Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has ex­tend­ed con­grat­u­la­tions to Saint Lu­cia’s Prime Min­is­ter Philip Pierre af­ter his Saint Lu­cia Labour Par­ty re­tained its leg­isla­tive ma­jor­i­ty in yes­ter­day’s gen­er­al elec­tion.

Caribbean Air­lines (CAL), the re­gion’s largest car­ri­er, will sus­pend two re­cent­ly opened routes and sus­pend its Bar­ba­dos base of op­er­a­tions ear­ly next year, deal­ing a blow to re­gion­al con­nec­tiv­i­ty. Ef­fec­tive Jan­u­ary 10, the air­line will sus­pend its routes to San Juan, Puer­to Ri­co, and Tor­to­la, British Vir­gin Is­lands. CAL will al­so sus­pend its base op­er­a­tions at Bar­ba­dos’ Grant­ley Adams In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in Feb­ru­ary 2026. Flights orig­i­nat­ing out of Bar­ba­dos will be resched­uled and re­timed to op­er­ate out of Trinidad’s Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in­stead. As a re­sult, all crews based in Bar­ba­dos will be re­quired to op­er­ate flights out of the Port of Spain hub.

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine says he does not sup­port “out­siders” mak­ing de­ci­sions for To­ba­go and be­lieves the is­land must have a greater say in mat­ters that af­fect it. He has made it clear that he wants a seat on the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil and has pledged that the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) will push for To­ba­go to have a voice on na­tion­al de­fence and in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions if re-elect­ed on Jan­u­ary 12.

The Of­fice of the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer and the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion yes­ter­day signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Agree­ment that pro­vides a 10 per cent in­crease in salaries and al­lowances for pub­lic of­fi­cers for the pe­ri­ods 2014 to 2016 and 2017 to 2019. The agree­ment al­so con­sol­i­dates the Cost of Liv­ing Al­lowance for both tri­en­nia.

Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) Dar­ryl Din­di­al says a re­cent threat to his life made on so­cial me­dia has been “un­com­fort­able” for him as he is sim­ply do­ing his job, but has thanked the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) for their re­sponse in find­ing the per­son re­spon­si­ble.

Chief Sec­re­tary and To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) leader Far­ley Au­gus­tine of­fi­cial­ly an­nounced the date for the  To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tion late last evening.

Days af­ter the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) and Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) Dar­ryl Din­di­al agreed on a ten per cent wage in­crease for pub­lic ser­vants, the fi­nal dis­cus­sions over the de­tails be­hind the in­crease con­tin­ued late in­to last night.

CAS­TRIES: Prime Min­is­ter Philip J Pierre’s Saint Lu­cia Labour Par­ty (SLP) has cre­at­ed his­to­ry by se­cur­ing a con­sec­u­tive vic­to­ry in the 2025 Gen­er­al Elec­tions, mark­ing the first time in a decade that a po­lit­i­cal par­ty on the is­land has achieved back-to-back wins.

Act­ing For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath says if a hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis un­folds in Venezuela due to po­ten­tial land at­tacks from the Unit­ed States, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has al­ready giv­en her com­mit­ment that Trinidad and To­ba­go will stand with the Venezue­lan peo­ple.

Hu­man rights ac­tivist Sofia Figueroa-Leon says Venezue­lans across the globe are hop­ing for a regime change in Venezuela.

Amid T&T’s role in cur­rent geopo­lit­i­cal is­sues and the re­cent US radar in­stal­la­tion in To­ba­go, the Cham­bers of the Greater Tu­na­puna, Greater San Fer­nan­do and Ch­agua­nas ar­eas have stressed that clear com­mu­ni­ca­tion from the State is need­ed to en­sure busi­ness and in­vest­ment re­main strong — and they have cit­ed con­cerns by some of their mem­bers and in­vest­ment col­leagues.

Apart from grow­ing pub­lic and vis­i­tor con­cern on T&T’s po­si­tion amid geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions, cruise ship op­er­a­tors have re­port­ed a sig­nif­i­cant re­duc­tion in pre-booked tours, in­clud­ing one ves­sel can­celling its To­ba­go call for this Fri­day.