want to tell you that the PNM didn’t give you mon­ey to cut grass. Then they will raise racial dis­crim­i­na­tion but it is re­al­ly a lack of pride,” he said. Read more here

BUSINESS

T&T receives $7 million for climate change projects

The Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment has an­nounced that T&T’s Gov­ern­ment has re­ceived ap­prox­i­mate­ly TT$7 mil­lion from the Green Cli­mate Fund (GCF) of the Unit­ed Na­tions for the de­vel­op­ment of trans­for­ma­tion­al projects to re­spond to is­sues re­lat­ed to cli­mate change in T&T.  The Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment will be the na­tion­al­ly des­ig­nat­ed au­thor­i­ty for the fund­ing and is the of­fi­cial fo­cal point of the GCF. A me­dia re­lease from the Plan­ning Min­istry stat­ed that the Green Cli­mate Fund was es­tab­lished to lim­it or re­duce green­house gas (GHG) emis­sions in de­vel­op­ing coun­tries, and to help vul­ner­a­ble so­ci­eties adapt to the un­avoid­able im­pacts of cli­mate change. Plan­ning Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is said this fund­ing will as­sist the cli­mate change mit­i­ga­tion and adap­ta­tion ef­forts of the Gov­ern­ment through the fo­cus of two ini­tia­tives which pri­mar­i­ly in­volve ca­pac­i­ty build­ing and da­ta col­lec­tion. Read more here

Khan: $725m profit for Heritage

The unaudited financials for fiscal year 2019 show that Heritage Petroleum earned revenues of $5.4 billion and made a net profit of $725 million. Read more here

REGIONAL

$13m Pink Slip - Former EGovJa CEO Gets Out-Of-Court Settlement; Williams Quizzed On Tablets-In-Schools Hold-Up

Taxpayers have had to fork out $12.5 million in an out-of-court settlement to former CEO of eGov Jamaica Limited (eGovJa), Herman Athias, after he was sacked by the company’s chairman, Professor Lloyd Waller. Athias had taken out a lawsuit for unjustifiable termination under a fixed-term contract of employment and unfair prejudice, as set out in Section 213A of the Companies Act, against eGovJa, which was the first defendant. Athias also sought redress against Waller, the second defendant, for “instigating a breach of contract”. Read more here

‘HIV gains appear tenuous’

A new report has found that across the Caribbean, progress has been made in reducing new infections and AIDS-related deaths, but these gains appear tenuous. The report, titled “Communities at the Centre-The response to HIV in the Caribbean”, has been released ahead of World AIDS Day 2019 on December 1 with the theme “Communities make the difference”. According to the study, national responses are highly dependent on donor funding, especially for programmes focused on key populations. The study noted that the financial resources available for HIV responses in the Caribbean have fluctuated over time, reaching the same level in 2018 as in 2010. In total, US$326 million was available for the Caribbean’s HIV programmes in 2018, considerably less than the US$600 million needed to achieve its Fast-Track Targets by 2020. The availability of domestic resources for the HIV response increased by 69 per cent during this eight-year period, reaching 27 per cent of the total resources for HIV in the region. International donors decreased their share from 84 per cent in 2010 to 73 per cent last year. Read more here

INTERNATIONAL

What did Trump know and when did he know it?

The timeline has always been fishy. President Donald Trump's defenders have argued that nothing wrong happened since the aid to Ukraine was ultimately released. But a New York Times report Tuesday night suggests Trump was briefed on the existence of the whistleblower in late August. That makes it all the more important to take his actions in early September in context. For instance, when all these things happened, Trump already knew about the whistleblower. Read more here

Bangladesh Islamists sentenced to death for 2016 cafe attack

Seven Islamists have been sentenced to death for a 2016 attack on a cafe in the Bangladeshi capital in which 22 people, mostly foreigners, were killed. The attack on the Holey Artisan cafe in Dhaka was carried out by a group of five men, who took diners hostage. Eight people were on trial, accused of planning and supplying the attackers with weapons. One man was acquitted. The 12-hour siege was Bangladesh's deadliest terrorist attack. Most of the victims were Italian or Japanese. The attack was claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group, but Bangladesh disputed this, instead holding a local militant group responsible. Read more here

27th November 2019

Back