Pub­lic at­ten­tion has now shift­ed to Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les fol­low­ing the April 16 sack­ing of Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Sen­a­tor Janelle John-Bates from the Pub­lic Ac­counts and Ad­min­is­tra­tion Com­mit­tee (PAAC) of the Up­per House over an em­bar­rass­ing po­lit­i­cal mis­step.

Re­cent news­pa­per head­lines re­flect­ing a wor­ry­ing spate of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty across the coun­try have re­in­forced the need for a well-co­or­di­nat­ed and sus­tain­able na­tion­al an­ti-crime strat­e­gy.

Of late, there has been a re­ac­tion against the “med­ical­i­sa­tion of dis­tress.” This means that nor­mal re­ac­tions that would have been ig­nored a gen­er­a­tion ago have re­cent­ly been con­vert­ed in­to “ill­ness­es.” A cold be­comes bron­chi­tis. A seizure be­comes epilep­sy. A child walk­ing on its toes be­comes autis­tic or, even bet­ter, “on the spec­trum,” which has to be one of the most dam­ag­ing med­ical ideas ever pro­posed.

Last week­end's wave of brazen, in­dis­crim­i­nate killings again brings in­to sharp fo­cus the ef­forts of the Trinidad and To­ba­go au­thor­i­ties to con­tain crime and vi­o­lence in this coun­try.

Amid the on­go­ing con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing the award of $3.4 bil­lion in Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) con­tracts, there is the un­der­ly­ing ques­tion of whether State-fund­ed hous­ing projects go­ing back a few gen­er­a­tions have ad­e­quate­ly met the needs of res­i­dents for ba­sic and, in cer­tain in­stances, ex­pand­ed qual­i­ty shel­ter.

The “heads on­ly” What­sApp mes­sage from Cari­com Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers is an elec­tron­ic in­dict­ment of the process sur­round­ing the heads’ de­ci­sion at their Nevis re­treat in Feb­ru­ary to af­firm a sec­ond term for her. Bar­nett’s cur­rent one ends in Au­gust.

Hos­til­i­ties in the Mid­dle East cast a gi­ant shad­ow over the glob­al econ­o­my. IMF man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Kristali­na Georgie­va has warned that the war in Iran is “per­ma­nent­ly scar­ring” the glob­al econ­o­my, dri­ving up in­fla­tion and slow­ing glob­al growth due to dam­age to en­er­gy in­fra­struc­ture and sup­ply chain dis­rup­tions. The out­look for glob­al growth de­pends on how quick­ly the hos­til­i­ties in Iran end. The longer the fight­ing per­sists, or the Hor­muz Strait re­mains block­ad­ed by ei­ther Iran or the Unit­ed States, the worse the eco­nom­ic out­look.

The de­ci­sion by the Of­fice of the Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor to halt the award of $3.4 bil­lion in Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) con­tracts un­der­scores both the fragili­ty and the im­por­tance of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ex­ist­ing pro­cure­ment frame­work.

A last­ing res­o­lu­tion to the back-and-forth state­ments be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Cari­com chair­man Dr Ter­rance Drew, Prime Min­is­ter of St Kitts and Nevis, may well need to be de­cid­ed by the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ).

The move by the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to seek and ob­tain court-sanc­tioned des­ig­na­tions for Hezbol­lah, Hamas and the Is­lam­ic Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard Corps (IRGC) as ter­ror­ist en­ti­ties marks a sig­nif­i­cant, if qui­et, shift in our na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty pos­ture.

The per­sis­tent scourge of vi­o­lence against women in T&T re­quires sus­tained, co­or­di­nat­ed and mea­sur­able ac­tion from every arm of the State and so­ci­ety.

The cur­rent Mid­dle East war un­der­scores the need for re­gion­al uni­ty. Rapid­ly emerg­ing eco­nom­ic chal­lenges will im­pact Cari­com states, ex­pos­ing vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties and test­ing re­silience. The longer the con­flict en­dures, the greater the con­se­quences.