“To make me stop sipping my coffee, she came closer, made eye contact and asked again: “What is in place to either recycle, crush or even collect used face masks, shields, vials (that held vaccines), one-use plastic containers for sanitisers and other detergents?” The following Letter to the Editor on …
Read More »Gov’t offers email contact to nationals in St Vincent and Grenadines, ready to assist
The following is a release from the Ministry of Foreign and Caricom Affairs: The Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago notes with concern the most recent activity at the La Soufrière volcano and its impact on the government and people of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Trinidad and …
Read More »Vaneisa: A matter of rights, responsibility, and respect for your neighbours
It was just after midnight, Old Year’s night, when fireworks pierced the roof and ceiling of my niece’s bedroom, landing on the bed where she slept. Fortunately, her baby son was not lying next to her as the noise and smouldering embers on her sheet woke her up, and no …
Read More »T&T’s silent holocaust: From Ceiba to Chaconia—how CEPEP follows ‘Sir’ Woodford’s racist footsteps
In honour of our fifty-eighth Independence anniversary, I visited Woodford Square, aka The People’s University, where seeds of Trinidad and Tobago’s Independence grew. But instead of feeling pride, I felt shame. Twenty tree stumps, envoys of once stately trees, left to rot without love or dignity illuminated Marcus Garvey’s words: …
Read More »Where’ve the butterflies gone? Our eco-system’s in danger, fixing it can also heal T&T’s anger issues
Opposite West Mall, on the Western Main Road, a mysterious derelict colonial building—rumoured to have been a church—stood like a prehistoric dinosaur skeleton peeking out from hectares of bush. As a child, when adults said bush they always conveyed the idea of something unwanted and to be cut down so …
Read More »Vaneisa: We’re at brink of environmental and societal self-immolation—the Earth may shake us off
“[…] We are at the brink of self-immolation; do we want to continue blithely polluting the space that sustains us? We’ve seen how a few months of reduced human activity has given the Earth some breathing space. “[…] Local debates over the fate of existing monuments have exposed the insidious …
Read More »Chain Reaction; Inside/Out—an environmental poem
The following poem was submitted to Wired868 by Serina A Hearn: Mahogany hardwood floors, so polished you could see your face, white silk-damask adorned hand-carved settees and winged- backed chairs stage the conference on the fate of soil sustainability, while Chopin entertains the closed windows, with a view over the …
Read More »NWU: Heritage about to bite the dust; how gov’t put T&T’s ‘jewel’ back into foreign hands
“The assets of Heritage are in a bad way… Years of poor maintenance has taken its toll. “[…] The recent rupture of tank no 27 in Point Fortin during pressure testing and the resultant flow into surrounding areas of 600,000 gallons of water and some hydrocarbon residue, causing respiratory problems …
Read More »Hearn: Cocorite and environs—and God knows where else—at risk due to dangerous pesticide!
“[…] Through a friend I was able to find out that Paraquat is in fact on the radar of three ministries: Health, Agriculture, and Local Government, because of its danger to the environment and also as a method for suicide. “[…] The residential Cocorite coastal area where the spraying is …
Read More »Noble: Wasting a crisis; Le Hunte wanted Cabinet to invest in our future—and they didn’t listen
“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before,” Rahm Emanuel, (2008). The context for that quote—which is really a riff off one made by Paul Romer, who in …
Read More »Portraits of Covid-19: Rural Trinidad adjusts to the pandemic
The following snapshots of life during the Covid-19 pandemic were taken by photographer Ghansham Mohammed in Maracas, Manzanilla and Moruga: More from Wired868 More transmissible, not necessarily more severe; new Covid-19 strain, JN.1, reaches T&T Trinidad and Tobago recorded its first case of new Covid-19 variant, JN.1, according to Carpha …
Read More »With hurricane season set to follow pandemic, Caricom must find voice on climate change
The Caribbean Community Market (Caricom), established in 1973, is the oldest surviving integration movement in the developing world and its achievements along the way are many. Great strides have been made—particularly through functional cooperation in education, health, culture, security—and it is a respected voice in international affairs because of a …
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