An­oth­er man­i­cou has been blamed for pow­er prob­lems af­fect­ing com­mu­ni­ties in Trinidad, less than a month af­ter T&TEC at­trib­uted a se­ries of elec­tric­i­ty dis­rup­tions to an­i­mal in­ter­fer­ence.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is de­mand­ing that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der ac­count for the re­sults of the State of Emer­gency as the lat­est SOE comes to an end.

Res­i­dents of Tigris Dri­ve, Eden Gar­dens, Bal­main, Cou­va, and the HDC hous­ing de­vel­op­ment at Cal­cut­ta Road No. 2 are hop­ing au­thor­i­ties will ad­dress long-stand­ing prob­lems with an over­grown va­cant lot.

The Ply­mouth/Black Rock elec­toral dis­trict is giv­ing en­tre­pre­neurs in the area a plat­form to sell their prod­ucts through a month­ly farm­ers’ mar­ket at Ad­ven­ture Mi­cro Mall, Ply­mouth.

A to­tal of 31 peo­ple held un­der pre­ven­tive de­ten­tion or­ders (PDOs) dur­ing the State of Emer­gency (SoE) were re­leased from three prison fa­cil­i­ties on Thurs­day, ac­cord­ing to se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials.

For­mer Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Mar­vin Gon­za­les is call­ing on the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) to ex­plain what is caus­ing re­ports of elec­tric­i­ty dips and fluc­tu­a­tions across the coun­try.

For­mer State of Emer­gency (SoE) de­tainee Star Sab­ga broke down in tears af­ter learn­ing she was fi­nal­ly free from house ar­rest yes­ter­day, her at­tor­ney, Faris Al-Rawi, says.

Star Sab­ga has ex­pressed re­morse for re­fer­ring to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar as a “stink­ing c****e” dur­ing a con­ver­sa­tion with her niece, Genevieve Hadeed, in June.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James be­lieves the Gov­ern­ment could face po­lit­i­cal back­lash over the de­ten­tion and sub­se­quent re­lease of sev­er­al high-pro­file in­di­vid­u­als un­der the State of Emer­gency (SoE) with­out any charges be­ing laid. How­ev­er, fel­low an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed says the episode may en­cour­age the pub­lic to be more cau­tious be­fore as­sum­ing the guilt of fu­ture de­tainees.

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al have been giv­en un­til Mon­day to de­cide whether to with­draw an ap­peal over a judge’s de­ci­sion to place 69-year-old cheese mak­er Star Sab­ga on house ar­rest, af­ter she spent sev­er­al weeks in prison on a Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der (PDO). 

The at­mos­phere out­side the East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre (ECRC) in San­ta Rosa was one of qui­et, cau­tious op­ti­mism yes­ter­day, as rel­a­tives of peo­ple held un­der Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs) wait­ed through­out the morn­ing for news of their loved ones’ re­lease.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor and for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi has warned that the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) will mount a le­gal chal­lenge against any at­tempt by the Gov­ern­ment to im­ple­ment an­oth­er State of Emer­gency (SoE) once the cur­rent one ex­pires next week.