View Point

A dear friend sent me a despondent message in response to my lament about divisive and crass online comments. “I want you to identify for me anyone else who has integrity that you know of personally in the world, because I can’t find too many,” he said. My first reaction …

On 7 April 2002, at the time when the House of Representatives was deadlocked 18-18 and was unable to elect a speaker, the first of these weekly columns was published. It was entitled Equal Shame. I pointed then, at the outset of my journey as a weekly columnist, to our …

Soca star Patrice Roberts linked the negative effect of current financial challenges on the ability to experience the joy, love and togetherness of Carnival. As a consequence, she cancelled her scheduled ticketed concert on 22 January and will perform free instead. Her motivation, as reported in the Trinidad Express newspaper …

The concluded Christmas and New Year period has demonstrated the failure of the amendments passed in Parliament to the Summary Offences Act (“the fireworks legislation”) as a means of regulating the use of fireworks and in particular to bring relief from the noise that adversely affects persons and animals. The …

From the first US strikes against small boats in Caribbean waters in September 2025, military intervention in Venezuela was not a matter of if, but when and how. Those questions have now been answered. In all this, the world’s surprise at the bombing of Venezuela and kidnapping of president Nicolás …

“[…] What happened in Venezuela has nothing to do with Trinidad and Tobago. Citizens, just like myself, went about our normal business. We are not involved, so citizens have no need to be bothered. “[…] Trinidad and Tobago does not covet Venezuelan property—we never have and we never will…” The …

As our Trinidad and Tobago economy has declined consequent upon the steep decline in our foreign exchange earnings, our economists have included tourism and creative arts in their list of potential sources of new foreign exchange earnings. The currently fashionable phrase for economic activity in the creative sector is “the …

Kamla Persad-Bissessar: “[…] Trinidad and Tobago is NOT a participant in any of these ongoing military operations. Trinidad and Tobago continues to maintain peaceful relations with the people of Venezuela.” Pennelope Beckles: “[This is] a matter of serious concern for Trinidad and Tobago, Caricom, and the wider Caribbean… We place …

“[…] It is time that pan (read Pan Trinbago, or PTB) involves itself in some long-term policies, strategies and actions that have the long-term goals of sustainability of the pan and benefits to the thousands of panmen who continue to play for free, simply for their unenviable love of pan. …

Christmas is over and the New Year, 2026, is just ahead. Writing a column for publication today was stressful. This is different from times past when, despite the governance failures of the months preceding Christmas and misgivings about the coming New Year, “the time for putting smoke in the kitchen” …

“[…] Dale’s death forces a hard truth… I’m grieving. “But I also feel sorrow for Ishmael’s family. Because the system failed him long before he failed himself…” The following post on the sentencing of Ishmael Clarke for the murder of police constable Dale Mayers was submitted to Wired868 by Mayers’ …

Looking for a document amongst my stack of old papers, I came across a column I had written in April 1998 for The Independent, a paper whose closure I still mourn. It began playfully enough, with me saying that my four-year-old daughter proudly proclaims herself to be West Indian: “Ambitious …