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Mottley, Symmonds to meet with Macron
Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley and Senior Minister Kerrie Symmonds are heading to the City of Lights.
The two will be heading to Paris, the capital of France, in the coming days to meet with that country’s President, Emmanuel Macron.
Affairs and Foreign
Trade Ministry in the Estimates on
“By no stretch of the
A 24-year-old man guarding them at the cabin was arrested at the scene. Before they were found, the four had been moved to a succession of locations in the area, including a local clinic in a bid to throw law enforcement off the trail, Villarreal said.
“We’re very sorry to have this happen in our country and we send our condolences to the families of the victims, their friends, to the people of the United States,” President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told an earlier news conference. (Excerpt from Reuters)
Pandays walk as DPP discontinues Piarco 3 corruption case
After spending almost two decades before the courts, former Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Basdeo Panday, his wife Oma, former Cabinet Minister Carlos John and businessman Ishwar Galbaransingh have been freed of corruption charges related to the construction of the Piarco International Airport.
Appearing before Magistrate Adia Mohammed in the Portof-Spain Magistrates’ Cou rt , Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Roger Gaspard, SC, announced his decision to use his constitutional discretion to discontinue the charges against the group.
Gaspard explained that his decision was based on the low probability of his office securing convictions in the case.
He explained that several key witnesses had died since the group was charged in 2006 and one main witness is now elderly and lives abroad. He also noted that the accused had a “fair argument” that they faced “presumed, presumptive and specific” prejudice in the case.
The case against the group was one of four related to the airport project initiated following an investigation by Canadian forensic expert Robert Lindquist.
In the first case, commonly referred to as Piarco 1, a group of Government officials and businesspeople was charged with offences related to the alleged theft of TT$19 million.
The group included Galbaransingh; former Finance Minister Brian Kuei Tung; former National Security Minister Russell Huggins; former Nipdec Chairman Edward Bayley (now deceased); Maritime General executives John Smith (now deceased), Steve Ferguson, and Barbara Gomes; Northern Construction Financial Director Amrith Maharaj; and Kuei Tung’s then-companion Renee Pierre.
(Excerpt from Trinidad Guardian)
Mottley and Symmonds will meet with the French leader to further discuss what part the G7 country can play in formulating the Bridgetown Initiative, which was recently adopted by the Caricom Heads of Government when they met in The Bahamas last month.
“President Macron has urged that he be allowed to form part of a cooperative agreement with Barbados so that there can be a sum-
Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley and Foreign Affairs Minister Kerrie Symmonds the Bridgetown Initiative,” Symmonds revealed to Members of Parliament (MPs) in the Lower House. He was giving an overview of the work of the Foreign could we have envisaged that this type of relationship would have been fostered for this country 10 years ago,” the Minister added. (Nation News)
Antigua & Barbuda author Joanne Hillhouse to be awarded Anthony N Sabga Award
Award-winning Antigua and Barbuda author Joanne Hillhouse is this year’s recipient of the Anthony N Sabga Award, Caribbean Excellence for Arts & Letters.
As announced on Tuesday in Port of Spain by Awards’ Programme Director Maria Neilson, Hillhouse and two other 2023 Laureates (women’s health doctor Dr Adesh Sirjusingh of T&T and agri-researcher Dr Mahendra Persaud of Guyana) will each receive TT$500,000 in recognition and support of their work at a gala ceremony in Trinidad in June.
Hillhouse is the author of seven books, including the adult contemporary novel “Oh Gad!” and a tale of growing up titled “The Boy from Willow Bend”. She was runner-up for the Burt Award for Young Adult
Caribbean Literature in 2014 and has also published three children’s picture books.
She has long promoted the literary arts in Antigua and Barbuda.
University of West Indies (UWI) Professor Emeritus,
Mervyn Morris, has said of her: “Joanne Hillhouse deserves to be better known. I believe that as the word spreads, she will be recognised as an important Caribbean writer doing distinctive work.”
The Anthony N Sabga Awards, Caribbean Excellence have been awarded to Caribbean nationals who excel in the fields of Arts & Letters, Entrepreneurship, Public & Civic Contributions and Science & Technology, since 2006. This year’s three Laureates join a distinguished college of 57 awardees from across the Caribbean. Nominations for the 2024 Awards are now open at ansacaribbeanawards.com. The Awards are administered by the ANSA McAL Foundation – the philanthropic arm of the ANSA McAL Group. (Excerpt from Antigua Observer)
