TTMA IN THE NEWS

Gopee-Scoon: Coronavirus won’t cut trade with China

TT’s trade with China should not be affected by the rapidly spreading novel coronavirus. Trade and Industry Minister Paula Gopee-Scoon said this during a media briefing after a tour of New Wave Marketing, Calcutta Settlement, Couva on Tuesday. “You are talking about trade in goods,” She said. “This is a human-to-human transmitted virus and I don’t think anybody touches products. I don’t know. Wuhan is a manufacturing province which is where the coronavirus really is.”She said she did not believe coronavirus transmission was “human to product or product to human,” so concluded, “So I can’t see it affecting (trade)”On New Wave Marketing, which is a leading wholesaler and manufacturer of industrial, commercial and domestic plumbing materials, she said she was impressed by the company’s standards and operations which adhered to National Sanitation Foundation standards and ASTM International Standards. Read more here

NEWS

Culture veterans, ex-boxing champ get grants

Saxophonist Roy Cape, comedian Dennis “Sprangalang” Hall, calypsonian Timothy Watkins (The Baron) and former light-heavyweight world boxing champion Leslie “Tiger” Stewart, each received a tangible honour on Monday afternoon. They are the first recipients of monthly grant funding for a new cohort of Special Achievers for 2020. Minister of Social Development and Family Services Camille Robinson-Regis said the grants are to improve the quality of life of those who have contributed significantly to the development of TT and its culture. She described the recipients as patriots who “by virtue of their career choice, have unconsciously enabled the provision of food on someone else’s table because they created opportunities for employment. Others would have been instrumental in bringing national pride to our country, promoting youth and cultural development and therefore were responsible for nurturing positive values, attitudes, and behaviours,” Read more here

Female passenger refused entry on travel restriction

A fe­male pas­sen­ger who ar­rived at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port from Guyana on Mon­day night on a jour­ney that orig­i­nat­ed in Hong Kong was sent back to the port of em­barka­tion. This was con­firmed by Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram who said the woman “did not have any symp­toms or any­thing that was sus­pi­cious but she was re­turned be­cause of the trav­el re­stric­tions from Chi­na.” He told Guardian Me­dia: “I be­lieve she would have gone through oth­er ter­ri­to­ries, in­clud­ing Hong Kong, New York and Guyana and then to Trinidad. Based on our trav­el re­stric­tions for per­sons leav­ing Chi­na with­in 14 days of de­par­ture, she was re­turned to the last port of call based on the Cab­i­net note and the im­mi­gra­tion laws. Read more here

Travel website warns against visit to T&T

Vacation destination website TheTravel has advised against visiting Trinidad and Tobago. In a February 2 article headlined “The Safest Caribbean Destinations (And Dangerous Places To Avoid)”, readers were told “Although the dual island country is beautiful and has so many natural wonders, the reality is it’s not safe to visit at this time. The United States Bureau of Consular Affairs has asked that any tourist visiting Trinidad and Tobago exercise increased caution. Read more here

POLITICS

UNC senator: 2,198 murders under PNM

Opposition Senator Saddam Hosein has said more than 2,000 people have been murdered in the four years under the PNM. He was piloting a private members' motion on Government's failure to deal with the crime situation in the Senate Tuesday. He said there is a sense of hopelessness in this country and Government has abdicated its responsibility to deal with crime. "Today as I move this motion I do so for the persons they failed to protect. I do so as the voice of the voiceless. I speak on behalf of the victims of crime. The families of the thousands of citizens who have been brutally murdered." Read more here

Young links UNC deputy to murder accused

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young has al­leged that a deputy po­lit­i­cal leader of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) has been in con­tact with a mur­der ac­cused who was al­so in­volved in the Life­S­port project. He made the al­le­ga­tions in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day dur­ing de­bate on a pri­vate mo­tion brought by the Op­po­si­tion, which con­demned the Gov­ern­ment for its fail­ure to deal with crime. “Some of the seeds that was sown in 2010 to 2015 that are lead­ing to the dif­fi­cul­ties we face as a so­ci­ety to­day,” Young said. He point­ed to sev­er­al de­ci­sions made un­der the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion, such as the dis­man­tling of the Spe­cial An­ti-Crime Unit and the Life­S­port fi­as­co. Read more here

BUSINESS

Global insurance broker buys majority of T&T firm

The world's fourth largest insurance brokerage firm, Arthur J Gallagher and Company, now has a 60 per cent stake in Trinidad-based Caribbean insurance broker, Risk Management Services Limited (RMS). The deal was officially sealed on January 8. Read more here

REGIONAL

Gov’t rejects ‘baseless’ Global Witness report

The Government of Guyana has rejected a recent report by international investigative company, Global Witness, as “baseless”, “sensationalist” and “agenda-driven.” Recently, the company purported in a report titled ‘Signed Away,’ that Guyana stands to lose an entitled $55 billion dollars from a bad oil deal with U.S. Oil giant, ExxonMobil. The organisation laid the claim that Guyana presented “feeble negotiation terms” and the “aggressive company” [ExxonMobil] pounced on this when it “negotiated an exploitative deal.”
The organisation theorised that Natural Resources Minister Raphael Trotman who signed the Exxon deal in June 2016, may have been compromised, even though they admitted that they had no proof of this. Read more here

Party Poopers - MP Chastises Cops For Shutting Down Wakes, Entertainment Events

Declaring that the leadership of the Old Harbour police subdivision was only effective at shutting down “birthday parties and set-ups”, controversial St Catherine South West Member of Parliament (MP) Everald Warmington yesterday criticised the operational effectiveness of his Government’s security crackdown that has echoed the concerns of entertainment promoters. States of emergency and zones of special operations have been imposed in almost half the country’s police divisions, but their utility continues to be hotly debated, as murders shot up more than three per cent in 2019 over the prior year. Killings have risen eight per cent this year. Just last night, five persons were shot in Ackee Walk, St Andrew. At least three were reportedly killed. Read more here

INTERNATIONAL

Trump makes dazzling, divisive reelection pitch in State of the Union

If elections are won by defiant showmanship alone, Donald Trump, the grand political illusionist, will waltz to a second term in November. In the most politicized State of the Union address in modern times, the President took the choreography of an annual America ritual to new levels on Tuesday night at a fraught moment in the nation's history. And he spelled out a daunting warning to a band of Democrats who couldn't even cobble together a winner in the Iowa caucuses on Monday, that he's an effective, relentless political communicator who will stop at nothing to win. In two stunning moments that book-ended the evening, Trump, as he began his speech, turned his back on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's outstretched hand in a snub that encapsulated their boiling bad blood. Then, after he wrapped up, Pelosi, channeling her disgusted and outraged Democratic members, ostentatiously tore up the speech in full view of the cameras, in a sure-to-go viral moment that showed she can do theatrics too. Read more here

Coronavirus in Wuhan: ‘We’d rather die at home than go to quarantine’

Wenjun Wang is a resident of Wuhan, the Chinese city at the epicentre of the deadly coronavirus outbreak. Ms Wang, a 33-year-old housewife, and her family have remained in the city since it was sealed off on 23 January. Since then, the virus has infected more than 20,000 people worldwide, leading to at least 427 deaths. In a rare interview from inside Wuhan, Ms Wang has told the BBC about her family's heart-breaking struggle for survival. Since the outbreak of the coronavirus, my uncle has already passed away, my father is critically ill and my mum and aunt have started showing some symptoms. The CT scans shows their lungs are infected. My brother is coughing too, and has some breathing difficulties. My dad has a high fever. His temperature was 39.3C (102F) yesterday and he's constantly coughing and having breathing difficulties. We got him an oxygen machine at home and he relies on that machine twenty-four seven. Read more here

5th February 2020

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