The two-day session, which took place in Barbados on Wednesday and Thursday, sought to ensure common understanding of the free movement of people regime within countries that have signed on to the CSME, a Caricom secretariat release said.

The officers were also involved in training in customer service and the right of establishment and provision of services.

The training took place at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Conference Centre with support from the 10th European Development Fund. Some officials took part in the programme online.

According to police, Lawrence Baksh of Chase Village was driving his car along Cumuto Road at about12.45 pm when he was approached by four men with guns who ordered him out of the vehicle.

Baksh was robbed of a bag containing $4,000 by the men who then fled. He alerted police officers and a team from the Northern and Eastern Divisions began searching for the suspects.

Newsday was told that the four were seen in Sangre Grande area and a shootout occurred resulting in one of them being wounded. The others escaped in some bushes. The suspect was taken to the Sangre Grande hospital where he remained in serious condition yesterday.

Cpl Gordon of the Cumuto Police Station is continuing enquiries.

Suratt said while he endorses the Penmanship Project recently launched to help students develop their handwriting skills, the introduction of Braille will help low-vision students who may eventually go blind.

“Children who attend government primary schools with low vision should be encouraged to use Braille because there is a possibility that the child may go blind. It is important for that child to develop that skill. [In] the event that you lose your sight completely, you won’t be scrambling to learn something new.” He said visually impaired children need the Braille component to help them do maths and English, and to function in the classroom, rather than depending on audio from the computer.

Suratt said just as students are being encouraged to use penmanship to develop their handwriting skills, especially to help them in their exams, emphasis must also be placed on visually impaired students at government primary schools. When contacted, Education Minister Anthony Garcia said the ministry’s Student Support Services Department was looking at the possibilities of introducing the teaching of Braille so visually impaired students in primary schools had an opportunity to move forward.

“Yes, it is an excellent idea, and it is something we are going to look at. The objective of this government is to encourage every child to have an opportunity of accessing education.

The first step is access – every child should have the opportunity of accessing education – and the other step is inclusion.

No one must be left behind. Regardless whether you suffer from any disability, we want to ensure that things are put in place for students to access the education the ministry has to offer.” Garcia said with the continuation of the penmanship programme, students who write in cursive make it much easier for the markers to read and understand.

“Penmanship is going to be a requirement of all teachers in the primary schools to teach. The practice was not carried out as much as it should have been.

However, a number of schools still continue with the practice.” He said the ministry had to make sure there was a balance, because the younger generation was now in the digital age where they use computers and smartphones.

“People are accustomed to texting using letters on these digital devices and, if we are not careful, we are going to lose a very important skill and a very important area of communication.

“We are not throwing out the digital aspect of it. We are insisting that handwriting must be looked upon and it must be regarded as something of extreme importance to the education of a child.”

Prosecutor Sgt Gordon Maharaj told the court that police searched a house in San Fernando on February 1, found the items in a plastic bag, and arrested Ramjohn and two other people.

PC Rampersad of the San Fernando station laid the charge.

Ramjohn’s attorney Subhas Panday yesterday said it was a case of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. He said although the gun and ammunition did not belong to his client, Ramjohn knew they were in the building. He was influenced to be there, Panday added.

Diop said she was not of the view that he was at the wrong place at the wrong time, but believed Ramjohn chose to be there although he knew about the gun and ammunition.

On the charge of gun possession, she fined him $5,000 or in default of payment serve nine months in prison with hard labour.

For the ammunition, he was fined $3,000 or will serve nine months with hard labour in prison.

He has 60 days to pay the fines.

Earlier this week, Diop fined Sherlon Cooper, 22, of Embacadere in San Fernando, $8,000 for possession of a gun and ammunition.

PC George of the Operations Unit, San Fernando, laid the charges to which Cooper entered guilty pleas.

Cooper, who said he was the victim of a shooting, claimed he bought the gun for protection after getting death threats.

However, the lumber will be stored at the Forestry Division at Farm Road, St Joseph, where an inventory will be taken.

The order was made by Justice Ronnie Boodoosingh, who granted leave to exporter Guiseppi BC Ltd to challenge the decision by the comptroller to seize the containers and refuse to allow the export although, the company claimed Customs had granted all the necessary permissions.

Brent Guiseppi managing director of Guiseppi BC Ltd said the shipment of teak was scheduled to depart on the Jennifer Schpers on April 16.

The lumber was purchased from various saw millers in the Penal area and loaded into the containers.

He said the bill of lading was stamped “OK to Ship” and another form was stamped and signed. He said to date neither document has been revoked, but after the shipment was taken to King’s Wharf, San Fernando, it was seized in the Customs area of the port on April 7.

Guiseppi said he was told the goods were not going to be exported as they were considered “prohibited items.” He also contended that the comptroller has not shown that the lumber seized was harvested from forests on state lands or in forest reserves, but was only told of a document purporting to be a report from the Forestry Division of the Ministry of Agriculture which said that the timber was “positively identified as teak timber from state plantations.” “I was not allowed to make any representations prior to the issuance of the report to the defendant, nor was I allowed an opportunity to be present at any visual,” he said.

He said he had suffered loss and damage to his business as he continued to incur demurrage and storage charges from the shipping company.

In addition, he said in his lawsuit, “The logs within the container have been subjected to high heat and it is very likely that they would have cracked and diminished in value.

I have also lost the opportunity to sell on an ongoing basis with my consignee who indicated that he was willing to take eight container loads per month.” Attorneys Kelvin Ramkissoon, Leon Kalicharan and Sonya Gyan are representing Guiseppi.

The day began with a photo shoot with each of the participating teams in the league followed by the opening matches .

In the first of the two fixtures, Queen’s Park ran away 4-0 winners over Club Sando .

Shadeeka Mendes opened the scoring in the 8th minute of the game with former national Under-17 captain Anique Walker doubling the advantage on 55 minutes .

Queens Park got further goals from Ami Joy Daniel from the penalty and Lily Stauble rounded off the scoring .

The final match of the afternoon featured MIC-IT Rangers against the TT Women’s Under 17 team .

This match was evenly contested but the Rangers outfit finished 2-0 winners courtesy of goals by Shakeema Forestine in the 15th minute and Kaydeen Jack 36th minute .

A press release from the Police Service stated eight exercises were conducted on Wednesday by officers of the Central Division Task Force, Chaguanas CID, Freeport CID and Canine Branch.

Police first went to Mulchan Seuchan Road, Chaguanas where they arrested a 36-year-old tradesman of Petit Valley. The man was found in a vehicle along the road with a Glock 19 pistol and two magazines.

The police then executed a search warrant at about 5:20pm at a house at Roystonia, Couva and found three kilogrammes of marijuana, one Taurus 9mm revolver and 45 rounds of assorted ammunition.

The drug has an estimated street value of $300,000. A 33-yearold male technician who was found in the house was arrested.

At Brickfield Village, Waterloo Road, Carapichaima, police executed a search warrant at the home of a 44-year-old maintenance worker. Marijuana weighing 1.02 kilogrammes with a street value of $100,000 was found. The man was arrested.

Thirteen other people were also arrested in connection with varying offences.

At a press conference yesterday at OWTU’s north office, Henry Street in Port of Spain, union vice-president Peter Burke raised several issues plaguing the Commission.

He said a major issue is that TTEC is currently operating with 50 less crews than they had in 1981.

“In 1981 we had 200,000 customers.

In 2017, we have approximately 500,000 customers yet we have 50 less crews. How does that manifest itself in terms of servicing the public? We have a tremendous amount of complaints from the public about the tardiness in handling street lighting,” Burke said.

He said that at the moment, street lighting is handled from San Fernando which makes it difficult to get crews to areas such as Cedros, Toco, Matelot and Chaguaramas.

“Traditionally we have handled street lighting from the five distribution areas and the commission stopped that practice.” Burke also spoke about problems they have had with industrial relations at the Commission.

“On several occasions in the recent past we have had to go to a third party to force the Commission to adhere to agreements that were signed in good faith.

We have had to go to court for job evaluation, negotiations to be settled and it is a sort of lawless approach in the governance of an important State enterprise and we would want to have that issue dealt with at the level of the line ministry.” He said it was “very disconcerting” where management shows absolutely no respect for the collective bargaining process and good industrial relations.

“We have found in our experience if a management treats so flippantly with industrial relations it will also treat flippantly with procurement with health and safety and good financial management and therefore we are saying to the national community that those issues that are impacting you, this is not because of the workers, this is because of bad management practice and the fact that we have the downsizing of the internal crews at a very disturbing rate,” Burke said.

He said the union was in talks to have a meeting with Public Utilities Minister Fitzgerald Hinds to highlight their concerns.

Bravo, 28, has not played for the West Indies since November 3, last year. The left-hander had his match contract for a tri-nation series with Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka cancelled after making a disparaging tweet to CWI president Dave Cameron where he called him a “big idiot”.

Newsday understands that CWI has indicated to the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board (TT CB) that Bravo should be prohibited from playing until he removes the tweet and apologises to Cameron.

According to a source who wished to remain anonymous, this has not been well received by some of the national players selected for the practice match.

The Red Force team is captained by Marlon Richards and includes Lendl Simmons, Sunil Narine, Kevon Cooper, Rayad Emrit, Samuel Badree and Imran Khan to name a few.

Newsday has been informed that some players have flatly refused to play if Bravo is not permitted to take part.

They were hoping to match would act as a bridge to medning the relations between the regional body and the exiled player.

Since the infamous tweet, which stemmed from Cameron saying Bravo was not offered an ‘A’ contract (Bravo denied ever receiving an ‘A’ contract) because he was not performing, Bravo has been banned from regional cricket as well and has not played a match this year, missing the 2017 Regional Super50 and the four-day competition.

Speaking to Newsday yesterday, Suruj Ragoonath, CEO of the TT CB, acknowledged that Bravo’s participation in the practice match is in doubt.

He also revealed that Cricket West Indies does not want the match to be held at the National Cricket Centre in Couva.

Asked whether Bravo will be playing on Tuesday, he said: “At this point in time, Darren Bravo is in our squad.” Probed as to whether the regional governing body has an issue with Darren’s presence in the squad, he admitted, “They do. I’m working towards resolving that but the bigger issue right now is the venue. The West Indies board has an issue with playing at the NCC, what exactly is the nature of it, I’m not sure.” Ragoonath, who played 66 First Class matches for TT over a decade, said he is trying his best to get the match to be played at the NCC or at another venue.

But he noted his task is challenging as it is currently a long weekend with a public holiday on Monday.

“By tomorrow I will know for sure and only if the game is off I will send out a (press) release,” he said.

The NCC in Couva has hosted Regional Super50 (men and women) matches in the recent past with the full approval of the regional governing body.

The source told Newsday that it is the banning of Bravo and not the venue that is putting the match in doubt.

On Thursday at about 10 pm, the girl was at her Carenage home in company with her sister in the living room when the suspect entered and allegedly touched the girl inappropriately.

Her father caught the suspect in the act and raised an alarm.

A report was made at the Carenage Police Station on Friday. The girl also gave a statement to the Child Protection Unit.

Yesterday a warrant was issued for the suspect who is believed to have gone into hiding.

The alleged victim was taken to a doctor where she was examined and a report obtained.