San Fer­nan­do came alive with colour, rhythm, and her­itage as school chil­dren joined cul­tur­al groups for a vi­brant pro­ces­sion along Har­ris Prom­e­nade yes­ter­day.

For­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter and po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith is call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment, and more specif­i­cal­ly Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der, to im­prove com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the pub­lic.

Hours af­ter US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s warn­ing to Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro that his days in pow­er were num­bered, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar main­tains that the US mil­i­tary build-up in the re­gion is aimed at com­bat­ing drug traf­fick­ing, not regime change. She al­so re­it­er­at­ed that no re­quest has been made for Trinidad and To­ba­go to serve as a base for po­ten­tial at­tacks on Venezue­lan soil.

Venezuela’s Jus­tice Min­is­ter, Dios­da­do Ca­bel­lo, is ac­cus­ing the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go of “at­tack­ing” Venezue­lans due to the in­creas­ing num­ber of de­por­ta­tions fol­low­ing a re­duc­tion in the avail­abil­i­ty of work per­mits for Venezue­lans.

Venezue­lan op­po­si­tion par­lia­men­tar­i­an José Brito has joined Cara­cas in con­demn­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for sup­port­ing US mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions in the Caribbean.

The Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States an­swers not to Trinidad and To­ba­go but to his own peo­ple, and like­wise, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar must an­swer to the peo­ple of this coun­try.

An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne has warned that while Trinidad and To­ba­go’s re­cent in­crease in im­port du­ties on cer­tain Cari­com prod­ucts may be ac­cept­able for health rea­sons, any wider ap­pli­ca­tion could vi­o­late the Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas. Browne al­so cau­tioned that, as the “su­per­mar­ket of the Caribbean,” T&T could face a “boomerang ef­fect” if the pol­i­cy is mis­han­dled.

Res­i­dents of sea­side com­mu­ni­ties along Trinidad’s east coast say re­cent re­ports of US naval ves­sels op­er­at­ing near­by have sparked con­cern, with lo­cal fish­er­folk hop­ing that any mil­i­tary ac­tiv­i­ty re­mains far from their homes.

Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris is call­ing for clear an­swers from Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine as the Prime Min­is­ter makes her first of­fi­cial vis­it to To­ba­go with sev­er­al Cab­i­net mem­bers.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo has ap­proved the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) to pro­ceed with pro­posed ten per cent wage ne­go­ti­a­tions for pub­lic ser­vants. How­ev­er, Tan­coo not­ed that the CPO still has “a few pre­req­ui­sites” to com­plete be­fore face-to-face ne­go­ti­a­tions with the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) can be­gin.

Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Coun­cil of Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tions Inc. (NPTA), Wal­ter Stew­art, says vi­o­lence among stu­dents con­tin­ues to oc­cur even at schools with po­lice of­fi­cers sta­tioned on the com­pound.

Sev­er­al de­tainees held un­der the State of Emer­gency (SoE) at the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al and Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre (ECRC) in Arou­ca have em­barked on a peace­ful hunger strike, call­ing on Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der to re­voke the Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders for per­sons who have not been in­ves­ti­gat­ed or charged af­ter months in cus­tody.