NEWS
Woodbrook residents: Lower music for Carnival
Residents of Woodbrook and environs are calling on bandleaders, fete promoters and music truck marshals to lower the volume levels when they are at a standstill en route to their destinations. Speaking with Newsday, several residents said they have been asking stakeholders from the Carnival committee to deal with the issue. Read more here
Malabar man shot dead by intruder
A 22-year-old Arima man was killed and his 16-year-old brother wounded as they attempted to protect their father from an armed intruder on Monday night. According to reports, around 9.30 pm Dominique Koon Koon and his younger brother were liming in the porch of their home at Koon Koon Street, Malabar, Arima, when a stranger came to the front gate and called out to their father. Read more here
Machel Changes Tune
Soca star Machel Montano says consent before winning is important if men are to make women feel safe and respected. “Once you get consent, take a wine and have a time. Let us all have an inclusive and respectful and most of all safe 2018 Carnival season,” Montano said in an exclusive written response to the Express yesterday evening. Read more here
POLITICS
PM: No more contract-padding
The time for padding contracts is over, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley said when he addressed a Joint Consultative Council (JCC) Breakfast with the Prime Minister at the Hyatt Regency in Port-of-Spain yesterday. Noting that some contractors had in the past operated in “an environment of ‘happy times’ where some amazing awards and payments were commonplace and the taxpayer was taken advantage of, at every turn,” he said even if his administration does intend to have such practices continue. Read more here
Mark accuses Govt of private secret service
Senate vice-president Nigel De Freitas was forced to suspend proceedings for 15 minutes yesterday after Opposition Senator Wade Mark accused the Government of operating a private secret service. Read more here
BUSINESS
35 new buses coming from China
Thirty five Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) buses, specially designed for the geographical environment of T&T are on their way to this country. The Public Transport Service Corporation (PTSC) confirmed the buses would be here soon. Read more here
Bitcoin not the answer to forex unavailability
Local economist Marla Dukharan says cryptocurrencies, which have dominated international business headlines for the last two months, cannot ease Trinidad and Tobago’s (T&T) foreign exchange crisis, although they are convertible to US dollars. Read more here
REGIONAL
Guns, No Problem - Judges In Western Ja Blasted For 'Light' Sentences In Illegal Firearm Cases
Dozens of persons who were convicted for illegal possession of guns and ammunition in St James and three other western parishes last year got off easy, as High Court judges opted for suspended sentences and fines as low as $70,000, an explosive document compiled by the police has revealed. In one case, a St James man, convicted for illegal possession of firearm and ammunition, was admonished and discharged. In several other cases, judges opted for probation orders. The document cited 35 cases that were disposed of in the circuit courts in Trelawny, St James, Hanover, and Westmoreland. Read more here
St Vincent threatens to sue T&T over forex
The ongoing currency issue in which Vincentian traders in agricultural produce are unable to convert their earnings to Eastern Caribbean dollars after plying their trade in T&T could end up before the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ). Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Dr Ralph Gonsalves, told a press conference on Monday that while his government has implemented short-term measures of “a sensible, practical nature” to deal with the matter in Kingstown, a long-term solution is needed. Read more here
INTERNATIONAL
Ex-CIA officer Jerry Chun Shing Lee held 'in China spying case'
President Trump expands US military footprint despite candidate Trump's rhetoric
At one rally after the next, candidate Donald Trump lamented the "trillions of dollars spent and thousands of lives lost" in the Middle East, criticized his opponent as a warmonger and signaled he would scale back US military commitments abroad. "America First" would become the driving mantra, and the US would refocus taxpayer dollars on domestic problems rather than foreign ones, he said. Much of the Washington foreign policy establishment worried that Trump would usher in a diminished -- perhaps even isolated -- US posture. Read more here
17th January 2018