The above quote led to a depressing, sinking feeling in the stomach of all and sundry. It confirmed what many knew all along: the criminal justice system was malfunctioning and being starved of resources, to the point where it would eventually collapse...

Dana Seetahal updated 26/11/06

In recent weeks it seems that not a day has passed when some (criminal) case has not fallen down flat leading to an acquittal. In the past cynics might have put that down to the ineptness of the police or the prosecution or both...

Denzil Mohammed updated 12/11/06

Dr Hamid Ghany updated 26/11/06

Last weeked, the public consultations on the draft constitution prepared by Sir Ellis Clarke were held in Tobago. Simultaneously, there were some television programmes on Tobago Channel 5 that highlighted the process...

Ira Mathur updated 26/11/06

When I confessed, recently, my fear of flying, the tremors, the vertigo, the heartbeat clanging between mouth and navel, to a friend, she was shocked...

Lennox Grant updated 26/11/06

With Jerry Narace, the non-diplomatic ambassador, threatening unspecified sanctions against the Guardian, simmering PNM frustrations with the media were finally spilling nastily over the rim...

Martin George updated 26/11/06

Celebrating with my friends last week as they observed and participated in the Thanksgiving festivities here in Miami ...

Overand Padmore updated 26/11/06

Trinidad and Tobago Transparency Institute (TTTI) issued recently Transparency International’s (TI) Corruption Perception Index 2006...

Peter Quentrall-Thomas updated 26/11/06

Tell me if the following doesn’t strike you as crazy: T&TEC importing poles instead of using locally-made, pre or post-tensioned, concrete electricity poles, which will last forever and help develop our export capability...

Simon Lee updated 12/11/06

I was late. Nothing new in that. And then what is punctuality? (a question I posed to my students as we negotiated their progress reports)...

Debbie Jacob updated 27/11/06

With first semester exams fast approaching in schools throughout T&T, I can’t help but think about an Australian report I read last year addressing underachieving boys...

Fr Henry Charles updated 27/11/06

At the end of The Guns of August, her great work on the First World War, Barbara Tuchman wrote: “When at last it was all over, the war had many diverse results and one dominant one transcending all others: disillusion...

Prakash Persad updated 06/11/06

This is not an attack on banks or the banking system. What it is, to be absolutely clear, is a consumer perspective of how banks treat with their customers, more specifically, the non-corporate, ordinary ones...

Dr David E Bratt updated 21/11/06

“Doc, how much calories it have in a doubles, medium pepper? How much in a doubles with a dollar pepper?” All week it went like that. Fatigue down the line...

Pastor Clive Dottin updated 21/11/06

Lincoln Myers and his group One Accord must be congratulated. Why? Because they will be staging a major spiritual event: “A day of reflection and prayer dedicated to the purification and healing of the nation.” This is carded for November 26 at the Naparima Hill, San Fernando...

Clevon Raphael updated 22/11/06

Ravi Ji updated 25/10/06

The University of T&T (UTT) will host Ramleela Samelan at the UTT Campus, Point Lisas Estate, Couva, November 10, 11 and 12. The inauguration will be on November 10, from 6.30 pm at the same venue...

Tony Fraser updated 22/11/06

A cursory assessment of the post-colonial era would probably find that the many expectations resulting from the creation of new states, many of them with all-powerful, influential, well-loved and in many instances charismatic leaders, have flagged, have not been delivered or have not been fully realised and we are now living in the backwash of those desires...

Greater Caribbean This Week updated 23/11/06

Leela Ramdeen updated 23/11/06

Recently I attended the 20th annual Pope Paul VI Memorial Lecture in London, organised by the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (Cafod) on the theme: “Impoverished by wealth: Mama Africa and her experience of poverty.” The speaker was Sr Teresa Okure, SHCJ, an internationally renowned Nigerian theologian...

Sat Maharaj updated 23/11/06

According to the Oxford Students’ Dictionary, the word “caste” is a “noun in India, each of the hereditary social groups into which Hindus are born.” The word originates from the Spanish word casta meaning descent from ancestors...

Attillah Springer updated 25/11/06

It’s not that I feel like I am somebody or anything, but how come I wasn’t one of the chosen ones?

Gail Alexander updated 25/11/06

There was no revival of chicken-crossing jokes last week after Prime Minister Patrick Manning revealed that he does not care for birds of this feather...

Lisa Allen-Agostini updated 25/11/06

It have a certain sno-cone cart in town that paint up with a sign that say, “Prayer changes things.”