The lat­est State of Emer­gency (SoE) comes at a time when the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty is un­der at­tack.

You may have no­ticed it but did not la­bel it. It has a name: a sim­ple but pro­found­ly im­por­tant con­cept that could de­ter­mine your en­joy­ment of life. The af­ford­abil­i­ty cri­sis is im­per­cep­ti­ble, eat­ing away at your pur­chas­ing pow­er slow­ly and re­duc­ing your abil­i­ty to take care of the next gen­er­a­tion. What can you do? Since I have been writ­ing a col­umn on en­tre­pre­neur­ship, you guessed it, I have a so­lu­tion that match­es my fo­cus.

I am sure you have been fol­low­ing the news re­lat­ed to the con­flict in the Mid­dle East. The com­bat ex­changes be­tween Iran on one side and the Unit­ed States and Is­rael on the oth­er, have pro­duced an in­ter­est­ing but I ex­pect un­no­ticed asym­me­try. While the fo­cus is of­ten on the mis­sile counts and the in­ter­cept rates, there is a deep­er un­der­ly­ing is­sue that gets no at­ten­tion be­cause it is fair­ly tech­ni­cal. Ex­cept that the as­so­ci­at­ed con­cepts al­so im­pact your per­son­al fi­nan­cial life.

A fall in share prices on the lo­cal mar­ket and shifts by in­vestors to­wards high­er-yield­ing in­stru­ments have weighed on eq­ui­ty val­u­a­tions, even as Sco­tia­bank Trinidad and To­ba­go re­port­ed mixed fi­nan­cial re­sults.The is­sue of the de­clin­ing price of Sco­tia­bank’s stock was raised by a share­hold­er at the bank’s 56th an­nu­al meet­ing of share­hold­ers yes­ter­day at the Hy­att Re­gency in Port-of-Spain.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s gov­ern­ment and pri­vate sec­tor are ac­tive­ly chan­nel­ing in­vest­ments in­to mod­ern tech­nolo­gies like AI, drones, pre­ci­sion ir­ri­ga­tion and dig­i­tal plat­forms to en­hance agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, re­silience, and food se­cu­ri­ty. These ef­forts ad­dress chal­lenges such as high costs, lim­it­ed dig­i­tal ac­cess and cli­mate risks faced by small­hold­er farm­ers, align­ing with na­tion­al plans for tech-dri­ven growth. The 2026 PSIP al­lo­cates funds for agri-tech un­der agri­cul­tur­al pro­duc­tion and in­fra­struc­ture, where a small por­tion is used for ir­ri­ga­tion, land de­vel­op­ment, and tech ini­tia­tives with­in a $1.13 bil­lion al­lo­ca­tion.

As tech­nol­o­gy be­comes more ad­vanced, the like­li­hood that a young per­son will will­ing­ly pick up a pen or pen­cil and write some­thing down is slim. With easy ac­cess to apps that can quick­ly tran­scribe lec­tures and voice notes, who cares about writ­ing and pen­man­ship any­more?

In board­rooms, min­istries, and even ca­su­al con­ver­sa­tion, non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tions (NPOs) and non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions (NGOs) are of­ten spo­ken about as if they sit out­side the “re­al econ­o­my.” They are framed as char­i­ta­ble, well-mean­ing and im­por­tant but some­how sep­a­rate from busi­ness. This per­cep­tion is not on­ly out­dat­ed; it is eco­nom­i­cal­ly in­ac­cu­rate and, in some cas­es, dam­ag­ing.

En­er­gy sec­tor vet­er­an Dr Ram­per­sad Moti­lal has been ap­point­ed chair­man of At­lantic LNG.

Fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions and gov­ern­ments across the Caribbean are ac­cel­er­at­ing dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion as ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence (AI) and au­toma­tion tools move from pi­lot projects in­to every­day op­er­a­tions.

Neela Mooni­lal-Kissoon has re­signed as group deputy CEO, op­er­a­tions and ad­min­is­tra­tion of the First Cit­i­zens Group.

Aven­ta has de­nied that it has re­ceived pref­er­en­tial treat­ment in terms of pay­ments by NIPDEC.

The slo­gan has its roots in 1970s New York City, but the re­al­i­ty is cur­rent­ly be­ing seen around the world and on our shores.