NEWS

Teachers stay away from La Romaine High again

For yet another day, teachers at the La Romaine High School stayed away from classes. The TT Unified Teachers Association (Association) has advised teachers to stay away from school until the chief inspector at the Occupational Safety and Health Authority (OSHA) makes a determination on their appeal. The association’s president Lynsley Doodhai said his members believe the clearance certificate was not sound and until there is proper clearance, teachers will not go out to work. Read more here

Expert: Regular gas can blow your engines

The sav­ings mo­torists are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing by fill­ing their tanks with fish­ing boat fu­el may well even­tu­al­ly back­fire, as me­chan­ics are warn­ing that pro­longed use of reg­u­lar fu­el will cause en­gines to mal­func­tion. The sale of reg­u­lar gaso­line, which is used by fish­er­men, has been in­creas­ing since Gov­ern­ment raised the price of su­per at the pumps from $3.97 per litre to $4.97 in the 2019 Bud­get. Mo­torists have been form­ing long queues at fu­el sta­tions in San Fer­nan­do, Cara­pichaima and Ch­agua­nas to fill their tanks with the low-grade fu­el re­cent­ly. Mo­torists with the stan­dard 45-litre tanks are record­ing up to $107 in sav­ings by switch­ing from su­per gaso­line to reg­u­lar. Read more here

Another prison officer gunned down at home

Another prison officer has been shot and killed. Officer Darren Francis died from a bullet to the head. He was killed at his home at Hindustan Village, Sixth Company, near Princes Town at around daybreak. Francis worked at the radio station of the Maximum Security Prison in Arouca. He celebrated his 38th birthday on October 4. Read more here

POLITICS

Minister wants urban hunting ban

Agriculture Minister Clarence Rambharat has suggested a “complete ban” on hunting in urban areas, expressing concern about “strangers” armed with hunting weapons entering private property in Cascade and St Ann’s to hunt iguanas. At the launch of World Food Day 2018 at Mid Centre Mall car park, Chaguanas today, Rambharat said, "People feel that because I support hunting and hunters, that I am blind to what is happening, but this is the third season, or last year was particularly pronounced, when I was very concerned with what was happening in Port of Spain in particular when it comes to iguanas." Read more here

CoP tells thousands reapply for gun permits

Days af­ter his ap­point­ment as Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP), Gary Grif­fith gave the as­sur­ance that he would pri­ori­tise treat­ing with the back­log of 13,000 ap­pli­ca­tions for Firearm User’s Li­cences (FUL). How­ev­er, yes­ter­day thou­sands of peo­ple who ap­plied be­fore 2015 were told they would have to re-ap­ply. In a re­lease is­sued by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), Grif­fith con­firmed his of­fice had processed over 400 ap­pli­ca­tions so far and was work­ing to clear the back­log. “My of­fice is ac­tive­ly work­ing to ad­dress pre­vi­ous chal­lenges with the FUL process and these is­sues, in­clud­ing the time it takes to eval­u­ate ap­pli­ca­tions, are be­ing over­hauled,” Grif­fith said. Read more here

Moonilal to go before Privileges Committee

Government yesterday moved to haul Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Moonilal before Parliament’s Privileges Committee for a second time for purportedly telling Government Minister Fitzgerald Hinds in cross-talk that “Snake have some lead for you”. Read more here

BUSINESS

A lot of mistakes will be made

New­ly es­tab­lished state en­er­gy com­pa­ny Paria Fu­el might op­er­ate as a hold­ing com­pa­ny pend­ing the farm­ing out of Petrotrin’s re­fin­ery op­er­a­tions. That is the view of en­er­gy ex­pert An­tho­ny Paul who ex­pects that Paria, one of the two new com­pa­nies an­nounced as the suc­ces­sor to Petrotrin, will im­port fu­el for lo­cal and re­gion­al use as “a tran­si­to­ry com­pa­ny un­til re­fin­ing re­sumes.” As for Her­itage, the ex­plo­ration and pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny, Paul said there is need for clar­i­ty. There will now be three ex­plo­ration and prod­ucts en­ti­ties in the coun­try—Petrotrin, whose as­sets will now fall to Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um, Trinidad Up­stream Down­stream, the com­pa­ny which is tak­ing over the up­stream as­sets of the Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny and the Min­istry of En­er­gy, which has pro­duc­tion shares in com­pa­nies op­er­a­tions. Read more here

Dealer: Go hybrid, not CNG

Vice-president of the T&T Automotive Dealers Association, Rhondall Feeles, says the fact that some motorists are resorting to using regular gasoline in their vehicles to deal with the “sting” of higher super gasoline prices is a blow to Government’s compressed natural gas (CNG) campaign. Read more here

REGIONAL

20 ZOSOs Coming... Anti-Crime Initiative To Roll Out In Crime Hotspots Across The Island

The Andrew Holness administration has announced that it is now laying the groundwork to roll out its signature anti-crime measure, the zone of special operations (ZOSO), in at least 20 crime hotspot communities. Holness, the prime minister, said already the finance ministry is working on the budgetary allocations that will be required to sustain the measures while the security forces undertake a major recruitment drive. "Yes, there are more zones (of special operations) coming. We have identified, so far, 20 communities, and they are dispersed all over," Holness declared in the House of Representatives yesterday. Read more here

INTERNATIONAL

Kerch blast: Crimea college 'bomb' kills 13

At least 13 people have been killed and dozens more wounded in an explosion at a college in Russian-annexed Crimea. Officials said an "unidentified explosive device" detonated at the technical college in Kerch, where Russia has built a bridge between the peninsula and Russia. Initial reports had suggested that the blast was some sort of gas explosion. But a Russian national guard official said the incident was a deliberate "terrorist act". Sergei Melikov said the explosion had been caused by an improvised explosive device. Read more here

A high-ranking Saudi officer with ties to the crown prince oversaw journalist's deadly interrogation, sources say

A Saudi mission that resulted in the apparent death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul was organized by a high-ranking officer with the General Intelligence Presidency, Saudi Arabia's main intelligence service, three sources familiar with the case told CNN. One of those sources described the officer as close to the inner circle of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. It is unclear whether the crown prince authorized an interrogation, abduction or killing. Several officials CNN spoke with said the mission could not have happened without the direct knowledge of the 33-year-old crown prince, the kingdom's de facto ruler, who is known by his initials "MBS." Read more here

17th October 2018

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