Latest posts by Nicholas Laughlin

Cuba: thinking about the film festival

  21 December 2011

Havana Times asks whether the Havana Film Festival has strayed from its original ideals — “Much has happened since its inception in 1978, since which time its revolutionary and emancipatory...

Cuba: succession fears

  20 December 2011

The death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il and the succession of his son prompts Generation Y to think about the Cuban government's own succession plans. “The dauphin over there...

Cuba: owing obsolete rubles

  20 December 2011

Cuba has a longstanding debt to Russia of 20 million Soviet rubles — a currency that no longer exists. Machetera asks: “how and when do you decide what a vanished...

Jamaica: when poets join academia

  20 December 2011

UK-based Jamaican writer Kei Miller muses on the consequences of poets joining the academic world. “Poetry is certainly not known for its plain-spoken-ness and in fact is accused, just as...

Barbados: tribute to Desmond Bourne

  20 December 2011

The Bajan Reporter posts a tribute to his late father, the journalist and adman Desmond Bourne. “It was not that my father never stood on convention, he acknowledged where he...

Barbados: prime minister's quandary

  20 December 2011

Barbados Underground offers an analysis of the “headache” created for Prime Minister Freundel Stuart by a now notorious leaked letter allegedly demonstrating his party's doubts about the PM's leadership. “Whatever...

Jamaica: vote or not?

  19 December 2011

Idle Yout Speeks asks if he should bother to vote in Jamaica's upcoming general election. “I blame my reluctance … on a deep rooted fear that stemmed from the more...

Cuba: Prix Carbet for Padura

  19 December 2011

Cuban writer Leonardo Padura has won the 2011 Prix Carbet de la Caraïbe, reports Repeating Islands. The prestigious prize for works of Caribbean literature in French, founded by the late...

Barbados: remembering “Hitch”

  19 December 2011

Barbados-based B.C. Pires posts his reflections on the death of writer Christopher Hitchens: “for all his flaws … worth a few hundred pastors and priests to me, perhaps a few...

Trinidad and Tobago: making zines

  19 December 2011

Trinidadian artist Rodell Warner posts images from a zine workshop for young artists which he organised in Johannesburg, South Africa, and explains that the experience made him think “of all...

Barbados: debating “the letter”

  19 December 2011

Barbados Underground and Barbados Free Press comment on a controversial letter allegedly written to Prime Minister Freundel Stuart by members of his party, expressing a lack of confidence in his...

Puerto Rico: ideas are just the start

  7 November 2011

“It's great to give everyone the opportunity to voice their concerns, but ideas are the easy part…. We can do anything, as long as we are willing to accept the...

Trinidad and Tobago: animated voices

  7 November 2011

ban-d-wagonist posts a video clip in which Trinidadian artist James Hackett interviews participants in the just-concluded Anime Caribe animation festival in Port of Spain.

Caribbean: the meaning of identity

  7 November 2011

Creative Commess hosts a blog symposium “about Caribbean people, about West Indian people, about our contemporary experiences … ranging through race & identity to culture, mental health to constructs of...

Trinidad and Tobago: State of Emergency, Day 4

  25 August 2011

With a national state of emergency — declared by the government to combat rising crime — now in its fourth day, bloggers and other social media users in Trinidad and Tobago express doubts about the effects of the emergency measures and respond with humour to the inconvenience of a nighttime curfew.

Trinidad and Tobago: Debating a State of Emergency

  22 August 2011

On Sunday 21 August, the government of Trinidad and Tobago declared a national state of emergency to deal with the violent crime that has afflicted the Caribbean nation in recent years. This legal move — which affects citizens' civil rights — triggered debate and concern among Trinidadians online.

Jamaica: political satire thrives

  4 March 2011

“Political satire is alive and well in Jamaica,” writes Active Voice, pointing to the supposed Twitter account of the controversial gang leader and “president” of the Tivoli Gardens community Christopher...