Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says her vis­it to To­ba­go has noth­ing to do with pol­i­tics, even as the is­land heads to­wards an elec­tion.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says ten­sions be­tween the Unit­ed States and Venezuela will not af­fect To­ba­go’s tourism in­dus­try, nor will they threat­en the coun­try’s re­gion­al or na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro has dis­missed spec­u­la­tion that the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE) is be­ing used as a crime-fight­ing tool.

Promi­nent hu­man rights at­tor­ney Sub­has Pan­day has con­demned the on­go­ing de­ten­tion of peo­ple for months with­out charges at the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al and Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre in Arou­ca, de­scrib­ing it as a “fla­grant breach of con­sti­tu­tion­al and hu­man rights”.

Days af­ter a three-month ex­ten­sion to the State of Emer­gency (SoE) was an­nounced, 16 pre­ven­ta­tive de­ten­tion or­ders were is­sued for peo­ple iden­ti­fied as be­ing part of or­gan­ised crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, as crime-fight­ing ef­forts con­tin­ue na­tion­wide.

Be­fore dawn broke over Span­ish Town on Mon­day, the qui­et hum of en­gines and soft voic­es filled the court­yard of the lo­cal mosque. At 4.30 am, mem­bers of the Con­cerned Mus­lims of Trinidad and To­ba­go (CMTT) set out on their jour­ney across Ja­maica — a mis­sion of mer­cy to bring re­lief to fam­i­lies dev­as­tat­ed by the re­cent hur­ri­cane.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) has al­ready shipped ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$5 mil­lion in sup­plies to Ja­maica to as­sist the coun­try in its re­cov­ery fol­low­ing Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa.

A Williamsville fam­i­ly of ten, in­clud­ing three chil­dren, is fac­ing a bleak Christ­mas af­ter their home was gut­ted by fire yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les says An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne’s sug­ges­tion that T&T may be in breach of the Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas should not be dis­missed.

The Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) says it is ready for the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tion, which is ex­pect­ed to be called soon.

Ten­sions flared out­side the Works Cred­it Union of­fice in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day as scores of frus­trat­ed mem­bers stood in protest, de­mand­ing trans­paren­cy and an ur­gent Spe­cial Gen­er­al Meet­ing (SGM) to ad­dress what they de­scribe as “se­ri­ous gov­er­nance breach­es”.

Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­al Dr Everold Ho­sein com­plet­ed his 40th con­sec­u­tive New York City Marathon this past Sun­day. He is 80 years old, and this marks his ninth marathon since a heart at­tack nine years ago. Ho­sein is a Dis­tin­guished Schol­ar at City Uni­ver­si­ty of New York/School of Pub­lic Health.