PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - When the Eleventh Evidence Hearing of the Commission of Enquiry into the collapse of CL Financial and the Hindu Credit Union (HCU) begins tomorrow morning at the Winsure Building, Richmond Street, Port-of-Spain, two major players in Clico and the State’s 2009 $20 billion bailout will not be among the witnesses.
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - Last month it was Tobago. Last week it was the whitewash defeat of the Tillman Thomas government in Grenada, then the narrow electoral victory of the government in Barbados. That ferment of the Caribbean people may be enough for observers to sight a trend—one that should be disquieting for other regional governments. Every Caribbean politician might be now alert and agitated, demanding that their backroom strategic teams turn on the lights, because there is something stirring out there.
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - The judgment in a case now proceeding through the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) could prove to be a landmark in the movement of West Indians through each other's countries.
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - New discoveries in alternative sources of energy by developed countries such as the United States and Australia has slashed export demands from developing countries like T&T, which has this commodity in large supply. But Gordon Deane, chairman of energy company Atlantic says, however, that for the global energy business the future appears bright. He said this was the case despite challenges facing the global economy. “Energy continues to be the fuel for industrial and economic development.
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – Former prime minister Patrick Manning was rushed to hospital on Thursday after he collapsed at his constituency office. Manning, 66, who suffered a stroke in January last year, was “partly paralysed” from what his office said had been a “minor stroke”. He was flown to the United States for further medical treatment and has not been in Parliament since January 2012.
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - THE $200 million loss in tourism revenue that Trinidad and Tobago suffers annually due to crime is a "conservative estimate", industry experts said yesterday. "I am absolutely convinced it is costing the country a huge amount of money. I think $200 million is conservative because that is just lost opportunity through fears of crime, but I would imagine it would cost businesses more in crime prevention practices," Tobago Hotel and Restaurant Association president Nicholas Hardwicke told the Express yesterday in a telephone interview.
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - I have read with great alarm and significant disappointment an article published on Wednesday in the Stabroek News of Guyana and carried on the internet with the headline Suriname Will Not Support Ramdin for OAS Post. Apparently, the Suriname Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Lackin has confirmed that his Government will neither nominate nor support the current Assistant Secretary General (ASG) of the Organisation of American States (OAS), Albert Ramdin, who is also Surinamese, for the top post of Secretary General (SG) of the OAS.
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - Practical obstacles in the way of growing more and consuming more local produce have been elaborately acknowledged by Food Production Minister Devant Maharaj. And the ministry's solution: a year-long advertising campaign to persuade citizens to eat local. Such a campaign must necessarily be based on assumptions that ordinary people do not know what they like to eat and are incapable of calculating what their budgets can afford. Yet, even if this PR strategy bears fruit, would local production be able to meet desired demand?
GEORGETOWN, Guyana - Agro-processing and rice production and research are among the options Trinidad and Tobago is pursuing under its mega-farm initiative in Guyana. This is according to Trinidad and Tobago’s minister within the Ministry of Food Production Jairam Seemungal who on Thursday hosted a media briefing with Agriculture Minister Dr. Leslie Ramsammy in Georgetown. Seemungal is here for a follow up meeting on discussions aimed at establishing an arrangement that would see Trinidadian businesses investing in farming in Guyana with the government as facilitator.
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - Dr Patrick Antoine, the chief economic advisor to the new Grenada Government, yesterday declared the island was open again after Tuesday’s general election at which the New National Party, led by Prime Minister Keith Mitchell, won all 15 of the constituencies. Speaking on his way to yesterday’s swearing-in ceremony, Antoine said the main challenge facing the new administration would be to raise revenue in the context of the declining economy.