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From today contractors will begin to harvest cane for grinding at the Usine Ste Madeleine Sugar Factory. Over the weekend, contractors were putting the final touches on harvesting equipment to ensure the 2004 crop would run smoothly.

Prime Minister Patrick Manning had very little to say yesterday on the crime situation in Trinidad Tobago. Manning, who is also head of the National Security Council, said there had been several announcements by National Security Minister Martin Joseph and Police Commissioner Everald Snaggs.

His costumes are considered by many as the benchmark in Carnival presentations but this year there will be no mas from veteran designer Peter Minshall. "There will be no mas by Minshall for Carnival 2004," a brief e-mailed statement issued by the masman's Callaloo Company in Port of Spain confirmed yesterday.

Jamaican businessman Michael Lee-Chin is challenging St Joseph MP Gerald Yetming to repeat the bribery allegations he made last Friday outside of the House of Representatives. "Mr Yetming if he is so sure of the veracity of his allegations should repeat them outside of Parliament, confident that he can withstand any legal action," Lee-Chin, Chairman of AIC Limited, said in a statement issued from Ontario, Canada.

Prime Minister Patrick Manning has denied he has requested a write-off of an estimated TT$1 million in personal debt owed for legal action in 1997 while in office. Manning said it was while he was Opposition Leader, in 1998, that he applied for forgiveness for the TT$1,072,018.82, the outstanding balance on his debt incurred after losing a constitutional motion when he challenged the crossing of the floor of former MPs Vincent Lasse and Rupert Griffith.

A man stormed the home of a Rousillac family that sells doubles early yesterday and stabbed and chopped three women before kidnapping another said to be a deaf mute. There was no ransom demand up to late yesterday for doubles vendor Aneesher Rangoo.

In an attempt to stem decreasing attendance at the annual steelband Panorama competition a number of radical adjustments have been made to the preliminary round of which gets under way January 29. The revised regulations for the 41st edition of Panorama include categorising of steel orchestras into small, medium and large groups, a system long used by masquerade bands in their competitions, reduction in playing time of each band and an initiative aimed at reducing tiresome intervals between performances.

Suspected, but never proven, to be one of this country's biggest narco-traffickers, the two- decade reign of Dole Chadee (Nankissoon Boodram) in his self-made "kingdom" in Piparo, ended with his arrest in 1994 for the murders of four members of a Williamsville family and his hanging in 1999, along with his gang of eight.

Jamaican and Canadian business tycoon Michael Lee Chin has described as "preposterous, unfounded, reckless and irresponsible" the suggestions by former finance minister Gerald Yetming that he made a payment to a Government minister to secure 20 per cent of First Citizens Bank (FCB).

Consumer Affairs Minister Danny Montano is advising consumers to eat cassava and Guyana rice as alternatives to National Flour Mills rice, the price of which is to be increased by 15 per cent. In an interview yesterday, after meeting with the Supermarkets Association, Montano was upset over the decision, saying he had not been consulted by NFM, whom he accused of "leading a cartel" in this regard.