NEWS
Ungrateful Killer: ...Previous dispute may have led to Sunday's bloodbath
A previous altercation between reputed gang leader Selwyn “Robocop” Alexis and 32-year-old Thomas “Hamza” Sharpe may have been what led to Alexis' death. A shooting along Freedom Street Enterprise on Sunday resulted in three men being shot dead, and a five-year-old boy fighting for his life at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex. Read more here
Robo was silenced
Selwyn “Robocop” Alexis, 51, was murdered because he had pledged to expose the operations of the Unruly Isis gang, their affiliation and close networking with some members of two of the country’s major law enforcement agencies, the T&T Police Service and the T&T Defence Force. Speaking with the T&T Guardian yesterday, near to where Alexis and two others were killed at Freedom Street, Chaguanas, on Sunday, a close affiliate of Alexis said that just before he was ambushed and killed, he had told a few people of his frustration with the threats and senseless criminal acts carried out by members of the gang. Read more here
Most can’t pay 1/3 GATE
The majority of students cannot afford to pay one third of their tertiary education. This was the unanimous position yesterday put forward by representatives of student bodies of the various tertiary education institutions at a meeting at The University of the West Indies (The UWI) guild office at the St Augustine campus. Read more here
POLITICS
Mickela Panday sad over UNC eviction from Rienzi
Attorney Mickela Panday, daughter of Basdeo Panday, founding father of the United National Congress (UNC), would not like to see Rienzi Complex, the long-standing party headquarters, and the UNC go their separate ways. In fact, the younger Panday is calling on political leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar to issue a statement on the true facts surrounding the eviction of UNC from the headquarters at Southern Main Road, Couva. The All Trinidad General Workers Trade Union (ATGWTU) has given the UNC until July 31, to vacate the premises after not seeing eye to eye with new arrangements including the jump in rental from $2,500 to $25,000. Union officials reported that before 2012, UNC paid the small “stipend” and before that enjoyed the free use of office space at the facility. Panday told Newsday, “I think your base is your base and Rienzi Complex to the UNC, whether you like it or not, is what Balisier House is to the PNM (Peoples’ National Movement). To simply disregard this, you can build, you can grow, you can modernise, you can do all those things by staying with your base and where your liver string is buried.” She said she was not surprised at the turn of events but instead saddened. Read more…
Occah plans to sue PM Rowley
Former House Speaker Occah Seapaul is contemplating legal action against Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley for allegations made by him that she was placed under house arrest in 1995 because she had publicly declared she was going to suspend other government members of Parliament following the suspension of Diego Martin Central MP Ken Valley, thereby reducing the government’s majority in the Parliament. Rowley told the media last Thursday “we were not going to allow Speaker Seapaul to remove the mandate of a government that we earned from an election.” He explained that “she took it on herself to reduce the government majority so that the Government would fall. She suspended Ken Valley and said the next time the Parliament reopens, she would suspend, me (Rowley), (Wendell) Motley and (Keith) Sobion. Read more…
Raymond: Break code of silence on CL Financial
The Ministry of Finance yesterday formally appealed a High Court ruling, which last year ordered it to release all information about the CL Financial bailout. The Ministry’s decision is not sitting well with anti-corruption activist Afra Raymond, who sued the State in 2013 after it refused to make the information public. “This is an unprecedented and huge expenditure of public money, exceeding $20 billion, yet it seems that we remain bound by the detrimental ‘Code of Silence’ in our country,” Raymond said in a news release yesterday. “Having had the Ten Commandments drummed into us as youths, it now appears that the Eleventh Commandment is to be part of our adult learning—‘Thou shalt not be found out’,” he added. The matter between Raymond and the State dates back to 2012 when, under the Freedom of Information Act, he requested information on the State’s bailout of CL Financial. The 2009 collapse of the conglomerate led to estimated losses of $25 billion. Read more…
BUSINESS
Good news for oil in south
Deloitte now estimates Goudron has over US$530m in oil in Trinidad and Tobago. London-listed LGO Energy plc, whose main assets are in Trinidad and Tobago, announced the results of the latest annual independent resource review of the LGO’s 100 per cent operated Goudron Field in southeast Trinidad conducted on the company’s behalf by Deloitte LLP. Read more here
Range Developments to undertake approved citizenship investment project in St Lucia
Range Developments, an international developer specialising in luxury hotel projects in the Caribbean, recently signed an agreement with the government of Saint Lucia to be the master developer of the third real estate project development to be announced under the island’s new citizenship by investment programme (CIP). The development at Black Bay in Saint Lucia will consist of a luxury branded hotel and villas, a small marina, and an equestrian centre set on 180 acres in the unspoilt southern tip of the island. The site is on the Caribbean southwest coast, within easy reach of the international airport and the Pitons, the world famous UNESCO heritage site. Read more here
Regional
Monster El Nino Subsides, La Nina Hitting Soon
As if human-made armed conflicts, wickedness, rights abuse, gender violence, cruel inequality and climate catastrophes were not enough, now the saying “God Always Forgives, Men Sometimes, Nature Never” appear to be more true than ever. Read more...
Visiting British doctor brutally raped in St Lucia
London’s Daily Mail newspaper has reported that a British doctor was brutally raped during a vacation to Saint Lucia in February of this year and then offered a manicure and massage to cheer her up by the company who arranged the trip. Dr Georgina Mortimer booked the trip to Saint Lucia with Girls for Sail, a company accredited by the Royal Yacht Association, but said she was attacked in the bedroom of her shared villa within hours of arriving. Read more…
INTERNATIONAL
Boris Johnson's awkward debut as foreign secretary in Brussels
Campaign denies Melania Trump's speech plagiarizes parts of Michelle Obama's
The Donald Trump campaign on Tuesday denied allegations that Melania Trump plagiarized a Michelle Obama speech on the first night of the Republican National Convention, calling the accusation "just really absurd." "To think that she would do something like that knowing how scrutinized her speech was going to be last night is just really absurd," Trump's campaign chairman Paul Manafort told CNN's Chris Cuomo on "New Day." At least one passage in Trump's speech Monday night plagiarized from Obama's address to the Democratic National Convention in 2008. Read more…
19th July 2016