Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s an­nounce­ment on Wednes­day that a diplo­mat­ic del­e­ga­tion will trav­el to Cara­cas sig­nals a cau­tious re­open­ing of a re­la­tion­ship that has drift­ed from co­op­er­a­tion in­to ten­sion.

The en­tire world must sure­ly have felt re­lieved by the de­ci­sion of US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump to hold off on his threat to bomb Iran in­to a pre­vi­ous cen­tu­ry.

The world is once again star­ing down the bar­rel of an en­er­gy cri­sis - this time trig­gered by the war in­volv­ing Iran and the clo­sure of the Strait of Hor­muz, through which rough­ly 20 per cent of glob­al oil sup­ply flows. What be­gan as a geopo­lit­i­cal flash­point has rapid­ly evolved in­to what the In­ter­na­tion­al En­er­gy Agency now de­scribes as the most se­vere en­er­gy shock in mod­ern his­to­ry, sur­pass­ing even the crises of 1973 and 1979.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s young ath­letes have once again lift­ed a na­tion, stirred its pride, and re­mind­ed us of what is pos­si­ble when tal­ent meets de­ter­mi­na­tion. At the Carif­ta Games in St George’s, Grena­da, this coun­try’s ju­nior track and field team de­liv­ered per­for­mances rich in courage, dis­ci­pline and com­pet­i­tive ex­cel­lence, earn­ing not on­ly medals but ad­mi­ra­tion.

With­out East­er and the Res­ur­rec­tion from the dead of Je­sus Christ, Chris­tian­i­ty can be count­ed as a use­ful at­tempt to get the world com­mu­ni­ty be­liev­ing in a form of spir­i­tu­al­i­ty which promis­es a bet­ter life af­ter our earth­ly ex­pe­ri­ence. If that does not be­come re­al, then the doc­trine falls away in its claim to be of eter­nal im­por­tance.

To­day is East­er Sun­day. To Chris­tians, it sym­bol­is­es the tri­umph of hope and res­ur­rec­tion—a new be­gin­ning. Oth­er re­li­gious fes­ti­vals around this time (Passover, Holi, Vesak, Nowruz, Ra­madan) do not share the same the­o­log­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance as East­er but re­flect sim­i­lar themes of re­new­al, re­birth and hope. The align­ment of these fes­ti­vals is dri­ven by the sea­son, as they all co­in­cide with spring. Spring rep­re­sents re­birth, fer­til­i­ty and new life, mak­ing it a nat­ur­al time for re­li­gions to cel­e­brate re­new­al, whether in na­ture or through spir­i­tu­al re­demp­tion.

Good Fri­day is the most sig­nif­i­cant day of the year on the Chris­t­ian cal­en­dar. As a child grow­ing up at the cor­ner of Joyeau and Bushe Streets in Curepe, I still re­mem­ber my cousins car­ry­ing me to the near­by Our La­dy of Fa­ti­ma RC Church for the Sta­tions of the Cross ser­vice.

The Gov­ern­ment’s move to in­tro­duce “split sen­tenc­ing” through the Pro­ba­tion of Of­fend­ers (Amend­ment ) Bill, 2026, is a long-over­due ac­knowl­edge­ment that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem can­not in­car­cer­ate its way out of crime. By com­bin­ing cus­to­di­al sen­tences with struc­tured pro­ba­tion, the State is sig­nalling a shift—how­ev­er mod­est—to­ward a more mod­ern ap­proach.

Cari­com, 53 years old, is the longest-stand­ing eco­nom­ic union in the de­vel­op­ing world. While US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump doesn’t mind carv­ing up the hemi­sphere in­to friends, in­dif­fer­ents and foes, the rest of the world is com­fort­able deal­ing with Cari­com as a re­gion­al block. In this sense, de­spite what­ev­er flaws, Cari­com has the con­sid­er­a­tion and re­spect of the world.

The peren­ni­al is­sue of the fi­nan­cial vi­a­bil­i­ty of Caribbean Air­lines (CAL) is again fig­ur­ing in na­tion­al dis­course, os­ten­si­bly cen­tred around mak­ing the air­line prof­itable again.

One week ago, to the day, there was a vig­or­ous, spon­ta­neous round-robin in­volv­ing a cadre of Caribbean jour­nal­ists who mon­i­tor the Cari­com process as close­ly as we can.

The dis­clo­sure by North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NCRHA) chair­man Dr Tim Gopeesingh that the au­thor­i­ty has been haem­or­rhag­ing some $3 mil­lion a month on pool nurs­ing costs is as re­veal­ing as it is alarm­ing.