NEWS
8 Dirty Men
Bewildered victims of a leak of hundreds of photographs of nude females on an international pornography site, while expressing anger, outrage and shame on being exploited, have identified at least eight medical students of the University of the West Indies (UWI) St Augustine campus, among them scholarship winners, with whom they shared nude photos. They hold the eight, among others, for being responsible for the photos of 500 females appearing on the pornography site and shared via social media. The majority of victims are or were at one time, students of UWI. A medical student at the St Augustine Campus/Mount Hope said she “personally witnessed the listed individuals sharing and trading nude photos of girls as they seem to use it as ego boosters to see how much girls they can get.” Outgoing UWI Principal, Professor Clem Sankat, asked that the police be allowed to do their jobs in investigating the matter but he promised that any student implicated, will, in addition to the law, face UWI’s disciplinary processes. Read more…
Net closes on computers used to send stolen nude photos
As they close in on a local pornography ring, investigating officers say they may have to subpoena an American-based company to retrieve the Internet Protocol (IP) addresses of the perpetrators responsible for selling, sharing and viewing thousands of nude photographs of young women. IP addresses are specific to computers going online, and can be tracked not only by country but to the device itself. Investigating officers at the Fraud Squad Unit (FSU) have taken the lead in the investigations into how nude and sexually explicit photos of 500 young womenwere leaked on social media on Wednesday. T&T Guardian was told by a source at the FSU that the officers would also be supported by the Cyber Crime Unit. Preliminary investigations have revealed that the initial server for the website where the photographs were uploaded locally was recently changed to a new server based in the United States (US). Read more…
It’s now Solo “coconut flavoured” water
The controversial “coconut water” drink which was recently pulled from supermarket shelves by the Chemistry Food and Drugs Division of the Ministry of Health, is now back on shelves but under a new name — Solo Coconut Flavoured Water. The drink was previously called Solo Coconut Water but concerns were raised by the Division about its name which was deemed misleading. Last month the Division ordered Solo Beverage Company to remove the coconut water drink from the market after it was found that it contained no coconut water at all but artificial ingredients such as potassium chloride, citric acid, sodium hemaxmetaphosphate, potassium sorbate and potassium benzonate. The Division’s concerns about the drink were publicly noted during a Joint Select Committee meeting on Finance and Legal Affairs last month where it discussed the issue of food fraud. Read more…
POLITICS
Govt moving on cyber crime law
Strengthening cyber crime legislation remains a high priority on Government’s legislative agenda. Minister in the Ministry of the Attorney General Stuart Young gave this assurance to reporters at yesterday’s post-Cabinet news conference at the Office of the Prime Minister in St Clair, Portof- Spain. Young’s assurance came against the backdrop of nude photos of women and children reportedly being posted on the Internet. And on Tuesday, Hafeez Ali resigned as a government senator after being blackmailed by a woman from North America who posted nude videos of him on YouTube. Read more…
Imbert says new debts keep being discovered: Government may not repay all $2b owed
In response to Sunday Guardian reports of a $2B debt that the Government owes to contractors and service providers, Finance minister Colim Imbert has said that some of the money may not be repaid, if government determines that they shouldn’t be. Moreover, he said at the weekly government briefing yesterday, he had not known of the debts when he prepared the 2016 budget, and the government is uncovering new debts and contracts. He said they had to be dealt with in various ways—in the same way government had to meet the $5 million in backpay owed to some sectors—and he would have to raise financing for the debts. “We just don’t have the money,” Imbert added. Government in recent months has been in the first stage of auditing contractors’ debts to determine if debts genuinely deserve payment and to ensure no fraud is involved, Imbert said. He said the Government would have to determine if the work was actually done and what deserves payment. He said this had been in the process for the last eight months. Imbert said contractors had suggested government give them bonds, Read more…
Govt moving to recover ‘overpayments’ for Maracas project
The Government will be moving to recover monies in the event there was any “overpayment” with respect to the Maracas Bay project, says Government Minister Stuart Young. Speaking at yesterday’s post-Cabinet news conference at the Office of the Prime Minister, St Clair, Young—Minister in the Office of the Attorney General and Legal Affairs and Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister—said the contractor for the project, Kallco, was paid approximately $20 million upfront in mobilisation fees. Read more…
BUSINESS
FCB CEO: We’re ready to take up the slack
Group CEO of First Citizens, Karen Darbasie, says the bank is willing to help the private sector heed calls by the Prime Minister (PM) and Finance Minister “take up the slack left by the decline in the energy sector.” “In the current climate, we at First Citizens wish to emphasise our willingness to facilitate the business of existing champions in business and those on the threshold of success. In the reality of the present economic situation, this commitment is crucial if as a nation we are to respond to the calls by (PM) Dr Keith Rowley and his Finance Minister, Colm Imbert, who have both stated their expectations and the need for private sector to take up the slack left by the decline in the energy sector.” Darbasie noted that economic spokespersons have been saying the same thing for quite a while. “They have all been saying that it is the private sector in all its variations which has to come forward to create products and services for the internal economy and with the possibilities of taking those products outside to the ‘wider world’. As another event this year promoted, we need to be globally competitive and we need to compete globally.” Darbasie was speaking yesterday at the launch of the TT Chamber of Industry and Commerce’s 2016 Champions of Business. The actual induction ceremony will be held on Saturday, November 12 at Hyatt Regency, Port-of-Spain. Read more…
Western Union lifts forex restrictions
When Western Union—part of Jamaican conglomerate GraceKennedy—announced in February that it was placing restrictions on the amount of foreign exchange it would be able to remit to countries abroad, it was only natural to reason that the money transfer business was now experiencing the adverse effects of a contraction in the available supply of foreign exchange. Fast forward to May and those initial restrictions have been fully removed. In an exclusive interview with the Business Guardian, Donald Edwards, country manager for GraceKennedy T&T, and Noel Greenland, vice president, marketing and operations for GraceKennedy Money Services (based in Jamaica), discussed the current situation in the local and global remittance business, how Western Union is treating with the domestic foreign exchange situation, and the impact of technology on the money transfer business. Read more…
Examine inefficiencies to reduce expenditure
Chief executive officer of the Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Commerce Catherine Kumar yesterday urged Government to examine inefficiencies in expenditure to avoid further withdrawals from the Heritage and Stabilisation Fund (HSF). She said there were State enterprises performing the same functions as ministries and this was something that could be reviewed to reduce expenditure. Read more…
REGIONAL
St Thomas Relief - Holness Declares Highway Still Coming To Parish In Southeast
Faced with concerns that St Thomas was being treated as the 'forgotten parish' once again, Prime Minister Andrew Holness used a press conference yesterday to assure residents that they would get a highway, though not on the scale once imagined. Holness announced that the highway would include a four-lane thoroughfare running from Harbour View in St Andrew to Bull Bay, which lies on the border of both parishes. That section of the highway will cover 6.8 kilometres, one-sixth of the distance that was originally planned to run from Harbour View to Morant Bay. As the project continues to Port Antonio, Portland, it will be reduced first to a three-lane roadway and then to two lanes. Initially, the Portia Simpson Miller administration in 2015 announced that US$385 million would be spent to build the highway running from Harbour View to Port Antonio as part of the South Coast Highway project. Holness now says a similar amount of money - US$384 million - will be spent "for the improvement of road network in the southeastern and southwestern sections of Jamaica". Read more…
Haiti warned against leaving 'institutional vacuum'
The United Nations and its partners in Haiti on Wednesday expressed concern that as the provisional president's agreed 120-day mandate has come to end, “no measures have been taken to ensure institutional continuity” in the island nation, where several key deadlines regarding the political transition process have been missed. In a joint press statement the special representative of the secretary-general in Haiti, Sandra Honoré, and the other members of the international community in Haiti represented in the "Core Group" (the ambassadors of Brazil, Canada, France, Spain, the United States and the European Union, and the special representative of the Organization of American States) took note of the opening of the second ordinary session of Parliament in accordance with the Constitution. “The Core Group expresses concern that no measures have been taken to ensure institutional continuity beyond 13 June as provided for in the 5 February Agreement,” said the press statement. Read more…
INTERNATIONAL
EgyptAir Flight 804: Second black box found
Searchers have recovered the flight data recorder from EgyptAir Flight 804, Egypt's Civil Aviation Accident Investigation Committee said Friday, potentially a key step in helping unravel the mystery of what caused the plane to plunge into the Mediterranean Sea nearly a month ago. The discovery of the recorder follows the discovery of wreckage from the flight and the recovery of the cockpit voice recorder this week, according to Egyptian officials. Like the cockpit voice recorder, the flight data recorder was damaged, but searchers were able to recover the crucial memory unit from the device, the committee said. The flight data recorder gathers 25 hours of technical data from the airplane's sensors, recording several thousand distinct pieces of information, including air speed, altitude, engine performance and wing positions. Read more…
Europe migrant crisis: Charity rejects EU funds over migration policy
17th June 2016