A mas­sive earth­quake that rocked Myan­mar could ex­ac­er­bate hunger and dis­ease out­breaks in a coun­try al­ready wracked by food short­ages, mass dis­place­ment and civ­il war, aid groups and the Unit­ed Na­tions warned Mon­day. The of­fi­cial death toll climbed past 1,700, but the true fig­ure is feared to be much high­er.

Amid re­port­ed dis­con­tent with­in the par­ty over the se­lec­tion of some Gen­er­al Elec­tion can­di­dates, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has as­sured sup­port­ers that she is not wor­ried about any fall­out and says “all is well.”

Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) po­lit­i­cal leader Gary Grif­fith says the doors of his par­ty are open to Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress dis­si­dents Rush­ton Paray, Dr Rai Rag­bir, Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne, Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly and Rod­ney Charles.

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment To­ba­go Coun­cil po­lit­i­cal leader An­cil Den­nis is warn­ing To­bag­o­ni­ans to en­sure they ex­am­ine the oth­er con­tenders to see what they are tru­ly of­fer­ing.

There were mixed re­ac­tions in the con­stituen­cy to for­mer se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent Roger Alexan­der be­ing cho­sen as the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress; (UNC) can­di­date for Tu­na­puna in the up­com­ing Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

Two po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts have de­scribed the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ (UNC) se­lec­tion of for­mer se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent Roger Alexan­der to con­test the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment-held Tu­na­puna seat as a strate­gic move.

A Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) gov­ern­ment will pass leg­is­la­tion to al­low $1 mil­lion in com­pen­sa­tion for the fam­i­ly of a se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer who’s killed in the line of du­ty, says UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

A Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress gov­ern­ment will shelve and re­scind the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) Cab­i­net sub-com­mit­tee re­port on the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA)—which rec­om­mend­ed staff cuts—and all state sec­tor ne­go­ti­a­tions will start with no less than ten per cent.

Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young has called on civic-mind­ed cit­i­zens— which he says the coun­try needs—to be like the re­li­gious faith­ful and in­sert the scrip­tures in­to their dai­ly ac­tions.

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has recog­nised the tremen­dous, long­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty makes to T&T in all spheres, and their com­mit­ment to moral­i­ty, char­i­ty, and over­all na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

Speak­ing dur­ing the Is­lam­ic Mis­sion­ary Guild and the Ca­roni Ja­maat cel­e­bra­tion Eid-ul-Fitr at the Is­lam­ic Cen­tre at Kel­ly Vil­lage, Ca­roni, yes­ter­day, Imam Mo­hammed said, “We have a fam­i­ly break­down in our com­mu­ni­ty and we are liv­ing in a God­less so­ci­ety, hence the rea­son we are hav­ing so many crimes in T&T; and par­ents need to do their jobs, they need to give their chil­dren the right up­bring­ing.”

The bat­tle for the mar­gin­al San Fer­nan­do West seat is heat­ing up with the two main par­ties—the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC)—hurl­ing ac­cu­sa­tions of “dirty pol­i­tics” against each oth­er.