Bud­get cuts leave hous­ing de­vel­op­ments strug­gling over­flow­ing bins, ro­dents, cock­roach­es, flies, and stray dogs

Gov­ern­ment-run cor­po­ra­tions have wel­comed the pro­posed Na­tion­al Pro­gramme for the Up­keep of Pub­lic Spaces, while op­po­si­tion-led re­gions warn the ini­tia­tive falls short of the scale and reach of the Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP).

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath has fired back at Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West MP Stu­art Young, fol­low­ing the MP’s sharp crit­i­cism of Christ­mas events held at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (OPM) and the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties (MPU).

Po­lice are try­ing to de­ter­mine the iden­ti­ty of a man found float­ing in the Gulf of Paria in San Fer­nan­do this morn­ing. The dis­cov­ery was made around 11 a.m. by a passer­by near King’s Wharf, close to the old PTSC com­pound. The nude body was float­ing face down about 20 feet from shore.

The gov­ern­ment of the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic has au­tho­rized sev­er­al U.S. mil­i­tary air­craft to land in the coun­try in the com­ing days as part of an op­er­a­tional sup­port de­ploy­ment in the Caribbean.

En­tre­pre­neurs were giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to show­case their goods across Trinidad and To­ba­go for the Christ­mas sea­son, ac­cord­ing to Kadi­jah Ameen, Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment. She spoke to Guardian Me­dia on Fri­day as her min­istry launched its Tin­sel and Tid­ings – Ch­agua­nas Edi­tion on the com­pound of the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture at Narsa­loo Ra­maya Road.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath has hit back at Port of Spain North/St Ann’s West MP Stu­art Young over crit­i­cism of Christ­mas events held at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (OPM) and the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties (MPU).

For­mer Prime Min­is­ter and Port of Spain North/St Ann’s West MP Stu­art Young has ac­cused the UNC gov­ern­ment of fir­ing “tens of thou­sands of our most vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens” while some with­in the ad­min­is­tra­tion con­tin­ue to host what he de­scribed as ex­trav­a­gant and ex­pen­sive par­ties.

Sched­uled surg­eries at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal were dis­rupt­ed yes­ter­day af­ter op­er­at­ing the­atre at­ten­dants called in sick, an ac­tion that is said to be linked to their frus­tra­tion over be­ing in­formed that they would not re­ceive back­pay this month.

Less than a week af­ter kid­nap­pers de­mand­ed US$2.5 mil­lion for the re­lease of cou­ple Der­rick and Clari­bel Tardieu, their kid­nap­pers have re­port­ed­ly agreed to re­duce the amount to $100,000, se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers said yes­ter­day.

Po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing a shoot­ing at East­ern Main Road, San­gre Chiq­ui­to, which left one man dead and two oth­ers fight­ing for their lives at hos­pi­tal yes­ter­day.

Two Trinidad and To­ba­go cit­i­zens were ar­rest­ed on De­cem­ber 10 fol­low­ing a joint op­er­a­tion by US and Trin­bag­on­ian au­thor­i­ties, the US Em­bassy in T&T con­firmed in a state­ment yes­ter­day.