Aug
27
Colours of Notting Hill: Over at Global Voices, Nikipedia has posted a selection of photos from this year’s Notting Hill Carnival celebrations in London.
The Manning blog: The Prime Minister of Trinidad & Tobago is blogging! Would love to know who’s behind this, but on the other hand, maybe I wouldn’t — knowing who it is might just spoil the fun. Hazel “Breakfusses” Manning chimes in from time to time.
Barbados apartment tragedy: Barbados Free Press posted three lengthy reports (one, two, three) on the collapse of an apartment containing five people into a cave in Brittons Hill, Barbados. According to BFP’s last post, it is “highly unlikely there are survivors”. The latest post had attracted 79 comments when I last checked. Barbados Underground and Pull! Push filed reports as well. YouTube user izellajaouda has posted a video of an eyewitness’s account of the collapse recorded from the local television news, and another video from the Voice of Barbados radio station shows a car being rescued from the site.
Aug
21
If you believe as a matter of faith that a certain book is blasphemous, and therefore dangerous for the faithful to read, then you have a simple solution. Tell the faithful that they must not read it. If they are truly faithful, they will obey, and be saved from the perdition you fear for them. If they are not of the faith, or have lapsed in their faith, then to read a blasphemous book will only damn them a little bit further. That is really, as a mindful officer of the faith, none of your business—your only concern is to ensure the obedience of the faithful.
- Nilanjana S. Roy in today’s Business Standard (read it before it’s relegated to “premium subscriber only” status).
As few people in this place seem to read, for “book” you may substitute “lifestyle”, “sexual orientation”, “style of dancing”, “style of dress”, “social practice” etc, as required.
—-
And speaking of mindful officers of the faith, Prime Minister Patrick Manning has denied that the TT$42.3 billion fiscal package he presented yesterday in parliament is an “election budget”. But in an election year, what party in its right mind would present anything else? Don’t they wish to stay in power? Unless 2007 isn’t really an election year. . . .
Technorati Tags: trinidad, caribbean, politics, religion
Aug
18
A number of comments have been left at Global Voices requesting information on the situation in Dominica post-Hurricane Dean.
thedominican.net looks like it could be a useful source. It also has a forum where people are posting reports and information.
Aug
17
Click To Play
These were the scenes this morning in Diego Martin, Trinidad, around 930am. Hurricane Dean isn’t even within spitting distance of us, so imagine what it must feel like in the islands further north, some of which – Dominica and Martinique, for instance – have already taken a beating, and where hurricane warnings and watches are in effect.
Over at Global Voices, Janine Mendes-Franco has posted a report on the reactions from the Caribbean blogosphere as the region braces for Dean.
May
09
Just received this alert from the Global Voices mailing list about the flodding in Suriname. If you do know of anyone who can help, please email me at caribbeanfreeradio[at]gmail[dot]com and I’ll relay the message:
An urgent request here to the GV community: Is there anyone on this list who can understand/speak Dutch to do translations into English? Specifically they’ll be translating information from a radio station broadcasting from the Republic of Suriname, on the boarder with Brazil. This is a request to help us over at WorldWideHelp.info to translate the details into English so that we could blog it out.
There’s been some heavy flooding in Suriname over the past 48 hours and 15.000 people have been displaced already and that the
infrastructure there has taken a major hit. More rain is expected to fall in the low land, likely to directly affect the situation in the
capital Paramaribo.
Because of continued torrential rainfall, the situation is deteriorating further. Airstrips are inundated, creating challenges to the logistics for an aid operation. Late last night the national army and the police scaled back their aid action “Operation falawatra” to a certain extent.
The President there has issued a state of emergency and is expected to request international assistance soon, has not yet. At present, exact information is scarce and the only available information is coming out in Dutch from the radio station. Since Suriname is somewhat an isolated place, it is hard to obtain information, the people we have been in contact with there at the airport (Suriname Airways) and the Central Bank have told us that 3 children are dead, the toll may rise and that help/aid is needed asap.
Apr
24
Not a day for good news at CFR.
Over at Global Voices, I’ve just posted a roundup of the blogosphere’s response to the brutal murder of Guyana’s Minister of Agriculture.
Not good, not good at all.
Apr
24
Was just talking on the phone with Jonathan Ali, who gave me the news that Trinidad & Tobago’s Leader of the Opposition, Basdeo Panday, has been found guilty. The Trinidad Express’s web site posted a newsflash just after noon, our time (GMT -4):
The verdict is in! The Court has ruled that Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday has to pay 1.5 million TT Dollars to the state and serve 2 years hard labour in jail for deliberately failing to disclose a London bank account.
Apr
15
Last Wednesday the nameless police officer that I met warned me to “follow legal channels” to solve the problem. I don’t know where my current actions have overstepped the rights granted me by law. The materials I’ve delivered to each bureau have disappeared like stones into the sea. The receptionists of corresponding work units shift responsibility onto one another. As an ordinary Chinese person, it is depressing. Although the provisions of relevant laws and regulations set the rights of suspects, when you actually do things according to law you discover that you are facing a black hole. . . .
This is Hao Wu’s sister, Nina, writing on April 13th about her renewed efforts to get information from the police about her brother’s incarceration. Hao Wu, as regular readers of this blog may know, is a Chinese documentary filmmaker and was my fellow editor at Global Voices up until February 22, when he was detained by the police without explanation (details here). Nina has been very bravely chronicling her feelings and experiences on her blog, and translations of her entries are being posted regularly at the Free Hao Wu site.
There is now also a petition which I encourage you to sign, and a letter-writing campaign has been launched.
I know that for many of us, especially here in the tiny nations of the Caribbean, the notion of agitating on behalf of a stranger in distant China when we have ample troubles of our own may feel a little strange. But Nina’s heart-wrenching blog entries often make me wonder what it would be like if my own brother or any other family member or friend were to be detained by the police without explanation for two months.
“Free Hao Wu” badges are available here.
Apr
03
The Fall of Icarus, Pieter Breughel
I’m sure it’s hardly news to anyone that not all Trinidadians are wonderful people. This past week, for instance, we saw that even very young Trinidadians are capable of monstrous acts. Some Trinidadians are even capable of siring children who grow up to be guerillas, then dictators responsible for harming many and plunging their country into civil war, who then scurry off to neighbouring countries to escape indictment. Once such Trinidadian is Charles Frederick Taylor, father of Charles Taylor, the former President of Liberia, who last week was extradited to Sierra Leone to stand trial for war crimes.
Charles Frederick Taylor was born in Point Fortin, Trinidad, and, according to this entertaining bio by Kim Johnson, was quite a piece of work, a stern romantic who had a chequered career in Trinidad before deciding to abandon his family and head for Liberia. There are those who doubt the accuracy of the Taylor story, but I don’t see why not. The realities of Caribbean life and migration being what they are, Caribbean people get around. And — though perhaps the citizens of every small country feel this way — Trinidadians have the knack of turning up in the unlikeliest places. At the Oklahoma city bombing. At a party on the luxury vessel which sank on the Thames in 1989 (I’d be willing to bet as well that the Trini was not even officially invited to this event, gate-crashing being another Trinidadian talent). On the same flight as “sneaker bomber” Richard Reid in 2001, and then being recruited to help subdue Reid.
In the Where’s Waldo illustration that is all of our lives, there’s often a Trini in a corner of the frame, waving a little red white and black flag, semi-noticed, like Icarus in Breughel’s famous painting. I’m certain Charles Taylor wishes today that he were an Icarus kind of Trinidadian, as sort of described by Auden:
. . . how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on
Read what the blogosphere had to say about Charles Taylor over at Global Voices.
Mar
31
T&T’s official World Cup song – it gets worse: Over at the Trinidad & Tobago World Cup blog, Stacy-Marie Ishmael reports today on developments in the scandalous outsourcing of the official Trinidad & Tobago World Cup song to two composers in Leeds. Apparently there’s now a lead singer, but that’s the least of it.
Come on, Trickidad: And Francomenz is right, not enough people out there are showing their support for little Sean Luke. I was on the road this morning and saw only a handful of headlights, and on a visit to a shopping mall was surprised not to see more folks in black. Heading up to the airport now, so it will be interesting to see what folks are doing out east.
Mar
29
8:42pm: Here watching CNC News. Six-year old murder victim Sean Luke‘s uncle was just interviewed over the telephone. It appears that the US authorities (Sean was born in Michigan) are showing up the local law enforcement officials very badly.
Criminal attorney Prakash Ramadar being interviewed now. Shelley Dass (news presenter) is asking what kind of evidence could lead to a conviction. Ramadar says direct evidence (eg eyewitness accounts), confessions, and, of course, DNA evidence. And circumstantial evidence as well. Ramadar says the legislation around DNA evidence is being re-drafted at the moment but that samples could be taken and kept. DNA legislation required immediately, says Ramadar, “I don’t think we appreciate the power of the thing.”
8:54pm: Shelley Dass now discussing with her co-presenter, Curtis Williams, the issue of DNA legislation in light of the Akiel Chambers case. Williams emphasising how important DNA legislation is, particularly in a society where people are fearful of coming forward with evidence. Dass brings up one of my pet peeves — ID parades with no two-way mirror. I went through one of these back in 1987 — it’s appalling that the same conditions prevail today.
Mar
29
Sean Luke
I am certain that I will kill to protect a child from being physically harmed. Thankfully, this theory is yet to be tested. All I can say right now is that the murder of six year-old Sean Luke is the most gruesome story I can remember ever reading, and by that I’m referring not only the horrific manner of the child’s death but also the refusal of the police to take the matter seriously, as a result of which the monster who killed this little boy remains at large.
Children are all too often treated with contempt in this country, as this list and the yet unsolved murder of Akiel Chambers demonstrates. This is a place, after all, where supposedly rational people believe it is reasonable for an adult to beat a child. On Friday I shall be wearing black.
Americans, who get so up in arms when the Natalee Holloways of this world are harmed, may be interested to know that, in addition to being a Trinidad and Tobago resident, Sean Luke was a US citizen.
UPDATE (7:51pm): I didn’t watch the TV news this evening, but J9 of Francomenz did. She says the Prime Minister declined comment on the Sean Luke issue.
UPDATE (8:04pm): It appears that two suspects, both teenage boys, were taken into custody this afternoon.
Mar
28
This is ridiculous. Out-of-touch folks trying to control something they don’t (no longer?) participate in or understand. Dogs in the manger.
Understanding and resolving this is where these characters’ energies should be directed.
But of course it’s easier to fantasise about teaching “your flock” to wine cleanly, or not to wine at all (either way you get to fantasise about wining, which is probably the point of the exercise), than to deal with an issue so deep-rooted that will take more than a five-year term to figure out.
Feb
16
While I was inhaling fibreglass dust and resin fumes last night at Callaloo Company HQ, Francomenz was blogging about the fire that destroyed ten buildings in downtown Port of Spain yesterday, which, she reminded us, was “the capital’s second major blaze in less than a year”.
Which made me check the date of CFR #14, the soundseeing tour of Port of Spain I did with architect Mark Franco shortly after the previous fire (and which remains one of my favourite shows ever): indeed, it was May 4, 2005.
So Attillah’s math is a tad off this morning (she’s asking “how can there be two fires on the same street in less than six months?”) but she raises some interesting points. “In addition to the politicians, we apparently have pyromaniacs on the loose,” says Attillah, “Or could it be some business owners practicing fire-nomics . . .”
Might be time for another trip downtown . . . .
Feb
14
Lifehacker to TTCS OSSWIN CD: Be my Valentine!
The Trinidad & Tobago’s Computer Society’s OSSWIN CD, a collection of open source software, was chosen as February 14th’s Download of the Day by popular productivity site Lifehacker, which was particularly impressed with the TTCS‘s implementation of an innovative web-based interface, “allowing you to browse the offerings and download programs from the source without downloading the entire CD.” The TTCS OSSWIN CD was mentioned in CFR’s last “This and That” entry.
Lizard to CFR host: Be my Valentine!
Today, for the first time in her life, the host of Caribbean Free Radio had a lizard fall on her. The incident occured on the atmospheric patio of the Diego Martin Pan Institute in Benjamin Street, Diego Martin. The CFR host was eating a salad when “something black” leapt on to her clothing. One of her dining companions, Wendy Warnick of Fairbanks, Alaska, helped brush the creature off the CFR host’s arm on to the ground.
Baby, the Diego Martin Pan Institute’s chef and man of business, told the CFR host that the incident signified good luck. The CFR host, who is terrified of lizards, is reported to have said: “I’m surprised I didn’t get a heart attack, but it could have been worse – this could have been a Teacher Mildred moment.”
UNC to Ato Boldon: Be our Valentine!
Ato Boldon, four-time Olympic medalist and World Championship 200m gold medalist, was appointed a senator today by the United National Congress, Trinidad & Tobago’s opposition party. Nicholas Laughlin, blogger, metal-cutter and editor of Caribbean Beat magazine, is said to be sitting near the phone awaiting his own call from the UNC.
Dec
01
Just experienced what felt to me like the strongest earthquake I’ve ever felt here in Trinidad . . . .
Technorati Tags: caribbean, earthquake, trinidad + tobago
Nov
22
"Who will devise a programme for the nation over the next six months which will ask every man and woman to become a person of skill (whatever your skill may be), discipline and hard work? Who will think out of the current box of money and fete and seize this once in a lifetime opportunity to really turn this country around? Who will look beyond political mileage and rise to the non-partisan requirements of the moment? What images will the media offer us? Will we demand certain standards of those who proudly wear a jersey proclaiming "I am a Soca Warrior!"? Right now as I type the words, it is the jump-up tune that echoes in my head. Can that be tied to something more and made to work for the upliftment of the country?"
In today’s Trinidad Express, Fr. Clyde Harvey asks some crucial questions about Trinidad & Tobago’s ability to derive real benefits from its football team’s participation in the 2006 World Cup in Germany.
Technorati Tags: caribbean, football, soca warriors, soccer, trinidad + tobago, world cup 2006
Nov
16
. . . but was “Tobago” not “fit to print”? Shame that the paper of record couldn’t find the space to include this nation’s actual name in the headline, especially since Dwight Yorke, the captain of the Trinidad & Tobago football team is Tobago-born (not to mention instrumental in the scoring of the only goal in the match that decided it all).
Thanks to Nicholas, football blogger extraordinaire, for the link.
Technorati Tags: Bahrain, caribbean, football, new york times, soca warriors, soccer, sport, trinidad tobago
Nov
16
It’s stale news by now, but Trinidad & Tobago is going to the World Cup in Germany next year, the smallest (least populated) country ever to do so (and expect to become really tired of hearing that bit of info repeated over the next several months).
We were all on tenterhooks towards the finish, especially with the chaos at the end. When it was all over I tried to get the three members of my Skype conference radio broadcast — Christiana and Dylan from Washington DC and Ryan from New York, plus Andreas, who joined us at the end from Stockholm (how’s that for Web 2.0?) — to say a few words for the podcast, but people were either speechless or emitting cries of disbelief, and of course Ryan was blogging away.
And if you haven’t yet added yourself to CFR’s Frappr map, please do!
Nicholas, who posted about the match 32 freakin’ times, just called, so I’m stepping out shortly to take it all in.
Technorati Tags: Bahrain, caribbean, football, soca warriors, soccer, sport, trinidad tobago, trinidad + tobago
