Peren­co has shut down crane op­er­a­tions as the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Au­thor­i­ty Agency (OS­HA) start­ed in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the crane col­lapse at Peren­co’s Samaan Al­pha Drilling Plat­form, urg­ing em­ploy­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly those op­er­at­ing in high-risk in­dus­tries, to pro­vide safe and healthy work­ing en­vi­ron­ments for em­ploy­ees.

A to­tal of 124 dai­ly-paid work­ers at the South-West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (SWRHA) have been sent home, with the Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW) call­ing on the au­thor­i­ty’s man­age­ment to ex­plain the de­ci­sion and ad­dress con­cerns about the af­fect­ed em­ploy­ees’ out­stand­ing over­time pay­ments.

These were the words of one fire of­fi­cial at yes­ter­day’s dou­ble mur­der scene at Sev­enth Av­enue, Mal­ick, Barataria, as rel­a­tives of Rosan­na and Ele­na Ram­lal anx­ious­ly await­ed the ar­rival of pa­tri­arch Wes­ley Ram­lal.

A 33-year-old man from Diego Mar­tin has been ac­quit­ted of mur­der­ing a neigh­bour over a decade ago.

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der is push­ing back against con­cerns over the per­mit sys­tem un­der the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Act, say­ing there is no rea­son for the pub­lic to be alarmed.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath says al­le­ga­tions of sex­u­al ha­rass­ment and preda­to­ry be­hav­iour in­volv­ing young peo­ple in the On-the-Job Train­ing (OJT) Pro­gramme were left un­ad­dressed un­der the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM)-ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Stu­dents of Canaan Pres­by­ter­ian School will con­tin­ue their ed­u­ca­tion from Mon­day through a struc­tured pro­gramme of school­work af­ter a fire gut­ted eight class­rooms at the Dun­can Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do, school yes­ter­day, forc­ing a tem­po­rary halt to nor­mal class­es.

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion says re­me­di­al works are con­tin­u­ing at Gloster Lodge Mora­vian Pri­ma­ry School, which was closed on Tues­day, with some crit­i­cal works sched­uled to be com­plet­ed over the week­end.

The Gov­ern­ment has ex­tend­ed the tran­si­tion­al pe­ri­od for ex­ist­ing scrap met­al deal­ers by an­oth­er year, giv­ing them un­til Oc­to­ber 14, 2027, to meet li­cens­ing and oth­er statu­to­ry re­quire­ments.

The Cuban Em­bassy and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Friends of Cu­ba (TTFC) will host a film screen­ing on Oc­to­ber 17 to com­mem­o­rate the 50th an­niver­sary of the bomb­ing of Cubana Flight 455, which killed all 73 peo­ple aboard the air­craft on Oc­to­ber 6, 1976.

Guyana’s Op­po­si­tion Leader Azrud­din Mo­hamed was grant­ed GUY$750,000 (One Guyana dol­lar=US$0.004 cents) bail on Fri­day, af­ter he ap­peared be­fore Mag­is­trate Faith Mc­Gusty at the George­town Mag­is­trates’ Court on gun-re­lat­ed crimes.

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion says re­me­di­al works are con­tin­u­ing at Gloster Lodge Mora­vian Pri­ma­ry School, which was closed on Tues­day, with some crit­i­cal works sched­uled to be com­plet­ed over the com­ing week­end.