Eco­nom­ic progress can­not be achieved with­out the ac­tive part­ner­ship of the pri­vate sec­tor, said Ava Ma­habir-Dass, Deputy Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism. She was ad­dress­ing the Cou­va Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (CCIC) dur­ing the Cham­ber’s an­nu­al Christ­mas func­tion on Fri­day at its ad­min­is­tra­tive com­plex in Cou­va.

The au­thor­i­ty to grant Firearm Users’ Li­cences (FULs) must re­main with the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, as any at­tempt to shift this statu­to­ry re­spon­si­bil­i­ty could cre­ate chaos, in­ef­fi­cien­cies and added bu­reau­cra­cy.

For­mer act­ing CEO of the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), Jee­van Joseph, is keep­ing qui­et about the rea­sons be­hind his sud­den de­par­ture from the State util­i­ty, con­firm­ing on­ly that he re­signed.

For­mer Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force Com­man­der Nor­man Din­di­al is call­ing for full trans­paren­cy from the Gov­ern­ment fol­low­ing the in­stal­la­tion of a US mil­i­tary radar sys­tem in To­ba­go.

San Juan East Side Sym­pho­ny Steel Or­ches­tra ce­ment­ed its dom­i­nance in the Sin­gle Pan Band cat­e­go­ry of Panora­ma on Sat­ur­day night, cap­tur­ing its ninth na­tion­al ti­tle and sec­ond con­sec­u­tive crown at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah. Per­form­ing Jumbie by Machel Mon­tano, the band de­liv­ered a tight­ly ex­e­cut­ed arrange­ment by Du­vone Stew­art, earn­ing an im­pres­sive 285 points to top a field of 25 com­peti­tors.

Min­is­ter of Land and Le­gal Af­fairs Sad­dam Ho­sein and For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers met with Bahrain’s Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs, Yousef bin Ab­dul­hus­sain Kha­laf, in Man­a­ma yes­ter­day.

It is too soon to de­ter­mine whether the in­stal­la­tion of a new US mil­i­tary radar sys­tem at ANR Robin­son Air­port will play a sig­nif­i­cant role in the up­com­ing To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tions.

A tense phone call last week be­tween the White House and Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro of­fered the em­bat­tled leader one fi­nal deal: re­sign im­me­di­ate­ly, leave Venezuela with his wife and son, and re­ceive safe pas­sage—or face the full force of an ex­pand­ing US cam­paign tar­get­ing what Wash­ing­ton has la­belled a “nar­co-ter­ror­ist regime.”

Amid es­ca­lat­ing ten­sions be­tween the Unit­ed States and Venezuela, econ­o­mists are di­vid­ed over whether the loom­ing threat of mil­i­tary con­flict will rat­tle glob­al oil mar­kets—and what it could mean for Trinidad and To­ba­go.

For­mer Petrotrin work­ers were buoyed yes­ter­day by news that the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to ho­n­our pre­vi­ous agree­ments to al­lo­cate them land and re­open their med­ical cen­tres, as the Re­fin­ery Re­view Com­mit­tee pre­pares to de­liv­er its re­port on the Pointe-a-Pierre Re­fin­ery restart this week.

Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu on Sun­day asked the coun­try’s pres­i­dent to grant him a par­don from cor­rup­tion charges, seek­ing to end a long-run­ning tri­al that has bit­ter­ly di­vid­ed the na­tion.

Di­rec­tor-Gen­er­al of the Guyana Civ­il Avi­a­tion Au­thor­i­ty (GCAA), Re­tired Lt. Col. Eg­bert Field says Guyana’s air­space is open de­spite Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s po­si­tion that the air­space “above and sur­round­ing Venezuela” is closed to air­lines and flights en­gaged in il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties.