NEWS

High Commissioner hosts Jamaican designers

The colours of the Jamaican flag lit up the sky as an Open House was held at that country's high commission, St Clair, on Monday evening. Amongst the sounds of soca music and the smell of jerk chicken, a number of Jamaican artisans gathered to showcase their various designs for guests. Jamaican High Commissioner Arthur Williams said the event came on the heels of and was inspired by the Carifesta XIV experience. He said, "The exhibitors we have tonight were here for Carifesta, and when we realised that they would be here an extra day, we decided to put this event together." Read more here

POLITICS

PM denies instructions to fire East Indians at SSA

The Prime Minister condemned former Strategic Services Agency (SSA) officer Carlton Dennie for alleging that he instructed him to fire East Indians from the SSA. Dennie made these allegations at a United National Congress (UNC) public meeting in Debe on Monday night. Dr Rowley also condemned UNC political leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar for being "prepared to sacrifice the country" to get back into power by promoting "racial strife and racial discord in TT." At a news conference at the Diplomatic Centre, Rowley said Dennie's allegations could not go unanswered because they could "tear the social fabric of this country." He said the allegation caused him to take the unprecedented step to make public, the contents of secret national security documents to demonstrate, "There is evidence to prove that person is dangerous, that statement is a lie and the person who put him on a platform is also dangerous to the people of TT." Read more here

BUSINESS

Atlantic LNG CEO predicts: Increased LNG demand coming

In the next two decades, the world will de­mand more LNG. This is ac­cord­ing to At­lantic LNG’s (At­lantic) CEO’s Dr Philip Mshel­bi­la. In At­lantic’s 2018 sus­tain­able re­port, Mshel­bi­la said: “The world in 20 years will like­ly be char­ac­terised by in­creased de­mand for more ef­fi­cient and clean­er en­er­gy.” He con­tin­ued: “The chal­lenges of re­new­ables with re­spect to in­ter­mit­ten­cy, stor­age and high-in­ten­si­ty heat gen­er­a­tion mean that nat­ur­al gas (and LNG in par­tic­u­lar), as an abun­dant form of the clean­est fos­sil fu­el, will be a crit­i­cal com­po­nent of the fu­ture en­er­gy mix as a com­ple­ment to re­new­ables.” Cur­rent­ly, Mshel­bi­la de­scribed the LNG busi­ness as be­com­ing “more dy­nam­ic than ever over the last five years.” He added that glob­al de­mand for LNG con­tin­ues to grow, as does glob­al sup­ply, but this comes with price fluc­tu­a­tions. Read more here

REGIONAL

Welsh Pulled Over - JCF Puts New Man In Driver’s Seat At Traffic Division

The Police High Command has slammed the brakes on Assistant Commissioner of Police Bishop Dr Gary Welsh’s tenure as head of the traffic police after two months following a series of comments and actions which have drawn public criticisms about his handling of the portfolio. Last night, the Jamaica Constabulary Force indicated in a release that Welsh was being immediately replaced as commander of the Public Safety and Traffic Enforcement Branch by ACP Dr Kevin Blake. Blake, who was reportedly instrumental in designing the branch, has served at different periods as head of the police’s Area Three and Four regions, as well as at the Planning, Research and Development Branch. Read more here

INTERNATIONAL

Amazon fires: Brazil governors push Bolsonaro to accept aid

The governors of the nine Brazilian states most affected by a record number of fires have urged President Jair Bolsonaro to accept foreign aid to fight the blazes. Mr Bolsonaro had earlier refused a G7 offer of $22m (£18m) following a spat with French President Emmanuel Macron. But following a meeting between the governors and Mr Bolsonaro, the government shifted its position on aid. It said it would accept it as long as it had control of what to spend it on. A record number of fires are burning in Brazil, most of them in the Amazon region. The Amazon is a vital carbon store that slows down the pace of global warming. Read more here

The ultra-rich are illegally buying cheetahs as pets and it's leading to their extinction

Three tiny balls of fur huddle together for warmth inside a cardboard box. The baby cheetahs are just a few weeks old, but they've had a traumatic start to life. A smuggler was attempting to spirit the cubs out of Somaliland, a breakaway state from Somalia, when he was caught red-handed by the authorities. The cubs, who will soon be taken to a safehouse, are the lucky ones. Some 300 young cheetahs are trafficked out of Somaliland every year -- around the same number as the entire population of adult and adolescent cheetahs in unprotected areas in the Horn of Africa, according to the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF). The trend is of "epidemic proportions," according to CCF, an organization devoted to saving cheetahs in the wild. At the current rates of trafficking, the cheetah population in the region could soon be wiped out. Read more here

28th August 2019

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