Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has de­scribed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s crit­i­cism of Cari­com as “reck­less,” as she stressed the im­por­tance of strong re­gion­al ties with oth­er Caribbean coun­tries.

While some crit­ics have ques­tioned the Gov­ern­ment’s sup­port for the Unit­ed States' ac­tions against Venezuela, Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad has urged cit­i­zens not to ig­nore the scale of mi­gra­tion from the South Amer­i­can coun­try or the ter­ri­to­r­i­al threats it has made against neigh­bour­ing Guyana.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has again re­butted re­cent crit­i­cisms from An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne, dis­tanc­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go from Cari­com’s “Zone of Peace” pos­ture and ac­cus­ing the re­gion­al bloc of align­ing with Venezuela’s gov­ern­ment.

The Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion (EPA) is prepar­ing to ap­proach the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health (OSH) Au­thor­i­ty in the com­ing weeks over what it de­scribes as se­ri­ous health and safe­ty breach­es at di­lap­i­dat­ed se­cu­ri­ty booths at schools across Trinidad, which it says place Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny (NMTS) of­fi­cers at risk.

WEST PALM BEACH, Flori­da (AP)—The US Coast Guard yes­ter­day pur­sued an­oth­er sanc­tioned oil tanker in the Caribbean Sea, as the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion ap­peared to be in­ten­si­fy­ing its tar­get­ing of such ves­sels con­nect­ed to the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment.

For­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Na­tion­al Youth Of­fi­cer Dane Wil­son has called on Ari­ma May­or Bal­li­ram Ma­haraj to say why he chose to at­tend a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress fundrais­er Christ­mas din­ner in­stead of his Ari­ma Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion Christ­mas din­ner, adding that in his view, Ma­haraj’s ac­tions would war­rant re­fer­ral to the par­ty’s in­ves­ti­ga­tion com­mit­tee on dis­ci­pli­nary mat­ters.

Po­lice have launched a homi­cide in­ves­ti­ga­tion af­ter the bad­ly burnt body of a man was dis­cov­ered near a torched ve­hi­cle along Rail­way Road, Re­form, Ste Madeleine, yes­ter­day.

The Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture and Fish­eries last week be­gan dis­trib­ut­ing tree crops un­der the Biore­ach Project, ad­vanc­ing Gov­ern­ment’s ef­forts to pro­mote sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture, cli­mate re­silience and food se­cu­ri­ty.

The Col­lege of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Ap­plied Arts of Trinidad and To­ba­go has is­sued a state­ment re­gard­ing so­cial me­dia com­ments at­trib­uted to an em­ploy­ee.

Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Bar­ry Padarath is­sued a state­ment to­day sup­port­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­gard­ing her re­cent com­ments on re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty and for­eign pol­i­cy. Padarath stat­ed the gov­ern­ment stands with Per­sad-Bisses­sar as she con­fronts na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty chal­lenges. He said the Prime Min­is­ter is demon­strat­ing that diplo­ma­cy in­volves bold lead­er­ship and strate­gic al­liances rather than pas­sive ob­ser­va­tion.

Prime Min­is­ter of An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Gas­ton Browne, is­sued a state­ment to­day re­spond­ing to re­marks by Trinidad and To­ba­go Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­cern­ing CARI­COM and in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions. Prime Min­is­ter Browne said An­tigua and Bar­bu­da re­spects the sov­er­eign right of CARI­COM mem­bers to con­duct bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions but ex­pects the same re­spect for its own en­gage­ments with the Unit­ed States.

For­mer Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter and for­mer po­lit­i­cal leader of the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) Gary Grif­fith says re­ports that a sus­pect­ed US mil­i­tary base in To­ba­go would on­ly serve to fur­ther se­cure this coun­try from mil­i­tary ag­gres­sion, but felt that trans­paren­cy and clear mes­sag­ing was need­ed on the part of the gov­ern­ment.