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.

ROSEAU, Do­mini­ca—Prime Min­is­ter Roo­sevelt Sker­rit yes­ter­day thanked the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment for sus­pend­ing a procla­ma­tion that would have pre­vent­ed Do­mini­cans from en­ter­ing the North Amer­i­can coun­try from Jan­u­ary 1 next year.

Con­vict­ed mur­der­er Chuck At­tin will have to serve al­most 23 more years in prison be­fore he can be re­leased.

A man from Fyz­abad, who dis­guised him­self in a niqab – a face cov­er­ing worn by some Mus­lim women – to kill the moth­er of his young child in 2020, has been sen­tenced to 18 years in prison.

A “peace­mak­er” who in­ter­vened in a fight be­tween two women was stabbed in the back and lat­er died in the hos­pi­tal of his in­juries. He was iden­ti­fied as couri­er Stephan Roberts, of Agua San­ta Av­enue in Diego Mar­tin.