作者： admin

Following the general election held on April 30, Antigua and Barbuda is moving forward with the formal establishment of its new legislative branch, with the Senate set to hold its first sitting of the new term this Wednesday. This opening session marks a key step in solidifying the country’s newly elected government structure after the poll that determined the makeup of the nation’s parliament.

Multiple key leadership appointments have already been confirmed ahead of the convening through official government announcements. Alincia Williams-Grant, who currently holds the position of Senate President, is poised to retain her leadership role after the Upper House holds its vote. The Cabinet of Antigua and Barbuda has officially submitted Williams-Grant’s nomination for the presidency, while Philip Shoul has been put forward to serve as the Deputy President of the body. Shenella Govia is also expected to take on the critical role of Leader of Government Business, responsible for coordinating the administration’s legislative workflow in the Senate.

The upcoming sitting will first see all newly appointed senators complete their mandatory oath of office before proceeding with any scheduled parliamentary business. This first meeting follows last week’s earlier swearing-in ceremonies for two incoming government officials: government senator Tiffany Strand-Peters and Parliamentary Secretary Joel Anderson-Rayne. During that event, Director General of Communications Maurice Merchant publicly confirmed the timeline for the full Senate’s first gathering to local media and stakeholders.

The 2025 Senate will draw its membership from three distinct blocs: ruling government-appointed senators, opposition senators, and one independent representative, Jamila Kirwan. Among the incoming members taking office this week is newly appointed opposition senator Malaka Parker, who will join Strand-Peters and Anderson-Rayne as the newest faces in the Upper House for this term.

Wednesday’s sitting precedes a much-anticipated ceremonial opening of the full Parliament scheduled for May 26. During that formal event, Governor General Sir Rodney Williams will deliver the traditional Throne Speech, where he will lay out the incoming government’s full legislative and policy priorities for the 2026-2027 parliamentary year. This address will set the policy direction for the new administration over the coming term, outlining planned reforms, spending priorities, and legislative initiatives that will be brought before parliament in the upcoming session.

The U.S. Defense Department’s independent internal oversight body has announced it is opening a formal evaluation of counter-drug operations carried out by U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), a major military command responsible for operations across the Caribbean and Pacific. These operations, which have involved lethal airstrikes against vessels suspected of carrying drug shipments, have faced growing backlash and legal scrutiny from multiple stakeholders since the campaign launched last fall.

According to a May 11 correspondence from the Pentagon’s Office of the Inspector General (IG), the core goal of the probe is to verify whether SOUTHCOM adhered to formally authorized targeting protocols when planning and executing these strikes. Since the start of the campaign, codenamed Operation Southern Spear, U.S. military forces have targeted nearly 60 suspected drug trafficking boats, resulting in the deaths of more than 190 people, official records show.

An IG spokesperson confirmed to CNN that the review covers the full interagency targeting process for suspect vessels within SOUTHCOM’s area of responsibility, as a core component of the broader Operation Southern Spear initiative. The oversight body also clarified that the review was self-initiated, growing out of its continuous routine assessment of ongoing Pentagon operations, rather than being ordered by external stakeholders. As of press time, CNN has reached out to both the Pentagon and SOUTHCOM to request additional comment and details on the evaluation, with no immediate response.

The Trump administration has defended the lethal campaign since it launched in September last year, framing the operations as part of a formal “armed conflict” against transnational drug cartels and classifying all people killed in the strikes as enemy combatants. As CNN first reported in October 2025, the administration’s legal justification rests on a classified Department of Justice legal opinion that argues the president has inherent authority to approve deadly force against a wide range of cartel operatives, on the grounds that these groups pose an imminent security threat to U.S. citizens.

Concerns over the legality of the strikes have circulated within the military establishment for months. CNN previously reported that senior U.S. military leaders held serious reservations about the campaign’s legality. Adm. Alvin Holsey, the former head of SOUTHCOM, publicly clashed with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the pace and scope of the operations just weeks before Holsey announced his retirement, just 12 months after he took up his command post. Two anonymous sources familiar with the conflict confirmed at the time that Hegseth argued Holsey was not moving aggressively enough to dismantle drug trafficking networks operating in the Caribbean, and repeatedly complained that the command was not sharing sufficient operational data with his office.

Scrutiny on Capitol Hill intensified late last year after news emerged that U.S. forces had carried out a secondary strike targeting survivors of an initial attack on a suspected drug boat. Multiple lawmakers, particularly congressional Democrats, raised urgent alarms over the strike, with several going so far as to argue the action could meet the legal definition of a war crime.

In recent months, the public has seen a slowdown in the frequency of confirmed strikes, a shift that followed the U.S. military’s capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Despite the slowdown, however, operations have continued: the most recent confirmed strike, carried out on May 8, resulted in two deaths, according to official SOUTHCOM statements.