A mir­a­cle! That’s what col­leagues, friends and burgess­es of Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Freeport/Chick­land coun­cil­lor Anil Bali­ram said yes­ter­day, af­ter Bali­ram be­gan emerg­ing from a state of un­con­scious­ness, fol­low­ing his sus­pect­ed sui­cide at­tempt.

For years, Trinidad and To­ba­go has grap­pled with the con­se­quences of transna­tion­al crime—il­le­gal guns, nar­cotics, hu­man traf­fick­ing and the vi­o­lence that fol­lows.

Chut­ney mu­sic icon Ray­mond Ram­nar­ine and vet­er­an singer Dru­patie Ram­goon­ai were among the cul­tur­al stal­warts ho­n­oured on Sat­ur­day night at the in­au­gur­al Aag­man In­di­an Food Fes­ti­val at the Hilton Trinidad.

Two men from Port-of-Spain have been con­vict­ed of pos­sess­ing two guns, a buck­et of bul­lets, a large quan­ti­ty of mar­i­jua­na and a grenade.

A se­cu­ri­ty guard and a bag­gage han­dler have been freed of con­spir­ing to traf­fic 63 ki­los of co­caine through the ANR Robin­son Air­port in To­ba­go.

State-owned en­er­gy com­pa­ny Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Ltd has suc­cess­ful­ly de­fend­ed two out of three chal­lenges to the pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dure it fol­lowed for se­cu­ri­ty con­tracts for var­i­ous as­pects of its op­er­a­tions. 

As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Rishi Singh has called on of­fi­cers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to con­duct them­selves with “class and dig­ni­ty” while strength­en­ing their en­gage­ment with com­mu­ni­ties through con­sis­tent foot pa­trols and re­la­tion­ship-build­ing.

The Counter Traf­fick­ing Unit (CTU) of the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty has filed 29 crim­i­nal charges against two Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als fol­low­ing “Op­er­a­tion Pur­ple Rain”—a sweep­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to hu­man traf­fick­ing in Rio Claro.

The grow­ing role of ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence and dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s tourism sec­tor was among the key is­sues dis­cussed dur­ing a meet­ing be­tween YTEPP Ltd and the Tourism In­dus­try As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TIATT) last Tues­day at The Chan­cel­lor Ho­tel in Port-of-Spain.

Colom­bians milled in­to vot­ing sta­tions on Sun­day in the first round of the South Amer­i­can na­tion’s pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, choos­ing be­tween can­di­dates with rad­i­cal­ly di­verg­ing vi­sions for the fu­ture of peace in a coun­try haunt­ed by decades of armed con­flict.

Five pa­tients have re­cov­ered from a rare type of Ebo­la virus, the head of the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion said Sun­day dur­ing a vis­it to Bunia in east­ern Con­go, a city at the heart of an out­break.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has con­demned calls for crim­i­nal gangs to unite amid on­go­ing protests sur­round­ing the Joshua Sama­roo-Ka­ia Sealy case, de­scrib­ing sup­port for such ap­peals as “sick and evil” and pledg­ing that her Gov­ern­ment will stand firm­ly be­hind law en­force­ment and law-abid­ing cit­i­zens.