Whether or not it was the loom­ing To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tion, Min­is­ter in Pub­lic Util­i­ties Clyde El­der, at yes­ter­day’s Sen­ate, blithe­ly added, “We’ll fix it”, in re­ply­ing to Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Melanie Roberts-Radg­man’s query on To­ba­go’s wa­ter cri­sis.

If the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Gov­ern­ment is un­able to shed bat­tle mode, it’s not nec­es­sar­i­ly due to cer­tain ground sen­ti­ment.

The at­mos­phere around T&T is fraught with the US/US-Venezuela ten­sion, par­tic­u­lar­ly since Thurs­day.

With the USS Ger­ald R Ford air­craft car­ri­er’s ar­rival telegraph­ing a def­i­nite US plan, and word of the US re­ceiv­ing op­tions, it’s ahead where Op­er­a­tion South­ern Spear, an­nounced Thurs­day by US Sec­re­tary of War Pe­te Hegseth, lands.

Venezuela’s re­sponse prep and con­tin­gen­cies, ac­knowl­edg­ing chal­lenge and “full-blown con­flict”, on Thurs­day shift­ed to em­bat­tled Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nico­las Maduro, urg­ing peace.

With the US Psy­ops (psy­cho­log­i­cal mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions) stage ad­vanc­ing, de­spite Maduro’s spin­ning the cri­sis as mak­ing him more fa­mous than Tay­lor Swift and Bad Bun­ny, Venezuela, await­ing the oth­er “shoe to fall”, is dis­cov­er­ing the US is cen­tipede-cen­tric in footwear and mil­i­tary moves.

Re­cent jun­gle war games in Pana­ma, for the first time in 20 years, am­pli­fied warn­ings and queries whether ad­vances will come from with­in such ter­rain in Venezuela af­ter Amer­i­ca dis­patched CIA op­er­a­tives “in­side”.

The die’s been cast. The US can­not turn back now, and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie’s state­ment in Thurs­day’s UK Fi­nan­cial Times—that the US’s 22nd Ma­rine Ex­pe­di­tionary Unit will “in­ten­si­fy ex­er­cis­es” in T&T in “com­ing days”—has set alarms high­er.

The is­sue has per­vad­ed the re­gion and T&T.

The Zone of Peace calls at the re­cent EU-CELAC sum­mit.

T&T’s dis­as­so­ci­a­tion with cer­tain de­c­la­ra­tions rel­e­vant to the is­sue. US high-lev­el ab­sence from the COP30 sum­mit (where T&T will be rep­re­sent­ed next week by Plan­ning Min­is­ter Kennedy Swarats­ingh).

Fur­ther fray­ing of T&T/Cari­com ties with Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor Anil Roberts’ at­tack on St Vin­cent and the Grenadines Prime Min­is­ter Dr Ralph Gon­salves, and his T&T-root­ed fam­i­ly’s open mar­ket-priced pur­chase of prop­er­ty. A sit­u­a­tion that al­so has im­pli­ca­tions for the se­cu­ri­ty of HDC ap­pli­cants’ in­for­ma­tion.

With JTUM’s sup­port for the re­gion as a zone of peace, the ab­sence of JTUM head An­cel Ro­get—a UNC Gov­ern­ment coali­tion mem­ber—from last Sun­day’s peace vig­il re­moved none of JTUM’s po­si­tion, which clash­es with the Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion on the US mil­i­tari­sa­tion/zone of peace po­si­tion. JTUM’s nudge arose at the same time the PSA ex­pressed an­noy­ance at the de­layed start of pub­lic ser­vants’ ne­go­ti­a­tions. It’s ahead if the up­com­ing Fi­nance bill im­ple­men­ta­tion on Jan­u­ary 1 Bud­get items, in­cludes Christ­mas dol­lars news for pub­lic ser­vants.

Af­ter sabre rat­tling out­side, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s move to quell noise in T&T, with a mix­ture of wel­comes and warn­ings con­cern­ing the Na­tion­al Fete(Car­ni­val), Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials yes­ter­day said up­com­ing leg­is­la­tion “will be cog­nisant of every­one”.

On the Gov­ern­ment’s Re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion plan, al­so geared to smooth em­ploy­ment/in­vest­ment ground, rep­re­sen­ta­tives are be­ing dis­patched over­seas im­mi­nent­ly to ex­plore in­ter­est ahead of the Jan­u­ary 22 dead­line for such ex­pres­sions.

With dis­so­lu­tion of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly ahead of THA’s De­cem­ber 6 term end­ing un­der law, of­fi­cials said elec­tion can be no ear­li­er than 60 days af­ter dis­so­lu­tion (ear­li­est—Jan­u­ary 12) and no lat­er than 90 days af­ter dis­so­lu­tion (lat­est—Feb­ru­ary 12). Spec­u­la­tion’s on Jan­u­ary 12 or 19 in what will be a bat­tle of par­ty lead­ers.

THA’s chief sec­re­tary/TPP leader, Far­ley Au­gus­tine, has had a hec­tic term—PDP split, 2024 oil spill, crime spike, THA is­sues, two Par­lia­ment seats, ex­pand­ed re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, and co-op­er­a­tion with the UNC Gov­ern­ment. TPP’s screen­ing con­cludes this week­end, of­fi­cials said. Can­di­dates, in­clud­ing Au­gus­tine, will be an­nounced soon.

Lone PNM As­sem­bly­man Kelvon Mor­ris has steadi­ly bat­tled, even amid PNM’s gen­er­al elec­tion de­feat. PNM leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has vis­it­ed To­ba­go mul­ti­ple times to as­sist with con­sol­i­da­tion. Five can­di­dates have so far been an­nounced. Many are new. To­ba­go Coun­cil leader An­cil Den­nis is tipped for Buc­coo again.

PDP leader Wat­son Duke’s split with Au­gus­tine re­cent­ly plateaued in set­ting aside dif­fer­ences. While ex­pect­ed to con­test his seat, spec­u­la­tion is on whether re­newed friend­ship could see Duke as the on­ly can­di­date in his seat against the PNM. Duke says he’ll ad­dress the me­dia “on the 2026 elec­tions when I’m ready”. IDA leader Denyse Tsoiafatt-An­gus is al­so con­test­ing.

Now ahead: how de­vel­op­ments out­side of T&T in the “com­ing days” af­fect all in­side.