For­mer West In­dies cap­tain Bri­an Lara has called on crick­et au­thor­i­ties to es­tab­lish a Sir Garfield Sobers Ini­tia­tive to in­spire a re­vival of re­gion­al crick­et, de­scrib­ing it as the most fit­ting trib­ute to the man wide­ly re­gard­ed as the great­est all-rounder the game has ever pro­duced.

A po­lice of­fi­cer was shot dead and his li­censed firearm stolen dur­ing a sus­pect­ed rob­bery in Kel­ly Vil­lage, Ca­roni, late on Tues­day, while one of the al­leged at­tack­ers was al­so killed af­ter be­ing shot dur­ing the con­fronta­tion.

The Min­istry of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices has marked a mile­stone with its 40th Dis­as­ter Re­lief and Home Re­pair Grant Dis­tri­b­u­tion, pro­vid­ing fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance to 70 house­holds in the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co and Ari­ma re­gions.

En­er­gy co­op­er­a­tion, in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment were among the key is­sues dis­cussed when se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials met with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Unit­ed States Em­bassy in Port-of-Spain ear­li­er this week.

Lawyers rep­re­sent­ing busi­ness­man Do­minic Hadeed, his wife Genevieve, and her 69-year-old aunt Star Sab­ga have stat­ed that they are not wag­ing a war against the Gov­ern­ment and are on­ly seek­ing to re­store their rep­u­ta­tions. 

For­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of hypocrisy, claim­ing that while she now con­demns racial at­tacks and big­otry, she pre­vi­ous­ly di­rect­ed sim­i­lar re­marks at him when she was Op­po­si­tion Leader.

Calami­ty was avert­ed at the Scar­bor­ough Port on Mon­day night af­ter a run­away truck, loaded with con­crete blocks, al­most crashed in­to a car with a woman seat­ed in­side. The dra­ma un­fold­ed around 10.30 pm as ramp is­sues aboard the MV Gold­en Car­ri­er car­go ves­sel caused dam­age to at least three ve­hi­cles as they at­tempt­ed to dis­em­bark.

Busi­ness­man Gary Aboud has claimed that the Syr­i­an-Lebanese com­mu­ni­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go is liv­ing un­der an “omi­nous cloud of sus­pi­cion,” amid what he de­scribed as po­lit­i­cal hate cam­paigns tar­get­ing the com­mu­ni­ty.

The Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of the mat­ters in­volv­ing Do­minic and Genevieve Hadeed and Star Sab­ga has di­vid­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go, and in­ten­si­fied the coun­try’s po­lar­i­sa­tion, ac­cord­ing to for­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath.

Ten peo­ple have been de­tained un­der Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs), with the or­ders al­leg­ing links to or­gan­ised crime groups in­volved in firearms of­fences, ex­tor­tion, vi­o­lent rob­beries, hu­man traf­fick­ing and planned at­tacks.

Crim­i­nal de­fence at­tor­ney Fa­reed Ali has ques­tioned the strength of the ev­i­dence against Star Sab­ga fol­low­ing her re­lease from cus­tody, ar­gu­ing that al­le­ga­tions of a plot to as­sas­si­nate State of­fi­cials must be sup­port­ed by more than a record­ed con­ver­sa­tion.

Pres­i­dent of the Is­lam­ic Mis­sion­ar­ies Guild and Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer of Con­cerned Mus­lims of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Im­ti­az Mo­hammed, is call­ing on Mus­lims to stop sup­port­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), ar­gu­ing that the Gov­ern­ment’s for­eign pol­i­cy has be­trayed the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty.