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.
Trinidad and Tobago
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.
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - Tuesday's resounding electoral victory has given Dr Keith Mitchell an emphatic mandate from the people of Grenada to assume the authority and responsibility for leading their country out of its current dire straits. The 15-0 clean sweep by Dr Mitchell's New National Party puts him in the ranks of Caribbean prime ministers who have received multiple mandates to govern. Tomorrow, Grenadians will enjoy a national holiday to celebrate the NNP's victory.
“…the flyingfish has been recognised as the single most important
small pelagic species in the southern Lesser Antilles.”
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - The announcement of President Hugo Chavez's return to Venezuela after a 10-week silence in Cuba is raising questions about his cancer treatments, his delicate health, and the political purposes that motivated his homecoming. Three messages appeared on Chavez's Twitter account early Monday saying he was back, and the government announced that he had arrived at 2.30 a.m. and was taken to Caracas' military hospital to continue with his treatments.
(Trinidad Guardian) - Local farmers may soon be getting more opportunities to export produce to the region, Food Production Minister Devant Maharaj said yesterday when he oversaw the export of 1000 kilos of paw paw to Barbados. Maharaj and a team from the National Agricultural Marketing and Development Corporation (Namdevco) arrived at the Servis terminal at Piarco shortly before 6 am for the loading of paw paw grown by Wallerfield farmer Nita Hinds. Maharaj said he was glad to see T&T’s farmers enter the Barbadian market after almost a decade.