PANA­MA CITY—Ja­maica’s Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs and For­eign Trade, Kam­i­na John­son Smith, con­tin­ues to rec­om­mend her coun­try’s Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSOs) as a key part of a crime-fight­ing strat­e­gy, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter sim­i­lar leg­is­la­tion failed to pass in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Sen­ate.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar must fire the Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor who al­leged­ly re­ceived “bribe” so­lic­i­ta­tions from two un­named in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, since the Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor’s fail­ure to alert the Sen­ate of the is­sue is tan­ta­mount to a crim­i­nal act, says Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) deputy leader San­jiv Bood­hu.

The lawyer rep­re­sent­ing the fam­i­ly of po­lice shoot­ing vic­tim Joshua Sama­roo says they be­lieve Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro should step aside as the probe in­to the mat­ter is car­ried out. They say this is be­cause they do not be­lieve he will be neu­tral giv­en his ear­ly com­ments on the in­ci­dent in de­fence of the of­fi­cers in­volved.

The griev­ing fa­ther of 31-year-old Joshua Sama­roo, who was killed in a po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing in St Au­gus­tine last week, is re­ject­ing Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der’s sug­ges­tion that laws may be need­ed to lim­it the post­ing of po­lice videos on so­cial me­dia.

Op­po­si­tion whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les and for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith have crit­i­cised Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der’s re­cent sug­ges­tion that Gov­ern­ment con­sid­er new laws tar­get­ing peo­ple who share con­tent on so­cial me­dia.

Teach­ers re­turned to class­rooms yes­ter­day af­ter two days of low at­ten­dance in what was re­port­ed as a “silent protest,” bring­ing re­lief to par­ents who had kept chil­dren home over fears of un­su­per­vised class­rooms. While nor­mal­cy has been par­tial­ly re­stored, frus­tra­tion over de­layed salary in­creas­es re­mains a sig­nif­i­cant con­cern.

De­spite as­sur­ances from Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der that an ar­rest was im­mi­nent, fear con­tin­ues to grip staff at Rio Claro East Sec­ondary School, as po­lice con­firm no sus­pect has yet been de­tained or ques­tioned in con­nec­tion with vi­o­lent threats made against teach­ers, stu­dent and their fam­i­lies.

Work­ers at the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex (EWM­SC) are call­ing on au­thor­i­ties to ur­gent­ly ad­dress what they de­scribe as a crit­i­cal short­age of con­sum­ables need­ed for the prop­er func­tion­ing of the hos­pi­tal.

On Sun­day af­ter­noon, when Tim­o­thy Thomas, 22, was about to take a rest, his grand­moth­er asked him to dri­ve to the fam­i­ly’s busi­ness, and he agreed.

PANA­MA CITY – Ja­maica’s For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Kam­i­na John­son Smith has moved to soft­en re­gion­al ten­sions af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­scribed Cari­com as an “un­re­li­able part­ner,” stress­ing that di­a­logue be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and its re­gion­al neigh­bours re­mains in­tact de­spite re­cent strains.

Thou­sands poured in­to the cap­i­tal on Wednes­day for the fi­nal leg of the pre­lim­i­nary “pan crawl,” as steel­pan rhythms rolled through Port-of-Spain, once again af­firm­ing its place as the na­tion’s na­tion­al in­stru­ment.

Af­ter more than a decade of bail­ing out chlo­ri­nat­ed wa­ter from a hole dug in­to the low­er floor of her home, a Debe moth­er is hop­ing that Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath will in­ter­vene and or­der a fresh in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to what she be­lieves is leak­ing WASA wa­ter un­der­min­ing her prop­er­ty.