While the planned US$750 mil­lion re­vival of the for­mer Arcelor­Mit­tal steel plant at Point Lisas could pro­vide a much-need­ed boost to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s econ­o­my, two econ­o­mists are warn­ing that the po­ten­tial risks and fine print sur­round­ing the in­vest­ment can­not be ig­nored.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s plans to re­vive the for­mer Arcelor­Mit­tal steel plant at Point Lisas are rais­ing ques­tions over how the coun­try will pro­duce vana­di­um, where the raw ma­te­r­i­al will come from and whether there is enough en­er­gy ca­pac­i­ty to sup­port the am­bi­tious plans.

Cit­i­zens Against Noise Pol­lu­tion (CANPTT) is call­ing for a more re­spon­si­ble ap­proach to this year’s In­de­pen­dence cel­e­bra­tions, urg­ing au­thor­i­ties to en­sure that any of­fi­cial fire­works dis­play is con­trolled, time-lim­it­ed and con­sid­er­ate of res­i­dents, vul­ner­a­ble peo­ple and an­i­mals.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has ques­tioned the Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s re­designed Coat of Arms, say­ing a change al­ready leg­is­lat­ed now sits in “ad­min­is­tra­tive lim­bo.”

One year af­ter the State of Emer­gency (SoE) forced the can­cel­la­tion of the na­tion­al pa­rade and fire­works, Trinidad and To­ba­go’s 64th In­de­pen­dence cel­e­bra­tions will see both events re­turn.

This an­nounce­ment was made by Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture and Fish­eries Ravi Rati­ram dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia at the Di­vi­sion of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment and So­cial Pro­tec­tion in Scar­bor­ough, To­ba­go.

Af­ter a decade of in­ac­tiv­i­ty, re­fur­bish­ment of the for­mer Arcelor­Mit­tal Steel Plant is un­der­way, rais­ing hopes among res­i­dents and small busi­ness own­ers that its re­vival will bring more jobs and re­newed eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty to the area.

For­mer Trinidad and To­ba­go Per­ma­nent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the Unit­ed Na­tions, Rod­ney Charles, is warn­ing that coun­tries which have strong­ly aligned them­selves with US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump could face po­lit­i­cal and diplo­mat­ic fall­out if the bal­ance of pow­er shifts in Wash­ing­ton fol­low­ing the No­vem­ber mid-term elec­tions.

This coun­try’s wa­ter se­cu­ri­ty de­serves se­ri­ous at­ten­tion and plan­ning due to deep­en­ing chal­lenges posed by cli­mate change and es­pe­cial­ly amid ex­pand­ing in­vest­ment and in­dus­try op­por­tu­ni­ties, says In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira.

An in­ves­ti­ga­tion is un­der­way to ac­count for three firearms be­long­ing to mu­nic­i­pal po­lice of­fi­cers in the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion af­ter the weapons could not be lo­cat­ed dur­ing an ear­ly-morn­ing arms check yes­ter­day.

A man fled from the Port-of-Spain Prison yes­ter­day morn­ing af­ter prison of­fi­cers caught him at­tempt­ing to throw a pack­age over the fa­cil­i­ty’s perime­ter wall.

For­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith is ques­tion­ing the le­gal­i­ty of hav­ing Unit­ed States se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel op­er­ate along­side lo­cal of­fi­cers at the Gov­ern­ment’s planned joint po­lice-army posts.