If US De­moc­rats “flipped the script” on Re­pub­li­can chal­lenger Don­ald Trump with new pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee des­ig­nate Ka­mala Har­ris, Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley pro­duced his new play­er on Thurs­day. Ow­ing to crime’s weight, more help re­gard­ing the prob­lem—in the form of Gov­ern­ment MP Kei­th Scot­land—wasn’t sur­pris­ing. What was sur­pris­ing is it that it took as long as it did.

The move to sup­port Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty (NS) Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds’s ef­forts where po­lice mat­ters are con­cerned—with the new Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er and DCP team helm­ing—man­i­fests the Gov­ern­ment’s lat­est con­tri­bu­tion to the crime bat­tle. But if Row­ley’s tone was slight­ly sub­dued, the an­nounce­ment al­so telegraphed the span of the prob­lem, man­age­ment gaps, is­sues in/out of TTPS, Hinds’ ca­pa­bil­i­ty, and T&T’s flail­ing sta­tus on se­cu­ri­ty. How­ev­er, it mes­saged the Gov­ern­ment’s re­ply to calls for en­hanced se­cu­ri­ty at a time­ly point—the eve of to­day’s 1990 coup at­tempt ob­ser­vances.

Af­ter two pre­vi­ous NS min­is­ters, re­in­forced in­ter­ven­tion with a Hinds/Scot­land tag team—both rep­re­sent­ing hotspot con­stituen­cies—al­so ar­rives two weeks be­fore the Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial­ly en­ters the gen­er­al elec­tion year. This is from the Au­gust 10 fourth an­niver­sary of the 2020 elec­tion; en­ter­ing the fi­nal year when a third full Cab­i­net reshuf­fle would be un­like­ly. Hinds has grap­pled with wide NS min­is­te­r­i­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and T&T’s wors­en­ing crime since April 2024. Sto­ical­ly en­dur­ing pub­lic whip­ping boy sta­tus.

Re­buk­ing Op­po­si­tion at­tack, though that’s ex­pect­ed to in­crease af­ter Scot­land’s ap­point­ment has height­ened the per­cep­tion of Hinds’ weak­ness and that he need­ed help. Scot­land’s clos­er spot­light—mon­i­tor­ing, co­op­er­a­tion, col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween TTPS, Cab­i­net and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil—and where TTPS needs “spe­cial care and guid­ance in some in­stances” came af­ter the State con­ced­ed that TTPS act­ed il­le­gal­ly in firearm deal­er Brent Thomas’s Bar­ba­dos ar­rest.

What­ev­er ques­tions over le­gal di­rec­tions there, it’s ahead how Scot­land’s ex­per­tise, in­clud­ing ex­pe­ri­ence as PoS South MP, is used in the tight time frame and what cleans­ing aris­es. This is when TTPS, bat­tling in­ter­nal is­sues, is al­so in­ves­ti­gat­ing weighty mat­ters from Firearms User’s Li­cences to the SSA au­dit.

Thurs­day’s en­er­gy an­nounce­ments fol­lowed Wednes­day’s word from oth­er quar­ters that bid­ders for the Guaracara re­fin­ery now num­ber more than nine. OW­TU’s Pa­tri­ot­ic En­er­gies is un­der­stood to be among lo­cal/for­eign of­fers. Cari­com’s 47th con­fer­ence, start­ing in Grena­da to­mor­row, al­so brings oth­er ex­ter­nal fronts in­to fo­cus with Venezuela’s elec­tions that day, as well as cur­rent US pres­i­den­tial cam­paign­ing.

Cari­com’s agen­da in­cludes food se­cu­ri­ty, cli­mate change, and for­eign pol­i­cy; CARI­COM Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my in­cludes Hur­ri­cane Beryl’s im­pact, where at­ten­dees will have a first-hand ac­count of her wrath. Guests will be cued to Venezuela’s elec­tion, which pits jefe Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro against op­po­si­tion chal­lenger Ed­mun­do Gon­za­lez, who’s re­port­ed­ly at­tract­ed sig­nif­i­cant sup­port.

Al­so over­head Cari­com’s con­fer­ence, the US’ 100-day “war” to­wards the No­vem­ber 5 elec­tion fol­low­ing Pres­i­dent Joe Biden’s self­less step away from con­test­ing and Har­ris’ swift as­cen­den­cy; a 21st-cen­tu­ry woman of colour (root­ed in Africa, In­dia and the Caribbean) against Trump’s white es­tab­lish­ment age-bur­dened push. Har­ris, part of Biden’s “lega­cy of ac­com­plish­ments,” utilised the op­por­tu­ni­ty to broad­en her in­de­pen­dent im­age with state­ments to Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu for new di­rec­tions on the Is­rael/Pales­tine is­sue.

Among T&T’s thoughts to­day on the Ja­maat Al Mus­limeen’s 1990 act, Fuad Abu Bakr, whose fa­ther led the at­tempt, was then four years old on va­ca­tion at his grand­fa­ther’s home. He said he saw his fa­ther on tele­vi­sion. When the com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to the is­sue arose, Bakr said he tried un­suc­cess­ful­ly to con­vince his fa­ther to ap­pear. Bakr’s New Na­tion­al Vi­sion is now the lat­est par­ty plan­ning to con­test elec­tions.

“I in­tend par­tic­i­pat­ing. The on­ly way for T&T to go for­ward is if we have ma­jor po­lit­i­cal change ...” he added. The HOPE, NTA and COP at to­day’s 1990 an­niver­sary event seek re­in­force­ment from each oth­er via pro­ject­ed al­liance as UNC moves out­ward.

On UNC’s view of NTA Gary Grif­fith’s move to HOPE/COP (af­ter Grif­fith re­ceived no word from UNC’s leader), UNC chair­man Dave Tan­coo said, “UNC’s po­si­tion es­poused by the leader re­mains un­changed: we’re will­ing to meet/en­gage with any and all en­ti­ties in an en­vi­ron­ment of mu­tu­al re­spect and open­ness pro­vid­ed they’re sup­port­ive of our views and poli­cies, in­clud­ing on this in­com­pe­tent Gov­ern­ment. Sev­er­al or­gan­i­sa­tions have in­ter­act­ed pos­i­tive­ly with us. I ex­pect more will recog­nise na­tion­al uni­ty’s im­por­tance.”