Is­raeli and Hamas of­fi­cials launched in­di­rect talks Mon­day at an Egypt­ian re­sort on a U.S.-draft­ed peace plan to end the ru­inous war in Gaza on the eve of its sec­ond an­niver­sary.

Min­is­ter of Hous­ing, Dr David Lee, has is­sued a call for all hands on deck and says it will take a mul­ti-faceted ap­proach to ef­fec­tive­ly tack­le the chal­lenges fac­ing ur­ban com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try.

The Gov­ern­ment will move to im­me­di­ate­ly re­view the ex­ist­ing pow­er pur­chase agree­ments with Pow­er­Gen and Trinidad Gen­er­a­tion Un­lim­it­ed (TGU).

Re­ports are that po­lice of­fi­cers were on pa­trol around 10:20 pm on Sun­day, when they re­ceived a re­port of a man ly­ing on the street along De Fre­itas Boule­vard, near the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) sta­tion.

A Va­len­cia cou­ple were tied up and robbed by ban­dits who stormed their home ear­ly on Sun­day morn­ing.

A 27-year-old sol­dier was robbed of his car in Cunu­pia on Sun­day night. At the time of the rob­bery, the ve­hi­cle con­tained sev­er­al pieces of Reg­i­ment-is­sued equip­ment.

Changes in min­is­ters’ re­spon­si­bil­i­ties have been made to most of the Cab­i­net, with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar now han­dling cer­tain pub­lic as­sis­tance pro­grammes, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der over­see­ing the prison sys­tem, and var­i­ous front­line min­is­ters’ re­spon­si­bil­i­ties shift­ed to their col­leagues.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, SC – mat­ters re­lat­ing to Her­itage Build­ings, Con­sti­tu­tion­al Re­form, Na­tion­al Trust, Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for Self-Help Lim­it­ed, Na­tion­al Li­brary Ser­vices and the Na­tion­al Li­brary and In­for­ma­tion Sys­tem Au­thor­i­ty, Home Im­prove­ment Grants Pol­i­cy, Hous­ing and Vil­lage Im­prove­ment Pro­gramme (HVIP), and Gov­ern­ment Aid­ed Self-Help Hous­ing Pro­gramme (GASHHP).

Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les is ques­tion­ing why Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der has been put in charge of mat­ters in the Pris­ons Ser­vice, when Alexan­der has not ad­dressed al­le­ga­tions in the pub­lic do­main about vis­its to the pris­ons to meet cer­tain in­mates. He is al­so ques­tion­ing if there are prob­lems with­in Gov­ern­ment which prompt­ed the changes.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts are de­scrib­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s de­ci­sion to re­as­sign the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of more than 10 Gov­ern­ment min­istries as a sign of dis­sat­is­fac­tion with some of her min­is­ters’ per­for­mance.

An eight-year-old girl who was re­port­ed­ly pushed in­to a riv­er in Gon­za­les by an­oth­er child and washed in­to an un­der­ground drain dur­ing in­tense rain­fall yes­ter­day was lat­er res­cued from the East Dry Riv­er (EDR) in Port-of-Spain by po­lice of­fi­cers who risked their own lives to save her.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ue in­to a fa­tal hit-and-run ac­ci­dent yes­ter­day morn­ing in Ari­ma.