With the Gov­ern­ment hav­ing ful­filled its promise to pay back­pay to pub­lic ser­vants this week, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says the re­main­ing out­stand­ing ar­rears will be set­tled in the new year in ac­cor­dance with the law.

Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Nurs­es As­so­ci­a­tion (TTNNA) pres­i­dent Idi Stu­art yes­ter­day con­grat­u­lat­ed the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) and pub­lic ser­vants af­ter they re­ceived their ini­tial back­pay pay­ments from the Gov­ern­ment.

Hun­dreds of dri­vers and com­muters were treat­ed to a morn­ing of grat­i­tude, give­aways, and com­mu­ni­ty spir­it yes­ter­day as the Route 2 Maxi Taxi As­so­ci­a­tion held its first-ever Day of Ap­pre­ci­a­tion.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has warned cit­i­zens against pub­lic at­tacks on the Unit­ed States, ar­gu­ing the crit­i­cism is hyp­o­crit­i­cal in a coun­try where over 350,000 na­tion­als have US visas or dual cit­i­zen­ship. 

Pro Vice-Chan­cel­lor and Prin­ci­pal of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) Five Is­lands Cam­pus, Pro­fes­sor Justin Robin­son, says the steadi­ly es­ca­lat­ing con­fronta­tion be­tween the Unit­ed States (US) and Venezuela is mov­ing in­ex­orably to­ward a change of gov­ern­ment in Cara­cas, with far-reach­ing im­pli­ca­tions for the Caribbean.

For­mer Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith has called on the gov­ern­ment to ur­gent­ly strength­en Trinidad and To­ba­go’s de­fence ca­pa­bil­i­ties fol­low­ing ac­cu­sa­tions from Venezue­lan of­fi­cials that the coun­try has backed US mil­i­tary ac­tiv­i­ty in the re­gion.

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has made it clear that had the de­ci­sion rest­ed sole­ly with him, he would have re­ject­ed the in­stal­la­tion of the Unit­ed States-in­stalled mil­i­tary radar in To­ba­go and per­mis­sion for US mil­i­tary air­craft to use To­ba­go’s air­port.

The pro­gramme al­lowed the sus­pect in the Brown Uni­ver­si­ty and MIT shoot­ings to come to the Unit­ed States. (See page 14)

From the hills of Glam­or­gan to the streets of Scar­bor­ough, Nom­i­na­tion Day for the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tions brought a buzz across the is­land, as 42 can­di­dates of­fi­cial­ly of­fered them­selves for pub­lic ser­vice and a chance to se­cure a seat in the is­land’s leg­is­la­ture.

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine says that if re-elect­ed on Jan­u­ary 12, his ad­min­is­tra­tion will move ear­ly in the new year to take the is­sue of To­ba­go au­ton­o­my to an is­land-wide ref­er­en­dum.

King’s Coun­sel Vin­cent Nel­son’s on­ly hope of set­ting aside his con­vic­tions for his par­tic­i­pa­tion in an al­leged le­gal fee kick­back scheme now rests with the Privy Coun­cil.

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) is fram­ing Nom­i­na­tion Day as the open­ing sal­vo in what it calls a fight for To­ba­go’s fu­ture, as its 15 can­di­dates for­mal­ly en­tered the race across the is­land yes­ter­day.