Dear Prime Minister, When you speak, I listen like many others young and old, we all listen closely. If we miss your message, we go to social media and that is where I found a shocking clip from a recent News Conference on Anslem Gibbs’ Twitter feed of 3 December …
Read More »MSJ: With Covid, murders, and colonial governance, T&T needs Divali more than ever
“[…] As a country, we have the challenges of the never-ending Covid pandemic which is taking a terrible toll in lives lost and plunging families into mourning, an economy that is spluttering along unable to sustain jobs and businesses, huge inequalities of wealth and income… “And a governance system that …
Read More »Demming: All MPs who’ve served for more than a decade should resign now—you’ve failed!
Black Stalin’s lyrics in his 1988 calypso ‘We could make it if we try’ have been occupying a space in my brain. He sang: ‘So the Treasury broke and they say that recession jamming/And so to foreign countries Trinis start migrating/ They lose faith in their country, they say we …
Read More »Dear Editor: Is the Govt too afraid of the Opposition to introduce mandatory vaccines?
“[…] Having apparently exhausted every avenue of encouraging vaccination apart from the obvious one, the official stance appears to be shifting to ‘well, we tried’. “On an intellectual level, I know why this is the most expedient approach… [However] if our Government, elected to lead in the best interests of everyone, …
Read More »Demming: Going, going, going, gone! Goodbye, Gary Griffith
From 1956 to 1981, Trinidad and Tobago experienced what it is like to be led by an unapologetically patriarchal leader who made decisions on our behalf whether or not we supported them. During that period our two-island nation became the richest country in the Caribbean. For 25 years, the leadership …
Read More »Tye: T&T’s governance model ‘breeds deep mistrust’—as such, ‘forced vaccinations’ would be a mistake
I certainly empathise with the government as they are navigating difficult decisions in the management of the economy and society during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Yet, the issues facing the society are mostly not due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but deeper social issues that have never been properly addressed by …
Read More »Demming: Dear Trinidad and Tobago, we must ‘become the leaders we wish to see’
Every time Honourable Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley opens her mouth my phone lights up with comments, video clips and messages of longing for a prime minister like her. Just stop it! We have whom we have; just deal with it—because in the natural flow of things, that will …
Read More »Noble: The virus and our democracy—the problem with ‘us’ and ‘them’
The Covid-19 pandemic hit our shores at the wrong time. Indeed, there is no right time, but the state of our nation had made us incredibly vulnerable. We were in a crisis, adjusting to the economic woes and experiencing lowered trust levels in our leaders. In the heat of Covid-19, …
Read More »Demming: Using our creativity to live safely alongside Covid-19
It is almost impossible to fight an enemy which is unseeable to the naked eye, nimble, ruthless and devoid of conscience. Hopefully we have learned that lockdowns are destroying our economy and not containing the spread. The pattern of the virus globally seems to be periods of intermittent spikes, so that …
Read More »B&B Ep 11: Fazeer Mohammed on sport, journalism and getting it right
TV6 Morning Edition host and veteran cricket analyst Fazeer Mohammed tells Burdie and Barney why Trinidad and Tobago football—and much besides in the twin island republic—is spinning top in mud, and discusses sport journalism, standing up for change, and why he is falling out of love with Liverpool FC. Subscribe …
Read More »B&B (Trailer): Fazeer: ‘If we keep waiting for someone else to fix things, we will stay where we are…’
TV6 Morning Edition host and veteran cricket analyst Fazeer Mohammed explains why Trinidad and Tobago football—like much of life in the twin island republic—is spinning top in mud. Look out for Mohammed’s full interview on the Burdie and Barney Show from Thursday 24 June as we discuss the Trinidad and …
Read More »Noble: Can we talk? Only Trinidad and Tobago united can defeat the pandemic
The efforts needed to coordinate the necessary actions to combat Covid-19 should induce wide-scale collaboration. A government cannot act on its own but must bring along the wider society. Polarised positions negatively impact the effective societal response. When there are difficult new situations, and the media is the prominent news provider, …
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