Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has been in­vit­ed by Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump to at­tend what has been dubbed the Shield of the Amer­i­c­as sum­mit in Do­ral, Flori­da, sig­nalling deep­en­ing en­gage­ment be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and Wash­ing­ton.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says restart­ing the for­mer Petrotrin (Guaracara) re­fin­ery was a cen­tral fo­cus of her bi­lat­er­al meet­ing with Unit­ed States Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio, as T&T seeks to deep­en en­er­gy and se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion with Wash­ing­ton.

Unit­ed States Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio has called for clos­er se­cu­ri­ty and en­er­gy co­op­er­a­tion be­tween Wash­ing­ton and Caribbean na­tions, warn­ing that transna­tion­al crim­i­nal net­works pose what he de­scribed as the most ur­gent threat to the re­gion.

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath be­lieves the Prime Min­is­ter’s up­com­ing meet­ing with Unit­ed States (US) Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump is a win for her ad­min­is­tra­tion and could be good news for this coun­try.

Sev­er­al gov­ern­ment min­is­ters have com­mend­ed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ad­dress at Tues­day’s launch of Cari­com’s 50th con­fer­ence, with Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath rub­bish­ing the Op­po­si­tion’s crit­i­cisms of her ad­dress.

Venezuela’s gov­ern­ment has re­ject­ed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­marks at the Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment meet­ing in St Kitts and Nevis on Tues­day, af­ter she ac­cused both Venezuela and Cu­ba of be­ing “dic­ta­tor­ships.”

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is fac­ing mount­ing crit­i­cism over her com­ments on Cu­ba at the Cari­com sum­mit.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les dou­bled down on her crit­i­cism of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­marks at the 50th Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment of Cari­com in St Kitts and Nevis yes­ter­day, call­ing the ad­dress “em­bar­rass­ing”. She lament­ed that it cast Trinidad and To­ba­go in a neg­a­tive light.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Mar­vin Gon­za­les is ques­tion­ing whether the Gov­ern­ment de­lib­er­ate­ly al­lowed the col­lapse of the pro­posed ZOSO leg­is­la­tion so it could lat­er use its de­feat as an ex­cuse for fail­ing to curb ris­ing crime.

Busi­ness­man and firearms deal­er Brent Thomas is hop­ing that the “truth” will be shared about his de­ten­tion and ex­tra­di­tion af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s crit­i­cism on Tues­day about the role in which Cari­com played in his ar­rest from Bar­ba­dos to Trinidad and To­ba­go in Oc­to­ber 2022.

There is still no evac­u­a­tion plan in place for Port-of-Spain, de­spite years of traf­fic grid­lock and re­peat­ed in­ci­dents that have left the cap­i­tal locked down.

Jour­nal­ist, broad­cast­er, com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­fes­sion­al and singer Ray­mond Ed­wards has died af­ter a pro­longed ill­ness.