Mem­bers of the De­fence Force were con­fined to camp yes­ter­day, as a state of height­ened aware­ness re­mained in ef­fect un­til fur­ther no­tice.

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin says the im­me­di­ate can­cel­la­tion of all leave for po­lice of­fi­cers yes­ter­day was just a pre­cau­tion and bore no re­la­tion to the height­ened alert the De­fence Force was placed on.

Amid a rush to su­per­mar­kets by cit­i­zens to stock up on vi­tal food sup­plies, work­place clo­sures and re­ports that sol­diers had been sum­moned to mil­i­tary in­stal­la­tions, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day urged calm and dis­missed claims that Trinidad and To­ba­go was prepar­ing for a Unit­ed States-led land at­tack on Venezuela.

Venezue­lan For­eign Min­is­ter Yván Gil is warn­ing that any for­eign mil­i­tary ag­gres­sion against Venezuela would have con­sid­er­able reper­cus­sions on T&T and the rest of Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean.

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal says the Man­a­tee gas project re­mains se­cure and will con­tin­ue as planned de­spite re­cent moves by Venezuela’s Na­tion­al As­sem­bly to de­clare Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar per­sona non gra­ta and to end bi­lat­er­al en­er­gy agree­ments with Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Pres­i­dent of the Su­per­mar­ket As­so­ci­a­tion (SATT) Bion­di Bachew is as­sur­ing the pop­u­la­tion that there is no need for pan­ic buy­ing or rushed shop­ping.

As ten­sions rise with Venezuela fol­low­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s sup­port for the US’s dead­ly cam­paign against drug traf­fick­ers, some re­li­gious lead­ers are urg­ing the pub­lic to pray but al­so to pre­pare should there be a vi­o­lent es­ca­la­tion.

De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge yes­ter­day de­clined to con­firm if De­fence Force sol­diers have been in­struct­ed to re­turn to base, and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie has made it clear that the State of Emer­gency ex­ten­sion is to com­plete and con­tin­ue cur­rent crit­i­cal gang dis­man­tling op­er­a­tions. As an ex­am­ple, he said de­spite the re­moval of in­mates from the pris­ons, there were re­peat­ed at­tempts to re-es­tab­lish con­tact with peo­ple on the out­side.

A mo­tion to ex­tend the State of Emer­gency (SoE) for a sec­ond time was passed in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day with 27 Gov­ern­ment votes in favour and 12 Op­po­si­tion votes against. There were no ab­sten­tions.

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal says there has been no new head­way in dis­cus­sions with Nu­trien, as the com­pa­ny con­tin­ues steps to­ward a tem­po­rary shut­down of its op­er­a­tions at Point Lisas.

Most of the is­sues re­gard­ing de­lays in pay­ment of pub­lic of­fi­cers’ salaries in six min­istries were be­ing re­solved yes­ter­day, with ef­forts to com­plete all pay­ments by Mon­day, ac­cord­ing to Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo.

A group of frus­trat­ed for­mer CEPEP, URP, and Na­tion­al Re­for­esta­tion and Wa­ter­shed Pro­gramme work­ers is call­ing on au­thor­i­ties to fast-track mea­sures so they can put food on the ta­ble. Many of them were among over 190,000 ap­pli­cants seek­ing em­ploy­ment through the Gov­ern­ment’s job re­cruit­ment dri­ve.