Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath has hit back at Port of Spain North/St Ann’s West MP Stu­art Young over crit­i­cism of Christ­mas events held at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (OPM) and the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties (MPU).

For­mer Prime Min­is­ter and Port of Spain North/St Ann’s West MP Stu­art Young has ac­cused the UNC gov­ern­ment of fir­ing “tens of thou­sands of our most vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens” while some with­in the ad­min­is­tra­tion con­tin­ue to host what he de­scribed as ex­trav­a­gant and ex­pen­sive par­ties.

Sched­uled surg­eries at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal were dis­rupt­ed yes­ter­day af­ter op­er­at­ing the­atre at­ten­dants called in sick, an ac­tion that is said to be linked to their frus­tra­tion over be­ing in­formed that they would not re­ceive back­pay this month.

Less than a week af­ter kid­nap­pers de­mand­ed US$2.5 mil­lion for the re­lease of cou­ple Der­rick and Clari­bel Tardieu, their kid­nap­pers have re­port­ed­ly agreed to re­duce the amount to $100,000, se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers said yes­ter­day.

Po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing a shoot­ing at East­ern Main Road, San­gre Chiq­ui­to, which left one man dead and two oth­ers fight­ing for their lives at hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day.

Two Trinidad and To­ba­go cit­i­zens were ar­rest­ed on De­cem­ber 10 fol­low­ing a joint op­er­a­tion by US and Trin­bag­on­ian au­thor­i­ties, the US Em­bassy in T&T con­firmed in a state­ment yes­ter­day.

Two Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als are among six men ar­rest­ed dur­ing a mul­ti-agency op­er­a­tion in the British Vir­gin Is­lands that led to the seizure of 772.4 kilo­grammes of co­caine, ac­cord­ing to a me­dia re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day by that coun­try’s Po­lice In­for­ma­tion Of­fice.

For­mer T&T De­fence Force Lieu­tenant Com­man­der Nor­man Din­di­al is blast­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro for fail­ing to make any ar­rests in two mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar drug busts over a span of 24 hours.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo says the Gov­ern­ment has not­ed the planned protest by nurs­ing staff over wage is­sues, but he is urg­ing them not to dis­rupt pa­tient care and es­sen­tial ser­vices.

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro says the State of Emer­gency is not to be thanked for the re­duc­tion in crime in Port-of-Spain. Rather, he says the as­tute lead­er­ship of the po­lice of­fi­cers in the di­vi­sion have brought the re­sul­tant de­cline.

For­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher says that while life has con­tin­ued for her af­ter her ar­rest and de­par­ture from the TTPS, she is trust­ing God to bring jus­tice against those who she said “con­spired to end her ca­reer.”

Chief Sec­re­tary and To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty po­lit­i­cal leader Far­ley Au­gus­tine says the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly will roll out its own is­land­wide CCTV sys­tem. He says the is­land can no longer de­pend on na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies af­ter mul­ti­ple mur­ders and rob­beries, where sus­pects es­caped by sea.