A 43-year-old El So­cor­ro con­trac­tor nar­row­ly es­caped death or se­ri­ous in­jury af­ter flee­ing two gun­men who wait­ed in am­bush out­side his home on Thurs­day morn­ing.

That was how Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley yes­ter­day de­scribed com­ments made by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar dur­ing her speech at the open­ing Cari­com 50th Heads of Gov­ern­ment meet­ing on Tues­day.

Caribbean lead­ers have ral­lied in de­fence of Cari­com, af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­liv­ered a sharp cri­tique at the open­ing of the 50th Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing in St Kitts this week.

Do­mini­ca Prime Min­is­ter Roo­sevelt Sker­rit says Cari­com is not hid­ing be­hind diplo­mat­ic lan­guage on Cu­ba but has lim­it­ed pow­er to in­flu­ence de­vel­op­ments there, as pres­sure mounts from the Unit­ed States, which has im­ple­ment­ed a block­ade on that is­land, for Caribbean gov­ern­ments to re­assess ties with Ha­vana.

While po­lit­i­cal par­ties are ex­press­ing hope for a pos­i­tive out­come for T&T fol­low­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s up­com­ing meet­ing with US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, they are al­so voic­ing some reser­va­tions.

Cu­ba says it re­mains com­mit­ted to work­ing with T&T and has al­so ex­pressed its grat­i­tude to the peo­ple of this twin is­land re­pub­lic for their sol­i­dar­i­ty, amid sour­ing re­la­tions with the Unit­ed States.

Na­tion­al­ly renowned mez­zo-so­pra­no, Her­mi­na By­noe Charles, will be laid to rest to­day. She died on Feb­ru­ary 21.

Busi­ness­man An­drew Gabriel has won his ap­peal over the Court of Ap­peal’s de­ci­sion to award him on­ly $10,000 in com­pen­sa­tion for defama­tion by cur­rent Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing, Phillip Alexan­der.

Po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing the dis­ap­pear­ance of two kilo­grammes of mar­i­jua­na from the Ch­agua­nas Po­lice Sta­tion, months af­ter an of­fi­cer was charged in a sim­i­lar theft at the Barataria Po­lice Sta­tion.

Re­open­ing the for­mer Pointe-a-Pierre re­fin­ery will on­ly suc­ceed if the Gov­ern­ment se­cures a part­ner with sub­stan­tial fi­nan­cial re­sources and guar­an­teed ac­cess to crude oil, econ­o­mist Dr Ronald Ramkissoon has cau­tioned, fol­low­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s an­nounce­ment that the Unit­ed States will as­sist in iden­ti­fy­ing a suit­able in­vestor.

Be­tween Jan­u­ary 2024 and Feb­ru­ary 2026, 22 chil­dren un­der the age of 18 ei­ther died by sui­cide or at­tempt­ed to do so, with mid-ado­les­cents aged 15 and 16 ac­count­ing for near­ly three-quar­ters of the cas­es.

Rel­a­tives of mur­dered Diego Mar­tin labour­er Ha­keem Bak­er are call­ing for stronger ac­tion to pre­vent fur­ther es­ca­la­tion of vi­o­lent crime.