Days af­ter Venezuela is­sued an ul­ti­ma­tum to in­ter­na­tion­al air­lines re­quir­ing them to re­sume ser­vice or lose the right to fly, the coun­try has fol­lowed through with that threat. In a late-night so­cial me­dia post, the In­sti­tu­to Na­cional de Aeronáu­ti­ca Civ­il Venezuela (IN­AC) con­firmed that con­ces­sions had been re­voked for six air­lines: Iberia, TAP Por­tu­gal, avian­ca, LATAM Colom­bia, Turk­ish Air­lines, and GOL Air­lines. Lo­cal car­ri­er Caribbean Air­lines was not named on the list. The no­tice was pub­lished in the Of­fi­cial Gazette No. 43264 of the Bo­li­var­i­an Re­pub­lic of Venezuela.

Three dif­fer­ent ex­pla­na­tions from Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, air­port work­ers, and Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine have raised ques­tions about why a Unit­ed States Air Force C-17A Globe­mas­ter III land­ed in To­ba­go ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Lo­cal rum pro­duc­er An­gos­tu­ra is giv­ing a Christ­mas gift to con­sumers and re­tail­ers this year, an­nounc­ing price re­duc­tions on their rum prod­ucts for the sea­son.

Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic Pres­i­dent Luis Abi­nad­er an­nounced yes­ter­day that he has au­tho­rised the US gov­ern­ment to op­er­ate in­side re­strict­ed ar­eas in the Caribbean coun­try to help in its fight against drug traf­fick­ing.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says Venezuela was not on the agen­da dur­ing her meet­ing with Chair­man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen­er­al Dan Caine, the Unit­ed States’ high­est-rank­ing mil­i­tary of­fi­cer.

An in­ves­ti­ga­tion is un­der­way in­to al­le­ga­tions of mis­con­duct and un­pro­fes­sion­al be­hav­iour in­volv­ing Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cials as they dealt with a hear­ing im­paired trav­eller at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port some­time ear­li­er this week.

Min­is­ter of De­fence Wayne Sturge says that the Com­mand­ing Of­fi­cer of the Reg­i­ment was sent on im­me­di­ate leave on Au­gust 7, this year, and the de­ci­sion was re­scind­ed soon af­ter due to non-com­pli­ance with Reg­i­men­tal Stand­ing Or­der Num­ber 11.

The Unit­ed States Em­bassy in Trinidad and To­ba­go says all de­ci­sions about visas rest sole­ly with the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment and not with any for­eign au­thor­i­ty.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie is one of three par­lia­men­tar­i­ans re­ferred to the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee, which House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh is ex­pect­ed to rule on.

Au­dits and in­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing in­to the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP), where 928 peo­ple were ter­mi­nat­ed.

Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West Stu­art Young SC says arm­ing home­own­ers is not the be-all and end-all to ad­dress­ing home in­va­sions.

The Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry’s dis­tri­b­u­tion of lap­tops to schools is sched­uled to com­mence to­day, and to date, 19,914 book grants have been suc­cess­ful­ly dis­trib­uted to el­i­gi­ble ap­pli­cants, ac­cord­ing to Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath yes­ter­day.