NEWS

Classes as usual at Belmont Gov’t Primary

While work is being done on a leak in a water tank and the clearing up pigeon droppings at the Belmont Government Primary School, the school is running as usual, said Education Minister Anthony Garcia. In a brief interview yesterday, Garcia said a team from the ministry comprising the manager of the Education Facilities Procurement Division, a health and safety officer, the school supervisor and a representative from the TT Unified Teachers Association visited the school yesterday morning. Read more here

Law body, CoP differ on one shot, one kill policy

The Law As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (LATT) has urged cau­tion over Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith’s “one shot, one kill” pol­i­cy. In a press re­lease is­sued on Tues­day, LATT’s ex­ec­u­tive coun­cil com­mend­ed Grif­fith and sought to give him le­gal ad­vice on his pre­vi­ous han­dling of the con­tro­ver­sial is­sue. While the LATT stat­ed that Grif­fith was cor­rect to as­sert that po­lice of­fi­cers can use dead­ly force in self-de­fence sit­u­a­tions, it said that should not be mis­con­strued in­to blan­ket au­tho­ri­sa­tion for a shoot to kill pol­i­cy. It stat­ed that force used by po­lice of­fi­cers must be pro­por­tion­al to the threat they are fac­ing at the time. Read more here

POLITICS

Charles: ‘Stupid’ TT to pay for Maduro, Sandals

Naparima MP Rodney Charles has criticised the Prime Minister for suggesting TT pay $1 billion to pipe natural gas from Venezuela and another $1 billion to build a Sandals hotel in Tobago. Dr Rowley had suggested the two sums among others in his televised national address on Sunday and Monday, titled Mind Your Business. In a statement yesterday Charles took on Rowley for blaming the former government for the country’s ills while allegedly not having a plan of his own. Read more here

PNM Women's League encouraged by PM's presentation

The Na­tion­al Women’s League of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment is prais­ing Prime Min­is­ter, Dr. Kei­th Row­ley for what it calls "his ster­ling ex­am­ple of lead­er­ship and ac­count­abil­i­ty to the na­tion dur­ing his re­cent ad­dress on the coun­try's eco­nom­ic sta­tus". The League says it felt en­cour­aged by the pre­sen­ta­tion which in­spired a new per­son­al­ized feel to gov­er­nance la­belling it as each cit­i­zen's busi­ness. The League is ap­plaud­ing the Prime Min­is­ter for his will­ing­ness to be open and hon­est with cit­i­zens who re­quest­ed an­swers in­to on­go­ing changes in the coun­try's fi­nances. Read more here

BUSINESS

Regional trade with US

T&T exporters to the US could lose up to US$400 million in special tariff benefits next year if the Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act (CBTPA) fails to be renewed when it crosses US President Donald Trump’s desk this year, senior trade consultants calculated last week. Read more here

REGIONAL

$1.5B For Secondary Roads - Second Supplementary Estimates Reveal Budget Up By $11 Billion

The Andrew Holness administration has allocated an additional $1.5 billion for the maintenance of secondary roadways for the current fiscal year. Further, the Government has increased, by $1 billion, the budgetary allocation for what it described as islandwide disaster mitigation. At the same time, another $1.7 billion has been slashed from the Southern Coastal Highway Improvement Project, an ambitious undertaking through which approximately 110 kilometres of roadway between Harbour View in east Kingston and Port Antonio in Portland is to be rehabilitated. The revised spending was included in the Second Supplementary Estimates for the current fiscal year, which was tabled in the House of Representatives yesterday by Finance Minister Dr Nigel Clarke. Read more here

INTERNATIONAL

Rahaf al-Qunun: UN 'considers Saudi woman a refugee'

A Saudi woman who fled her family and refused to leave a Bangkok hotel has been declared a legitimate refugee by the UN, the Australian government says. Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun, 18, refused to board a flight from Bangkok to Kuwait on Monday and barricaded herself into her airport hotel room. She said she had renounced Islam, which is punishable by death in Saudi Arabia. The UN's refugee agency has referred her case to Australia for possible resettlement. Read more here

Scripted Trump does little to convince skeptics on border wall

President Donald Trump delivered his scripted response to the deepening Washington stalemate over his border wall on Tuesday night. But when he's free to tweet and with cameras rolling during a Wednesday morning appearance, America could find out what he really thinks. Penned in by the formal stagecraft of his first Oval Office address, the President did little to pry open the partially shuttered government or bring the ultimate monument to his political movement -- a wall along the southern border -- any closer to construction. But Trump's behavior in the wake of a big set piece moment is often dictated by his reaction to how everybody else scores his performance. Read more here

9th January 2019

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