Peter Smith is in intensive care after suffering damage to an arm, leg and hand and puncture wounds to abdomen
A British tourist who was seriously injured in a shark attack off a Caribbean island is “aware of what is happening and can communicate” in intensive care, his wife has said.
Peter Smith, 64, from Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, was savaged 10 metres (33ft) off the shore near the Starfish hotel in Courland Bay on the north coast of Tobago on Friday morning.
Continue reading...Man, 64, being treated for injuries to arm, leg and stomach after attack in shallow waters
A British man is in intensive care after an “unusual” shark attack on the Caribbean island of Tobago.
The 64-year-old man was receiving critical care after the bull shark attack left him with injuries to his left arm, left leg and stomach, Tobago’s Division of Tourism, Culture, Antiquities and Transportation said.
Continue reading...Fuel continues to leak from overturned and abandoned barge as stain spreads into the Caribbean Sea
An oil spill that has stained Tobago’s coastline in the Caribbean is entering Grenada’s waters and could affect neighboring Venezuela, authorities have warned.
Eight days after Trinidad and Tobago’s coastguard first spotted the oil from an overturned and abandoned barge, the vessel continues to leak fuel, and portions of the stain have moved about 144km (89 miles) into the Caribbean Sea at a rate of 14km/h.
Continue reading...Upturned and largely submerged vessel of unknown origin is leaking hydrocarbon off south-west coast or Tobago
Trinidad and Tobago’s prime minister has said that a large oil spill near the twin-island nation has caused a “national emergency” and vowed that the government will spare no expense to help rehabilitate the island’s beaches.
Oil from the spill has coated numerous beaches on Tobago’s south-west coast, and the government has yet to identify the owner of the vessel that was found overturned off the coast last week.
Continue reading...Che Lovelace paintings in St James’s church are first permanent art commission to honour Quobna Ottobah Cugoano
A permanent artwork to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the baptism of Quobna Ottobah Cugoano, one of Britain’s most important abolitionists, has been unveiled at a church in central London.
The paintings by the Trinidad-based artist Che Lovelace, displayed at St James’s church, Piccadilly, are the first permanent art commission to commemorate Cugoano, a significant but largely forgotten figure in the history of Black Britain.
Continue reading...The United Nations general assembly liveblog is now closed, but please see the following stories to stay on top of the day’s news:
Guterres says countries such as Russia are creating a “world of insecurity” for everyone following its invasion of Ukraine, which he says has “unleashed the next phase of our lives: historic human rights abuse, families torn apart, children traumatised, hopes and dreams shattered.”
The war in Ukraine has “serious implications” for the world beyond Kyiv, he says, pointing to the collapse of the Black Sea grain initiative.
The world badly needs Ukrainian food and Russian food and fertilisers to stabilise markets and guarantee food security.
Sudan is descending into full scale civil war. Millions have fled and the country risks splitting apart.
In eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, millions are displaced and gender based violence is a horrific daily reality in a country that suffered centuries of colonial exploitation, is today overwhelmed by gang violence and still awaits international support.
Authoritarianism is on the march, inequalities are growing, and hate speech is on the rise.
What we need is determination and determination which is in the DNA of our United Nations, summoning gods with the first words of the charter.
We the peoples of the United Nations, determined, determined to end the scourge of war, determined to reaffirm faith in human rights, determined to uphold justice and respect international law and determined to promote social progress and better lives for all people.
Continue reading...Knighted in 2022, Trinidad-born Ové directed the first black British feature and documented the arrival of reggae to the UK
Horace Ové, regarded as the pioneer of black British film-making, died on Saturday at the age of 86, his son has announced.
Ové directed the first black British feature, Pressure, in 1976 and was also the first to document the arrival of reggae music to the UK with 1971’s Reggae.
Continue reading...Barring public access to beaches and other sites is not a model for development. Transparency and engagement are needed
Walk along a Caribbean beach, which may stretch for miles, and your stroll is guaranteed to be cut short by an angry hotel security guard. In recent years, the Caribbean has seen a worrying trend of governments readily selling off assets to foreign corporations and political financiers.
Prime real estate, protected land and valuable resources are being relinquished without consideration for long-term consequences. It raises questions about whether remnants of the colonial mindset still prevail in political ideologies and decision-making.
Continue reading...Exhibition includes two specially commissioned works reframing story of former Trinidad governor
For more than a century, the portrait of Thomas Picton hung in a prominent position at the National Museum Cardiff, the image’s description hailing him as a military hero rather than a tyrant and a torturer, before it was removed from view in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests.
From Monday the two-metre-tall portrait of Lt Gen Picton is back on display in the Welsh capital – but in a very different context.
Continue reading...Capitalism and Slavery, by the future first prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago Eric Williams, argues that the abolition of slavery was motivated by economic, not moral, concerns
A book of unpalatable truths about Britain’s slave trade has become a UK bestseller, almost 80 years after author Eric Williams was told by a British publisher: “I would never publish such a book, for it would be contrary to the British tradition.”
Capitalism and Slavery was first published in the US in 1944. It was published in the UK by the independent publisher André Deutsch in 1964, with a number of reprints over the next 20 years.
Continue reading...The baby’s mother was injured after the Trinidad and Tobago coast guard shot at the boat, later saying it fired in ‘self defence’
A Venezuelan woman was shot and wounded and her nine-month-old baby was killed in her arms when Trinidad and Tobago’s coast guard opened fire on the boat carrying migrants fleeing their home country.
In a statement posted on Facebook, the coast guard said its personnel had opened fire “in self-defence” on Saturday after “aggressive manoeuvres” by the migrant craft when it was intercepted as it entered Trinidadian waters late on Saturday.
Continue reading...The belt and road initiative is ensnaring vulnerable countries in debt via corrupt infrastructure projects. Slavery reparations from former colonial powers could help turn the tide
As Transparency International (TI) publishes their annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) this week, it will be interesting to see where certain countries land: 2021 has been a bumper year for corruption.
In Britain, corruption has been on the minds of journalists, academics and practitioners alike, as Boris Johnson tries to get himself run out, the only hope of him continuing his innings lying with Sue Gray.
Continue reading...Mia Mottley is just one of a raft of strong women across the Caribbean and South America tackling society’s most pressing issues. The world could learn a lot from them
There is a common misconception that the developing world is full of archaic values and that women struggle to have their voices heard. The more countries I visit and the more female leaders I speak to, the more I am convinced the contrary is true.
In fact, those in positions of power worldwide could learn important lessons from these strong women when it comes to tackling some of society’s most pressing issues, including pandemics, the climate crisis, education and infrastructure.
Continue reading...The Caribbean’s newest republic must avoid the corruption that has hampered Trinidad and Tobago and use its presidency to ensure good governance
The charismatic prime minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, elevated her country’s status in the world with her stinging speech at Cop26 in Glasgow last month. This speech resonated throughout the West Indies, a region that has largely been devoid of a strong leader to give these vulnerable small island developing states (SIDS) a voice in the climate crisis debate. The survival of SIDS such as Barbados depends on the finance to invest in measures to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5C, which was the Paris agreement’s main objective.
Mottley called on all leaders of developed countries to step up their efforts as she outlined a solution embodied in flexible development finance. First, create a loss and damage fund made up of 1% of revenues from fossil fuels (which she estimated would amount to about $70bn, or £50bn, a year), accessible only to countries that have suffered a climate disaster and loss of 5% of their economy.
Continue reading...Minister says health officials found no evidence that any patient reported such side effects: ‘We wasted so much time running down this false claim’
Trinidad and Tobago’s health minister has dismissed claims by the rapper Nicki Minaj that a cousin’s friend had become impotent after receiving the Covid-19 vaccine, saying that health officials in the Caribbean country had found no evidence that any patient had reported such side-effects.
“As we stand now, there is absolutely no reported side effect or adverse event of testicular swelling in Trinidad … and none that we know of anywhere in the world,” the minister, Terrence Deyalsingh, said in a press conference on Wednesday.
Continue reading...A group of fishers were outraged when they came across a large oil spill with 'clumps as thick as porridge' covering the Gulf of Paria in Trinidad.
Gary Aboud and Fishermen and Friends of the Sea (FFOS) documented the spill and criticised the clean-up attempt by oil company Paria Fuel Trading Company Ltd, calling for the company to contain the oil and collect it instead of dispersing it with boats.
In a statement released on Monday, Paria said: 'The spill is contained, and a residual clean-up is ongoing.' The company said that absorbent booms had been strategically placed to prevent further migration of oil into the sea, but FFOS said they had not seen evidence of this.
Almost 500 oil spills have been reported in the region’s land and at sea since the beginning of 2018
Continue reading...Every year thousands of refugees from conflict, climate and instability in Africa board vessels in search of a new life in Europe but hundreds never arrive
At 6.30am on Friday 28 May, three fishermen at work four miles off the southern coast of Tobago spotted a large white boat adrift on the dawn waters of the Caribbean.
As they drew closer, the trio saw the boat’s shape was far from local, and noticed a strong smell coming from inside it. The body the fishermen glimpsed at the bow was enough to confirm their suspicions. They called the coastguard who, unable to dispatch a vessel, asked them to tow the boat ashore at Belle Garden beach.
Continue reading...The striking vocalist Brother Resistance, who died this month, started a politically powerful hybrid of hip-hop and soca that opened new possibilities in Caribbean music
You would expect a song called Dancing Shoes to celebrate the unfettered joy of a good boogie, but Network Rapso Riddum Band’s 1981 track did quite the opposite. Lead vocalist Brother Resistance – whose death on 13 July sent shockwaves through the Caribbean music community – used Dancing Shoes to castigate his fellow Trinidadians for embracing foreign forms such as disco, delivering caustic lyrics in a flow laden with preacherly indignation.
The song heralded the arrival of a new hybrid sound in Trinidad and Tobago – one that hasn’t had quite the global impact of dancehall, reggae or other Caribbean styles but which is the source of some of its most fascinating and political music, dubbed “rapso” for its melding of rap and soca.
Continue reading...The Mermaid of Black Conch’s author explains why she expected ‘a quiet life’ for the formally daring, magical realist novel that has been declared book of the year
After two decades of splashing around in the shallows of success, Monique Roffey was taking no chances with The Mermaid of Black Conch. The novel, which won the Costa book of the year award on Tuesday, is written in a Creole English and uses a patchwork of forms, from poetry to journal entries and an omniscient narrator, and “employs magical realism to the max”. Even its title was against it, she realised. “You’re either going to read a novel about a mermaid or you aren’t.”
Any one of these, she says, would scare away most publishers. So when one, the independent Peepal Tree Press, did bite, she launched a crowdfunder to enable her to hire her own publicist. It’s a mark of the esteem in which the 55-year-old author and university lecturer is held by those familiar with her work that 116 people chipped in, raising £4,500 within a month. Then, two weeks before the novel was due to be published, the UK went into lockdown, shutting bookshops and forcing the cancellation of a tour that was particularly important for a writer who has always swum between two continents and two cultures.
Continue reading...Theo and Gloria Ferguson have created a garden specially designed to attract hummingbirds – and hundreds visit daily
At the foot of Theo and Gloria Ferguson’s property stands a giant silk cotton tree. Reminiscent of those enchanted species in children’s fables, this ancient sentinel’s huge varicose limbs yawn upwards and outwards, towards a canopy of leaves that scratch the sky. Eight adults linking arms would struggle to encircle its vast girth, proof of the aeons it has stood guarding the edge of Trinidad’s Maracas valley.
Continue reading...