NEWS
Carib produces, distributes hand sanitiser
Thousands of front-line public sector workers, from army to social workers, have begun to benefit from an ongoing mass donation of hand sanitiser, fully produced and bottled by Carib Brewery. On Tuesday, the brewery and its parent, Ansa McAl, welcomed representatives from the Ministry of Rural Development and Local Government, and the Ministry of Social Development and Family Services, which had trucks being loaded for immediate distribution from its plant in Champs Fleurs. Read more here
UWI St Augustine to host Virtual Student Town Hall today
Pro Vice-Chancellor and Campus Principal Professor Brian Copeland will host a Virtual Town Hall with students of the St. Augustine Campus of The University of the West Indies (The UWI), this afternoon, beginning at 2 p.m. Professor Copeland will be joined by members of the Campus Executive Management as well as other Campus leaders. Read more here
POLITICS
Opposition Leader: Minimise economic fallout
The Opposition Leader is calling on government to immediately implement plans to restart businesses and the wider economy to minimise the upcoming economic fallout. She wants government to look at the UNC’s economic transformation plan, which was rolled out since the last budget. In a release, Kamla Persad-Bissessar said expenditure for the 2020 budget was based on an oil price of US$60 per barrel and a gas price of US$3 per MMBtu, but both commodity prices have been lower than projected in 2020. Read more here
63 tested in new COVID surveillance plan negative
Even as calls increase for more local testing to be done to get a better idea of the state of the COVID-19’s spread across the country, Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh says some 63 surveillance tests done for the virus have returned negative. Two weeks ago, Deyalsingh had announced that one health centre in each county would be selected and anyone showing symptoms (coughing, sneezing, fever) would be tested in a plan to ramp up testing. Speaking at yesterday’s virtual media briefing, Deyalsingh said, “What is really a significant development are the 63 surveillance tests that we have done since last week Tuesday to now, all negative.” Read more here
BUSINESS
Where do we go from here?
What is the next step for TT once the covid19 pandemic is brought under control? Specifically, how does TT seek to re-engage sections of the economy that have been locked down to curb the spread of the virus, get the country's economic engines restarted but avoid the risk of a second surge? The situation has not been helped by continuing volatility in the world oil markets. First came an oil price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia. Then, economic turmoil caused by covid19 contributed to a historic collapse in US crude oil prices, with West Texas Intermediate (WTI) entering negative territory on Monday. Read more here
World Bank: Remittance to region to fall by almost 20%
The World Bank has projected that money sent as payments and gifts back to Latin America and Caribbean is going to significantly decrease in 2020. In a release the institution expressed that remittance flows are expected to fall across all World Bank Group regions. It noted that remittances to Latin America and the Caribbean are forecasted to fall by 19.3 per cent. According to the Bank, remittances flows into Latin America and the Caribbean grew 7.4 per cent to US $96 billion in 2019. However, it explained that growth in inflows was uneven across countries in the region. In estimating the costs of remittance, the bank highlighted that the average cost of sending US $200 to the region was 5.97 per cent (or US$11.94) in the first quarter of 2020. Read more here
VAT refunds start flowing
Finance Minister Colm Imbert says 3,829 VAT refunds in cash totalling $260 million for the month of March, have been paid to businesses who were owed $250,000 or less per VAT period. Read more here
REGIONAL
‘Local death rate above WHO’s average’
Another Guyanese has won the battle against the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) disease, but while this breeds some level of hope in society, Minister of Public Health, Volda Lawrence has reminded persons that the local death rate is above the World Health Organisation (WHO)’s average. Guyana had confirmed its first imported case of COVID-19 in Georgetown, on Wednesday, March 11, 2020. That patient, a 52-year-old Guyanese woman who had travelled from the United States of America to Guyana on March 5, 2020, was presented to the public health system on March 10. She died at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation on March 11. Since then, three of the woman’s relatives and 67 others had tested positive for the disease. Read more here
CRUSHED - Vendor killed in bus crash dreamt of building her own home one day
As 44-year-old vendor Eletia Brown hurriedly pushed her cart filled with sweets and other goods on to the B&D Trawling compound on Port Royal Street in Kingston for storage yesterday afternoon, she had one aim: beating the 6 p.m. curfew. But she never made it home. Brown was struck and crushed by a Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) bus shortly before 5 p.m. The bus reportedly switched lanes before hitting Brown, who sells in the vicinity of the Digicel headquarters. Her body was reportedly dragged for metres before the unit stopped. The mother of four, who had been bouncing about as investors bought up property in downtown Kingston, had long dreamt of building a home for her and her children, said son, 25-year-old Carl Robinson. Read more here
INTERNATIONAL
Merkel warns coronavirus crisis 'still just the beginning'
German Chancellor Angela Merkel says her country must remain "clever and cautious" in handling the coronavirus crisis, as "it's not the end phase but still just the beginning". "We will be with it for a long time," she warned parliament, ahead of an EU video summit on the crisis. She stressed the need for European cohesion in fighting the virus. And she said Germany should be ready to "make very different, meaning much higher contributions to the EU budget". The extra funding should be provided "in a spirit of solidarity" and for a limited time, she said. Read more here
Wuhan is on a slow path back to normality after 76-day coronavirus lockdown
The first city in the world to go into lockdown due to the coronavirus is slowly returning to something that might be described as normal, after months of fear and anxiety. But the scars of the viral outbreak which for 76 days shut down the Chinese city of Wuhan, and much of the surrounding Hubei province, lie just beneath the surface, with many citizens worried about a second outbreak and businesses still struggling to get back on their feet. The first known cases of the virus were detected in Wuhan in mid-December. In the weeks that followed, case numbers spiked and from January 23 until April 8, residents were unable to leave the city as the Chinese government attempted to contain the outbreak. Read more here
23rd April 2020