NEWS
Caribbean Airlines restarts SVG-NY non-stop flights
Caribbean Airlines (CAL) non-stop flights between St Vincent and the Grenadines and New York will resume on October 20, the airline announced on Thursday. In a statement, CAL said services BW 552 and BW 553 will originate and end in Trinidad on Wednesday "to give customers the option of an additional connecting service to/from New York and Trinidad." The airline said flight schedules are subject to change. Read more here
CMO: Still too many people unvaccinated to drive infections down
Roughly one in two adults in Trinidad and Tobago have got a shot of COVID-19 vaccinations. Despite over 400,000 people now fully vaccinated, Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Dr Roshan Parasram said yesterday there are still too many immune naive people that can continue to drive infections. As a guest of Aakash Vani 106.5 FM’s Morning Panchayat show, Parasram said that although there was an average of 200 cases per day, hospital admissions for COVID-19 and deaths are less than the end of June when infection rates were even higher. Read more here
POLITICS
Hinds meets with experts on border security
National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds attended the first of several meetings with technical advisers and members of the protective services to assess the efficacy of Trinidad and Tobago's border security measures on Monday. A media release from the Ministry of National Security reported that Hinds met with the officials at the ministry's Office of Law Enforcement Policy (OLEP) on London Street, Port of Spain, at the first of a series of meetings expected to continue from September to December. Read more here
BUSINESS
Scotia named as T&T’s best consumer digital bank
Scotiabank has been named Trinidad and Tobago’s Best Consumer Digital Bank 2021 by Global Finance (New York), a news release from the bank yesterday indicated. Winning banks were selected based on the following criteria: strength of strategy for attracting and servicing digital customers, success in getting clients to use digital offerings, growth of digital customers, breadth of product offerings, evidence of tangible benefits gained from digital initiatives, and web/mobile site design and functionality. Read more here
REGIONAL
GTT plugs $2B into enhancing internet services
THE Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (GTT) will be investing an additional $2 billion to upgrade and expand its fibre-optic capacity in an effort to boost the quality of internet services being offered locally. This announcement was made on Thursday by the company’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Damian Blackburn, who said this investment adds to the $17 billion already spent on service and data upgrades. Blackburn, who assumed his position at GTT in May, said that the company’s new directive is to “pivot GTT to become a 21st century customer-centric organisation.” Read more here
INTERNATIONAL
Heavy clashes erupt between Taliban and anti-Taliban group in Afghanistan's Panjshir province
Heavy clashes erupted Thursday night around Afghanistan's northern Panjshir Valley between Taliban fighters and an anti-Taliban group, according to a source within the group. Panjshir Valley, a mountainous, inaccessible region north of Kabul, is the last major holdout against Taliban rule, and has a long history of resisting the insurgent group. Sporadic fighting between the Taliban and the National Resistance Front (NRF) has continued for two weeks now. The Taliban have been massing forces in and around Panjshir province in recent weeks, and said on Monday they had captured three districts in the valley. The overnight clashes between the Taliban and the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRF) started late Thursday, and were very intense, said the NRF source. Read more here
New Zealand PM Ardern says supermarket stabbing was 'terrorist attack'
Police in New Zealand shot and killed a "violent extremist" after he stabbed and wounded at least six people in an Auckland supermarket. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the incident was a "terrorist attack" carried out by a Sri Lankan national who was under police surveillance. The man, who has not been identified, was a supporter of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group, Ms Ardern said. Police killed the man within 60 seconds of the attack on Friday. "What happened today was despicable, it was hateful it was wrong," Ms Ardern said in a news conference. "It was carried out by an individual, not a faith." Of the six wounded people, three are in a critical condition and one is in a serious condition, health officials say. Read more here
3rd September 2021