To­day, there are suf­fi­cient ex­pe­ri­en­tial re­but­tals of the long­stand­ing Latin max­im “si vis pacem, para bel­lum”—“if you want peace, pre­pare for war”—to con­clude that the net im­pact of a com­bat­ive pre­dis­po­si­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly if you are weak and small, can be as in­im­i­cal as the very vi­o­lence be­ing avoid­ed.

I’m used to be­ing called “Doc” by most peo­ple. Very few say doc­tor. Main­ly those who do not know me and af­ter al­most 50 years in lo­cal prac­tice, there aren’t many like that, at least in Port-of-Spain West. There are oth­er things one is called and some I can­not re­peat. But there are oth­ers that re­flect our so­ci­ety and these are the best. Chil­dren hes­i­tant­ly and shy­ly say, “Doc­tor” af­ter be­ing re­peat­ed­ly urged by their par­ents or grands. The best are those who say Doc­tor Bwatt!

The pos­si­ble with­draw­al of Hilton Trinidad & Con­fer­ence Cen­tre sig­nals not on­ly the po­ten­tial loss of one ma­jor ho­tel brand, but serves as a stress test for Trinidad and To­ba­go’s frag­ile hos­pi­tal­i­ty ecosys­tem.

For 100 years, the Break­fast Shed, named Femmes Du Chalet (The Women of the Shed), has served many as a gath­er­ing place where work­ers, vis­i­tors, and fam­i­lies have meals. Long be­fore the big food courts and fast-food busi­ness­es ap­peared across the city, the Break­fast Shed was serv­ing the pub­lic. That tra­di­tion is why the pro­tract­ed dis­pute has drawn pub­lic at­ten­tion. For ob­servers, the most trou­bling as­pect ap­pears to be the ap­par­ent ab­sence of di­a­logue.

Since tak­ing of­fice, Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump has shift­ed the Unit­ed States trade pol­i­cy by in­sti­tut­ing pro­tec­tion­ist tar­iffs on both al­lies and foes. His ap­proach is best char­ac­terised as trans­ac­tion­al, as he views in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions through the lens of short-term, quid pro quo busi­ness deals, in­stead of de­vel­op­ing long-term strate­gic part­ner­ships. Trump con­sis­tent­ly pri­ori­tis­es im­me­di­ate, con­crete gains—whether eco­nom­ic or se­cu­ri­ty-re­lat­ed—over broad­er prin­ci­ples such as ide­ol­o­gy, al­liances, or ad­her­ence to in­sti­tu­tion­al norms, fre­quent­ly us­ing threats or in­cen­tives to se­cure spe­cif­ic bi­lat­er­al out­comes.

There was no Par­lia­ment sit­ting yes­ter­day, but enough was said at last Fri­day’s de­bate on the State of Emer­gency ex­ten­sion—and with sub­se­quent de­vel­op­ments—for many “de­bates” af­ter.

As Trinidad and To­ba­go joins the rest of the world in cel­e­brat­ing Eid-ul-Fitr to­day, the oc­ca­sion must rise above rit­u­al and fes­tiv­i­ty to be­come a mo­ment of gen­uine na­tion­al re­flec­tion. 

Eid-ul-Fitr of­fers a price­less op­por­tu­ni­ty for cul­tur­al ex­change and a deep­er un­der­stand­ing of one of the world’s great re­li­gions. Recog­nised as a pub­lic hol­i­day in Trinidad and To­ba­go since 1967, its ob­ser­vance re­flects not on­ly re­li­gious de­vo­tion but al­so the spir­it of na­tion­al uni­ty that de­fines our so­ci­ety.

Last Au­gust, the US State De­part­ment is­sued a state­ment in which it threat­ened to re­voke the visas of Grena­di­an gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, and their fam­i­ly mem­bers, for their sup­port of Cu­ba’s med­ical as­sis­tance to the is­land.

There are the in­ves­ti­ga­tions, pros­e­cu­tion and pun­ish­ment as­pects of crime, then there are the caus­es, pre­ven­tion and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of those who have been caught in the web of crim­i­nal­i­ty and adopt­ed it as a way of life.

The Cuban peo­ple are un­der se­vere eco­nom­ic and so­cial pres­sure. They are lit­er­al­ly op­er­at­ing in dark­ness and liv­ing with hunger.

It is alarm­ing that in 2026, ques­tions are still be­ing raised in the Caribbean about whether we need to pay crit­i­cal at­ten­tion to the sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly con­firmed cli­mate cri­sis.