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 re­quires a for­mal in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of politi­cis­ing na­tion­al tragedy, re­spond­ing di­rect­ly to a so­cial me­dia post in which the Prime Min­is­ter at­tacked the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment over crime and gang vi­o­lence.

The Caribbean Nat­ur­al Re­sources In­sti­tute con­vened its re­gion­al Part­ners Fo­rum on cli­mate jus­tice on Jan­u­ary 19 and 20 in Bar­ba­dos.

Two peo­ple were ar­rest­ed and nar­cotics and am­mu­ni­tion were seized dur­ing po­lice ex­er­cis­es con­duct­ed on Wednes­day.

A col­li­sion in­volv­ing a minibus taxi and a truck killed at least 11 peo­ple in South Africa on Thurs­day, a lo­cal gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial and emer­gency ser­vices said, just over a week af­ter a sim­i­lar road crash left 14 school­child­ren dead.

In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors are force­ful­ly re­ject­ing a bomb­shell al­le­ga­tion by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar that two mem­bers of their bench at­tempt­ed to seek per­son­al favours in ex­change for sup­port­ing the Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) Bill.

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor Phillip Alexan­der has called on all nine in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors to re­sign be­fore next Tues­day’s Sen­ate sit­ting.

The Gov­ern­ment’s out­right re­fusal to con­sid­er amend­ments to the Zone of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) Bill has been cit­ed by in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors as the key fac­tor be­hind their de­ci­sion not to sup­port the leg­is­la­tion in the Up­per House on Tues­day.

That chal­lenge was im­me­di­ate­ly thrown out to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar by Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tors and MPs past and present yes­ter­day, af­ter her claim that two in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors “asked” for “per­son­al favours” on Tues­day in ex­change for sup­port of Gov­ern­ment’s Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Zones bill

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has re­ject­ed the Prime Min­is­ter’s claims of a “po­lit­i­cal pact” with the in­de­pen­dent bench, ar­gu­ing that re­cent vot­ing pat­terns in the Sen­ate show law­mak­ers act­ing on con­science and the mer­its of leg­is­la­tion rather than un­der op­po­si­tion di­rec­tion.

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP) in charge of Ad­min­is­tra­tion, Ju­nior Ben­jamin, says even with the de­feat of a bill in­tend­ed to in­tro­duce Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tion (ZOSOs) in com­mu­ni­ties across T&T, the po­lice is not dis­cour­aged and will now con­tin­ue reg­u­lar an­ti-crime op­er­a­tions.

The Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (LATT) has raised se­ri­ous con­cerns over state­ments at­trib­uted to Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, ex­plain­ing his de­ci­sion not to sus­pend of­fi­cers in­volved in the fa­tal shoot­ing of 31-year-old Joshua Sama­roo dur­ing a high-speed chase in St Au­gus­tine.