Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is de­fend­ing her Gov­ern­ment’s move to seek a three-month ex­ten­sion of the State of Emer­gency (SoE), in­sist­ing the mea­sure is tem­po­rary but nec­es­sary to pro­tect cit­i­zens from vi­o­lent crime af­ter what she de­scribed as decades of blood­shed and in­se­cu­ri­ty.

Econ­o­mist Roger Ho­sein is urg­ing cau­tion as Gov­ern­ment moves to ac­cess an es­ti­mat­ed $3 bil­lion in ad­di­tion­al fi­nanc­ing, warn­ing that while the re­quest could sup­port jobs and eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty, its long-term val­ue will de­pend on how ef­fec­tive­ly the funds are used and whether en­er­gy rev­enues ma­te­ri­alise as ex­pect­ed.

T&T’s se­nior foot­ballers suc­cumbed to a 3-0 de­feat to Rus­sia in their sec­ond in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly match at the Kalin­ingrad Are­na in Rus­sia on Tuesday. And had it not been for the hero­ics of goal­keep­er Den­zil Smith be­tween the posts, the mar­gin of de­feat would have been even wider.

For half a cen­tu­ry, the rhyth­mic heart­beat of Skif­fle Bunch Steel Or­ches­tra has echoed through south Trinidad—a tes­ta­ment to re­silience, cul­tur­al pride and un­wa­ver­ing de­ter­mi­na­tion.

As fate would have it, this col­umn is be­ing pub­lished the very day the Gov­ern­ment pro­pos­es to seek par­lia­men­tary ap­proval for a three-month ex­ten­sion of the cur­rent State of Emer­gency (SoE). This will ap­ply for three months be­yond its June 17 ex­pi­ra­tion.