The En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) has in­sist­ed that it fol­lowed “an ex­ten­sive, sci­ence-dri­ven re­view process” be­fore it grant­ed a Cer­tifi­cate of En­vi­ron­men­tal Clear­ance (CEC) to Su­pe­ri­or Ho­tels Lim­it­ed for the con­struc­tion of a 3.5-star ho­tel and re­sort at Rocky Point, To­ba­go.

For­mer In­dus­tri­al Court judge and chair­man of the Es­sen­tial Ser­vices Di­vi­sion, Lawrence Achong, is de­fend­ing his ju­di­cial lega­cy amid ac­cu­sa­tions of po­lit­i­cal bias, warn­ing that the pow­ers and cred­i­bil­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s In­dus­tri­al Court are be­ing sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly weak­ened, while hint­ing at pos­si­ble le­gal ac­tion against trade union lead­ers who pub­licly at­tacked him dur­ing his tenure.

Cari­com lead­ers had a five-hour dis­cus­sion last Fri­day re­gard­ing T&T’s con­cerns on the reap­point­ment Cari­com Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett, but lead­ers did not agree to re­do their Feb­ru­ary process and de­ci­sion on Bar­nett’s ap­point­ment.

Fish­er­men and Friends of the Sea (FFOS) cor­po­rate sec­re­tary Gary Aboud is de­mand­ing trans­paren­cy from the Gov­ern­ment on the re­cent off­shore oil spill in the Gulf of Paria.

Venezue­lan Min­is­ter of Pop­u­lar Pow­er for Eco-So­cial­ism, Fred­dy Ñáñez, says his gov­ern­ment is main­tain­ing “per­ma­nent mon­i­tor­ing” of the sit­u­a­tion gen­er­at­ed by a hy­dro­car­bon spill orig­i­nat­ing from Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Un­der­scor­ing the crit­i­cal role of moth­ers, Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad used his Moth­er’s Day ser­mon to call for an end to the dis­re­spect, degra­da­tion and ob­jec­ti­fi­ca­tion of women.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says Gov­ern­ment in­tends to fol­low up on an of­fer made by In­dia’s Ex­ter­nal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Sub­rah­manyam Jais­hankar for a po­ten­tial line of cred­it to Trinidad and To­ba­go, de­scrib­ing his re­cent vis­it as “ex­treme­ly mean­ing­ful and pro­duc­tive.”

The de­bate over re­nam­ing Nel­son Is­land is tak­ing shape as his­to­ri­ans and In­dige­nous lead­ers ad­vance pro­pos­als ahead of na­tion­al con­sul­ta­tions be­ing pre­pared by the Gov­ern­ment.

A re­tired fire of­fi­cer has suf­fered a fi­nal de­feat in his le­gal bat­tle over be­ing al­leged­ly by­passed for pro­mo­tion based on vary­ing stances on the ap­plic­a­bil­i­ty of his post­grad­u­ate qual­i­fi­ca­tions.

Even as the Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency (Carpha) in­ves­ti­gates re­ports claim­ing T&T has de­tect­ed cas­es of han­tavirus, the Min­istry of Health yes­ter­day de­nied the claims and dis­missed a cir­cu­lat­ing memo about school clo­sures as fake.

The Min­is­ter of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices, Van­dana Mo­hit, has re­ject­ed claims made by for­mer min­is­ter Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy over the op­er­a­tions of the Child Af­fairs Di­vi­sion, de­scrib­ing the al­le­ga­tions as “mis­lead­ing” and “deeply dis­hon­est.”

The Sen­ate is due to re­con­vene to­day but is yet to re­ceive any in­di­ca­tion on whether Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has ac­cept­ed the res­ig­na­tion of Sen­a­tor Janelle John-Bates, some 11 days af­ter she ten­dered it.