NEWS
3 weeks before 7 NICU deaths — Bacteria claimed another baby
Three weeks before the mass deaths at the Port of Spain General Hospital neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), announced in early April in which seven babes died, another premature baby died after contracting two bacterial infections in his blood. Jayden Allister Pierre was only 22 days old when he died. His mother, Nandaranie Nathoo of Brazil Village, off Arima, gave birth at 29 weeks gestation at the Sangre Grande Hospital on February 22. On April 16, attorneys led by former attorney general Anand Ramlogan, SC, announced baby Jayden’s death in a pre-action protocol letter. Read more here
Security beefed up at Barrackpore East Secondary
Tension was high at the Barrackpore East Secondary yesterday, as police maintained a vigilant presence at the school following Monday’s disruptive threat, which is still under investigation by the TTPS Cyber Crime Unit. While teachers and auxiliary staff reported for duty at the school, the majority of students stayed away except for those undertaking the Physical Education exam. Along Papourie Road, there was a heightened sense of security as police officers in a marked vehicle patrolled every few minutes. Uniformed officers were also seen inside the school, while security officers shied away from media cameras. An anxious parent recounted her hour-long wait outside the nearby Barrackpore Police Station for clearance to enter the compound. “It’s really scary. I am waiting for him to do his exam and then I will pick him back up. We had to wait by the station until the teacher called and said we could come,” she revealed. Read more here
POLITICS
Kamla: UNC government will tackle health, crime, bureaucracy
United National Congress (UNC) leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar says the government will have to answer for large sums of money spent and the thousands who died during covid19 if and when the UNC takes office. Persad-Bissessar also promised to open the Couva Children’s Hospital within a year of a UNC government assuming office. The government has used the hospital strictly as a covid19 treatment facility and it is not currently in use. “Since 2020, we have been calling for a commission of enquiry into the Rowley government’s mismanagement of the covid19 pandemic,” she said at a UNC public meeting in the Moruga/Tableland constituency on Monday. Read more here
Hinds—Prison guns ‘hanging in tree’ were in high security zone
National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds says the situation where two T&T Prison Service firearms were seen hanging from a tree in a video was a “prison officers-only affair” held in a secluded, limited access, high-security zone. Speaking in the Senate yesterday, Hinds explained the area had undergone a thorough security sweep and the firearms were in the control of the officers to whom they were lawfully issued. The minister gave the information as he responded to questions from Opposition Senator Wade Mark. Mark had noted reports that two firearms belonging to the Prison Service were seen hanging from a tree during a social gathering at Chacachacare. He’d asked about the established protocols and operating standards employed in such circumstances. Hinds replied, “The use of firearms by prison officers is guided by the Firearms Act Chap. 16:01 as amended; and the Trinidad and Tobago Prison Service’s Firearms Policy, as outlined by General Order No 91 of 2016. This policy sets out the Prison Service’s Firearm User’s Protocols which governs, inter alia, procedures for storage of firearms and ammunition, issued to prison officers while at work, at residence, during travel and when carrying in public. Read more here
BUSINESS
Touchstone pleased with Cascadura progress
The Canadian energy company operating in T&T, Touchstone Exploration, in an operational update, said the Cascadura-3ST1 well has been cased and production testing is scheduled to commence in the third quarter of 2024, directly into the Cascadura natural gas facility. In a news release recently, Touchstone Exploration said the Cascadura-3ST1 delineation well was spud on March 4 from its Cascadura C surface location and reached a total depth of 8,252 feet on March 29. The energy company indicated that while drilling the well, a high-pressure gas kick was encountered at a depth of approximately 7,500 feet which resulted in wellbore instability issues, and as a result, a portion of the wellbore was redrilled via a sidetrack. Touchstone said it is currently progressing with the 1.6-kilometer road and flowline project, spanning from its Cascadura C surface location to the Cascadura natural gas facility. Read more here
Rystad Energy: Oil price volatility expected but no major jump in prices
There have been predictions and even expectations that crude oil prices could increase to as much as US $100 a barrel due to tight supply and demand dynamics and the worsening tensions in the Middle East involving Israel, Iran, and Iranian proxies. Higher crude prices significantly benefit Trinidad and Tobago and while oil production is down, the Government gets significant revenue from the production and sale of oil. Read more here
REGIONAL
No shortage of support for Afro-Guyanese
The Government of Guyana continues to contribute heavily to the development of the Afro-Guyanese communities and the preservation of culture. This view was expressed by Minister of Tourism, Industry and Commerce, Oneidge Walrond, who is leading a Guyana delegation at the Third Session of the Permanent Forum on People of African Descent in Geneva, Switzerland. In an invited comment on the sidelines of the forum, Minister Walrond said that of the $100 million allocated to The International Decade for People of African Descent Assembly-Guyana (IDPADA-G) groups in 2023, almost $70 million was disbursed to groups across the country. Read more here
INTERNATIONAL
Russia's meat grinder soldiers - 50,000 confirmed dead
Russia's military death toll in Ukraine has now passed the 50,000 mark, the BBC can confirm. In the second 12 months on the front line - as Moscow pushed its so-called meat grinder strategy - we found the body count was nearly 25% higher than in the first year. BBC Russian, independent media group Mediazona and volunteers have been counting deaths since February 2022. New graves in cemeteries helped provide the names of many soldiers. Our teams also combed through open-source information from official reports, newspapers and social media. Read more here
17th April 2024