Trinidad and To­ba­go may be ge­o­graph­i­cal­ly dis­tant from the cur­rent mil­i­tary hot spots of Ukraine and the Mid­dle East, but glob­al­i­sa­tion has en­sured that we ex­pe­ri­ence the knock-on ef­fects of war.

One of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s most vo­cal cheer­lead­ers on so­cial me­dia agreed with my Face­book-post­ed com­ment that for­mer PM Dr Kei­th Row­ley had crossed a line in­to misog­y­ny in call­ing the PM “a jamette.”

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ (UNC) first year in Gov­ern­ment and the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s (PNM) first in Op­po­si­tion looms with the an­niver­sary of the April 28, 2025, Gen­er­al Elec­tion, a month off from to­day—and yes­ter­day’s clash­es be­tween both sides in Par­lia­ment showed where each stands.

The ear­ly num­bers emerg­ing from the lat­est State of Emer­gency (SoE) of­fer some­thing T&T has not seen in some time: mea­sur­able, across-the-board de­clines in re­port­ed crime. Ac­cord­ing to TTPS Pub­lic In­for­ma­tion Of­fi­cer ASP Owie Rus­sell, near­ly every ma­jor cat­e­go­ry has de­creased when com­pared to the same 21-day pe­ri­od dur­ing the pre­vi­ous SoE.

Since the clo­sure of T&T’s on­ly oil re­fin­ery on No­vem­ber 30, 2018, there has been sig­nif­i­cant pub­lic dis­cus­sion about the Pointe-a-Pierre fa­cil­i­ty and whether the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion took the right de­ci­sion in choos­ing to cease its op­er­a­tions and cre­ate four new state-owned com­pa­nies to re­place Petrotrin.

The present con­flict in Iran tells a fa­mil­iar tale of re­source con­trol and po­lit­i­cal ma­nip­u­la­tion.

In Jan­u­ary 2026, Trinidad and To­ba­go be­came one of on­ly eight coun­tries to en­ter in­to a part­ner­ship with Open AI for Ed­u­ca­tion, seek­ing to strength­en and add ca­pac­i­ty to our schools and uni­ver­si­ties. Chat­G­PT can now be de­ployed through­out our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem. An en­tire gen­er­a­tion can be AI-lit­er­ate be­fore they en­ter the work force, if ef­fec­tive­ly man­aged.

What may be con­sid­ered the “acid test’ of whether Trinidad and To­ba­go is shap­ing and so­lid­i­fy­ing its for­eign pol­i­cy in its na­tion­al in­ter­est, or whether the Gov­ern­ment of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has aligned it­self com­plete­ly with the Unit­ed States, is now be­fore the na­tion.

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.

It was the late Amer­i­can pres­i­dent Abra­ham Lin­coln who fa­mous­ly said, “A fool has him­self for a lawyer.”

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.