As To­ba­go’s po­lit­i­cal tem­per­a­ture ris­es ahead of the next To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tion, small­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties are qui­et­ly but steadi­ly ramp­ing up prepa­ra­tions, each aim­ing to of­fer an al­ter­na­tive to the is­land’s tra­di­tion­al po­lit­i­cal gi­ants.

The Unit­ed King­dom is no longer shar­ing in­tel­li­gence with the US about sus­pect­ed drug traf­fick­ing ves­sels in the Caribbean be­cause it does not want to be com­plic­it in US mil­i­tary strikes and be­lieves the at­tacks are il­le­gal, sources fa­mil­iar with the mat­ter told CNN.

The Unit­ed Na­tions is con­tin­u­ing to sup­port gov­ern­ment-led re­lief ef­forts across the Caribbean two weeks af­ter Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa made land­fall, Deputy Spokesper­son Farhan Haq said to­day.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go In­ter-Is­land Trans­porta­tion Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (TTIT) says me­chan­i­cal prob­lems on the T&T Spir­it this morn­ing pre­vent­ed the ves­sel from va­cat­ing the berth at the Port of Spain Fer­ry Ter­mi­nal, caus­ing de­lays for pas­sen­gers aboard the Buc­coo Reef.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Mort­gage Bank (TTMB) and the Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion (EPA) have signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MoU) aimed at im­prov­ing ac­cess to home own­er­ship and fi­nan­cial em­pow­er­ment for es­tate po­lice of­fi­cers.

Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro has warned that Chav­is­mo would re­spond with an “in­sur­rec­tionary gen­er­al strike” if the Unit­ed States takes mil­i­tary ac­tion against his gov­ern­ment, El Na­cional re­port­ed.

The USS Ger­ald R. Ford Car­ri­er Strike Group has en­tered the U.S. South­ern Com­mand’s area of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, which in­cludes the Caribbean, to sup­port op­er­a­tions against transna­tion­al crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tions and nar­co-ter­ror­ism.

To­ba­go po­lice have re­cov­ered an­oth­er il­le­gal firearm fol­low­ing a shoot­ing in Cour­land, Black Rock, yes­ter­day.

Po­lice and fire of­fi­cers re­mained at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter on St Clair Av­enue up to 1 pm to­day as part of a de­tailed search of the build­ing fol­low­ing an emer­gency evac­u­a­tion.

Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) Com­man­der Dr Daryl Din­di­al says he an­tic­i­pates the “ten per cent” wage ne­go­ti­a­tions with the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) to be­gin in the last week of No­vem­ber when he re­turns to the coun­try, as he is cur­rent­ly abroad on busi­ness. 

This coun­try is among the Eu­ro­pean Union and 18 Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean (LAC) states that have launched the EU–Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean Al­liance for Cit­i­zen Se­cu­ri­ty, aimed at strength­en­ing co-op­er­a­tion on cit­i­zen se­cu­ri­ty be­tween the EU and LAC coun­tries.

A po­lice of­fi­cer last as­signed to the Ch­agua­nas Po­lice Sta­tion is among three peo­ple held in re­la­tion to the kid­nap­ping and mur­der of live­stock farmer Vish­nu Lal­la.