Pan Trin­ba­go has ex­pressed deep dis­ap­point­ment at the gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to de­fer the of­fi­cial im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Steel­pan on the na­tion­al Coat of Arms un­til 2031.

Venezue­lan Jus­tice Min­is­ter Dios­da­do Ca­bel­lo is ac­cus­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of be­ing in a “drunk stu­por” and is promis­ing a “force­ful re­sponse” if Trinidad and To­ba­go al­lows the Unit­ed States mil­i­tary to use its ter­ri­to­ry as a base to at­tack Venezuela.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo has de­fend­ed the gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to re­tain the old Coat of Arms dur­ing a tran­si­tion pe­ri­od, say­ing the move is dri­ven by prac­ti­cal­i­ty and cost con­sid­er­a­tions that will save the coun­try mil­lions of dol­lars.

Op­po­si­tion fig­ures Ran­dall Mitchell and Stu­art Young are ques­tion­ing the gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to al­low the for­mer Coat of Arms of Trinidad and To­ba­go to re­main in use un­til 2031, rais­ing con­cerns about trans­paren­cy and the treat­ment of the steel­pan.

The Gov­ern­ment has ex­tend­ed the pe­ri­od dur­ing which the for­mer Coat of Arms of Trinidad and To­ba­go may be used, push­ing the dead­line to Jan­u­ary 2, 2031.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says Cab­i­net has not dis­cussed any with­draw­al from Cari­com.

ST JOHN’S, An­tigua, CMC—Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne has re­it­er­at­ed his call for his Trinidad and To­ba­go coun­ter­part, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, to “pro­duce the ev­i­dence” that the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com), in­clud­ing An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, has aligned it­self with “the Maduro nar­co gov­ern­ment head­ed by a dic­ta­tor” in Venezuela.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is not above ques­tion­ing or be­yond ac­count­abil­i­ty, says Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James be­lieves the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) may strug­gle to sway enough vot­ers in their di­rec­tion by rais­ing con­cerns about the Unit­ed States radar in­stal­la­tion in To­ba­go, or the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a mil­i­tary base be­ing es­tab­lished on the is­land. It comes as cam­paign­ing for the up­com­ing To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tions ramps up across the is­land.

GPS dis­rup­tions af­fect­ing air­craft op­er­at­ing in and around Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port have been linked to es­ca­lat­ing mil­i­tary ten­sions in the south­ern Caribbean, ac­cord­ing to a re­port pub­lished by The New York Times over the week­end.

For­mer Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) pres­i­dent Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus is ac­cus­ing the cur­rent union head, Fe­l­isha Thomas, of hid­ing from her mem­bers. She is ad­vis­ing Thomas that si­lence is not an op­tion.

Third Sched­ule of­fi­cers in the Teach­ing Ser­vice, in­clud­ing school su­per­vi­sors and guid­ance of­fi­cers with­in the Stu­dent Sup­port Di­vi­sion, are call­ing on Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo and Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Michael Dowlath to ex­plain de­lays in the pay­ment of their new salaries and out­stand­ing back pay.