By Raffique Shah
September 26, 2026

As we exit SoE number 2,3 or 4, with a real threat of it returning, because as Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has said, she can reinstate it if she wants, I take a look back at what it has accomplished. To say nothing significant would be a gross understatement of how ineffective the SoE was, and an accurate description of how little to nothing was accomplished.

A stupid boast of a little over 3,500 people being arrested has done nothing to assuage the fears of the nation because as far as I am—and I am sure, thousands of readers are—concerned, crime marched irrespective of the SoE. So, come better than that, Madame Prime Minister.
Continue reading Criminals don’t ask for your party card →

By Raffique Shah
September 19, 2026

As a young fella, I had several animals. I was never really a cat person, but dogs, I loved and took care of.

At one point the people in my village, Beaucarro, used to call me Brown Boy, after my pet dog which attempted to accompany me wherever I went. They would often hear me shouting after him: Brown Boy, go home! We had just moved from Freeport junction to Beaucarro which was about a mile away, and Brown Boy had not yet settled into his new surroundings. Whenever I would head out to school on mornings, Brown Boy saw it as his duty to accompany and protect me on my way there. On one such morning, as I left for school with him in tow, I remember going back home and taking him with me and tying him, because school was three miles away and at that very young age, I didn’t want him to become stranded or disoriented.
Continue reading One for the Animal lovers →