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.

The as­sur­ance yes­ter­day from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) that bor­der se­cu­ri­ty and crime de­tec­tion ef­forts will re­main in­tact de­spite the re­moval of the US radar sys­tem of­fers a de­gree of com­fort to a pop­u­la­tion ea­ger for so­lu­tions to crime.

The sud­den dis­man­tling and re­moval of the Unit­ed States mil­i­tary-grade radar sys­tem from the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in Crown Point rais­es a fun­da­men­tal ques­tion: what, ex­act­ly, did T&T gain from its pres­ence?

There’s a wall in Lon­don that is worth a vis­it. The wall stretch­es for half a kilo­me­tre along­side the Riv­er Thames, di­rect­ly op­po­site the Hous­es of Par­lia­ment, and is cov­ered with hand-paint­ed red hearts about the size of the palm of your hand. There are more than 250,000 in­di­vid­u­al­ly hand-paint­ed hearts, each rep­re­sent­ing a per­son who died in the UK from COVID dur­ing those four un­for­get­table years, 2020-2023.

The news re­ports of the week­end were filled with a tan­gle of crime news, views, al­le­ga­tions, the pas­sage of the most re­cent State of Emer­gency laws in the Par­lia­ment, con­fused claims and coun­ters sur­round­ing the mur­der of Se­nior Coun­sel Dana See­ta­hal, and in­for­ma­tion from the Prime Min­is­ter of the ben­e­fits to be gained from T&T’s part­ner­ship in the Shield of the Amer­i­c­as.

On Thurs­day, March 19th, Nav Raa­tri be­gins. The Di­vine Moth­er is wor­shipped over a nine-night pe­ri­od. Co­in­ci­den­tal­ly, at the cul­mi­na­tion of Nav Raa­tri, the Hin­du fes­ti­val of Ram Nau­mi is cel­e­brat­ed. The name Ra­ma holds great spir­i­tu­al pow­er, com­pris­ing of two syl­la­bles:-

The Unit­ed States re­mains a re­gion­al hege­mon in­tent on con­trol­ling Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean. There is strength in num­bers, so coun­tries must en­sure mu­tu­al pro­tec­tion and ad­vance their com­mon in­ter­ests. The Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas, in both its orig­i­nal and re­vised forms, em­bod­ies the spir­it of re­gion­al and func­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion.

Last Sat­ur­day, US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump con­vened a meet­ing of heads of 13 coun­tries of the hemi­sphere to for­mal­ly es­tab­lish an al­liance that he con­ceived, un­der terms that his team de­vised, un­der­writ­ten by a procla­ma­tion that he craft­ed, in a cer­e­mo­ny he alone spoke at, at a time that he de­ter­mined, at a re­sort that he owns.