NEWS
Autopsy: Blow to head killed kidnap victim
Rudven Prout died as a result of blunt force trauma to the head according to his autopsy report. The 56-year-old was beaten on the head and thrown over a precipice on November 6 and found 200 plus feet below, two days later. Prout, of Real Street, San Juan, was picked up from his home by a man he knew and taken to a secluded area along the North Coast Road where he was beaten and left for dead. His cries for help were first thought to be a hunter “playing the fool” but after two days of his cries being heard in the Blazney Road, La Pastora, Santa Cruz area, residents sought out the source of the cries and found the bleeding and battered man. He was pulled to safety and taken to the Port of Spain General Hospital where he underwent surgery on Saturday but died Sunday night never having regained full consciousness. His autopsy showed there was heavy bleeding in the brain as a result of the beating coupled with him being thrown down the hill. Read more here
Yara Trinidad to close at year’s end
Unable to cope with higher natural gas prices from the NGC and lower global prices for ammonia, Yara Trinidad Limited has decided to shut down one of its plants taking with it five per cent of the country’s ammonia production and leading to the possibility of job losses. In an interview with the Guardian last night President and Plant Manager of YTL, Richard De La Bastide, said the company could not reach agreement with the NGC for a new gas price after 16 months of negotiations and while it is hopeful it could reach agreement for Tringen 1 and Tringen 2, it is still without agreement and therefore uncertain. He said: “We think it is highly unlikely we will get at a price that will allow us to operate the plant, therefore it is our intention to close the plant.” Read more here
POLITICS
Rohan on Licensing bust: There are more files
WORKS and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan has responded to the recent arrest of licensing officials and said that there are more files before the Commissioner of Police. He was speaking with the media Wednesday following the concrete pouring for the construction of the Guaico Licensing Office in Sangre Grande. He reported over the last three years there was a programme to fully computerise Licensing Office. "(Through) that exercise we uncovered a lot of things that we considered to be unethical and we felt, based on our preliminary investigations, that we should forward these files to the Commissioner of Police...and they would do their investigations and take whatever actions that they felt that they had to do and were required. Read more here
Criminal probe to be launched into the UNC for spying on citizens
Minister Young says he is very concerned about the information brought to light in Christopher Wylie's book about how the UNC sanctioned a breach of citizens privacy. He says he is also alarmed at how the information was used by a political party and not the State. As such the National Security Minister says he will ask for the launch of a criminal investigation into the matter. Read more here
BUSINESS
Davyn on cloud nine
Converting to the cloud saves a lot. It saves important and sensitive information and documents, even if hardware gets damaged. It saves office space and money by not having to invest in hardware and device maintenance. It saves time when the information stored on the cloud is paired with algorithms that can process the data. It saves money as cloud storage is affordable and does not require expensive equipment to run. It automatically saves work in progress so information does not get lost. Davyn, a software company that sells business applications, knows a lot about the cloud. The company recently won Microsoft Partner of the year award for 2019 and is one of the largest organisations in the region that pushes Microsoft Azure, a cloud computing service created for building, testing, deploying and managing applications and services through Microsoft-managed data centres. Most of Davyn's products operate on the cloud. Read more here
REGIONAL
Sugar Fight - Manufacturers, Farmers At Loggerheads Over Tax On Refined Sweetener Imports
President of the Jamaica Manufacturers and Exporters Association (JMEA), Richard Pandohie, has vowed that his organisation will resist any attempt to centralise the importation of refined sugar, through the Sugar Industry Authority (SIA), which a senior technocrat announced yesterday as settled policy that the Government would implement. The plan, as articulated by director in the Strategic Planning Division of the Ministry of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries (MICAF), Delroy Coley, a last-minute stand-in for portfolio minister Audley Shaw, would route the importation of refined sugar through the Sugar Industry Authority (SIA), which would be stored in a bonded warehouse. From there, it would be distributed to individual manufacturers. Read more here
Dengue in the Americas reaches highest number of cases ever-PAHO
Dengue in the Americas has reached the highest number of cases ever recorded, with more than 2.7 million cases and 1,206 deaths so far this year, according to a new epidemiological update from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). The largest previous dengue epidemic was in 2015, but the number of cases registered until October this year is 13 percent higher. Despite the increase in number of cases, the fatality rate, or proportion of deaths in dengue cases, was 26 percent less in 2019. The four dengue virus serotypes are present in the Americas and co-circulation of all four was reported in Brazil, Guatemala, and Mexico in 2019. Simultaneous circulation of two or more types increases the occurrence of severe cases of dengue. Brazil, given its large population, had the highest numbers in this update, with 2,070,170 cases reported. Mexico had 213,822 cases, Nicaragua reported 157,573 cases, Colombia had 106,066 and Honduras 96,379 cases. Read more here
INTERNATIONAL
Trump impeachment inquiry: New claims amid public hearing
Student protesters fortify campus occupations as Hong Kong braces for more violence
The threat of violence hung over Hong Kong Thursday evening as thousands of student protesters prepared to face off with riot police, amid a continued occupation of several of the city's most prestigious universities. The level of unrest and destruction in the almost six-month-long protest movement has reached new and unnerving heights in recent days, with several people critically injured and Chinese state media warning radical protesters, "You are on the edge of doom." Sporadic clashes broke out Thursday morning, as police fired tear gas at protesters near the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in Kowloon. While on Hong Kong Island, roads surrounding the University of Hong Kong were blocked by protesters, resulting in traffic delays. Read more here
14th November 2019