The Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go says if the al­le­ga­tions made by the Prime Min­is­ter against In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors have sub­stance, they must be re­port­ed to the ap­pro­pri­ate au­thor­i­ties for a fair in­quiry, and if not, they should be with­drawn.

The MV Blue Wave Har­mo­ny sus­tained hull dam­age dur­ing a sea tri­al at the Port of Scar­bor­ough on Fri­day.

As pres­sure mounts on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to iden­ti­fy the in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors she claims at­tempt­ed to trade their votes for per­son­al favours, the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion says it can­not act with­out specifics.

Pres­i­dent of the Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion, Is­rael B Khan, SC, says Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s al­le­ga­tion that two in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors sought per­son­al favours in ex­change for sup­port­ing the Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) bill amounts to a claim of se­ri­ous crim­i­nal con­duct and must be for­mal­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

There has been si­lence from the gov­ern­ment bench in the Up­per House, as sev­er­al gov­ern­ment sen­a­tors have re­fused to iden­ti­fy the two in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors ac­cused by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of at­tempt­ing to so­lic­it per­son­al favours to se­cure their vote for the Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) bill. 

PANA­MA CITY—Ja­maica’s Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs and For­eign Trade, Kam­i­na John­son Smith, con­tin­ues to rec­om­mend her coun­try’s Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSOs) as a key part of a crime-fight­ing strat­e­gy, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter sim­i­lar leg­is­la­tion failed to pass in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Sen­ate.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar must fire the Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor who al­leged­ly re­ceived “bribe” so­lic­i­ta­tions from two un­named in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, since the Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor’s fail­ure to alert the Sen­ate of the is­sue is tan­ta­mount to a crim­i­nal act, says Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) deputy leader San­jiv Bood­hu.

The lawyer rep­re­sent­ing the fam­i­ly of po­lice shoot­ing vic­tim Joshua Sama­roo says they be­lieve Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro should step aside as the probe in­to the mat­ter is car­ried out. They say this is be­cause they do not be­lieve he will be neu­tral giv­en his ear­ly com­ments on the in­ci­dent in de­fence of the of­fi­cers in­volved.

The griev­ing fa­ther of 31-year-old Joshua Sama­roo, who was killed in a po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing in St Au­gus­tine last week, is re­ject­ing Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der’s sug­ges­tion that laws may be need­ed to lim­it the post­ing of po­lice videos on so­cial me­dia.

Op­po­si­tion whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les and for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith have crit­i­cised Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der’s re­cent sug­ges­tion that Gov­ern­ment con­sid­er new laws tar­get­ing peo­ple who share con­tent on so­cial me­dia.

Teach­ers re­turned to class­rooms yes­ter­day af­ter two days of low at­ten­dance in what was re­port­ed as a “silent protest,” bring­ing re­lief to par­ents who had kept chil­dren home over fears of un­su­per­vised class­rooms. While nor­mal­cy has been par­tial­ly re­stored, frus­tra­tion over de­layed salary in­creas­es re­mains a sig­nif­i­cant con­cern.

De­spite as­sur­ances from Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der that an ar­rest was im­mi­nent, fear con­tin­ues to grip staff at Rio Claro East Sec­ondary School, as po­lice con­firm no sus­pect has yet been de­tained or ques­tioned in con­nec­tion with vi­o­lent threats made against teach­ers, stu­dent and their fam­i­lies.