NEWS
Laventille Lives Don't Matter
Still grieving the loss of her son, Inez Phillips, mother of slain teenager Denilson Smith, laments that the number of murders in Laventille has led her to believe that lives in Laventille aren’t worth anything. “I can’t remember the last time I saw a dead dog on the road,” she said, “But I saw my son lying dead on the road like he was a dog. No, we are all human beings and we are not trying to understand that. I keep asking: ‘Isn’t our lives important anymore? Well I guess our lives aren’t. Our lives don’t matter,” she lamented. Newsday spoke to Philips at the school she worked at for seven years — St Martins Welfare Association/ Servol at #118 St Paul Street Port of Spain. During the interview, she recalled the ordeal of losing her son at the hands of gunmen. Read more...
Cops probe beating at PoS nightclub
Yet another attack on a young partygoer at a nightclub in Port-of-Spain has left 22-year-old Nicholas Grillet badly wounded and in excruciating pain. He was allegedly beaten by bouncers attached to the 51 Degrees Night Club located at Cipriani Boulevard, Port-of-Spain. Speaking with the T&T Guardian yesterday, Grillet said at about 3 am he had an altercation with a patron which escalated into a scuffle outside the club. He said, however, everything was quickly resolved between the two when he (Grillet) made his way up inside the club to lodge a complaint to management. Grillet said he spoke with a man, who identified himself as a shareholder of the club. Read more...
CoP: I am not superman
“I can’t be superman to know everything.” This was the response from acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams when reporters asked him for an update on the murder or Eden Nekeisha Teesdale, whose body was found decapitated and chopped up in a barrel floating in a Manzanilla river. Williams was responding to reporters’ questions after addressing an economic forum at The University of the West Indies, St Augustine, on Saturday. Williams said: “If I walk off on you today, you would say the commissioner is disrespectful. I cannot, heading an organisation of 10,000 employees - are you aware that the Police Service is the largest of all those institutions? Read more...
POLITICS
Fuad: Budget cuts hurting medical grads
FORMER health minister Dr Fuad Khan says medical graduates now face the potential dilemma of being denied registration with the Medical Board of TT due to their inability to find employment at approved health institutions. He cited the recent downsizing of staff at Regional Health Facilities. In a statement, the Parliamentary Representative for San Juana/ Barataria explained that graduates who have completed years of academic training and internships in acquiring their certification will now be incapable of practicing their trade if they cannot conform to the Medical Board’s criteria. ‘While our nation has in the past experienced shortages of medical professionals in the public health institutions, this arrangement provided a number of young doctors to serve a minimum of three years in the public hospitals before having the ability to take up private practice. Read more...
RC Archbishop at Palm Sunday service: Govt corruption is crucifixion
Archbishop Joseph Harris has spoken out against government corruption, pleading with the public not to commit “serious sin.” Speaking at Our Lady of Perpetual Help RC Church at Harris Promenade, San Fernando, during Palm Sunday celebrations yesterday, Archbishop Harris said, “Every time we commit serious sin we crucify the lord once again.” Although he did not make any reference to politicians, Harris said serious sin such as government corruption and murders were a form of crucifixion. “Every murder is a crucifixion of the Lord. Every time we leave a homeless person to die on the streets is a crucifixion of the Lord. Every time someone dies in our hospitals because of poor medical care is a crucifixion of the Lord. Every time there is corruption in Government, it is a crucifixion of the Lord and we take part in it,” Harris said. Read more...
Marlene Knew It All
All the directors of the Calabar Foundation were known to former minister of housing Marlene McDonald. The police are investigating the alleged involvement of McDonald in the Calabar Foundation, which received funding of over $575,000 from the Community Development Ministry under McDonald. The director and secretary, Michael Carew, is McDonald’s romantic partner, and Lennox, another director, is his brother. The third director, Victor McEachrane, was a former colleague of McDonald. Read more...
BUSINESS
Witco warning on illegal tobacco
Although the West Indian Tobacco Company Limited (Witco) achieved profit for 2015 of $515.5 million—an increase of 5.4 per cent over the previous year—chairman Anthony E Phillip said the trading environment remains challenging for the cigarette maker. In the company’s annual report posted on the T&T Stock Exchange, Phillip said Witco’s “solid performance was underpinned by efficient cost management and has facilitated the payment of three interim dividends to date, which total $3.70 per share. “This, together with the proposed final dividend of $2.18 per share, will bring the total dividends payable for 2015, to $5.88 per ordinary share. The share price during the period ranged from $121.33 to $126.29,” he said in his statement to shareholders. Read more...
NGL rewards investors
This week, Bourse evaluates the most recent results of NGL, having considered the evolving global energy markets, the local gas landscape and the company’s FY 2015 results. We also review the most recent performance of FirstCaribbean Int’l Bank Limited, whose stock price has climbed, for the year thus far, from $5.01 to $6.50. Read more...
REGIONAL
Unfair! - Civil Servants Take Issue With New Mandate To Earn Promotions
Withdraw it! That's the demand from the Jamaica Civil Service Association (JCSA), which is branding as an "imposition" a recent order by the Office of the Services Commissions mandating that civil servants must demonstrate compliance with certain corruption prevention regulations in order to earn appointments or promotions. In a letter to Cabinet secretary, Ambassador Douglas Saunders, dated January 14, the commission said it had advised permanent secretaries and heads of government departments of the new measures it said were aimed at ensuring "greater compliance" among public servants required to make statutory declarations. However, JCSA head O'Neil Grant said the association has serious issues with the order, which he claims was not proposed to the group prior to implementation. Read more...
US president arrives in Cuba
US President Barack Obama arrived in Havana some minutes before four on Sunday afternoon for a three day official visit to Cuba. Obama was welcomed by Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, accompanied by Josefina Vidal, head of the US Department at the Cuban Foreign Ministry, and Jose Ramon Cabañas, Cuban ambassador to Washington. US charge d'affaires Jeffrey DeLaurentis was also on the tarmac of the Havana's Jose Marti International Airport, along with officials from the two nations.
Obama and the delegation that traveled with him to Cuba will have a tight agenda that includes meetings with Cuban President Raul Castro, visits to Old Havana, and attendance at a baseball game between a Cuban team and the MLB Tampa Bay Rays, which will arrive in Havana on Monday. Read more...
INTERNATIONAL
Belgium: Europe's front line in the war on terror
Brussels: It's a quaint but bustling city, famed for its picture postcard squares, its chocolate and its beer. But it is rapidly becoming infamous, too, as a fertile recruiting ground for jihadi fighters. According to police, the carnage of the Paris attacks was plotted here, and it was in these streets that fugitiveSalah Abdeslam hid out in an apartment after abandoning his mission, dumping his suicide belt in a Parisian street and calling friends for help, after apparently driving his co-conspirators to their deaths. That Abdeslam was caught at all appears to have been an enormous stroke of luck. Despite a massive security operation, the trail appeared to have gone cold, until police, initiating a search for evidence at Abdeslam's safe house on Tuesday, encountered a barrage of gunfire which tipped them off that something -- or someone -- important was inside. Read more...
Paris attacks: Suspect's 'accomplice' named as Najim Laachraoui
21st March 2016