“True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it.” Karl Popper, Austrian-British philosopher. The recent S&P Rating is not a new and startling event for Trinidad and Tobago. While many may have focused on the national outcome, we may have missed the reality that some …
Read More »Daly Bread: Ambiguity, sovereignty and policy palsy—pondering US’ naval play and NGC’s withdrawal
Last week, in light of the current United States naval presence in Caribbean waters, I posed a question about sovereignty, to which I return below. However, I must begin this week noting that the National Gas Company (NGC), a premier state enterprise, has pelted both the Minister of Education, Dr …
Read More »Noble: The Ground was as hard—how will T&T get out of this financial hole?
As primary school children, we would have learnt a poem by John Keats. “There was a naughty boy/ And a naughty boy was he,/ He ran away to Scotland/ The people for to see–/ Then he found/ That the ground/ Was as hard,/ That a yard/ Was as long…” This …
Read More »NGC offers “platinum sponsorship” to SSCL U-17 cricket team
The National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago (NGC) has provided platinum sponsorship to the Trinidad and Tobago Secondary Schools’ Cricket League (TTSCL), which will facilitate a combined SSCL Under-17 team’s participation in an international under-17 tournament in Colorado, USA. The tournament bowled off today and continues until Friday 8 …
Read More »Noble: The battering of Lady Justice—the controversial backdrop to Dana’s assassination
Last week, we marked the tenth anniversary of Dana Seetahal’s murder. Justifiably, her family bemoaned the slow pace of events. Legal luminaries piped in with their observations, primarily focused on the trial. Some were performative in content. We forgot the chilling words of the US Assistant Secretary of State William …
Read More »Noble: Money! Money! Money! How our descent into corruption got normalised
“I would like to be able to love my country, fully loving justice. I don’t want just any greatness for it, particularly a greatness born of blood and falsehood. I want to keep it alive by keeping justice alive.” — Albert Camus. The most chilling allegation disclosed in the Vincent …
Read More »Dear Editor: Martin Daly SC should explain finer points of Vincent Nelson’s indemnity deal
“[…] I would also like Mr [Martin] Daly SC to explain, in his column, why he thinks that the DPP took the correct decision to discontinue, for the time being, the charges against Messrs Anand Ramlogan, SC, and Gerard Ramdeen—having regard to all the documentary and other information in the public domain, …
Read More »Dear Editor: Nelson legal quagmire started with Al-Rawi’s procedural error
“[…] The Vincent Nelson situation was not an intricate, and perplexing state of affairs nor was it complicated or difficult. From the very beginning, when Mr Nelson ‘outed’ others for an alleged legal fees kickback scheme, the former Attorney General ought to have frog-marched him out of his Chambers to the …
Read More »Noble: The common thread between Ramlogan and Al Rawi, and why T&T must fight back
The debacle that has engulfed the two former attorney-generals is illuminating. We have had a ringside seat to see how powerful men among us run their affairs. We understand clearly how little our daily pain factors into their calculations. We see how reckless they can be because of the lack …
Read More »Daly Bread: How Al Rawi’s machinations contributed to collapse of corruption case
One year ago I asked: “how are we holding Vincent Nelson, the disgraced British King’s Counsel to his bargain?” The bargain was a plea bargain made with the Director of Public Prosecutions (the DPP). Vincent Nelson pleaded guilty in a corruption case in which Anand Ramlogan SC, a former attorney …
Read More »Noble: How the cookie (nation) crumbles—Vincent, Vishesh and the cost of T&T’s failing institutions
The presentation and discussion of a national budget usually focus on competing ideas about the future of a country. The process is a statement about the development of the country. In 2020, Branko Milanovic, a reputed US economist, wrote, “the most important role economic policy can play now is to …
Read More »AG hails virtual courts, electronic tagging but mum on costs, Deyalsingh says Facebook acct hacked
Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi hailed an imminent judicial milestone for Trinidad and Tobago today as he said that virtual courtrooms are here to stay and will be the default method for ‘judge alone trials, bail hearings, remand sentences and charge matters’. The aforementioned legal matters, according to Al-Rawi, take up …
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