Our cir­cle has grown much small­er over the decades. Life has seen to that. Chil­dren have grown, ca­reers have un­fold­ed, some friends have moved away, and oth­ers have died. That makes these lunch­es more valu­able than they once were. They have be­come a tra­di­tion.

For decades, Trinidad and To­ba­go’s sta­tus as one of the world’s lead­ing ex­porters of methanol and am­mo­nia was a source of pride and a ma­jor con­trib­u­tor to for­eign ex­change earn­ings and gov­ern­ment rev­enue. Methanex’s an­nounce­ment that it will in­def­i­nite­ly idle its Ti­tan methanol plant at Point Lisas from Oc­to­ber is there­fore more than a cor­po­rate de­ci­sion—it is an­oth­er warn­ing about the grow­ing chal­lenges fac­ing the coun­try’s petro­chem­i­cal sec­tor.

Cari­com has been go­ing through a stormy pe­ri­od re­cent­ly. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s chal­lenge to the modus operan­di of Cari­com, in­clud­ing the func­tion­ing and op­er­a­tions of the sec­re­tari­at and be­hav­iour of the sec­re­tary gen­er­al her­self, es­ca­lat­ed in­to a full-blown war. The Prime Min­is­ter has al­so rep­ri­mand­ed the po­lit­i­cal di­rec­torate for be­ing less than trans­par­ent and ac­count­able.

Who is telling the truth about the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion’s in­abil­i­ty to pay salaries on time?

There is lit­tle dis­pute that Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs) are a nec­es­sary tool dur­ing a State of Emer­gency (SoE). Faced with or­gan­ised crim­i­nal net­works, gang vi­o­lence, firearms traf­fick­ing and co­or­di­nat­ed op­er­a­tions that of­ten ex­tend be­yond com­mu­ni­ties and even in­to the prison sys­tem, the State must have the abil­i­ty to act swift­ly when cred­i­ble in­tel­li­gence points to an im­mi­nent threat.

The res­o­lu­tion on Haiti adopt­ed at last week’s Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Amer­i­can States (OAS) Gen­er­al As­sem­bly may even­tu­al­ly be re­mem­bered less for what it promis­es than for what it qui­et­ly ac­knowl­edges: that Haiti’s cri­sis has be­come in­sep­a­ra­ble from the fu­ture sta­bil­i­ty of the wider hemi­sphere.

One year af­ter Pen­ne­lope Beck­les as­sumed lead­er­ship of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), she can rea­son­ably claim to have achieved one im­por­tant ob­jec­tive: sta­bil­is­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go's old­est po­lit­i­cal par­ty af­ter one of the most bruis­ing de­feats in its 69-year his­to­ry.

There’s a say­ing in med­i­cine: “The more drugs you have for an ill­ness, the more use­less they are.” Cough med­i­cines, vi­t­a­mins and fre­quent­ly, an­tibi­otics, fall in­to this cat­e­go­ry.

The in­creas­ing­ly com­plex glob­al so­ci­ety de­mands height­ened men­tal pro­cess­ing to learn, un­der­stand and process in­for­ma­tion from our stu­dents, es­pe­cial­ly if they are to ben­e­fit from op­por­tu­ni­ties that will be­come avail­able to them. How­ev­er, our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem can­not re­main as it is now and has a tremen­dous amount of work to do to rise out of its present slug­gish­ness.

There are as­pects of the de­ten­tion of busi­ness­man Do­minic Hadeed and his wife, Genevieve, that ex­pose a long­stand­ing and deeply trou­bling re­al­i­ty with­in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem—one that de­mands con­tin­ued scruti­ny and pub­lic ex­po­sure.

Sec­tion 4 of the Con­sti­tu­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go en­shrines 13 fun­da­men­tal rights and free­doms, guar­an­teed to all with­out dis­crim­i­na­tion based on race, ori­gin, colour, re­li­gion or sex. These in­clude the rights to life, lib­er­ty, se­cu­ri­ty of the per­son, en­joy­ment of prop­er­ty and due process. It al­so af­firms equal­i­ty be­fore the law, pri­va­cy and free­doms of ex­pres­sion, as­sem­bly, move­ment and re­li­gious be­lief.

Across Trinidad and To­ba­go, the ten­sion be­tween job cre­ation and fis­cal sus­tain­abil­i­ty is emerg­ing as one of the defin­ing eco­nom­ic pol­i­cy dilem­mas of the mo­ment. While sta­ble em­ploy­ment re­mains a na­tion­al pri­or­i­ty, re­cent de­vel­op­ments in To­ba­go and Port-of-Spain sig­nal that the cur­rent tra­jec­to­ry of pub­lic sec­tor hir­ing and wage com­mit­ments is plac­ing in­creas­ing strain on the State’s ca­pac­i­ty to bal­ance im­me­di­ate needs with long-term de­vel­op­ment.