Crime in T&T, General T&T, USA, Venezuela

Sleeping with the enemy

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By Raffique Shah
August 30, 2025

Raffique ShahPrime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar can never be as uninformed as she portrays herself to be in matters of foreign affairs, to wit: regional and hemispheric alliances. It took previous governments, starting with the PNM in the 1960s, to cultivate good relations with our Spanish-speaking neighbours in Venezuela.

We often forgot then, as many states now learn, that there is the vast expanse of Portuguese-speaking Brazil a step away from Venezuela.
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General T&T, Law, UNC, USA, Venezuela

US has no right off Venezuelan coast

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By Stephen Kangal, Caroni
August 26, 2025

Stephen KangalTHE right of the United States to deploy its naval vessels in international and territorial waters located across the globe is exercising the freedom of navigation/right of innocent/transit passage in the territorial seas/international straits of other nations.

It is not an aspect/expression/enactment of its sovereignty the exercise of which is limited to, inter alia, its land space, air space above and its territorial sea, Minister Sobers.
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General T&T

The revolutionary disrupter

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
August 16, 2025

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeI wish to remind UNC detractors that the term “revolution” denotes the overthrow of an old order and replacing it with a new system of governance. Sometimes a revolution is violent, sometimes it’s peaceful. Whatever form it takes, it involves changing the social and economic order, repudiating how things were done previously, and delineating what it hopes to accomplish in the future.
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Agriculture, General T&T

I Commend PM Kamla

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By Raffique Shah
August 16, 2025

Raffique ShahI hope I am mistaken, that I have purged myself of the spirit of the sugar industry that came with the first colonisers and all but strangled Trinidad and Tobago’s economy for many years. I am not ungrateful, mark you, for what sugar has given us by way of revenues and opportunities and “solid, liquid cash”, according to Mastana Bahar’s hosts. But its contribution to the wealth of the nation may well have been close to zilch when one considers the number of times it lost money, wrecked people’s savings, and left the country in a state of disaster.
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Africa, General T&T

Facts never speak for themselves

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
August 09, 2025

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeI was reminded of EH Carr’s What Is History? when I read Kevin Baldeosingh’s letter, “Teach fact-based African history”.

He excoriated the Emancipation Support Committee (ESC) for not spending “a single cent from the millions given to them by [the] government to commission such a [history] book” which he wanted them to write from a Euro-centric point of view (Express, August 4).
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General T&T, Israel, Palestine, USA

The New Age Hitler

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By Raffique Shah
August 09, 2025

Raffique ShahBy the time US President Donald Trump is finished with us, and here I mean the world as we know it now, our world will have changed likely to a backward civilisation, if there is anything civil about reversing progress.

I make this pronouncement boldly as a projection, not prediction, since I don’t believe in hocus-pocus. But he is deep into it and so are many of his “Jim Jones-like cultist followers”.
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General T&T, Sports

Ulric ‘Buggy’ Haynes: our black prince

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
August 02, 2025

PART II

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeUlric “Buggy” Haynes was not only a sports figure but a social activist as well. He led the charge to save the Tacarigua Savannah, the largest green space area in the northeastern part of the island, from becoming a concrete and asphalt jungle. The Green Space Committee raised almost $100,000 to challenge the government’s violation of our community’s well-being.

Buggy led the charge with Dr Carol James and Peter Burke to oppose the government’s action. He gave the first $20,000 to hire lawyers to fight the case, money that he borrowed from one of his sons, Verron Ulric Haynes, the first and only Trinbagonian to win a Super Bowl for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
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General T&T, Schools

What a world

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By Raffique Shah
August 02, 2025

Raffique ShahI am very confused by the problems many teenagers face as they come to the end of one cycle or other of the education system. Many moons ago when my generation ended our “schooling” we had a clear vision of what lay ahead.

Those among us who failed the Secondary School Entrance Examination—and there were options there—a significant percentage would move into the secondary school system by attending one of the many private secondary colleges. They would sit an entrance exam to the college of choice and, once successful, their parents would make payments to have them educated. Others who found that cumbersome would opt for what in today’s language is known as business studies.
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General T&T, Sports

Ulric ‘Buggy’ Haynes: our black prince

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 26, 2025

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeToday, we have come to bury our black prince in this place where he was born, lived, and died. In gathering here, in St Mary’s Anglican Church, Tacarigua, the second oldest Anglican church in the island, we come to honour the life, legacy, and work of Ulric “Buggy” Haynes. I can think of no better description of our beloved brother than the words Ossie Davis delivered at Malcolm X’s home-going in 1965.
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Crime in T&T, Finance

Beware of greed

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By Raffique Shah
July 26, 2025

Raffique ShahI find it inexcusable that adult Trinidadians and Tobagonians who have benefited from the education and training that this country has offered easily fall victim to modern-day Trinidad “smart-men”.

CCN journalist Mark Bassant has focused on an “investment” that has relieved a significant number of our citizens who, in a couple of years, lost millions of dollars, in some cases, to a bunch of fellas who looked like they never even graduated pre-school. What is even more disturbing is among the people who invested are lawyers and doctors, professionals who are supposed to be “bright”.
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