NEWS
Trini Pirates
They came to buy food for their starving family back home, but 11 Venezuelan nationals instead got held-up on the high seas early yesterday morning by masked, armed Trini pirates who made off with US$600 and 600,000 Bolivars (Venezuelan currency). “We come to your country to buy food to feed out starving families back home. Our homeland is in turmoil and there is no food in the stores. What we got was guns pointed at our face by masked men and a woman who came upon our boats in a vessel with the word CUSTOMS painted on it. They ordered us to ‘pass the bags’,” Adrian Lopez told Newsday. The 11 Venezuelan nationals were in two pirogues (seven in one and four in the other) on their way to Trinidad to buy basic food items when they were attacked at 3.30 am. Lopez, 33, of Guiria was one of seven men aboard the pirogue ‘Santa Ana’. He said the masked men pointed guns and ordered the engines of the two pirogues to be switched off. “They told us to ‘pass the bags’ and they searched it and handed it back to us. They then left. It was only when the sun rose and we checked our bags that we realised all of the money we had, which we were going to use to buy food for our families...all of it was missing,” Lopez said. Read more here
12 containers of relief items for Haiti
A convoy of 12 shipping containers, each measuring 40 feet, packed with items valued over TT$2 million, left San Fernando on Wednesday bound for the Port of Pt Lisas from where it will be shipped to hurricane- ravaged Haiti on Saturday. The items were collected over a period of 11 days through the Help 4 Haiti initiative which was launched by San Fernando Mayor Kazim Hosein on October 11. The shipment contained building materials, pharmaceuticals, canned food, mattresses, clothing and other items. It is the largest shipment to leave T&T for Haiti since the island was devastated by Hurricane Matthew in early October, leaving death and destruction in its path. Read more here
In Her Dad’s Footsteps
Sharda Singh, the daughter of former United National Congress (UNC) local government minister Dhanraj Singh, has decided to follow in her father's footsteps and enter political life. At the November 28 local government elections, she will be contesting the Montrose/Lange Park seat in the Chaguanas East constituency, which falls under the Chaguanas Borough Corporation for the People's National Movement (PNM). Read more here
POLITICS
‘Government will support you in crime fight’
Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley in his capacity as Chairman of the National Security Council yesterday met with the Senior Superintendents in charge of the Central, Southern and South Western Divisions for close to two hours at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann’s . Also in attendance were Attorney General Faris Al Rawi, Minister in the Office of the Attorney General Stuart Young, Minister of Finance Colm Imbert and National Security Minister Edmund Dillon . During the meeting, Senior Superintendent Peznel, Hodge-Griffith and Ballram, along with Assistant Commissioner of Police, Inez Joseph provided statistics regarding the detection rate in the three divisions as well as their challenges . During the meeting Rowley thanked the officers for their efforts in the fight against crime and challenged them to continue to empower their charges so that the effort in the crime fight could be improved in a bid to reclaim TT from the hands of criminal elements. Read more here
MPs Angry
"Ill-advised and precipitous." That's how Caroni East MP Dr Bhoe Tewarie is describing the appearance of former sports minister Anil Roberts on the platform at the United National Congress' Monday Night Forum in Diego Martin. Now, Tewarie says, the UNC must tell the country what Roberts' appearance stands for. Speaking to the T&T Guardian about Roberts' return to the UNC frontline, Tewarie said he had nothing against Roberts, since "he used to sit next to me in the Cabinet." However, Tewarie said he was working with Local Government candidates in his constituency and "was surprised to learn he (Roberts) was on the platform and more surprised than ever that he was a speaker." He said he had told UNC leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar how he felt about it. Tewarie added: "The UNC must convince the country that it stands for something and explain to the country what it stands for. Read more here
Anil: I don't smoke weed, I have one wife
Former sport minister Anil Roberts yesterday described educator Adolphus Daniell as a “psychopath”, said he does not smoke marijuana and admitted he wooed his wife away from a radio DJ. Roberts broke his silence on several controversial issues in an interview with Adrian “Third Bass” Hackshaw on Boom Champions 94.1FM. Under Roberts's tenure, the multi-million-dollar LifeSport programme was born. The Finance Ministry's Central Audit Committee conducted an audit which found the programme was plagued with corruption. On Monday, Justice Mira Dean-Armorer quashed that audit report because several public servants were not given the opportunity to respond to allegations contained in the report. Read more here
BUSINESS
Economist: Oil surge not good
Senior Economics Lecturer at the St Augustine campus of the University of the West Indies Dr Roger Hosein says a surge in the price of oil at this time could very likely see the country reverse some of the gains made in the last twelve to 15 months in terms of its recognition of the need for diversification of the economy. He said that with the country in recession a lot of fiscal changes had been made in the last year or so and the Prime Minister had even spoken recently about the need to reduce the dependency syndrome and the “gimme gimme” mentality. “Therefore, if the price of oil were to suddenly surge by some act of God to US$80 a barrel, there is the probability and the possibility that we may reverse some of the decisions that were made.” Dr Hosein was speaking with journalists after delivering the keynote address at a function at the TSTT Hospitality Box at the Queen’s Park Oval, Tragarete Road, Port of Spain, to launch Global Entrepreneurship Week Trinidad and Tobago. Read more here
Unipet still accepting card payments
Motorists will still be able to pay for fuel using debit and credit cards at the 24 United Independent Petroleum Marketing Company Limited (Unipet) service stations across the country. Although service station dealers represented by the Petroleum Dealers' Association (PDA) say they will stop accepting electronic payments for fuel purchases from tomorrow, Unipet CEO Dexter Riley said the company has not made any policy decisions on the matter. He said: "At Unipet, we are continually reviewing our cost structure, we have not made a policy decision with respect to that call for action. Our first approach is to find cost cutting measures that won't adversely impact the public." Read more here
Steel plant, anyone?
The ArcelorMittal steel plant at Point Lisas, Couva has officially been advertised for sale some eight months after it permanently closed in March, leaving more than 600 workers out of a job. And the possibility of the plant being back in operations was uplifting, said Christopher Henry, president of the Steel Workers Union of Trinidad and Tobago (SWUTT), adding that the suffering steel workers could be re-employed. Read more here
REGIONAL
INDECOM Costing Cops - Police Personnel Unable To Recover Legal Funds When Cleared Of Wrongdoing Before Court
Deputy Commissioner of Police Novlette Grant says members of the police force have raised concerns about personal costs they incur when they appear before the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) for a hearing. According to Grant, although INDECOM has assured the Police High Command that there is no need for the police to take an attorney with them when they meet initially with the oversight body, the experiences of members of the force dictate that it would be "foolhardy to go without legal representation". Grant told members of Parliament's Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC) yesterday that the perception that members of the force were unwilling to be subject to oversight was far from the truth. Read more here
Marijuana being traded for weapons in Caribbean drug trade
Criminals involved in the Caribbean drug trade are increasingly using marijuana to buy weapons, according to Juan Gonzalez, deputy assistant secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs in the US State Department during a recent press briefing to give updates on the sixth Caribbean Basin Security Initiatives (CBSI) dialogue. Gonzalez said, “We’re also seeing an increase in incidences of trading marijuana for weapons, and so one of the areas where we are also cooperating with the Caribbean, is to making sure that we’re actually expanding the proliferation of the automated fingerprint identification systems, which allows law enforcement to share information on fingerprints for criminals, but also ballistics information. So that if somebody commits a crime in another island, the databases on other islands can actually catch that individual and also trying to share information on illegal firearms that are coming from the United States.” Read more here
INTERNATIONAL
NATO bolsters presence in Eastern Europe as Russia tension rises
The UK has deployed hundreds of troops to Eastern Europe as NATO continues to bolster its presence in the face of perceived Russian provocation. In the largest buildup of troops in the region since the Cold War, the UK has said it will send Royal Air Force Typhoon jets to Romania for up to four months in 2017. Defense Secretary Michael Fallon also confirmed that 800 personnel will be moved to Estonia, 150 more than originally planned. "Backed by a rising defense budget, this deployment of air, land and sea forces shows that we will continue to play a leading role in NATO, supporting the defense and security of our allies from the north to the south of the alliance," Fallon said. Read more here
EU-Canada trade deal: Belgians break Ceta deadlock
27th October 2016