University of the West Indies’ Dilemma Adam Raffoul (12 June 2022) – On June 2, 2022, the Trinidad & Tobago government, due to financial constraints, announced its decision to cut its annual subvention to the University of the West Indies St Augustine campus (UWI St. Augustine) by 10% from TT $517.1 million a year. This has plunged the university into a deficit, with campus administrators proposing an increase in tuition of 25-71%, depending on the programme. The government has...
Human Trafficking: Understand it to End it! Ambassador Curtis A. Ward (08 June 2022) — While the human trafficking scourge is an abhorrent and widespread criminal activity in every country, operating as major domestic and transnational criminal enterprises, human trafficking seldom receives media attention except when law enforcement shuts down an operation and make multiple arrests. Generally, law enforcement actions of this nature are transnational in nature and result from cooperation...
Putin’s aggression in Ukraine: Lessons from Milosevic and the Balkans Ambassador Curtis A. Ward Many of the images we see in Ukraine today are reminiscent of the horrors we saw during the Balkans wars of the 1990s, only worse. While the Balkans wars were a complex series of conflicts involving ethnic cleansing and independence driven insurgencies which resulted in break up of the former Yugoslavia into newly independent states in Europe, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is an act of aggression...
Dying for Freedom and Democracy Ambassador Curtis A. Ward (25 April 2022) —The people of Ukraine took to the streets in massive protests (2013-2014), known as the Maidan protests, to demand democracy, freedom, and good governance over autocracy, political oppression, and corruption. They succeeded. But their success rattled other autocracies in Europe and around the world. The world’s top autocrat, Russian president Vladimir Putin was rattled and determined to reverse the trend...
Reform UN Security Council and strengthen international order Ambassador Curtis A. Ward (17 April 2022) — Calling for reform of the UN Security Council (Council) is not new and did not originate with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, this illegal invasion and the egregious accompanying actions of the Russian military bring the issue of reform to the urgent agenda of the international community of civilized nations. The Council’s inability to fulfill its most important mandate...
Challenges to Rule of Law & Democracy in Dominica Gabriel J. Christian, Esq. (o4 April 2022) — A forest – in all its splendor – is often best appreciated from a distance. From a distance all one sees is ofttimes a seamless green blanket, in undulating beauty. However, it is only amidst the forest – and close – that one appreciates the coiled vines; rough bark; and the towering tree trunks which support the lofty leaf-laden branches. So too with democracy, one can...
Caribbean Integration Promises not kept: CARICOM needs a Renaissance Ambassador Curtis Ward (Full text of Podcast) (26 March 2022) — The Treaty of Chaguaramas, signed, July 4, 1973, by four Caribbean visionary leaders, establishing the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM), setting out their vision, hope, and optimism to create regional integration, by creating an economic and cooperative arrangement after the demise of the West Indies Federation more than a decade earlier, was...
We are not at war, but we are not safe Ambassador Curtis A. Ward (10 March 2022) –– Speaking as a Jamaican, we are not at war with any country, and we don’t expect to be. We are at war with ourselves. This reality is lived my many Jamaicans in their daily experiences. The high levels of crime, particularly homicide, and the wanton use of guns, put every Jamaican at risk. Some, because of the neighborhoods they live in are most vulnerable and are at greatest risk. They do not have...
Trinidad and Tobago and Europe’s Energy Security Adam Raffoul (8 March 2022) — The recent invasion of Ukraine by Russia has underscored the importance to many policy makers in the European Union of the need to reduce its dependence on Russian energy. This, in their view, must be done, in order to protect its energy security. According to a recent Reuters report dated March 7th, 2022, gas from Russia supplies as much as 40% of Europe’s needs. Now how does this affect us in Trinidad...
Uniting Against Russian Tyranny Ambassador Curtis A. Ward (5 March 2022) — The vote in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), on March 3, 2022, on the “Uniting for Peace” resolution confirmed that an overwhelming majority of the world’s independent states believe in the core fundamental tenets of the UN Charter, that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states, no matter their military might or economic power, are inviolable. In an extraordinary strong show of...
