NEWS
Cops warn ‘ladies of the night’
Although prostitution is illegal in this country, the police are warning sex workers especially ‘ladies of the night’ (prostitutes who operate after dark) to be careful when out on business. The warning comes after known sex worker Vanessa “Buffy” Ackie was found dead at the bottom of a precipice on Monday afternoon. An autopsy yesterday revealed she died of a broken neck. “Listen, it is known that according to law, prostitution is illegal. Regardless of what we in the police service have to do to ensure law and order, it is a fact that such a trade exist in our country. These ladies still go out there at night to work,” Inspector Henry Dan said yesterday. “So we are warning these ladies of the night...please be careful, exercise extreme caution when you are out and about doing whatever it is you may be doing,” he advised. Police sources said that ever so often, women working in the sex trade would be reported missing and some are never found again. Sources said that prostitution and human trafficking are linked and may be behind many of these disappearances. When a prostitute is reported missing, in some case they are found alive and well. In other cases they are found alive but physically assaulted and in rare instances - as is the case with Ackie - they are found dead. Read more here
Band together to help Haiti
Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley wants Defence Ministers from the Americas to devise new avenues to improve preparation and cooperation to mitigate hardships after natural disasters. Rowley said that at yesterday's opening of the Twelfth Conference of Defence Ministers in the Americas at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, Port-of-Spain. The conference two-day conference is being chaired by National Security Minister Edmund Dillon. Rowley said Caribbean States have, over the past years, experienced "significant misfortune" from natural disasters, including Hurricane Erika which swept Dominica in August last year and Hurricane Matthew, which claimed over 800 hundreds lives and caused "havoc" in Haiti last week. Read more here
‘Legal age for marriage should be 18 for all’
The legal age for marriage should be set at 18 for young people in Trinidad and Tobago. And sexual help services should be made available to young people, especially those who are between the ages of 16 and 18. Chair of the Institute for Gender and Development Studies Dr Gabrielle Hosein shared these two recommendations yesterday after a public forum hosted by the institute, in collaboration with the Coalition to End Child Marriage in T&T, at the Institute of International Relations, The University of the West Indies, St Augustine. Among the panellists were director of the Women’s Institute for Alternative Development Folade Mutota, executive director of the Family Planning Association (FPA) Dona Da Costa-Martinez, president of the Hindu Women’s Organisation Brenda Gopeesingh and co-director of Womantra Khadija Sinanan. Read more here
POLITICS
PM disappointed Cuba not at security forum
Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley has called for an overarching cooperation policy for defense and security for the Americas beginning with strengthened humanitarian emergency assistance for disaster prone regions. He has also expressed disappointment that Cuba was not a part of the Twelfth Conference of Defense Ministers of the Americas (CDEMA) now underway in Port-of-Spain. Cuba is the only country in the hemisphere not represented in the 34-member CDEMA having been exempted from the inception in 1995 in Williamsburg, Virginia, due to its communist ideology. Addressing the opening of the three-day meeting yesterday at the Hyatt Regency, Rowley said, “the wave of new threats which threatens this era demands nothing less than our undivided attention to the institutionalisation of robust mechanisms for information sharing, continuous cooperation and collaboration - not next year, not next month, but now.” CDEMA regulations, he said, recognises that member states were not homogeneous in nature. Read more here
Parents give ministry one week to effect repairs
Angry and frustrated parents whose children attend the Santa Flora Government Primary School took to St Vincent Street, Port-of-Spain yesterday, protesting deplorable conditions. And they have given the Ministry of Education one week to fix the problems otherwise promised to intensify their actions. They said because of a directive given the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) the school has been shut down for the past three weeks, grossly affecting the Standard Five classes which are preparing for the SEA exam to be held next year. The parents also chastised Energy Minister and MP for the area Nicole Olivierre for what they claimed was lack of representation. They said despite repeated letters written to her, there was no response. Read more here
...AG declines to say if they are his children
Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi yesterday declined to confirm whether his children are those pictured holding high-powered guns. Instead, he said that since becoming AG he has been under threat and both he and members of his family underwent threat-assessment training. Al-Rawi called a news conference yesterday at 5.30 p.m. outside the Parliament building at the International Waterfront Centre to respond to questions based on Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Moonilal’s claims that children bearing the resemblance of those of a senior Government official were pictured holding high-powered guns which are from the Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force. Read more here
BUSINESS
RBC Young Leaders packed and ready
The ten Most Outstanding RBC Young Leaders from the bank’s 2015/2016 youth development initiative simply can’t wait to enjoy the most exhilarating experience of their lives when they journey to Canada next week to be part of the RBC signature WE Day benchmark event. The 10 students, representing secondary .schools from across the country, received their final briefing, travel bags and grand send-off on their fourday trip from RBC Royal Bank Managing Director, Darryl White and other representatives at the bank’s corporate offices in St. Clair, Port of Spain, on the weekend. They are Shara Sookoo, St. Joseph’s Convent, St. Joseph; Jovon Williams, Queen’s Royal College; Christon Malchan and Zakir Marshall, both of San Juan South Secondary; Shakela Sumai and La Quan Pearie, both of Manzanilla Secondary; Rafael Ferdinand, St. Mary’s College; Desiree Mohan, Couva East Secondary; Journee Mc Meo-John, Bishop Anstey East; and Kobe Sandy, Vessigny Secondary. Read more here
Huge declines at Petrotrin
Petrotrin’s oil production has declined from 64,500 barrels per day in October 2006 to 45,000 in October 2016. The State-owned company’s Trinmar operations’ oil production also declined from 33,000 barrels of oil per day in 2006 to 21,000 in 2016. Petrotrin chairman Professor Andrew Jupiter, in revealing the worrying trend at an Energy Caribbean Conference at the Trinidad Hilton and Conference Centre yesterday, warned that if things continue to be done the same way, oil production will continue to decline. Jupiter was one of several speakers representing the energy interests of different Caribbean countries speaking at the start of a private two-day conference to look at sustainable energy sources for the Caribbean in new oil and gas frontiers, offshore deep-water plays and renewable energy. Read more here
Petrotrin eyes new technology
Taking up from where Energy Minister Nicole Olivierre left off in her budget contribution on October 7 in Parliament, chairman of Petrotrin Andrew Jupiter said yesterday the State oil company had to arrest declining crude production. He was speaking at the Energy Caribbean conference at the Hilton Trinidad and Conference Centre in St Ann’s. “We need to arrest the decline in production and then increase,” he said in response to a question from the floor. Read more here
REGIONAL
Wasting Millions - Professor: Weak Management Leading To Huge Financial Losses In Police Force
Weak management within the ranks of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) resulted in losses and waste calculated at $1 billion in the last three years, two internal reviews have revealed. Professor Anthony Clayton, who was part of both review teams, revealed yesterday that the second evaluation, which was conducted earlier this year, found that the JCF was losing more than $500 million through its failure to collect traffic fines, among other things. In the first review, conducted in 2014, Clayton said the team also identified $500 million in funds that was being "simply badly spent". "So without really, very much effort, we identified over a billion dollars which could be recovered simply with better management of the financial resources and used to finance all of the other improvements," Clayton said during a Gleaner Editors' Forum, held at the newspaper's central Kingston offices. Read more here
Grand Bahama in crisis
Some residents of Grand Bahama are describing conditions as hell on Earth in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew. The description was used by Senior Assistant Commissioner of Police Emerick Seymour, officer in charge of Grand Bahama, in Freeport on Saturday. “The only good thing about it is that there were no lives lost,” Seymour said. On Monday, the island, already deeply scarred by the storms of 2004 and 2005, was still without power supply. Authorities said the storm ripped down more than 700 poles. Water was being provided in some areas intermittently. Government officials said Rand Memorial Hospital and clinics were on generator. Read more here
INTERNATIONAL
Lavrov denies Russian influence over US election
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has dismissed claims that his country is interfering in the US presidential election as "ridiculous". In an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour in Moscow, Lavrov said it was "flattering" that American officials think Russia is meddling in the election, but the accusations were baseless. The US last week accused Russia of being behind a series of email hacks, including communications from the Democratic National Committee. "It's flattering, of course, to get this kind of attention -- for a regional power, as President Obama called us some time ago," Lavrov said in the CNN interview. Read more here
Syria conflict: Rebels set up internment camp for IS defectors
12th October 2016