Venezuela’s se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus has in­creased its pres­ence in ar­eas in the east­ern end of the coun­try that face Trinidad and To­ba­go and oth­er Caribbean na­tions, ac­cord­ing to me­dia re­ports there.

As for­eign mil­i­tary ac­tiv­i­ty in­ten­si­fies across the Caribbean—deep­en­ing di­vi­sions with­in Cari­com over how the re­gion should re­spond—the Gov­ern­ment yes­ter­day amend­ed an Op­po­si­tion mo­tion that sought to con­demn the Prime Min­is­ter’s re­cent pub­lic state­ments on the mat­ter.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is de­mand­ing clar­i­ty from the gov­ern­ment af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­versed her ac­count of why US mil­i­tary per­son­nel are in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Speak­ing out­side the Red House yes­ter­day, Beck­les ques­tioned why nei­ther To­ba­go’s Chief Sec­re­tary nor the wider pub­lic had been con­sult­ed, say­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s shift­ing ex­pla­na­tions have fu­elled anx­i­ety rather than eased it.

For­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Stu­art Young says Trinidad and To­ba­go must not drift away from long-stand­ing for­eign pol­i­cy prin­ci­ples that keep the re­gion free from mil­i­tary con­flict, warn­ing that “war has no place in the Caribbean.”

In a shock­ing move yes­ter­day, the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) act­ing Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer, Jee­van Joseph, was sent on leave, five months af­ter be­ing ap­point­ed to the top post at the state-owned com­pa­ny.

For­mer trade union­ist and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, Clyde El­der, says the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion’s (PSA) ten per cent wage set­tle­ment for 2014 to 2019 is un­like­ly to set a prece­dent for oth­er labour groups.

Af­ter the Gov­ern­ment failed to pro­duce replies to oral ques­tions on yes­ter­day’s Par­lia­ment or­der pa­per, the Op­po­si­tion PNM and House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh spent near­ly 25 min­utes de­bat­ing how the re­spons­es could be de­liv­ered—un­til the PNM even­tu­al­ly agreed to a so­lu­tion pro­posed by Singh.

Mas char­ac­ters, so­ca mu­sic, and vi­brant colours filled Princes Town as the Car­ni­val Roots and Cul­tur­al Com­mit­tee of­fi­cial­ly launched Car­ni­val in the dis­trict yes­ter­day.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, and sev­er­al re­gion­al lead­ers all con­grat­u­lat­ed Dr God­win El­liot Lo­raine Fri­day on his elec­tion as Prime Min­is­ter of St Vin­cent and the Grenadines.

That was the em­phat­ic de­c­la­ra­tion from Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen yes­ter­day as she launched the Cab­i­net-ap­point­ed Bound­aries Re­view Com­mit­tee, a team tasked with cor­rect­ing decades of in­equal­i­ty, con­fu­sion, and com­mu­ni­ty di­vi­sion cre­at­ed by out­dat­ed mu­nic­i­pal lines.

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal says out­go­ing St Vin­cent and the Grenadines Prime Min­is­ter Dr Ralph Gon­salves was re­duced to win­ning just a sin­gle seat, nar­row­ly cling­ing to po­lit­i­cal sur­vival. He sug­gest­ed that this dra­mat­ic elec­toral out­come, which saw Gon­salves’ Unit­ed Labour Par­ty suf­fer a 14-1 de­feat at the hands of Dr. God­win Fri­day’s New De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, was part­ly in­flu­enced by the for­mer leader’s pub­lic crit­i­cisms of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s for­eign pol­i­cy.

Op­po­si­tion PNM MP Camille Robin­son-Reg­is has stat­ed that a re­cent med­ical pro­ce­dure she un­der­went was not se­ri­ous, and she ex­pects to re­sume full du­ties in Jan­u­ary.