By Errol F. Hosein
January 27, 2007
The recent slaughter of four individuals in Morvant including a police officer and the horrific exposure to the atrocity by a young child, is a startling reminder that few are safe from harms way in our present-day society.
We are rapidly becoming a dysfunctional society in which crime and criminals command respect. Too frequently we make comparative analysis about crime and criminal activity in other countries around the world as if to minimize the pain and suffering that we are presently experiencing. This is simply morbid.
Continue reading We are failing the promises of Independence
The comical though heavy-handed manner in which the police handled the Inshan Ishmael issue makes one want to laugh till you cry. Here’s a man who decided to mount a crusade against the evils that bedevil the society. In the still of the night, on the eve of his planned shutdown of the country, tonnes (yeah, tonnes!) of cops swoop down on his home and drag him away from his family much the way kidnappers do. They cart him off to Police HQ, hold him for most of the day. They then charge him with publishing a pamphlet without identifying the publisher-one of the most trivial, archaic laws in our statute books!
Self styled and pathological struggler, Mr. Basdeo Panday who enjoys the unique distinction of having mashed up each and every recent experiment in electoral-based accommodation is again erecting another ego-centric unity platform carded for 25 January. As usual, unity, whatever that means is to be found in the mind of Panday, must be crafted under his skewed leadership and on his egocentric driven terms and conditions.
If I didn’t know better, during the month of February I will be left with the distinct impression that the Civil Rights struggle, crafts and music mixed with a dazzling display of dance and a variety of cultural activities represents the sum of Africa’s contribution to civilization. In spite of the overwhelming scientific evidence and the existence of numerous artifacts, little is ever mentioned in the mainstream about Africa’s contributions to civilization in the fields of science and technology. With the exception of inquiring minds, the proliferation of numerous books and scholarly articles on the subject has done little to dispel the truncated view of Africa as simply a land of exoticism in the consciousness of the greater public.
A 47-year-old Woman Police Constable attached to the Morvant Police Station, her 48-year-old husband, 20-year-old daughter and a man said to be in his ’40s were gunned down by four masked gunmen, who stormed into the Pelican Extension, Morvant home of the officer around 8.30 pm last night. 
It has been approximately just over seven months since the Trinidad and Tobago Soca Warriors graced the world football stage in the 2006 edition of the World Cup finals. The 10th of June 2006 was an important date for the country as the first time experience of being in the World Cup filled every Trinbagonian’s veins with immense, nationalistic pride. The Road to Germany experience for players, supporters and country was an event not easily forgotten, and always remembered. It is a pity, however, that the value of this experience, its significance and importance is diminished in the absence of any institutional and national framework to develop far reaching sporting programmes that will nurture football and other sporting talent.
A self-imposed media embargo seems to have overtaken Minister Colm Imbert lately on the tenuous fate of his TRRP. This prognosis has been reinforced by the negative and depressing body language that he displayed while communicating to the press at Whitehall on the Interchange. I am coming to the intuitive conclusion that Cabinet seems to have ordered secretly a pre-emptive moratorium against the TRRP, in an election year, to avoid any further disastrous fallout from another major reversal and embarrassment while the wounds inflicted by the Chatham debacle are still fresh, politically painful and electorally threatening.
Is the plan announced recently by the George Bush Administration to dispatch an additional 21,500 American troops to Iraq really an excuse for a United States military build up on the Iraq-Iran border and a prelude to a US invasion of Iran?