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.

If hav­ing to shave your beard pre­vent­ed you from join­ing the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), that hur­dle may soon be re­moved—pro­vid­ed the re­quest is based on re­li­gious grounds.

The slow is­suance of pass­port book­lets is con­tin­u­ing as im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cials at­tempt to stretch Trinidad and To­ba­go’s re­main­ing stock un­til a new ship­ment is ex­pect­ed in Sep­tem­ber.

Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas says the union is still wait­ing to meet with the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) to dis­cuss its counter pro­pos­al for set­tling pub­lic of­fi­cers’ salary ne­go­ti­a­tion ar­rears, de­scrib­ing the de­lay as un­prece­dent­ed and claim­ing it rep­re­sents “the first un­set­tled set­tle­ment in his­to­ry.”