If anyone had cared to pay attention before Covid-19, they would know that life is a daily hustle for a significant number of citizens. These citizens have no employer and they are usually poor. There are also a significant number of citizens who have an employer but, in the absence …
Read More »World Press Freedom Day: Shrinking T&T media faces greatest challenge in Covid-19
“[…] The health crisis is exacerbating longstanding tensions between the institution of the free press and governments here and around the world. Authoritarian impulses, single-source information flow, privacy incursions, political polarisation, hostility towards the media and shrinking resources in the wake of Covid-19, which will further impoverish the quality of …
Read More »Moonilal: We’re not with PM on Venezuela gasoline drama; FITUN: Opposition MP is ‘cowardly and desperate’
MP Dr Roodal Moonilal: “[…] I was of the view that, if true, this assistance rendered [by Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley] to the regime of Nicolas Maduro… was an affront to the community of free nations and further posed a risk that Trinidad and Tobago could be met with …
Read More »Raffique Shah: ‘Black power’ and Indians; when flowering racial unity sparked a revolution
The following column was written by Raffique Shah on 9 June 2000: IN 1970, I was the only Indian officer in the Trinidad and Tobago Regiment. I was also the youngest officer, having graduated from Sandhurst in July 1966, some four months after I had turned 20. When I returned …
Read More »Baldeosingh: Black Power’s gains were overstated
“[…] Another key claim that NJAC always makes is that, because of Black Power, banks were forced into hiring non-white persons. It is true that, after the 1970 protests, banks did diversify their hiring practices. But […] this was just an acceleration of a process that had already started…” In …
Read More »Gilkes: Thank god Raffique was a dreamer; Commissioner missed the 1970 elephant—clean
The letter penned by the Commissioner of Police condemning the valorising of the army mutineers of 1970 brought to the surface several important issues. One such issue is the fact that, even in tiny countries like this one, it is entirely possible to live in an insulated space with little …
Read More »An ‘exceptionally difficult’ year! Imbert on salary grants, public aid and ‘recalibrated’ budget
“[…] Trinidad and Tobago is not only impacted by the economic consequences of Covid-19; but as an oil-and-gas exporting country, the economic, financial and social consequences have been further compounded by the dramatic drop in oil and gas prices. The worldwide demand for crude oil has crashed in the context …
Read More »Griffith: 1970 mutineers were a ‘disgrace’ and T&T must stop celebrating them
“In some countries when similar acts take place, such persons are put before a firing squad, hung or tried and sentenced to death. “Yet amazingly, some were given the opportunity to become members of parliament and then later permitted to communicate to the country through daily newspapers—which gave them the …
Read More »Daly Bread: Road map to where? Why PM’s committee will struggle to change status quo
One thing is certain in this time of greatest uncertainty: It will not be possible to return the Trinidad and Tobago economy to the model by which it was previously operated. The country does not have the money to do so. Dr Terrence Farrell recently comprehensively explained the economic facts …
Read More »Demming: T&T citizens have six identifying numbers, time to collapse them into one
Most of us have six unique numbers with which we are identified. They are our Board of Inland Revenue and National Insurance Scheme numbers as well as those found on our birth certificate, identification card, driver’s permit and passport. I posed two questions to my friends in the digital space: …
Read More »LATT: Police are ‘enforcing law which does not exist’—secret and public exchanges on roadblocks
“[…] All of these are instances of police officers enforcing a law which does not exist. There is no law which says you cannot be on the road after 8pm, no law which says you can only go to the grocery if absolutely necessary, no law which empowers the police …
Read More »Barbados ‘deeply disturbed’ by Young’s statements, points to ‘recognised international humanitarian practice’
“[…] The Government of Barbados did no more nor less than simply convey to Port-of-Spain requests for assistance made by citizens of Trinidad and Tobago who were stranded in Barbados. “This diplomatic correspondence, issued to the Trinidad and Tobago Ministry of Foreign and CARICOM Affairs, was in keeping with the …
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