Trinidad and Tobago : News

News : Trinidad and Tobago : News

Foreign Minister Stephen Smith will sound out his Commonwealth counterparts on ways to help stem the flow of refugees from Sri Lanka.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is hoping to boost momentum for December's climate change conference in Copenhagen when he meets with political leaders at the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Trinidad and Tobago next Friday, his spokesperson said today.

Carrie who? Two former Miss Universe contestants are stealing the sex tape scandal spotlight, after a home video hit the web featuring Miss Japan 2008 and Miss Trinidad and Tobago 2008 engaged -- fully engaged -- in a hardcore three-way with some dude, reportedly a professional photographer.

POLICE officers throughout the country are currently training in the use of the new breathalyser devices and will be out on the nation’s roads with them ’soon’, said Assist ant Commissioner of Police (Mobile) Wayne Richards. (TrinidadExpress)

THE first 50,000 doses of influenza A/H1N1 vaccine have arrived and, according to Minister of Health, Jerry Narace, decision-makers will be among the first people to get inoculated. (TrinidadExpress)

A 13-year-old schoolboy was stabbed to death mere metres from his home yesterday afternoon. (TrinidadExpress)

Police stations in the country are being outfitted with a ’suite’ that will allow for the video recording of witness testimony, now that the necessary legislation-the Evidence Amendment Bill-has been passed. (TrinidadExpress)

The Evidence Amendment Bill, which was passed yesterday by Government’s majority vote in Parliament, has flaws which can even facilitate policemen framing innocent people, says Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday. (TrinidadExpress)

The ’People’s Space’ has been developed at a cost of approximately $4 million, Culture Minister Marlene McDonald said yesterday, and will be officially opened to the public at 5 p.m. today at the Queen’s Park Savannah in Port of Spain. (TrinidadExpress)

Labour Minister Rennie Dumas says the call from the People’s Democracy for citizens to stay away from work on Monday and Tuesday will fall on deaf ears. (TrinidadExpress)

ENERGY MINISTER Conrad Enill has sent several Alutrint reports to environmentalist Dr Wayne Kublalsingh, but the activist says they are all irrelevant. (TrinidadExpress)

Criminal defence attorney Victor Hosein was found dead in his car in a mall parking lot yesterday. (TrinidadExpress)

WAZIM MOHAMMED has been in martial arts for the past 12 years. Two days ago, he said faced his ultimate test and used his black belt skill to fight off three thieves during a robbery attempt. The men begged for mercy and fled after the beating, he said. (TrinidadExpress)

There has been a sharp deceleration in the rate of inflation in the country. (TrinidadExpress)

Former People’s National Movement politician Larry Achong yesterday took the stand to defend himself in a three-year-old case, in which he was accused of cursing a Hindu pundit during an anti-smelter meeting. (TrinidadExpress)

OPPOSITION Senator Wade Mark says the public has been ’severely shortchanged’ due to the lack of human resources provided for the Police Complaints Authority and the non-appointment of a director and deputy director because of a ’gross dereliction of duty’ by the Government. (TrinidadExpress)

TEENAGE mothers, young men who have done ’jail time’ , disabled young people and any other people between the ages of 18 and 29 who are marginalised, and find it hard to get a loan from a ’normal’ bank, will now have access to loans to start their own businesses. (TrinidadExpress)

Beauty queen Anya Ayoung-Chee is to speak after the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) on the much talked about sex scandal involving herself, her boyfriend Wyatt Gallery and a close friend. (TrinidadExpress)

US President Barack Obama has found a potential Ambassador for this country almost one year after the departure of Dr Roy Austin-whose tenure has been criticised in a US State Department report. (TrinidadExpress)

A SUSPECT in the stabbing death of teenager Amin Best at Trincity Mall, earlier this month, was arrested by officers attached to the Arouca Police Station on Thursday. (TrinidadExpress)

A BRANCH of Agostini Interiors Ltd was robbed by a lone gunman yesterday afternoon. (TrinidadExpress)

RIOT officers were yesterday called to the San Fernando Magistrates’ Court to quell a fight among prisoners in the cell block section. (TrinidadExpress)

THE man whose alibi defence was described as ’bogus’ by a High Court Judge, after he was found guilty of having 20 kilogrammes of marijuana, was yesterday sent to jail for five years with hard labour. (TrinidadExpress)

MUCH of the debate on climate change centres on two factors, namely halting it and adjusting to it, with concerns being expressed particularly for the Third World countries that will probably be most affected. Whether or not one accepts or denies the reality of the threat, it is always prudent to at least make some plans to deal with any negative effects that may arise. (TrinidadExpress)

CALL IT IN A GLIMPSE into the thinking of the Obama White House that can have a profound effect on the lives of thousands of West Indians. (TrinidadExpress)

It was in Barbados that I first encountered the use of ’unfair’ as a verb. Our office was next to the Wanderers ground and I often wandered across to watch cricket. One day, this player who believed that he was given what in Trinidad would be called a ’bad’ out, was extremely upset when he came off the field and said, ’The umpire unfaired me.’ He did not say cheated or even ’thiefed’ but ’unfaired’. Interestingly, I never heard the word ’fair’ used a verb. Had the cricketer survived the vociferous appeal, would he have said smugly or gloated victoriously, ’The umpire faired me.’ All might not be fair in love and cricket, especially if Shane Warne is pressuring the Umpires with his constant appealing, but can one say, ’It is better to be unfaired than never to have been faired at all?’ (TrinidadExpress)

Edward Seaga was prime minister of Jamaica during the 1983 invasion of Grenada by forces of the United States of America. Jamaica sent a peacekeeping contingent. Seaga presents a graphic picture of the events leading up to, during and after the invasion in his book, The Grenada Intervention, the Inside Story. Seaga captures the controversial period during which Prime Minister Eric Gairy, his Grenada United Party and his violent mongoose gang ruled the country; the politics of Maurice Bishop, radical leftist leader of the New Jewel Movement, the ousting of Gairy and the acceptance of the ’revolutionary result’ by Jamaica’s prime minister Michael Manley and his quick recognition of the new government. (TrinidadExpress)

The Government is doing itself no favours by dragging its feet on the upcoming appointment of a Police Commissioner. Less than 30 days remain until James Philbert’s extended acting appointment as Commissioner comes to an end, yet it was only last week that Cabinet approved the $4.6 million to fund the selection search, which is being conducted by the Penn State University’s Justice and Safety Institute. Why this tardiness from an administration which seems to act with alacrity when it needs money for far less important expenditures, such as a $2 million flag or a $10 million stage for the Prime Minister’s residence? (TrinidadExpress)

SOME three months ago residents in one section of Arima woke up to the fact that a private contracting firm was handling the garbage collection and disposal service provided for decades by the borough itself. They didn’t like it, not that anything was wrong with the private service. They had just gotten used to the workers and the trucks with the blue and gold of the borough. (TrinidadExpress)

I could have sworn I didn’t know the taut-bodied man from Adam. I was waiting at the entrance to the Oval, Saturday last, on my ticket to ’Pan, Pork and Parang’’ (I am not sure I have the ’P’’ procession right but, to my ear, such was the music of the line and, to besides, this way had ’parang’’ last which is as I would have it-indeed, I had contrived to reach the concert when they were done with that bit, my ears mercifully spared from a seta si, si si stupidness. (TrinidadExpress)

Part 3 (TrinidadExpress)