PM Manning comes home today

PRIME MINISTER Patrick Manning returns home at 7 pm today after a hectic schedule of engagements in the Bahamas and the United States. Manning left Trinidad last Tuesday and visited the hurricane-battered Bahamas en route to New York where he addressed the 59th General Assembly of the United Nations. The Prime Minister disclosed that Government would soon “enact legislation enabling us to honour our obligations regarding the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism” and urged the international community to provide more aid to Grenada and other Caribbean territories recently ravaged by natural disasters.

On Saturday, the Prime Minister told TT nationals at the Brooklyn Polytechnic College that TT security forces may become involved in drug interdiction efforts in Grenada and other Caricom territories since joint TT-Venezuela operations were making this nation unattractive to drug traffickers. Manning said TT was undergoing a radical transformation as it sought to become the site of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) Secretariat and encouraged them to return home and participate in this process. Manning addressed the Centre for International and Strategic Studies in Washington DC yesterday about TT’s strategic importance to the future energy security of the US and TT’s pivotal role in the Caribbean’s development. The Prime Minister reminded the centre that TT constituted the bulk of the US LNG imports (approximately 68 percent) and TT was a reliable energy supplier to the US. His invitation to address the centre was the result of previous discussions with former US Secretary of State, Dr Henry Kissinger.