In a letter, dated March 7, Duke said while Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley has given a commitment to pay the outstanding arrears, “no specifics were given by the prime minister” about the groups of public servants to be paid for the period January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2013.

“It is incumbent upon us, the PSA, to ensure that specific groups of workers are included in the said backpay,” Duke said in the letter. He is hoping for a response by March 15.

Speaking to reporters yesterday at a news conference outside the Eric Williams Financial Complex, Port-of-Spain, Duke identified the categories of workers to be paid. He said 50 percent of outstanding arrears are owed to some 15,000 workers in the five regional health authorities while 100 percent of arrears are owed to employees of the Agricultural Development Bank (ADB), Public Transport Service Corporation (PTSC), Trinidad and Tobago Civil Aviation Authority and Betting Levy Board.

“All of these monies here are less than $100 million,” he said.

Duke said 100 percent of allowances are also owed to workers of the Trinidad and Tobago Bureau of Standards and Trinidad and Tobago Blind Welfare Association.

“In truth and in fact, RHA workers are not mentioned there… Public servants will exclude ADB, PTSC, RHA, Betting Levy Board, CDA and everybody else who is managed by a board,” he said.

In a statement in the Parliament on Monday, Rowley announced that some $2.5 billion will be available by month’s end to settle outstanding arrears for public servants.

Saying that Rowley’s statement was short on details, Duke said the figure was more to the tune of $500 million.

“He (Rowley) said the Minister of Finance has allocated money to pay public servants at the end of March. In the second breath, he then goes on to say that those who have been paid half already would be paid the other half, and in the third breath he said if you are not paid do not blame us, blame your accounting department.

“The statement he made in his third breath would have invalidated anything he said before. In substance, what he is saying to us, public servants and public officers, is that if you are not paid, it is not the Government fault , it is the fault of the accounting unit.”

On Monday, a group of teachers led by TTUTA president Lynsley Doodhai, protested outside the school’s gates calling for the principal to be temporarily removed pending an investigation into certain allegations. As this went on, some students threw bottles at the protesting teachers after forming an anti-protest group, beating drums and waving placards in support of the principal Joy Arjoon-Singh.

Education Minister Anthony Garcia and senior ministry officials yesterday held an emergency meeting with the principal and members of staff to begin investigations into the incident. A group of about ten police officers were present at the school for the duration of the visit at Garcia’s request.

In an address to the students in their hall after the meeting, Francis said while he believes in their right to free speech, he also believes they should act like students and show respect for their teachers.

“What happened yesterday, we will investigate,” Francis said.

“We will find out who is responsible and we will take the appropriate measures to deal with those who have misbehaved.” Francis told students they are fortunate to live in a country where the State funds their education which, he said, is “absolutely expensive”.

“We do not ask much of you.

We ask that you come and you act like a student and that you learn.

But we also ask that you display a certain amount of decorum as a student and when you fail to behave like that – well, then there are consequences.” Garcia told students although he was disturbed by media reports of their behaviour on Monday, he did not visit the school to cast blame.

“I have also taught at a junior secondary school just like this so I can safely say that I know schools like these very well. I have been boasting that some of my best years of teaching were spent when I taught at Five Rivers Junior Secondary School,” Garcia said.

Before addressing the students, Garcia spoke with reporters just after he met school officials and staff. He said an independent investigator would be appointed to investigate Monday’s incident and the underlying issues at the school. He said teachers raised a number of issues they are facing at the school, but he declined to disclose what those issues are because they are “quite sensitive.” “We have engaged the assistance of our legal department to advise us as to whether the actions of teachers who took part in the protest action were calculated to bring the school into disrepute.

I await the advice of our legal department before we move forward.” As to TTUTA’s request to have the principal temporarily removed while investigations are ongoing, Garcia said such a move constitutes disciplinary action which can only be taken by the Teaching Service Commission.

Pr?val, who died on Friday at the age of 74, had the distinction of being the only democratically-elected president to win and complete two terms in a country plagued by political upheaval and natural and human disasters.

When Pr?val completed his first term in 2001 and transferred power to Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Pr?val became Haiti’s first democratically elected president to leave office after completing a full term. Then, after his second term, Pr?val on May 14, 2011, handed over power to Michel Martelly, marking the first transfer of power from a Haitian president to a member of the opposition.

Pr?val was intimately aware of the challenges facing his country.

His childhood gave him insight into the dangers of tyranny. He was born on January 17, 1943, in the town of Marmelade in northern Haiti. His father, Claude, was an agronomist under former president Paul Magloire. Claude fled the country during the early years of the dictatorship of Fran?ois “Papa Doc” Duvalier.

Pr?val earned a degree in agronomy from Gembloux Agricultural University in Belgium. He then studied geothermal sciences at the University of Pisa in Italy. In 1970, he moved to New York. There, he worked as a waiter and a messenger.

In 1975, he returned to Haiti and worked at the National Institute for Mineral Resources.

In 1988, two years after a popular uprising ousted Duvalier’s son, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, Pr?val opened a bakery in the capital Port-au-Prince. This bakery supplied bread to an orphanage run by Aristide, then a Roman Catholic priest, who led a movement to oust the younger Duvalier. Aristide later became the country’s first democratically elected president.

Pr?val became a leading figure in Aristide’s Lavalas political movement, which enjoyed a huge following among the poor. At the same time, the movement was reportedly feared and hated by a community of elites who have long dominated the country’s economy and government. When Aristide was elected president in 1990, he appointed Pr?val as his prime minister.

But this foray was short-lived.

A military coup ousted Aristide seven months into his term and the two leaders went into exile.

A US-led invasion restored Aristide to power in 1994 and he was allowed to complete his term in office. Running as Aristide’s successor, and with his endorsement, Pr?val won 88 per cent of the vote in 1995 though only a quarter of eligible voters cast ballots.

Pr?val’s first term was marked by political infighting. Aristide was seen as the power behind the throne. Still, Pr?val completed his term in 2001 and transferred power to Aristide, becoming Haiti’s first democratically elected president to leave office after a full term.

Fate would have it that Preval would serve a second term. He won an election in 2006 that nearly headed to a runoff. Amid protests, the electoral council recounted ballots and found he had an outright majority.

Pr?val’s second term was marked by a dramatic spike in crime, riots over soaring food prices and a series of tropical storms. But it was the January 12, 2010, earthquake that destroyed much of the capital, including the National Palace.

Pr?val has been both praised and criticised for his handling of this catastrophe which killed more than 310,000 people and displaced more than a million.

Still, Haiti enjoyed a rare political stability. The economy started improving, with growth reaching almost three per cent in 2009, the second fastest rate in the hemisphere.

Today, we commemorate this leader.

During a visit to TT, then Prime Minister of Barbados Owen Arthur succinctly and poignantly stated this was a “dangerous doctrine that has no place in the Caribbean …Sovereignty is not divisible. For us it was won after a long struggle by those who believe that ‘massa day done’… “There are those who have argued that sovereignty does not matter, that we are incapable of providing for our own defences against the advances of the drug barons, and that we should surrender our defences on this sphere to the tender mercies of those more capable than ourselves to provide our defence … “This was the very doctrine — the Brezhnev Doctrine — that led to the subjugation of Eastern Europe to domination on the grounds that they could not provide for their own defence.” This was the challenge of the Caribbean and while we eventually signed the Shiprider Agreement we did so after stating the principles of our opposition to it. Having said this, the Shiprider Agreement has made a significant impact in the fight against drugs in the region. Suggesting to some that national sovereignty cannot be absolutely defined or delineated in the New World Order and among the family of nations.

With the exception of the contribution of Prof Hamid Ghany, this lofty philosophical debate however escapes us in the present context of the President Barack Obama-inspired Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA).

All we are being fed is that if TT does not implement this law it will have dire economic repercussions for all concerned. The politics of economics is mobilised in an attempt to impose this latest US-driven law in the Caribbean and indeed the world. Absent from this debate is a higher discussion.

The US believes there is a significant amount of its citizens all over the world who are earning income and simply hiding it from their Internal Revenue Services (IRS), and as a result has to force foreign nations to become de facto agents of its IRS for free. There does not appear to be any reciprocal arrangement in place for countries to find out if their nationals are hiding income in the US.

In a few countries such as Canada, China, Russia and Israel where the FATCA law has been challenged in the courts, the issue of national sovereignty has been raised and discussed. FATCA, essentially a tax enforcement law, is an unprecedented extraterritorial expansion into another country by the US. Article 2 of the United Nations Charter, “the principle of sovereign equality,” is fundamental to mutual respect between States and in essence FATCA would remove that.

FATCA appears to violate the unwritten principle of our Constitution that we will not forfeit our sovereignty to a foreign government.

We are TT citizens, the US has no rights over our nationals and we expect our Government to vigorously protect our rights.

We are however unfortunately a small nation unable to withstand the economic sanctions of the US, so we comply. We are not alone as the mightiest of nations have also complied fearing economic sanctions.

The world has submitted to US law because the world is vulnerable to the US economy. This time we don’t have the eloquence of Owen Arthur.

“Women must encourage, inspire and uplift each other by their words, deeds and actions, demanding respect and not disrespecting each other,” their Excellencies said. “It is becoming the norm for women to engage in denigrating each other on social media and even mainstream media and other females and even the men in our society look on and simply laugh.

This must not become the standard of our social dialogue.” The duo said women must be their sister’s keeper and offer encouraging and inspiring words to other women engaged in critical analysis, and must speak out against social injustices facing women and young girls.

“Cohesive and collective collaboration between and among women of the world, can create that tour de force needed to effect that revolutionary, transformational change that every society seeks.” The couple urged men also to take up the mantle of fighting for women’s empowerment. “Women’s empowerment is not about emasculation or challenging or testing the innate strength of our men folk. It is a unifying force based on what is fair, just and real for a society to progress.” The statement supported female advancement at home, in the education system and in the professional realm. The Carmonas cited United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres IWD message to urge support for the progress of women via both official governance structures and intrinsic tenets of our daily lives.

By using not a “male standard” but the standard of our own humanity, women should be enjoy equal participation, opportunities and access in economic, political and public life, said the statement.

The Carmonas urged protection for women’s safety, including sparing girls from child marriage. TT can only boast of being civilised if it meets United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 4 and 5 to treat its women and girls with the same dignity, equality, respect and honour as its men and boys.

“This means ending child marriages; protecting our women and girls against all forms of discrimination and abuse including domestic violence, human trafficking and other forms of suppression; and providing our women and girls with equal access to quality education and healthcare. “It means, in Trinidad and Tobago, individual and collective leadership in showing, by action and example, that in the atrocity of inequality and scant disregard for women and violence against women, there exist no grounds for tolerance, lame excuses or skewed reasoning.”

The funeral service which was attended by family, friends and President Anthony Carmona heard an impassioned plea from Fr Martin Sirju for the police to bring the killers to justice. Also at the service, son of the elder Bernard, Lester Bernard told mourners that people are running scared in this country because of crime.

Mother and daughter were chopped and stabbed to death in their house which was also ransacked.

Delivering the eulogy for his mother and sister, Bernard said, “People are scared to live in this country. These murders pull on the heartstrings of everyone. I cannot combat the anger I feel, the hate, the regret…someone has ripped my heart out. It has been an emotional roller-coaster.” “People are no longer safe. My mom and sister were forcefully taken by an animal or animals,” he said, adding that the murderers took the lives of the two strongest women he knew. Bernard said his mother and sister were God fearing citizens. “My mom was a compassionate woman who would probably forgive the people who did this to her. But I have not reached that level where I can forgive them,” he said.

Fr Sirju, who delivered the homily, prayed for the police to find the killers. S aying the circumstances surrounding the murders had filled him with outrage, Sirju said it was not uncommon for criminals to remain on the run without ever being charged.

He said however that one must show mercy despite the circumstances and not add to the violence existing in the society.

According to a release from the TT Police Service, the teen was last seen near the Arima Magistrates Court on Thursday February 23.

After she had not returned home for almost two weeks, Nayasha’s mother Simone Julien filed a missing person report at the Malabar Police Station.

Joseph was last seen wearing a pair of blue jeans, a purple and white tee-shirt, and gold coloured shoes. She is of mixed descent, standing five feet, six inches tall, is slim build and a brown complexion.

People with knowledge of her whereabouts are advised to call 800-TIPS or contact the police at 555, 999, 911 or the nearest police station.

Attorneys for Gary Gould Davies submitted to the jury of nine that the evidence of the State’s witnesses conflicted to such an extent that it ought to raise reasonable doubt in their (the jury) minds. The State contended that Jeff Ramkissoon had gone with friends to hunt manicou along the M2 Ring Road near the intersection between Debe and Woodland, when Davies’ car struck and killed him on the spot in 2003.

The State opened the case before Justice David Harris and in presenting the facts, said that Ramkissoon had gone with friends to M2 Ring Road on the night of August 24, to hunt manicou.

State attorneys Sabrina Dougdeen-Jaglal and Sarah De Silva said that shortly before 11.35 pm, a car driven by Davies, 55, of South Oropouche struck Ramkissoon who was standing on the road speaking to his cousins and their friends.

Dougdeen-Jaglal led evidence from some of the cousins that Davies’ car was travelling at a fast speed.

However, Davies who was represented by attorneys Faraaz Mohammed, Toolsie Ramdhin, Chris Ramlal and Krysta Jalim, testified that the headlights on s parked car on the opposite side of the road, were lit on high beam.

He said that the car appeared to have occupied his side of the road and he swerved to avoid hitting it.

That was when, Davies said, he spotted Ramkissoon on the road and struck him accidentally. Attorney Mohammed submitted to the jury that it was an accidental death however, prosecutor Dougdeen-Jaglal contended that the evidence suggested Davies was speeding.

The jury retired for the mandatory three hours but the foreman announced that the members could not reach a unanimous verdict and they were divided six-three. Seven- two is a majority verdict and is accepted either against or in favour of an accused.

Justice Harris sent back the jury for another hour, but they emerged with the same result and the judge ordered a new tria

Relatives yesterday described her as a jovial and friendly person, who liked to keep herself and her area clean. “She liked to look good and keep her surroundings clean,” said a relative. “She always knew how to make someone laugh.” Relatives expressed shock upon hearing that the woman, originally from Cantaro Village in Santa Cruz, was struck by a car. They added that Danclaire liked to go for walks, and was probably taking one when she was killed. According to reports, Danclaire was attempting to cross the highway near Lifestyle Motors and had made it to the median, but was struck by a Nissan Tiida, while attempting to reach the other side of the road. She was killed instantly, a few metres away from the walkover. A video posted on social media depicted the woman’s sister lamenting on her death. In the video, she stood on the walkover, a few metres away from where she died. “It is so sad that she did not use this walkover, she would have been alive today,” said the sister in the video. An autopsy done at the Forensic Science Centre in St James confirmed that she died from trauma and haemorrhaging consistent with a car accident.

According to police reports, Cedeno who was originally from Palo Seco and who recently moved to Egypt Village, Point Fortin, was driving a black Kia SUV at about 11.45 am on February 27, when it crashed into the iron guard rails along the highway, near the Macaulay Flyover in Claxton Bay.

There was a heavy turnout of police officers at PC Cedeno’s funeral held with full military rites. His body was escorted by police officers to the church building.

Speaking at the funeral service at Revival Time Assembly, King’s Wharf in San Fernando yesterday, Phyllis Mohan, one of Cedeno’s first cousins, noted that he was the only boy among four sisters,.

He recalled that as a child, Cedeno brought a live snake in a crocus bag into the family’s kitchen causing his sisters’ to scream and dash out of the house. Mohan said a perceptible change occurred after Cedeno was assigned to the Canine Unit where he built a “relationship of trust” with his canine partner “Jed”, an English Springer Spaniel.

Snr Superintendent Joseph of the Mounted and Canine Branch recalled that Cedeno had often said that he was “on the top of Mount Everest” whenever he worked with his canine partner Jed. Cedeno’s wife Carline accepted a framed picture of her husband from Joseph while their three children, who sat in the church’s front row, looked on. They had to be comforted when his body was taken out of the church and taken to the Los Bajos cemetery for burial