NEWS

Pensioner on life-support after robbery

An Arima pensioner is on life-support after he was beaten during a robbery at his Blanchisseuse Road, Wilson Extension, home on Friday night. Police said at about 6.30 pm, Roland Wilson, 63, was called to the door by someone he knew. When he opened the door, two other men forced their way inside with a gun and cutlass. The men demanded money from Wilson and was beaten with the cutlass when he told them he didn’t have any. Read more here

50 farmers, homeowners to make way for CR highway extension

Con­struc­tion of the pro­posed mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way ex­ten­sion to San­gre Grande by the Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (NID­CO) is not sit­ting well with some Waller­field farm­ers who will have to find land to con­tin­ue their liveli­hood when they are giv­en no­tices to leave. More than 50 farm­ers and home­own­ers will have to be re­moved to make way for the high­way. The farm­ers, who said the Gov­ern­ment was giv­ing them a raw deal as they are now forced to hunt for al­ter­na­tive ac­com­mo­da­tion, be­lieve it is a to­tal dis­re­spect to their pro­fes­sion. At a meet­ing with res­i­dents and farm­ers late last year, a pam­phlet bear­ing a map and de­tails of the new route was cir­cu­lat­ed by NID­CO. The project in­volves sev­er­al pack­ages which will be done in phas­es—work starts this month and is ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed by 2025. Read more here

POLITICS

Young urges attorneys to respect the law

Attorneys have been reminded by National Security Minister Stuart Young of the legal channels through which they can speak to incarcerated clients. "If a prisoner wants to communicate with his family, friends or lawyers, we have sufficient landlines in there (prisons) to do that. "We have spaces built which the Minister of National Security will call a designated area where you (lawyers) come in and meet clients," said Young. Young was responding to critics of the Interception of Communication (Amendment) Bill 2020 and its potential effect on attorney-client privilege. Read more here

BUSINESS

Trini chosen to head regional hotel body

The Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association (CHTA) says Trinidadian Brian Frontin waselected president of the Caribbean Society of Hotel Association Executives (CSHAE) during a meeting here on Saturday. Read more here

REGIONAL

6,000 persons to access better healthcare

In keeping with the government’s vision of ensuring that everyone, everywhere benefits from primary healthcare, the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) has commissioned a $30 million health centre at Eccles, which is expected to benefit some 6,000 people. Persons within the catchment area of the Eccles-Ramsburg Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC), on the East Bank of Demerara (EBD), will no longer have to travel miles to access primary healthcare services, since the newly commissioned facility is well equipped and staffed. This was according to Minister of Public Health Volda Lawrence during her remarks at a ceremony to commission the health centre, on Wednesday. “The presence of this facility means that they don’t have to leave the catchment area to access healthcare elsewhere…gone are the days when you had to find transportation to access primary healthcare,” said Minister Lawrence, adding that this is the first health centre to be established in Eccles. Read more here

Tragic Trip! - Schoolboy Fractures Arm After Tricked By Friend; Ministry Urges Crackdown On Dangerous Prank

The distraught mother of Rasheed Bullock, the 14-year-old Meadowbrook High student who became a victim of the ‘tripping jump challenge’ that has gone viral globally, said it was his close friend who lured him to his fall. The prank – which sees three persons line up side by side, with the middle participant goaded into jumping into the air, unaware of being tripped on the way down – has raised alarm locally and triggered the Ministry of Education to issue a warning to school administrators to crack down on the growing practice. Kerrisa Dockery told The Gleaner that her ninth-grade son was in his classroom when his friend offered him $100 to engage in the jump challenge. Read more here

INTERNATIONAL

Did Xi Jinping know about the coronavirus outbreak earlier than first suggested?

As the deadly novel coronavirus spread throughout China and the world last month, it was clear that something had gone wrong. Officials in Hubei, the province at the center of the outbreak, were blamed for downplaying -- and potentially even deliberately covering up -- the severity of the virus, ignoring evidence that it spread from person-to-person until it was too late. Against this tale of irresponsibility there was another story being told in China, one of a competent central government which had been denied the full picture by local officials, and once it understood the true ramifications stepped in to take drastic action to stop the virus' spread. Read more here

Coronavirus: Americans from quarantined cruise ship flown from Japan

Two planes carrying hundreds of US citizens from a coronavirus-hit cruise ship have left Japan, officials say. One plane has landed at a US Air Force air base in California, and its passengers will be isolated at military facilities for 14 days. There were some 400 Americans on board the Diamond Princess. The ship with some 3,700 passengers and crew has been in quarantine since 3 February. Meanwhile, China reported a total of 2,048 new cases on Monday. Of those new cases, 1,933 were from Hubei province, the epicentre of the outbreak. More than 70,500 people across China have been infected by the virus. In Hubei alone, the official number of cases stands at 58,182, with 1,692 deaths. Most new cases and deaths have been reported in Wuhan, Hubei's largest city. Read more here

17th February 2020

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