The Prime Minister last Sunday, in a speech before the PNM Women’s League, expressly acknowledged that Trinidad and Tobago is in “a situation of unacceptably high levels of crime”. This is an important acknowledgement after all the years of dismissive responses to the high levels of violent crime pioneered and …
Read More »Daly Bread: Topic, topic, topic—THA ‘fix’, police killings and Covid-19 vaccines
When Trinidad and Tobago is boiling over with trouble and nonsense, as it is currently, my Freeport compere says to me ‘topic, topic, topic’. So where to focus this week’s column? Should I comment further on the Tobago House of Assembly (Amendment) Bill, which seeks to break the six-six electoral …
Read More »Noble: Education for the privileged; how the dice is loaded against poor students
In the 2012 budget, the government adopted a lofty goal: ‘Education for all’. It was built on the Draft Quality Standards for Education (2005) and inter alia sought to ensure all students achieved recognised and measurable learning outcomes so that they could contribute to the country’s economic sustainability and be …
Read More »Dear Editor: Racist, dehumanising language and militarised approach to crime will make things worse
“There’s no serious analysis of the observation—that even the Acting Commissioner of Police once made—that ‘crime’ is as much a social issue as it is a law-enforcement/security issue. “No, it’s easier to use words like ‘pest’ and ‘cockroaches’, strip the criminalised elements of their humanity—which they themselves often do as …
Read More »MASTER’S VOICE: Ms De Verteuil’s racist reasoning justifies criminalising blacks
“Nothing from Ms De Verteuil about her forbears being given parcels of land by the Cedula; no mention of the vagrancy laws passed by the colonial administrators influenced by the merchant elites—including De Verteuils—to force Africans back to the plantations and other laws aimed at preventing Africans from pooling resources …
Read More »Police penpals dodge Jack issue
If there was ever the need for a press conference, one might think an issue that entails an international crime allegedly executed by an Acting Prime, suspiciously limp action from the Police Commissioner, the willful misrepresentation of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and a rogue press officer at the …
Read More »Wired868 examines Warner’s supposed police acquittal
Trinidad and Tobago’s national security bodies marked a new low this week in terms of organisation, investigative work, communication and, arguably, credibility. Minister of Works and Infrastructure and ex-FIFA Vice President Jack Warner was at the heart of the chaos. On Monday, the PSC issued a press release which claimed …
Read More »Gibbs’ Hart problem
PSC chairman Ramesh Deosaran complained that Police Commissioner Dwayne Gibbs refused to update the board on the police probe into the Commissioner’s Canadian compatriot Calder Hart and instead asked Deosaran: “What you want this (information) for?” Ex-parliamentarian and social activist Lincoln Mayers is allegedly trying to provoke police action by …
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