· January, 2007

Stories about Trinidad & Tobago from January, 2007

Trinidad & Tobago: A nation unravels

  31 January 2007

“How do you take back a country that at independence failed to take real responsibility for itself, whose fabric has been slowly unravelling ever since, and which now equates modernisation with a frantic rush towards industrialisation and “developed country status by 2020″?” asks Jeremy Taylor of his country, Trinidad and...

French Caribbean DOMs: Welcoming Vaval, King of Carnival

  29 January 2007

Mas a kle, a Guadeloupe mas bandUploaded by Akynou No sooner were the 2006 holidays over that Martiniquans, Guadeloupeans and Guianese were kicking off the prelude to “Vaval”, their affectionate nickname for carnival which will take place in February, in a three-day celebration peaking on “Mardi Gras”, the “fat tuesday”...

Trinidad & Tobago: Police force irrelevance

  29 January 2007

Manicou hits out at the “irrelevance” of the Trinidad and Tobago police force, in light of their handling of the organiser of last week's proposed national shutdown.

Trinidad & Tobago: Nationwide shut-down and media hype

  26 January 2007

Keith Francis questions the quality of some of the information being circulated by the media and others about the events surrounding yesterday's nationwide shut-down in Trinidad and Tobago, including the arrest of the shut-down's organiser. The shut-down is supposed to continue today.

Trinidad & Tobago: National shutdown

  25 January 2007

Taran Rampersad, Roslyn and Hassan Voyeau weigh in on the national shutdown which is supposed to be taking place in Trinidad and Tobago today. Taran has also posted a photo of the promotional flyer on Flickr.

Haiti: Caribbean Soccer Cup Champion

  24 January 2007

Says Collectif Haiti de Provence (Fr): “The national soccer team won the Caribbean Cup by defeating Trinidad in the final 2-1. A deserved victory for the Haitians… In Port-au-Prince the victory was celebrated in the streets. Thousands of fans assembled on the Champ de Mars exploded with joy when the...

Trinidad & Tobago: Will Elton John be safe?

  24 January 2007

Jessica is certain that the early January assault on a Dutch model during a photo shoot in rural Trinidad was “a homophobic attack by a group of ignorant ruff necks who saw a ‘pretty’ foreigner and his artsy entourage and fell into a fit of dance-hall fueled, ‘chi-chi man’ fury,”...

Trinidad & Tobago: School porn ring and cell phone cameras

  19 January 2007

Keith Francis on the recent discovery of a school porn ring in Trinidad involving videos recorded on cell phone cameras: “The fact is that despite our wilful efforts to ignore the fact, children have been screwing children – indeed adults both male and female have been screwing children – from...

Trinidad & Tobago: Blog love

  19 January 2007

The IZATRINI.com blog reviews shortdrop.com, a web site for Trinidadian car enthusiasts, and TrinidGourmet.com interviews fellow food blogger Chenette.

Haiti: Reflecting on National Soccer

  18 January 2007

Reflecting on Haiti's recent defeat at the hands of the Trinidad & Tobago soccer/football team, Collectif Haiti de Provence writes (Fr): “Yes, formerly our regional rivals had names like Mexico. Today we align with difficulty with nations where soccer/football has no popularity and hence no budget: Cuba, Martinique, Dominican Republic....

Trinidad & Tobago: New smelter location, same story

  16 January 2007

Taran Rampersad drops by Otaheite Village in Trinidad, the site designated for the construction of an aluminium smelter after protests the community at the previously designated site brought a halt to the project: “It is apparent how the residents near Bay Road in Otaheite Village feel about ALCOA's Smelter ....

Trinidad & Tobago: Indira Gandhi in Trinidad

  10 January 2007

Caribbean Free Photo posts a photo of the Indira Gandhi Memorial Museum in Delhi, India, and expresses delight at discovering that Trinidad occupies “quite a prominent place” in the museum's collection.

Trinidad & Tobago: Camera phones and bad taste

  5 January 2007

Adele weighs in on the Saddam Hussein execution video: “The camera phone shall continue to have a great deal to tell us about ourselves, our news and our reality. The very serious issue here is whether we can turn back the hands of bad taste now that nothing is sacred.“

Trinidad & Tobago: Return of the Silver Fox

  4 January 2007

Former Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Basdeo Panday has assumed leadership of the UNC, the country's main opposition party, once more. Keith Francis has this to say: “And so, according to the UNC's National Executive, there is absolutely no-one else to lead the UNC but a lawyer who seems to...

Trinidad & Tobago: Bernard Kerik

  3 January 2007

Keith Francis does some background research on Bernard Kerik, the former New York police commissioner who has been invited to Trinidad and Tobago by the country's opposition party to consult on solutions to the crime situation.

Jamaica, Trinidad: Soca downloads?

  2 January 2007

Francis Wade has been listening to the latest soca tunes being released out of Trinidad for the Carnival season, but regrets that a way of legally downloading them as mp3s is yet to exist.