NEWS

NCC: Regions must account for Carnival $

Despite a cut in allocation of funding for regional Carnivals throughout the country, their development remained very important says Darian Marcelle of the National Carnival Commission (NCC). Marcelle said, over the years, there had been complaints from people living in rural TT that they were alienated from the festival since the majority of Carnival events were mainly concentrated in Port of Spain. Read more here

Most public schools don’t meet children’s needs

Children in TT have diverse needs for education, but through no fault of their own, most schools cannot facilitate some of them. In an interview at the British Academy’s Open House on Alexandra Street, St Clair yesterday, vice principal Aneefa Ali said a lot of parents are not happy with the numbers in the local system, the stresses of SEA and the performance level of most schools. Read more here

Jury-less trials alone cannot clear backlog—CJ

The in­tro­duc­tion of ju­ry-less tri­als will not, on its own, make a dent on chron­ic back­logs with­in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. This was the con­sen­sus reached by sev­er­al le­gal and ju­di­cial lu­mi­nar­ies fol­low­ing a pan­el dis­cus­sion on the is­sue host­ed by the Ju­di­cia­ry’s Ju­di­cial Ed­u­ca­tion In­sti­tute of T&T at the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain, on Tues­day. Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie, a long-time pro­po­nent of the ini­tia­tive, was the first to ad­mit that it could not be ex­pect­ed to make an im­me­di­ate tan­gi­ble im­pact on back­logged cas­es. Read more here

POLITICS

UNC motion calls for alliance with other parties

Ch­agua­nas West MP Gan­ga Singh will move a mo­tion at the UNC's Na­tion­al As­sem­bly on Sun­day, call­ing on the po­lit­i­cal leader to en­gage with oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties and units, with an aim to­wards form­ing a coali­tion to con­test the 2019 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tion and the 2020 Gen­er­al Elec­tion. Singh has sub­mit­ted the mo­tion called "Cre­at­ing a Uni­fied Po­lit­i­cal Plat­form" to the Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive for de­bate. It has been sec­ond­ed by San Juan/Barataria MP Dr Fuad Khan. Read more here

BUSINESS

‘Sando becoming more of a shanty town’

San Fernando seems to be becoming more and more a shanty town. So bemoaned Minister in the Ministry of Finance, Allyson West as she contributed to the debate on a motion on Petrotrin filed by UNC Senator Gerald Ramdeen in the Senate yesterday. Read more here

REGIONAL

Pressure Crisis - High Levels Of Hypertension Trigger Alarm Bells

Heart Foundation of Jamaica (HFJ) analysis showing that more than three-quarters of clients have abnormal blood pressure and that nearly 70 per cent are overweight has prompted the organisation to ramp up its sensitisation programmes in the lead-up to the commemoration of Heart Month in February. Speaking at the launch of Heart Month at Spanish Court Hotel in New Kingston yesterday, Deborah Chen, executive director of the HFJ, said that while the surveys from walk-ins at the organisation’s offices last year were not scientific, there was enough anecdotal evidence that Jamaica was on the cusp of a crisis. “For blood pressure, only 23 per cent of persons who came to us had normal blood pressure at that time. We sent them to their doctors for the final diagnosis, but in terms of the numbers we got, only that number was normal,” she said. Read more here

INTERNATIONAL

Delaying Brexit worse than no deal, says Liam Fox

Delaying or cancelling Brexit would be a "calamitous" breach of trust with the electorate and worse than leaving the EU with no deal, Liam Fox has said. The Brexiteer minister told BBC's Radio 4's Today programme MPs pushing for a delay actually wanted to stop Brexit. He said this was the "worst outcome" of the current wrangles. MPs are proposing alternative plans to the PM's deal with the EU, including seeking an extension to the UK's exit date - which is scheduled for 29 March. But the prime minister has said the "right way" to rule out no-deal Brexit is to approve her withdrawal agreement. Read more here

With votes scheduled, Washington gropes for way out of shutdown

It may look like a typical Washington farce, but a pair of Senate show votes this week might just be the first, tentative step on a long road out of the longest government shutdown in history. The White House, the Democratic House and the Republican Senate are about to stage a theatrical effort to make it look like they are doing everything possible to restore the paychecks of 800,000 federal workers. Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's plan enshrines President Donald Trump's offer to swap temporary protection for some undocumented immigrants for $5.7 billion in funding for his totemic border wall. Read more here

23rd January 2019

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