NEWS

Griffith to parliamentarians: We want no bail for gun possession

Police Commissioner Gary Griffith is again making a public appeal for parliamentarians to bring back repealed legislation to deny bail to those charged with gun possession. In a media release on Wednesday, Griffith said the Bail Amendment Act of 2014, which was in effect for two years, worked in keeping gun-accused people at bay. Section nine of the act denied bail to anyone charged with gun possession for up to 120 days unless otherwise mandated by a High Court judge. Griffith stated that in Barbados, anyone held with any illegal gun is denied bail for up to 24 months. He called on politicians to revisit the Bail Act and address the issue of granting bail to gun offenders. In September last year, then acting national security minister Fitzgerald Hinds said the proposed amendments to the act will include denial of bail for 120 days for first-time accused charged with having automatic weapons, hand grenades, missiles and weapons for spraying noxious substances. Repeat offenders will face tougher penalties. This was supported by Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi's repeated claims that the amendments will be brought to Parliament with the hopes that the Opposition will support the changes. Read more here

Crime #1 topic at prisoners’ kaiso kaiso at Woodford Square

Crime—mur­ders, mur­ders, rob­beries and rape—was the "Kaiso, kaiso" top­ic on Wednes­day de­liv­ered by in­mates of pris­ons through­out T&T. The pris­on­ers were par­tic­i­pat­ing in the In­mates Car­ni­val Show­case, at Wood­ford Square, Port of Spain. Feer­az Ali of Car­rera Con­vict Prison, with his ren­di­tion "Re­form T&T Youths", begged youths to hear his call and stay away from crime. He warned them that they ei­ther will spend a life be­hind prison walls, or in a cof­fin. Read more here

POLITICS

Ramnarine: Gas agreement with Barbados a win-win situation

Former Energy Minister Kevin Ramnarine said this country should have production from its unitisation agreement with Barbados in ten years. He was speaking to Newsday in a telephone interview and responding to the energy deal signed on Monday by the Prime Minister and Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley. "I think it’s a natural step. Something we have to do because we share a maritime border with Barbados." He recalled during his tenure as energy minister, TT signed production-sharing contracts in that area close to the border north-east of Tobago in an area called the Tobago trough. He said BHP Billiton has done exploration in that area and they have confirmed they have found a significant amount of natural gas. He added that BHP has also been awarded licenses on the Barbadian side of the border and will also be exploring in Barbados waters north-east of Tobago. Read more here

PM told to reconsider decision on CJ

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has been or­dered to re­con­sid­er his de­ci­sion to re­ject the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T’s (LATT) call to im­peach Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie. High Court Judge Vasheist Kokaram made the or­der as he par­tial­ly up­held the LATT’s le­gal chal­lenge against Row­ley’s de­ci­sion at the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day morn­ing.  Kokaram ruled that Row­ley made an er­ror by con­clud­ing that the as­so­ci­a­tion’s in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to mis­con­duct al­le­ga­tions lev­elled against Archie was in­flu­enced by the Op­po­si­tion. In mak­ing the de­ci­sion, Kokaram did not on­ly con­sid­er the of­fi­cial rea­sons giv­en by Row­ley, when he an­nounced his de­ci­sion dur­ing a post-Cab­i­net press brief­ing in Ju­ly, last year but al­so state­ments made on po­lit­i­cal plat­forms, be­fore and af­ter the de­ci­sion, in which the prime min­is­ter ques­tioned the in­de­pen­dence of the or­gan­i­sa­tion. Read more here

BUSINESS

Tourism Trinidad charts new course

Tourism Trinidad’s acting CEO Heidi Alert usually starts her meetings with stakeholders with a pop quiz. “If you had to guess, what would you say is the ratio of tourism arrivals to Trinidad and Tobago?” Sixty-forty to Tobago? “It’s actually 95 per cent to Trinidad and five per cent to Tobago. But don’t worry, you’re not alone. Every single time I do that everyone gets it wrong.” Alert spoke to the Business Day at the Energy Chamber’s 2020 Energy Conference earlier this month at the Hyatt Regency, Port of Spain. Read more here

‘You have no interest in CLICO’

Government has told CL Financial shareholders they have no right or interest in the group’s assets. And, in a letter to the shareholders on Tuesday, the Government said when the Central Bank relinquishes control of CLICO, the shareholders will not benefit because beneficial ownership of their 51 per. Read more here

REGIONAL

No Karate School - JTA Boss Backs Non-Lethal Weapons For Teachers But Cautions Against Promoting Self-Defence Training

Jamaica Teachers’ Association President Owen Speid is lobbying for the arming of teachers with non-lethal weapons like pepper spray to fend off attacks from students and others but is resistant to the promotion of official training in self-defence. Speid believes that offering teachers self-defence training could cause violent clashes to escalate instead of defuse conflicts. He has advocated for more security guards, enhanced surveillance, and stronger security protocols in reducing altercations between faculty, students, and parents. “The minute you train people for self-defence, they may sometimes act out of poor judgement, and they may believe that they can turn defence into attack. That, I think, is a dangerous thing, and they may end up attacking people and making things worse,” Speid told The Gleaner. Read more here

Economy grew by 4.7 % in 2019

Fuelled by the investments in the new oil and gas sector and the performance of traditional industries, the local economy continues to grow and has recorded positive economic growth of 4.7 per cent for 2019, the highest domestic growth since 2014. While there has been positive growth from 2015, economic growth has been cumulative since 2017, moving from 2.1 per cent in that year to 3.8 per cent in 2018 and to 4.7 per cent last year. The growth recorded last year was more than the projected 4.6 per cent. “The 4.7 per cent growth that we had last year was in spite of poor performances of sugar and bauxite…sometimes the negative reports overshadow what is positive,” said Minister of Finance, Winston Jordan, as he shared the ‘positive’ performance with investors and officials during the sod-turning exercise for the Hilton Hotel, aback Ogle, on Wednesday. Guyana has been dependent on the performance of a few commodities over the years, but Jordan said there seems to be a shift in this dependence, since the positive growth was due to successes in the rice, construction and tourism industries. Read more here

INTERNATIONAL

China reclassifies confirmed coronavirus cases, citing better testing capability

Chinese officials cited improved testing capacity of the novel coronavirus as the reason for changing the way that "confirmed cases" are counted in Hubei province. "Confirmed case" definition changes: All official coronavirus cases from today must now be formally diagnosed before they are added to the totals. The National Health Commission earlier explained that confirmed cases in Hubei province would now only include people who had positive lab test results from patient samples that match in nucleic acid and genetic sequencing for the virus. Read more here

Germany shooting: 'Far-right extremist' carried out shisha bars attacks

A suspected far-right extremist carried out the attacks on two shisha bars in western Germany, killing at least nine people, officials say. Federal prosecutors are treating the case in the city of Hanau as terrorism, with authorities saying indications point to an anti-foreigner motive. Some of those killed were believed to be of Turkish origin. The 43-year-old suspect killed himself, police say. He was found dead at his home along with the body of his mother. The Bild tabloid reports the suspect was a German citizen with a firearms licence, and that ammunition and gun magazines were found in his car. Authorities are examining a video that the suspect may have posted online days before the attacks in which he expresses right-wing conspiracy theories. Bild said he had also left a letter of confession. Read more here

20th February 2020

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