According to the UWI Seismic Research Centre (SRC) the quake occurred around 5.51am at latitude 11.06N and longitude 1.79W, at a depth of 10 kilometres.
It struck 54 kilometres North West of Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, 73 kilometres North West of Arima, Trinidad and Tobago, 97 kilometres North West of San Fernando, Trinidad and Tobago. The UWI SRC says the event was automatically located by a seismological computational system, therefore, is only preliminary result..
Both teams clash from 5 pm at the Ato Boldon Stadium today.
Following Haiti’s 4-2 defeat of Suriname on Friday, TT have it all to do as only a victory by two goals will push them ahead of both Haiti and Suriname on a better goal difference.
Saintfiet knows it will be a tall task but remained optimistic.
“At the moment we know that a 2-0 or a 3-1 result will get us through.
It will be a difficult task against a good Haitian team but not an impossible one for us. They are ranked 59th in the world which is higher than us. We need everyone to support the team tomorrow (today). We need the fans there in big numbers and pushing the team on,” Saintfiet told TT Football Association media yesterday.
Saintfiet and his technical staff viewed Friday’s win by Haiti at the Ato Boldon Stadium.
“The two goals from Suriname last night were good for us. Haiti has a good squad and with some young players also.
Their playmaker Sebastien Thuriere, the number 15, played in Bangladesh and he is a very good player. But we don’t want to think too much about the opposition and what they can do but we have to be more concerned with our game and what we must do to finish on top of the group,” Saintfiet said.
Saintfiet conducted a final training session at the Hasely Crawford Stadium at 5 pm yesterday.
Speaking about his squad options Saintfeit said, “at this time we have four players who are unavailable because of injury, Cornell Glen, Tyrone Charles, Hughton Hector and Carlyle Mitchell, so therefore we have to monitor things closely and we are not yet sure what the squad or the formation will be like for tomorrow’s (today’s) match.” “The players know what is needed, we as a team knows what is needed and we will go into the game giving it our all to accomplish this,” Saintfiet added.
Lotto Outlets will be closed today but tickets can be purchased at the venue today. Tickets cost $50 for adults and $25 for children.
However, in the same breath, he said the party was not leaving anything to chance and was putting in the work on the ground.
“We are confident but one cannot take things for granted,” he said ahead of the party’s campaign launch and presentation of candidates rally, today, at Old Market Square, downtown Scarborough.
“Notwithstanding, we are doing our work because we are confident that the vast majority of the people in Tobago would recognise that what we have done over the last 16 years (at the helm of the THA) would have been a tremendous amount of work.
“I don’t know that Tobagonians would want to risk the quality of life they now have and put that in the hands of those who have very little in respect of governance.” The election is also being contested by the Tobago Forwards, Progressive Democratic Patriots and Movement for Transformation, led by former Tobago East MP Eudine Job-Davis, which is contesting just three electoral districts.
Charles, a former THA Presiding Officer, became political leader of the PNM’s Tobago Council, last July, after beating rival, Assemblywoman Tracey Davidson-Celestine, in a run-off election.
Charles said the PNM’s slate of candidates for the upcoming election was a mixture of youth and experience __ a situation which he felt augured well for its chances in the poll.
“Our team is a balanced team of youth and experience, persons who were previously members of the assembly returning,” he said.
“One cannot say that for any of the opposing teams and therefore we have a decided advantage. We can continue to hit the ground running but everybody else would have to start from scratch.” Charles, who is listed as one of the speakers at the event, told Sunday Newsday that the campaign would focus heavily on its achievements in office over the past 16 years. “These are some of the things we would point out to the people.: We do not want to slow your growth at this time and that they should ensure, if anything, that growth and development is expedited and promoted vigorously.
“I think we are poised better than any (other party) to do that,” he said. Encouraged by its landslide victory in the 2013 THA election, Charles said the PNM’s core message on the campaign was enhancing delivery and strengthening partnerships.
“We would campaign on our record of achievements, the quality of that stewardship and we would treat with issues relative to the future plans, those that are currently under way and what we have for the future,” he said, adding that crime and security along inter- island transportation was also an issue.
“Going forward, in respect of our inter-island transportation, we will ensure that security procedures are stepped up by subjecting vehicles and passengers to searches and security checks so as to minimise the transporting of illegal weapons,” he said.
“We will continue to engage the Police Service in Tobago to update the crime plan in Tobago and ensure that we go toe to toe, if not stay ahead of the criminal element.” Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley and THA Chief Secretary Orville London are also expected to address supporters at the event. Entertainment will be provided by Delamo (Franz Lambkin), Peter C Lewis, Mitchilla Williams and Fya Empress, among others.
A mass meeting has also been planned for Roxborough, in Tobago East next Sunday.
She telephoned her mother, Diana Saroop on Friday evening but is resisting calls to return home.
According to the mother, this is the third time that the girl has left the house for days without making contact. Where she is on this occasion continues to elude both her mother and the police who issued a release on Friday seeking the assistance of the public in locating her. The police release said that Mariah was last seen at Salvia Lane in Pleasantville.
“She needs discipline,” the mother told Sunday Newsday after revealing that she received the phone call from Mariah just after seven o’clock the evening before.
The conversation between mother and daughter was short-lived, however, Mariah accusing her mother of seeking to embarrass her by going on television to talk about her. The teenager ended the conversation abruptly while her mother was urging her to return home.
“This is the third time she left home for days and never contacted us,” Saroop said, suggesting also that her daughter, a student of the Pleasantville Secondary School, is following bad company.
“I do not know what they do to make money and I am very concerned about this child,” she said, adding that she does not want the police to catch Mariah doing wrong things with her friends. She related an incident over someone else’s mobile phone involving Mariah that she had to pay for.
Mariah is the younger of two daughters, according to Saroop.
The elder child works, and has been a straight-forward individual.
In the mother’s view, her younger daughter is following the lead of a friend who lives in Salvia Lane, Pleasantville. “On two prior occasions, I had to go to that home and practically begged my daughter to return home and she refused,” Saroop said.
Saroop said she is a construction worker but at this time she was at home babysitting her sister’s four children.
“I am diabetic and cannot work so I depend on financial assistance from my mother and my sister for survival,” she said. She added that while it is a struggle to provide for her younger daughter, she makes sure that Mariah has everything for school.
“I keep warning her that she must get an education and to stop following bad company but she never listens to me,” Saroop said.
The child’s father who lives in Mayaro and who has been separated from Saroop for some time journeyed to San Fernando yesterday in an effort to speak to Mariah.
The TT Police Service Public Affairs Unit accompanied Saroop to Pleasantville in search of Mariah on January 3, but they could not locate her. When contacted the Mon Repos Police said Saroop did not communicate the information regarding the phone call she received from Mariah on Friday evening to them. They continue to patrol the San Fernando area in search of the teenager.
Earlier yesterday, the TTPS released a new photograph of Mariah as the one sent out the day before was not of her. The Public Affairs Unit said two photographs were given to the police but only one “pertained to the missing girl” which is the latest released image. No identity was given for the girl in the first issued photograph.
Political Leader of the Tobago Forwards, Christlyn Moore’s opening salvo was a charge that “great lies” have been told to Tobagonians over the last 16 years as she launched the party’s Blueprint on Milford Road in Scarborough to a lively gathering of supporters.
Moore took time to pay respects to Tobagonians she acknowledged as truly great leaders of the island.
“We know that we have had great leaders in Tobago,” she said. “We pay respect to Dr Winston Murray who recently passed away __ a true visionary and a champion for internal self-government. __ a great man.
“We pay respect also to the late ANR Robinson, lawyer, cabinet minster, Prime Minister, President, Tobago’s finest son. A great man,” she continued. “We pay our respects to the lion, Hochoy Charles, the man who authored and built the last set of roads across Tobago.
A visionary, a man of action, a great man.” Focussing the rest of her speech on the word “greatness”, not to refer to noble men or deeds now, but rather misdeeds, Moore bashed mismanagement of the island’s affairs over the last 16 years and said the Tobago Forwards Blueprint “is meant to wash away the blight of that kind of greatness and to bring us to the Tobago of the now: not the Tobago of future, the Tobago of the now.” The People’s National Movement led by Chief Secretary Orville London has been in control of the Assembly for the last 16 years.
Moore charged that Tobago has seen “great” under-employment with 70 percent of the island’s labour locked into the low wages of CEPEP and URP –$500 a fortnight over this period.
“We have seen “great” victimisation with people being evicted from housing lists if they not red, can’t get a job if you not red, can’t get a grant or pension or gratuity or scholarship if you not wearing red,” she added.
“Over the last 16 years, Tobago has seen “great” under-performance with 350 houses built in 16 years __ only 21 houses per year, great cost overruns. The cultural complex -almost $1 billion in overruns, the library __ $270 million in overruns, the financial complex __ $185 m in overruns,” she charged.
Moore claimed that “Assemblymen making small money spending great, great sums __ one buy a great boat, one buy a great Range Rover, one buy he madam a great house.” She told supporters that over the last 16 years, “great lies have been told to Tobago and about Tobago.” “We have been told that $500,000 was spent on the Brian Lara Cricket Complex in Tobago. You hear lie, that is a great lie; that $1 million was spent on the Bacolet Aquatic Centre, you hear lie, that is a great lie; that $500 million was spent on a crematorium, you hear lie, that is a great lie; $1million was spent on an abattoir in Kendall and $1 million on one in Hope, you hear lie, that is a great lie.” “They are great, ladies and gentlemen,” she added, “Great liars, great fraudsters, great thieves, great foolers, great wasters.” On the Tobago Forwards’ Blueprint, which she described as “the blueprint for change”, Moore said it was intended to address job creation, housing, economic growth and sustainability .
The Tobago Forwards, Moore promised, will build over 800 homes in its first term, using a public private partnership (PPP) model and that this will create over 3,000 jobs in the near term, in the skilled and semi-skilled sector.
Areas she listed for housing developments included Adelphi Estate, Mason Hall, Roxborough Housing Estate, James Street, Goodwood, Canaan Bon Accord Housing Estate Northward into the La Toure Estate; in Bethel, at the Speyside Housing Estate, Castara and Palatuvier and Sou Lands Estate.
“It will be the driver of the local economies in all the communities it which it is rolled out and will be the new engine of Tobago’s development,” she said, She said construction of Aledphi and Roxborough houses would begin in the first three months of a Tobago Forwards term.
“We have heard about a 10-house per village plan. We say that is rubbish,” Moore said. “We have seen the “great” 21-house per year plan.
More rubbish. We say that that is a day-care type approach to a university size problem. We say Tobago has been creeping for far too long and that its time to run.” “Eight hundred houses in four years, 3,000 new jobs in the housing sector in four years. That’s the Blueprint. That is your voice. That will be your victory,” Moore declared.
On the plans contained in the Tobago Forwards Blueprint, Moore identified upgrade and building of the roads network to connect growing communities and ease traffic congestion, detailing specific plans in specific areas for 100 miles of roadworks in four years, and which she said would create 1,500 new jobs in the Tobago Forwards new term.
She also outlined the party’s plans for tourism, not before noting: “The PNM has prevailed over the great disaster of tourism in Tobago. After spending more than $500 million in marketing, international arrivals are down by 80 percent, notwithstanding growth in the sector in the Caribbean by seven percent.
She claimed, “Cruise ship arrivals have fallen from 50 to 38.
Tobago occupancy is down to 41 percent notwithstanding that in the rest of the Caribbean occupancy is 69 percent. In the high season this year, Tobago hotels were at under 10 percent occupancy. A “great” failure of leadership, a “great” “disappointment.” The Tobago Forwards tourism blueprint would address the industry in two major parts – enhancing the product and improving our sites and attractions, she said as she detailed the party’s plans to develop the industry.
The party planned to announced blueprints on other sectors __ Education, Health, Sport Tourism and Energy __ at meetings before the January 23 election.
While we strongly advocate a medium to long term tackling of the causes of crime – including social factors as detailed in Prof Selwyn Ryan’s report, Youth at Risk, — clearly immediately we must also put the lid on the boiling cauldron of criminality now wrecking our nation.
To this end it is axiomatic that the Government and Police Service topbrass must know how many officers they have and how they are being deployed, and all goals of the audit initially announced by Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi and confirmed last week by Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley.
For example, a perennial cry through the years has been that the Police Service is short-staffed by about 1,000 officers. This worrying reality is reflected in Budget 2017 figures which crucially shows a hefty jump of $154 million this year in the overtime allocation, which rises, over the three years, from $298 million (2015) to $323 million (last year), and to $476 million (for fiscal 2017) – all this on top of a rise in the TTPS bill for basic salary over the three-year period from $866 million (2015) to $1.07 billion (last year) to $1.42 billion (next year), with $30 million allotted for “vacant posts” to be filled this year.
The overtime figures alone show policy-makers’ virtual resignation to overtime as a reality that reflects a manpower shortage in a scenario not projected to change soon, but which shows the need for vacancies to be filled and paid at regular rates of salary, not overtime rates.
Al-Rawi’s disclosure of $21 billion allocated to the TTPS in the past decade shows the need for accountability of public funds, especially in a period of economic downturn, even as the entire TTPS allocation rose from $2.1 billion in 2015, to $2.25 billion spent last year, to a projected allocation this year of $2.88 billion.
Al-Rawi said the audit will reveal how many police staff, which stations, how many public reports each station gets, and how many of these result in a charge and then a conviction, as he said such a measurement would improve accountability and performance by officers, rather than merely “throwing money at solutions without value for money.” The audit is a good starting point to produce a “snapshot” in time of police deployment but cannot be the end of the story. More broadly, an examination must be done of the process of police recruitment, training, promotion and discipline.
Crucially, the well-being of individual officers in this high-stress occupation should also be looked at, say by way of an Employee Assistance Programme.
Further, with Acting Police Commissioner Stephen Williams just having received his ninth appointment to be acting in that position – even after the country had once paid millions of dollars in the recruitment and termination of Dwayne Gibbs and Jack Ewatski as former CoP and Deputy CoP — the process for recruiting a Commissioner remains costly, lengthy, bureaucratic and inefficient, a veritable boil that must be lanced. A new process must be agreed on by all parties.
In addition, all concerned – police, politician, public and professors of academia – must constantly address the philosophy that underpins our system of policing. To what extent are ideals such as community policing, policing by consent and police accountability, truly practised on the streets of TT? For example, community policing should not just be relegated to one unit to be dubbed, “Community Police” but should be an ideology lived by every officer whatever his/her unit. Technology such as computerisation and vehicles can enhance the role of the police officer, but he/she must also remain very grounded in the local community.
So we await the report, due March 31, as one measure towards stemming the country’s crime onslaught.
This leaves us with the elusive search to connect the human mind to behaviour, and the challenge to make such search as “scientific” as possible. Nevertheless, crime cannot be properly understood, prevented or managed without a good understanding of the “mind” of the offender — alongside conditions.
Last week’s trial in the US over the mass murder of nine black members of an historic church in South Carolina raised the crucial, trial-bending question of why the accused (now convicted), Dylann Roof, committed this hideous “hate” crime? Against opposing conclusions, he strongly denied that he is insane, crazy. He said he did it to create a “race war.” “Why” — the driving motive for committing a crime and deciding a verdict has long been a crucial trial question. It is “mens rea” reflecting the psychological state of the offender, especially at the time of the offence. In his paper, The Mental Element in Crime, at the Seventh Commonwealth Magistrates Conference in Cyprus, Judge Petrus Artemis, provided a list of such psychological conditions — from “with intent,” “maliciously,” “corruptly,” “knowingly,” to “”recklessly.” The unravelling of the criminal mind has played intriguing parts in court-room trials, detective movies and even in psychometric testing for employment. Who did it and why? Motivation, the chances or fear of being caught, the perception of opportunity, stigmatised self-esteem, etc are some of the driving, personalised psychological conditions towards crime. You may be surprised to know how much the search for “peer respect” leads to gang violence.
Then, pulling towards crime are peer pressures, a breakdown of civic norms, alienation, criminogenic family or community conditions, inequality and failures in education system, ineffective deterrence, unfair social or economic deprivation, etc.
However, there is the scientifically- challenging question of why, in the face of one or more of these factors, not everyone commits a crime.
This is where, for example, the view that “poverty causes crime” can have short-comings. All in all, there are “push” factors for crime, and there are “pull” factors for crime. Some conditions create upward conditions, other conditions facilitate and invite crime. Hence I look forward to making the time to researching the minds (attitudes, motives, values etc) of our convicted prisoners, and school drop-outs, young criminals and the facilitating conditions..
Criminology, too, has its challenges of definition and research, starting from the early 1974 definition as “the study of the processes of making laws, breaking laws and reacting towards the breaking of laws.” It is now also a study of criminals and the relevant institutions and agencies that deal with crime and criminal justice — a study of people, institutions and conditions. From all this emerged a wide range of research and books – The Psychology of Crime (Feldman, 1993); The Psychology of Criminal Conduct (Andrews and Bonta, 1994); The Social Psychology of Crime (Canter and Alison, 2000): The Psychology of the Legal System (Wrightsman et al, 2008) etc. And, further, if you wish for a reality check on whether or not “justice is blind,” read the early Law: The Science of Inefficiency by Wm Seagle and Errors of Justice by Brian Forst.
Several reputable universities have specialised Centres of Criminology – most of which contain a strong psychological component. In my short stay at Oxford University Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, I witnessed the significant extent to which psychological research assisted in developing criminal justice policies — from eyewitness testimony, policing, trial by jury to sentencing.
Hence, I was fortunate and grateful to UWI for agreeing to my proposal to establish both a Psychological Research Centre and a related Centre for Criminology and Criminal Justice.
And for the University of Trinidad and Tobago for establishing the Institute of Criminology and Public Safety. The purpose of today’s column is to help promote the view that in order to understand, prevent, manage and solve crime, the disciplines of crimi n o l o g y and psyc h o l o g y are quite u s e f u l par tner s in application.
This leaves us with the elusive search to connect the human mind to behaviour, and the challenge to make such search as “scientific” as possible. Nevertheless, crime cannot be properly understood, prevented or managed without a good understanding of the “mind” of the offender — alongside conditions.
Last week’s trial in the US over the mass murder of nine black members of an historic church in South Carolina raised the crucial, trial-bending question of why the accused (now convicted), Dylann Roof, committed this hideous “hate” crime? Against opposing conclusions, he strongly denied that he is insane, crazy. He said he did it to create a “race war.” “Why” — the driving motive for committing a crime and deciding a verdict has long been a crucial trial question. It is “mens rea” reflecting the psychological state of the offender, especially at the time of the offence. In his paper, The Mental Element in Crime, at the Seventh Commonwealth Magistrates Conference in Cyprus, Judge Petrus Artemis, provided a list of such psychological conditions — from “with intent,” “maliciously,” “corruptly,” “knowingly,” to “”recklessly.” The unravelling of the criminal mind has played intriguing parts in court-room trials, detective movies and even in psychometric testing for employment. Who did it and why? Motivation, the chances or fear of being caught, the perception of opportunity, stigmatised self-esteem, etc are some of the driving, personalised psychological conditions towards crime. You may be surprised to know how much the search for “peer respect” leads to gang violence.
Then, pulling towards crime are peer pressures, a breakdown of civic norms, alienation, criminogenic family or community conditions, inequality and failures in education system, ineffective deterrence, unfair social or economic deprivation, etc.
However, there is the scientifically- challenging question of why, in the face of one or more of these factors, not everyone commits a crime.
This is where, for example, the view that “poverty causes crime” can have short-comings. All in all, there are “push” factors for crime, and there are “pull” factors for crime. Some conditions create upward conditions, other conditions facilitate and invite crime. Hence I look forward to making the time to researching the minds (attitudes, motives, values etc) of our convicted prisoners, and school drop-outs, young criminals and the facilitating conditions..
Criminology, too, has its challenges of definition and research, starting from the early 1974 definition as “the study of the processes of making laws, breaking laws and reacting towards the breaking of laws.” It is now also a study of criminals and the relevant institutions and agencies that deal with crime and criminal justice — a study of people, institutions and conditions. From all this emerged a wide range of research and books – The Psychology of Crime (Feldman, 1993); The Psychology of Criminal Conduct (Andrews and Bonta, 1994); The Social Psychology of Crime (Canter and Alison, 2000): The Psychology of the Legal System (Wrightsman et al, 2008) etc. And, further, if you wish for a reality check on whether or not “justice is blind,” read the early Law: The Science of Inefficiency by Wm Seagle and Errors of Justice by Brian Forst.
Several reputable universities have specialised Centres of Criminology – most of which contain a strong psychological component. In my short stay at Oxford University Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, I witnessed the significant extent to which psychological research assisted in developing criminal justice policies — from eyewitness testimony, policing, trial by jury to sentencing.
Hence, I was fortunate and grateful to UWI for agreeing to my proposal to establish both a Psychological Research Centre and a related Centre for Criminology and Criminal Justice.
And for the University of Trinidad and Tobago for establishing the Institute of Criminology and Public Safety. The purpose of today’s column is to help promote the view that in order to understand, prevent, manage and solve crime, the disciplines of crimi n o l o g y and psyc h o l o g y are quite u s e f u l par tner s in application.
Officers of the North Eastern Division Task Force under the supervision of Sgt Guelmo executed several search warrants within the North Eastern division. During the exercise the man was arrested for being in possession of a .9 mm Smith and Wesson pistol and several rounds of .9 mm ammunition.
Also in the Morvant district search warrants were executed and police seized a quantity of marijuana.
Three persons were arrested and are to be charged for the offences.
Panday said social media had already “tried” his client and felt that as a result of such pre-trial publicity, the mother of two “will get a raw deal in prison.” Speaking to Sunday Newsday yesterday Panday said: “They hurled ugly insults at her and called her all kinds of names as she left the court yesterday (Friday).
She has been tried already on social media.” He continued: “My duty is to her, to represent her to the best of my ability and whether an accused child murderer, as they are calling her, or white collar criminal, it is the same effort I will put in the matter.. I have been working with her for the past two weeks and in these circumstances, I feel when one balances the adverse effect of pre-trial publicity, my feeling is that we can withstand that and go for a trial as soon as possible. It is our hope that the Director of Public Prosecutions proceeds by way of paper committal that we can have the matter in the assizes as soon as possible.” Panday said he advised and expected that McClean’s relatives would have visited her yesterday at the Women’s Prison, Golden Grove Arouca.
“I know they will attempt to see her today (yesterday) and I am awaiting a report from them.
They will keep me updated,” he told Sunday Newsday.
On Friday, the court heard that on November 24, at Corosal Road, Whiteland Gasparillo, McLean did murder Jenice, a student of the Whiteland Early Childhood Learning Centre. She was not called upon to plead as the charge is a capital offence.
Before her subsequent arrest, investigators had been looking for her. McLean’s photograph was posted on TV6’s crime programme Beyond the Tape on the list of “Wanted” persons and also circulated on social media.
An autopsy on Jenice revealed that death was due to blunt force trauma and was ruled a homicide.
She had sustained injuries to her head and stomach and was rushed to the San Fernando General Hospital where she later died.
While being escorted to court on Friday, McLean was jeered at by a large crowd gathered outside the courthouse and she suffered the same fate when her matter was adjourned and she was being returned to the prisoners’ holding bay. The angry mob did not spare her with their insults. She will re-appear before a magistrate on February 23.
