Free Republic

The Ministry of Tourism for the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago hosts a website extolling the many exquisite charms of the “true Caribbean” to be found there. The islands offer rich history, culture, biodiversity, and lodging with views “to die for.”Of late, though, a diaspora of Trinidad and Tobago emigres have preferred the views in Syria and Iraq, and the company of Islamic terrorist group ISIS. At least 130 of T&T’s 1.2 million citizens left their white and turquoise shorelines to fight with vicious Islamists half a world away. How did that happen? “Entire families went,” including at least...

Trinidad and Tobago is a small island nation just off the coast of Venezuela. In Trinidad and Tobago, legally obtaining a gun is not easy. The problem is that much power is vested in the Chief of Police, and there is a long tradition of delaying permits or ignoring appeals.  In 2011, a reform was passed to create a Firearms Appeals Board. The appeals board was finally appointed in October of 2012. It had yet to meet as of February of 2013.  From the guardian.co.tt: Getting a gun licence is not that easy. Chairman of the Firearms Appeal Board...

he Seismic Research Centre (SRC) of the University of the West Indies has issued an orange alert for the underwater volcano Kick’em Jenny, after strong and sustained signals were recorded in the early hours of this morning suggesting than an eruption could occur with less than 24-hours notice. Instruments monitoring the volcano, located 8km north of Grenada (12.3000° N, 61.6400° W), recorded strong, continuous activity between 1:25 a.m. and 3.am. Grenada, as well as St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Barbados and Trinidad & Tobago are particularly on alert. “Signs of elevated seismicity began on July 11 and continue to present....

Four men including former PNCR Member of Parliament Abdul Kadir were yesterday charged by United States law enforcement officials with allegedly conspiring to blow up the John F Kennedy International airport as well as tanks storing aviation fuel and underground fuel pipelines. Those charged with Kadir are former JFK worker Russell Defreitas, a Guyanese-born US citizen; Kareem Ibrahim, an imam from Trinidad; and Guyanese Abdel Nur. Kadir and Ibrahim were arrested in Trinidad, while Defreitas was held in New York. Up to press time, however, Nur had not been apprehended and was thought to be still at large in Trinidad....

Colombia, Jamaica, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago have all announced travel bans as Ebola concerns grow. Colombian authorities announced that anyone entering their country from Ebola-stricken countries will face heavy scrutiny. Colombia’s National Health Institutes have said they developed a questionnaire to determine who should be under suspicion of potentially having contact with Ebola. Colombian newspapers have reported that some have already been detained due to the newly instituted executive actions. Fernando Ruiz, Colombia’s vice minister of health, said of the reports, “The cases are not suspicious. They are simply people who have traveled to places where Ebola is present....

There can be no repeat of the 1990 attempted coup or anything “remotely close” to it once National Security Minister Gary Griffith is in charge. This minister said so as he dispelled rumours that a coup was set to take place yesterday (Thursday). Griffith said the rumours, which caused widespread panic throughout the country yesterday, stemmed from a prank phone call. He said the identity of the prank caller is being investigated. He called on citizens to me more “mature” and not fall prey to “rumours, propaganda, hearsay and sensationalism”. Griffith was speaking to members of the media following a...

SNIPPET: "The arrest of a woman accused of hiding more than 10,000 diamonds inside her body when she landed at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport comes amid warnings that Canada is one of the countries where illicit diamonds have been used for money laundering." SNIPPET: "The woman had landed at Pearson on a Feb. 3 flight from Trinidad and Tobago, when she came to the attention of a Canada Border Services Agency officer, according to CBSA spokeswoman Vanessa Barrasa. The RCMP said the woman was found to have carried 10,202 stones inside her. The 1,500 carats (about 300 grams) of rough...

Snippet: "Iran and its terrorist proxy groups’ influence in Latin America remains a troubling security threat to the region and world, experts said at a congressional hearing on Tuesday."

A photo of the author On the day of college graduation, I told my friends and family the news: I was leaving the country I had lived in since childhood. “I just need a change,” I told them, but they knew there was more. Was it some romance gone awry, they wondered? Some impulsive response to a broken heart? And I was running from heartbreak. My relationship with the United States of America is the most tumultuous relationship I have ever had, and it ended with the heart-rending realization that a country I loved and believed in did not love...

"IRAN SPY NETWORK 30,000 STRONG Pentagon report: Iranian intelligence linked to spying, terror attacks" SNIPPET: "Iran’s intelligence service includes 30,000 people who are engaged in covert and clandestine activities that range from spying to stealing technology to terrorist bombings and assassination, according to a Pentagon report." SNIPPET: "“MOIS provides financial, material, technological, or other support services to Hamas, Hezbollah, and al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), all designated terrorist organizations under U.S. Executive Order 13224,” the report said. The spy service operates in all areas where Iran has interests, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Central Asia, Africa, Austria, Azerbaijan, Croatia, France,...

SNIPPET: "An Argentine prosecutor has accused Iran of trying to infiltrate countries in Latin America to sponsor and carry out "terrorist activities". Alberto Nisman said Iran was attempting to set up intelligence-gathering stations in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and other countries in the region. Mr Nisman is investigating a bomb attack that killed 85 people in a Jewish centre in Buenos Aires in 1994." SNIPPET: ""I legally accuse Iran of infiltrating several South American countries to install intelligence stations - in other words espionage bases - destined to commit, encourage and sponsor terror attacks like the one that took place against...

The twin-island Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago would seem to be the last place to raise alarm bells over the threat of radical Islam. Trinidad was briefly catapulted into the spotlight in June 2007 when reports surfaced that one of the suspects linked to an alleged plot to attack New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport was a Trinidadian national and that the suspects reached out to Yasin Abu Bakr, the leader of Jamaat al-Muslimeen (JAM, Association of Muslims), for assistance in executing their plan. JAM is an enigmatic Trinidadian Muslim militant group that is implicated in violence,...

Trinidad and Tobago elected its first female prime minister on Monday. Kamla Persad-Bissessar took a multiparty coalition to victory over the People's National Movement (PNM) and its leader, Patrick Manning, who had been in power for 13 of the last 17 years. During this campaign, Persad-Bissessar's gender was used by the opposition to appeal to deepseated but, hopefully, bygone fears. Manning repeatedly painted Persad-Bissessar as a pawn in the hands of strong and dangerous men and suggested that "the lady" was not strong enough to rule. Persad-Bissessar, by contrast, bravely appeared on her campaign platforms to the tune of Helen...

Incoming Global Warming Czar Carol Browner was — until last week — listed as one of 14 leaders of a socialist group that advocates what's called "global governance" and says rich countries must shrink their economies to address climate change. The Washington Times reports Browner's name and biography were listed on the Web page for Socialist International . Mr. Obama's transition team says Browner's membership in the organization is not a problem and that it brings experience in policymaking to her new role. But House Minority Leader John Boehner’s spokeswoman Antonia Ferrier asks, “Does she agree with the group's positions...

Note: The following text is a quote: Former State Department Official and Wife Arrested for Serving as Illegal Agents of Cuba for Nearly 30 Years Couple Allegedly Conspired to Provide Classified Information to Cuban Government A former State Department official and his wife have been arrested on charges of serving as illegal agents of the Cuban government for nearly 30 years and conspiring to provide classified U.S. information to the Cuban government. The arrests were announced today by David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security; Channing D. Phillips, Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia; Joseph Persichini, Jr.,...

Re: Eric Holder, Obama's pick for Attorney General! From David Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com/DiscoverTheNetworks.org:PROFILE: ERIC HOLDER (note that this is just an excerpt on one issue. The linked piece addresses all of Holder's record) Holder and the Pardon of FALN Terrorists: Holder was also intimately involved in President Clinton's August 11, 1999 pardon of 16 members of the FALN, acronym for the Armed Forces of National Liberation—a violent terrorist organization (as designated by the FBI) that was active in the U.S. from the mid-1970s through the early 1980s. The FALN was a Marxist-Leninist group whose overriding mission was to secure Puerto Rico's...

Five illegal immigrants pleaded guilty to conspiracy to fraudulently obtain immigration documents, commonly known as green cards, in Houston federal court. Steavan Boxie, a citizen of Trinidad and Tobago, and Rajesh Kumar Ratilal Chauhan, Dipak Kumar Patel, Kamlesh Kumar Nana and Hitesh Patel, all of India, were arrested in September as a part of an 11-month sting operation. The five contacted Immigration and Customs Enforcement undercover agents who they believed to be corrupt and offered about $15,000 per set of documents. Several payments were made at ICE offices in north Houston. The defendants each face up to five years imprisonment...

"Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Patrick Manning met in Caracas yesterday to sign an energy agreement between the two oil producing countries. Despite previous conflicts regarding regional energy agreements, the two nations took a historical step forward in terms of economic integration, agreeing to unify the oil and gas reserves found along their maritime border...."

Trinidad and Tobago: A Nation of Two Islands Ansil Williams “You’re from where?” That’s a question I often hear as an international student. My name is Ansil Williams. I am a senior cadet at Millersburg Military Institute in Kentucky, but I come originally from Trinidad and Tobago, two small islands in the Caribbean. These islands comprise the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. Trinidad and Tobago won independence from Great Britain in 1962. The islands had been under Dutch, French and Spanish rule before they came under Great Britain. My country’s flag has a rectangle shape and appears with three colors:...

CHARLIEVILLE, Trinidad and Tobago – Five years ago, as 19 al-Qaida operatives in the United States put the finishing touches on what would become the Sept. 11 attacks, a frail, asthmatic computer engineer from South Florida paid a visit to this tiny Muslim enclave where he’d lived as a boy. Adnan Gulshair Muhammad el Shukrijumah, then 25, kept a low profile over the course of the week. He hung out with a small circle of devout older men who were leaders of the local Islamic community. They prayed in mosques, went fishing and enjoyed long walks and leisurely dinners, recalled...