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.

Since tak­ing of­fice, Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump has shift­ed the Unit­ed States trade pol­i­cy by in­sti­tut­ing pro­tec­tion­ist tar­iffs on both al­lies and foes. His ap­proach is best char­ac­terised as trans­ac­tion­al, as he views in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions through the lens of short-term, quid pro quo busi­ness deals, in­stead of de­vel­op­ing long-term strate­gic part­ner­ships. Trump con­sis­tent­ly pri­ori­tis­es im­me­di­ate, con­crete gains—whether eco­nom­ic or se­cu­ri­ty-re­lat­ed—over broad­er prin­ci­ples such as ide­ol­o­gy, al­liances, or ad­her­ence to in­sti­tu­tion­al norms, fre­quent­ly us­ing threats or in­cen­tives to se­cure spe­cif­ic bi­lat­er­al out­comes.

For 100 years, the Break­fast Shed, named Femmes Du Chalet (The Women of the Shed), has served many as a gath­er­ing place where work­ers, vis­i­tors, and fam­i­lies have meals. Long be­fore the big food courts and fast-food busi­ness­es ap­peared across the city, the Break­fast Shed was serv­ing the pub­lic. That tra­di­tion is why the pro­tract­ed dis­pute has drawn pub­lic at­ten­tion. For ob­servers, the most trou­bling as­pect ap­pears to be the ap­par­ent ab­sence of di­a­logue.

There was no Par­lia­ment sit­ting yes­ter­day, but enough was said at last Fri­day’s de­bate on the State of Emer­gency ex­ten­sion—and with sub­se­quent de­vel­op­ments—for many “de­bates” af­ter.

As Trinidad and To­ba­go joins the rest of the world in cel­e­brat­ing Eid-ul-Fitr to­day, the oc­ca­sion must rise above rit­u­al and fes­tiv­i­ty to be­come a mo­ment of gen­uine na­tion­al re­flec­tion.