Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s two In­de­pen­dence Day mes­sages have drawn sharply dif­fer­ent re­ac­tions, with Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les and Mick­ela Pan­day crit­i­cis­ing what they de­scribed as di­vi­sive and po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed rhetoric, while po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed de­fend­ed the Prime Min­is­ter’s first mes­sage as an op­por­tu­ni­ty for ob­jec­tive re­flec­tion on the coun­try’s de­vel­op­ment.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s 64th In­de­pen­dence Day cel­e­bra­tions came alive with the sights, sounds and en­er­gy of the na­tion’s cul­tur­al her­itage, as Red Dev­ils, Moko Jumbies, tas­sa drum­mers, chut­ney dancers, Jab Jab, a Chi­nese cul­tur­al troupe and steel­pan brought a car­ni­val-like at­mos­phere to the mil­i­tary pa­rade.

King Charles III has con­grat­u­lat­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go on its 64th In­de­pen­dence an­niver­sary, de­scrib­ing the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the two coun­tries as an “en­dur­ing part­ner­ship” root­ed in shared val­ues and mu­tu­al re­spect.

Li­onel Mes­si an­nounced his re­tire­ment from in­ter­na­tion­al soc­cer on Mon­day af­ter two decades rep­re­sent­ing Ar­genti­na.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s In­de­pen­dence Day as­sess­ment that Trinidad and To­ba­go should be fur­ther ahead af­ter 64 years of In­de­pen­dence, giv­en the foun­da­tion in­her­it­ed from Britain, has trig­gered a sharp his­tor­i­cal re­buke, with a his­to­ri­an ac­cus­ing her of pre­sent­ing a dis­tort­ed pic­ture of colo­nial rule.

To­day’s In­de­pen­dence Day cel­e­bra­tions will pro­ceed safe­ly, se­cure­ly and un­in­ter­rupt­ed.

The Min­istry of Trans­port and Civ­il Avi­a­tion has an­nounced that light mo­tor ve­hi­cles will be per­mit­ted to use both the east­bound and west­bound lanes of the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route (PBR) from 8 pm to­day to fa­cil­i­tate In­de­pen­dence Day cel­e­bra­tions.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has made a call for Trinidad and To­ba­go to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for its post-in­de­pen­dence de­ci­sions, say­ing the coun­try must stop blam­ing its on­go­ing prob­lems on its colo­nial past.

As Trinidad and To­ba­go marks 64 years of in­de­pen­dence to­day, Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo is call­ing for cit­i­zens to have the free­dom to live with­out fear while con­fronting the coun­try’s on­go­ing crime and vi­o­lence cri­sis.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is ques­tion­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s man­age­ment of State in­sti­tu­tions, point­ing to the “re­port­ed 24 de­par­tures from State boards” as she calls for greater ac­count­abil­i­ty.

As Trinidad and To­ba­go cel­e­brates its in­de­pen­dence to­day, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro is pay­ing trib­ute to fe­male of­fi­cers who have helped build and shape the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

That was the cen­tral mes­sage from Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad as he chal­lenged cit­i­zens to re­flect on how they have used the free­doms gained since in­de­pen­dence.