NEWS

Digicel Foundation invests US$3.4 million

The Digicel Foundation invested US$3.4 million over the last five years to help people and communities throughout TT. Foundation CEO Penny Gomez made the disclosure at the foundation's annual general meeting. The meeting was held at Digicel's hospitality suite at the Queens Park Oval in Port of Spain on Thursday. Gomez told her audience that this investment is in keeping with one of Digicel's core beliefs that "wherever the company grows, the community around it grows." She said this investment was in 372 projects in partnership with other groups. Read more here

Five escape from YTC

The es­cape of five young of­fend­ers from the Youth Train­ing Cen­tre (YTC), Gold­en Grove in Arou­ca on Thurs­day was be­lieved to be well planned and or­ches­trat­ed as In­tel­li­gence re­ceived sug­gests that there may have been a get­away car in­volved. A hack­saw blade was al­so used to cut through the bars of the dor­mi­to­ry in which they were in. They have been iden­ti­fied as Dil­lano Mar­cano, 16, of Pearl Dri­ve, La Paille Vil­lage, Ca­roni and LP 34 Agos­ti­ni Street, St Joseph; Jaden Fletch­er of LP#73 Par­ry­lands Vil­lage, Guapo, Sixth Com­pa­ny Cir­cu­lar Road, New Grant, Princes Town; An­tho­ny Ram­sumair, 19, of No. 12 New Vil­lage Ex­ten­sion, La For­tune, Wood­land; Bri­an Seep­er­sad, 17, of No. 24 Sea Trace, Bagatelle Road, Diego Mar­tin and Dar­ren Scott, 17, of O’Meara Road, Cara­po Vil­lage, Ari­ma. Read more here

POLITICS

Private sector pumped $100m into agriculture

Agriculture Minister Clarence Rambharat said there has been about $100 million of private-sector investment in agriculture. He was speaking with the media on Wednesday after the opening of Parliament. Rambharat said at present there is about $100 million in private-sector investment being made in agriculture, namely: the Nutrimix hatchery on Rivulet Road, Couva; another smaller hatchery; Central Farms (duck farms), which is expanding and is about a $20 million investment; the public-private partnership has been completed for the Aripo Livestock Station with Marilissa Farms, which is a $30-$40 million investment; and a project with an organic beef and lamb producer in Couva ($2-$3 million). Read more here

Law Association files lawsuit against PM

The Law As­so­ci­a­tion has filed its law­suit against Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley over his de­ci­sion to re­ject its in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to mis­con­duct al­le­ga­tions lev­elled against em­bat­tled Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie. The as­so­ci­a­tion’s le­gal team filed its ju­di­cial re­view ap­pli­ca­tion in the High Court Reg­istry at the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.  Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the case was ran­dom­ly as­signed to Jus­tice Vasheist Kokaram but a date for the hear­ing of the ap­pli­ca­tion for leave to pur­sue the case was not im­me­di­ate­ly set. Based on the usu­al time­line for pro­cess­ing such cas­es, it is like­ly to come up for hear­ing, next week. Read more here

BUSINESS

Faria urges Govt to pay VAT refunds

CEO of the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, Gabriel Faria has called on the Gov­ern­ment to pay bil­lions of dol­lars it owes to the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty in the up­com­ing bud­get. Speak­ing yes­ter­day on CNC3’s the Morn­ing Brew, Faria said: “One of the things we’ve been go­ing to bed and pray­ing for every night, is that the fi­nance min­is­ter takes ac­tion on over­due VAT re­funds.” He con­tin­ued: “When I lis­ten to the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, the one thing we are hop­ing for, is that he will put that in­to place in this bud­get.” Faria said that he is con­fi­dent that Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert will do some­thing be­cause the un­paid VAT re­funds are hav­ing “a de­bil­i­tat­ing im­pact on busi­ness­es.” Faria not­ed that it is hin­der­ing busi­ness­es as it re­lat­ed to in­vest­ment de­ci­sions, ex­ports and it is al­so “ty­ing up a lot of cash.” Read more here

Sagicor registers largest gain

Overall market activity resulted from trading in 14 securities of which three advanced, two declined and nine traded firm. Trading activity on the first tier market registered a volume of 239,931 shares crossing the floor of the Exchange valued at $2,537,479.85. Read more here

REGIONAL

Thomas-Dodd Delivers On Promise Made To Teenage Self; Jackson Lands 400m Bronze

In winning Jamaica’s first ever medal in the women’s shot put event at the Olympic or World Championships level, 26-year-old Danniel Thomas-Dodd delivered on a promise that she made over a decade ago to a teenage girl in Westmoreland. Still a student at Frome Technical High at the time, Thomas-Dodd and her teammate, Tanice, had a conversation that would stick with her for the rest of her life and would fuel the determination she wore like an armour in last night’s World Championships final at the Khalifa International Stadium. Tanice’s observation back then – that no Jamaican woman had ever had success on the international stage in a throwing event – led the teenage Thomas-Dodd to commit to providing a reference point for young Jamaican girls and proving that medalling in the throws at the highest level was, in fact, possible. Read more here

INTERNATIONAL

Hong Kong: Anger as face masks banned after months of protests

Hong Kong's chief executive Carrie Lam has used a colonial-era emergency law to ban face masks to try to quell months of anti-government unrest. She said the ban would come into force on Saturday, after an escalation of violence during protests on 1 October. Ms Lam said the decision was taken because the situation could not be allowed "to get worse and worse". Protesters, who have promised to defy the new law, immediately took to the streets in response. Mask-wearing activists had also earlier called on others to wear masks in defiance of the government, which critics fear is becoming increasingly authoritarian. Read more here

Why China is the worst country Trump could ask for a favor

"We do not want to get in the middle of the US politics." That was the reaction of a Chinese diplomat to the revelation that United States President Donald Trump had urged Beijing to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter for their business dealings in China. But the diplomat wasn't simply expressing a desire to avoid what is turning into an increasingly messy scandal that could dominate the run-up to the 2020 election -- but a foundational tenet of Chinese foreign policy. Since the 1950s, China has operated on the principle of non-interference in other country's internal affairs. Indeed, many of Beijing's grievances with other countries arise from the perception that they are doing just that, stirring up dissent and encouraging protests or separatism. Read more here

4th October 2019

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