NEWS
Solar lanterns for students
Three hundred and sixty nine solar lanterns were distributed to primary school students yesterday at the Marabella South Secondary School at an event held by the Trinidad and Tobago Red Cross Society. Eye glasses were also distributed at the event. Primary school students from the St Patrick school district and the Victoria district, received lanterns and eyeglasses. Other districts will receive theirs in the coming months, including secondary schoolchildren. Those who received lanterns came from homes with no electricity. Read more...
CAL CEO quits
Chief Executive Officer of Caribbean Airlines (CAL) Michael DiLollo has quit after just 17 months on the job. The 48-year-old Canadian national, citing personal reasons, resigned with immediate effect. His resignation has been accepted by the state-owned airline's board of directors. CAL staff were informed of the resignation via a memo from the airline's chairman Phillip Marshall who also announced that chief financial officer Tyrone Tang will act as CEO until a permanent replacement is found. DiLollo was appointed CAL CEO in May 2014 following the sudden resignation of Robert Corbie in September 2013. Read more...
HEADLESS HORROR
“This is a house of horrors.”
This was how one police officer described the discovery of a head and decapitated body in Port of Spain yesterday. And residents of Duncan and Quarry Streets, where the head and body were found separately, were equally horrified about the killing when the Express visited both scenes yesterday. “This is what we come to? This is madness. You chop a man head off and then leave it there in the rubbish? What kind of monsters we have living in this country now?” asked Margaret Jacob from Quarry Street. Read more...
POLITICS
Govt hears Judge’s concern
Acting Attorney General Stuart Young yesterday said Government has heard the concerns raised by Justice Frank Seepersad on the issue of legislation to deal with revenge porn, and will take steps to address those concerns. On Monday, Justice Seepersad ruled that West Indies and TT batsman Lendl Simmons pay $150,000 in damages to his one time mistress Therese Ho in the country’s first revenge porn case. In his ruling, Seepersad observed that local laws had not developed to address the issue of revenge porn. He also noted the number of archaic laws on the country’s law books.” Read more...
Call for compromise to save fractured UNC
United National Congress’s (UNC) Couva North constituency chairman Orlando Nagessar said yesterday made a call for a “compromise” on the party’s leadership contest. His call cames 48 hours before the party’s deputy leader Roodal Moonilal is expected to announce his bid, tomorrow, to contest the leadership against incumbent Kamla Persad-Bissessar. One-time UNC St Joseph candidate Gerry Yetming, tipped to be Moonilal’s campaign manager, says incumbent Persad-Bissessar “isn’t capable of taking the UNC forward at this stage.” Read more...
UNC ‘on membership drive’ as election nears
There are over 100,000 registered United National Congress (UNC) members, according to the party’s general secretary Dave Tancoo. “We are on a membership drive. Registration closes off on Friday. At present, there are over 100,000 members registered as at Monday, but a very steady stream over this week and a larger thrust expected as we approach the deadline,” stated Tancoo via BBM message in response to questions from the Express. In the 2012 UNC internal election, some 85,000 members were registered to vote. There was a low voter turnout, with just about 20 per cent of the members casting their votes for the then Nationalists slate. Read more...
BUSINESS
BHP head unfazed by oil-storm
While the world energy-scene may be akin to a storm, BHP Billiton local head, Vincent Pereira, offered consolation by saying oil and gas companies do not operate according to shortterm considerations, but work on a longterm basis. He spoke Tuesday night at the company’s launch at its Invaders Bay office of a $4.2 million programme to fund five local NGOs in projects which mitigate the effects of climate change, but apart from ecology, he also spoke on the oil and gas economy. Recalling bpTT head, Norman Christie, recently likening the current energy climate to a storm, Pereira expanded that metaphor to explain how a firm like BHP Biliton survives. Read more...
Economist advises: T&T must educate to innovate
An economist has recommended that the curriculum at the primary, secondary and tertiary education levels be altered to accommodate innovation. Indera Sagewan-Alli, executive director of the Caribbean Centre for Competitiveness, is however cautioning against making changes in an isolated manner. She said a goal must first be identified so that the curriculum can be altered to achieve that goal. In the keynote address at the media launch of Global Entrepreneurship Week at the Sir Frank Chapman Hospitality Suite, Queen’s Park Oval, yesterday, Sagewan-Alli was critical of T&T’s education system. “If we want a different expectation from our graduates then I say we have to set the required goals at the outset,” she said. Read more...
RBC getting rid of security dept
RBC Royal Bank will be eliminating its proprietary security department at the end of the month. It will outsource its security services to a private firm, leaving dozens of staff members on the breadline, the Express has learnt. RBC Royal Bank security officers began training their replacements in branches across the country this week. The private security firm will take over from Monday. RBC Royal Bank’s senior manager of corporate communications Nicole Duke-Westfield yesterday confirmed the bank’s decision “to engage a third party for its protective and security services”. Read more...
REGIONAL
Pregnant women and newborns to be screened for sickle cell disease in Jamaica
Come December, all public hospitals in Jamaica will be testing pregnant women and newborns for sickle cell disease (SCD).The universal screening programme is part of a thrust by the government to develop a strong framework for the early detection, diagnosis and treatment of persons suffering from the debilitating condition. SCD is one of the priority conditions that have been included in the government’s Strategic and National Action Plan for the prevention and control of non communicable diseases (NCDs) 2013 to 2018. Read more...
Suriname takes lead in Islamic banking within CARICOM
In an effort to expand its economic partners, Suriname has forged strong ties with the Islamic world by accelerating its engagement with the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) over the past five years. Paramaribo has now positioned itself as the leader in Islamic banking in the region in and is looking to exploit this lucrative industry that has gone global. Experts on Islamic banking, Mohammed Mannai, Dr Said Bouheraoua, Dr Ibrahim Al Saywed and Louai Khojali, sent by the Islamic Research and Training Institute (IRTI) of the Islamic Development Bank Group, are this week in Suriname conducting classes on Islamic banking at the request of Paramaribo. Read more...
INTERNATIONAL
China to end one-child policy
Orbiting bacteria: Space Station may need some tidying up
The next time NASA picks an astronaut to live in the International Space Station, it might want to send Mr. Clean. That's because scientists using a kind of high-tech white glove test found something in the space dust there. The astronauts are not alone, it turns out. They share tight quarters with some previously undetected, opportunistic bacterial pathogens. They don't call this bacteria "opportunistic" for nothing, said Kasthuri Venkateswaran who worked on the research at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and co-authored the paper in the latest issue of the journal Microbiome. Read more...
29th October 2015