By Clarence Toussaint
August 11, 2008
This letter in response to Minister Martin Joseph’s call for harsher gun laws in Trinidad and Tobago.
What do stronger gun ownership laws have to do with criminals trafficking in and using illegally owned firearms? These laws will only affect the law-abiding citizens who’ve applied for firearms permits through the Commissioner of Police (CoP), sometimes having to wait years or decades for the permits process to worm its way through only to be denied (or have already been robbed, murdered, raped or kidnapped!!!)
Continue reading No New Firearms Laws Needed
How I look forward to the next three weeks as the magic of the Olympic Games impacts on most people across the world. There’s something about the Games that holds human beings spellbound. It gives us some respite from wars, a lull in crime, relief from politicians, makes us forget our daily woes. What makes the Olympics more appealing than football World Cup is that every country, small and big, can participate in it, if only with one athlete-and six officials! In Beijing this year, a record 205 countries are participating.
There are two major foreign policy challenges that are confronting our relatively new and untested Foreign Minister Gopee-Scoon during the next six months the eventual outcome of which can either boost or bust her hitherto short internship at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 
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The Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago (GoRTT), through the Telecommunications Authority of Trinidad and Tobago is proposing to develop the National Broadcasting Code in collaboration with the general public. The document gives broadcasters and the general public an understanding of the factors which should be taken into account when making editorial judgements.
Does the Government understand the difference between luxuries and necessities? It does not seem so, if comments made earlier this week by Finance Minister Karen Nunez-Tesheira are any indication.
I yearn for the day when I can look at the front page of any T&T newspaper and see headlines that are not crime related. Unfortunately, I cannot hold my breath until hell freezes over or for the incumbent government to realize that there is a direct correlation between poverty and crime.