This, the Ministry says, is being done, “through the use of information technologyenabled services (ITeS) to broaden opportunities in other economic sectors, especially with the current challenges in the oil and gas industry.” A cybersecurity workshop was the most recent initiative undertaken since the GSPP. Participants were introduced to the basics of cybersecurity through introduction to hardware and software, and were taught the importance of this arm of ICT in the financial, business and education sectors.

Students in attendance learned that “globally, countries cannot meet the demand for cyber security experts, especially in the recent wake of public and private cyber-attacks involving ransomware.” The Ministry also said, “students were interested to learn that jobs in the sector pay upwards of TT $35,000 to $50,000 monthly depending on experience and certification.” Funded by a loan and grant agreement with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), several initiatives have been undertaken since the GSPP’s inception in November 2017.

They include a training session with Google for students and IT practitioners, collaborations with the business community, seminars for schools involving building computer systems, an internet of things workshop with IBM and the cybersecurity workshop, held at the GSPP hub on Ramsaran Street, Chaguanas.

The workshop was a collaboration with RSC international, which focuses on enhancing education through technology. While the amount of money one can earn from working in cybersecurity certainly caught students’ attention, the Ministry said, “the main point of (the workshop) was to foster the passion and desire in the students present to pursue careers in ITeS generally, as this is the wave of the future; inclusive of careers in robotics and the automotive industry.” The Ministry says through the GSPP, it is “certain that given time, the myriad of opportunities in the ITeS sector will come to fruition in all other sectors of development, (thus) contributing to national development while creating opportunities for prosperity in TT.”

By chance I came across the first time publication in book form of the W.E. B. Du Bois Lectures, given by one of the foremost public intellectuals of our time the pioneering Jamaican sociologist Stuart Hall who died in 2014 in London. He was the founding editor of the impactful New Left Review and one of the most influential figures in the contemporary study of culture and politics. The lectures, already well known to students of sociology and admirers of Stuart Hall, were given at Harvard University in 1994 and have been widely referred to and pored over for the last twenty years. I had forgotten much of the detail but rereading his ideas in this beautifully produced new book entitled the Fateful Triangle: Race, Ethnicity, Nation, I was amazed how prescient he was in pinpointing migrants as the target for new nationalisms.

Everywhere we turn now, we find that to be the case. Close to home we have the so-called Dreamers of the USA, the 800,000 offspring of illegal immigrants who President Trump and many Republicans find a threat to US nationhood. The President has told Congress basically to undo President Obama’s plan to help regularize their status.

Maybe Congress will produce sensible legislation that would avoid their unjust and inhumane deportation, but I wonder to what extent a driver for his policy is the fact that the majority of the Dreamers belong to different ethnic and racial groups, those for whom the President appears to have little empathy.

In his lectures, Stuart Hall reiterates that while we can see that people look different from one another, race has no validity in science – scientific efforts to ground racial classification in science have failed – it is a social and cultural construct in which the stories of what our physical differences mean are imbibed and stick with us, yet are not fixed in reality; notions of race shift and slide.

He calls race “the floating signifier” and asks us to analyse the stories, anecdotes, jokes etc over time to see that historically race has had many different meanings. “It is only when physical differences have been organised within language, within discourse, within systems of meaning, that the differences can be said to acquire meaning and become a factor in human culture and regulate conduct”. He calls this the “discursive” concept of race, making reference to Michel Foucault, the French philosopher and historian of ideas.

What should concern us here and elsewhere is how we have allowed politicians and rulers, going back to conquest, Empire, the Atlantic slave trade, indenture and right up to now to use this shifting concept to divide us and give themselves power.

They have used the fact that who we are [our identity] has become codified in how we look, our phenotype, our dress and behaviour. The paradox for Hall is that we have come to identify ourselves as others see us, and oppressed groups instead of rejecting those identities have instead “flipped the script”, as Henry Louis Gates describes it in his Introduction, accepted the differences as defining and essentialised themselves.

It goes some way to explaining why in a place such as Trinidad with centuries of mixing and migration the boundaries of race remain so stubbornly fixed.

Whether it is the Nazis against Jews, Jews versus Arabs [both Semites and often hard to identify as physically different from each other], Rwanda’s Hutus and Tutsis, the Albanians and Serbs, the Armenians and Turks etc, etc, we can be easily led into patterns of extremely violent exploitation of difference.

The picking on defenceless Dreamers in the USA sadly shows that Hall was right: r a c e c u l t u r e and nation are l i n k e d.

I would say depressingly so.

There has been no specific announcement about what happened to the minister and MP of La Horquetta/Talparo. Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh visited Cuffie yesterday. After seeing him, Deyalsingh spoke to media yesterday and said after Cuffie took in with a “medical episode” he was rushed to the Port-of-Spain General Hospital where he was stabilised. He said the family then took a decision to transfer him to the St Clair Medical Centre because they had a history of using the facility.

Deyalsingh said this episode required Cuffie to be warded in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). He said when he saw him, Cuffie was in good spirits.

Cuffie suffered a mild stroke a few years ago while he was editor of the TnT Mirror. Asked if it was another stroke Deyalsingh said, “at this particular point in time, I would let the doctors have that conversation with the family.” In a release, the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) also said it was a “medical episode.” The OPM said Cuffie’s doctors were pleased with his progress. Cuffie’s wife Hermia Tyson-Cuffie and family who rushed to his bedside during the course of Tuesday night have expressed their thanks for all the support and concern expressed by people at all levels from the moment they heard he had fallen ill.

Action in the eight educational districts will be played in three categories – boys Under-12, boys Under-15 and girls Open.

Games in the various districts will be played over a five-week period. The national playoffs are scheduled to begin in the second week of November.

And the finals are to be staged at the Hasely Crawford Stadium in Mucurapo, tentatively on November 22.

President Anthony Carmona will preside over the Sixth Hall of Honour ceremony organised by the college’s Old Boys’ association.

This year’s inductees are: Donald “Jackie” Hinkson, artist and sculptor; Sir Robert Alexander Falconer, fifth president of the University of Toronto; Dr Merlyn Price, engineer and medical doctor; Hollis Charles, engineer and pioneer of the Caribbean Industrial Research Institute; Eustace Edward Seignoret, retired ambassador and anti-apartheid activist; Emeritus Professor Dr Felix Durity, neurosurgeon; Cyrus Prudhomme David, lawyer, politician and jurist; Kelwyn Hutcheon, entertainer; Lutalo Masimba (Brother Resistance), entertainer and Dr Jefferson Davidson, scientist and former presiding officer of the Tobago House of Assembly.

Posthumously: William J Locke, novelist and playwright; Victor Noel, athlete and legendary headmaster; Oliver Penlyn (OP) Bennett, jockey; Indar Jit Bahadhur Singh, diplomat and Gen Sir Frank Walter Messervy, first commanding officer of the Pakistan Army.

Students of Queen’s Royal College have been invited to attend the ceremony as the association considers it necessary to inspire them to emulate the honourees who have achieved excellence in their chosen fields.

There are a limited number of tickets available and can be obtained at the Old Boys’ Association office at Queen’s Royal College or by calling 387-2411.

Free parking will be made available from 5 pm at the Nipdec car park, lower Edward Street, Port of Spain

Alexander made his position clear yesterday as he addressed concerns surrounding a video clip of two inmates at the Golden Grove Prison fighting in one of the prison’s corridors as other inmates recorded the incident on cellphones.

Alexander said the incident was being investigated and the two prisoners involved in the fracas have already been identified.

“That video is being investigated as we speak. The inmates identified are being interviewed with a view to determining how they got the weapon and relative to their conduct, because there were some obscenities and some threats.” Alexander said the Prison Service, though challenged, remains committed to ensuring the safety of both inmates and security personnel. He said the service will also be implementing more stringent security measures to combat the trafficking of weapons and other contraband from outside the prison.

“Officers who do not display the right or appropriate behaviour also have a hand in moving contraband. We would also want to ask that the courts reduce the time for adjudicating these matters when we arrest these officers. Sometimes its ten to twelve years before these matters are dealt with. We want their matters to be expedited also so they can be dismissed from the Prison Service.” Newsday also spoke to Prison Officers Association president Ceron Richards who is calling on the Prison Service and the Ministry of National Security to investigate the video.

Last month, Richards and members of the Oilfield Workers Trade Union staged a demonstration on the grounds of the Golden Grove facility to protest, what they described as, substandard working conditions. Richards says the video represents a major breach in security as it highlights a number of different safety concerns prison officers face while carrying out daily tasks.

“The issues here are the cellphones, the weapon and the cell gates open and also the fact that there isn’t an officer in sight during this incident. The Prison Officers Association looked in horror as that video unfolded with what appeared to be some serious security breaches in a division of the Maximum Security Prison.”

Customers and other people fled upon hearing the gunshots, but returned shortly after to see Francis lying face down in a pool of blood. Members of the Arouca Police Station and the Homicide Bureau Region 2 are continuing investigations.

He was about 1675 kilometres east of the Caribbean islands.

At this time he was not posing a threat to Trinidad and Tobago.

Another system was forming, but this time from the Gulf of Mexico, a system named Hurricane Katia. She formed as a hurricane at 4 pm yesterday.

However, since she formed in the Gulf of Mexico, with 75 miles per hour sustained winds, she was not an area of concern at this time. Meanwhile, Irma remained a Category Five and was leaving the Leewards and heading to the Greater Antilles and the track we have now is to go into the Florida area, where she seems determined to go,” said meteorologist Gary Benjamin.

The jilted woman from central Trinidad said she spent $30,000 on the function and invited 100 people. She says he must pay for the hurt he put her through and has been advised by her attorney Stephen Boodram that the Penal man may be in breach of the common law principle which governs the relationship between people planning to marry.

The woman requested anonymity because of, what she described as, the untold embarrassment caused on April 29. So depressed was she over the incident, she retreated to her bedroom and slit her left wrist. She had to be taken to the San Fernando General Hospital.

A pre-action protocol letter has been sent to the man who decided he was no longer interested in a continued relationship with the woman. In the letter, the woman said her parents purchased the food, drinks, the boyfriend’s gold and diamond engagement ring costing $5000, and her dress which cost $6000. The letter suggested to the man that he failed to show up without any valid reason.

“As a result, my client was put through severe embarrassment, hurt, mental trauma and suffered loss and expenses.” The case is a novel one that would engage a judge in the High Court who would try the issue of breach of contract. The last such case in which a judgement was delivered, was 17 years ago in which a Tableland woman won her claim against a Penal man for breach of promise to marry her.

He was ordered to pay compensation for the expenses she incurred, however the man died.

Boodram’s letter calls on the man to pay compensation to the woman. In an interview with Newsday yesterday outside the Supreme Court, San Fernando, the woman said on the day of the engagement party, her parents had to turn away guests and closed the gates to their home.

“Since then, I don’t step outside my house,” the woman said. “I go to work and come back home.

People on work do not know, except for close friends. My father suffered a heart attack and has since had an operation. I was shamed and only now I’m trying to pick up the pieces. Money cannot pay for the hurt I was put through, but it will help alleviate the pain knowing there is still justice.”

The charges stem from a robbery at the home of Padarath’s relatives at Couva on July 21 when gunmen stormed into the premises while a Ramayan (Hindu prayers) was in progress. The gunmen robbed several people of personal items such as cash, jewelry and cellular phones.

Rechier appeared before Couva Magistrate Siumongal Ramsaran who denied him bail and remanded him into custody to return on October 6.

Cpl Dexter Duncan of the Couva CID charged Rechier with four counts of robbery, possession of a firearm and ammunition and possession of a firearm and ammunition with intent to endanger lives.

Duncan also charged him with shooting at Kern Joseph with intent to cause him grievous bodily harm and assaulting Padarath with intent to rob him.

Rechier of Perth Avenue, Perseverance was not called upon to plead to the charges as they were laid indictably. The matter has been adjourned to October 6.