To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine is weigh­ing an out­right ban on the use of jet skis in To­ba­go, fol­low­ing the trag­ic death of An­gel­i­ca Jo­gie at Pi­geon Point on Wednes­day.

Out­side the Pi­geon Point Her­itage Park yes­ter­day, the mood was som­bre as tour op­er­a­tors hud­dled to­geth­er talk­ing qui­et­ly about the in­ci­dent that left An­gel­i­ca Jo­gie dead, their boats sit­ting emp­ty an­chored near­by on the wa­ter.

The Mar­itime Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go yes­ter­day called for the in­tro­duc­tion of stricter leg­is­la­tion and tougher penal­ties for breach­es of jet ski op­er­a­tion pro­to­cols, say­ing de­ci­sive ac­tion is need­ed to de­ter reck­less be­hav­iour and pre­vent fur­ther loss of life.

The Gov­ern­ment has ac­knowl­edged the le­git­i­ma­cy of Venezuela’s cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion, sig­nalling a shift in its pre­vi­ous­ly guard­ed po­si­tion on the po­lit­i­cal cri­sis in Cara­cas.

Caribbean Air­lines (CAL) will add a US$15-25 fu­el sur­charge to all re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al tick­ets. The sur­charge will ap­ply per sec­tor and will be ap­plied to all tick­ets pur­chased on or af­ter April 10. Tick­ets bought be­fore April 10 will not at­tract the fu­el sur­charge. How­ev­er, tick­ets for flights be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go will re­main un­af­fect­ed.

Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment are con­ven­ing an ur­gent emer­gency meet­ing to­day to ad­dress an es­ca­lat­ing diplo­mat­ic rift sparked by Trinidad and To­ba­go’s for­mal protest over the man­ner in which the reap­point­ment of Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Car­la Bar­nett was han­dled.

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers has fired back at Dr Ralph Gon­salves, say­ing his ref­er­ence to sea­sick­ness at the Cari­com Sum­mit in St Kitts and Nevis was said as a joke.

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) is call­ing for the res­ig­na­tion or re­moval of Sean Sobers as Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs.

Tas­sa, iron and melody rang out at Clifton Hill Beach yes­ter­day, as Point Fortin MP Ernesto Ke­sar launched Point Fortin Bor­ough Fu­sion, al­though the Point Fortin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion is yet to launch the of­fi­cial Bor­ough Day cel­e­bra­tions.

For­mer en­er­gy min­is­ter Stu­art Young is ques­tion­ing whether Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is well po­si­tioned to en­gage Venezuela diplo­mat­i­cal­ly, rais­ing con­cerns about her stand­ing with that coun­try’s lead­er­ship and her past state­ments.

Pa­tri­ot­ic En­er­gies Ser­vices Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed has se­cured three ISO cer­ti­fi­ca­tions and is hope­ful the Gov­ern­ment will grant ap­proval for its part­ner, Maire Tec­n­i­mont, to un­der­take a US$50 mil­lion in­spec­tion study of the shut­tered Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery.

Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (TPRC) chair­man Josi­ah Austin has re­ject­ed state­ments by Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen, de­scrib­ing as “false and mis­lead­ing” the sug­ges­tion that cor­po­ra­tions are pri­ori­tis­ing cul­tur­al events over con­trac­tor pay­ments.