The Trinidad and Tobago Defence Force (TTDF) is the military organization responsible for the defence of the twin island Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. It consists of the Trinidad and Tobago Regiment, the Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard, the Trinidad and Tobago Air Guard and the Defence Force Reserves.
Port of Spain, officially the City of Port of Spain, is the capital city of Trinidad and Tobago, the country's second-largest city after San Fernando, and the third largest municipality after Chaguanas and San Fernando. The city has a municipal population of 37,074, an urban population of 81,142 and a transient daily population of 250,000. It is located on the Gulf of Paria, on the northwest coast of the island of Trinidad and is part of a larger conurbation stretching from Chaguaramas in the west to Arima in the east with an estimated population of 600,000.
The Trinidad and Tobago Guardian is the oldest daily newspaper in Trinidad and Tobago. Its first edition was published on Sunday 2 September 1917. The newspaper, now owned and published by Guardian Media Limited, began as a broadsheet but in November 2002 changed to tabloid format, known as the "G-sized Guardian". In June 2008, the paper changed to a smaller-size tabloid. The main office of the Guardian is located at St. Vincent Street, Port of Spain, with a branch office on Chancery Lane, San Fernando, and the Head office which is located on 4-10 Rodney Road in Chaguanas. On 2 September, 2017 the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian celebrated its 100th anniversary. Shortly after, on 11 September 2017 the company launched a new layout. The slogan of the paper is The Guardian of Democracy.
The Trinidad and Tobago Express better known as Daily Express is one of three daily newspapers in Trinidad and Tobago. The Daily Express as per its masthead is published by the Caribbean Communications Network (CCN) and is headquartered on Independence Square in Port of Spain. The newspaper commenced operations on 6 June 1967. The website for the Trinidad and Tobago Express was first registered in 1997 and launched subsequently very soon thereafter. The Express newspaper is the second oldest of the daily Trinidad and Tobago newspapers.
Lawrence Scott FRSL is a novelist and short-story writer from Trinidad and Tobago, who divides his time between London and Port of Spain. He has also worked as a teacher of English and Drama at schools in London and in Trinidad. Scott's novels have been awarded (1998) and short-listed for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and thrice nominated for the International Dublin Literary Award. His stories have been much anthologised and he won the Tom-Gallon Short-Story Award in 1986.
Caribbean Beat, founded in 1992, is a bimonthly magazine, published in Port of Spain, Trinidad, covering the arts, culture and society of the Caribbean, with a focus on the region's English-speaking territories. It is distributed in-flight by Caribbean Airlines (CAL), formerly British West Indies Airways (BWIA), and is additionally available at select retail outlets in CAL destinations, and also by subscription, making it one of the region's most widely circulated magazines.
Sampson Nanton is a journalist and television news presenter in Trinidad and Tobago. He is currently the Executive Producer, CNC3 Television.
Eintou Pearl Springer is a poet, playwright, librarian and cultural activist from Trinidad and Tobago. In May 2002, she was named Poet Laureate of Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.
Gretta Taylor is a musician and teacher from Trinidad and Tobago. She is the conductor and musical director of The Marionettes Chorale (1974–present). She received the Hummingbird Medal—Gold in 1990 for "outstanding services to music and culture in Trinidad and Tobago", and a Port of Spain City Day Mayoral Award for "contribution to culture" in 2018.
Marina Salandy-Brown FRSA, Hon. FRSL, is a Trinidadian journalist, broadcaster and cultural activist. She was formerly an editor and Senior Manager in Radio and News and Current Affairs programmes with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in London, one of the BBC's few top executives from an ethnic minority background. She is the founder and director of the NGC Bocas Lit Fest, held annually in Trinidad and Tobago, "the biggest literary festival in the Anglophone Caribbean", and of the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. She was also co-founder of the Hollick Arvon Caribbean Writers Prize. In 2020, Salandy-Brown received the Ferdinand Magellan Award from Chile, and was elected an Honorary Fellow of the United Kingdom's Royal Society of Literature.
The NGC Bocas Lit Fest is the Trinidad and Tobago literary festival that takes place annually during the last weekend of April in Port of Spain. Inaugurated in 2011, it is the first major literary festival in the southern Caribbean and largest literary festival in the Anglophone Caribbean. A registered non-profit company, the festival has as its title sponsor the National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago (NGC). Other sponsors and partners include First Citizens Bank, One Caribbean Media (OCM), who sponsor the associated OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, CODE, and the Commonwealth Foundation.
Philip Louis Ulric Cross was a Trinidadian jurist, diplomat and Royal Air Force (RAF) Navigator, recognised as possibly the most decorated West Indian of World War II. He is credited with helping to prevent some two hundred bombers from being shot down in a raid over Germany in 1943. He subsequently studied law at London's Middle Temple, and went on to fulfil a distinguished international career as a jurist across Africa and within Trinidad and Tobago. He also served as a diplomat for Trinidad and Tobago to the United Kingdom.
Therese Mills was a Trinidad journalist who was the first female chief editor of the Trinidad Guardian newspaper. In 1993 she founded the highly successful Trinidad and Tobago Newsday newspaper. She won numerous awards including the Chaconia Medal for service to the field of journalism. She was CEO until her death aged 85.
Raoul Pantin was a Trinidad and Tobago journalist, editor, poet and playwright. He penned six plays during his career. Pantin survived the 1990 Jamaat al Muslimeen coup attempt and terrorist attack, in which he and other employees of the Trinidad and Tobago Television (TTT) station were held hostage for six days. He later chronicled his first-hand account of the coup attempt in a 163-page book, Days of Wrath: The 1990 Coup in Trinidad and Tobago.
The New Day was a British compact daily newspaper published by Trinity Mirror, launched on 29 February 2016. It was mainly aimed at a middle-aged female audience, and was politically neutral. The editor, Alison Phillips, intended readers to get through the newspaper in under 30 minutes.
Paula-Mae Weekes is a Trinidadian judge who is the sixth President of Trinidad and Tobago. She is the first female President of Trinidad and Tobago, as well as the second female head of state in Trinidad and Tobago after Elizabeth II and the second female president of African descent in the Americas following Ertha Pascal-Trouillot. She took office on 19 March 2018.
Jennifer Cassar was a Trinidadian cultural activist and civil servant. Cassar served as the Carib Queen, a leader of the Santa Rosa First Peoples Community and the indigenous community in Trinidad and Tobago, from 2011 until her death in 2018. Cassar, a career civil servant and the sixth Carib Queen since the title's creation in 1875, was the first Carib Queen to hold a secular job.
Aldwin Gerard Francis was a doctor, sportsman, and sports administrator from Trinidad and Tobago. He was awarded the Trinidad and Tobago Chaconia Medal (Gold) for Medicine and Public Service in 1971, and inducted into the St. Mary’s College Hall of Fame in 1999.
The Port of Spain Gazette was a newspaper based in Port of Spain, Trinidad between 1825 and 1959. The paper took a proslavery position in the 1830s, and later supported the rights of local elites against the Crown colony government. In the twentieth century the paper supported the government and opposed the labour movement.
