As a restart for the Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery looms ahead, for­mer Petrotrin chair­man Wil­fred Es­pinet, who led the clo­sure and re­struc­tur­ing of the com­pa­ny, re­mains scep­ti­cal.

In­stead of spend­ing Eman­ci­pa­tion Day at cel­e­bra­tions or re­lax­ing with fam­i­ly, a group of Sea Scouts ded­i­cat­ed the pub­lic hol­i­day to clean­ing and pre­serv­ing the his­toric graves of the Sir La­m­ont fam­i­ly, for­mer own­ers of Palmiste Es­tates, while urg­ing cit­i­zens to help pro­tect Trinidad and To­ba­go’s her­itage.

A his­toric South Oropouche land­mark was re­duced to ash­es on Sat­ur­day af­ter fire de­stroyed the aban­doned post of­fice and for­mer War­den’s Of­fice, with flames spread­ing to the roof of a neigh­bour­ing home where 15 peo­ple, in­clud­ing Venezue­lan mi­grants, live.

An es­caped mur­der ac­cused was shot dead by po­lice dur­ing an op­er­a­tion in Vista­bel­la on Fri­day night.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has dis­missed pub­lic con­cerns that State se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies are mon­i­tor­ing cit­i­zens’ pri­vate phone con­ver­sa­tions, say­ing the on­ly peo­ple wor­ried about sur­veil­lance are crim­i­nals and those “suf­fer­ing from de­range­ment and para­noia.”

High Court Judge Mar­garet Mo­hammed has dis­closed her rea­sons for grant­i­ng a Pre­lim­i­nary Un­ex­plained Wealth Or­der (PU­WO) against the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), for it to re­veal the fi­nanc­ing for the ren­o­va­tion and con­struc­tion of its Bal­isi­er House head­quar­ters in Port-of-Spain.

“Promis­es were made and promis­es are be­ing bro­ken - please eman­ci­pate these chil­dren and women and bring them home."

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has praised the in­au­gur­al Miss Afro Trinidad and To­ba­go Pageant as a fit­ting cel­e­bra­tion of African her­itage, re­mem­brance and na­tion­al iden­ti­ty, com­mend­ing Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Michelle Ben­jamin for in­tro­duc­ing what she be­lieves can be­come a last­ing fix­ture on the coun­try’s African Eman­ci­pa­tion cal­en­dar.

A tas­sa per­for­mance and clas­si­cal In­di­an Dance dur­ing an African Eman­ci­pa­tion Day cel­e­bra­tion host­ed by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (UTT) has sparked de­bate on so­cial me­dia, with some peo­ple ques­tion­ing whether it was ap­pro­pri­ate for an event com­mem­o­rat­ing the eman­ci­pa­tion of en­slaved Africans.

Op­po­si­tion MP Stu­art Young yes­ter­day quot­ed the late Bob Mar­ley in ex­tend­ing African Eman­ci­pa­tion Day greet­ings.

As Trinidad and To­ba­go marks the 188th an­niver­sary of the abo­li­tion of slav­ery, Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les are urg­ing cit­i­zens to ho­n­our the sac­ri­fices and re­silience of en­slaved Africans while pro­tect­ing free­doms, pur­su­ing jus­tice and con­tin­u­ing the work of build­ing a so­ci­ety root­ed in equal­i­ty and op­por­tu­ni­ty.

It has now been 12 weeks since the Gov­ern­ment last held a post-Cab­i­net news brief­ing, with the most re­cent ses­sion tak­ing place on May 7, leav­ing near­ly three months with­out min­is­ters fac­ing ques­tions from jour­nal­ists on de­ci­sions tak­en at Cab­i­net ses­sions.