For­mer Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has bro­ken his si­lence on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s sur­prise week­end an­nounce­ment that her gov­ern­ment sup­ports the pres­ence of Unit­ed States war­ships in the Caribbean and would even al­low them ac­cess to Trinidad and To­ba­go soil if Venezuela were to at­tack Guyana.

In­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions ex­perts say Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s de­ci­sion to back any im­pend­ing Unit­ed States ac­tion against Venezuela could have dire con­se­quences for this coun­try, in­clud­ing mak­ing T&T a tar­get in any con­flict.

The Gov­ern­ment last week at­tempt­ed to pres­sure the Group CEO of ma­jor­i­ty state-owned First Cit­i­zens Group, Karen Dar­basie, to re­sign im­me­di­ate­ly, a move that was re­pu­di­at­ed by the board of the bank, which agreed to al­low her to take her ac­cu­mu­lat­ed va­ca­tion leave from Au­gust 21 (Fri­day) and re­tire from First Cit­i­zens on Oc­to­ber 21.

Re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert Dr Garvin Heer­ah says with Unit­ed States war­ships bound for the re­gion with a man­date to tack­le drug car­tels in neigh­bour­ing Venezuela, the Gov­ern­ment must now strate­gise on the next step should things get worse.

Al­though not mak­ing any of­fi­cial state­ment on T&T as yet, the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment has harsh­ly crit­i­cised Guyana’s gov­ern­ment for sup­port­ing the Unit­ed States’ de­ci­sion to send mil­i­tary as­sets to the Caribbean.

Bar­ba­dos’ pur­chase of the Banyan Archives is now be­ing de­scribed as the sto­ry of how Trinidad and To­ba­go bun­gled a crit­i­cal cul­tur­al re­source.

Cul­tur­al ac­tivist Er­rol Fabien has called on cit­i­zens to help pre­serve Gayelle Records fol­low­ing the ac­qui­si­tion of the Banyan archive by the gov­ern­ment of Bar­ba­dos.

In a des­per­ate bid for sur­vival, new­ly­wed pri­ma­ry school teacher Kri­an­na Var­sha Roop­nar­ine is fight­ing can­cer while strug­gling to hold on to the ca­reer she loves.

Amid claims of ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties, new­ly elect­ed vice pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Red Cross So­ci­ety (TTRCS), Ed­ward Mood­ie, says con­cerns raised dur­ing the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s elec­tion on Sat­ur­day will be ad­dressed. He al­so de­nies that the elec­tions were flawed.

A large group of for­mer Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice of­fi­cers (SRPs) is con­sid­er­ing bring­ing con­tempt of court pro­ceed­ings against Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, over the fail­ure of his of­fice to abide by a court or­der for them to be paid salary ar­rears af­ter they were ab­sorbed in­to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) in 2009.

Po­lice re­port­ed that around 4 am, Arnold Singh, of Pe­ters­field, was out­side his home when two men, one armed with a gun, the oth­er a cut­lass, ac­cost­ed him and forced him in­side.

A sin­gle stab wound to the neck led to the death of Sher­win Balka­ran, who was found bleed­ing at the road­side near his home ear­ly yes­ter­day.