The Bar­ba­dos-based Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tions Coun­cil (CXC) Tues­day launched the Caribbean Tar­get­ed Ed­u­ca­tion Cer­tifi­cate (CTEC) de­scrib­ing it as a “game chang­er”.

U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump said Tues­day the U.S. has no talks planned with Iran but in­sist­ed the Strait of Hor­muz re­mains “open and op­er­at­ing,” de­spite lim­it­ed traf­fic and a re­port­ed strike on a ship ex­it­ing the wa­ter­way.

Con­cerns are mount­ing over the fu­ture of about 150 call cen­tre work­ers fol­low­ing re­ports that the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TSTT) is con­sid­er­ing end­ing its con­tract with Am­plia and trans­fer­ring the work to Hum­ming­bird Hold­ings.

Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union (CWU) sec­re­tary gen­er­al Joanne Ogeer has is­sued a ral­ly­ing cry to the coun­try’s trade unions to break their si­lence and put po­lit­i­cal loy­al­ties aside, warn­ing that work­ers are be­ing made to car­ry the bur­den of ad­just­ment while thou­sands face job loss­es and mount­ing eco­nom­ic pres­sure.

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro did not breach pro­to­col when he left the ju­ris­dic­tion last week.

Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas yes­ter­day put the union’s protest ac­tion at the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) on hold, af­ter Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath com­mit­ted Gov­ern­ment to set­tling the out­stand­ing pro­pos­als for some 2,800 month­ly-paid work­ers. How­ev­er, she is warn­ing that the union will re­sume in­dus­tri­al ac­tion if Gov­ern­ment fails to de­liv­er.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is re­ject­ing calls by the Steel Work­ers’ Union of T&T (SWUTT) for a chance at in­put in the re­open­ing of the for­mer Arcelor­Mit­tal steel plant in Point Lisas by Ibis Steel Com­pa­ny, say­ing the US-backed com­pa­ny is free to hire any cit­i­zen it con­sid­ers suit­able.

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tists are urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment to pri­ori­tise and set­tle out­stand­ing wage dis­putes with trade unions, warn­ing that pro­longed ne­go­ti­a­tions and in­dus­tri­al un­rest could car­ry eco­nom­ic and po­lit­i­cal risks.

For­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to re­veal how many cit­i­zens her Gov­ern­ment has re­port­ed to Unit­ed States au­thor­i­ties, with rec­om­men­da­tions that their US visas be re­voked.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says she hopes the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ) can “sort them­selves out soon” amid con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing the re­gion­al court’s lead­er­ship, but has de­clined to say whether her Gov­ern­ment re­mains con­fi­dent that the court can fair­ly de­ter­mine the dis­pute over the reap­point­ment of Cari­com Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett.

The In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance (IDA) is de­mand­ing an­swers from the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) about why its pro­posed is­land­wide con­ven­tion on au­ton­o­my — sched­uled for Au­gust 10 — nev­er took place.

For five weeks, chil­dren at Kinder­Care Learn­ing Cen­tre in Welling­ton Gar­dens, Debe, trad­ed their usu­al sum­mer rou­tine for an en­tre­pre­neur­ial ad­ven­ture.