Mahogany CoConut Blog

One Caribbean Nation. All Caribbean citizens  and Frontline workers, who have been: Resilient, Professional and Patient as the region battles the social and economic challenges of the COVID-19 Cuban Nurses Ghanian Nurses Nurses from Africa and Cuba , who continue to fight the COVID-19 with our regional nurses and frontline workers. Barbados Minister of Health and Wellness, Lt. Colonel the Honourable, Mr. Jeffrey Bostic, for leading his country's extremely successful handling of COVID-19. Trinidad and Tobago's Commissioner of Police Mr. Gary Griffith for his gallant leadership in the fight against crime in his island state. Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Mr. Ralph Gonzalves on five consecutive electoral victories. National Flag of Trinidad and Tobago National Flag of Jamaica                              Trinidad and Tobago, and Jamaica for free and fair elections. Trinidad and Tobago arti...

One Caribbean Nation. The Mahogany Coconut  Group, extends  warm wishes for the Holiday Season, and all the best in 2021. We thank you for supporting our blog, sharing ideas, contributing articles and suggesting topics for consideration. Kindly stay safe and continue to follow all COVID-19 protocols. Mahogany Coconut Group Email: mahoganycoconut@gmail.com Caribbean Nation Flags

One Caribbean Nation. Governor Rena Lalgie Arrives In Bermuda December 14, 2020  |  6 Comments [Updated] Bermuda’s new Governor Rena Lalgie arrived on the island last night [Dec 13] and is currently in quarantine at Government House, with Governor Lalgie set to be sworn in “during a closed event” held at Government House today. Government House said, “Her Excellency the Governor, Rena Lalgie, arrived on the island with her family last night and they are currently in quarantine at Government House in compliance with the Public Health Regulations. “Governor Lalgie will be sworn in as Governor of Bermuda during a closed event held at Government House this morning. All necessary precautions will be observed in the carrying out of the swearing in. Early in the New Year an event marking the formal arrival of the new Governor will be held.” Governor Rena Lalgie is both the first female and the first Black Governor in our four century history, in which we have had over 120 Governors...

One Caribbean Nation. REGIONAL NOTES ST GEORGE’S, Grenada – An investigation has been launchd to determine if the Sandals All-Inclusive Resort breached COVID-19 protocols, in the wake of the recent increase in positive cases in the country. In an address to the nation late Monday, Prime Minister Dr Keith Mitchell also announced that there will be an urgent meet with the owners of the property.   (CMC) PORT OF SPAIN – National Security Minister Stuart Young has denied that personnel from the Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard had any involvement in the circumstances which led to the deaths of a group of Venezuelan nationals. According to Venezuelan authorities, on December 6, 20 Venezuelans left on a boat en route to the twin island republic and a few days later, several bodies were found near the Venezuelan coastal town of Guiria. (CMC) HAMILTON – Rena Lalgie, Bermuda’s first black and female Governor, was sworn into office on Monday during a closed ceremony at Government House. Lal...

One Caribbean Nation. Jockey Lopez starts night shift The Conkie Man, with Delano Lopez astride   (left),   came through on the outside and pipped Dream Society, ridden by Anderson Trotman, to win the first night race at the Garrison Savannah. Barbados heralded a new era in its storied sporting legacy last night with the advent of horse racing under the newly installed floodlights at the   Garrison Savannah. Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley flicked the ceremonial switch to illuminate the   Garrison   for the Caribbean’s first occasion of night racing, in the presence of special honouree and racing magnate Sir David Seale, who was the driving force behind the idea of night racing. Delano Lopez will go down in history as he became the first jockey to win a night race at the   Garrison. He piloted   The Conkie Man   to a narrow victory in   The Dancin David Trophy  over 1 100 metres for West Indian-bred twoyear- old maidens in a time of 1:...

One Caribbean Nation. Study: Pre-trial detentions a problem WASHINGTON – A new Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) study has highlighted ways to increase public safety in the Caribbean by focusing on reducing pre-trial detentions and expanding rehabilitation and reintegration programmes for incarcerated people. The Washington, DC-based financial institution says the report analyses survey data collected from both sentenced and remanded individuals in six Caribbean countries from 2016-2019: The Bahamas, Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago. In these countries, the report finds that the average prison population is 93 per cent male and the average age of inmates is 33 years old. The study says that unconvicted prisoners constitute a large portion of the prison population in the Caribbean, and that these pre-trial detainees spend an average of 2.5 to 4 years in prison before sentencing, “often in worse conditions than those already convicted of a crime”. Indivi...

One Caribbean Nation. First registered sex offender PORT OF SPAIN – A High Court judge on Wednesday ordered that 37-year-old Everton Joseph become the first person to be registered as a sex offender in Trinidad and Tobago, after he was convicted of six counts of having sex with a female under the age of 14. Justice Hayden St Clair-Douglas ordered that Joseph will have to register at the police station in his district seven days after he serves a nine-year prison term. His name will remain on the register for ten years and he must report annually. (CMC) The Mahogany Coconut Group welcomes the registration of sex offenders in Trinidad and Tobago and urges all regional governments to do likewise. Our children must be protected. The Caribbean Is One Nation. Once more we are forced to comment on the rising levels of child abuse in our region. Recent reports and statistics from Jamaica and Trinidad reveal that there have been over five thousand reported cases of child abuse combined in the...

One Caribbean Nation. By William Skinner As COVID-19 exposes the frailties of the regional economies, workers must maintain vigilance in defending the gains made in the post-independence era. Many unscrupulous employers and their complicit political minions will use this period to undermine the trade union movement. Weak governments that have put all their economic targets in the tourism basket, are now realizing, as was predicted by progressive thinkers, that it is a visionless strategy, dependent on a fragile industry. Glamour does not equate to sustainable development and cannot replace socio economic reality. We made a conscious decision to abandon agriculture and failed to develop, agro based industries. The food basket, that Dr. Eric Williams spoke about in the 1970s, never materialized and Guyana, with its vast agricultural resources, never became the breadbasket of the region. We allowed the destruction of small farmers and basically ignored our rural agricultural communi...

One Caribbean Nation. REGIONAL NOTES NASSAU – Bahamas Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis has called on the country to respect the privacy of the Minister of Environment and Housing, Romauld Ferreira, whose son died last week, even as he urged citizens to join in him praying for the family. Police say they are treating the death as a suicide. The body of the teenage son was found on the floor of his bedroom last Thursday.   (CMC) BASSE-TERRE – Plans by the Guadeloupe government to deport about 30 Haitian nationals have been denounced by several Franco-Haitian associations here. The organisations, including Tet Kolé and Lakay concept, have denounced what they have said is the “incomprehensible group” and added that these are “parents of” French children, who have been living in Guadeloupe for several years.   (CMC) ST GEORGE’S – Grenada says it will place a temporary ban on the importation of poultry products from the United Kingdom from today. The Ministry of Agriculture, Lands ...

One Caribbean Nation. Abdulah tells US ambassador: Hush your mouth please LAUREL V WILLIAMS   "Hush your mouth please!" David Abdulah Joseph Mondello So said the leader of the Movement for Social Justice (MSJ) David Abdulah, who charged that the US ambassador to TT Joseph Mondello does not have the moral authority to comment about Venezuelans' migration in TT “Mr Mondello has no rights, no moral authority, zero, to speak about how we (TT) are dealing with migrant people here," Abdulah said on Wednesday at a press conference at the party’s headquarters at Lord Street in San Fernando. "It is well known that the administration which he represents, the (Donald) Trump administration, was separating children from their parents who came in together at the US/Mexico border. “Some were separated from their parents. Some parents were deported, and children were kept in cages in custody in the US. Up to now, there are children whose parents cannot be relocated. There are...

One Caribbean Nation. Cuban team in Barbados saluted GROUP CELEBRATED DURING LATIN AMERICAN DAY OF MEDICINE On the occasion of Latin American Medicine Day, the institutions of the Cuban Solidarity Movement in Barbados convened an event at the Clement Payne Cultural Centre, St Michael to honour the representatives of the Henry Reeve Medical Contingent who currently provide services in Barbados in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the event, the Member of Parliament and Special Envoy of the Prime Minister of Barbados for reparations for slavery, the Honorable Trevor Prescod, a prominent Barbadian pan- Africanist, the Ambassador of Barbados to CARICOM David Comissiong, the Charge d´Affairs of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela Ambassador Álvaro Sánchez Cordero, the Ambassador of Cuba Sergio Jorge Pastrana and the Head of the Mission of the Henry Reeve Medical Brigade in Barbados Dr Daymarelis Ortega, addressed the participants. The attendees were also entertained by a group of ...

One Caribbean Nation. Erica Smith New Caribbean music database in February A new Caribbean music database will be launched across the region on February 1, 2021. The database, called C-Note, is an online digital database of regional sound recordings. The initiative has been formulated to increase the access and use of Caribbean music and is a joint effort between JCAP (Jamaica), OECS Echo, Barbados COSCAP, Trinidad COT and Belize Copyright Association. Collectively those associations have over 10,000 members, inclusive of songwriters, music publishers, performers, producers of song recordings. Chief Executive Officer of the Copyright Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (COSCAP) Erica Smith told a Zoom session that there was a need for “authentic Caribbean cultural content”. “We thought to establish this regional database to address a number of challenges. The first being, difficulty accessing regional music especially in the digital environment; and secondly, to try to have ...

One Caribbean Nation. Ambassador Irwin LaRocque Another move taken to full CSME The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) took a step closer towards the full implementation of the much talked about Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the CARICOM Secretariat and the recently-established CARICOM Private Sector Organisation (CPSO). Secretary General of CARICOM, Ambassador Irwin LaRocque explained how the CPSO came to be saying: “The Revised Treaty of Chaguramas provides a legal and administrative framework to create the Single Market and Economy, but stakeholders will make it a reality, the private sector will take advantage of it once we give them the means to do so, and the free movement of workers involves the labour force. “However, we needed an arrangement of inclusion with the private sector for CSME to work. We have had “false starts” in the past, but in December 2018 at a special meeting of the Conference of Heads of...

One Caribbean Nation. Dr. Tennyson Joseph Trump’s defeat: Caribbean lessons THE 2016 ELECTION of Donald Trump as president of the United States occurred on a wave of false claims about the failure of “experts” and “government insiders”. It was based on the related and even more dangerously erroneous claim that because of the power of private capital, then the person best qualified for political leadership, is a businessman, whose proof of qualification, is his vast wealth. Under this neoliberal ideology through which Trump’s presidency occurred, the expectation was that social-democracy was dead, and only those people who could navigate countries into the new era of wealthmaking, small government, and the end of welfare and the dependence of the state, had a right to govern. Those who are now busy laughing Donald Trump off the political stage for his obvious lack of political experience, must remember that they were only very recently guilty of drinking the cheap Kool-Aid. Its aftert...

One Caribbean Nation. Six-day-old baby succumbs to virus GEORGETOWN – The Caribbean recorded its youngest ever death from the coronavirus (COVID-19) after a six-day old baby died of the virus here and several other Caribbean countries reported deaths and increased cases of the virus that has killed and infected millions worldwide. The Ministry of Health said that the two deaths recorded here over the past 24 hours, included a six-day-old baby, but gave no other details. The other fatality was a 31-year-old woman from Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Berbice) who died while receiving care at a medical facility. The death toll here now stands at 151. A statement from the ministry said officials have contacted all relatives and persons to facilitate contact tracing and rapid assistance to everyone who may have been exposed to the nowdeceased person. The ministry also appealed to   the general public to respect the confidentiality of those who had died and to allow their relatives to mourn ...

One Caribbean Nation. The Hon.   Eric Eustace Williams   TC   CH  (25 September 1911 – 29 March 1981) served as the first  Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago . He served as Prime Minister from 1962 until his death in 1981. He was also a brilliant   Caribbean  scholar and  historian. ” Democracy, finally, rests on a higher power than Parliament. It rests on an informed and cultivated and alert public opinion. The Members of Parliament are only representatives of the citizens. They cannot represent apathy and indifference. They can play the part allotted to them only if they represent intelligence and public spiritness.” Eric Williams Eric Williams. 1944. Capitalism and Slavery Richmond, Virginia. University of North Carolina Press, 1944. Eric Williams. 1964. History of the People of Trinidad and Tobago. Port of Spain. ISBN 1-881316-65-3. Eric Williams. 1964. British Historians and the West Indies, Port of Spain. Solow, Barbara, and Stanle...